Any naval historians here? My friend insists that the Hood is a Battleship, not a Battlecruiser. He says that it had Battleship levels of armour, and a battleship main armamament, but wiki says it was a Battlecruiser.
I'm trying to classify it for a naval game I am working on, and I want to put it in the right category. Oh, and is it true that it had the most armour of any British battleship of the time?
>>46080308
The Brits called it a BC, though it could also be considered a fast battleship. The terminology could get a little fuzzy due to the fact that every navy seemed to have slightly different definitions of where to draw the line between BB and BC.
>>46080308
She is a battlecruiser for all I care.
Still, those are just classifications that vary by classification system.
>>46080308
It's a Battlecruiser - speed of a cruiser, armour and weapons of a Battleship. Classifications were rapidly changing at this time, but we classed it a BC.
No captcha, a mobile phone mast is not a street sign!
>>46080308
>>46054548
The entire point of a battlecruiser was battleship armament on a fast ship. It's a WWI thing.
She was classified as a battlecruiser, lighter armoured than any of the RN BBs of the time, though made up for some of that with sloping.
Compare with the Revenge, or the King Gerorge V class, even the Nelson class (though those were massively compromised because lol treaty)
Battlecruiser.
While the HMS Hood had up to 12" of armor on certain sections, it didn't have the amount of overall protection that would be expected of a battleship.
That and the navy who owned and operated it called it a battlecruiser, so you might want to take their word for it over your friend's.
>>46080475
So what ships are these?
I know from KanColle that the left one is an Akitsushima class and I think the right one is a Chitose class, but what's the middle?
>>46080308
A Battlecruiser that had not finished its upgrade to Battleship.
>>46080308
Battlecruiser. They skimped on her armor to save weight, unlike the Carolinas, and she was never extensively rebuilt like the Kongous were.
>>46080563
The Navies who didn't own it called it a Battleship, and it had 12 inches in all or nothing protection, pioneering the new scheme.
>>46080413
nope. the whole point of, and problem with, BCs is that they traded armor for speed. battlecruisers by their nature had the speed and armor of a cruiser, and the firepower of a battleship. Which meant that they were both A. the first to tangle with the largely intact enemy battleships and B. too flimsy to survive getting return fire on them. This was compounded by the british inability to ever use battlecruisers for their designed role, and instead made them fence with BBs/
Of course, this is ww1. by ww2 engines had gotten good enough you didn't need to cut huge slabs of armor to get a battleship to >30 knots, so you could call it whatever you wanted.
>>46080308
Actual Naval Historian here.
The Hood was designated as a Battlecruiser. It doesn't have enough armour to class itself as a Battleship. The Super-Hoods would have been full on Battleships though.
>>46080714
Except the Hood was a Battleship, its armour outclassed everything when it was built in the 20s.
>>46080308
One thing I have learned through study is that she was actually pretty well armored - the shot that killed her came in at a 23 degree angle. She wasn't wounded by plunging fire. The shot was just very, very lucky; hitting her above the main belt and just barely missing hitting the deck armor (either of which would have likely stopped the shot.)
>>46080907
Actually it was very rapidly outclassed by the generation of Warships built in the immediate aftermath of WWII. That spurred the design of the 'Super-Hoods' which were there due to the expected arms race with the US and Japan.
>>46080907
Hood: launched 1918, 12 inch belt
Revenge & Queen Elizabeth: launched 1913, 13 inch belt
>>46081078
Total thickness isn't everything. Hood angled her armor, ironically one of the first to protect against plunging fire. The QE class did not have that protection scheme. In terms of immunity zone, the Hood was better protected then a QE, and much faster to boot.
>>46080907
Except, you know, actual contemporary battleship designs. Hood was already obsolete by the time Nagato was launched in 1919.
Hood was classed as a battlecruiser, she operated mainly in battlecruiser divisions, and in terms of proportion of her overall tonnage she actually had less armor than German battlecruisers. The Admiralty was aware that Hood's armor scheme was fundamentally flawed and that it would be ineffective against heavier guns than 14" even after substantial refits and additions, but against their own reservations they fielded her against Bismarck because they didn't have enough ships in the 14" and above range that were fast enough to give chase.
