Don't worry Yuu, its not like Warspite's recon plane will turn a GP bomb into an impromptu depth charge like long ago in regards to one of your sisters... right?
But what she *didn't* have was 5 inches of armor over the magazine spaces, which is what sunk Hood. Warspite has the same armor belt (which was sufficient enough to protect Hood - it was her deck armor that failed), and an additional 5 inches of armor over the magazine spaces, meaning Warspite is immune to the shot that sunk Hood. Failing a detonation, Bismarck would have to enter into an out-and-out slugfest, and given the performance of German naval gunnery vs British naval gunnery... yeah no Bisko should really start running before Warspite gets *another* medal.
But what she *didn't* have was 5 inches of armor over the magazine spaces, which is what sunk Hood. Warspite has the same armor belt (which was sufficient enough to protect Hood - it was her deck armor that failed), and an additional 5 inches of armor over the magazine spaces, meaning Warspite is immune to the shot that sunk Hood. Failing a detonation, Bismarck would have to enter into an out-and-out slugfest, and given the performance of German naval gunnery vs British naval gunnery... yeah no Bisko should really start running before Warspite gets *another* medal.
Actually we'll probably never know what sunk Hood exactly. As for British vs German gunnery, in the Strait of Denmark the British one had been a lot less than stellar.
Actually we'll probably never know what sunk Hood exactly. As for British vs German gunnery, in the Strait of Denmark the British one had been a lot less than stellar.
One of the first shots knocked out Hood's fire control top, making her resort to local control, which lacks the benefit of coordination and the long range finder on top of the ship.
Prince of Wales was brand new and still worked out the bugs in the system.
Warspite might have gotten a similar hit, but her deck armor might have prevented her instant destruction that Hood later suffered. (Though it is likely that what killed Hood was a mix of "Not enough armor" and "poor powder handling". Something similar is what killed or almost killed a large number of British ships at Jutland. There at door for moving powder bags from the magazine powder room and magazine to the turrets. There are suppose to be closed each time to prevent possible problems with fires and explosions. in 1916 (and possibly again by 1941) the crews were not closing them because leaving them open allowed the powder to be moved faster, thus more shots fired. It was more efficient (as well as a tiny bit lazy) to just leave the doors open. Blast from German hits would blow though those open or unlatched hatches and doors, and ignite the powder, and blow up ships at Jutland from cruisers on up, and nearly killed a few more ships had their crews not be quick enough to either close the hatches, or flood the magazines.
Warspite likely could have survived an encounter with Bismarck, but Bismarck would be the one setting the tone of the battle because she could outrun Warspite by at least five knots.
Well Yuu should have sank several British and American ships while she was still stalking the hell out of the Atlantic, and add the fact dedicated efforts were made to effectively find and depth charge the shit out of her sub sisters which included Warspite's own Swordfish dropping a GP bomb at a sub during Narvik, she's probably afraid despite the lumpy battleship actually being one gentle girl.
Of course Bismarck is just adding fuel to the fire...
One of the first shots knocked out Hood's fire control top,
That's, at best, an hypothesis. And, if true, then you can't count the results of the battle of the North Cape. Cause there Scharnhorst's radar was hit by one of the first shot, leaving the battleship blind in the polar night. Really British gunnery had been not that great even in Bismarck's final battle, King George V guns (and the King Geroge V was not that new) had only a 60% functioning rate, and Tovey was so upset with the accuracy to say that he could have better hit the Bismarck by trowing his binocualrs to her.
ithekro said:
Warspite might have gotten a similar hit, but her deck armor might have prevented her instant destruction that Hood later suffered.
Actually we'll probably never know what sunk Hood exactly. It's at least as probable that the magazine had been hit by a shell passing underwater, below the belt. If it hd not been one of her own torpedoes to explode.
From what I remember from a gunnery training log of one of the Iowa-class, the general best a battleship could hit is around 30-40% of the time. And that is with the best available fire control radar at that time.
From what I remember from a gunnery training log of one of the Iowa-class, the general best a battleship could hit is around 30-40% of the time. And that is with the best available fire control radar at that time.
The possibility to hit a target was essentially a question of distance, since the first decrease with the square of the second. Even in the best possible conditions, with perfect aiming and rangefinding, with a dispersion of 2% of the distance (that, at that time, was considered good), the possibility to hit something at 25.000m distance was marginal at best. In the same conditions, with the same dispersion, at 15.000m you have the almost certainty to hit a cruiser-sized target with at least a shell in a 9-gun broadside. Then there are the conditions of the engagement. With a time of flight of the shells of over 30-40 secs. If the other ship is performing evasive manuvers, it became very difficult to predict it's course. Worse if the sea is rough, since it affects the elevation of your guns at the moment of shooting. All the other conditions equal, to have the fastest rangefinder, or the best predictor, can be decisive, since who hits first often have the upper hand.
