Naval History Forums

It is extremely unlikely that the bearing of the turrets as found on the wreck has much to do with the final bearing of targets during the last phases of the surface action. It is likely, almost certain, that the ship would have lost all -- or nearly all -- way just before sinking, and in such situa...

While the final bearing of the turret may be correct, it's unlikely to be correlated with the actual geometry of the action as the ship, as it lost way and sank in what was probably a nearly stationary situation, would likely have rotated considerably from it's original path. So far as the elevation...

Earlier in this thread, I wrote: "It is honestly hard (for me) to conceive of any situation where guns would be elevated to 50-70 degrees for surface targets c. 18000 yards away. The same range can be reached quite easily at much lower angles of departure, much more efficiently. Bill Jurens.&qu...

It is honestly hard (for me) to conceive of any situation where guns would be elevated to 50-70 degrees for surface targets c. 18000 yards away. The same range can be reached quite easily at much lower angles of departure, much more efficiently.

Bill Jurens.

My apologies for the confusion. My mistake; as I suspected I might, I made a typing error. Variables are Angle of Departure (deg), Range(yds), Striking Velocity (f/s), Angle of Fall (deg),Time of Flight(sec), and Maximum Ordinate (ft). I am wondering what this information might be used for, as refin...

This post seems to be 'drifting' a bit, and it seems a previous posting of mine seems to have gone astray. The ballistics are relatively easy to calculate in simple form, i.e. neglecting the probable inability of the projectile to properly 'trail' at the summit. These calculations can be done, but w...

Maximum ranges can be somewhat tricky to define, as they can vary depending upon atmospheric conditions, the direction the gun is fired (due to earth rotation effects), and gun wear, which slowly reduces initial velocity. Also, the range in miles can be measured in both statute miles (5280 feet) or ...

My thanks and appreciation for the last few postings here, which have helped to considerably clarify some of the points under discussion.

Bill Jurens

While the discussion is interesting, I'd caution correspondents to exercise caution in posting extensive scans, etc. of specifically copyrighted material, especially if the source is not mentioned. In this case the material is clearly from John Roberts' "Anatomy of the Ship -- Hood. One scan ma...

For what it's worth, the U.S.N. in extensive inter-war tactical maneuvering exercises at sea and on the gaming board, concluded that any speed difference under about five knots was of little-to-no significant tactical advantage. This may be one reason why they tended, when new battleships were built...

@ Cobralion. My thanks for posting these equations, but they are not of any practical use unless unless variables and units are specified, or unless one has ADM213/951 at hand, in which case the equations are actually redundant. It's nice to know, for example, that m = 0.5 +Bx, but not very handy un...

Very nice work. Thank you Jose.

Bill Jurens

Mr. Mercer wrote: "One thing that puzzles me is the implosion of a ship due to water pressure as it gets further down, I can understand why the stern of Titanic is completely wrecked as it presumably broke off near the surface and did not have anything to stop it spiraling down with water press...

There are certainly a number of cases where magazines have when large warships capsize. HMS Audacious and Barham are two good examples of this. These explosions seem to usually happen when the ship is still on, or very near, the surface. The probability of magazine explosions after the ship has subm...

@ Paul Mercer: I am pretty sure that the turret explosion you referred to occurred on USS Iowa, not New Jersey. This sort of thing did not occur on Iowa, as the breech door was never closed in the first place, i.e. the explosion there occurred during the loading process itself. There are only a few ...