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Originally Posted by TarJak
As the only ship of this class sunk by torpedoes, HMS Prince of Wales was in Malayan waters by 5 or 6 eels dropped by Japanese aircraft it is hard to say exactly what it would take for a U-boat to kill them. the likelyhood is that these torpedoes were impact pistols aimed at the side of the ship rather than chancing a magnetic pistol shot which would be a tough one to master for an airlaunched torp in WWII using Japanese technology at the time.
Whilst most battleships of this class carried some of the heaviest armour of any British ship afloat at the time. Most of the thickness was on the sides and not under the bottom to the keel, so theoretically 2 keelbuster shots using magnetic pistols could cause enough damage for the keel to break and therefore sink the ship. Additionally it may be theoretically possible for the first torpedo to cause enough damage for the second to be able to pass into a vital area like the boilers or magazines and cause a catastrophic explosion.
I think however it is probably not the most likely outcome but stranger things have happened. The main decided as to what sinks a ship is not necessarily how many torpedoes hit it but what they hit and what gets damaged and how badly when they hit.
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Precisely
Historically...torpedoes fired at ships with armoured protection were generally set at 'impact' because they were perceived to be the most reliable
