Comments by "doveton sturdee" (@dovetonsturdee7033) on "Sudden Destruction: Why Did HMS Hood Explode?" video.

  1. Jellicoe had no say in warship design, & Hood's deck was on a par with a Queen Elizabeth class battleship.
    3
  2.  @lewis7315  Your 'experts' were wrong. Hood's design was altered during her construction. A typical battlecruiser, such as Tiger, ot the Lions, had a 9 inch belt and a 2.5 inch deck. Hood had a 12 inch belt and a 3 inch deck. The much later US North Carolina class fast battleships had 12.1 inch belts and 3.6 inch decks. Hood was really a fast battleship, although her deck armour was lacking by the standards of 1939, which was why Holland sought to reduce the range as quickly as he did.
    3
  3. I will keep this as simple as I can. The tone of your post suggests it would be pointless to write anything more complicated. The Home Fleet had four capital ships with sufficient speed and firepower to catch Bismarck. There were two exit points into the wider Atlantic. The British needed to prevent Bismarck & Prinz Eugen reaching the wider Atlantic, as they would then be harder to chase down, and could become a threat to convoys. Admiral Tovey, therefore, sent his second and third best ships, Hood & Prince of Wales, to one exit, the Denmark Strait, and positioned his strongest and weakest assets, King George V and Repulse, in the second, the Iceland-Faroes Gap. The reasoning was that each unit, individually, would be capable of preventing the breakout, and each had cruiser support in the area. Guess what? It worked. Despite the loss of Hood (an aging ship, but with a heavier broadside than that of Bismarck, and armour on a par with a Queen Elizabeth class battleship) Prince of Wales was able to damage Bismarck sufficiently to force her commander to abandon his raiding mission and run for St. Nazaire for repairs. I hope that this was not too difficult for you to grasp, and I hope that great-granddad did not get bored sitting in Tirpitz at the end of a Fjord for many months betweem 1942 & November, 1944.
    3
  4.  @updatedotexe  Which only goes to show how little you know or understand about WW2 in terms of naval strategy. The loss of Hood, though tragic for the crew and for their families, had no effect on Britain's naval superiority. The failure of Bismarck to disrupt British supply convoys was a significant setback for German strategy, and her subsequent loss resulted in the Germans abandoning surface ship operations in the Atlantic for the rest of the war.
    3
  5. But received hits from PoW sufficiently serious to force Admiral Lutjens to abandon his mission and run for St. Nazaire, of course.
    3
  6. By 'bailed out' do you mean being dragged unwillingly into the war when attacked by Japan, and after Germany declared war? Around 15 months after Britain had seen off even a remote prospect of German invasion? Is that what you mean?
    3
  7.  @michaelthebarbarian3380  Her rate of fire during the action was nowhere near as high as it, theoretically, was claimed to have been. 'She was undoubtedly the most powerful Ship in the North Atlantic in 1941.' Presumably, you mean apart from HMS Rodney?
    2
  8.  @michaelthebarbarian3380  You need to buy a book or two before posting insults. Otherwise you will continue to demonstrate what a fool you are. Yes, Rodney was slow. This would mean only that Bismarck could evade action, much as Scharnhorst & Gneisenau had previously done during Operation Berlin. 'Her armor about as good as Hood.' Oh dear! Rodney's armour was laid out to the superior All or Nothing pattern devised originally by the US navy for the Nevada class, and installed in every US battleship since then. This was copied by the British in the Nelson, the KGVs and Vanguard. Bismarck still followed the old, less effective, incremental pattern. Furthermore, Bismarck's belt was 12.6 inches, and her deck 4.7 inches. By comparison, Rodney's belt was 14 inches, and her deck 6.25 inches. In terms of weight of Broadside, Bismarck fired one of 14,112 lbs. Rodney's weight of Broadside was 18,432 lbs. Perhaps now you see how foolish your post truly is, especially when compounded by :- 'Rodney (who was inferior to Hood) would have suffered the same fate as Hood in the Straits.'
    2
  9.  @michaelthebarbarian3380  As there are large areas of the subject about which you demonstrate yourself to be almost entirely ignorant, I simply thought it good manners to attempt, at least, to provide you with some of the education you clearly missed. I even tried to avoid long, complicated, words which might have alarmed you University indeed. In fact a First in Modern History, specialising in the naval wars of the 20th century. Several published books and articles on the subject, moreover. I observe, by the way, that amidst your insults, you have never sought to challenge any of my facts. I wonder why? Sorry, old lad, but you are rather outgunned on this subject.
