Ideal battleship design

Warship design and construction, terminology, navigation, hydrodynamics, stability, armor schemes, damage control, etc.
ede144
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Re: Ideal battleship design

Post by ede144 »

Could you name critical piece of equipment outside the citadel?
MikeBrough
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Re: Ideal battleship design

Post by MikeBrough »

ede144 wrote:Could you name critical piece of equipment outside the citadel?
Fair enough - I was trolling based on a hazy recollection and understanding of Bismarck's armour scheme but mainly on a recent reading of Killing the Bismarck which, in turn, summarises Anthony Preston as saying "Bismarck possessed a low armoured deck, leaving a lot of vital areas outside the armoured citadel, including all the communications and electrical systems. Preston judged that, during the fight of 27th May 1941, British guns 'shredded everything except the main machinery'".
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tommy303
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Re: Ideal battleship design

Post by tommy303 »

Oh no, not Preston again. Preston was a product of the not-made-here school of thought and in general belittled anything not made in a British shipyard or to British design philosphies (unless they turned into abject failures like HMS Captain). He was also writing at a time--1970s and 1980s--before proper analysis of foreign designs, particularly Bismarck, had been completed and in many cases was just plain wrong. An example was the idea that the Bismarck class had all its vital communications running above the armoured deck and so virtually unprotected. In reality, the communications ran in wire tunnels below the armoured deck and inside of the main torpedo bulkheads; when necessary to carry to control centers such as the bridge and fire control stations, communications were in armoured conduits. He also did not appreciate that the placement of the armour deck so low in Bismarck was necessary to maintain the desired metacentric height for stability reasons in such a shallow draft hull (forced on German designers by the country's shallow coastal waters and the Kiel canal), and by the design philosophy of incorporating a stout upper deck to decap and initiate the fuzing of enemy shells and bombs before they reached the amour deck; in the latter instance, the levels between the armoured weather deck and the Panzerdeck were considered sacrificial zones to preserve the integrity of the machinery spaces and magazines.

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MikeBrough
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Re: Ideal battleship design

Post by MikeBrough »

As I said, my knowledge of non-RN ships is vague and, in many cases, anecdotal.

My starting point is that every design decision is a compromise, and I'd assume that this applies to armour schemes as well. What were the pros and cons of the German approach? I'd guess that the plan was to make sure that the ship made it home, even after a severe beating - get the engines home and we can rebuild the shell. But what were they giving up by doing so? Did fighting effectiveness degrade more quickly?

Was the Bismarck's armour scheme really just a slight updating of their WW1 scheme? If so, and the RN and USN had a chance to study this, why did they not move to the same scheme with their own later battleships?
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Re: Ideal battleship design

Post by alecsandros »

MikeBrough wrote:As I said, my knowledge of non-RN ships is vague and, in many cases, anecdotal.

My starting point is that every design decision is a compromise, and I'd assume that this applies to armour schemes as well. What were the pros and cons of the German approach? I'd guess that the plan was to make sure that the ship made it home, even after a severe beating - get the engines home and we can rebuild the shell. But what were they giving up by doing so? Did fighting effectiveness degrade more quickly?

Was the Bismarck's armour scheme really just a slight updating of their WW1 scheme? If so, and the RN and USN had a chance to study this, why did they not move to the same scheme with their own later battleships?
British post-war analysis showed the Bismarck design to be "unsinkable by gunfire alone".
This was due to the "extra 10.000 tons displacement" used in comparison to the British KGV design.

The same analysis points out however that, allthough practically impossible to sink by gunfire, after non-stop battering, the ship would be a useless wreck, and probably should be scrapped immediately after.

The point was that it was very costly to build such a ship, and the advantages of having extremely well protected vitals would diminish in prolonged combat.
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Dave Saxton
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Re: Ideal battleship design

Post by Dave Saxton »

MikeBrough wrote:Was the Bismarck's armour scheme really just a slight updating of their WW1 scheme?
No. This is a common misconception. The record is clear that the Germans adopted their scheme so the great armour weight commited to the main armoured deck could provide protection against bombs and plunging fire, and also against low angle shell fire hitting the belts. The belt penetration of more modern battleship caliber projectiles had increased 33% from the early 1920's to the late 1930s. The other navies used the protection schemes developed during the early 1920s before bombs became such a serious threat, and when battleship shells could be effectively addressed by belts no thicker than caliber thickness. I view the German WWII scheme as being more modern, than either their own WWI schemes, or the early 1920's developed schemes. The key to the German scheme is attaining sufficient deck protection out to battle ranges of 30,000 meters from their two deck system, meaning they didn't trade off deck protection to attain superior belt protection provided by their scarp triangle system.
Entering a night sea battle is an awesome business.The enveloping darkness, hiding the enemy's.. seems a living thing, malignant and oppressive.Swishing water at the bow and stern mark an inexorable advance toward an unknown destiny.
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RF
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Re: Ideal battleship design

Post by RF »

MikeBrough wrote: "Hard to sink" isn't really much use when you've been battered to a pulp long before.
I'm not so sure. The length of time and effort involved by the British on that morning could have had major adverse consequences for them, if other available German forces had arrived on the scene.

And even as a burning wreck Bismarck still posed a threat to the Allies - that if it wasn't sunk it could survive to fight another day.
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fyrbane
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Re: Ideal battleship design

Post by fyrbane »

As a burning wreck how did she pose a threat? Even if somehow the German's got her back to port, rebuilding her would be too costly and time consuming, [And be at the mercy of Allied bombers.]. There is no question of the Bismarck class being powerful and extremely dangerous opponent's but the facts remain Bismarck was quickly silenced when faced with credible opponents, [even with a jammed rudder].

I am unaware of these vital vulnerable systems being placed below the main armoured deck since all my reference's state otherwise. Where is this new information and by whom? Also as a moot point I would still rather have main deck protection over the magazines of 6 inches plus. 4.75 is rather on the thin side. The belt is also very suspect. Since we are talking about battleship design I would still go with the Lion's 15 inch uniform belt.
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Re: Ideal battleship design

Post by tommy303 »

I am unaware of these vital vulnerable systems being placed below the main armoured deck since all my reference's state otherwise. Where is this new information and by whom?
To which vital vulnerable systems are you referring?

Their shoulders held the sky suspended;
They stood and Earth's foundations stay;
What God abandoned these defended;
And saved the sum of things for pay.
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Re: Ideal battleship design

Post by alecsandros »

tommy303 wrote:
I am unaware of these vital vulnerable systems being placed below the main armoured deck since all my reference's state otherwise. Where is this new information and by whom?
To which vital vulnerable systems are you referring?
It's probably Preston again :silenced:
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Re: Ideal battleship design

Post by Davidt »

I think that the ideal battle ship is one with 23 in in quad mounts with 4 on deck with 14 ins in dual mounts and 6 mounts and 5 in guns in dual mounts and 12 mounts and 20mms liveing the edge of the deck with 40mms behide them and 40s and 20s mms on the super structure and torpedo launchers 4 of them with 8 in torpedos in them with a triple boilerset with 4 in a set
With 2 times more armor than the Yamato
With air radars and ground radars
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Rick Rather
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Re: Ideal battleship design

Post by Rick Rather »

:lol: :clap: :lol: :clap: :lol:
Just because it's stupid, futile and doomed to failure, that doesn't mean some officer won't try it.
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Matrose71
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Re: Ideal battleship design

Post by Matrose71 »

This are the cabel channels (orange), where all cables and communications of Bismarck were running.
This is from original drawing posted bei Thoddy at an other Forum.
All other claims are simply wrong and myths.
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