Fuso V Queen Elizabeth

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alecsandros
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Re: Fuso V Queen Elizabeth

Post by alecsandros »

Bgile wrote:Didn't the French use class A armor in turret roofs? I thought I remembered reading that the turret on Dunkerque probably wouldn't have been put out of action except for the use of face hardened armor, which isn't as resilient wrt oblique hits.
The theoretical horizontal armor penetration for the 381mm Mk1 at 14km would be 2inches (50.8mm). Nevertheless, the Hood shells passed through 115mm of deck armor, exceeding expectations by 226%. I think it's very hard to justify this kind of difference by suggesting the use of another type of armour; the difference is just to big for that.
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Karl Heidenreich
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Re: Fuso V Queen Elizabeth

Post by Karl Heidenreich »

alecsandros:
The theoretical horizontal armor penetration for the 381mm Mk1 at 14km would be 2inches (50.8mm). Nevertheless, the Hood shells passed through 115mm of deck armor, exceeding expectations by 226%. I think it's very hard to justify this kind of difference by suggesting the use of another type of armour; the difference is just to big for that.
:shock:

There are implications to that!
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
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alecsandros
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Re: Fuso V Queen Elizabeth

Post by alecsandros »

Karl Heidenreich wrote:alecsandros:
The theoretical horizontal armor penetration for the 381mm Mk1 at 14km would be 2inches (50.8mm). Nevertheless, the Hood shells passed through 115mm of deck armor, exceeding expectations by 226%. I think it's very hard to justify this kind of difference by suggesting the use of another type of armour; the difference is just to big for that.
:shock:

There are implications to that!
The most obvious one being that the French built very very very poor armour.
In fact, this is one of the 2 problems I find with G&D "British, French, Dutch BBs": they are praising to much the Dunkerque/Richelieu (despite poor combat performance AND combat capabilities) and excessively criticising the KGVs...
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Re: Fuso V Queen Elizabeth

Post by dunmunro »

The 150mm turret roof armour was also effectively penetrated despite the highly oblique angle.
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Karl Heidenreich
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Re: Fuso V Queen Elizabeth

Post by Karl Heidenreich »

alecsandros:
The most obvious one being that the French built very very very poor armour.
In fact, this is one of the 2 problems I find with G&D "British, French, Dutch BBs": they are praising to much the Dunkerque/Richelieu (despite poor combat performance AND combat capabilities) and excessively criticising the KGVs...
As you already know I´m quite a fan of the KGV Class and, after some pretty good reading, have come to the conclusion that it´s design could be easily regarded as an excelent example of "balancing" it, in spite the obvious "issues" of the 14" guns instead of a "heavier" arragement. I really do believe that the North Carolina Class solved the firepower quite well and retained a good side belt by using the external sloped one which did not compromised the ATS system. But returning to the topic at hand I do not think that a single european or american battleship design previous of, or during, WWII had anything to envy to the Richelieu class for the group of reasons I have stated before in other threads. Now, if to those reasons we have to add a quality compromise regarding the armour, then there is more reason to re evaluate some perceptions that surround this vessel.

Best regards,
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
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alecsandros
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Re: Fuso V Queen Elizabeth

Post by alecsandros »

dunmunro wrote:The 150mm turret roof armour was also effectively penetrated despite the highly oblique angle.
I've read your previous comment, but I didn;t understand if the shell passed all the way through the turret, or exploded during penetration. Now I re-read the passage, both from your comment and from G&D's book, and I see a complete penetration. I had been previously udner the impression that this hit was also somewhere on the armoured deck, but now I stand corrected.

I was a bit puzzled when reading about Massachussets "work" on the Jean Bart, but now the situation is confirmed. My only question now is: just how bad was the type of armour used on Richelieu/Dunkerque?
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Re: Fuso V Queen Elizabeth

Post by dunmunro »

I haven't read that much about French armour, but, IIRC, it seemed to perform well in testing. I doubt that it had very poor quality.

The other thing that is apparent, is that not having longitudinal bulkheads in the machinery spaces, made them extremely vulnerable to shell hits, and Hood knocked out over 1/2 of Dunkerque's PP with only two hits, one of which dived under the belt. Of the 7 hits scored by Hood and PoW, two dived under the belt to do serious damage. This was foreseen by the RN and KGV's design team specifically designed KGV to resist diving shells and also gave that class a very high degree of internal subdivision.
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Re: Fuso V Queen Elizabeth