    2
  10. Except that Richelieu was not even operational until late 1943.
    2
  11. Actually, Hood fired a weight of broadside heavier than that of Bismarck, and Lutjens' squadron had been out manoeuvred by Holland's. Bismarck was never able to pursue Prince of Wales, after receiving damage which reduced her speed, and forced Lutjens to abandon his mission and run for St. Nazaire.
    2
  12. Hood had the same level of armour as a Queen Elizabeth class battleship. The reasons for the battlecruiser losses at Jutland were entirely different, and largely attributable to errors made by David Beatty.
    2
  13.  @buzzardbeurling  Thank you. You beat me to the draw, and saved me writing much the same!
    2
  14.  @felix25ize  I am sure that, had the British behaved like sportsmen, and ignored the clause in the French armistice/surrender which required the French fleet to return to mainland ports, only to find it subsequently arriving in the Channel attempting to support a German invasion, they would simply have shrugged their shoulders. Admiral Gensoul should have passed the full text of the British ultimatum to his government, instead of witholding it. You think the British should have trusted Petain? Really?
    2
  15. Not really. Bismarck's damage meant that her commerce raiding operation, the only reason she & Prinz Eugen were even in the Atlantic, needed to be abandoned.
    2
  16. Calm down, little chap! Just to correct a rant or two:- The High Seas Fleef spent almost all of WW1 after Jutland swinging at moorings in the Jade, until finally mutinying in late 1918. The WW2 German surface fleet was conspicuous by absence from WW2 after fleeing back to German waters in early 1942 and giving up on Atlantic operations.
    2
  17.  @vanmust  Not at all. I simply replied to a stupid comment with a few facts. None of which, I observe, you sought to challenge.
    2
  18.  @Me-fm9zk  Virtually no American sailors died before the US entered WW2, although thousands certainly did after the German declaration of war, when Admiral King chose not to institute a convoy system, and lights on the US East coast were left on, silhouetting freighters nicely for U boat commanders. Perhaps you should look up exactly how many US merchant ships were lost in 1930, 1940, & 1941, instead of posting from a state of ignorance? By the end of 1940, Britain (not 'England') by the way, had survived.The possibility of Operation Sealion had vanished. After June, 1941, the eventual outcome of WW2 was becoming clear. Your US Department of the Historian refers to Lend Lease as :- 'Although British Prime Minister Winston Churchill later referred to the initiative as “the most unsordid act” one nation had ever done for another, Roosevelt’s primary motivation was not altruism or disinterested generosity. Rather, Lend-Lease was designed to serve America’s interest in defeating Nazi Germany without entering the war until the American military and public was prepared to fight.' So please don't pretend that the US bailed anyone out in WW2.
    2
  19. The sinking of the battlecruisers at Jutland was not similar, aside from superficially, to the loss of Hood. Jutland was because David Beatty placed more emphasis on rate of fire than on safety concerns, and encouraged his captains to short-circuit safety protocols. Hood was far better armoured than a traditional battlecruiser, and seems to have fallen victim to a combination of good German gunnery control and a fluke hit.
    1
  20.  @GreyWolfLeaderTW  Neither can you deny that the deck armour of HMS Hood was on a par with that the Queen Elizabeth class battleships, and superior to that of every other British battleship design except the Orions, the King George Vs, the 'R' class, and the post WW1 designs. You might also reflect on the probability that the sinking was not brought about by penetration of the deck armour in any case, but by a fortunate hit in the lower hull, above the exterior anti-torpedo bulge. It is difficult to be sure about Bismarck's weaponry, as she only ever achieved one hit, of course. Oh, and a famous golfer one said, 'the more I practise, the luckier I get.' The Fleet Air Arm had for years been rehearsing techniques which were intended to slow down enemy heavy ships in order for the Battle Fleet to engage them. They had already achieved this once, when HMS Formidable's Albacores damaged Vittorio Veneto, and thus brought about the Battle of Matapan, two months later.
