The Landlubbers Battleship Thread - Now with 50% less cordite

[K_Jameson]

You aren't the guy that declared her performances "not so impressive"? :lol:

It performed really well, but don't forget that in a matter of minutes the main guns of the ship were knocked out. The armor on the main turrets was far from top category. And after half an hour the ship could no longer return fire. At that point, doesn't matter if you're still afloat: you're doomed.

 

[Urwumpe]

You aren't the guy that declared her performances "not so impressive"? :lol:

It performed really well, but don't forget that in a matter of minutes the main guns of the ship were knocked out. The armor on the main turrets was far from top category. And after half an hour the ship could no longer return fire. At that point, doesn't matter if you're still afloat: you're doomed.

Well, the important aspect I mean about this: It was a sitting duck, the easiest of all targets. But even if it was shot unable to continue fighting, it still existed. How would it have fared without the lucky hit at the rudder? This achilles heel can doom any battleship.

 

[K_Jameson]

How would it have fared without the lucky hit at the rudder?

Luck was not a prerogative of the sole Royal Navy during the hunt. If Bismarck had not been so lucky against Hood, her cruise could have been even shorter.

Alone and without air coverage I don't see a big survival chance for the battleship, even without the damage at the rudder.

 

[Urwumpe]

Luck was not a prerogative of the sole Royal Navy during the hunt. If Bismarck had not been so lucky against Hood, her cruise could have been even shorter.

Alone and without air coverage I don't see a big survival chance for the battleship, even without the damage at the rudder.

The air coverage yes, that was Göring at his best. Promising a lot he couldn't keep.

But still, I think that the Battle of the Denmark Straight was no battle the British could win without the Germans helping them. That Lütjens nearly ruined the day with his sticking to the orders to avoid battles, should not be forgotten there.

In a perfect world, the British should have won. But in reality, it was a large battle cruiser with experienced crew and inadequate armor and a battleship with huge mechanical problems and an unexperienced crew. Without the Hood, the Prince of Wales had to retreat and did exactly that.

And then, the Germans managed to ruin the British battle plan and turned it against the British. Instead of appearing in a position that was favorable for the British, the German ships had the sun in the back, making optical rangefingers highly ineffective.

I doubt the Hood could have fired more than two salvoes more before getting a hit into its WW1 era magazines. The German gunnery was based on the experiences from WW1 and very effective. The British needed much longer to get a firing solution.

And the Bismarck was likely the only German ship around, that would not have tried to evade battle at all costs to the point of finally getting shot.

 

[K_Jameson]

The luck against the Hood was not to defeat her, but to defeat her so easily . If the battle lasted more time, the PoW (or the Hood itself, that was still armed with the superb 381 mm guns) could have inflict more damage, rendering even more difficult the subseguent leg of the hunt for the german battleship.
The rupture of a magazine is a not so easy event (here the luck comes into play), especially if we consider that the Bismarck batteries haven't all these wonderful penetration capabilities and the geometry of the impact seems unfavourable at the penetration of the deck armor.

A more trivial question: which looks better? Bismarck or Hood?
I go for the Hood

 

[Urwumpe]

The rupture of a magazine is a not so easy event (here the luck comes into play), especially if we consider that the Bismarck batteries haven't all these wonderful penetration capabilities and the geometry of the impact seems unfavourable at the penetration of the deck armor.

Its a British warship design from WW1, without any lessons learned from Jutland. It was an absolutely easy event. That is the way how British warships of that era died. A single hit close enough to a magazine is enough to cause a magazine explosion.

A more trivial question: which looks better? Bismarck or Hood?
I go for the Hood

Clearly the Hood.

 

[Linguofreak]

Its a British warship design from WW1, without any lessons learned from Jutland. It was an absolutely easy event. That is the way how British warships of that era died. A single hit close enough to a magazine is enough to cause a magazine explosion.

Yes, but most of the British battlecruisers made it through Jutland (9 BCs, 3 lost, and one incredibly close call), so even taking the raw numbers from Jutland as the absolute probability for a battlecruiser to suffer a direct magazine hit or a turret fire that flashes back to a magazine, the odds of Bismark causing a magazine explosion aboard Hood at all during the engagement, let alone early on, were around 1 in 3. If you take into account other engagements like Dogger Bank, and the fact that Hood *had* had her armor scheme improved after Jutland, the probability is even lower. In the context of a Jutland-scale fleet battle, or a series of Denmark Strait type engagements of small forces it was likely still unacceptably high, but for Hood to suffer a magazine explosion at *that* point in *that* battle was undeniably a fluke. The British had not done enough to make their own luck in terms of armor and propellant handling and particularly in propellant composition*, but the odds were still in Hood's favor to survive a single engagement. And if Hood had survived Denmark Strait, or had blown up later in the engagement, it would have put Bismarck in an even worse position.

