New Mexico-class Battleship

Let us for grins check back on what you are saying:

and

OK T.A. Let’s see the RN’s first two investigation, as well as the designers and builders conclude the Hood blew up by a belt hit. You bring up Mr. Jurgens fine. I’ll note he is a Nathan disciple on the shell angle fall change with plate penetration fad closely coupled with fancy computer complex angle calculation fad. NONE of which is backup by evidence of actual penetration and NONE of it take into account of a known but impossible to calculate plate overmatch. To refresh people’s memory overmatch happens when the shell is larger than the plate rendering angle / complex angle penetration meaningless as the plate fails in an oblong hole perpendicular to the plate. Clearly the Bis 15” shell is FAR FAR FAR FAR larger than the 2” deck and max 9” side of the Hood. But hey this would put the fancy computer fad school into fantasy lala land of pretend, can’t have that can we? But I digress.
Here is Jurnen’s conclusion Yet another possibility is that it passed through the 178mm belt before detonating in essentially the same place. </SPAN>
See the word BELT? Thanks. YEP BELT, and not even your TDS system but BELT yep the armor BELT.
Also as a final reply to the lower belt is not a belt but a portion of the TDS. I have two books in front of me: Iowa, and Yamato. That piece of armor that goes from far above the waterline right down to the bottom of the ship is wait for it…. Call a BELT. In fact the Iowa book talks about the lower armor of former designs and future designs of the Montana all as BELT armor even though 2/3 of this BELT is below the waterline… So clearly “current thought” is the BELT is armor meant to protect hull of the ship from vertical damage. I don’t have the KG5 / Vanguard book yet but I bet the author of that book calls the armor plate from far above the water line right down to the bottom of the ship a wait for it….. a BELT. So when is a Belt not a Belt, answer only when you feel like trying to backup a statement about damage via belt vs deck. As it is EASY to show BB sink in general due to destruction of belt armor that protects the hull.

The Bis has the best main belt / turtle deck design in resisting fire from a BB the topic of this discussion. The shell under the main belt is, dunno how good or bad the Bis protection is vs other contemporary ships or the NM. IMO probably inferior to newer BB, probably equal to ships fighting all the way up to the time she went under the water.

 

Source PLS.

So if it doesn't support you it's a fad?

How do you know?

I think at least most of us know what overmatch is. However it's not clear to me where you get the idea about plate failure. Can you document it? I know the case I've seen was rather contrary to what you are saying.

That's an opinion that is not widely shared.

Agreed.

Perhaps another quote would be more relevant. From: Loss of HMS Hood Part 2
" An intact penetration of the 305mm main belt would therefore have been improbable, although either of the thinner sections would have been easily perforated."

And your point is? It was common for most BBs to have a significant portion of their belt below the waterline.

Actually many people use "belt" when "main belt" would be more accurate. It's a for of short hand that leads to occasional confusion.

Not according to the title.

 

Nice. Very interesting read. Surprised to learn that the Japanese followed a strict rule when abandoning ship. First the Emperor's picture would be removed (wow), then the wounded. Then crew.

 

