Battleship Vanguard Armor

[Thorsten Wahl]

The 14 inch belt armour was capable of withstand a 15 inch AP shell up to 15,000 yards.

this figure is only for the RN 15"/42 Mark I.

The SK 38 cm AP-round was able to penetrate the same amount of armor at about 25.000 yards. So the statement in red is something misleading

[dunmunro]

The 14 inch belt armour was capable of withstand a 15 inch AP shell up to 15,000 yards.

this figure is only for the RN 15"/42 Mark I.

The SK 38 cm AP-round was able to penetrate the same amount of armor at about 25.000 yards. So the statement in red is something misleading

RN penetration figures always assume a 30 deg target angle. The RN 15 and KM 38cm are roughly equal in penetration according Facehard.

[Dave Saxton]

According to Facehard maybe, but not according to firing range data.

..the penetration of face handened plate indicate that the armour -piercing qualities of the L/4.4 shell were exceptional-13.8 inches at 22,000 yards( 20100m), at 20 * inclination. This was more than the thickness penetrable by the 1937-model shell used by the old British 15-inch gun and utterly beyond the capabilities of the new British 14-inch
(D Brown)

The Facehard data doesn't make that much sense to me because (as Nathan has also said) the more important factor when penetrating cemented armour is velocity, more than weight or size. At 15,000 yards the velocity of the 38cmL52 is ~590m/s or 1935 f/s while its ~1725 f/s for the British 15"/42.

The British shell did use a less blunt tip compared to the L/4.4 that could have improved it's relative penetration at or near the normal, but I can't see being roughly equal to the L/4.4 at more oblique striking angles.

[Dave Saxton]

According to some model generated data I have on file (uses the same model and target angle so it should be apples to apples):

British 15"/42
14k 16.5"
16K 15.5"
18k 14.5"
20k 13.5"
22k 12.8"
24k 12"

German 38cm/52
14k 19.5"
16k 18"
18k 17"
20k 16"
22k 15"
24k 14.5"

British 14"/45
14k 15.5"
16k 14.5"
18k 13.5"
20k 12.5"
22k 11.8"
24k 11"

German 28cm/54
14k 13.5"
16k 12.5"
18k 11.5"
20k 10.5"
22k 9.8"
24k 9"

I rounded off most the numbers to the nearest .5 and this was based on British cemented armour.

[Juan]

Hi Guys,
I assume that she had four shafts like KGV with engine rooms situated so far away from the propellers that it's shafts had to be so long that in case of a torpedo hit could be a potential flooding way or was it corrected?, also as Marcelo say i don't like the Armoured deck so high, Personally I preffer it behind the belt with a decapping deck on top of it. the TDS didn't performed as well as expected check here what happened to POW TDS
http://www.rina.org.uk/c2/uploads/death ... leship.pdf

Juan

[dunmunro]

Hi Guys,
I assume that she had four shafts like KGV with engine rooms situated so far away from the propellers that it's shafts had to be so long that in case of a torpedo hit could be a potential flooding way or was it corrected?, also as Marcelo say i don't like the Armoured deck so high, Personally I preffer it behind the belt with a decapping deck on top of it. the TDS didn't performed as well as expected check here what happened to POW TDS
http://www.rina.org.uk/c2/uploads/death ... leship.pdf

Juan

The report you reference, shows that PoW was hit by 4 torpedoes. 3 struck the ship outside the TDS, and diver inspection shows the holding bulkhead to be intact in the area of the lone hit on the TDS, abreast B turret. The loss of PoW was not due to the performance of her TDS.

[yellowtail3]

The report you reference, shows that PoW was hit by 4 torpedoes. 3 struck the ship outside the TDS, and diver inspection shows the holding bulkhead to be intact in the area of the lone hit on the TDS, abreast B turret. The loss of PoW was not due to the performance of her TDS.

four torpedoes; ouch. Did any other capital ship, anywhere, survive four torpedo hits in one action?

[dunmunro]

The report you reference, shows that PoW was hit by 4 torpedoes. 3 struck the ship outside the TDS, and diver inspection shows the holding bulkhead to be intact in the area of the lone hit on the TDS, abreast B turret. The loss of PoW was not due to the performance of her TDS.

four torpedoes; ouch. Did any other capital ship, anywhere, survive four torpedo hits in one action?

I can't think of any that did, but PoW was lost due to poor damage control, primarily because B prop shaft was restarted after it had suffered massive damage. This caused the shaft to progressively tear up the bulkheads along, and beside, the shaft, right up to B ER, itself, destroying the WT integrity of the entire after port side of the ship. The actual damage and flooding from the hits themselves, did not imperil the ship.

[Karl Heidenreich]

I don´t know but both, Yamato and Musashi received more than four torpedoes (and a great deal of bombs). Maybe, with "just" four torpedoes they "might" have survived (no bombs, just 4 torpedoes).

