The Hood a Cruiser???

[Liam]

Huh, Whut, duhhhh... :confused: I mean, in the infamous ship that attacked the Bismark? Legendary Flagship, pride of the Royal Navy. A Cruiser? I'm I missing something. Can some naval historians please elaborate... What don't I know????

:cool:

[Kuniworth]

Hood was a battle-cruiser. This topic been up before.

[Liam]

a 42 ton battlecruiser with 15 inch guns?

that's the Daddy of all BattleCruisers

bigger than the Prince of Wales?

it should be removed if it was obsolete not made into a faster more lightly armed Cruiser...That or made into Battleship...biggest Warship in the world for 20 years

[ May 17, 2003, 07:15 PM: Message edited by: Liam ]

[JerseyJohn]

Back, by Popular Demand -- !

link to Topic of 2/23/03 "The Hood is NOT a Cruiser!"

[Liam]

intrigueing article there John.

as I had thought before and still think to this day, the sinking of the Hood was a fluke. Lucky shot if you will...

[John DiFool]

Originally posted by Liam:

intrigueing article there John.

as I had thought before and still think to this day, the sinking of the Hood was a fluke. Lucky shot if you will...

In a sense that may be true, but the vulnerabilities

of the Hood's armor configuration were well-known

at the time, at least by some naval architects.

The basic problem is that a shell fired at a long-

range target (~15-25,000 yards) will tend to arc

sharply downwards at the end of its trajectory.

Hence the need for solid deck armor. But most

WWI battlecruisers were deficient in this area,

as this facet of the physics was not well-known

in the 'teens, so the designers decided to put

most of the armor of the BCs along the side belts

(only proof against short-range fire of various

calibers, plus torpedoes if they hit the "right"

spot).

The Battle of Jutland bore this out-most capital

ships sunk there were BCs, and most of them

succumbed in the same basic way the Hood did.

Murphy's Law struck with a vengeance, IOW.

Subsequent BBs had the so-called "all-or-nothing"

approach, putting most armor into the central

area of the ship (leaving the bow and stern

vulnerable), including the deck. This proved to

be more sensible, but made for a slow ship (until

the kinds of powerplants which powered the Iowas

came along).

The Hood design essentially was a gamble-and in

her case the dice came up snake eyes.

John DiFool

[Liam]

Interesting information. I read a bit up on it and it seems the Ark Royal's Swordfish was the death blow ot the Bismark locking it's rudder. Though in SC they made these carriers a bit too powerful considering they mainly sported out of date modified recon, torpedo planes specailized for naval warfare not land.

The Sheffield had a few near misses, they were divebombed by their own Carrier based Swordfish and luckily didn't hurt her...Took 2 british battleships 2 hours to down bismark<and they say she may have been scuttled as well to aid in it's sinking>

must've been a Monster of a Ship

[JerseyJohn]

John & Liam

You're both right and good info throughout.

Ther German heavy cruisers (8 inch guns) were, in a design sense, much smaller versions of their battleships with the same basic flaw as Bismarck and Tirpitz. They all had exposed rudders. German heavy cruisers and battleships were so similar in appearance that in the Denmark Straight Battle, Prinze Eugen, the ship nearer the British but still over 20,000 yards distant, was at first mistaken for Bismarck and targeted by both, Hood and Prince of Wales (no doubt causing much anxiety on the cruiser!). When Bismarck's opening salvo hit the water, however, the plume size made it obvious the more distant vessel was the battlewagon.

The rudder flaw was a carry over from turn of the century ship building ideas that never evolved because Germany missed two decades of modern big ship designs during the 20s and 30s.

A second problem was exposed fire control and electronics areas on the superstructure; in the final battle Bismarck was firing blind after being hit in the early salvos, though it hardly mattered as she was stuck moving in the same slow circle and an easy target for Rodney (9x16 guns) and King George the Fifth (10x14 inch guns). They in turn were firing too close, with little, and then no arch, failing to finish the crippled Bismark off with plunging fire.

The fact two battleships apparently couldn't sink her also added to the ship's reputation for near invulnerability. In reality, Hood and George were mostly blating turrets and towers and killing crew members attempting to abandon the already crippled ship. They were inflicting no damage at all below the water line. There's still debate as to whether or not Bismarck finally went down due to torpedoe hits from a cruiser or from her own crew setting off internal detonations.

When first built, the Hood would have been about eight to ten knots faster than the contemporary BBs. The sister ships Rodney and Nelson, for example, built at the same time, had a top speed of 22 knots to Hood's 30. Originally Hood was considerably lighter but through the twenties and thirties she was given a number of additions, some of it plating but none of that went on her deck. By 1941, her crewmen frequently observed that at sea the deck was nearly always awash! Clearly she was made less seaworthy through her improvements!

