Naval History Forums

I'm reading the entry for the Invincibles in Burt's British Battleships of World War One. In the torpedoes section it shows the following: "Five 18 in torpedo tubes (four beam, one stern); twenty-three torpedoes plus six 14 in for the boats." Did the Invincible's boats carry their own torp...

As I said, my knowledge of non-RN ships is vague and, in many cases, anecdotal. My starting point is that every design decision is a compromise, and I'd assume that this applies to armour schemes as well. What were the pros and cons of the German approach? I'd guess that the plan was to make sure th...

Could you name critical piece of equipment outside the citadel? Fair enough - I was trolling based on a hazy recollection and understanding of Bismarck's armour scheme but mainly on a recent reading of Killing the Bismarck which, in turn, summarises Anthony Preston as saying "Bismarck possesse...

Flawed or not, the British did find the task of sinking Bismarck rather difficult...... that suggests to me that the armour scheme must have been pretty good, considering the pounding Bismarck received. "Hard to sink" isn't really much use when you've been battered to a pulp long before. ...

Simon I have taken considerable time to research the circumstances of Battenberg's "resignation" and have concluded that you are absolutely correct in that Churchill did virtually sack him.My apologies aurora ..... Churchill should also have sacked himself, as he was IMHO equally responsi...

An interesting graphic here http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-062.htm.

Does anyone know the 'names' of turrets E and F? Emile and Ferdinand?

As a side note, the turrets and coning tower were equal or even better armored than many contemporary battleships (such as KGV and Vanguard) I'll give you the KGVs, although only just. The Alaska front turret armour was 12.8" to the KGVs' 12.75" but the KGVs had slightly better side, rear...

I've just completed my RN purchasing targets for the year and it's only February - Christmas and an early birthday work wonders. I've got both Burts (Battleships of WW1 and WW2) and Friedman's Cruisers and both Destroyers books. I'm set up for the rest of the year. i just need to retire early or get...

After the above post, I went to wiki (I know, I know) to check on something and saw the following statement on the Littorio page ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_battleship_Littorio ): "Littorio and her sister Vittorio Veneto were built in response to the French battleships Dunkerque and ...

All I am trying to get over to you Mike- is that first eight battleships you have listed- were all in line for scrapping or downgrading post 1922-which leaves the ten frontline battleships that I have stated for use during the inter war years.I know that Nelson and Rodney were added in the 1930's a...

Stop wriggling, aurora. If you're going to discount the RN ships due for scrapping in the near future (and they were all less than 12 years old in 1922!!), then you also have to discount the USN ships in a similar position. All we can do is count the number of BBs and BCs on the books at a given date.

Aurora, I don't mean to be rude but I'd dispute those totals. We need to remember that the RN had scrapped a number of capital ships in 1921 in readiness for a post-war rebuilding programme that never came. Dreadnought and all of the battleships and battlecruisers built from 1907-1910 (14 of them!) ...

I had a look at the link in the OP and the mention of the source, "the Kelly's", reminded me that the title contained a superfluous apostrophe. It annoyed me so much that I decided not to buy the book when it first came out.

The major nations that participated in the Washington Naval Conference (1921-22) entered the negotiations from differing positions of power and departed with differing levels of satisfaction: The United States had the most powerful navy by the end of the war. aurora Aurora, I find that assertion qu...

Ignore me - I've just spotted a thread further down that covers this question.