BB classification ?

[bookworm_020]

Originally Posted by Hanomag

Thanks Again Kaluens!

Hey Bookworm do you remember how much renown she was worth?? :hmm:

1800 verses 1400 for a KGV

[Christoff]

While reading a number of Hoods' Crew members diaries, of the ships' shakedown cruise period, One stated that they reached a speed of 36-37 knotts at flank in good weather.
Their's a lot of different information on nearly all ships speeds, armour, armement and displacement.
Of course by the time of Hood V Bismark, as I said the Hoods' old reciprocating steam engines were, for all intents and purposes, Knakered and nowhere near capable of pushing her any faster than 28-30 knotts.
However she was re-fitted during her life, just not the full re-fit she was so desperately in need of.
As an example of mis-information, it's stated by many sources than Hood was not fitted with fire-control RaDaR sets, as I stated in my original post, She was, but her crew had no time to be fully trained on them, as her re-fit was cut short in order for her to leave port and intercept Bismark.
Also a number of sources rated Hood at ony 42,000 tonnes, This is also wrong, That was her last design displacement she actually went over that during construction by almost 7,000 tonnes, due to extra belt and turret face armour being added also thicker driveshafts were used.
A lot of the information on Hood is from design material and her original blueprints.
By the time Hood was completed she had gone through massive changes from her original design, and was a very different ship than was first envivsioned.
I would also like this oportunity to state my own feelings about the so-called flawed concept of the BattleCruiser, In short I dont think they were used correctly, Jutland was a disaster for the design, but only because the ships were used as Battleships were, ie in line ahead formation, this opened them up to long-ranged shellfire which directly falls upon deck armour.
BCs' were designed to be 'let off the leash' just as you would a guard dog, to get in close to the enemy vessel/s where deck armour becomes secondary to belt armour, ie close range fire is most likely to act upon belt armour and not fall upon deck armour.

Anyway, I wouldn't mind seeing a proper WWII version of the Queen Elizabeth in SH3 sometime as all we have right now is the Revenge class which were not re-fitted, so the two classes looked very different come WWII
Here's a link to one of the most famous QE class BBs' which my Grandad was serving on during the Battle of Jutland, some good pics of her before and after her fe-fit, you can see clearly that her twin stacks became just one...

http://www.hmsbarham.com/

Enjoy, I'm off to play on my Wii for a bit now, on my new 50" plasma telly

[Sailor Steve]

As to actual versus rated top speed, I've not seen any of the reports you cite, but I can't argue it as I haven't seen anything to deny it either. I do know that the original BCs, the Invincible class, were claimed to have made 29 knots on a good day, but according to people who were there they were lucky to get close to their rated 26 knots, and the claims were from the Admiralty to the press to make them look good.

Displacement differences: that is true of all ships. The Design Displacement of the Iowa class was 45,000 tons. The rated Standard Displacement was around 48,000 tons, and in full battle dress they actually topped 57,000 tons.

As for the concept of the battlecruiser, it's wise to remember that when the first ones were built in 1908 they were called 'First Class Armoured Cruisers'. The 'Battlecruiser' designation wasn't given to them until the great re-rating of 1913.

I agree about their misuse at Jutland, but then so do most historians. The problem wasn't the belt armour, though; all three of the victims were seen to take turret hits, which led the experts to suspect that the blast was running down the barbette straight to the magazines. This was bolstered by the leaking of the fact that they were pinning the anti-blast doors open to facilitate faster ammo handling, due to the observed higher rate of fire from the Germans at Dogger Bank the year before. The funny part is the Germans came very close to losing one of their battlecruisers at that battle for the same reason, and had spent the following year installing automatic blast doors on all their ships.