No one believed in the invincibility of the Hood. The Admiralty knew she had to rebuilt. They just ran out of time to add more deck armor, which would have probably been STS as a laminate.
The Hood was the pride of the RN, there was simply no way they would let her be built to sub quality standards. Bottom line is that a shell from the Bismarck found her way into one of the aft magazines and/or powder rooms. There are a number of scenarios where this is possible, just the ranges and/or the bearing was wrong for this to happen. If you look at the 5th salvo, the fatal one from the Bismarck, it was clearly in the ladder and fired 4+4. The first four straddled the ship and it was probably one of the last four which hit. Still it brings up the possibility of a below the waterline hit, just under the belt and into the magazines, probably the 4 inch which may have accounted for the slight delay before the big explosion. It's still the magic BB, but quite possible. The hit would have had to have been perfect. Too high and it hits the belt. Too low and the shell destabilizes in the water and will yaw very quickly.
Sure, but that's not what they were telling the world. Hood was an world-touring object of naval prestige and because of this, she fall into obsolescence when the war came. From lack of modernization, tear and wear might have created micro-leaks or some loosening of the bolts (I don't think welding was standard when she was built) about her bulkheads, that have might led to, once again, a chain of reaction caused by what appeared manageable, localised damage at the time.
In addition steel in saltwater (and salty air) rusts - a lot. If you have seen the structure of a battleship before the deck is laid it is clear that inspecting between layers of armor is virtually impossible. It would only take a spark to set off a powder bag and between the big guns being fired and the incoming hits the vibration thru the whole structure would have been significant.
Found this in another discussion: "Hood certainly was not the mightiest warship. She was a fine combination of speed and brawn, but Nelson certainly was brawnier. Nagato and Colorado were not inferior to her. The new generation of ships like Litorrio and North Carolina were greatly superior. Most of Hood's contemporaries were incrementally armored, like Hood. Only the Americans were putting full armor-grade deck armor in considerable thicknesses. Like the "R" class battleships, Hood had her armor deck raised to the middle deck level, meaning she had one extra deck of protected buoyancy. The disadvantage of this was that the deck slope was exposed to shells penetrating the upper belt. The American All-or-Nothing ships had their deck on the same level, but they avoided the danger by not having slopes--the deck continued horizontally to the top of the belt. The British were aware of the danger, right from the start; ADM 1/9226, dated 1919, diagrams a shell trajectory through the upper belt and slope. It was known that this trajectory was possible at Jutland-type ranges (Denmark Strait ranges). The threat was not ignored. For the first time in a British dreadnought, Hood's armor deck was continued horizontally to the top of the main belt, in addition to having the slope protection. And this horizontal armor was as thick as any armor deck in a British dreadnought--a 3in lamination of HT steel. The bad news was this: this extra horizontal armor covered only the area directly around the magazines. While it would defeat shells from an opponent on Hood's beam, an opponent on the bow or stern could avoid this armor and hit the slope directly with a shell whose trajectory could continue to the magazines. If you read Bill J's article on Hood's loss, this is exactly what happened. That's why it's so important that Hood was hit right when she was. If she had completed her turn before Bismarck's shells had landed, she would have been in great shape. " The incremental barbette protection is not as impressive as it might seem. And Hood's main belt was not very high. Her steering armor was not great. There are other nits associated with incremental armor, but the deck protection is by far the most important issue.
Armor would have been either hot riveted or bolted on or both onto the structure of the hull. Bolting would have been stronger, however either method would have been more than adequate. For instance the Golden Gate Bridge is hot riveted together and has held together quite well. Could the armor have had structural failure over the years through corrosion and vibration? Perhaps. However, this has never been described to my knowledge.