>>46080308
Contrast the Hood with the immediately proceeding class of battlecruisers and the contemporary class of battleships
Hood:
4x2 15 in guns
12 in belt armor
15 in turret armor
31 kn
Renown class
3x2 15in guns
6 in belt armor
9 in Turret armor
31 kn
Revenge
4x2 15in guns
13in Belt armor
13 in turret armor
21 kn
Armament half way between the two
Armor more like a battleship
Speed more like a battlecruiser
Add to that that the closest ship that actually matches the Hood specs was the Dunkerque-class battleship that the french built during the 20s.
On balance I would lean a little more toward the battleship classification, but with the addendum that she was significantly faster than most of the other battleships built during this period.
>>46081306
The Nagato's armor scheme was horrible. Vertical armor, no sloping, no 'all or nothing' protection. Hood outclassed the Nagato.
>>46081532
Let's be honest, sloping armour came slowly to warships as it did to tanks.
>>46080707
It wasn't all-or-nothing. It was a shitty transnational schema that was worse than AoN or the old belt scheme.
>>46081306
Hood was a good match for the Bismarck. Armor was comparable, armament was comparable, speed was comparable. It's actually telling that the German ship was so badly engineered that despite grossing 10,000 tons over Hood, she was slower, and not as well built. Her stern fell off at the welds from the torpedo courtesy of her poor three prop design.
>>46081577
Lols what? You should do some research friend, the admiralty wasn't happy with Hood's armor, but they knew it was still better then anything else at the time.
>>46081600
The Germans never put that much effort into their surface fleet. Hitler was fixated on land war and never much cared for the war at sea.
>>46080714
Properly speaking only British ones did.
German BCs traded no armour, had equivalent or superior speed, and thanks to superior gunnery doctrine, fast-firing high-performance guns and the best AP shells of WW1 meant that in practical terms no firepower over their competitors was sacrificed.
Certainly, a British BC could never realistically face down any enemy BB, but a German BC could quite capably tangle with a British BB.
>>46081620
It wasn't even remotely comparable to contemporary US armour schema,and displayed considerable flaws when compared to older German BCs and BBs; *especially* in terms of underwater protection and flooding control.
It was vastly better than preceeding British Battlecruisers, most certainly. It was *not*, however, particularly impressive when measured on a more objective scale.
>>46081685
What US armor scheme was there in 1922? The Colorado was the best the US had, and it was a slow boat at 21 knots. Hood had speed, firepower, protection. It was a revolutionary ship that the Americans decided to copy once the US Navy realized the standard type BB was outclassed by every other nations designs.
>>46081909
And in one fell swoop you demonstrate a complete lack of understanding as to just *why* they had that 21-kt speed, the actual value of the ships' relative protective schema, and the utterly ludicrous idea that the Standards were somehow outclassed before true fast battleships appeared in the mid-late '30s.
To say the Hood is revolutionary is also utterly false, given that every aspect of it was simply an evolutionary step from previous designs. The ship's capabilities in and of itself was not vastly ahead of it's contemporary (albeit never-finished) Opponents, the Mackensens, in anything except the fact that it was actually completed rather than put eternally on hold in favour of the Land war (Though Hood's sisters shared that particular sad fate.)
Further, your vaunted armour scheme was grossly flawed. The armour sloping that was waxed lyrical about was a terrible design aspect, as it significantly increased the area of the ship that had to be protected by it's frankly pissant deck armour (The bulk of which, I may add, was literally only added late in the design as an afterthought) in an era where gunnery ranges were at the point of near-guaranteeing plunging fire in a typical open-sea engagement, not to mention the area actually covered by the full 12" strake thickness was dangerously small compared to the much fuller areas on contemporary BBs, and even older German BCs.
Torpedo protection was still derived from the Admiralty's flawed prewar testing methodology that proved to leave ships very vulnerable to underwater damage compared to both German and USN underwater contemporary protection schemes. *especially* the German stuff, if you even so much as glance at the war record of it's BCs and BBs.
