HMS Hood

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#21

I have seen that it was partly flash and partly procedure. It has been suggested that to increase fire the flash doors were left open to speed the movement of charges. This could have been because a lot of importance placed on speed of shot not accuracy of fire. In peacetime you can judge in competitions speed of shot but not accuracy due to the cost and location to fire main guns.

So when it came to combat the same drills were carried out as they had been in training. When the flash came the doors were open. The navy had known about flash for a very long time, you only have to look at the precaution used in the handling of gunpowder to see this. The design was in use but the training failed, as is quite often the case. Complacency will get you every time.

#22

Ain’t that the unfortunate truth !

#23

Aint that the truth. From Cheiftain onwards the army has used bag charges in their tanks. They’re stowed in water filled containers in the hull and this causes a delay in the loading procedure. The yanks in their abrahams stow a lot of ammo in the turret bustle (sticky-out bit on turret). This has an automatic opening/closing system when firing the gun. During a gunnery competition called the CAT cup they disconnected the doors so it was easier to load. If you’d done a crew commanders course at bovvy you’d have seen the damage it does.

Sorry to go off topic, still looking for the links.

#24

Japan’s Yamato, commissioned December 1941, and her sister ship the Musashi, commissioned August 1942, were the biggest battleships ever built.

#25

Almost completely forgotten part of the highly distressing account regarding devastation of the HMS “Hood”, honorable ladies and gentlemen, is the verity that aforesaid occurrence actually was graphically described by a combat artist Julius C. Schmitz-Westerholt, who was on the deck of the German heavy cruiser “Prinz Eugen”, which have escorted the battleship “Bismarck”, and from whom subsequent watercolor sketches of the battle are originating.

This truthfully rare graphical report of a direct eyewitness of the encounter was originally published in an article that was printed in the notorious “Signal” Magazine (U/Nr. 17, September 194, pp. 24-26).

It has to be mentioned that these illustrations were created throughout duration of the actual combat between the Kriegsmarine and the Royal Navy. After the battle Mr. Schmitz presented his finished work to the commander of a German heavy cruiser “Prinz Eugen”, captain Helmuth Brinkmann, who had confirmed that the artist veritably represented all segments of the battle.

Additional note: due to enormous dimensions of the original German magazine, as well as to inherent technical limitations of my scanning equipment that is momentarily available, precise scan of the most intriguing part of the aforesaid naval duel – scan of the artistic rendering that presents the very moment of the explosion will be posted here posteriously.

“Das Schlachtschiff der ‘King George’ Klasse zieht sich am sinkenden ‘Hood’ vorbei -The battleship of the ‘King George’ class passes the sinking ‘Hood’”.

“Abschuß einer Vollsalve des Schlachtschiffes ‘Bismarck’ mit dem Widerschein auf dem abziehenden Qualm der vorherigen Salve überzeugend dargestellt - The firing of a full salvo by the battleship ‘Bismarck’, with the mirroring of the barrage upon the drifting smoke of the previous salvo.”

I really do hope that I will be able to unearth some more appropriative scanner very soon. Those giant double-pages (single-page dimensions: 35 x 26 cm!) are representing a real scanning nightmare… :frowning:

#26

Are you shore about that,she may be the best in ww1 but in ww2
she was sunk like 5 mintues incountering the bismark:)

#27

Hi, Bangor Fire. The battlecruiser concept might have had utility for a weaker Naval power that was largely land based and wished to employ their fleet as commerce raiders, but for the British which aimed to be a leading Naval power and whose fleet was primarily assigned to a defensive function in protecting oceanic trade routes to an island nation, the battlecruiser as a weapons system does not appear to make such sense to me in respect of the role the Royal Navy was required to carry out. As for the engagement of the Hood with the Bismarck, whilst making no criticism of the bravery and professionalism of the crew of the Hood RIP, there is no way I could view this as “one of the best battles of all time” nor could I from the aspect of a weapon of War view the Hood as “one of the best ships of all time”, since the purpose of the Hood was to sink the enemy ships not be sunk by them. All that said, the Hood was sent on a mission in engaging the Bismarck, for which this class of ship was simply not designed to fulfill, with almost inevitably tragic results.

