Naval History Forums

I think images of Victorious navigation were from "archive" because (AFAIK) weather was not so bad on May 24 as it is shown here (e.g. minute 26 & 27). Narrative from HMS Victorious estimates wind from 20 to 24 knots, not a full storm. Hi all, The footage in question of Victorious in ...

Hi Byron, Came across it here... http://www.flamboroughmanor.co.uk/superiorforce/chapter6.htm " Troubridge later maintained that, in addition to the arguments above, Wray had gone into far more detail on technical matters – ‘penetration of armour, and so on’ – and had tendered advice on the exc...

The map below apparently shows several points where Troubridge apparently could have intercepted the Goeben however... https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/court-martial-rear-admiral-troubridge/?msclkid=2052a183b50e11ecb0b95a4393cc2be7 "'4:49 am Troubridge signalled to Milne that: ‘Being only a...

Hi Byron, Re the Jutland action, as well as bad shooting, didn't the RN also have problems with defective shells to add to their woes? Yes. Full details can be found in CB 01303 - FINAL REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT, PROJECTILE COMMITTEE. This body was convened in August 1916 and formally delivered its f...

Re Tryon, one cannot help but wonder what his legacy might have been if the Camperdown disaster had not intervened ..... and how it might influenced RN tactical doctrine. Byron A great “what if”. The irony of the RN in the late nineteenth and early 20th century is that they forgot that Nelson was a...

Jutland convinced the RN that previous battlecruisers were a flawed concept and Hood was designed to have battleship level protection with extra length and almost twice the power to give cruiser speed. In 1920, Hood was probably the best armoured ship in the RN. Unfortunately, extra protection was ...

I think the sad thing was that there were some good officers (like Sir Percy Scott) around but they were swamped by the British class system and the illusory idea of British supremacy in all matters. Now don't get me wrong, I'm sure that there were many fine officers who had fantastic seamenship ski...

Hi HMSVF, I agree that "Tradition" had indeed served as a principal guiding light of the RN and stemmed from the following factors - > For a century prior to WW1 the RN had for all practical purposes really never known defeat at sea. > The RN had remained the largest and most powerful sea...

The Troubridge versus Goeben episode endures as one of the great debates in naval history. I've not read either the full Board of Inquiry or Court Martial proceedings, but I will throw out a couple of thoughts and opinions in support of Fawcett Wray's dim view of things > Even if Troubridge had suc...

HMS Tiger indeed suffered a number of hits - fifteen 11-inch hits alone, according to Campbell, including: Hit 4 - non penetrating hit upon A Barbette, driving in lower edge of 8-in plate by 6 inches and filled handing room with smoke and gas. Hit 9 - burst on roof of Q Turret, making a hole 3ft 3i...

Hello All, "Powerful" is a very vague term. One of the methods of projecting power is to be faster and therefore tactically and strategically more agile than an opponent. There were contemporaries with bigger guns and/or better armouring, but Hood was considerably faster than them all. Th...

If I was on Jean Bart???


I’d pray!

Incomplete,unfinished and untrained!

Dockyard capacity is going to be the limiter here as much as money! In an ideal world Hood and Repulse get the same reconstruction as HMS Renown. In regards to the KGV's?? Here is a leftfield suggestion! Strip the "R"s of turrets and scrap them (keep armored plate if possible). Recondition...

My thanks to Herr Nilsson for re-posting the previous correspondence on this. I must admit that I remain somewhat baffled as to exactly how this sort of apparent flaw actually made it through the construction process. There are three primary possiblilities: 1) That the designers of the ship just di...

Late to the party! My two penneth! Yamato was designed to fight against the US and RN navies. The US treaty vessels (+ Colorado's) were 16 inch gun equipped so I'm assuming that she was protected at the very least against that caliber. She also, as pointed out was equipped with the largest (modern) ...