The HMS Hood was a WW1 ship that they tried to upgrade rather than replace due to the extreme cost of battleships. The upgrading including adding armor, making the ship so heavy that in hard seas water would pour thru ventilation shafts and crew areas - call the largest submarine Britain had. Despite the additional armor, side armor was as thin as 5 inches and 1 inch on the deck. The sides were angled 12 degrees adding a tad more relative thickness to horizontal incoming shells, but more exposed the highly vulnerable deck. Simply put, the Hood actually was a heavy cruiser armed as a battleship by the time of WWII. There were 2 inquiries and then later underwater examination of the wreckage. All concluded a magazine blew up, dispelling an alternative theory that the ship's torpedo storage blew up. While in theory there are a number of potential causes, the general consensus is that the magazine was penetrated by a Bismark shell, the area possibly already weakened by a prior hit in the same area.
The Iowa class battleship was not considered unsinkable at the time and numerous compromises were made to maintain speed - meaning compromising on armor weight. Like all battleships, the decks were highly vulnerable to shells coming in at a high angle. Side armor thickness was also compromised to save weight on behalf of speed. The bottom of all ships including battleships if a torpedo could be exploded under the hull was an inherent weakness and increasingly the technology allowed having torpedoes do exactly that, rather than just hitting the side of the ship. Rather, the Iowa class was designed to be able to withstand a huge amount of battle damage while still staying afloat and capable of fighting. Quick redesigning moved fire control to within the armor belt the most notable change. Great attention was given to fire and damage control and multiple layers of armor hoped to limit damage, not to prevent any damage. Another true risk was being hit in the same area more than once. Designed like all battleships primarily to duke it out with other battleships, the Iowa was inherently at risk to aircraft due to deck vulnerability. In the modern era, the greatest vulnerability would be to destruction of the radar and sensor arrays that the weapons systems are dependent up. The main guns were not aimed from within the turrets but by computers within the main hull. Simply put, the main guns could be knocked out even if the turret and guns themselves undamaged. The range at which they fired made sight targeting almost useless. Armor protection decisions was basically gambling the odds of where most likely hit, how hit and with what, how to contain and control the damage, and the prospect of multiple hits near or at the same point. The problem with armored ships is protecting the deck and bottom, plus the narrow bow and superstructure above deck - and of course sensors and targeting arrays that can not be shielded in any way. To make a ship with 16 inch armor everywhere would lead to a 2000 foot long ship with a 100 foot draft of massive fuel requirements and consumption. The pre-WWII treaty limiting battleship displacements was to end the budget crushing costs to the battleships arms race. Those monsters were astronomically expensive even with the wages back then. As it turned out the became virtually irrelevant in WWII as cruisers with big guns could have done the same landing support work and most landing support was done by destroyers with their sensational rapid-fire 5 inch guns. Of the surface fleet gun ships, the king of the hill in value was not the battleships, but the destroyers, particularly the Fletcher class - for which a dozen could be built for the price of 1 full battleship. The danger to a battleship now would be high trajectory attacks against deck by aircraft or missiles and torpedoes under the hull. The impact force of missiles from aircraft or launched coming in at over 2000 mph against 1 to 2 inch deck armor would be massive particularly if designed specifically to penetrate it the same as anti-tank munitions can penetrate many inches of armor via directed charge heat, not raw explosive force. There is almost no potential relevancy to a battleship now other than against minor military powers with little technology - and battleships are not needed against such adversaries.
Please, once again, we're not talking about a what if scenario. It's 1941 in the North Atlantic. BTW, there was several hundred pounds of cordite burning in the 4" ready ammo lockers on the Hood during the battle and the ship was in no danger. The order was to let it burn itself out. If you didn't know cordite burns very hot and is essentially solid rocket fuel. So much for your theory.
Once again, this is a 1941 naval battle. The guns use optical gun directors that are very resistant to battle damage and are redundant.
That's what called the two shell theory. It was examined. Possible, but mathematically not likely. The goal was to "straddle" the target. Hit % with this is about 30% per salvo.
That's not really true at all. The Hood was finished after the war and carried very near if not the equivalent armor of the QE class. The Hood was really a fast battleship and not a battlecruiser. The 5 inch belt was only vulnerable under two circumstances. At extreme ranges where a hit did not occur and and at short ranges where they was no direct path into the magazine. In addition the Hood was at an oblique angle to the Bismarck. 30 degrees doubles the amour, 45 degrees triples the armor protection. There's still no way into the aft magazines.
I'm not the one who first brought up the topic that battleships would be invincible versus cruise missiles.