*Just on propellant composition, it's likely that Seydlitz would have been lost both at Dogger Bank and Jutland if she had been using British propellant. It's also likely that pretty much any other nation's propellant would have save some or all of the British battlecruisers lost at Jutland and Denmark Strait. Cordite was horribly dangerous, and on that count the British didn't learn at all.

 

[K_Jameson]

the odds were still in Hood's favor to survive a single engagement.

I agree. Probably defeated, but still afloat.
Or sunk, but not so fast and not before give some punch.

 

[Urwumpe]

If you take into account other engagements like Dogger Bank, and the fact that Hood *had* had her armor scheme improved after Jutland, the probability is even lower.

Well, exactly that construction history is what makes me think that the Hood was doomed in that battle. First of all, her construction was changed after Jutland, but only inconsequential. Her front magazines had their order swapped to the standard of WW2, with the powder handling room below the shell room. But the aft magazines did not get upgraded. Then the front deck armor was upgraded, but the WW1 era misconceptions in deck armor design had not been corrected. And the aft deck armor did not get upgraded at all.

Now, in WW1, the deck armor was flawed, but not yet bad. But in WW2 with against modern shells with delayed aft fuze, this design was not just flawed, it was deadly.

So, once the aft deck armor got exposed directly to 10.5° fire, a very large cross section of vulnerable, not upgraded armor got exposed. Even if the Germans did not know of this weakness and did not try to intentionally exploit it: There had been eight shells in a salvo, the Germans had already a firing solution, so you can be sure a good portion of those eight shells will find the Hood - at least one, maybe even three.

That the Hood was hit at its Achilles Heel on the first salvo fired after the Hood started to turn was maybe luck. But 27 seconds later, the next salvo would have had an even better chance to hit it. Not the Bismarck needed to be lucky, the Hood needed it. And the Hood had no luck.

Would the Hood have received a consequent construction and armor upgrade, history would likely have been different. But it wasn't. The armor would have been vulnerable to plunging fire, but at the distances of the battle of the Denmark Strait, the shells would have arrived at a too shallow angle to be especially dangerous. It could have last much longer. The Germans considered the optimal combat distance for the Bismarck class at about 20 km, this battle was at nearly half the distance, also thanks to Lütjen for refusing to give order to open fire.

Also: The wreckage shows that the Hood was not just dying of one magazine explosion, but multiple. The big one broke its back, but the Cordite was not done yet.

 

[Graham2001]

I am not sure if this fits but there is a long list of fictional warships that includes many fictional battleships which I will link to below:

Shipbucket: List of Fictional Warships.

The link goes to the start of the list (Fictional Warships 1850-1899).

 

[K_Jameson]

Well, in my opinion such a list of fictional battleships is pretty pointless without a depiction of what they look like...

 

[Hielor]

Well, in my opinion such a list of fictional battleships is pretty pointless without a depiction of what they look like...

Yeah, I followed the link expecting to find awesome pictures. I left disappointed.

 

[PhantomCruiser]

/me opens the curtain leading to this thread

Hey, French cruisers are coming soon to World of Warships.

/me closes curtain

 

[K_Jameson]

Algérie was one hell of an heavy cruiser.

 

[PhantomCruiser]

It rolls in at tier 7. Followed by the Charles Martel at tier 8.

 

[K_Jameson]

I'm not a player of World of Warships. It means that Charles Martel is more powerful than Algérie?

I don't recall that ship, but the Algérie is widely regarded as one of the best, if not the best heavy cruiser design of WWII.

 

[PhantomCruiser]

I'll take a closer look when it's released. Sometimes the next tier ship is not always better, or is hard to differentiate what is the improvement.

For the US BB tier, I couldn't tell much difference between the Wyoming (tier 4) and the New York (tier V). There is a big difference up the line with the following ships (New Mexico, Colorado, North Carolina, Iowa topped off by the never built Montana).

 

[Hielor]

For the US BB tier, I couldn't tell much difference between the Wyoming (tier 4) and the New York (tier V).

Really? I actually thought that was a fairly big upgrade. The bigger guns give you a bit more punch, but the real star was the AA upgrade. The New York shreds same- or lower- tier planes.

 

[PhantomCruiser]

There is that, once the hull gets upgraded. :thumbup:

 

[K_Jameson]

Speaking of cruisers, the IJN has put in service various classes of them.

Some designs were really fearsome: the Takao class and the Myōkō class, both armed with a main battery of ten 203 mm guns and a full complement of deadly Type 93 "long lance" torpedoes.

Here the Ashigara, nicknamed "The Hungry Wolf" (Myōkō class)

And the Takao.
My personal favourite, the Chōkai, that has also acted as flagship of the Combined Fleet, belongs to this class.

Silly side note: Ashigara has also his own hilarious "personification" in the cited Kancolle anime show.
And also the Takao, that, despite her small screentime in the cartoon, is an "interesting" character, I must admit...

:rofl: :rofl: