lenseman
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 3 Jun 2006
- Messages
- 7,077
- Location
- South East Coast - United Kingdom
Channel 4 2000 - 2100
The sinking of HMS HOOD - on TV now
- Thread starter lenseman
- Start date
SpottyDog5
Well-Known Member
Watching it..
lenseman
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 3 Jun 2006
- Messages
- 7,077
- Location
- South East Coast - United Kingdom
I read the book in 1960 about the sinking and if I remember correctly it was the fifth shell from Bismark which ignited the Ready Use Ammunition which in turn sent fire down the loading tube of either 'A' or 'B' Turret into the forward magazine which then exploded? 
Hadenough
Well-Known Member
How can you be when you are on the forum?? I bet you have the radio on and are listening to your iPod too!
HinewaisMan
Well-Known Member
Wasn’t it a weakness/lack in the main deck armour that made her vulnerable to plunging fire and let a shell through into a magazine? It was something the RN knew about – Indefatigable, Queen Mary and Invincible were all lost at Jutland for the same reason.
Post war (WW1) defence cuts meant the strengthening work was never done.
One of the reasons Bismarck was so hard to sink once caught was that the Brits were very close in, firing effectively flat trajectories, and while they riddled the topsides, they never penetrated the side belt armour and citadel.
Ironically, they would have been better to stand off and plunge fire on Bismarck.
Sometimes I hate not having a telly on board!
Post war (WW1) defence cuts meant the strengthening work was never done.
One of the reasons Bismarck was so hard to sink once caught was that the Brits were very close in, firing effectively flat trajectories, and while they riddled the topsides, they never penetrated the side belt armour and citadel.
Ironically, they would have been better to stand off and plunge fire on Bismarck.
Sometimes I hate not having a telly on board!
lenseman
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 3 Jun 2006
- Messages
- 7,077
- Location
- South East Coast - United Kingdom
After the Hood was sunk we had nothing big enough to be able to do that. We only had light cruisers and destroyers and they did not have the fire power and range to 'stand off' and fire.
.
NB Willawaw
Well-Known Member
There was a rumour about a design error in the Hood which made her over vulnerable.
HinewaisMan
Well-Known Member
Sorry but KGV (14") and Rodney (16") were there for the kill.
FullCircle
Well-Known Member
Well, whatever anyone read before has been straitened out now.
ffiill
Well-Known Member
Several things I recall-most recently it was suggested that wedging the flash doors open on the magasine to turret conveyor belts so as to maximise rate of fire did not help.
The other thing I remember reading was that the Hood along with the Titanic because of the high demand for steel at the time of construction was using early high carbon open hearth steel which made it more brittle than later steel.
This use of old stock can be seen at Artic Village Shopping centre/the old car factory at Alexandria just north of Glasgow where the steel I beams supporting the building circa 1900 are stamped open hearth 1878 ish
The other thing I remember reading was that the Hood along with the Titanic because of the high demand for steel at the time of construction was using early high carbon open hearth steel which made it more brittle than later steel.
This use of old stock can be seen at Artic Village Shopping centre/the old car factory at Alexandria just north of Glasgow where the steel I beams supporting the building circa 1900 are stamped open hearth 1878 ish
photodog
Lord High Commander of Upper Broughton and Gunthor
There are so many myths propogated about the hood.. By ww2 she was effectivley obsolete.... The kg5 class had as much speed and longer reach and were better armoured, Rodney and Nelson had better armour and much more firepower... The yanks had a number of ships more powerfully in all respects.... And Bismarck was again a much more powerfull ship, heavier armour, faster, longer reach, heavier broadside, higher muzzle velocity, better range finders, and a superior rate of fire.
She may have been a symbol, but she was no match.
Her loss was almost inevitable. She simply was no match...
If POW had been fully serviceable then I think they would have had a good shot at it... But having not been fully worked up and having considerable faults.. She was not really capable of taking the fight...
Hoods age combined with excellent German gunnery, doomed her.
She may have been a symbol, but she was no match.
