Re: Bismarck vs. Rodney: hand to hand?
Posted: Mon Jun 10, 2013 2:32 pm
I can understand that this all seems so one sided but reading back into the thread Alex was originally speaking to the context of a combat inside of 20,000 yards, as historically. Alex is really presenting a comparison of immunity zone calculations along with the probabilities of who will likely hit first and more often. Inside of 22,000 yards its as if Rodney has no armour unless it can maintain an oblique target angle. Indeed Rodney's armour provided a scant vitals immunity zone of roughly 20km to 25 km. Bismarck's vitals IZ was basically from point blank to 30km. If they take on the Bismarck at longer range from within Rodney's IZ, Bismarck still holds an advantage due to its more modern gunnery systems. The KGV class was the RN's best bet, but at short range they were also naked with a vitals IZ of 20km to 30km.I'm afraid all of this goes back to other threads which seem to suggest that German ships had invincible armour, better guns and better rangefinders and could blow any British warship out of the water because British ships were weak, badly armed and armoured etc. etc. I know this has been debated before, but I would back a fully operational(with all guns fully working) KGv class against Bismarck, not to sink her perhaps, but to disable her enough to allow the accompaning destroyers to finish her with torpedoes.