The Hood was a powerful ship, yes. It was not, however, the amazing world-beater you so strenuously claim, and it possessed a significant spread of design flaws that rendered it weaker in practice than it's sheer displacement and paper numbers would imply.
>>46080657
That's just a fuel ship
>>46082256
It's got a lot of planes for a fuel ship.
I had a click around wikipedia and think it might be Kamikawa Maru
>>46082392
Only other pic I have of it. Don't know anything about it, just saved the pic because it's a well built model
>>46082555
Yep, I'm convinced it's a seaplane tender. Repair facilities at the front, launching catapults at the back. Profile seems to fit Kamikawa Maru.
>>46081630
Somewhat reasonable considering that Germany had no overseas holdings or major trade routes (as a result of being at war with pretty much everyone) to defend, and their two most significant enemies were France and Russia and both were reachable by land.
>>46082249
Standards were a bad design. US showed no real innovation in Battleships until the North Carolina. Standards were just more of the same, and could be outrun by the fleets of most other navies.
>>46083640
>they were bad cuz I say so
pls go
>>46083640
You quite plainly have no understanding of the doctrine of the time, nor of the conditions and requirements that necessitated the design decisions that led to the Standard concept - nor, it seems do you have any realistic understanding of their physical capabilities. There is not a single respectable naval historian who does and would still consider the standards to be poor designs.
At this point i'm half-expecting that you've been possessed by the Ghost of Jackie Fisher and are moments away from screaming SPEED IS ARMOUR! SPEED IS ARMOUR! with your head rotating rapidly and steam coming out your ears.
>>46083640
>US showed no real innovation in Battleships
Turboelectric drives called, you're a gigantic faggot.
Among other things.
>>46085190
>>46083640
Forget turboelectric drive. The fucking All Or Nothing protective scheme says he's a faggot.
>>46085213
>>46085190
>>46085107
He's just salty that his Shipwaifu got BTFO.
>>46085213
>>46085190
And Steam turbines where most of the steam isn't outside the pipes.
US Ships did have a serious problem of exploding while not in Combat. Mississippi, Iowa for example. There were a lot of deadly fires and explosions on US battleships, most attributed to poor procedures and loading equipment.
Hey shipfags, what was the best carrier and why is it the Yorktown?
>>46086420
Well, they deserved it.
You don't see that sort of thing on non-warmongering, non-imperialist powers like the UK.
>>46086479
>Best carrier
>Not an Essex class
What are you talking about?
>>46085107
Jackie Fisher was right though, everyone started making faster ships. Jackie was a visionary. And the US North Carolina and Alaska were basically Battlecruisers. Carolinas sacrificed armour for speed, Alaska wasn't even protected against its own guns.
>>46086489
>Carriers
>Ignoring that the British pioneered every major carrier advance, up to and including the angled flight deck.
>>46086420
Er, no.
Iowa's boom was decades post-war when the institutional doctrines for safe and sensible Big Gun handling had nearly been lost. Mississippi, while a legitimate fuckup, is not indicative of a trend of any sort. And the fact it didn't take the whole ship with it, like Mutsu or half the RN, is a testament to the ship's sound design.
You seem to be ignoring that every other nation tended to have even more fires and explosions due to ammo handling and cherrypicking out the fact that the US's figures are non-zero.
>>46086530
No, everyone started making faster ships because engine technology and hydrodynamic theory advanced rapidly between the wars. Speed was never Armour as Fisher so expounded. Jackie was right about some things, and very progressive, but any visionary traits he had were balanced in equal amounts by acid-trip concepts like the Outrageous siblings.
Calling the NCs Battlecruisers is pretty goddamn disingenuous given their contemporary's relative armour and speeds, too. And calling Alaska a battlecruiser isn't really right. "Embarassment" would be more accurate.
>>46086489
Not class, actual individual ships. That old gal took so much battle damage the nips thought they sunk her three damn times. No other ship was tougher.
