Comments by "doveton sturdee" (@dovetonsturdee7033) on "Scharnhorst: Best German WW2 Battleship Class" video.

  1.  @xeiv1  The torpedoing claim was proven totally false long ago.
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  2. Except that Bismarck was damaged, down by the bows, and lacked the speed to catch Prince of Wales.
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  3.  @CorePathway  She had a thicker belt than the Bismarcks. Or, come to that, the Richelieus, the North Carolinas, the Iowas, or the South Dakotas.
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  4.  @Edi_J  The circumstances of Jutland were unique, in that the commanding admiral, David Beatty, regarded rate of fire as paramount, and unofficially encouraged his captains to stow cordite in unprotected areas. This policy was not followed by the battleships of the Grand Fleet, and was discontinued entirely after Jutland. Hood had a 12 inch belt, compared to the 6 inch of the Invincibles, or the 9 inch of the Lions and Tiger, by the way. Therefore, your comment that 'Sending Hood against Bismarck, knowing what happened during Jutland battle, was a war crime' is simply silly. The fact is, that the Royal Navy in May 1941 had only five capital ships with the speed and firepower necessary to challenge Bismarck. These were King George V, Prince of Wales, Hood, Repulse, and Renown. Renown was with Force H, which left Tovey with two exit points into the wider Atlantic, and four ships with which to block them. Thus, he sent his second and third most capable ships (Hood & PoW) to the Denmark Strait, whilst placing his best and weakest (KGV & Repulse) in the Iceland-Faroes Gap' The assumption was that either pairing would be able to prevent such a sortie into the wider Atlantic, where Lutjens' squadron would be harder to chase down. It worked, by the way. The damage Bismarck received in the Denmark Strait was enough to cause Lutjens to abort his mission. Had you been in Tovey's, or Pound's, situation in May, 1941, what would you have done differently to protect the convoy network?
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  5.  @Edi_J  Hood did not have a 'paper deck' but three inches of deck armour. The same as that of a Queen Elizabeth It is totally improbable that the 'death hit' was delivered by Prinz Eugen, which did score a hit on Hood's boat deck and started a fire among ready-use 4 inch and UP ammunition, but nothing more. PE used HE shells throughout the action. There has never been the slightest evidence concerning flaws in cordite-handling aboard HMS Hood, by the way.
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  6.  @manilajohn0182  Equally, people seem determined to impose classifications onto things which in reality do not fit easily into any obvious slot. Hood was redesigned after Jutland and considerable extra armour added. As a result, she was far more of a fast battleship than a traditional lightly armoured battlecruiser. Earlier RN battlecruisers had armoured belts of 6 inches (the Invincibles, and the Renowns) or 9 inches (Lions & Tiger), whereas Hood's was 12 inches, the same as the King George V and Iron Duke classes from WW1. Indeed, the US North Carolinas had 12 inch belts, and the belts of the South Dakotas & Iowas were 12.2 inches and 12.1 inches respectively. No one has ever called them battlecruisers. Come to that, the proposed G3 battlecruisers, from which the Nelsons evolved, were called battlecruisers, despite being intended to have 14 inch belts and decks in parts 8 inches thick. The term battlecruiser within the RN was based on speed, in that it was applied to any capital ship with a speed in excess of 25 knots, as the original concept of the fast, lightly armoured, cruiser killer became outdated.
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  7.  @manilajohn0182  I would suggest that it is the ship that matters, not the designation.
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  8.  @manilajohn0182  But you have the cases of Glorious, Courageous, and Furious. They were labelled 'large light cruisers' simply to get the finance for them through a Treasury which would not countenance providing the finance for more battlecruisers. ' My sole point is that an official designation of any warship has to be made at some point.' I disagree. The Invincibles' were originally called 'Through Deck Cruisers' in order for the government of the day to be able to pretend, for whatever reason, that they were not what they really were. Similarly, simply look at a photograph of a modern Japanese 'Izumo' class destroyer, and tell me what it really is. To me, what matters is not what a ship is called, but what it truly is.
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  9. Actually he didn't. He referred to the U-Boat menace.
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  10.  @rodshoaf  You should read up on the Washington Naval Treaty for the actual reasons that Battleship construction largely ceased for fifteen years after WW1.
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  11.  @glenchapman3899  Nagato had weaker armour and was slower. The Nelsons were much superior in armour and firepower, but were capable of 23 knots only. There were no new US battleships built after the Colorados until the North Carolinas from 1937.
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  12.  @glenchapman3899  You referred to US Battleships built after 1923, which thus excluded the Colorados. Nagato as built had deck armour, at 2.5 inches, thinner than that of Hood.
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  13.  @glenchapman3899  It wasn't I who cited the year 1923 as the start point. You did. Moreover, how can you possibly disregard deck armour?
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  14.  @glenchapman3899  Then you will presumably accept that Hood's belt was thicker than that of Nagato's?
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