Comments by "" (@RedXlV) on "HMS Colossus - Guide 186" video.

  1. Quite a few dreadnoughts with echelon turrets look to the naked eye as if they shouldn't have room to rotate those turrets around for cross-deck fire. For example, I'd long assumed that the España-class must've been incapable of cross-deck fire because of the long barrels of their 12"/50 guns, but apparently that was not the case. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Espana_class_line-drawing,_Brassey_1911.png Looking at the diagram, I would presume they had to bring the guns to maximum elevation (or at least near it) in order to clear the funnel. That's the thing to remember with a lot of these ships; elevating the guns can sometimes allow the turret to turn further. Even with the flying bridge, that was still an option for Colossus as well.
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  2. ​ @stevepi1  Gunners didn't aim at weak spots on warships in these battles, the guns didn't have the degree of accuracy needed to do that at the engagement ranges involved. They basically aimed for center of mass of the ship because that maximized the chances of hitting the ship at all. And no, all hits are not the same. A penetrating hit to the turret would have no chance of destroying an entire capital ship if proper safety procedures were followed. The worst-case in a turret penetration should have been the destruction of just the turret in question, not the entire ship. And that would've been the case had the flash doors not all been left open or even outright removed in a reckless attempt to increase rate of fire. None of the German battlecruisers went up in flames as the result of a turret penetration. Nor did any of the battleships on either side. That's not because British battlecruisers were the only ones to take turret damage. For example, SMS Seydlitz (also a battlecruiser) took four direct penetrating hits to three different turrets. Propellant was detonated, but the flash did not reach the magazines and the ship survived. It's because the unsafe ammunition handling practices were unique to Beatty's battlecruisers.
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