Text 17258, 97 rader
Skriven 2008-06-05 21:23:39 av Ward Dossche (2:292/854)
  Kommentar till text 17200 av Bob Ackley (1:300/3)
Ärende: Re: Guns
================
BA>BA>> It's quite likely something similar happened
BA>BA>> to HMS Hood early in WW II.
 
BA>WD> A shell hit "yes", but not a turret explosion. Bad armour ...
 
BA> Said shell obviously penetrated the turret.
 
No it did not.
 
BA> The explosion travelled down the
BA> powder hoist to the magazine and the resulting blast effectively blew off
BA> the whole aft end of the ship.
 
No it did not.
 
The mortal hit struck midships
 
My appologies for bothering you with excerpts from the admiralty's inquiry into
the sinking of HMS Hood.
 
Here's a statement by captain Leach of the HMS Prince of Wales:
 
*********************************************************************
We opened fire half a minute approximately after "Hood" and as far as I can
recollect it was about the third or fourth salvo from the enemy which caused
the explosion in "Hood". I happened to be looking at "Hood" at the moment when
a salvo arrived and it appeared to be across the ship somewhere about the
mainmast. In that salvo there were, I think, two shots short and one over, but
it may have been the other way round. But I formed the impression at the time
that something had arrived on board "Hood" in a position just before the
mainmast and slightly to starboard
*********************************************************************
 
And this is a statement by Lt Commander Rowell, also on the HMS Prince of
Wales:
 
*********************************************************************
34. Did you observe the state of "X" and "Y" turrets at the moment of the
explosion?
 
Yes, I was actually looking at the "Hood" at the moment when she was hit.
I saw nothing unusual with her after turrets which had very shortly before
fired a salvo.
*********************************************************************
 
If you know how HMS Hood looked like (I built several models of it when I was
younger) please note that when Cpt Leach mentions "mainmast" he means the one
2/3 down the ship behind the 2nd funnel, and not the heavy build-up of the
superstructure.
 
So:
 
1) The deadly hit occured on the boatdeck, confirmed by other witnesses on
   HMS Prince of Wales
2) The turrets X and Y were intact during the sinking, i.e. not hit, which
   occured immediately.
 
Burkhard Baron von Müllenheim-Rechberg, the senior surviving officer from
Bismarck and gunnery officer, confirms seeing that HMS Hood cracked in 2 parts
at about the location mentioned by Cpt Leach with stern and bow pointing
upwards and both forward turrets firing a last salvo, probably initiated by the
shorting of electric circuits.
 
So we know the main turrets were not hit and did not explode.
 
BA> The WW I examples I noted (HMS Indefatigable
BA> and HMS Queen Elizabeth, I think) were also caused by enemy (German) hits
BA> on a turret which penetrated the turret and that explosion travelled down
BA> the powder hoists to set off the magazine.
 
Not HMS Queen Elisabeth but HMS Queen Mary exploded during the Battle of
Jutland. There exists an incredible good photograph of its explosion.
 
BA> HMS Hood was very proudly lightly armored.  I don't know what the Royal
BA> Navy's thinking was when she was designed, I suspect they wanted big guns
BA> on a fast hull.  Armor is heavy and therefore reduces a ship's top speed
BA> by causing it to draw more water due to the weight.
 
Exactly. They wanted battle cruisers to match the German WW1 battle cruisers,
but the latter had sufficient armour. Hood's specifications called for a speed
of 30 knotts ... pretty fast at the time when her keel was laid down.
 
By the time she was commissioned the war was over and RN battle cruisers were a
relic from the past. [the lastones ever to be built were Scharnhorst and
Gneisenau and we know what happened to those]
 
What I don't understand is why the admiralty, well knowing the weakness of the
horizontal plating, sent that ship into battle. Shore shelling OK, but not a
slugging contest.
 
HMS King George V, of which HMS Prince of Wales was a sister ship, was in Scapa
Flow and only deployed after the Battle of Denmark Strait.
 
 \%/@rd

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