Well Yuu should have sank several British and American ships while she was still stalking the hell out of the Atlantic, and add the fact dedicated efforts were made to effectively find and depth charge the shit out of her sub sisters which included Warspite's own Swordfish dropping a GP bomb at a sub during Narvik, she's probably afraid despite the lumpy battleship actually being one gentle girl.
Of course Bismarck is just adding fuel to the fire...
Interesting. But it still leaves one thing unaddressed: Warspite's dialogue in the third panel implies that she said/did something with good intentions, but which ended up causing Yuu-chan to believe that Warspite is angry at her for that historical past, hence why she's apologizing profusely in the first panel. Yet it doesn't seem that there's any strip preceding this one.
That's, at best, an hypothesis. And, if true, then you can't count the results of the battle of the North Cape. Cause there Scharnhorst's radar was hit by one of the first shot, leaving the battleship blind in the polar night. Really British gunnery had been not that great even in Bismarck's final battle, King George V guns (and the King Geroge V was not that new) had only a 60% functioning rate, and Tovey was so upset with the accuracy to say that he could have better hit the Bismarck by trowing his binocualrs to her.
Actually we'll probably never know what sunk Hood exactly. It's at least as probable that the magazine had been hit by a shell passing underwater, below the belt. If it hd not been one of her own torpedoes to explode.
You seem to forget that Warspite shares the record for longest range hit with Scharnhorst at 27000 yards, which occured before Warspite got an upgraded radar range finder, and roughly a whole year before the Battle of Denmark Straight; The gunnery accuracy on the Warspite was superb.
The KGV class on the other hand did have notoriously bad accuracy, as unlike the french they didn't implement the staggered fire system in their quad cannon turrets that the french used in their quad turrets(cannon one would fire, a few milliseconds later cannon four would fire, then cannon two, finally cannon three). This led to the blast of the adjacent cannon in a full salvo altering the trajectory of the shells after leaving the barrel minutely; this completely fucked long range fire immensely when firing a full salvo.
most sources that I've watched and read, paint the hood detonation as follows: the lucky shell hit the deck roughly around midships between the X turret and the mainmast where the aft 4 inch battery magazine was, for a few seconds a fire burns on the hood before a jet of flame starts erupting from the hoods deck for a further few seconds before hood is ripped in two by an explosion.
The theory I subscribe to is improper flash door safety and powder bag handling, as a lot of RN warships early in the war did not keep their flash doors closed, and would even store powder bags in adjacent compartments outside the protected magazine. these flash doors are meant to keep fires or water from spreading from compartment to compartment. so in the case of the hood the shell hits the 4 inch battery magazine and detonates, fire spreads through the ship and either finds powder bags improperly stored or the fire actually makes it to the aft 15 inch magazine which causes that fountain of flame erupting from hood before she is ripped in two. it makes sense, had the shell hit the 15 magazine and detonated instantly (much like jutland battlecruisers did) like people believe then the ship would have been torn in two leaving the forward section of the ship mostly whole (again, like Jutland Battlecruiser wrecks which were generally in two large pieces rather than the three pieces hood was found in). however that isn't the case, because as the forward section of the ship slipped beneath the waves there were further explosions which tore the ship even further apart, leaving the bow of the ship separate from the midships which is in shambles. This is evidence for the poor powder handling and lack in safety attributed to early war RN ships on the Hood, cause the fire had to have spread to the forward magazines, detonating that magazine, for the wreck to be in the shape it currently is. further evidence for poor safety in leaving flash doors open is the relative speed(roughly 30 seconds) in which the hood sank: other ships that suffered magazine explosions took several minutes to fully sink beneath the waves, with a few instances of some taking days to fully sink.
Now Warspite vs Bismark would have been interesting, cause if she was allowed to get to the same range that that Hood got before firing(26,500 yd), the Bismark would have been well within Warspites well established effective fire range. furthermore, Rather than contending with Hoods 0.75-3 inch deck armor and 6-12 inch belt armor, she would have to deal with Warspites 3-5 inch deck armor and 13 inch belt armor, including even better protected magazines(Warspite had 8 inch armored magazines below deck as opposed to Hood's 6 inch). Now had the same shot hit the Warspite in roughly the same place, it's not likely the shell would have pierced as deeply into the deck, as the QE class's armor layout proved itself time and time again to just eat large shells and even bombs without major loss of life; at Battle of Jutland she was hit 150 times and only lost 14 crew members, and the largest loss of life on her was when she was hit in the portside 6 inch batteries by bombs which resulted in 38 sailors losing their lives over the course of the fire burning and the firefighting; she was a tough ship that protected her crew well. On the other hand, Bismark had the same punch as Warspite in 15 inch shells, and would deal far more damage to Warspite than previous shells had done.
