Hood, finest because of looks, she was an elegant if outdated design, also because moe than any other ship she symbolised the Royal Navy and by extension britain during the 20s and 30s and sailed to almost every region on the globe where British forces were stationed, and it was this public identification with the Hodd that cause the very deep sense of loss when she w ent down; my father told me that for many people in Britain, the loss of the Hood in 1941 seemed a darker time than Dunkirk or the Battle of Britain.

I've followed her discovery and the analyses of the wreck with interest, yeh I accept that both mags went up from plunging fire, which as a battlecruiser she was vulnerable too. Admiral Tovey knew this and thats why he set course directly for Bismarck, the proof being the rudder jammed to port - Hood was in mid-turn when she was hit, by a lucky shot. Umglaublich, as the German gunners said. Losing the Hood was like losing Big Ben or Buck House, she'd become part of the British identity.

Montana stats
Man that's huge!

what a beautiful ship. Ironic isn't it, that battleship design was perfected just as the battleship itself became redundant. Just why do battleships look so aesthetic?

I think that the 16" gun was the largest calibre ever used on naval vessels, the only ones I'm not sure of are Yamato and Musashi which may have had even larger guns, and the proposed German superbattleships that were even larger than the Bismarck class. Most British battleships and battlecruisers had 15" guns, as did the Germans.

after nearly a year of OT posting I've finally managed to get the conversation onto warships! I'm gonna keep this thread going for weeks now until I'v exhausted Uncle Taw's Bumper Book of Battleships (pub. by Tawakalna Associates 1967)

Edited by - Tawakalna on 2/17/2004 9:42:26 AM

@Taw.

No question about it in Jane's. Yamato class had 18.1 inch (45cm) guns x 9. There is a funny story about one of the gun's shells not detonating on contact and passing straight through one of the USN's ships. I need to find it. I don't know whether it was a shell in action or one of the guns seized and test fired after the war.

As for the Montana's 12 x 16" guns, they would have been devastating. I was a little disappointed that the 4th turret was installed facing aft. I thought that they might have considered that French configuration with 4 guns per turret. I forge what it was called.... something like Lorraine?

Pre-WW2, the RN also had plans for an M3 class battleship to be equipped variably with from 16" to 18" main guns but they were never built, even to test apparently.... nor were the M3s.

Edited by - Indy11 on 2/17/2004 10:35:41 AM

There must be some reason why 15/16 inchers were favored by the powers that be all through the war, with the exception of the Yamato class. Perhaps there's some eficiency factor as you get larger. Remember, volume (and weight) increases by a factor of three relative to the linear dimension.

Hmm! But surface area per unit of weight goes down! So with a given starting speed a bigger shell goes farther. Perhaps it was just economic concerns and limits imposed by ship size. Can you tell I've been nack to the Physics book?

On that note, why not build a destroyer class ship with one or two nice big 15-18 inch guns? Not in turrets or the thing would capsize when they were fired, but a destroyer can turn sharp enough to aim them like that. The same power as a yamato spread over 6-8 smaller, harder to hit/see, faster ships.

its a matter of several factors, as i think youre realising Bob. larger calibres require longer barrels and the steel has a physical limit on how long it can be per given cross sectional bore and sleeve. thats why those big rail guns and the Iraqi superguns needed struts and braces. Also theres the question of pressure inside the gun as the gases expand behind the shell. 15/16" calibres were realistically the biggest single cast barrels that could be conventionally mounted in a turret, perhaps 18/19" with a bit of clever engineering.


of course, Gerald Bull resolved this problem and radically reshaped artillery design in the 80s. but thats another story.

---

after nearly a year of OT posting I've finally managed to get the conversation onto warships! I'm gonna keep this thread going for weeks now

---

Glad to be of service, Taw!

I think that anything larger that 15/16 inches would be inefficient, and would probably cause more problems. After all, the stress upon the vessel after each salvo would have been enormous, not mention the delay in reloading which would be faster with smaller calibre guns. Besides, accuracy is still an issue, and firing 10 smaller calibre rounds would have a better chance of hitting a target that 7 larger calibre rounds.

casting. it's simply wasnt (and still isnt) possible to make guns much bigger than that because the gun cant support its own weight and you also you get bottlenecking of gases and barrel ruptures. Thats why larger calibres use sectional or supported barrels and staggered charges or more efficient powder.