I'm not an expert on naval combat, but I should imagine the 2 key factors are- 1- The type, thickness and quality of the armour. I know that tanks had several kinds in WW2, and there are pics of tank wrecks that show the armour with long cracks and holes in it like chocolate easter eggs from multiple hits. 2- The type of shell that hit the Hood, for example an armour-piercing shell?
The shell that hit the Hood from the Bismarck was AP. Fuse time remains unknown. Various times are listed ranging from .035 to .070 seconds. a shorter fuse time seems most likely. The vertical belt armor was KC Type A face hardened, the best in the world when the ship was built and still of very very high quality in 1941. Horizontal protection was Type B, rolled homogenous steel, very good, but not nearly as good as American Type B armor. The other variable is the angle of impact.
Thanks. I presume heavily-constructed AP shells contained a smaller explosive charge than standard high-explosive shells, but once it'd punched through to the magazine it's smaller detonation was still ample to trigger the magazine explosion. PS- Besides lighter-armoured battlecruisers like the Hood, could AP shells of the time also punch through the armour of the biggest heaviest battleships?
Some of this I get. Armor ... when I owned the machine shop, I manufactured parts for corrugated box making machines. Not to bore you guys, but I made knives and scores for the box making machines, among many other part. The knives are circles of armor steel. Machining the armor steel available around 1970 was a job and a half. The steel is super tough and consumes tools at a fast rate. This kind of armor might not have been available during WW2. I have been on the Wisconsin BB that sits at Norfolk, VA a wonderful tour. They say it would take next to no time to be at sea. Oh and last, about linoleum. I worked for Pabco Linoleum factory in 1956. I mixed and cooked a lot of that stuff. Linoleum has a lot of linseed oil in it. A lot of paint today is the latex, but in 1956 a lot of the enamel was made. Linoleum smells like paint. I suppose that accounts for how it burns. As to ship design and battle damage protection, I am learning from you people. When we made linoleum, we had a tower, maybe 6 stories tall that the product hung in vertical sheets. It was very hot in that room so a person could not stay there long. Once it cooked and cooled, it was then boxed in tile form. Anyway, hope you like a bit more on armor and linoleum.
It is my understanding they actually used a fashion of targeting deep within the ship for the big guns and I have toured a couple WWII era battleships seeing the system. Eye-balling 20 miles apparently doesn't work very well in terms of actually hitting the target when it is another battleship also on the move.
We have debated this identical topic on many threads. What you cited basically confirms what I stated. Obviously the hull is tougher than modern smaller warships. If the military had an infinite amount of money for construction, infinite amount of money for maintenance, infinite amount of money for operations and infinite amount of money for crew... But it does not. Even at past low wages the costs were astronomical. The question is not whether a battleship hull is superior, but rather when you are willing to give up 80% of your fighting surface fleet to have battleships - and most of those would be support for the battleship. That also means you have to surrender at least 80% of your ocean and theaters coverage. Despite their astronomical costs, battleships did not play any decisive role after WWI - and even in WWI the only thing they did was offset each other. Battleships were meant for fighting other battleships. As for no modern weapons could destroy an Iowa even with multiple hits, the answer is 1.) yes and 2.) it is irrelevant. Of the latter, there is no reason to battleship killing weapons when their are not battleships. Yes, a small tactical nuke headed torpedo or missile would sink the Iowa. Yes, without air protection modern aircraft could systematically destroy - and sink - the Iowa. The atomic/nuclear bomb tests were testing how warships took the shock wave of a big bomb set off in their vicinity, not being hit by one. Optics works against a fixed target - such as ground barrage, but not against another moving warship at a distance: Time of flight for AP Shell with MV = 2,500 fps (762 mps) 10,000 yards (9,140 m): 13.2 seconds 20,000 yards (18,290 m): 29.6 seconds 30,000 yards (27,430 m): 50.3 seconds 36,000 yards (32,920 m): 66.1 seconds 40,000 yards (36,580 m): 80.0 seconds Time of flight for HC Shell with MV = 2,615 fps (797 mps) 10,000 yards (9,140 m): 13.1 seconds 20,000 yards (18,290 m): 30.3 seconds 30,000 yards (27,430 m): 53.2 seconds 35,000 yards (32,000 m): 70.3 seconds 39,500 yards (36,120 m): 86.0 seconds Optically figuring where a moving target will be a minute later is nearly impossible with it computed - particular since wind speed, direction and even air temperature and humidity come into play. From your source: In Summeral's book Iowa Class Battleships he gave the estimate of 4-6 torpedoes to sink the ship and 4-6 missiles/bombs to mission kill the ship. There is no such thing as an unsinkable ship.
