Bismarck, Yamato or Arizona

[bertle]

Originally Posted by Wulfmann

OK, I will quote Siegfred Breyer's Schlachtshiffe und

Another whine is Hood was thinly armored. She was actually heavily armored and was more a fast battleship than a battlecruiser (Her original design was strengthened after the 3 ships blew up at Jutland really making her a BB). Her weakness was in the hull design being way to lite. Her armor was increased by over 50% when redesigned after Jutland but the hull remained the same. It was this weakness that caused her loss. Bismarck could pierce her armor at battle ranges but when the torpedo warhead magazine was hit the explosion broke her weak back. The resulting huge magazine explosion (more like a fast fire) made the results more spectacular and much faster but she would have sunk even had they not ignited.
However, media tends to edit things to their level of thinking and then never corrects itself as if admitting they were ignorant is worse than continuing inaccurate reporting.

Wulfmann

So when you say whine you mean "incorrect" because I don't see how people are whining when they say "thin armour" but it's ok to say "weak hull". If your point is that "thin armour" is a poor excuse then so is "weak hull". But at the end of the day i've yet to meet a British person who actually thinks the Hood was a good ship.

Originally Posted by Wulfmann

She (He!) sailed out took on the best the enemy had beat them and was then pounded into submission but never yielded and now rest proudly on the bottom still receiving visitors in awe of her and making international headlines almost seventy years later. Only Titanic is in the same class as Bismarck.

The Hood was not our best ship. It's bizarre that you're apparantly buying into WWII era British propeganda. The hood was a poor mans battleship. A battlecruiser design known for exploding turned into a pseudobattle ship that had gross weight on its side but not design. It was rushed out because it made the public happy and its fire control wasn't even working properly. The same reason the Hood was rushed into its ill fated battle was the same reason Bismark became so famous. Churchill and the British government played up the threat of the German battleships beyond all proportion because the Royal Navy really wanted some prestige that had been missing since the mess that was Jutland. Bismark and Tirpitz were turned into boogeymen that needed destroying at all costs. For publicity.

Now ignoring all the people that have to die in these battles my personal match up would have been a King George V class vs Bismark. Only 14 inch guns but Bismarks armour was nothing special.

Against any of the modern American battleships she wouldn't have stood a chance.