Details on the sinking of the Bismark: 1. The captain made a fatal mistake when he falsely believed the location of the Bismark was known, when it was not, so he broke radio silence. The British had deployed a massive collection of ships - but those monsters consume fuel and had already recalled most for refueling. Had he not broken radio silence the Bismark would have escaped. 2. Questionable decision. The crew wanted to blow off the damaged rudder. The captain refused, fearing it would damage the propellers. Since the ship was doomed without the repair, it was probably a gamble he should have taken. 3. Confirming my statements about battleships, the main guns of the Bismark were disabled early on, though the turrets not breached, by the destruction of equipment necessary to operate the turrents. This factored into modifying the design of the Iowa class battleships to put as much control deep in the belly of the ships as possible. 4. Also confirming what I stated, every torpedo hit caused damage and all but 1 caused flooding - that one damaging the rudder. Torpedo hits also took out turbines reducing speed and other essential equipment. 5. Another retro bad decision was opting not to refuel, while the accompanying cruiser did. In the return flight the Bismark has to reduce its speed from 30kph to 20kph to save fuel. But for this, the Bismark would have made it to safety. It also meant the Bismark could not have made a run instead out into the vast Atlantic for lack of fuel. The ship even had to stop to pump fuel from a damaged tank to another to prevent totally running out of fuel. 5. The ship was scuttled. This known when the hulk in the bottom reached. The hull was "in remarkably good condition" due to the inner compartments and bulkheads not imploding from water pressure as happens when a ship sinks. This means all water tight doors and compartments were opened up. However, within 12 to 24 hours the ship would have sunk on its own, flooding from torpedo hits. 6. Prior to sinking and crew drowning, most Bismark crew were killed while either trying to abandon ship or working on scuttling the ship. 7. Giving reason of fearing a German submarine, most of the Bismark crew in the water was allowed to die, as it also was decided not to leave the majority still in the water any life rafts or lifeboats to get out of the cold water. 8. Exploration of the hull on the bottom revealed that the main armor belt had never been breached. Rather, everything about the decks was obliterated with around 400 hits. This knocked the ship out of any battle capabilities quickly, making it a turkey shoot. Torpedoes had caused significant damage not only in flooding but this also knocking out engines, generators and much more. In short, an armor belt that could not be penetrated did not save the ship nor ship operations. It was quickly reduced to a dysfunctional slowly sinking hulk. 9. So much damage was done above deck there was no manner for the crew to strike colors and surrender. Crew that went on deck were quickly killed. Even hundreds at a time. The command crew was killed near the very beginning. Shortly after the main guns could not be operated. From that point it was just firing thousands of shells at a range outside of the smaller Bismark guns and then added were torpedo runs at the fully crippled hull. Most shells missed (about 3000 total fired), but 400 hit. 10. Scuttling the ship MAY have been to try to save the remaining crew. As long as the ship was floating the British were going to keep pounding the ship with cannon and torpedoes. Seeing the ship truly sinking stopped the attacks other than 1 more torpedo into each side as the other British ships left to refuel and avoid German submarine potential. 11, For the short time the Bismark's big guns were working, they weren't hitting anything. It was a very hard sea and reduced speed and lack of rudder control made aiming impossible, given the British ships were staying way back. If the captain had keep his ship at maximum capability (refueling when the cruiser did - numerous refuelers were at sea for the Bismark for its mission) and/or followed radio silence orders, the Bismark would have escaped. Curiously, earlier the Bismark was opting not to attack following British lesser ships, to the consternation of the German cruiser captain. The Bismark had been ordered to avoid any confrontation with British warships, which in retrospect should have been circumstantially disregarded. If the Bismark had allowed the attack of following ships that the attending fast German cruiser could have run down with its 8 inch guns (usually just one British smaller ship advising of the Bismark's location), the Bismark also probably would have escaped. Anyway, that's some historic trivia.
No more armor could be added to the Hood, which was a "battle cruiser," not a "battleship." The armor that was added already had put the ship precariously low in the water and earning the nickname "Britain's biggest submarine" as in hard seas waves would flow the length of the deck. You can't just keep adding armor weight to a ship. All weight slows a ship and lowers it further in the water. Any ship design is a matter of balancing compromises against priorities. Weight takes fuel and speed, and increases the overall size. Armor is VERY heavy of course. Too slow and the ship could never engage. Not enough fuel and it can't remain at sea long. The bigger it gets the more it costs and the more armor it needs. There is a point of diminishing return on size to armor.
A bridge does not have to withstand the vibrations and stress of a ship. Rivets weaken and develop minor gaps. Though not necessarily related, the Titanic went down because sub-standard rivets has been used and many "popped" with the impact. A curious conspiracy theory (that I believe) is that it was not the Titanic that was sunk and the ship was deliberately sunk. A near identical sister ship had a fatal bent keel from a prior collision and would not pass then next inspection. A ship was made ready to pick up survivors, but by bad luck another ship was in the area sending up wrong flares - meaning no rescue. The conspirator command staff believing a rescue ship on the way is why the long delay to not launch lifeboats believing they would be unnecessary. This also may be why the command crew and captain opted to go down with the ship, fearing repercussions for the massive lose of life for a plot for which the rescue part failed. By photographs, the port holes on the sister ship were different from the original Titanic - and the ship that went down had portholes matching the sister ship, not the Titanic. The insurance on the Titanic also was significantly increased prior to setting sail - and the command crew replaced with a highly questionable one just before setting sail. Obviously this is not something the British inquiry would ever find for the massive reputation damage. There's an interesting long video on the controversy.
