Naval History Forums

Tovey's Despatch has: ".....I therefore decided to break off the action with KING GEORGE V and RODNEY (1015), and instructed any ships still with torpedoes to use them on the BISMARCK (1036). The DORSETSHIRE anticipated my order and torpedoed the BISMARCK at close range on both sides (1010 and ...

I think Gary is right about the HMS Tiger of WW1. She has to have been one of the most graceful battlecruisers of the war. The Luetzow and Derfflinger were rather nice looking up until they received that awful looking heavy tripod mast (however functional it may have been, it did nothing for looks....

Belfast" on the other hand , although classed ( under Washington Treaty ) as a "light" cruiser ( because of her 6 inch guns ) was intended as a counter to the big Japanese "Mogami" class , and so in terms of Armour layout , Torpedo protection and general construction is rea...

4. Other British Empire light cruisers - We have very detailed relevant information from the Sydney Report. I think that in all these important respects they were all the same and all would have fared the same as Sydney. Apart, that is, from the LIVERPOOL, MANCHESTER, BELFAST and EDINBURGH with the...

4. Other British Empire light cruisers - We have very detailed relevant information from the Sydney Report. I think that in all these important respects they were all the same and all would have fared the same as Sydney. Apart, that is, from the LIVERPOOL, MANCHESTER, BELFAST and EDINBURGH with the...

[ At Narvik the captain of Warspite took his ship close inshore, to fire at several vessels armed with torpedoes. That captain was fortunate - only one German destroyer got into a torpedo firing position. Now suppose Warspite had been hit by a couple of torpedoes midships, stopped in the water long...

Could this be a small unmanned light vessel in port for maintenance. Judging by the rowboat/s to the right of the barge, the visible part of this object is not large.

lwd wrote:Didn't the British have listening stations on Iceland?

The stations at Iceland and Gibraltar did not receive the transmissions and were unable to provide a "cut".

The radar being used was actually the 7.5 meter wave length Type 279 air warning set. After the battle, the RN didn't consider it ground breaking because of the point blank range, although one must admit that the radar provided situational awareness probably made the night ambush possible in the fi...

Without a source for that extraordinary claim, it cannot be taken seriously and I doubt it's true. It's one thing for Churchill and De Valera (Irish Taoiseach) to agree to a secret corridor across the north-west of Ireland for British/Allied planes to reach the Atlantic much more quickly, as it was...

Hey, question on this. We know what that clock was about but... do it worked as planned? Do we have some action in which they were used, by USN or any other Navy? They were used often enough in practice but after they were introduced in WW1 there were no fleet actions or squadronal actions in which...

These would be Range Clocks, introduced in the RN late in WW1 for conveying ranges to ships in company. By early WW2 they had been replaced by radio/wireless transmissions. They should not be confused with the "range clocks" which formed part of the ship's fire control system.