The Royal Oak

Hi,

Came across this article on the radio

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/thematerialworld.shtml

and here is the main site

http://www.adus.org.uk/

and a picture



FNG

 

The Royal Oak sunk by one torpedo. Arizona took eight bombs and a torpedo at Pearl Harbour.

 

u-47 , lieutenent commander gunther prien, made 2 attacks on the royal oak, and was hit by 3 or 4 torpedoes

 

From the main site provided by FNG:

My emphasis.

In any case with all due respect what point are you trying to make?

 

If you want to be cold blooded, and if the British were going loose a battleship in Scapa Flow, Royal Oak was probably one of the least bad options. Off the top of my head I think she had received some very limited updating, but was still basically a WW1 ship.

Had she survived she probably would have spent much of the war as a convoy scarecrow.

 

Yes but by sinking it, another ship/ships had to be used to protect the convoys, thus weaken the home fleet.
I do believe the Home fleet then used another base, IIRC somewhere in the west Hibrides, untill Scapa Flow was completly safe for sub attacks. Of course, operating from further away, the guarding of the norwegian coast and spotting german warships trying to break out to the Atlantic became less efficient.

 

Arizona was not hit by any torpedoes. The number of bomb hits was probably closer to three, but that's not too important. It was only one bomb that made the difference.
Royal Oak was the only "R" to get her deck armor upgraded to modern standards.

 

The real impact of the Royal Oak's sinking was morale - it was one of those ships that everybody knew, and it getting sunk - in a safe harbour! - was rather a blow to the nation.

Cold-bloodedly, yes, it had the happy effect of removing an obsolete ship from the navy...

 

the reason for the surveys was she was originally coal powered but was upgraded to fuel oil.

However only 2 sets of plans for the upgrade exist, one on the ship (doh) and one bombed in London in the 40's.

The ship contains 1000's of tonnes of fuel oil and they are worried it will leak into the sea but they can't remove it as they do not know where the oil is as they just shoved the tanks in where ever there was space.

yes the ship was obsolete and would never really be anything other than fodder and bulk to scare the enemy but the publicity the sinking got, both in the UK and Germany far overshadowed the strategic loss.

FNG

 

There were two attempts by subs to get into Scapa during WW1, both came cropper which probably was a contributing faction towards the failure to seal up the route of the sub that sank RO

 

I should take the time to read before I make these kinds of statements. And not to mention citing where I get my info.

 

a good source of info are the books of m.j. whitley
i have: destroyers of ww2, cruisers of ww 2, battleships of ww2 and german destroyers of ww2

 

The Whitley encyclopedias are all very good for what they are--handy references that give basic information on a broad topic. I recommend all three.
His books on German battleships, cruisers, destroters, and coastal craft are among the best English-language sources on those subjects.

 

True. Unfortunately, more than 800 men got "removed" along with her, which was the real loss.

 

The Royal Oak was obsolete (like the other Revenge class BB's) but it still could have been used for for instance convoy escort duty's or shore bombardement (they actually did perform quite well...15" guns hada great deterrent effect i reckon!)

The RN would have had a problem without these old BBs ...so it was really more than just the loss of men!

 

I disagree. Note that the RN did not send any of the R-class BBs out after BISMARCK; they would have been useless in such a battle with their slow speed and outdated fire control. No, the RN lost nothing of value in ROYAL OAK except her crew, IMHO.

 

Memorial

Yup, the crew mattered and are still remembered in Orkney! She was stationed where she was to act as a floating AA battery to protect Kirkwall. I took these in Kirkwalls St Magnus Cathedral last June.

 

Royal Oak? Hmm that sounds familar. *flicks to Wiki*

Thank You Wiki!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Royal_Oak_(08)
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An "R" single-handedly saved an entire convoy from attack by the Twins.

 

coz the salmon and the glock had specific orders NOT to engage any warship, otherwise, even with 11" they could do some serious damage to the elder warship