    1
  21.  @michaelthebarbarian3380  As my old University professor, M.R.D. Foot, was wont to tell his students, 'when people resort to insults, it is a sure sign that they have lost the qrgument.' Thank you for proving his point! Perhaps you aren't aware of the problems with German gunnery radar, the most serious of which being that it tended to fail when the guns fired. As, indeed, Bismarck's did when firing at HMS Norfolk on the evening of 23 May. When she was in action with HMS Hood, and HMS Prince of Wales, therefore, she was not using radar. Didn't you know that? It doesn't surprise me. Actually, the story about the Nelsons being difficult to handle is doubtful. At least one of her former captains said he found Rodney responsive to her helm, and on a level with a Queen Elizabeth. That was one Andrew Cunningham, a future Admiral of the Fleet, and a former destroyer man, known for his ship handling. Just possibly, he might have known more than you? My knowledge of the various battleships of WW1 & WW2 does not come from World of Battleships, whatever that is, but from people like Siegfried Breyer, Norman Friedman, or R.A. Burt, among others. Heaven alone knows where you get your misconceptions from. Wehraboo sources or inclinations perhaps? Your reference to 'range' also demonstrates your lack of knowledge. Bismarck's guns had a maximum range of 38280 yards, whilst Rodney's had a range of 38,000 yards. Not that this matters. If you knew anything about actual naval battle ranges in WW2, you would have known that the longest range hits achieved by any capital ship was 26,000 yards, by HMS Warspite on Giulio Cesare, and by Scharnhorst on HMS Glorious, both in 1940. 26,000 yards was exceptional, and the normal range at which a capital ship might hope to achieve success was 20,000 yards at most. From 15,000 yards, the odds of a successful hit became favourable. Didn't you know that, either? Perhaps you didn't know, either, that the Nelsons were cut down versions of the proposed G3 battlecruiser, with the same level of armament and the same strength of armour, but with reduced engine power in order to keep to the limits of the Washington Naval Treaty. Bismarck, despite displacing around 15,000 more, still managed to have a lighter broadside and weaker armour than the Nelsons. Don't worry about not respecting me, by the way. I could never feel the slightest respect for some who couches his ignorance in a series of insults. Perhaps you should read some books by the authors I mentioned earlier, little chap?
    1
  22. Hood's armour was as thick as a Queen Elizabeth class battleship, although thin compared to the Nelsons, KGVs or Colorados. A number of warships in May 1941 carried 16 inch guns.
    1
  23. Seriously, how long do you think an unsupported German carrier might have lasted in the 1941 North Atlantic?
    1
  24.  @erictaylor5462  At the beginning of WW2, the RN had more carriers than the US Navy did. Four of them were large, fast, vessels, and a fifth was large but slower. You are misinformed if you think otherwise. Whilst the German navy had gunnery radar, even if it fell apart when the guns fired, the Germans did not have anything to compare with the British Type 279 search radar, which HMS Suffolk used to track Bismarck, and which came as such a shock to Admiral Lutjens. 'I think a German carrier could have lasted quite a long time, even if it was unsupported, especially if it operated with sound tactics, such as maintain a constant CAP and using radar to pick up enemy shipping well outside of weapon's range.' The aircraft intended for the one carrier the Germans did almost build, Graf Zeppelin, were Bf109s and Ju87s. The undercarrige of the 109 was almost comically unsuited for carrier operations, and the Ju87 was an aircraft designed for close support of ground troops. The Germans had precisely no experience of carrier operations, and certainly no aircraft to compare with the Fairey Swordfish, or even the Fairey Fulmar. Moreover, they had no search radar, and nothing like the land based reconnaissance resources available to the British. Perhaps you are allowing events in the Pacific to cloud your judgement. The much greater distances involved certainly made the carrier, as part of a battle group or task force, more important, but operations in the Atlantic were rather different, as there were often periods when aircraft operations were simply not possible. During the last attack on Bismarck by Ark Royal's Swordfish, the rise and fall of the flight deck of some 70 feet meant that no heavier aircraft could even have got off the deck. Moreover, a carrier in the western war needed to be able to operate within range of land based aircraft for prolonged periods. The British carriers, with armoured decks as a trade off for smaller air groups, were able to do this. I wonder how long the more thin-skinned US or Japanese carriers might have survived in such conditions? As a US liaison officer aboard a British carrier in the BPF famously wrote, 'When a kamikaze strikes a US carrier, it is six months in Pearl. When one hits a Limey carrier, it's 'Sweepers, man your brooms.' '
    1
  25.  @erictaylor5462  I am simply trying to explain to you why your idea of German carriers operating in the Atlantic is simply a non-starter. They had, as I said, no experience of naval aviation, and no suitable aircraft. You say that modern carrier tactics did not develop until after WW2, but that carriers with 'sound tactics' could have closed the shipping lanes. Don't you see something of a contradiction. By the way, the British had been learning carrier aviation techniques for almost 20 years by 1939. The RN/Fleet Air Arm were, however, hindered by the unfortunate fact that the procurement of naval aircraft was in the hands of their most mortal and intransigent enemy, the British Air Ministry.