The biggest question here however is not the armor and/or accuracy of Warspite, instead the question is this: Were the crew of the Warspite as lax safety wise as the crews of other RN Warships? I say they were not as lax based on what I read in the book Warspite by Ian Ballantyne. The crew were lax when it came to things like cleanliness and appearance; during her stays in the Mediterranean and Indian oceans the crew often only wore shorts and tank tops as opposed to uniforms. This lead to a lot of the deaths mentioned above as crew would refused to wear fire retardant coveralls in the gun batteries. however, they did keep to other safety standards, such as keeping flash doors closed. evidence in this is apparent above, as fires did not spread through the ship like it did on other RN ships that did not keep Flash doors closed. another instance that would have sank other ships, and in fact did, was when Warspite was hit with the Fritz X bomb(a 3000lb radio guided bomb dropped from 20,000 feat) amidships, which pierced Warspite fully from the deck to the number 2 boiler room and blew a 20 foot hole in Warspite's keel. Despite this Warspite did not sink and only lost 6 crew members, in fact Captain Packer stated "If we can steam and shoot we'll carry out our final bombardment" despite the damage to his ship. this is evidence for Warspites crew keeping a tight ship when it came to safety. This could be because a lot of the crew on Warspite were newer sailors(most of the crew being recruits from the 30s) as opposed to other ships veteran crews who were obsessed with a high rate of fire and would neglect safety in the pursuit of that endeavor.
Now, we know that Bismark's armor was also top notch, as evident by the absolute thrashing she tanked from the various RN ships before the crew finally scuttled her, as well as her gunnery being not half bad either (initially anyways). Bismark's deck armor was 3.9-4.7 inches, her belt armor was 13.8 inches, and her Magazine was a further 14 inches (lets not forget the turtle back armor that Bismark had which made had much of the citadel and casemate armor angled). The major advantage that Bismark has over Warspite is her speed, since the fastest Warspite traveled after her retrofits was 25 knots (and that was by abusing the ships machinery) where as Bismark got up to 30.5 knots.
Onto my thoughts on Bismark vs Warspite: It would depend entirely on whether or not Bismark's Commanding officer would even want to fight instead of steaming away, every German CO was ordered not to have an prolonged fight with the RN after all; they were ordered to raid convoys. But let's say Warspite caught the Bismark in much the same was as the hood did, first spotting the Bismark at 27km. If Warspite's CO was a typical Warspite CO like Cunningham, or Packers, he would start firing at Bismark as soon as he had visual. If Bismark's CO was anything like Lütjens, he would have held his fire until Warspite was within 15km or until his gunnery officer had enough with getting shot at, and decided to open fire as soon as his ship got hit multiple times which would vary in a Warspite vs Bismark Duel, but let's say Warspite started scoring hits at 17km to be generous. Now here is where it gets interesting, the force of Bismark's repeated cannon fire busted a good number of her own Radial Range Finders on her turrets, requiring Bismark to rely on her her Rangefinders up in the masts. Warspite didn't have this problem, as she spent hours bombarding shorelines before with improving proficiency as time went on. so any damage to the masts on Bismark would effectively leave her shooting blind (much like what happened during the Chase for Bismark where she did minimal damage to her pursuers). now whether or not this would affect the battle between the two ships during the fight is up in the air. that being said, this fight would probably have been nothing more than a slug fest as both ships approach each other, damage slowly mounting on both ships until after sustaining several hits, Bismark's CO would probably have ordered a withdrawal, as he would be under orders to keep his ship in one piece wherever possible. So the fight would turn into a protracted chase as the Bismark slowly pulled away from Warspite, Warspite's captain screaming bloody fury to the winds as his target slowly pulled away from him. Finally, if Warspite was in any condition to give chase, she'd not be able to keep up with Bismark. In fact as the chase prolonged, the likelihood of Warspite's steering gear trouble acting up would increase. She'd end up taking a hard turn while in the chase and finally lose Bismark as she'd need to perform impromptu maintenance on her steering gear. This would lead to both ships needing protracted stays in dry docks.
tl;dr: Warspite is a tough ship, Bismark is a tough ship. Barring any lucky shots, both ships would have pummeled each other into a bloody mess before Bisko used her superior speed to get away from Spite, and Spite's limp would have prevented her from ever catching up even if she was in any condition to maintain the chase. However Ark would come in and kneecap Bisko before Bisko could reach a dry dock.
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No! I'm scared of U-Boat-sans too....!U-Boat-san...?I just thought to get along better...!I'm sorry!The English Queen is scary!!!This is the first time that I've seen Yuu so scared dechi...I'm sorry!I'm sorry!I'm sorry!I'm sorry!Erm...It's... it's a misunderstanding!!Warspite-sama is bullying Yuu!!!Kyaaa!!
Everyone, big trouble!!What did you do to Yuu dechi?I'm sorry!I'm sorry!