Hood, finest because of looks, she was an elegant if outdated design, also because moe than any other ship she symbolised the Royal Navy and by extension britain during the 20s and 30s and sailed to almost every region on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.
Modern Weaponry
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<A href=´http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/usnshtp/bb/bb67.htm´ Target=_Blank>Montana stats</a> Man that´s huge!
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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? <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> 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! <img src=smilies/icon_smile_big.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> 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
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@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 wh
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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? <img src=smilies/icon_smile_big.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> 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.
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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.
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<font size=1 face="trebuchet ms"><BLOCKQUOTE><hr size=1 noshade>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 <hr size=1 noshade></BLOCKQUOTE></font><font face=´trebuchet ms, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica´ size=2> Glad to be of service, Taw! <img src=smilies/icon_smile_big.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> 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.
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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.
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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 (<img src=smilies/icon_smile_tongue.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>). 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
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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!
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No there´s a really effective war weapon, one that simply sits in port and exists <img src=smilies/icon_smile_sleepy.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>. 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.
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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.
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Of course the British would have been concerned about the German fleet; England is an island after all <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>. Oh, and so is Aus. I guess that´s why we have a small, yet powerful Naval presence.
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Anyone remember the Cod War? apart from me?
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The London Naval Conference Treaty of 1922. Pretty much what the Nuclear Arms Limitation Treaty is supposed to do. Taw said: <font size=1 face="trebuchet ms"><BLOCKQUOTE><hr size=1 noshade> 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. <hr size=1 noshade></BLOCKQUOTE></font><font face=´trebuchet ms, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica´ size=2> Yeah. That´s what I´ve read too. And it makes a lot of sense. Kaiser Billy didn´t like being second fiddle to his cousins, the Saxe-Coburgs. But he really could not extend his influence around the world without a fleet comparable to the British. The British Empire, on the other hand, could not, from a security standpoint, tolerate the existence of a fleet in hands of an unfriendly power that could even begin to compare with its own. When the Kaiser´s fleet started grow (and note that being a newer navy, the ships were all technologically state of the art whereas the British fleet had a lot of older, less capable boats afloat), things started to grow more and more tense. So, while the naval arms race didn´t "start" WW1, it certainly helped create the highly charged political atmosphere that precipitated it. Cod War..... you mean the one 30 years ago? Edited by - Indy11 on 2/19/2004 6:13:11 AM
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WW1 would have happened anyway. Anyway, on the whole topic of battleships in general, they were a pointless and ridiculous wasteof resources, and none will ever be used again. I´m making record time! If only I had someplace to be...
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WW1 seems an entirely useless war. Two aliances (central powers and allies was it?) happily existing. Now Archduke Ferdinand gets shot by sombody who might have belonged to the "other side" so the entire continent got dragged in by the aliance, nation by nation. Germany didn´t seem to mind though. Anyway, the surrender was handled so badly it had a good hand in causing WW2. Made me think very little of Our president at the time... Wilson was it?
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Woodrow Wilson. Yes. Well, don´t think too poorly of him. Although, you´re right, he did lose the confidence of his own constituents but the politics of that day were just as nasty as anything you see or read about today. He did not agree with Clemenceau on the final terms of peace exacted upon Germany. Wilson knew that it would be ruinous to the civilian population but the French premier was not going to back down at all. And Clemenceau had the "advantage" so speak of representing the country that carried the brunt of all the savagery that was inflicted in that War. He wanted to keep America´s newly earned position at the table of powers and to exert what he believed would be a beneficial influence of American thinking in the world arena. Post WW1, he pushed for the League of Nations and got it going only to be humiliated by his own country´s refusal to join the League. Pre WW1, the USA was not yet a big influential power in world affairs. Part of that was self-caused: Your US history texts should make note of the tremendous resistance, domestically, against getting involved in what was seen to be "European" politics. The point would be that, except for America...mainly, the rest of the world pretty much was being run by the imperial European powers. These "Isolationists" believed that America´s proper role was to leave the old world behind and mind its own business. This put the US in less of an influential role at the end when America went to war in WW1. Before and after WW1, the US had essentially a castrated military capability. Military spending being expensive and such spending requiring taxes to support them, Congress routinely voted down military spending before WW1 and after WW1. Basically, the US was not willing to maintain its ability to exert its foreign policy overseas by limiting very radically, its military capabilities.
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I agree, i always felt that Wilson got an unfair rep from history, but he had to bridge a diplomatic chasm beween collective international responsibility for sorting out the armistice and trying to set up mechanisms for avoiding another such war, and domestic isolationist traditions and sentiments embodied in the Monroe doctrine, despite his own internationalist tendencies. He´s been quite improperly labelled a hypocrite and a a vacillator and not having the courage of his own convictions, all of which are untrue. Still, had he been able to force his will both at the Armistice table and by getting the US into the League, subsequent history might have been very different. French inisistence on crippling reparations and the emasculating of Germany were indeed a primary cause of the rise of Nazism and the Second War, just as French revanchism in the decades after the Franco-Prussian was a major source of the polarisation of power blocs in pre-WW1 Europe. I ronically, if Germany had NOT pursued an imperialistic policy abroad in trying to gain colonies (place in the sun) and therefore not presented a challenge to the Royal Navy, it´s possible that Britain might well have given the Germans a free hand in Europe (except for the issue of Belgium)
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EDIT: Bah. Taw beat me <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> Wilson did a heck of a job during the war years. He ran the country smoothly despite military demands for material and sold the war to a population that didn´t want it, all through various agencies and a few very insightfull people. I laud him for that, but the way he handled the peace process is what gets me. True, he meant well, but he screwed up his own plans (which were admirable btw) at the table with France and England by chosing his delegation from people who shared his views... democrats... and congress had a republican majority. Hence, they wouldn´t aprove it. He refused to compromise with the republicans on the 14 points and League of Nations. Not that it helped that the other powers embarased Germany and esentialy stole land from Russia, who wasn´t at the confrence. Made a mess of the whole thing and fueled Nazism like Taw said. I´ve often thought that if Hitler had been content to bide his time rather than Blitz through Europe he might have gotten away with much more. And yes, in retrospect attacking England was a big mistake. Hurt Guring´s air force pretty bad. Edited by - Warlord Bob on 2/19/2004 1:01:05 PM