Believe it or not. There were plans to build a 20.1" gun as well to arm an even larger battleship than the Yamato class. Here's an excerpt describing construction of the 18 inchers. As you all have said, it ws very difficult to do.

These guns had an unusually complex construction. ... The A tube, designated as 2A, had the 3A tube shrunk on for somewhat over half the length from the breech end. This assembly was then wire-wound and had a layer of two tubes shrunk on for the entire length, followed by a two-part jacket at the breech end. The various tube locating shoulders were fitted with Belleville spring washers, presumably to lessen stress concentration and "steel choke" problems. This feature was similar to many Vickers designs which used cannelured rings.

The inner A tube, known as 1A, was radially expanded into place by applying hydraulic pressure in three separate operations. The inner A tube was rifled after it was in place. There were also a short breech ring and a breech bush screwed into the 3A tube. The breech is believed to have been a Japanese version of the Asbury type with a Welin breech block. A great disadvantage of this type of construction was that the gun could only be relined by completely boring out the inner A tube.

NOTE: Just found it. that French battleship was the Richelieu, Alsace class ship (). It had 8 guns only, two forward turrets of quads.


JUTLAND, crossing T's.

This came to mind when I realized that the Richelieu setup was a good way to
build ships to avoid being at a disadvantage when steaming into another fleet's broadside... all your main guns are directed at your enemy while presenting
a narrower target.

I wonder whether there was a maneuver that the German side could have executed to break through the T. As it stands, the British fleet lost more ships (by 3; 14 : 11) but the German fleet had more "damaged" (by 3; 6:9).

Actually, that's a stupid question since the German signals already had been intercepted and Jellico had already steamed out with his "juggernaut" fleet.
When you think about it, the German ploy seems rather ill conceived in retrospect.

Edited by - Indy11 on 2/18/2004 6:32:55 AM

the real significance of the Battle of Jutland, or "der SkaggerakSieg" as the Germans call it, is that a/ the High Seas Fleet left the field of battle to seek safety behind Heligoland, and b/ never came out in action again. So despite whatever anyone says about hit counts, damages, number of ships sunk, it was undoubtedly a victory for the Royal Navy.

The Kaiser was horrified at the losses of his "darlings" and forbad that they should ever go out to battle again, but would remain "a fleet in being."

I've seen the High Seas fleet wrecks in Scapa Flow; very impressive they are too!

No there's a really effective war weapon, one that simply sits in port and exists . That whole attiture seems to have veiled Hitlers plans. Everything was almost like a game, like he wanted to take over the world and such but HAD to do it just so.

Here's another consideration with bigger guns. The bigger the gun, the bigger the explosion when you fire it, and the more the ship rolls (that's why thier on big ships). That barrels is like 50 feet and the inacuracy over miles and miles... So I myself would rather have 12 15inch projectiles than 9 18.

in pre-war times, battleship competitiveness was the nuclear arms race of its day. A modern battlefleet meant a country was a great power and a force to be reckoned with, and like the nuclear arms race, huge sums were poured into shipbuilding, even when the writing was on the wall.

In the 30s and 40s the Germans didnt need a surface fleet for anything but coastal defence yet they wasted vast amounts on super battleships that had no positive bearing on the outcome of the war and diverted precious resources away from the U-boats that could have won the war.

The naval buildup prior to WW1 can be easily argued to have been a major contributory factor in the cause and outcome of that conflict, as Britain's primary strategic concern was the supremacy of its fleet to safeguard the Imperial sea-lanes. When the Germans threatened this, war was inevitable.

Every country with any pretension to the status of a power had to have a modern battlefleet, regardless of whether they needed one or not.

Of course the British would have been concerned about the German fleet; England is an island after all . Oh, and so is Aus. I guess that's why we have a small, yet powerful Naval presence.

Anyone remember the Cod War? apart from me?