Naval History Forums

I think at River Plate the Exeter demonstrated that RN cruisers were as well designed, crewed or resilient as the cruisers of any navy. The Japanese waited until they had a 4 to 1 advantage against the Exeter before they engaged in the second Battle of Java Sea and even then the battle lasted for 2 ...

I don't see how the 8 inch gunned County's could seriously harm the Scharnhorst. Her citadel is immune to their fire, of course they could damage her upper works but they will never slow the Scharnhorst down. Keeping the battle at long range means the 11 inch guns will be able to shoot the cruisers ...

The Exeter hit the Graf Spee at ranges >20,000 yards. Check the the discussion in naval history.

Slaterat

Going back to the original question I think that there are major flaws in the PE that would rule it out as a contender for the best Heavy cruiser of WW II. The ship at 14,000 tons is overweight and with 1,600 men over crewed. What do you get for this massive increase , not much. Compare the PE to th...

The Bismarck going against 2 KGVs in company is a much more serious threat then the Hood and the PoW. Why, because the most serious error made by the RN in the battle of DS isnt going to happen, that being the Hood opening fire on the wrong ship. The reason the PoW was able to correctly identify the...

I tink that the KGVs get some very harsh and undeserved criticisms. The Tarrant book is particularily very critical of the design. They are often described as under gunned being armed with 14", but as has already been discussed in this thread the 14/45 was a fine gun being a good penetrater, very ac...

This is an interesting scenario. First of all there is no way the Tirpitz is going to out hit the Washinton 2 to 1. At Denmark strait the Bismarck only managed about 1 round per minute for its 15 inch guns. The info is all at the Naval Weapons site http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNGER_15-52_skc34.h...

@ Antonio Yes I was aware of the authors previous work and the very critical reviews it received. It made me somewhat leery of purchasing "The Battle of Denmark Strait" . Fortunately it was available as an E book on Kindle and was very inexpensive, so I took a chance and overall I have found it quit...

A lot of this information isn't ground breaking . Robert J Winklareth's "The Battle of Denmark Strait" published in 2012 gives 6:05 as the time for the POW sharp turn away followed by the ragged salvos from Y turret and the Bismarck ceasing fire at 6:10. His bibliography is huge and he uses many of ...

I don't think anyone in 1941 is going to take the RN Articles of War as not much more than the historical principles of an "esprit de corp". It certainly is no substitute for sound tactical thinking.The value of a capital ship in WW2 is much higher than a ship of the line in the 18th century. Leach ...

Why pick a KGV for this scenario? As originally described the conditions for victory for the Scharnhorst involve causing enough off center flooding to cause a list severe enough to expose the armoured deck. The KGV is probably the least likely ship for this to happen too. It has a very deep and thic...

Here's my first post on this forum so take it easy on me. :D As for the question of what were the British thinking reguarding the armour of their new battleships? One thing for sure is, they definitely decided to ditch the internal sloped belt concept of the Rodney/Nelson. I think as a protective sc...