Naval History Forums

Gentlemen, Looking at some of the turrets on later battleships they appear to be almost flat on top, if, as has been discussed elseware, a shell arrives at an angle and does not fall vertically, surely a turret roof with a bit of a 'dome' on it would increase the chances of it glancing off. Obvious...

From reading DK Browns work I'm of the understanding that if HMS Ark Royals remaining engine/boiler room had been flooded she would have settled on an even keel and could have been towed into Gibraltar (apparently this was taught in damage control classes). Which begs the question... What would the ...

Thanks to you both for your replies, it still looked like jolly hard work. Also, i'm not sure if the navy painted the shell nose as in the film, still, it wasn't a bad film bearing in mind it's age. We are very lucky that she (HMS Vanguard) was still around when the film was produced. Those shots a...

Been ill. The logic underlying the "dreadnought armoured cruiser" as a solution to the German high-speed transatlantic raid threat was that the government was spending stupendous amounts in subsidy payments to the commercial owners of the huge new British transatlantic liners in order to ...

Hi Marcelo, Reading up a bit more about the escort destroyers, I understand that both were of WW2 vintage so I do wonder that even if they had been in fairly close contact with the Belgrano whether they would have been capable of detecting let alone attacking HMS Conqueror and bearing in mind what ...

Hi Wadinga, I think there development was part of a rationalisation of RN numbers and focus. Fisher had already called the RN a “ a misers hoard of old junk” with ships “too old to fight,too slow to run away” (or similar). I think that he (rightly) saw Germany as the biggest threat. We had a treaty ...

I am not sure she would have survived with a better trained crew. AFAIK the aft impact killed most of the victims of the sinking, because the torpedo exploded just below the crew quarters when most of the crew was at rest. The other impact sectioned the bow just forward of A turret. May be in the P...

Hi Admiral Semmes and others, After a little on-line research of reviews of the mighty (and expensive) strategical tomes created by the academical behemoths Sumida, Seligmann et al it seems that their major fight is whether the mercurial mind of Fisher had eventually decided naval war in the constr...

Paul, let me tell you some background. The Argentine armed forces were then composed of: -officers and NCO who assisted for 3/4 years to the corresponding military college/school -troop, which were composed from drafted civilians 18 years old. The drafted troops received about 2 months training, se...

Hood rebuild/If Hood had survived video: https://youtu.be/Vqnk2-noeUY And additional commentary regarding Hood's loss. I think she would at best have got a substantial repair and had her AA greatly improved. I very much doubt that she would got any sort of reconstruction. Look at poor HMS Rodney - ...

Fellow Contributors, It is in my opinion a very well-presented video, and the credit duly given to Bill Jurens as the source of much of the technical material and conclusions is gratifying. His authoritative paper can be read on the INRO section of the Navweaps website. The presenter speaks clearly...

Now, after some years, I found mistakes in my description about battleships. All battleships designs were with two shafts, not four as I described. I upgraded dragings, but can't attach here. Even 300 kb image gets "too large" message. Sorry. Brilliant stuff. One question. The belts on al...

An in-depth review of the various theories regarding Hood's loss: [youtube]https://youtu.be/CLPeC7LRqIY[/youtube] I watched it the other day. I bow down to those more knowledgable than I, but I thought it made perfect sense and the most likely reason for Hood's demise (especially when looking at th...

Gentlemen, I'm afraid the result would be most if not all the RN ships sunk - or at least heavily damaged. I would think that the four capital ships would slug it out with the two Japanese heavy cruisers adding their fire, while 8" shells are unlikely to do much damage against PoW's armour the...

Hi all, how seriously can we take observations about people’s characters from personal diaries. I came across a passage from Megan Spooner’s diary referring to the senior officers in Singapore in 1941. Megan Spooner, nee Foster, a famous soprano, was the wife of Rear Admiral ‘Jackie’ Spooner, who a...