# What are the little wings on the rear of a battleship turret? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 10, 2022, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-little-wings-on-the-rear-of-a-battleship-turret/957504 "2022-01-10T05:22:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2022, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-little-wings-on-the-rear-of-a-battleship-turret/957504/21 "2022-01-12T01:09:43Z")
> [@Bullitt](#): > > That video was fascinating @scabpicker, thanks for that. If you liked that, you might also enjoy this one (41 mins) about how the fire control computers worked in 1953, maybe a bit more sophisticated than 10 years earlier during the war but probably not too much. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/s1i-dnAH9Y4/hqdefault.jpg "Mechanical Computer (All Parts) - Basic Mechanisms In Fire Control Computers") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1i-dnAH9Y4) ---
**Author:** ![Capn\_Carl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/838e76/32.png) [@Capn\_Carl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capn_Carl)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2022, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-little-wings-on-the-rear-of-a-battleship-turret/957504/22 "2022-01-12T01:32:08Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Eventually. As planned, and as originally they built her, she was underarmored - but Jutland, where British battlecruisers showed an unnerving propensity for exploding, suggested remodeling was in order. Even then though at most points her armor wasn’t as thick as battleships were - close, perhaps, in some areas, but not quite, and tellingly she had much thinner deck armor. “Much thinner deck armor” is only accurate if _Hood_ is compared to _Bismarck_ and other WW2 battleships. In 1920, her armor was superior to that of the best battleships in the RN. She had thicker deck and turret armor, and her 12” inclined belt armor was superior to the QE class 13” vertical belt. Her armor was too thin vs. battleship shells of WW2, but that is true of _all_ WW1 battleships. [https://www.google.com/search?q=hms+hood+armor&client=safari&hl=en-us&prmd=isvxn&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjB58DqhKv1AhU5LTQIHdaJDfsQ\_AUoAXoECAIQAQ&biw=1024&bih=642&dpr=2#imgrc=7gRuoq2eiAmkMM](https://www.google.com/search?q=hms+hood+armor&client=safari&hl=en-us&prmd=isvxn&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjB58DqhKv1AhU5LTQIHdaJDfsQ_AUoAXoECAIQAQ&biw=1024&bih=642&dpr=2#imgrc=7gRuoq2eiAmkMM) ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2022, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-little-wings-on-the-rear-of-a-battleship-turret/957504/23 "2022-01-12T02:59:49Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were unlike any other ship ever built. They are their own thing. You can’t really call them battlecruisers - they’re sort of the opposite of battlecruisers. Battlecruisers, like Hood, or the Kongo class, sacrificed a bit of armor for speed (at least initially; after WWII they tried armoring them up.) Scharnhorst and Gneisenau sacrificed the size of their primary weapons. They were nearly as large and as heavily armored as the King George V class of battleships but their primary weapons were much smaller. There were plans to eventually up-gun them by replacing the triple 11in mounts with twin 15in turrets, but that never came to pass. Interestingly, the Germans considered them to be battleships, and they would be two of the ten battleships envisioned in Plan Z along with the two _Bismarcks_ and six H-classes. [_Scharnhorst_ classification:](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scharnhorst-class_battleship#Classification) > They were the first class of German ships to be officially classified by the Kriegsmarine as _Schlachtschiff_ (battleship).[[3]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scharnhorst-class_battleship#cite_note-FOOTNOTEGr%C3%B6ner31-3) Previous German battleships were classified as _Linienschiffe_ (ships of the line),[[a]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scharnhorst-class_battleship#cite_note-4) and _Panzerschiffe_ (armored ship).[[b]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scharnhorst-class_battleship#cite_note-5) > > Their adversary, the [Royal Navy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Navy), rated them as battlecruisers[[4]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scharnhorst-class_battleship#cite_note-FOOTNOTEChurchill245-6)[[5]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scharnhorst-class_battleship#cite_note-FOOTNOTEVandervat82-7) but after the war reclassified them as battleships.[[6]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scharnhorst-class_battleship#cite_note-StaffHistory-8) _Jane’s Fighting Ships 1940_ lists both the _Scharnhorst_ and [_Bismarck_ classes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bismarck-class_battleship) as “Battleships ( _Schlachtschiffe_ )”[[7]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scharnhorst-class_battleship#cite_note-9) Another adversary, the [United States Navy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy), rated them as battleships.[[8]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scharnhorst-class_battleship#cite_note-FOOTNOTEUSN_Historical_Center-10) In English language reference works they are sometimes referred to as battleships and sometimes as battlecruisers.[[c]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scharnhorst-class_battleship#cite_note-11) I was looking into scale modeling myself a couple of years back, even subscribing to Fine Scale Modeler for a while and was a bit shocked by the prices of some kits nowadays, a lot of them seemingly running in the $60-$120+ range. Nothing particularly fancy about them, same scales I used to make as a kid (1/700 ships, 1/48 aircraft and 1/35 vehicles), sometimes the same brands I used to build. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2022, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-little-wings-on-the-rear-of-a-battleship-turret/957504/24 "2022-01-12T04:27:55Z")
If Hood had sisters, would they be the Hood class? Or was Hood always a one-off and a new class would basically be called something else and have slightly different specs? ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2022, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-little-wings-on-the-rear-of-a-battleship-turret/957504/25 "2022-01-12T04:44:29Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > I was looking into scale modeling myself a couple of years back, even subscribing to Fine Scale Modeler for a while and was a bit shocked by the prices of some kits nowadays, a lot of them seemingly running in the $60-$120+ range. The Tamiya 1/350 sets run about $100. Honestly, it’s more than worth it. They are high quality, and it’s just so fun and relaxing. A hundred bucks (plus paint, glue, tools etc. but the tools last forever and it doesn’t take much paint and glue to make a model) is a low price for the hours I spend happily building my little ships. Well they’re not THAT little. Yamato is over two feet long. I need more shelves. > [@Asuka](#): > > If Hood had sisters, would they be the Hood class? Or was Hood always a one-off and a new class would basically be called something else and have slightly different specs? There were supposed to be four of them; the class is called, for some odd reason, “Admiral class,” though normally of course you always call a class by its first example, so had they built more I’d guess we’d call them Hood class. The others were to be called Anson, Howe and Rodney, names that ended up being given to three different kinds of battleships. Anson and Howe were the last two King George V class battleships, and Rodney was a Nelson class, the really weird ones with all three main turrets in front of the superstructure. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2022, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-little-wings-on-the-rear-of-a-battleship-turret/957504/26 "2022-01-12T07:30:55Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Even then though at most points her armor wasn’t as thick as battleships were - close, perhaps, in some areas, but not quite, and tellingly she had much thinner deck armor. Drachinifel has a 42 minute video, [The Loss of HMS Hood - But why did it blow up??](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLPeC7LRqIY), where he conjectures it was a golden BB. Looking at photos of her traveling at speed, along with plans of her interior, plus her recently found wreck with the bow some distance from the rest, he believes a shell struck just where the bow wave was at its lowest undulation, under the armor belt, and penetrated into the 40mm magazine. That, in turn detonated the 15-inch magazine next to it. This fits with witness accounts of a gout of flame erupting forward followed a moment later by a titanic explosion. ---
**Author:** ![Capn\_Carl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/838e76/32.png) [@Capn\_Carl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capn_Carl)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2022, 9:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-little-wings-on-the-rear-of-a-battleship-turret/957504/27 "2022-01-12T09:39:20Z")
I haven’t seen the video. There have been multiple studies of _Hood_’s loss over the years. Part of the reason for this is that the most well armored ships WW1 were not well armored vs 1940s battleship guns, so there are multiple trajectories that could account for _Hood._ All of the studies I’ve read, or read of, involve an explosion of the aft magazine, or the torpedoes, also aft. A shell from Bismarck could have penetrated forward, but that doesn’t explain several items: -Eyewitnesses report the initial explosion as being near the mainmast, which was aft. -the area of the wreck around the rear turrets is completely destroyed, indicating an explosion of the rear magazines. -the area of the wreck around the forward turrets is largely intact, contra-indicating an explosion of the forward magazines. The bow is damaged, but forward of the 15” magazines. This damage could have occurred during or after the sinking. -a shell could hit under the belt where the bow wave was low, but there’s no need for the low waterline. At that range, _Bismarck’s_ shells could land short of _Hood_, travel underwater, and still have enough velocity to penetrate the hull. -the ship sank stern first. ---
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2022, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-little-wings-on-the-rear-of-a-battleship-turret/957504/28 "2022-01-13T13:54:32Z")
Well, Drachinefel says that the Scharnhost had a lesser range from its radar, when it was working fully. It seems it was not strong enough to work to avoid standing into firing range of a battleship. Or not the cruisers at worst. Its the Royal Navy who can get their position right when they detect the Scharnnhorst at 40,000 yards, and are therefore free to form up and angle for approach outside of range, with knowledge of Scharnhosts position and movement … [The Battle of the North Cape - Ice and Fire at Sea - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbRMEPPbSyg&t=28s) So the blundering into the battleship, well maybe it had a bit better range when detecting a battleship, but I think the 3 original cruisers on her tail and the Duke of York and her 4 destroyer friends cutting off her escape, Scharnnhorst was trapped… if takes a stand, there’s RAN all around , if it flees its only got its stern turret useful and its main radar isn’t going to work, its got a weaker rear radar for that. ---
**Author:** ![Capn\_Carl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/838e76/32.png) [@Capn\_Carl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capn_Carl)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2022, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-little-wings-on-the-rear-of-a-battleship-turret/957504/29 "2022-01-14T01:07:53Z")
It’s conjecture, but as I see it, it comes down to whether _Scharnhorst_’s search radar can detect _Duke of York_ before she’s in _DoY_’s effective firing range. _DoY_ Opened fire at 11k yards and ceased fire at around 18k, so her max effective range was 18k or less. If Scharnhorst has working radar that can detect _DoY_ at ~15k or more, she can turn NW and probably escape crippling damage from the BB. _Norfolk_ and _Sheffield_ had dropped back due to machinery issues, so only _Belfast_ is in her way, and none of the RN ships can keep up. Here’s the thing, though: the German navy often shut their radars off, because radar could be detected by the enemy. This may be why she was surprised by Burnette’s cruisers. Once detected, Bey would probably keep his radar on (again, assuming it’s not damaged) to prevent further surprises. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-little-wings-on-the-rear-of-a-battleship-turret/957504.md?page=1)