Yamato vs. the Bismark

[Raguleader]

@mac_bolan00

how about that fire in one of iowa’s turrets in 1989 (or was it 1990?) oh well she survived.

Forgot about that one. It does remind me of something I read in a Horatio Hornblower book: The two worst enemies of a sailor are water and fire, and they need both to do their jobs.

[Alka_Seltzer]

@mac_bolan00

ok, let’s clear things my way. i won’t need cites to prove my main points about armor.

Ah, I see, “my assumptions are my cite”. Why do you think you have a deeper understanding of this matter than the naval engineers who spent their careers designing these ships, and who went to a lot of trouble calculating zones of immunity to various weapons?

@mac_bolan00

1. main belt and deck armor, being horizontal, are most vulnerable to hits coming at close to verical.

Deck armour is horizontal and belt armour is vertical. Both are most vulnerable to hits coming at right angles to the plates.

@mac_bolan00

now supposing the 6-inch shell hits from an angle less than 45 degrees. from the shell’s point of view, the armor appears to be more than 6 inches thick. will it penetrate? not likely, it will just glance. but will the armor survive this shallow hit? NO. that’s because the kinetic energy (more correctly momentum) of the 6-inch shell will, as you can imagine, provide overmatch to the armor which is really just 3 inches thick. so it will not penetrate but will likely smash the armor and that’s almost as deadly as a penetration.

Spalling is a possibility, but it’s inaccurate to say this is as dangerous as a high explosive warhead being delivered to the ship’s internals. The kinetic energy of the fragments is far less than that of an intact projectile.

@mac_bolan00

3. let’s cite examples. in the mediteranean, the pre-bismarck hood engaged the french battleship dunkerque at a range too far and an angle too shallow to penetrate the thick barbettes. a glancing on hit no.2 turret bounced the 15" shell. but the turret was cracked and gauged sufficiently to kill the crew and put that turret out of action.

There are also numerous examples of turrets and barbettes being hit without disabling the turret. Armouring schemes were compromises, and some had flaws. The Dunkerques were not designed to resist 15 inch shells.