Re: [FT] Battlecruisers vs. battleships

Eric Foley wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Richard and Emily Bell" <rlbell@sympatico.ca>
> To: <gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu>
> Sent: Wednesday, May 15, 2002 7:50 PM
> Subject: Re: [FT] Battlecruisers vs. battleships
>
> > The results of the Bismark's fire on the Hood give credence to the
notion
> that
> > the Hood was inadequitely protected, but analysis of the events
shows that
> it
> > was an improbable hit that caused her loss.
>
> That may be true... except for the fact that the three battlecruisers
that
> were sunk at Jutland were destroyed in pretty much exactly the same
way:
> weak armor that got hit in the wrong place, causing a catastrophic
magazine
> explosion.
>

Armor had little to do with it.  The three battlecruisers lost at
Jutland were
lost to turret hits that started fires in the magazine.  A fourth ship
would
have been lost (HMS Lion), but the magazine was immediately flooded.  To
speed
up ammunition handling, the charge passing hatches were normally open,
due to
flash propogation being inadequitely understood.  The Germans learned
the same
lesson from less catastrophic circumstances when a single hit on the
Seydlitz
caused a magazine fire (promptly flooded) that knocked out two turrets
by
asphyxiating the entire turret crews.  Prompt action by the crews of the
other
three british BC's could have saved them, too.

>
> If Hood had been the only example, it could've been passed off as a
freak
> case.  However, it wasn't, and as Jutland and the Hood are the only
two
> serious examples of battlecruisers engaging battleships in naval
actions
> (that I know of), that basically puts the occurence rate of such
disasters
> at 100%.  Which, in turn, doesn't suggest that the sort of hit
required to
> do this is that improbable at all.

I would have to agree with you if the Hood was lost for the same reason,
but it
wasn't.  Although, the INRO research paper does not conclusively say
what
happened, it eliminated many possibilities.  The most probable of the
remaining
hypotheses was an unlikely combination of the shell losing its ballistic
cap
when it fell short AND having the fuse operate correctly when it struck
the
Hood, below the armored belt, after travelling underwater.  Similar
circumstances would have crippled, or destroyed, either the Yamato or an
Iowa.
Underwater strikes from main batteries were sufficiently threatening
that the
japanese actually did a lot of work towards improving the underwater
performance
of their shells.  The PoW also received an underwater hit from the
Bismark, but
the shell was a dud.  It would have exploded just outside one of the
engine
rooms.