Actually, you can by adding anti-torpedo bulges which will increase the displacement as well as the buoyancy. This was the plan as well as replacing the turbines and boiler of the ship with a new power plant. It's not a problem. The Japanese did this with the Kongo Class and added an additional 3 knots of speed to them. The Hood was a wet ship in heavy seas because she didn't have the strake on the bow, so the main guns could shoot forward.
Sounds like it would have been a good plan, assuming the new power plant(s) produced more power not using significantly more fuel.
They did both and were also more compact saving weight. You can also store fuel ( lighter than water) in the bulges.
At the expense of speed and pretty much all other nautical qualities. IMO, a better idea would have been to remove the belt-ends and upper belt armor, while thickening the deck and TDS - both of which can increase stability. Vertical protection was fine. Another way of gaining strength and weight is adding it structurally, in the form of more bulkheads subdivisons (at the expense of hull space, which Hood had a plenty). That's what they did for the Renowns and the Courageous classes. One way or another, that meant a long stay at the yards for Hood. The Kongos were superbely modernized ships, and consequently, the most useful BB/BCs of the Japanese fleet. Looks like that in spite of their numerous detractors at the time, battlecruisers made for better long-term investments!
That's an excellent comment. I'll just put some reserves on the one that says that' about the Nelsons, Nagatos and Colorados: In a WWII context, speed was uttermost: It wasn't a war of battle lines like at Jutland, but a series of air- and sub-attacks, raiders and convoy attrition. The Nelsons were pretty powerful but couldn't engage with anything but a crippled ship, while the Hood was perfect for carrier escort and cruiser-hunting. At the start of the war, it was one of four ships that could catch up and beat the "pocket battleships".
Battlecruisers played virtually no important role other ships could not handle and were mostly just extremely costly liabilities. It doesn't take a battlecruiser to bombard a landing site. It became more a matter of protecting the battleships than their engaging in naval combat. Inherently, like all ships, they were inherently vulnerable to aircraft and submarines. If Japan has built a fast aircraft carrier instead for each of their battleships and battlecruisers it would have likely cost less and made for a vastly superior naval force. If Japan had 20+ capital aircraft carriers at the start of the war it likely would gone quite differently. Probably 2, maybe 3, could have been built for the costs and efforts to build the Yamato. If Japan had 8 aircraft carriers at Midway or sent 10 against Hawaii etc the outcomes would have likely been quite different. I can think of no major naval battle or theater where battleships and battlecruisers were decisive in any significant way. The relevancy of battleships ended with WW1. My opinion anyway.
There were much more occasions for a battleship to shine in the Atlantic. In the Pacific, there has been what, 2 battles implicating battleships on both sizes? That's because in WWII, there were so little of them left that they took on an added value, until line-of-battle thinking was all but relegated to the past, meaning 1943. They still were the best thing to dispose of enemy cruisers. Maybe the Java Sea battle would have gone differently if the Dutch had their project 1047 battlecruisers...
But that is just circular reasons that battleships are needed to take out battlecruisers. Germany? The German surface fleet was essentially worthless. It was their mere 78 submarines that wrecked havoc. But for Germany's efforts towards big gun ships, for the same effort Germany probably could have had over 300 submarines, which could have picketed the entire Atlantic. Japan's big gun surface fleet was obliterated by air and submarines. Again, it doesn't take a heavy big gun ship for shore bombardment. Carriers a lighter weight so inherently could be faster than battleships if desired - with with aircraft visual sighting a battleship or battlecruiser could never even engage, nor could heavy ships run down destroyers. They would be massive ships of massive firepower with no adversaries to engage. It is all relative. Anything you get you have to give up something. Each battleship built is probably giving up an aircraft carrier, 6 submarines, or 6+ destroyers. All of those could simply avoid and ignore battleships and battlecruisers, and aircraft carriers and submarines can attack battleships for which only the aircraft are even at risk doing so. Battleships were tough and cool, but again the advent of capable submarines and task force carriers made them outdated and of little value other than to pound coastlines.