Okay, here’s a mass of semi-random comments. I guess it’s verging on necro-post at this point. I’m sure I’ll be repeating what others have said in some instances, but oh well.
There are few instances in which an old battleship would be on equal footing in a gunfight with a big, modern battleship. New Mexico would be at a disadvantage against Bismarck for a number of reasons, but I’ll highlight one. The bulges applied during her modernization did not work well in Atlantic waters, and the Atlantic battleship admiral felt that the number of hits by a New Mexico would be effectively halved by her awkward motion. She didn’t even have RPC at the time to help reduce the problem. If someone is desperate, I can probably find a direct quote somewhere.
I haven’t heard anything critcizing her motion in the Pacific.
The worst feature of Bismarck’s armor scheme is her turrets, which were vulnerable to ALL battleship-caliber shells at ALL ranges. I don’t know any other modern battleship for which that holds true.
I’ve posted a set of armor-penetration data (calculated by Rob Lundgren using Nathan Okun’s formulae): Naval Gun Armor Penetration Tables Please read the text that goes with it, because the info is very easy to misunderstand if you just scan the numbers.
As a general rule, German shells were quite good at penetrating vertical armor at short range and direct angles. Deck hits and extreme angles were generally a tough challenge for German shells, including Bismarck’s. American shells were nothing special against vertical armor except with regard to extreme angles, where they were fantastic. They did so well against deck armor that the formulae consistently understate their actual capabilities. Their dud rate may have been above average due to their use of the rather tame Explosive D; the upside is that US shells never exploded prematurely on contact with armor.
You may have heard that Bismarck’s shells were defective (many duds), but that observation doesn’t stand up to close scrutiny. Prinz Eugen’s shells, on the other hand, were quite a flop at Denmark Strait.
American face-hardened armor performed poorly against large shells, so just comparing Bismarck’s and New Mexico’s belts will not be too instructive.
It’s true that few ships are secure against incoming shells at 9000 yards, so Washington could be bashed up nicely by Kirishima. Having said that, I’ll note that SoDak’s armor appears to have defeated a 14in AP shell that struck her barbette at an extreme angle. I’ll note that the type of shell is uncertain, and some well-informed people think it was more probably an HE shell. My opinion is that it was AP, but it will probably never be known for certain.
STS is not magical. It is superior in protective qualities to steels like HT or Ducol because it is basically identical to Class B armor. Then why not call it Class B armor? Because Class B armor lay under the administrative overview of the Bureau of Ordnance while STS belonged to the Bureau of Ships. Turf war.
Bismarck damaged Rodney slightly. A near miss jammed the door for one torpedo tube. There was also splinter damage. This was reported by an American on board as 6in hits, but the level of damage involved (someone’s footlocker was wrecked) makes it unlikely that these were intact shells. Even a dud would have caused more damage than that. Unless someone comes up with the records of the subsequent repair in the US, I’ll infer these were splinters of roughly 6in size.
Danger space always favors the low-trajectory weapon, but danger space becomes less relevant at great distances where the ship’s beam becomes more of a factor in target area.
The prewar USN preference for extreme ranges was predicated on air spotting. They really disliked relying on top spot for ranges beyond 21,000 yards or so. Radar, of course, is another story.
Firing cycles are a nasty little statistic. Bismarck could fire every 26 seconds or so, maybe better, and New Mexico could manage maybe a round and a half per minute. However, that’s totally deceptive. Bismarck’s maximum rate of fire was good, but why not compare it to New Mexico’s max, which was just about the same? (In fact, prewar the USN decided to issue an order forbidding ship to fire more than once every 24 seconds, just as a safety measure. That’s for all battleships, including “slow-firing” Arizona.) It’s just that, in the real world, it was more common to fire one and a half times per minute.
That a single shell should disable both of Bismarck’s forward turrets is not incredible, since the same thing almost happened from a single 14in hit on Scharnhorst. It caused fires in both forward magazines.
Other battleships destroyed by deck hits include Marat and maybe Bretagne. Marat was almost destroyed twice by deck hits. The first one obviously blew up the forward part of the ship, but an artillery round later penetrated into an aft magazine. Fortunately it did not explode. Jean Bart settled into the mud of Casablanca after hits to her decks. The shell that killed Hood almost certainly went through a deck at some point. Dunkerque suffered two belt penetrations at Mers el Kebir.
I’m not aware of anything indicating US designers made any attempts at decapping armor.
San Francisco’s belt armor covers little of her hull, in keeping with US cruiser design standards. The side protection for her magazines was an internal bulkhead. I think you have to wait for Des Moines before you find a US cruiser with a full-length belt. (Not counting Alaska!)

 

You mean the Royal Navy didn't take the portrait of the Queen/King before skaddadling?