>>46086684
To be fair, a lot of that was the nips assuming Yank damcon was the same as their own abysmal standard. They thought they sunk her because they would have fucked up repairing it themselves.
>>46086684
"Tougher" isn't the sole virtue in an aircraft carrier. And just because a vessel hasn't been knocked about doesn't mean it can't take some lumps and keep ticking.
Any given Essex class carrier could have taken the Yorktown. If you want to say "best carrier", the Yorktown's not a good pick. Hell, the Enterprise is a better one if you want to stick to pre-war constructed American aircraft carriers.
>>46086420
>US Ships did have a serious problem of exploding while not in Combat. Mississippi, Iowa for example. There were a lot of deadly fires and explosions on US battleships, most attributed to poor procedures and loading equipment.
I came running here from IRC to call you a pindick moron fuckdink.
>>46086708
One thing I never got about the war in the Pacific was that at first, the Japanese beat the shit out of the US forces, especially in night combat. What the hell changed with their tactics that a grand task force with Yamato at its helm got turned back by three destroyer escort?
>>46086799
>One thing I never got about the war in the Pacific was that at first, the Japanese beat the shit out of the US forces, especially in night combat. What the hell changed with their tactics
Not a damn thing. A big part of it was:
1. Our torpedoes started fucking working.
2. We figured out that the Long Lance existed.
3. Radar.
>>46086672
The North Carolina, and to an extent the Iowa, had poor protective systems that were compromises for the speed the ships were designed for. The NC and especially the Iowa were famous for being very poor seaboats. Now the RN never had the toughest armour ever, no one can make that claim, but pound for pound they made the best ships. The KGV for example, had better throw weight then a Bizzy, superior armor, and was only two knots slower, despite grossing 20,000 tons less. Somehow the germans managed to fuck up an entire heavy cruisers worth of weight while designing their supership. Hell, Treaty battleships pummeled her into oblivion. RN gunnery was on point that day, silencing the ship quickly, and then blasting her in a punitive execution.
The US built good ships, but it is really sad to see how everyone treats the RN as second rate in WW2. Their WW1 QEs and BL15 mk1s served with distinction in every theatre, the KGV was rightly feared, and the fleet air arm was damned impressive. No one was better at ASUW either for that matter, although the US had the best silent service in the world it must be said. Had the British not been trying desperatey to obey the washington treaty, they're battleships would have been insanely good. The N3 would have been a match for the 1920 South Dakota class, and the Lexington would have been hard pressed by the G3.
>>46086799
>>46086810
This.
Also, in the beginning of the war, the primary US forces the Nips faces was the Asiatic fleet - a collection of Heroically crewed but old, unsupported, outnumbered and obsolete rustbuckets, for the most part, which were up against the very best the nips could throw at them.
Also MacArthur royally fucking up the defence of the Phillipines. That didn't help either.
>>46086799
Because of the surrounding operational context. Early in the war, the Japanese had local superiority, or at least rough parity. They weren't worried about a surprise fleet or air armada coming over and fucking them up.
By Samar, you had a long, unbroken string of defeats, and the new Japanese mindset was that everywhere the Americans were, they were there in overwhelming numbers. It wasn't just a trio of destroyers and some DEs, backed up by a few ineffectual planes; there HAD to be more on the way, about to push their shit in. And the harder the tin cans fought, the more they reinforced that impression that there was some sort of massive counter-stroke on the way, and imminently. After all, why else wouldn't they run from a force that outmassed them 10:1 at least?
>>46086812
...you are actually serious.
The KGVs were a goddamn clusterfuck.
Throw weight is irrelevant when the lower caliber shells hamstrings penetration, and the quad turrets were a constant maintenance nightmare.
20,000 tons lighter? Sheer unadulterated bullshit. Try 7,000. 10k at absolute worst. And that's not even counting the several thousand tons the KGVs had in hidden undeclared water armour.
>RN gunnery was on point that day
For the first time since Trafalgar, it would seem.
>Treaty battleships pummeled her into oblivion.
Not too hard when you outnumber your target by the entire Home Fleet to one.