Those few battlecruisers that didn't became carriers pretty much merged with the "fast Battleship" concept. There was only one true battlecruiser in WWII: The Turquish Sultan Selim, former German ship Goebbens. Actual battle is but a tiny part of a battleship's job: The main Gereman heavy units, the Scharnhorsts and the Bismarcks, were primarly fleets-in-being that required many times their weight in opposing British Warships, notably Battle units and carriers. To her alone, Tirpitz bottled up 4 British battleships and two American ones, units that would have been much more useful in the Mediteranean sea or in the far East. 400-tons boats are more than enough to deal with submarines, but for these capital ships, big expenses are to be expected. Battlecruisers can catch up with carriers. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were able to catch and sink Ark Royal during the norvegian invasion. Battlecruisers/fast battleships are also useful to deal with raiding cruisers, a tenacious aspect of naval war in the Atlantic and Indian oceans. Slow battleships were much less useful; the US at some point had the idea to turn theirs into ground troops transport and support. In the north sea and in russian convoy routes, aicrafts were of dubious utility. Once again, it depends on the type of war that's being fought - but I can only agree that the battleship's time had reach an end.
You make a good point about the North Atlantic. A ship's speed for displacement hulls are mostly affected by it's length, beam, sleekness and draft. The longer a ship is, the faster it goes relative to an otherwise equal power to weight ratio. Beam, sleekness and draft also factor in, generally to a lesser extent. This is the reason bows continued to become longer and longer. Add another 30 to 40 feet and you pick up a knot or 2. Because Battleships are fat and low, for an equal amount of power and equal sized aircraft carrier could run away from it. Destroyers were extremely sleek and radically overpowered to have speeds exceeding capital and big ships. What I am more speaking of it relativity in terms of cost (construction, operation, crew). A battleship is superior to a destroyer, but is it superior to 6 destroyers? Did Japan need more carriers? Or more battleships? Did Germany need more submarines or more battleships and heavy cruisers? A battleship is not a match for a submarine. Did any battleship ever sink a submarine? Or at least one that was submerged? If I recall, if believing a sub might be in the area, battleships and heavy cruisers would zig-zag to avoid it, not try to find and sink it. In the end, the Japanese decided their ultimate ship, the Yamato, was only usable as a grounded shore battery - but it was sunk while en route to that task. It wasn't sunk by another battleship. Again, battleships were really cool and the warships of the past redefined the entire world for many (many) centuries. But just like sails and wooden ships, they became technologically non-viable to superior technology - specifically aircraft - when the costs of construct, crewing, and operational costs factored it. If those were not factors, there would be no reason to not keep maintaining and building them. But I can't even imagine the cost of building a new, modernized Iowa-type battleship. We'd probably need the Chinese or Indonesians to built it to save labor costs. Just the cost of operations and crewing the old Iowa made it no longer viable. "Crewing" includes all the post service benefits as well of course in pricing. While weapons systems now are not particularly suited to killing battleships, that is just because there aren't any.
Thanks! It depends. Destroyers of the epoch were not really blue-sea ships; they are lacking in seakeeping and endurence - that's why there were cruisers. Furthermore, sea state can easily cut down 2-6 knts from smaller units, while the big ones go on pretty much un-scathed. More subs, but to an extent; as I've wrote, the countermeasures for AS warfare are quite insignificant: About any boat, even of merchant origin, that's capable of going 16-17knts and have a throwing kind of weapon will more or less do. A submarine-only KGM would have been defeated by the US and UK navies at a much, much lower cost. However, the propects of having to face a Graf Spee or a Scharnhorst forced the allies to keep heavy units for convoy purposes, a real economy- and strategy-crippling obligation. German surface units kept the British ones on their toes, and thus prevented them to go to Cunningham to beat the Italians with (for a while, anyway). Funny to say, but a submarine isn't made to sink a battleship, like destroyers and torpedo boats were according to the Jeune Ecole; Subs are real slow, much slower than the slowest of BBs, and they are even slower when submerged. A torpedo's not that fast neither, and most BBs were protected enough to take a few. Those BBs that went down after a sub's torpedo hits were WWI vintage, or caught by utter surprise. The Japanese tried to use their as scavengers around surface action rather than devote them to commerce-raiding, with the pathetic results that's got them. Yep - much true.
Not true at all, bulges will add stability and make for a better gun platform. All you need to do is add horsepower. The Kongo's were nothing exceptional in their rebuilds.
You do gain stability, flotation, torpedo defense and it helps resist the recoil effects, but you lose steadiness (which makes the ship a worse gun platform) as well as seakeeping. And of course, speed. Bulges change a hull form - adding bulges is pretty much a desperate measure. It was very well-made. They pulled the maximum out of these old ships. No other Japanese BB/BC equaled their utility. The other ships that came close in terms of modernisation were the Italian Cavours.
Not true at all, you can compute the ship's performance just from computing the Froude number. That's fairly basic. You go from there. BTW what is steadiness? You need to be able to understand the basic math to be relevant here.