Hood's deckarmor was so thin that there's been speculation the fatal shot was an 8" shell fired by Prinz Eugen. A salvo from the heavy cruiser stradled Hood just before she was struck by Bismark's much heavier broadside.

Like most British capital ships of the First World War era, Hood carried torpedoes. Even the slow Barham class BBs had them (sister ships Malaya, Warspite and Queen Elizabeth). The idea being to finish off a large enemy vessel that had been reduced to dead in the water status. In hood's case it's thought the fatal shell plunged through the deck and into the stored torpedo area next to the main powder magazine. It was the torpedoes jumping from the shell blast that struck and ignited the Hood's own ammunition stores. This idea is the basis of the 8" inch cruiser shell idea; the torpedos would have been striking the magazine while Bismarck's 15" inch shells hit the water.

The Hood's going down with a single salvo gave rise to the misconception that Bismarck and Tirpitz were the most powerful BBs afloat. This idea lingered through my own childhood when a popular song heralding a new Brittish movie in 1960( Sink the Bismarck! ) had the lyrics --

"In May of 1941 the war

had just begun.

The Germans had the biggest ship

that had the biggest guns.

The Bismarck was the greatest ship that

ever sailed the seas -- etc. . .."

In reality Bismarck and Hood were almost the same weight, speed and armament (15" guns) but the Bismarck, twenty years younger, was the better designed vessel despite it's rudder and superstructure flaws.

There's also speculation that by 1941 Hood was no longer centered properly; this has been given as the reason for her breaking in two with the explosion. In the actual event this was not over significant. Whether or not a warship remains in one piece after it's main magazine ignites it's going under all the same.

Getting back to the original point, the Hood was only about four times heavier than most cruisers and her main guns only 7 to 9 inches too large (15 as opposed to 6 thru 8), but other than that she'd have made a fine, though slightly slow, giant cruiser. Presumably Hubert is labelling naval squadrons by their prevailing components.

[ May 18, 2003, 11:34 AM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[Shaka of Carthage]

Going off-topic

I wish the current day US Navy would stop being such wussies and reactivate the BB's. The Marines could use the naval gunfire support and the BB could also be the backbone of the "streetfighter" ships.

As it is now, everytime so dummy gets on a speedboat and heads toward the Navy BATs (big ass targets), they get nervous and move further out to sea. How you can "show the flag" if you are over the horizen?

Then again, since the captain of the ship realizes that if his ship gets scratched, his career is over, can you blame them? Zero-defect policy. What a waste. Something very strange happens when a officer gets to O-5, O-6 rank. He comes more of a politician than an officer. Someone give me an acroynm for "politician in a uniform" that comes out as an insult.

Ok... feel better now.

[JerseyJohn]

Shaka

It's about time somebody took a stand to get at least some BBs back in the battleline. The navy claims they're too expensive to operate, probably as much in sheer personnel as fuel and maintenance costs. Also, I thought the Missouri looked a trifle odd with those comparatively small missle platforms among it's three huge turrets and the missles are the main armament!

But there's nothing like those big shells fired from an unseen battleship crashing beyond the shore someplace to sap a defender's morale. Works every time. I guess the lesson was lost on the pentagon when, during the Gulf War, Iraqi infantry looked up and surrendered to unmanned drones from the battleship.

On the other hand, they also surrendered to CNN crews and in this war to Ollie North's cameraman, so perhaps they aren't the best example. The last example other than Korea and Vietnam where nobody ever saw what the shells were hitting, would be Imperial Japanese Marines, who never willingly surrendered to anyone. Well, at least we've got both extremes covered. Aside from which displaying active Battleships to worldwide TV cameras would be good in a symbolic sense.

The Mighty "Mo" Serving as MacArthur's desk for the surrender ceremony in Tokyo Bay, 1945, the Missouri went on serve in Korea and Vietnam and was still blasting away in the '91 Gulf War.

The Navy wanted to use a fleet carrier for the surrender, but they'd all been badly damaged in the second of "Halsey's Typhoons", so the Missouri was used instead; probably a better symbolic choice.

[ May 18, 2003, 05:24 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[SeaMonkey]

Guys, don't fret, there is a push for the new "Brown Water" navy and it includes a platform called the Leviathan (future BB). I have specifics on it but they are at work. Don't worry the future US Navy will be even more of a force to be reckoned with.

[Shaka of Carthage]

SeaMonkey

Ok... you done gone and got me started again.

