Another wonderful obit

John Anderton wrote:

> On Feb 15, 3:23 pm, Grimly Curmudgeon <grimly4REM....DeleteThis@REMOVEgmail.com>
> wrote:
>> > all it takes is a few hits and the RN in the Channel is nothing but
> > a sunken scrapyard.
>
> Nope, especially not RN battleships. A 1,000lb HE bomb is nothing to
> an armoured deck designed to withstand 15" AP shells
>
>

The RN did not have armoured decks and I doubt there was a ship in any
navy that could withstand sustained attack from dive bombers. HMS Hood
certainly had no such protection from the Bismarck's 15" AP shells,
three salvos and she was gone (yes,I know she was classed as a
Battle-cruiser but the accompanying brand new Prince of Wales was a
battleship and had to retire hurt), later the first few salvos from HMS
Rodney and King George V crippled Bismarck so badly the fight was all
but over, so your comment that they could withstand such punishment is
patently not true. All it showed was that you had to get the first
punch in. A battleships armour was all in the hull and mostly around
the waterline, heavily armoured decks would have doubled the weight,
reduced their speed even further and increased their fuel consumption
so it wasn't done. RN aircraft carriers had armoured decks later in the
war but they didn't have much side armour, hence several being lost to
torpedoes. Smaller ships such as cruisers and destroyers were often
sunk in the med by land based German aircraft - often one hit was all
it took. Look at the losses sustained by the Malta convoys - it was
mostly land based bombers that did the damage.

If the RAF had withdrawn to the Midlands and the North that would have
ceded air superiority in the channel to the Luftwaffe and if the RN had
ventured in they wouldn't have lasted long at all. The Japs sank two
battleships whose Admiral thought they didn't need air cover - took
less than an hour to sink the Repulse and Prince of Wales - battleships
with no air cover were obsolete and virtually defenceless even before
1939 - the Admirals just didn't know it.

Finally, a Spitfire or Hurricane operating from near Birmingham would
have had about ten minutes over the channel if it was to have enough
fuel to get home - exactly the problem the German fighters had in the
BofB.
--
Alan
ZX10R - Green of course
Tiger - A pleasant shade of green

On Fri, 15 Feb 2008 19:18:27 GMT, John Anderton
<John1_andertonNOSPAMTHANKS DeleteThis @hotmail.com> wrote:

>On 15 Feb 2008 19:13:35 GMT, crn DeleteThis @NOSPAM.netunix.com wrote:
>
>>John Anderton <John1_andertonNOSPAMTHANKS DeleteThis @hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Since all those structures are armoured, no, HE bombs aren't going to
>>> bother them much. Firing HE at armour plate is usually a waste of time
>>> (which is why battleship shells and anti-ship bombs are AP and, before
>>> you ask,no, the Luftwaffe didn't have any AP bombs)
>>
>>The armour plate was on the SIDES of the ships,
>
>Battleships were armoured against "plunging fire"

In fairness, older British ships did tend to be rather vulnerable to
plunging fire.

--
-Pip