Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "The Drydock - Episode 217" video.

  1. KGV turret faces are an interesting topic in themselves. Since the turn of the century, a sloping turret face had been the thing, to better deflect an incoming shell upward. The KGV turret face is near vertical. According to some of my reading, the thinking was that a shell coming in on a high ballistic trajectory would hit a sloping face near square, increasing it's chance of penetration. So the KGV turret face was designed vertical, so the high angle shell would strike a glancing blow, decreasing the probability of penetration. But, to get the vertical face, while keeping the trunnions where they needed to be for turret balance, required the front of the turret to be very short. The quad turret front on the KGVs is so short it doesn't cover the top of the barbette, so the turret has an armored skirt in front of the turret face, to cover the barbette. So, instead of an inbound shell penetrating a sloping turret face, on the KGV, the high shell hits the vertical face and is deflected downward. iirc, angle of incidence equals angle of deflection, so the shell would probably hit the deck, not that skirt that covers the barbette. To hit the skirt, the shell, or bomb, would need to fall vertically. But Admiralty fighting instructions said to close to 12-16,000 yards, where trajectories are flatter. At 16,000 yards, the angle of fall of a shell from Bismark is only 10.4 degrees, nearly square to the KGVs vertical turret face. So, seems they built a turret optimized for 20,000+ yards on a ship that was supposed to engage at 16,000 or less.
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  2.  @genericpersonx333  apparently, the KGV turrets were designed and built by Vickers. But you would think there would be some interface between Vickers, RN Ordinance, and the higher ups in the Admiralty that coordinate the work of the various departments. I have staked out the KGV armament as an area of study over the winter. Coming up with some interesting tidbits. In 35, a large series of different concepts were designed, with armament of 16", 15" and 14" and speeds of 30kts, 27kts, and 23kts. An armament of 9-15" was determined to provide the best balance of speed, protection, and firepower. The admiralty's own analysis said the 14" should be forgotten about, unless it is required by a treaty. Shazam. A year later, the UK has written a clause into the treaty to mandate 14".
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  3.  @kemarisite  I suspect what made the semi-fixed ammo for the 5"/38 workable was the power rammer. iirc, shell and charge are dumped in the loading tray and rammed together., vs loading shell and charge separately on the 5"/51. That is what gave the 5"/38 the rate of fire equal to a gun with fixed ammo. I did an exercise where the USN used the twin 4"/50 mount that was installed on a few DDs experimentally, in place of each 5"/51 on a BB. The results were interesting. Then I did an exercise where the 4" is cut down to 45 caliber, converted to a sliding breech, and installed on the twin, dual-purpose, British Mi XIX mount they used with their 4", in place of the 5"/51-5"/25 combination USN BBs had in the 30s. Even more fascinating results. I have read that Jackie Fisher was an advocate of more smaller, rapid fire, guns, for a secondary, rather than the 6" casemate mounts then common on RN capital ships. The ships Jackie had a personal hand in, the Renowns and Courageouses, both had 4" secondaries. My hypothetical USN 4" exercises indicate Jackie might have had a point.
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