Good morning JakeJ from the left coast. Well aware of the time of flight of artillery projectiles, especially from naval guns, I had a 0849 MOS. What I said was that the only way an Iowa class BB can be sunk is by breaking it's keel. What do torpedoes do ? They break the keels of ships. Torpedoes since WW ll no longer hit the hull of the ship but are designed to detonate below the ship's hull creating a bubble that is suppose to break the ships keel. But I digress. Damn, now QLB has me looking at the HMS Hood. I have to take back that it was fire that set off the Hood's magazine and going with one of the Bismark's AP rounds penetrated the Hood's armor deck, a plunging round.
Hey QLB, this morning I was having coffee with some old friends and one served on the nuclear cruiser USS Long Beach CGN-9, the last U.S. Navy warship to have a wooden teak deck. -> http://navysite.de/cg/cgn9.htm One of my buddies didn't know why large gun ships had teak decks in the modern era. A wood deck on battleships and gun cruisers helped absorbed the over pressure of the guns blast. If a battleship or a cruiser were to be built today with large guns the ship would still need a wooden deck. Somehow the discussion turned to the splinter decks on ships and what kind of steel was used on the splinter decks like on the Iowa's ? Nobody knew. So when I got home I started researching. Came across a well written article believe it or not but on Wikipedia. It even touches on the HMS Hood. Good article. Two short excerpts. Any good blueprints of the HMS Hood on the web ?
Most likely the builders would have used STS steel on the splinter decks. The US used it lavishly, but it was expensive. Armor for the most part is dead weight and the structure of the ship must support it. STS can be used for structural integrity as well as armor. When the world powers began rebuilding their dreadnoughts they often used STS as a laminate for increase deck armor where it could be used to support the hull as well as acting as armor plate. There are many schematics of the internal structure of the Hood.
I suggest you carefully reread the post. The comment was was on a cruise missile penetrating the main belt armor and not whether the ship would be killed.
Not the point and off topic. One missile won't do it anyway. You'd have to hit the ship multiple times and there is still no guarantee. The Hiei was shot to pieces through her unarmored areas by multiple US destroyers and a single 8"gun cruisers and would have likely been saved if not sunk by numerous air attacks. We won't even get into the Bismarck's last battle. There are also a limited number of cruise missiles available. This thread is about the Bismarck Straits and May of 1941, not a board game or a what if scenario.
On the West Coast we had a Trump billboard on our property on one of the two main highways. You? Your claim of the the superiority of the Iowa is rather pointless in real terms. You claim 1.) If you spend 10 times as much on the hull of a ship, it will be stronger than the hull of a ship you spend 10th as much on and 2.) although it has not happened in over half a century nor do we have the landing craft and personnel to do so, in the event that we want a mass force of infantry to storm the beaches in a conventional large scale war and IF the offshore water is deep enough, 16 inch guns can do a lot of damage against the enemy at that coast. For this, in terms of budgeting, you would give up 75% of the Navy's fighting surface fleet - most of which that remained would have be escorts, to have 3 or 4 of Iowa style battleships. Then, all we have to do is convince the enemy to mass most of their forces with 5 miles of so with a viable landing beach with deep water directly off shore. For example, the Iowa couldn't even come within gunnery range of most of the West Coast of Florida for its deep draft. I agree with your latest view of what likely sunk the Hood. Overall, the Bismark was a superior ship - but turned out to be as unlucky as the Hood being unable to steer from a lucky torpedo hit by a WWI style torpedo plane. Not only could Bismark have made it within German air cover if that had not happened, but even have put up one hell of a fight if it's accompanying heavy cruiser had also stuck around.
That's not true about gun direction. Even WW 1 gun plotting methods was not that bad, and was actually pretty good at close to medium ranges. By the middle of the war a number of so called "tables" came about which improved plotting significantly. The Dreyer table, the Argo table and the Admiralty tables to name a few of the mechanical and electro-mechanical analogue computers that were used. A ship was expected to straddle the target by the third salvo and this most often happened. The longer the range, the more difficult it became but it could do the job effectively at up to 18,000 to 20,000 yards. As big a problem would have been shot dispersion, think of it where the shell fired will land within a circle. Excellent would be 1.5% of range, but more realistic would have 2.5%. How could this was depended upon quite a lot, including sea state and gun quality, barrel wear etc.
I'm glad you're looking at Hood. It couldn't have been a plunging round because the ranges were too close. At 19,000 yards, the angle of fall would have made it more likely. But the Hood was probably hit much closer. We really know the final outcome. There were certainly magic BB's in the Hood's design. I've looked at another gun plot, which show the bearing of Hood at about 45 degrees before her last turn. Another 2 Blue turn would have placed her under 30 degrees which would have affected her armor protection. However if you look at Prinz Eugen's photos, the PoW appears almost bow on with disintegrating Hood on the same bearing. It's like the Kennedy magic bullet which wasn't so magic after all.
