Naval History Forums

Verily. Compromises are the fact of life. Protection + Mobility + Defense = 1. No truly 1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3 warships out there? Even if there are, is that a good idea?

The stress of the cannons was factored into the design. I don't know of a loss due to recoil shock. https://www.historicnavalfiction.com/ge ... g-a-cannon

USN OBBs were not expected to exceed ~20 kts.

Many thanks for your reply, what is a 'pit snipe' and how did it get its name The "pit" probably arose from Dante's Inferno. You go down, down, down, down to get there. And it's hot as hell most of the time. In the coal fired boiler days that doors had to be opened to add coal, so the heat gradient...

Saved me from posting the same material. BZ

Gentlemen, Not sure where to place this, but here it is anyway. A question I have often wondered about, when a ship sinks could the sudden rush of cold water cause the boilers to explode? With an internal pressure of (up to) 1200 psi and temperatures of (up to) 900 F and a sudden failure of the str...

About radio guidance for torpedoes, yes, there is no way for this unless you deploy an aerial above surface. Anyway, here in Argentina somebody tried exactly this, radio guidance and (stranger yet) explosion engine propulsion, air admitted via a kind of snorkel, will look for pictures. It had a lar...

Thanks for your replies, i believe Scharnhorst actually blew up underwater after he went down, perhaps there were still fires burning new the magazines? The powder has its own oxygen, so a sealed compartment that is subjected to great heat (such as compression by dept of water) could cause the powd...

A triple tube mount doesn't take up much space and it's another string in the bow.

As far as I understand things, it is not the shells that explode in a magazine explosion, but powder bags. A ship that capsizes has taken heavy damage and may have some fires aboard. These fires as well as red hot fragment can ignite these powder bags. With enough powder to fling many large caliber...

Maybe boiler explosions?

I was on a guided missile cruiser that experience a rudder failure back in the '70s. Luckily this wasn't in confined waters, unless you consider the Panama Canal to be such. The skipper was about to beach her to avoid damaging anything when the glitch cleared itself.

Interesting document covering US Army defenses on Oahu. I suspect there were probably more ground-based AA weapons than aboard the ships. https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/educational-services/staff-rides/StaffRideHB_PearlHarbor.pdf B And the source, I suspect, for that document: http://www...

Alan Zimm's book on Pearl Harbor might interest you.

As for Halsey, the NKB was achingly aware that the USN carriers were "out there somewhere" and they patrolled accordingly. There wouldn't have been an ambush scenario.