[hammy]

The armour deck in Vanguard was put in at a higher level in response to the growing air threat at the time these ships (KGVs , Lions and Vanguard) were designed .
You have to remember that this threat was as understood at the back end of the 1930s , so you are looking at the Dive bombers of the START of WW2 , NOT the potent machines in use at the wars end .
The biplane Curtiss Helldiver , Blackburn Skua , Henschel 123 , Arado 81 , early JU87, the early Aichi Val , the early Nakajima Kate , Douglas Devastator , Vought Vindicator and similar aircraft , and Amour piercing bombs averaging 500 pounds or 1000 pounds at the worst .
Given the time lag between fixing the armour parameters of any battleship design , and actually sailing it out of harbour fit to fight , as being five years or so , and that in this period military aviation advanced from the last biplanes/first monoplanes stage to that of Jet propulsion , near trans-sonic operation and near-space travel , It is difficult to criticise the ship designers for failing to foresee an unprecedented and nearly Sci-fi rate of progress and increase in threat from the air , forced on in the wartime technological race in Aviation .
Looked at in the light of the envisaged airborne attackers of the time , Vanguard's defensive scheme does make sense , and you have to give the British design teams the credit for seeing that an opponent battleship's projectiles were no longer the only thing to take into account in any protective layout .

[alecsandros]

Also, we must take into account that the Vanguard emerged as a BB-BC hybrid, needed to counter Japanese BB/BC both in battle and speed, while also being able to withstand operations in the Mediteranean.
As for it's armor, from what I've read it was pretty close to the KGV, with a 350mm vertical belt (though somewhat longer), 300-330mm turrets, and around 150mm main armored deck.
The improvements from the original KGV armor scheme were severely limited by the ship's layout and maximum permited displacement. Even so, in 1945, tests showed the ship couldn't handle well on maximum speed in heavy seas, due to the stress induced on the ship's hull and bulkheads.

[lwd]

...four torpedoes; ouch. Did any other capital ship, anywhere, survive four torpedo hits in one action?

Depending on how you define survive and action possibly. From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Hornet_(CV-8)
Hornet took two torpedo's, 2 Val's, and 4 bombs in the first raid. Then a bit later another torpedo and the abandon ship order was given. At which point she took 9 more torpedos from US DDs (some may have been duds) and 400+ 5" rounds (I'm not sure they all hit) and was still floating. The Japanese decided she wasn't worth salvagin so they hit her with 4 long lances. She sunk not long after that.

The wiki page seems to be based on:
http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/shi ... ornet.html

[yellowtail3]

The Hornet did take a pounding, and... was definitely lost.

I can' think of any ship that survived four torps. Heck, few survived two.

[Karl Heidenreich]

lwd:

Depending on how you define survive and action possibly.

I do not understand why we complicate things so much:

Survive: not dead. The soldier survived (he could be wounded but made it). The aircraft survived (it landed safely in it´s base). The ship survived (it could return safe to it´s harbor).

Action: combat, fighting. At least two soldiers of enemy countries or factions engaged in "actions" to neutralize one another; or two planes, or two ships or two spaceships or whatever.

So: if you do not survive then your are: dead.

If you are in action, you are fighting.

I do not think is that complicated.

[lwd]

lwd:

Depending on how you define survive and action possibly.

I do not understand why we complicate things so much:

Survive: not dead. The soldier survived (he could be wounded but made it). The aircraft survived (it landed safely in it´s base). The ship survived (it could return safe to it´s harbor).

But when and where. If the soldier is wounded and makes it to the hospital and dies there he survived the battle but perhaps not the war. Johnston's P-47 landed saflly back in England but I'm not sure I would say it survived. Certainly it wasn't worth repairing. etc.

Action: combat, fighting. At least two soldiers of enemy countries or factions engaged in "actions" to neutralize one another; or two planes, or two ships or two spaceships or whatever.

So: if you do not survive then your are: dead.

If you are in action, you are fighting.

I do not think is that complicated.

In this case she survived the arial attacks. Even the last torpedo wouldn't have been fatal if she and her task force had not been at risk of further attacks. Now when the Japanese found her she was in pretty bad shape but they could theoretically have towed her to one of their bases if the risk had not been so high. IE after the arial and US torpedo hits she was still potentially salvageable.

Another case of a ship that almost assuredly could have survived 4 torpedo hits barring bad luck is Bismarck. If for instance her rudder had fallen off instead of jammed does anyone think it likely that 2 more torpedos would have sunk her barring some sort of bad luck? Shinano had she been water tight and fully crewed could likely have survived her 4 hits and those were late war US 21" torpedoes. Likewise her half sister would likely have survived if only hit by 4 torpedoes.


So in this case Hornet survived the first 3 arial torpedoes. She then survived the next 9 US torpedoes (although I think I read somewhere that several were duds or missed). She did not survive the 4 Japanese 24" torpedoes. If she had been untouched she likely wouldn't have survived them but that's another matter.