Strange battleship features?

I wondered, what exactly was contained in the pagoda fighting mast? It looked too big just to house a range finder.

 

Check this link:
http://www.bobhenneman.info/pagoda.htm

 

I shouldn't imagine that the Padoga mast had much to do with Hiei not righting herself on the way down. I don't know how deep Ironbottom sound is but it can't be deeper than the bit of the Atlantic the Bismark sank into. Bismark might have taken as much a twenty minutes to reach the bottom plenty to time to flood completely and right herself. Hiei might not have had time to flood full before she hit the bottom.

 

Did the Japanese ship lose its turrets? Bismarck did. That's a lot of topweight.

 

Cool stuff, thanks Notmi.

 

No way of telling, since she's upside down. I still have to wonder if those pagoda masts caused any stability problems in the Japanese BBs that had them.

 

on the issue of the rodneys a fore turrets, my dad said that was to help keep the rodney a powerful fighter, but at a low weight. Somehow it was supposed to reduce displacement without sacraficing firepower so they could meet the post WWI tonnage limits. Thats just what he thought though. Don't know how true it is.



I like the King George V. It has a cool look to it. The turrets look cool.

 

Washington Naval Treaty from early 20's allowed British to build 70000 tons worth of capital ships, armed with 16" guns. As thier rivals already had 8x16" gunned battleships around, it was politically suicide to build anything less than 8x16" for RN. RN also wanted maximum armour, therefore all-forward armament (shorter armoured citadel, less weight). Also, 3x3 turrets handily gave one more barrel than Nagatos and Colorados. Guns firing aft weren't required because NolRod wasn't going to run away from anyone or anything. This all gave ugly but strong, "dont mess with me" looks.
British used many more weightsaving methods which resulted that both ships ended over 1000 tons underweight. This is quite rare, almost all ships end weighting more than originally planned.

Nelson and Rodney weren't without some flaws. Guns and turrets gave originally some headache but most of their teething problems were solved before WW2 (except light shell).

Unfortunatelly, naval warfare during WW2 was all about carriers and speed, therefore NolRod were outdated.

 

The rodney pounded the living crap out off the Bismark :bang: :bang: ....... :kill:

Can anybody get some pics of the rodney or neslon?
Technical drawing are good too.

 

Some pics of NolRod
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/aj.cashmore/britain/battleships/nelson/pictures.html

 

[quote="Notmi] As thier rivals already had 8x16" gunned battleships around, it was politically suicide to build anything less than 8x16" for RN.

Nelson and Rodney weren't without some flaws. Guns and turrets gave originally some headache but most of their teething problems were solved before WW2 (except light shell).

[/quote]

As you say, anything less that 8 16" was political suicide but I wonder how many realised that the RN 16" shell didn't have much of a weight advantge over the existing 15" (around 2,050lb vs 1,920lb) and was lighter than the USN (around 2,200lb) and IJN (around 2,200lb) 16" shells.

http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNBR_16-45_mk1.htm

http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_16-45_mk1.htm

http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNJAP_161-45_3ns.htm

http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/index_weapons.htm


I've often wonderd if a more 'conventional' layout could have been achieved on 35,000 tons at this time with a triple and a twin forward and a triple aft - this was one of the layouts proposed for the later KGV's.

 

At the time when Nelson was designed, the US 16in shell was about 2110 lbs. The Japanese shell was about 2205 lbs. Aorund 1931, the Jpaanese adopted a 2249-lb shell, and the US went to a 2240-lb shell in 1936.
The British weren't thinking in terms of weight, unfortunately for them. They were concerned about impacts against thick armor, believing that shorter shells would hold up better. And against face-hardened armor, shell weight is less important to penetration than velocity.

 

Tiornu - do you know if anyone in Parliament or the press questioned the weight differences - presumably if they had they would have been shown the data (incorrect though it later turned out to be)?

 

I don't know. Light shells were the norm for the RN except for the 15in and later 13.5in guns. Anyone likely to notice the weight difference might also be dazzled by the jump in velocity.