    1
  26. In Hood's case, Holland was aware of the vulnerability of her decks to plunging fire, and was attempting to close the range as quickly as possible. How does closing the range present a smaller target?
    1
  27. Hiei had been heavily rebuilt by WW2 and was more of a fast battleship than a battlecruiser. Beatty's doctrine at Jutland was certainly flawed, but his ideas were abandoned immediately after Jutland.
    1
  28.  @alexalbrecht5768  Don't tell me. Tell the Japanese.
    1
  29. No, you didn't. There has been no such programme because there is no such evidence. Hood was far too badly devastated in any case.
    1
  30. She was in fact, (officially at least) named for the first of the great naval Hoods, 1st Viscount Hood of Whitley (Lord Samuel Hood). This fact is verified by the names of her cancelled sister ships (all of whom were named for famous admirals of the 1700s).
    1
  31. No. She was scheduled for a full modernisation along the lines of HMS Renown, in 1941, had the war not intervened.
    1
  32. Except that Prinz Eugen used HE, not AP, shells through. One of the survivors, AB Tilburn, was on the boat deck when it was hit by a shell from Prinz Eugen, and his testimony at the Inquiry confirmed that, whilst the shell ignited ready use UP & 4 inch ammunition in lockers, it did no further damage. A second survivor, Briggs, was on the bridge at the time of the hit, and recorded Admiral Holland's last words, when informed of the boat deck fire, as 'Leave it until the ammunition is gone.' Certainly, the destruction was undoubtedly caused by the 4 inch magazine triggering off the 15 inch magazine, but the idea that Prinz Eugen was responsible is a strange fantasy of comparatively recent origin.
    1
  33. 'a terrible insult to all brave sailors that had to die due to save Mr Churchills Ass!!' What do you mean?
    1
  34. That is perhaps what comes of playing games rather than studying history?
    1
  35.  @ultrajd  Bismarck was designed in response to the French Richelieus, as part of the Franco-German between the wars Naval Race. If you want a Commerce Raider, do what the Germans did, and fit weapons to a fast freighter, producing an effective Hilfskreuzer
    1
  36. You have allowed your personal prejudices to affect your understanding of British between the wars naval policy, haven't you?
    1
  37. What you 'find' doesn't really matter, as there is no evidence of any safety protocols being disregarded aboard Hood. As to your nonsense about 'codite dust' firstly cordite did nor come in powder form, and secondly it was contained in bags.
    1
  38.  @RealCadde  Then perhaps you should educate me by providing a source for your claim, given that the cordite used for the propellant of shells in WW2, Cordite SC, came in long strips, almost spaghetti-like in appearance, encased in bags.
    1
  39.  @RealCadde  Indeed you are done here. Instead of simply posting insults, why not read for yourself about how the Royal Navy handled cordite in WW2? The strips of cordite were packed into silk bags, which were then placed inside jute bags, As the cordite was not in powder form, it did not leak, however much you may want to believe that it did. You may be surprised to learn that techniques had improved somewhat since the Black Powder days.
    1
  40. Ships are inanimate lumps of metal. Force H attacked Mers El Kebir to ensure that the collaborationalist government of Petain would not send French ships to support a German invasion attempt of Britain.
    1
  41. The British had commenced a programme of fleet modernisation before the war, starting with the older Queen Elizabeths and Repulses first. The smaller and slower 'R' class were to be replaced on a one for one basis by the King George Vs. Malaya & Barham had had partial refits by 1936, whilst Warspite, Valiant, & Queen Elizabeth were totally reconstructed and modernised, as had been Renown, by the start of WW2. Hood was due, had WW2 not intervened, to have been reconstructed along Renown's lines from 1941. The RN could not afford to have more than two capital ships undergoing long term modernisation at the same time.
    1
  42. How was Captain Kerr inept and criminally negligent? Do enlighten us.
    1
  43.  @erictaylor5462  You need to think again. Ralph Kerr had served aboard a battleship at Jutland, and there is precisely no evidence to suggest that any of Hood's safety protocols were overridden.