As for the issue of flash protection problems in the British ships at Jutland, leaving aside the issue that the British ships at Jutland in order to carry more munitions in to battle filled their magazines to the brim and importantly from a safety aspect carried munitions in more vulnerable areas of the ship i.e. outside the magazine areas in order carry more munitions in to battle, what may be of relevance to the hood or not is that munitions hoist system at Jutland on the British ships incorporated less doors than the equivalent German ships so that on the German ships, there was never a clear path for a flashover from the turret to the magazine but on the British ships there could be a clear path for a flashover from the turret to the magazine, when the system was handling munitions.

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

#28

it was pne of the best ships but it was no match to the bismarck it was sunk on its first combate mission.

#29

This is what i dont under stand,the hood was great in ww1 era.
Bye the time of ww2 ,why havet they up dated too a hood-2. If they did, the Hood-2 would of been modern to match the Bismark and the Hood 1 could of been use againsted smaller German ships,any one know why?

#30

Read up on the Battle of the Falkland Islands. That is THE classic use of Battle Cruisers, and indeed the only time they were used as intended. And they proved to be extremely effective.

#31

updated in the sense of ‘modernised hull’ or ‘new construction’?
The battleship building holiday decreed by the Washington Treaty (and the London Treaty which followed it) prevented Britain building any (apart from Nelson and Rodney which were experiments) until 1936 and imposed a 35,000 ton limit on the new designs which the RN did eventually build as the King George V-class (under the Second London Treaty, which was eventually abrogated because the Japanese refused to ratify). There were also limitations on the reconstruction of existing vessels (which is why Courageous and Glorious were eventually converted to aircraft carriers)

#32

If it was a Hood 2 ie a new ship it would still be a battlecruiser and so at a disadvantage against a battleship. Why didn’t the British Government up date the Hood to a better standard ie Hood 1 plus which would have been a sensible thing to do, the reason was they were trying to save money.

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

#33

Hood was scheduled for a major reconstruction in 1941, which would have left her resembling a modified Renown. By 1939 the ship had steamed more than a million miles and her machinery was practically worn out. In particular the secondary armament had no HA capability and was regarded as so much dead weight. As it was, the war situation meant that she could not be spared and little could be done before the end.
The Depression had severely reduced the capacity of the shipbuilding industry and in particular the yards which had experience in warships. Armstrongs went broke in 1927 and were absorbed by Vickers, Coventry Ordnance Works closed in 1925, Beardmores in 1929, Palmers in 1932. The modernisation of the Queen Elizabeths and Warspite was done in the 1930s and to have hurried work along faster would have taken more money and maybe yard capacity than was realistically possible.

#34

Last Hood survivor, OS [later Lt] Ted Briggs, dies age 85
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/britainatwar/3141076/Ted-Briggs-last-survivor-of-the-HMS-Hood-dies-at-85.html

#35

Now i understand .
bye saving money ,it nearly cost them the war.
Hope they learn from ww2.:slight_smile:

#36

one of the best ships but got sunk in its first battle

#37

It’s first battle was the bombardment of the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir in 1940.

#38

Re Hood: She was officially designated “fast battleship”, and it was envisaged that she would oppose enemy battleships in combat. True, she was laid down as a battlecruiser, but was extensively up-armoured in the 1930s, bringing her displacement up to ~42,000 tons. Had that chance-in-a-million shot not landed, it was quite conceivable that Bismarck would’ve been sunk by the combined efforts of Hood and Prince of Wales. As for the battlecruiser concept, it was the idea of “Jackie” Fisher (1st Sea Lord at the time) that a fast, heavily-armed vessel be deployed ahead of the fleet to pursue and destroy the enemy’s cruisers. He never meant them to slug it out on the gun line, but those big guns were a fatal attraction for admirals wanting overwhelming firepower. The RN kept the three they had left in 1939 (Hood, Renown & Repulse). Hood, of course, was employed as a battleship; Repulse gave an excellent account of herself before being overwhelmed by Japanese torpedo bombers off Malaya; and Renown was extensively modernised and had a highly successful war.

Cheers,
Cliff