Scharnhorst and Nelson. Same weight, very different power

[lwd]

How well were the French ships shooting during Torch? I've also read of some actions in the Med but no details on how well they were shooting or how fast they got straddles. I suspect there is data out there but much of it may not be readily accessable to someone like myself who is pretty much limited to English.

[Karl Heidenreich]

Torch is hardly a naval combat at open seas with the full weight of all the variables, from Fire Driection, handling of the vessels, shooting rate, etc. etc.

[lwd]

I was thinking as much the French cruiser(s?) and DDs as Jean Bart. But even in her case how fast they got on target might be an indicator of how well they'd shoot at sea.

[Bgile]

Torch is hardly a naval combat at open seas with the full weight of all the variables, from Fire Driection, handling of the vessels, shooting rate, etc. etc.

There were engagements with French cruisers and destroyers.

[Terje Langoy]

First I´d like to adress lwd´s interesting question; the reason as to why Dunkerque and Strasbourg came to be so different from each other.

The first ship of the class, the Dunkerque, was in the preliminary process of the design aimed to counter the Washington-cruiser, i.e. armored to withstand 8-in fire, as well as facing the faster units of the Italian RM hence the all forward guns. (As I mentioned in my previous post) To be interpreted from Whitley´s “Battleships of World War Two” and hereunder lwd´s comment about shortened citadel length - the all forward turret arrangement was chosen not just because of the above mentioned speed factor but also in terms of saving weight. With the announcing of the German pocket battleship and its 280 mm batteries, a clearly larger threat than the previously considered treaty cruiser, the French engineers were forced to reconsider and so decided to upgrade the parameter of armor thickness to withstand 280 mm fire.

The second ship out, the Strasbourg, was initially to be carried out on the same basis as the Dunkerque. However, during June 1934 Italy announced her intention to construct two 35 000 ton battleships. France had, at that time, no facilities to support the construction of such a huge vessel (no slipways were long enough) and thus they decided within the end of the same month to instead increase armor thickness of their second Dunkerque.

Moving on to the general design, hereunder the questionable turret performance...

The Quadruple 330 mm turret proved to be prone to frequent defects and because the guns themselves were paired also suffered from excessive dispersion. We might argue that Scharnhorst Class forward turrets also were of a rather troublesome nature but this was however, in most cases, due to unfavorable external conditions whereas the French turrets seems ill-fated on the basis of internal conditions. I leave it to you to pick the lesser of these two evils. The dispersion may also be a unfortunate drawback - you always want your salvos to be as closely grouped as possible ... not only does this make the use of range ladders more difficult to read but it also severely affect your hit probability once you´ve acquired range. But that being said, neither of the Dunkerques has a noteworthy combat record to show for and so forth we have no proper sources for a proper comparison.

From there I will say the Dunkerques appear more than well-equipped both speed- and armorwise but I seriously wonder whether those turrets are up to the task... German speed and fire are very much capable and so I´m left with a potentially soft zitadelpanzer. That said - both classes has enough of gadgets and vulnerable areas topside that will not be fond of a direct hit. I would view it almost impossible for any of them to sink the other by gunfire alone but they´re both probably able to disable their opponent, given that performance is of ´normal´ character and that the ´failures and bugs´ choose to stay absent.

[tommy303]

Another point which needs to be addressed is the use of a very large bursting charge in the French APC 330cm shell. This amounts to 3.6% of the weight of the shell and is one of the largest in a WW2 era AP (compare with the German 28cm AP L/4.4 which had a 1.1% bursting charge). Such a large bursting charge would be a trade off favoring blast effect over total penetration and might indicate that the shell is more intended for use against treaty cruisers and perhaps the Panzerschiffe. The French shell, for all intent and purposes is almost a semi-armour piercing shell, and might not be terribly effective against the heavy armour of a Scharnhorst class battleship.

[yellowtail3]

the French made pretty ships, I'll give them that.

[lwd]

.... But even in her case how fast they got on target might be an indicator of how well they'd shoot at sea.

Did find a reference yesterday about Jean Bart's shooting. Aparently she put a salvo very close to Augusta. The implication was that it was her first salvo at that ship with 2 shells landing close astern. Apparently this was enough to convince the US cruiser that there were better places to be....

[Gary]

Sorry to jump into this topic late people.

They did. Dunkerque received a hit from a 15in shell which, though it did not penetrate the turret roof, holed the armour and drove fragments into the gun house putting one pair of guns out of action, although the other pair were unaffected.

I've been wondering if the design of the partitioning of the turret to keep at least half of it in action in the event of a hit would work and now I know.

How bad was the gunfire damage to Dunkerque after the first attack at Mers-El-Kebir?

The second attack by Ark Royals planes is what really made the mess when the patrol boat Terre-Neuve which was berthed right beside Dunkerque blew up and thus put a rather large hole in the BC

[alecsandros]

Gary: "How bad was the gunfire damage to Dunkerque after the first attack at Mers-El-Kebir?"

The damage suffered by Dunkerque on the 3rd of July was severe , and that coming from 4 x 380mm shells from Hood (3 of which exploded).

In G&D "French, British Battleships" they say:
"The state of the Dunkerque was such that she could no longer go to sea, and at 18:10 Admiral Gensoul ordered the captain to halt his ship into the main channel and to proceed to the harbor of St. Andre, where Fort Santon and the terrain would provide some protection for this badly damaged ship"

Damage analysis is extensive:
"Turret III (starboard 130-mm mount) was out of action because of a fire in its
ammunition-handling room. All the crew in the space were dead.
• The electrical circuits on the starboard side were severed. Damage-control and
repair parties were attempting to restore power by energizing alternate circuits.
• Forward engine room and its boiler room were out of action.
• The ammunition hoist for Turret IV (130-mm mount) was out of action.
• The direction of Turret D could be manually controlled, but it had no power . .
• Turret I was intact and was being fed power from the 400kw diesel generators.
• The hydraulic machinery for opening and closing the armored doors was out of
action due to shell damage to the valves and accumulator tank.
• The rangefinders for the 330-mm and' 130-mm guns were out of action due to the
power failure.
The intrusion of smoke into Turret IV (twin 130-mm tunet) forced the
sealing of the forward 130-mm magazines at 18:01. Further explosions took place in
the ammunition hoist of Turret III around 2000."

The torpedo damage you refer to occured later, on July 6th.