It really speaks to how sad the whole KGV class was that it only barely compares to a design that was a half-assed update of a pre-WW1 design.
>>46086553
>LaughingGlorious.png
>>46086812
>Had the British not been trying desperately to not go bankrupt, their battleships would have been pretty good..
FTFY
>>46086920
The KGV was a great ship, the 14 inch gun was a great weapon, most of the turret problems were down to fitting out (Every Battleship ever had this) and the British Admiralty was probably one of the only services that actually was honest about ROF on their ships. When people quote 3 rds per minute from the Bizzy, it's hilarious, since the best documented rate was about 1.2 per minute from the Class. The brits actually achieved 2 per minute in the KGV, in spite of their Quad turrets. In the final battle of the Bizzy, the KGV seemed to fire just fine, and ditto the Nelsol. As the battle wore on, there were some failures attributed to drill procedure, but that happened to every ship.
So yeah, I am serious, the Brits had some of the best ships of WW2, which fought in every ocean. Had the KGV not been hamstrung by the Washington treaty, it probably would have had 9x15, 12x14, or 9 x 16. The 14 inch gun was a compromise more for the treaty then anything else, and the boats excelled at using their allocated weight correctly. Bizzy was at least 10,000 heavier if you use deep load figures, and as mentioned, less throw, less armour.
>>46086799
Poor radar, poor damage control, too little aviation fuel, crap AA, and unsustainable loss rates. The USN just had to not have a catastrophic fuckup, and they did way better than that.
>>46087139
The KGV was a poor ship, the 14"gun was a mediocre and outclassed weapon, the turret problems persisted the entire war as the Due of York's action chasing down Scharnhorst showed (and the RN suffered this far more than any other navy bar maybe the Italians), and the British Admiralty were some of the best professional bullshitters on the face of the planet, as performance of the DNC and others during the washington and london conferences proved.
Rodnol (NOT Nelson) and KGV performed just fine wailing on a ship that was disabled, surrounded and outnumbered, and even then the most notable part of their performance was the fact that Rodney's captain thought it was a clever idea to try and Torpedo Bismarck, which highlights just what kind of overwhelming advantage in operational strength they had at that battle.
The Brits had some good but ultimately unexceptional ships during WW2, and their best performances ultimately derived form the exceptional performance and sheer balls of their much maligned Fleet Air Arm, *not* their capital ships.
Had the KGV not been hamstrung by Washington... it never would have existed in the first damn place. As you said, it was a compromise in all aspects, and ultimately proved to be a poor one relative to other treaty warships like the Sodaks or the Richilieus.
I *was* using Deep load figures for the Bizzy comparison, thank you very much. I'm not a silly little "Standard displacement" shitbird. And that was still generously not taking into account their undeclared liquid protective belts; since reliable data still isn't available on those - staying a state secret for decades after the ships were scrapped will do that. So much for the RN being honest about their ship's capabilities.
I'll just leave this here.
>http://www.combinedfleet.com/baddest.htm
>>46083460
They should had focused on a shitload more subs, really, since Germany's sole problem is blockade.
Why did the Nelson and Rodney look so stupid?
>>46087975
One turret unable to fire in any direction save left or right. It looks like it might bow off the turret in front of it by accident.
B6
>>46087975
It was easy to concentrate the armor if the turrets were all in more or less the same place.
>>46088009
The X turret was also used to shoot over the shoulder until they got sick of having to replace the windows on the bridge. They were only allowed to fire in that manner at low elevations.
>>46080728
Another actual Naval Historian here....
This guy is right.
The HMS Hood is a Battlecruiser by not only the standard definition of a Battlecruiser, but also by the Royal Navy's own ship designations.
Your friend is an idiot.
>>46089341
Where are you based? I'm currently writing up a piece for the 75th anniversary of our navy this November.
>>46087482
Post it on /k/
Watch the fireworks.
>>46087139
>9 x 16
I should hope not. The 16" guns on Nelsol and Rodnol were awful weapons. Probably the poorest examples of their size of any nation at the time.
