Bismarck Tirpitz Scharnhorst vs King George V Prince of Wales Hood

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Matrose71
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Re: Bismarck Tirpitz Scharnhorst vs King George V Prince of Wales Hood

Post by Matrose71 »

It is very important to cap the shell and 145mm are capping BB shells surely but not 45mm.
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Re: Bismarck Tirpitz Scharnhorst vs King George V Prince of Wales Hood

Post by Dave Saxton »

Garyt wrote:
The thin upper belt of SH was a realy major design flaw!
It would seem against battleships that it really would not make a big difference - 6" even though more than 2" is still not much of an obstacle for a BB shell.

Cruisers and destroyers would be different though, you would get some immune zone vs. 8" guns with 6" armor, virtually no immune zone with 2" armor. A 5" or so destroyer gun could penetrate the 2" armor at closer ranges, while a 6" belt would be pretty well immune at all ranges.
Matrose 71 wrote:It is very important to cap the shell and 145mm are capping BB shells surely but not 45mm.
Gary,

What Matrose is describing is de-capping. The weak upper belt may have played a role in Scharnhorst losing Anton early in the fight with Duke of York, which of course had a domino effect on the course of the remaining battle. The hit may (likely) have passed through the upper (non )belt and penetrated the barbet below the weather deck. The range was barely 12,000 yards so we should not expect any practical barbet armour thickness to provide protection. But de-capping can. If it had been Tirpitz, for example, the shell would have been de-capped and it would most likely shatter against the barbet.

This is likely what happened in the case of the Kirishima 14" shell shattering against the South Dakota's Number 3 barbet. In this case it struck the 38mm weather deck first and was de-capped before striking the barbet. Had it been a little lower, by-passing the upper deck, it would have struck the barbet fully capped.

At longer ranges and/or more acute target angles the thin upper belt of Scharnhorst would likely de-cap large caliber shells. It would certainly initiate the fuse of an AP shell at any range. But in the case of the barbets there was not enough distance for the fuse to go off before it could reach a near by barbet. At ranges of less than about 25,000 yards a British AP shell passing through the upper belt area on Scharnhorst would explode before reaching the main armoured deck.
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Re: Bismarck Tirpitz Scharnhorst vs King George V Prince of Wales Hood

Post by Garyt »

Gotcha. The decapping formula is a bit vague to me, mostly because I don't know which shells would be type 1 and which ones type 2.

What I have been able to gather is if you have a decapping layer at .2 of the diameter of the shell you pretty well insure a decap, this being at lower levels of obliquity. At higher levels of obliquity less is needed, which would probably explain the ability of rather thin deck armor to act as a decapping layer against shells.

I juat was not thinking along the lines of the upper belt actually being a decapping layer for the barbette! :D
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Re: Bismarck Tirpitz Scharnhorst vs King George V Prince of Wales Hood

Post by Christian VII. »

With fully functioning radar and top director, I'd expect Scharnhorst to outshoot the KGV class as well due to her higher rate of fire and more accurate guns. (Esp. considering what she managed to do with just 3 guns vs DoY)

Now whilst the 11" AP shells lacked the power to penetrate the belt, the use of HE shells could've quickly reduced the fighting capability of KGV class BB with some well placed hits.

I mean we know what effect PE's 8" guns had on PoW, at these calibers the damage wrought is rather extensive with a well placed hit.
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Re: Bismarck Tirpitz Scharnhorst vs King George V Prince of Wales Hood

Post by RF »

Christian VII. wrote:
I mean we know what effect PE's 8" guns had on PoW, at these calibers the damage wrought is rather extensive with a well placed hit.
Well the damage wasn't that great in terms of impairing existing fighting efficiency - two hits below the waterline which did cause flooding while a third shell failed to explode.

On paper Scharnhorst did have advantages but the reality suggests that it wasn't that good against true battlewagons...
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Re: Bismarck Tirpitz Scharnhorst vs King George V Prince of Wales Hood

Post by alecsandros »

RF wrote:
Christian VII. wrote:
I mean we know what effect PE's 8" guns had on PoW, at these calibers the damage wrought is rather extensive with a well placed hit.
Well the damage wasn't that great in terms of impairing existing fighting efficiency - two hits below the waterline which did cause flooding while a third shell failed to explode.

On paper Scharnhorst did have advantages but the reality suggests that it wasn't that good against true battlewagons...
One 8" hit came to rest inside one of the 133mm shell handling rooms..
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Re: Bismarck Tirpitz Scharnhorst vs King George V Prince of Wales Hood

Post by RF »

But it didn't explode - it was later thrown overboard.