If we already have a BB platform, why do we have to spend the money on creating a new one? Especially when the old one has armor plating that can stop all of the missile threats that sink current day vessels? Remember all the concern about the exocet in Falklands? I'm not sure that the old BB's would even know they were hit by an exocet.

I'll tell you why. Cause ain't no one gonna get rich off of upgrading older platforms. Lot more money to be made by reinventing the wheel. For any of you that are old enough... remember the M-14? Why did we invent that when the FN-FAL was out there? Now we have the M-16, the spray and pray. Remember who first had those? The Air Force guys, since they couldn't shoot straight anyway. And now we are hearing how the M-16 can't penetrate the armored vests that the bad guys are wearing.... HELLO!!!!??? Where have I hard that before!???

I do hope the future US Navy is a force to be reackoned with. Cause the surface ships in the current US Navy are a joke.

Back on topic, kinda... Modern day destroyers are really cruisers. They are the size of the WWII cruisers. Moder day frigates are really the size of WWII destroyers. So what the modern day Navy has is a bunch of Carriers, Cruisers and Subs. So where are the "infantry" of the sea, the destroyers? The guys who are suppossed to screen the expensive stuff from all the cheap stuff. We don't have any. And our modern day Cruisers (ie destroyers) are running around with small scale weapons like the old WWII destroyers. So they can't do any shore bombardment.

God... how I miss those guys in those zippos and burfs (brown water navy in 'nam).

Ok... done now.

[Liam]

Who needs a navy when you've got an airforce? It's ten times more effective. Only countries who can afford expensive navies are nations on the offensive.

We aren't supposed to be on the offensive anymore are we? Ha

Maybe it's the counter to the Soviet threat in the N.Sea. Focus on Nuke subs, Sub destroying ships and specialized carriers for deep strikes...

[SeaMonkey]

Take it easy Shaka. The Leviathan is just on the drawing board, but you have to admit a 750 foot trimaran that turns on a dime and has two electromagnetic rail guns with a range of 500 miles at a speed near mach 10 has a lot more going for it than an Iowa BB. Oh, did I mention its stealthy and also serves as a platform for 80 unmanned underwater and aerial vehicles. OK forget it, bring back the ole Iowas, and maybe we ought to refloat the Arizona while we're at it, just kidding "God rest its souls". You want economics, the new MK34 gun fires an ERGM that is like a cruise missile 63 miles inland with better accuracy for a cost of $60K per shell, that compares to a Mil for a Tomahawk. I could go on but I won't. The bottom line is if you want to replicate/exceed the success in Iraq then you got to stay ahead of the curve. Remember our history lessons.

[Liam]

SeaMonkey I'm definitely for cheaper ordinance. those precision weapons get EXPENSIVE! Any way to cut down the price and increase the threshold would be a pro. Though Firepower isn't where America lacks. Our intelligence is still pitiful. I'd trade 10 Leviathans for 10,000 Elite Crack assasins any day whose sole job was hunt and destroy Enemies of the State in foreign nations. They'd be cheaper than cruise missiles, better for foreign policy and they'd get the job done better. Especially if you started recruiting directly outta these nations, their own population who fit in...

That's what's wrong we wave big banners and big guns but we're not at all covert. I'm sorry but in a day when people use your own airplanes to screw you or drive cars into buildings, etc... You need to get a little dirty back..."especially towards the leadership."

In any case the days of WW2 are over and Battleships would nolonger be ideal in a Nuclear War. If somehow conventional weapons remain the norm for now on<which I can't see staying that way too too long when everybody is getting Nuclear> a few super Ships would be nice. Otherwise more numerous more radar evading submerging craft are still the way to go. Something that can sit off your shore and fire 100 nukes onto your country in a few minutes rendering it complete ineffective with a few hundred warbirds over head with the ability to laser light all your Ballistics up...Then you've got an Army for the 21st century.

[Shaka of Carthage]

Few points, then I will get off of this soapbox.

Hi-Tech is fine. So why aren't all of us using helicopters or light planes to get back and forth to work? Its not cost effective.

Who is this "nuclear" threat we have to worry about? Russia is broke. China is still 20 years behind us. Anyone else? The French?

We should be more concerned about suitcase bombers that strategic missiles.

The key is cost effective.

Iraq is a bad example. Being "ahead of the curve" didn't win us the victory.

We spend more on defense today than we ever did to counter the Soviets. And who are defending against? Must be the Borg, cause it sure ain't anyone on this planet.

[Shaka of Carthage]

Quick story, then I promise to break the soapbox.

