Naval History Forums

Do you mean on the Bismarck? There was an Admirals Cabin located in the rear superstructure abaft the aircraft hangers. Tirpitz blueprints show this to be on the starboard side even with the rear control tower. It looks like a large bunk and desk, several cabinets, and personal facilities. There was...

At the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal battle both US BB's radrs sets were having problems with back ground "noise" and humidity in the area of Savo. The IJN cruisers and destroyers sweeping north and east of Savo actually visually spotted the Lee task group several minutes before radar contac...

Hi Karl, The fast battleships were attached to the 5th fleet. Adm Spruance chose to deal with Yamato with aircraft and not detach the fast BB's from the carriers. Spruance had some inteligence of what the Yamato was, and to commit fast BB's to battle against her would have been irresponsible. Americ...

According to German documents reported on by Breyer, Elfarth, and Koop...ect.. the 16" was not considered for political reasons. At the time of the design, Germany was abrogating Versialles, and negotiating an aggreement with Britian. There were only two battleships sporting 16" guns in Eu...

Because of the need to conserve fuel, Bismarck cruised at lower speeds toward France. IIRC, about 22 knots. Had it been able to cruise at higher speeds, say 25, or 27 knots it would have been well within the Luftwaffe protection range, before Force H could have attacked it. Bismarck still had plentl...

According to Friedman the latter model U-boats were very influential on post war USN submarine design, such as the Nautilus. One of the specific contributions were the hull form and hydrodynamics research. The research in submarine technology being done in Germany was cutting edge and very useful.

This thing has been around for quite awhile, and it has been seen and disscussed much. Many of the opinions are based on misunderstandings of the design that have been recycled over and over again in books and articles for several decades. Much of it is simply the fact that the German approach diffe...

There was the Z-Plan. The Z-Plan was to build a large balanced battle fleet, that was to be diesel powered. The Z-Plan was based on the assumption that Germany would not become involved in a major naval war untill 1945 at the earlist. The Z-Plan was centered on the construction of six 16-inch gun ba...

Laying teak planks over the steel weather decks performs both a cosmetic and a saftey function. One may actually be able walk on a wet deck without falling down. The weather deck is sometimes constructed of armour grade material so it can perform ballistic functions such as decapping, fuzing, and ya...

The basic problem with doing away with the belts, is what would happen if the ship settles or lists from flooding? This is the opposite of what the British were doing with the KGV and Vanguard classes, or the Germans by stacking another citadal over the top of the main citadel in the Bismarck class....

I don't know of a single work that condenses it all. Hmm.. perhaps something should be attempted? It's a such vast subject and we are always learning more and more though. I have learned a lot from the secondary writings (published and unpublished) of modern experts such as Bill Garzke, Bill Jurens,...

.... I don´t understand why was the protective deck sited over the belt: -......? This is one of the potential weakness's of the newer philosophy. By placing the deck above the belts, the deck can't provide an additional barrier against projectiles penetrating the belts, nor against plate debris. H...

Thank you for the new data Dave. Just two questions. I didn´t ever see a section of Nelson´s hull, I don´t understand why was the protective deck sited over the belt: -It can be struck directly quite easily by a shell coming at any descending angle, isn´t it dangerous? -What is behind the belt? Mac...

........... After the war the design philosophy changed and the horizontal armour was concentrated on a single deck at the lower end of the vertical belt (I don´t know if this is part of the all or nothing scheme). The idea was that to reach the armoured deck directly without passing thru the verti...

What is classified as a battle cruiser or a fast battleship is so ambiguous that it really doesn't matter that much. I will always call HMS Hood a battlecruiser, simply because that's what the Royal Navy called her at the time.