Naval History Forums

... In the Battle of the Denmark Strait, HMS Hood opened fire at 05:52 at a distance of approximately 24,200m (but never scored a hit during the entire battle). Hood's first salvo resulted in a close stradle of Eugen with shells apparently landing close enough that the spray from them was impressiv...

Britain did have the radar system early on in Britain but the short range to Nazi occupied Europe and the wealth of targets in Britain made it a little less useful as far as defending ships in port vs air attacks. I don't entirely agree. Ports such as Liverpool and Glasgow were given warning of imp...

I remember seeing somewhere that once she got back to port White Plains had a dent in her hull consistent with a glancing hit from an 18" projectile.
See:
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/warship ... -s120.html

Hello Mr. lwd, you may be right from an average probabilities viewpoint in battle development. However, at 5th salvo Bismarck could have "luckily" hit Hood's magazines even with Hood astern of PoW. Position of BC1 ships doesn't change the odds. hans Ah but it does. Not sure if it makes it...

PH was attacked with radar switched on - the Jap planes were tracked in, the radar operators reported the contacts to their controllers who told them to ''forget it.'' Radar is only any good if people not only use it but act on it - which gave Britain a big advantage in the summer of 1940. Indeed. ...

The availabilty of radar coverage for US ships was likely a factor as well. If it had been on 24 7 even PH would have likely resulted in less ships lost. Those at war in 39, 40, and most of 41 didn't have that advantage for the most part.

Hello Mr. lwd, Probability of catastrophic hit for Hood was low, but not negligible. I think best work on such matter is from M. Santarini, an admiral, gunnery and weapons performances specialist, working at NATO, in his book 'Bismarck and Hood', where he statistically calculated number of salvoes ...

While Hood wasn't immune the probability of catastrophic destruction was quite low. Look at all the work that went into trying to figure out exactly what happened and the fact that there was no definitive answer. Bismarck and Eugen were lucky to survive much less win the Battle of Denmark Straits. A...

I personally think it would have as Hoods destruction was the result of a very low probability hit. Given the changing configuration and timing that particular hit is not likely to reoccur. Given how close Hoods first salvo was to Eugen and the odds on her fighting top not being taken out early (in ...

Hello Mr. Mostlyharmless, hello Mr.Mercer, I remember I have read here that German 'fighting instructions', in case of confrontation against multiple units, foresaw to open fire on vessel carrying the largest guns, therefore Hood would have been targeted anyway. ... The problem here is when did the...

... This I think is more propaganda than reality, much the same as the pocket battleships were described as ''armoured cruisers.'' The River Plate battle demonstrated that Graf Spee was not an armoured ship as it suffered considerable damage from six inch shells, forcing it to seek sanctuary in a h...

There is at least some evidence that the longest range hit was actually fired by Yamato off Samar. Late war the USN was willing in at least some cases to enegage in radar directed fire control beyond visible range and shot quite well at those ranges. Radar on both sides tended to be a bit fragile th...

I don't think you can get 9 15" guns on the twins. 6 was possible with some significant modification. As for which does better in this scenario the Germans need to get some "lucky" hits in fast to turn around their dissadvantage. The 11" guns with a higher rate of fire and 9 vs 6...

Just guessing but if the shapes are the same then the ballistic coeffiecents should at least be close. Givent that the force of the wind will be porportional to the area presented which is going to vary as the square of the linear dimensions and the acceleration will vary as this force divided by th...

Indeed if he had spent much time reading the various threads on this forum he would see that many/most of the issues he's raised have already been discussed to some depth.