I was strolling along in indian country one fine morning. There was this local who seems to have had some problems with the helicopter flying overhead. So he unslings this bolt action rifle and fires a shot at the helicopter. Copter is about couple hundred feet above ground, but it either hits them or they see the local firing at them.

So they do a turn, fire rockets at the guy (who of course has now taken cover). Then they come back again with the 60's blazing. Go a bit off and circle. Then of all things, here comes a birdie (think it was a thud, but I was trying to have sex with the dirt at this point) and bam. Helicopter comes by a few minutes later, flys over a few times, then finally goes home.

I wonder what the cost of the rockets, the 60 ammo and the thud bombs were compared to the cost of that locals rifle cartridge?

[JerseyJohn]

A very simple problem, war is becoming too expensive to wage in a proper American way. On the other hand, we've just seen what happens to an army that attacks armored vehicles in pick-up trucks.

Meanwhile Amercian executives who at one time were content to make four or five times the annual income of their highest paid regular employee suddenly have to be CEOs instead of Preseidents and need to utterly plunder the company, padding their pockets with massive layoffs every year, to show fake profits that have all but destroyed both the work force and the economy.

The real budget problem in this country has nothing to do with what we build but how we go about building it. Get rid of the useless suits at the top, get the government involved in treating it's citizens, as workers, as though they were the valuable commodity that they are, make corporate plunder a capital offense -- yes, kill the Enron bastards! -- and then maybe we can stop this massive national hemoragging of our life blood so we can do things on a sane, sensible basis. Perhaps there'd even be a pittance left over for a decent space program with real objectives instead of showbiz glitz.

[Doodlebug]

Originally posted by JerseyJohn:

John & Liam

There's still debate as to whether or not Bismarck finally went down due to torpedo hits from a cruiser or from her own crew setting off internal detonations.

In hood's case it's thought the fatal shell plunged through the deck and into the stored torpedo area next to the main powder magazine. It was the torpedoes jumping from the shell blast that struck and ignited the Hood's own ammunition stores. This idea is the basis of the 8" inch cruiser shell idea; the torpedos would have been striking the magazine while Bismarck's 15" inch shells hit the water.

The recent dives on both Bismarck and Hood have answered a good many questions on the demise of these two vessels.

The Royal Navy in their keenness to finish Bismarck closed the range to an absolute minimum and thereby ensured that although the majority of the big gun shells hit they did so in a flat trajectory and caused mostly above the waterline damage. Having said that the Bismarck, by the end, was listing sufficiently that the torpedoes fired at her by the British cruisers actually exploded above the main belt armour on the deck which was down to the waterline at that time. The claim that she was scuttled frankly now appears to be disproven and she was indeed done for by the Royal Navy.

In the case of Hood the wreck has now been found and filmed for the first time. The only significant intact portions of the wreck are the extreme stern including the props and rudders, the bows back as far as the breakwater in front of A turret, the control tower and a central section of the hull. The remainder of the vessel lies in an enormous debris field. As has been stated the Hood was vulnerable to long range plunging fire penetrating her deck armour. Admiral Holland was aware of this weakness and was attempting to close the range as the action opened by steaming towards the Bismarck. This limited the British to firing only the forward turrets whereas the Germans could fire full broadsides. Examination of the rudders has now shown that she was in the process of commencing the turn to port that would have presented the main belt armour to Bismarck and allowed her to commence full broad side salvoes. Tragically she never completed that turn as a plunging shell hit and penetrated to the after magazine. In a matter of moments she would have swung far enough round to prevent that occurance. It was blind chance and bad timing that lead to her end.

Amongst the debris field was found a torpedo which appears to rule out the detonation of the torpedo store and leads to the analysis that it was indeed the after magazine that detonated. Significantly, and terrifyingly the control tower was blown off and was found at a distance from the other wreckage. This is a 600 ton chunk of debris and it's discovery has lead to a new conclusion. It would appear that both the after magazine and shortly later the forward magazine detonated. The hypothesis is that the explosion of the aft magazine vented forward through the engine and boiler rooms in a massive fireball which reached and ignited the forward magazines. No ship can frankly survive one explosion like this let alone two such blasts and it is because of this that there were so few survivors. Truthfully it was a miracle that any survived!

[JerseyJohn]

Doodlebug

Thanks for the Great Info.

I was aware of a little of the Bismarck's underwater examination but had no knowledge they'd even located the Hood.

Glad you gave so much info on the Hood, hadn't known about the double magazine explosion but it would make sense because many eyewitnesses described her as just vanishing. One of the survivors, don't remember his name but he's the last of them, did recall seeing part of the ship sliding under but he had only a hazy recollection of the explosion itself -- understandable.