Her loss was almost inevitable. She simply was no match...
If POW had been fully serviceable then I think they would have had a good shot at it... But having not been fully worked up and having considerable faults.. She was not really capable of taking the fight...
Hoods age combined with excellent German gunnery, doomed her.
capnsensible
Well-Known Member
f&cky off the hood.... who was he????
Bunting tossers only need apply
Bunting tossers only need apply
capnsensible
Well-Known Member
It may be worth considering , in modern times, that the new US carriers are being designed for a service life of 90 yes 90 years. Awesome.
capnsensible
Well-Known Member
maxi77
Well-Known Member
Hood was not doomed as such but unlucky, if that shell had missed, which was actually quite likely, Hood or POW could have got another hit on the Bismark to add to the one that had already sealed her fate. The hit that damaged the Bismark's fuel tanks sank her just as much as Bismark's shell blew up the Hood.
Sailfree
Well-Known Member
I have not watched the programe but all my reading leads me to believe:-
All through History the RN has considered rapid rate of fire important. To achieve this a large amount of ready use amunition was stored by ther guns. The blast prrof doors between turrets and magazine were left open to assist achieve this rapid rate of fire.
For years the Germans had been concentrating on accurracy. With better range finding optics in WW1 and paractice for accuracy at the battle of Juland the Germans sunk more Britiah boats that the English scored hits on the Germans. Because the Germans withdrew after the battle the British claimed success. The Germans considered they had won as they had sunk and badly damaged more British boats.
History is written by the victors. In WW2 the Germans had Radar (Seekrat?) as good as the British but initially they lacked its organisation and intergration into home defence against air attack that the British had. However the Germans had developed their radar for gunlaying on their capital ships (at a time when the british still relied on optical rangefinders).
Hence in all early engagements the smaller less well trained German navy achieved success due to more accurate gunfire.
One of the secret operations of WW2 was to land a team of specialists on the scuttled Graf Spee to dismantle and examine its gun laying radar.
The Hood was lost due to more accurate gunfire (which is a very complex operation at sea before computers requiring gun temperature, air temperature, range to get duration of shell flight and relative speeds to calculate position at time of shell landing in addition to ship motion/roll. This combined with lack of deck armour against plunging shot (Hood designed in 1916), Excessive storing of ready use amunition and the lack of closing the blast doors in the ammunition supply shuts (all common practice to achieve the rapid fire rate). The exact cause of the loss is not known except that a shell from the Bismark hit the hood resulting in one of its ammunition magazines exploding.
All through History the RN has considered rapid rate of fire important. To achieve this a large amount of ready use amunition was stored by ther guns. The blast prrof doors between turrets and magazine were left open to assist achieve this rapid rate of fire.
For years the Germans had been concentrating on accurracy. With better range finding optics in WW1 and paractice for accuracy at the battle of Juland the Germans sunk more Britiah boats that the English scored hits on the Germans. Because the Germans withdrew after the battle the British claimed success. The Germans considered they had won as they had sunk and badly damaged more British boats.
History is written by the victors. In WW2 the Germans had Radar (Seekrat?) as good as the British but initially they lacked its organisation and intergration into home defence against air attack that the British had. However the Germans had developed their radar for gunlaying on their capital ships (at a time when the british still relied on optical rangefinders).
Hence in all early engagements the smaller less well trained German navy achieved success due to more accurate gunfire.
One of the secret operations of WW2 was to land a team of specialists on the scuttled Graf Spee to dismantle and examine its gun laying radar.
The Hood was lost due to more accurate gunfire (which is a very complex operation at sea before computers requiring gun temperature, air temperature, range to get duration of shell flight and relative speeds to calculate position at time of shell landing in addition to ship motion/roll. This combined with lack of deck armour against plunging shot (Hood designed in 1916), Excessive storing of ready use amunition and the lack of closing the blast doors in the ammunition supply shuts (all common practice to achieve the rapid fire rate). The exact cause of the loss is not known except that a shell from the Bismark hit the hood resulting in one of its ammunition magazines exploding.