Post by Bgile »

dunmunro wrote:
Bgile wrote:Didn't the French use class A armor in turret roofs? I thought I remembered reading that the turret on Dunkerque probably wouldn't have been put out of action except for the use of face hardened armor, which isn't as resilient wrt oblique hits.
I dug out my copy of Allied BBs but it doesn't state the type of armour other than to state that it was 150mm.
I'm sure some enterprising soul will come up with this. IIRC the hit caused spalling, which is what put the gun compartment out of action. I didn't think it "detonated" either, but that awaits more information. I'm sure I remember the post mortem criticizing the French for using face hardened armor on a turret roof.
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Re: Fuso V Queen Elizabeth

Post by boredatwork »

alecsandros wrote:The theoretical horizontal armor penetration for the 381mm Mk1 at 14km would be 2inches (50.8mm). Nevertheless, the Hood shells passed through 115mm of deck armor, exceeding expectations by 226%. I think it's very hard to justify this kind of difference by suggesting the use of another type of armour; the difference is just to big for that....
According to Jordan & Dumas (most of) Hood's shell did not actually pass through the turret roof but ricocheted and landed 2000m away on the shore without exploding. As the plate was pushed in, the spall from armor beneath the hardened face demolished the run out cylinder and a small fragment of the shell's base skimmed the inside of the turret roof before richocheing into the spanning tray, igniting the 2 charges being loaded - the subsequant propellant fire asphyxiating the crew for the righthand pair. Otherwise damage was light - the flash protection working as intended and preventing the fire from spreading to either the left hand pair or down the trunk - and 3 out of 4 guns would have been available to fire - provided the crew was replaced for gun 7.
with only two hits, one of which dived under the belt.
According to Dumas - p80 - both penetrated the belt - not surprising as it had been designed to resist German 28cm, not British 15".
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Re: Fuso V Queen Elizabeth

Post by dunmunro »

I can't speak to Dumas stating that they penetrated Dunkerque's belt, but the turret roof has been clearly penetrated as it is opened up quite nicely not just depressed, as per the photos and there appears to be larger opening in the Turret roof were the 15" shell detonated. The shell appears to have cut a 1.5 metre long hole in the turret roof. Most of the shell did not enter the turret and did end up on shore.
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Re: Fuso V Queen Elizabeth

Post by Bgile »

dunmunro wrote:I can't speak to Dumas stating that they penetrated Dunkerque's belt, but the turret roof has been clearly penetrated as it is opened up quite nicely not just depressed, as per the photos and there appears to be larger opening in the Turret roof were the 15" shell detonated. The shell appears to have cut a 1.5 metre long hole in the turret roof. Most of the shell did not enter the turret and did end up on shore.
If the shell detonated, how did it end up on shore? The description of the damage indicates it clearly did not detonate. The plate is not depressed because it's face hardened armor. Instead it cracked and spalled, causing the damage as explained by Dumas.
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Re: Fuso V Queen Elizabeth

Post by alecsandros »

Hello again,
Sorry but yesterday I read adn replied in a hurry.
Here's the excerpt from "G&D British, French, Duthc BBs" regarding the turret damage of Dunkerque:

"Shortly after the Dunkerque's captain had given the order to proceed into the
channel, she was hit by a salvo of three 381-mm shells. The first of these struck the
roof of Turret II over the gunpoint of the outer barrel and gouged the armor severely.
Most of the shell ricocheted and fell to the ground some 2000 meters from the
Dunkerque. A piece of armor or a portion of the projectile struck the loading platform
in the gun chamber, setting fire to the first two quarters of powder bags in the process
of being unloaded. The smoke and fire asphyxiated or burned to death the entire gun
crew in the starboard half turret. The port half of Turret II continued in action; the
armored partition between the two gun chambers isolated the damage, smoke, and
fire"

So it wasn't a complete penetration, but a very close one nevertheless. The armor failed to stop the shell from inflicting damage, although the trajectory was very flat. So flat in fact, taht according to the theoretical deck penetration tables, it should have glanced of harmlessly.

@Dunmuro: I haven't read either about poor quality of French armour, but what can we say against such empirical evidence as the damage suffered by the Dunkerque and the Jean Bart ?
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Re: Fuso V Queen Elizabeth

Post by Bgile »

This is the first time I've seen aspersions to French armor being of poor quality as well.
dunmunro
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Re: Fuso V Queen Elizabeth

Post by dunmunro »

Here's the actual images:
Image

You can see that the shell must have dug in and gouged out the turret roof, this probably decelerated the shell sufficiently that it burst on the turret but most of the shell ended up on shore about 2 km away. The only way to prove that the shell burst would be a description of it, but it seems likely that it did.

I don't know if these results and those of the Richelieu tell us much about French armour. Certainly Richelieu's barbette armour seemed to do well.
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Re: Fuso V Queen Elizabeth

Post by Bgile »

It seems obvious that if the shell ended up 2km away and they found it there, it didn't "burst". Can you come up with an explanation that makes sense?
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