Regarding the Bismarck, glad they've ruled out the scuttling theory as the primary cause of it's sinking. After the battering she took and the torpedoes it would be a scary thing to visualize the half sunk wreck still floating till destroyed from within.

I guess the final verdict on Hood is that her inadequate deck armor, combined with poorly conceived alterations during the 20's and 30's, made her a disasster waiting to happen. Her two assets beign speed and a hard punch, but she was far too vulnerable to plunging fire. Wonder if the Admiralty shared that opinion in 1941?

[ May 19, 2003, 04:11 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[Doodlebug]

Originally posted by JerseyJohn:

Doodlebug

Thanks for the Great Info.

I was aware of a little of the Bismarck's underwater examination but had no knowledge they'd even located the Hood.

Glad you gave so much info on the Hood, hadn't known about the double magazine explosion but it would make sense because many eyewitnesses described her as just vanishing. One of the survivors, don't remember his name but he's the last of them, did recall seeing part of the ship sliding under but he had only a hazy recollection of the explosion itself -- understandable.

Regarding the Bismarck, glad they've ruled out the scuttling theory as the primary cause of it's sinking. After the battering she took and the torpedoes it would be a scary thing to visualize the half sunk wreck still floating till destroyed from within.

I guess the final verdict on Hood is that her inadequate deck armor, combined with poorly conceived alterations during the 20's and 30's, made her a disasster waiting to happen. Her two assets beign speed and a hard punch, but she was far too vulnerable to plunging fire. Wonder if the Admiralty shared that opinion in 1941?

There is a fantastic site out there somwhere with extracts from the Admiralty inquiry, eye witness evidence blue prints-the works. I'll try and track down the link. Of course it's contemporary and draws the conclusion from the facts avauilable at the time.

To clarify one fact you need to distinguish between the shell room and the magazine. It seems that the 15" shells in the shell rooms were not the primary cause of detonation so much as the propellant charges in the magazine. The combustion of several hundred tons of cordite when detonated produced such an overpressure that the flames and gasses could not vent through the available exit routes upwards fast enough to prevent the explosion travelling forward through the hull. That's not to say that the shells didn't go up too but the eye witnesses did say at the time that the midship deck bulged up and flames shot out around the bases of the gun turrets before complete destruction followed.

The survivor you're thinking of is Ted Briggs. Last one alive now. He was a signalman and only just got clear. He certainly saw the bows going down very near to him.

Here's the Admiralty hearing in full

http://www.hmshood.org.uk/reference/official/adm116/adm116-4351_intro.html

They make no conclusion as far as I can see as to whether the deck armour or main belt was penetrated but discuss all the options.

[JerseyJohn]

Doodlebug

Great link, just went to it and liked what I saw, will return many times I'm certain. Once again we are indebted to you.

Ted Briggs is obviously a fine old gentleman, I've enjoyed seeing numerous interveiws he's given over the decades. One thing I really like about him is that later, when watching the Bismarck being hammered, he expressed no joy or sense of revenge. That's the way it ought to be in war. Whether a victory or defeat each battle represents the loss of young lives, no one can say which of them might have contributed something of value if not cut short.

[Shaka of Carthage]

... he expressed no joy or sense of revenge. That's the way it ought to be in war.

ditto

[Liam]

Interesting info Doodlebug,<are you the Battleship buying A&A DoodleBug > goes with my instincts. The Hood's Captain was doing the best thing he could do, close the range and minimize the ships weaknesses and perhaps the Prince Eugen got in a lucky shot on a moving Hood? Perhaps as mentioned seconds would've made all the difference. Perhaps not firing the front armament would've projected the ship an extra few feet away from disaster. A fluke...even for an outdated vulnerable vessel.

Shaka:

We are the Borg you shall be assimilate.<hey they're the best part of Star Trek My belief in a stronger Intel Agency!

JJ:

We outta do like the Ole Reds use to do to petty thieves. Take em out back and shoot em

Nah... but corporate corruption in America is a laugh.

[ May 19, 2003, 07:13 PM: Message edited by: Liam ]

[JerseyJohn]

Liam

I'm normally a very tolerant person, but I think this country has entered a phase where it's okay to be a criminal as long as you're working out of an office. I propose a very simple philosophy: currupt government officials are committing treason, the highest possible crime and corporate executives who trample the American working man are worse than corrupt government officials.

Yes, I think I'm becoming some sort of Bolsheivik. It's just as well, I've been a pretty mediocre capitalist. Perhaps I can receive a Government grant to fund a revolution, I just need to know which forms to fill out.