sunk by captain von Tiesenhausen’s U-331 boat in a torpedo attack. one of the most famous as well as horrifying films of a battleship capsizing and blowing up.
[video](http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7009975008653689943)
Assuming it was from within, what would cause the explosion as she rolled level with the water?
Or was she destroyed from without?
Were there crew left on her when she was destroyed (I hope not)?
In the video said 2/3 of the crew were lost, I suppose the fast rolling over and explosion did not gave time to abandon ship.
Telling video actually.
The battleships made in Britain in that period 1910-1920 seems to had the bad tendency to explode catastrophically when hit like the Hood and ships destroyed in Jutland
Thanks.
I missed that.
I wasn’t getting audio on the video.
from within. her magazine exploded. that’s where all the shell’s and gun powder are stored. the Hood suffered a similar explosion. note the smoke coming out the funnel. the engine room was still running. no time to shut it down. that may have been what touched off the Magazine. over 800 men died in this explosion. .
it was an Ariel bomb that hit the USS Arizona’s magazine at pearl harbor. 1175 died in that one.
Would that be a consequence of the roll, such as moving explosives or fuzes so that they went off when she went through 90 degrees, or of something that was started earlier and happened to go off then?
probably. when they roll a lot of hardware breaks lose and rolls as well. the engines/boilers and the large guns are held in place by gravity. so when she rolls they go to. the large guns fall out of the turrets. it only takes a spark to set off gun powder.
There obviously has to be a big allowance for rolls and gravity holding things in place on a ship.
Is it the case that once a roll passes, say, 60 (or whatever) degrees, that it’s exceeded the design limits and past that point bad things might start to happen?
exactly !!! and you best not be around when they do. all ships, military or civilian are designed to take heavy rolls from the sea. but not this. the designers think in a heavy roll over she won’t survive anyway.
despite the explosion, more than you might think survived.
Cold sea water contacting a ships boiler under normal operating pressure is susposed to cause the boilers skin to fail catastophiclly. Perhaps that initiated the explosion? Looking over the vidio several times there actually seem to to be several explosions in a ragged sequence. Does anyone else have that impression?
we’ll never know. but something ignited the magazine. shells fall out of their racks can create a spark. the gun power probably went first then took out shells. its just to catasrophic to really tell. Ive seen that video a 1000 times in war movies and documentries. FINALLY i know which one it was…
I tend to agree with this…I think it has something to do with the water and boilers, but there was fire…not sure if a steam explosion would combine with a fire ball??? The fire ball I guess is the powder burning. Amazing footage, Thanks for the post.
here’s some still photos:
[link](http://www.worldisround.com/articles/16107/)
I don’t know. still looks like a mag to me…
Hotlinking not allowed…
Yea…your probably right, thats a heck of an explosion.
I can’t see any steam can you???
Due to haveing no blast doors between the turret and the magazine. An explosion on the turret would cause a flash back to the magazine causing an instant ship wide explosion.
Bit of a design flaw for the designso f the time.
found it. it was the after magazine that blew. i found her web site including a video that confirms its with narration
click photos and videos. next page click video footage. then click video 1. its a download to windows media player. the narrator says it was the mag. why it blew is unknown. but was she a battleship or a battle cruiser??? big difference. the hood was a cruiser. designed for speed. to get speed you have to lighten the Armour protection. thats why she blew. thin skin. but very fast speed.