Comments by "doveton sturdee" (@dovetonsturdee7033) on "World's Worst Warships - Book Review with Drach (Part 2 of 2)" video.

Actually, she was a battlecruiser redesigned as a fast battleship, and for most of her career was, overall, the most powerful warship on the planet.
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Hood was a fast battleship, not a true battlecruiser, as she had been heavily modified during construction. She was actually as well armoured as an Iron Duke class battleship, but at least 8 knots faster.
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@avikingman1 I agree with your opinion. Holland was a gunnery expert, and knew only too well Hood's weaknesses, which is why he acted as he did, and those who criticise his tactics are wrong. As the angle of Hood's rudder shows, he was within moments of achieving his objective, and in a comparatively close range slogging match, Hood, supported by POW, might well have given a good account of herself. Alas, of course, it was not to be, but that does not justify the suggestion that Hood, or at least, the Hood of fifteen years earlier, was a poor design, at least in my view.
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The North Carolinas weren't really contemporary. The last of the three Deutchlands was laid down in October, 1932, (the first as far back as Feb. 1929) whereas the North Carolina was only laid down in October, 1937.
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If Hood hadn't been where she was, Bismarck & Prinz Eugen would have had unhindered access to the wider Atlantic. As King George V & Repulse were patrolling the Iceland-Faroes Gap, so Hood & Prince of Wales had to patrol the Denmark Strait. Hood, by the way, was as well armoured as a WW1 battleship.
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@smartiepancake Prinz Eugen scored a hit on Hood's boat deck, which started a fire among the ready use lockers containing UP & 4 inch ammunition. This was witnessed by Tilburn, one of the survivors. It was reported to Holland, who said (his last recorded words) 'leave it until the ammunition is gone.' Perhaps those who fantasise that PE sank Hood should explain how she did this when her log recorded that she was using HE not AP ammunition. It really doesn't seem relevant, anyway.
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@smartiepancake Well, if you read my post again, it should be clear that my comments do not refer to you. Prinz Eugen scored one hit, which was a high explosive 8 inch shell on the boat deck.
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Their outdated armour lay out alone rather condemned them.
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The Second London Naval Treaty, of March, 1936, limited the size of heavy guns to 14 inches. It was signed by the United States, Britain, & France. Armour protection was actually greater than any other battleship class built (yes, even the Iowas) with the exception of the Yamatos. As to the effectiveness of the 14 inch guns, at North Cape, Duke of York, firing under radar control in poor weather, scored 31 straddles out of 52 broadsides fired and during the latter part she scored 21 straddles out of 25 broadsides, a very creditable gunnery performance. Likewise, her shells had little difficulty penetrating Scharnhorst's armour, which was actually superior to that of the Bismarck class.
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Her armour was at least a generation behind that of Rodney, let alone KGV or North Carolina. The few times her AA guns were called into action, they failed miserably. She had a more or less useless low angle secondary armament. Her resistance to heavy gunfire was such that Rodney reduced her to a helpless target within about 20 minutes, whilst her superb optics, in this short period, failed to inconvenience Rodney at all. The only time Tirpitz fired her guns at a surface target was when she managed to destroy a large shed on Spitzbergen.
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In Lutjens' defence, at the time he made his signal the probability is that the radar transmissions from Suffolk were still being detected aboard Bismarck, and the Germans didn't realise that they were too weak to get back to Suffolk. Incidentally, the Admiralty didn't 'panic.' They simply concentrated the necessary force that their large resources gave them in order to ensure that Bismarck neither broke through into the wider Atlantic, nor managed to get back to St. Nazaire for repairs. Tirpitz, as a fleet in being, was far more useful to the Germans, simply by tying up allied resources which could have been better used elsewhere.
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@smartiepancake Well, the blurb was wrong. No serious naval historian would suggest that Prinz Eugen sank Hood.
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'KGV`s ! Unsinkable ( as long as they don`t face an enemy ); Well, Duke of York sank Scharnhorst, Prince of Wales caused sufficient damage to Bismarck to force Lutjens to abandon his commerce raiding operation, and King George V, with Rodney, rapidly disposed of Bismarck. Incidentally, I don't think 'some britains' (whatever that is supposed to mean) have any problems with German ships, any more than the wartime Royal Navy did. Cases in point : Graf Spee, Konigsberg, half the total German destroyer force (1st & 2nd Narvik), Bismarck, and Scharnhorst.
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