The shell handling room was as you say for the 5.25 inch rounds, not the 14 inch. The room was protected against flash over into the main magazines so it is likely that damage from the shell detonating would have been limited. There was no danger of POW suffering the same fate as Hood.
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Re: Bismarck Tirpitz Scharnhorst vs King George V Prince of Wales Hood

Post by RF »

Duplicate posting cancelled.
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Re: Bismarck Tirpitz Scharnhorst vs King George V Prince of Wales Hood

Post by Christian VII. »

The 280mm C/34's packed a lot more punch than PE's 203mm guns though, which would've allowed them to reach the 14" magazine at distances around 16 km, whilst the 203's couldn't. 280mm HE shells would've also been more damaging. That coupled with the high RoF and accuracy and I think that a Scharnhorst class BB would've made things a lot worse for the British in comparison to having a cruiser like PE in its stead.
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Re: Bismarck Tirpitz Scharnhorst vs King George V Prince of Wales Hood

Post by dunmunro »

Christian VII. wrote:The 280mm C/34's packed a lot more punch than PE's 203mm guns though, which would've allowed them to reach the 14" magazine at distances around 16 km, whilst the 203's couldn't. 280mm HE shells would've also been more damaging. That coupled with the high RoF and accuracy and I think that a Scharnhorst class BB would've made things a lot worse for the British in comparison to having a cruiser like PE in its stead.
KM penetration tables show that the 28cm C/34 cannot effectively penetrate 390mm of armour even at a 0d target angle over ~11000m. KGV main belt thickness = 375mm plus 22mm backing plate = effectiveness of ~390mm and behind that there is a 43mm splinter bulkhead and then a 38mm splinter deck above and around the magazines:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torpedo_be ... ection.png

Theoretically, KGV's magazines are practically immune from KM 28cm guns due to armour considerations alone,when we add in typical target angles, but additionally KGV's magazines are located so low in the hull that any round that does penetrate the belt will not descend at a steep enough angle to encounter the magazines.
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Re: Bismarck Tirpitz Scharnhorst vs King George V Prince of Wales Hood

Post by alecsandros »

dunmunro wrote:
Christian VII. wrote:The 280mm C/34's packed a lot more punch than PE's 203mm guns though, which would've allowed them to reach the 14" magazine at distances around 16 km, whilst the 203's couldn't. 280mm HE shells would've also been more damaging. That coupled with the high RoF and accuracy and I think that a Scharnhorst class BB would've made things a lot worse for the British in comparison to having a cruiser like PE in its stead.
KM penetration tables show that the 28cm C/34 cannot effectively penetrate 390mm of armour even at a 0d target angle over ~11000m. KGV main belt thickness = 375mm plus 22mm backing plate = effectiveness of ~390mm and behind that there is a 43mm splinter bulkhead and then a 38mm splinter deck above and around the magazines:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torpedo_be ... ection.png

Theoretically, KGV's magazines are practically immune from KM 28cm guns due to armour considerations alone,when we add in typical target angles, but additionally KGV's magazines are located so low in the hull that any round that does penetrate the belt will not descend at a steep enough angle to encounter the magazines.
Additionaly, the main belt in KGV was not perfectly vertical, but declined at 7 to 10*, decreasing chances of penetration.

However, it must be noted that the entire volume of the ship situated outside the main citadel was vulnerable to 11" gunfire at any likely battle range (con tower, main and secondary turrets and barbettes, steering gear compartments, forecastle, funnels and upper uptakes, etc. )

So allthough sinking by 11" gunfire would be extremely unlikely, bad damage and incapacitation could occur.
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Re: Bismarck Tirpitz Scharnhorst vs King George V Prince of Wales Hood

Post by Garyt »

Fire control and radar would both be vulnerable and not require a penetrating hit. Shells could easily start fires as well which could create big problems, if not handled properly even magazine explosions of course. And a turret need not be penetrated to take out - a well placed shell could jam a turret.
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Re: Bismarck Tirpitz Scharnhorst vs King George V Prince of Wales Hood

Post by RF »

That would apply to all six ships here.
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Re: Bismarck Tirpitz Scharnhorst vs King George V Prince of Wales Hood

Post by alecsandros »

Garyt wrote: And a turret need not be penetrated to take out - a well placed shell could jam a turret.
... That happened many times in the war. Bismarck suffered from this also.

However, it should be noted that not any shot can produce such an event.

A 700 - 800kg projectile traveling at 500m/s has considerable energy, that can knock out an enemy turret, if the impact occurs in such a way that sufficient energy is delivered to the turret's structure.

A 300kg projectile traveling at 500m/s however has far fewer chances of knocking out the same turret in the same circumstances, because it carries 2.5 times less kinetical energy.
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Re: Bismarck Tirpitz Scharnhorst vs King George V Prince of Wales Hood

Post by Garyt »

A 300kg projectile traveling at 500m/s however has far fewer chances of knocking out the same turret in the same circumstances, because it carries 2.5 times less kinetical energy.
One thing to remember though is that kinetic energy is equal to mass times the square of velocity,

Take a look a Scharnhorst's 11" gun, and it has about 15% more velocity than say the 14" gun from the Prince of Wales. Even with the lighter shell, the Scharnhorst should have similar kinetic energy to the Prince of Wales guns.
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