Last edited:
grumpy_o_g
Well-Known Member
So roll on the Rodney, Repulse and Reknown, we can't sink the Hood 'cos the b*****d's gone down.... From the Shackleton song, as sung by RAF squadrons everywhere. Never quite understood how that line fitted in, unless it was reference to dropping bombs on the wrong boats.
Woodlouse
Well-Known Member
The simple fact was that battle cruisers were never designed to go toe to toe with battleships. They were built to out run anything they couldn't out gun but the admiralty never fully appreciated how to use them.
The leaving open of blast doors was common practice in the first world war and was attributed to the appalling losses to the battle cruiser squadron at Jutland. Whilst I didn't see the programme and havent done much reading on it for many years I'd be surprised if hms hood was making such an elementary mistake.
The leaving open of blast doors was common practice in the first world war and was attributed to the appalling losses to the battle cruiser squadron at Jutland. Whilst I didn't see the programme and havent done much reading on it for many years I'd be surprised if hms hood was making such an elementary mistake.
Joker
Well-Known Member
The Hood was as well armoured as any battleship. Whether the armour was in the right place is another matter.
I'm not convinced she was obsolete vis a vis Bismarck. They had the same main armament (8x15") and thus the same broadside. As to speed - Hood was faster than anything else in the Navy.
Bismarck got lucky - but that's often the way at sea. We got lucky when the torpedo blew its rudder off.
I'm not convinced she was obsolete vis a vis Bismarck. They had the same main armament (8x15") and thus the same broadside. As to speed - Hood was faster than anything else in the Navy.
Bismarck got lucky - but that's often the way at sea. We got lucky when the torpedo blew its rudder off.
Norman_E
Well-Known Member
That ditty was a retake on the pre WW2 destroyer sailor's version which was
"Roll on the Nelson, the Rodney, the Hood.
This one funnelled basket is no mucking good."
(Words slightly altered to beat the swear filter)
As for the loss of the Hood, although the 860 foot ship was impressive to look at, and doubtless useful pre war to show off around the empire it was a type of ship without a real purpose. It was a battlecruiser, a type of ship with guns of a battleship but the armour of a cruiser and rightly described as "only useful if the enemy did not have one", to which should be added, "or a battleship".
It has been posted already that the loss of ships at Jutland in 1917 was due to shell detonation (probably inside a gun turret) igniting propellant (cordite or Lyddite) and leading to a flash passing down an open ammunition hoist to the magazine. This may not in fact have been due to blast doors being left open, but due to a design fault. I remember reading that on the German battleships all of the doors both inside the hoists and between them and the magazines were designed to be blown shut by the blast from any explosion within the turret, and that they had interlocks that prevented all of the blast doors within the ammunition hoists being open together. The British ships were not as well protected, and when Hood was completed after WW1 the lessons from Jutland were not applied.
I thought the programme did not really answer what happened to Hood, in that they did not find the gun turrets, which would have been blown completely out of the ship by a magazine explosion, and therefore did not establish whether a shell penetrated the deck, and passed right down to a magazine, or (as has frequently been speculated) hit a turret and exploded inside, leading to an ammunition hoist flash. The latter being the likely cause of the loss of ships at Jutland.
There is actually another, and very likely, cause of the sinking, and that is a shell hitting Hood below the waterline, and therefore below the thickest armour belt, and penetrating the magazine from there, or exploding beneath it. To explain, by the time of the sinking Hood had closed the range to Bismarck to around 14,000 yards, at which range 15 inch shells come in at quite a flat angle. An observer on Prince of Wales saw a salvo straddle Hood and the explosion followed very soon after. In the same battle and a few minutes later, just after Prince of Wales avoided the Hood wreckage she was hit below the waterline. Luckily the shell failed to explode and was only discovered after the battle. I think Hood may well have taken a hit below the waterline just like Prince of Wales did at about the same range, but in Hood the shell exploded and ignited a fire which quickly spread to a magazine.