    1
  44.  @erictaylor5462  Sorry, but that is simply untrue. Which 'witnesses' might they have been? How odd that their identities were not revealed, or their evidence was not made known at either Board of Inquiry.' 'As the doors were all open the fire reached the powder magazine and set the powder off.' There is no evidence to suggest that any doors were open. The explosion was almost certainly the result of a shell reaching the 4 inch magazine, which in turn triggered off the aft 15 inch magazine. In point of fact, the idea that safety protocols were ignored could only ever applied to Beatty's battlecruiser fleet in WW1, as a result of his fixation with the importance of rate of fire. It was never applied within the battleships of the Grand Fleet, and was discontinued in the battlecruiser fleet after Jutland. There are numerous errors in this video, but claiming that Hood's safety protocols were lax on the grounds that 'this is difficult to disprove because of lack of survivors' is highly questionable. One might as well say that USS Arizona really blew up in Pearl because one of the crew was having a crafty fag in a magazine, and dropped it when the alarm was sounded. After all, it is just as easy to 'disprove because of lack of survivors.' And it is just as absurd.
    1
  45. Perhaps that question should be addressed to German readers?
    1
  46. Nonsense. By the time Bismarck was sunk, she had lost her main armament and command staff, was settling by the stern and developing a steadily increasing list, and was a mass of internal fires. David Mearns, on of the leaders of the expeditions to inspect her, reported that any attempt to scuttle whould have speeded up the sinking by 'a matter of minutes, only.' Perhaps you consider that a scuttled ship is slightly less sunk? Both the US & Royal Navies have a tradition that says, 'we fight the ship, not the men.' The fact is that a U boat report was given to Captain Martin of HMS Dorsetshire by a look out. His first duty, and that of any commander in wartime, was to his own ship and men. Are you suggesting that he should have trusted to the sporting instincts of the commander of the U-boat? U74 was indeed in the area, reported seeing British heavy ships although she was not in a position to attack, and later surfaced amid a large number of bodies and wreckage. She did pick uo one or two survivors. By the way, perhaps you are unaware that, when Scharnhorst & Geneisenau sank HMS Glorious, HMS Ardent, & HMS Acasta, off Norway in 1940, they left around 2,000 men in the water to die? A shame the Anglo-American tradition hadn't reached the Kriegsmarine, wasn't it?
    1
  47. It has been deduced, but never established.
    1
  48. Whoever told you that must have known nothing about the actual action.
    1
  49. "Brits had poor powder safety" Not after the experiences of the Battle Cruiser fleet at Jutland, they didn't. David Beatty's foolishness ended immediately thereafter.
    1
  50. At the distances involved, plunging fire was unlikely to have bgeen relevant.
    1
  51. Prinz Eugen, Scharnhorst, and Gneisenau were able to flee through the Channel in February, 1942, because there was no longer a threat of invasion, and the British had relocated their heavy naval rsources to other areas, specifically to the north in order to provide a screen for Russian convoys against potential attacks by the Tirpitz, which had just been sent to Norway. Operations against the German ships in Brest had been left to the RAF, with unfortunate results, but even then the German strategic reverse which was the Channel Dash still came as a welcome surprise to the RN, as if effectively demonstrated that the German surface fleet had abandoned plans to operate in the Atlantic. Gneisenau & Scharnhorst were both damaged by mines, by the way. Gneisenau was later further damaged in harbour and never sailed again. Scharnhorst sailed in one further action, where she was sunk, and Prinz Eugen spent the rest of the war wandering around the Baltic.
    1
  52.  @f0rth3l0v30fchr15t  Indeed, but using torpedo bombers flown by highly trained crews. Unfortunately, the Bomber Command of the time, however gallant they might have beehn, were simply not up to the same standard. Force Z, by the way, had no fighter cover. The Luftwaffe provided extensive air cover of up to 280 aircraft.
    1
  53. Because Hood's deck armour was vulnerable to plunging fire and Holland sought to close the range as quickly as possible. A change of course by Bismarck & Prinz Eugen after the British supporting cruisers had lost contact meant that Holland's original intention, of approaching end on as quickly as possible, even it this meant the T of his squadron being crossed, did not happen, and the result was an angled approach.
    1
  54. At Jutland, the levels of accuracy of British & German battleships were more orb less identical.
    1
  55.  @TTTT-oc4eb  No, because the Battlecruiser fleet at Rosyth did not have the facilities for gunnery practice that were available to the Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow. That was why Hood's squadron had been moved to Scapa, and replaced at Rosyth by Evan-Thomas's BF5.
    1
  56. Not really. When you are as heavily outnumbered as the Germans were at sea. sacrificing your few ships in quoxotic suicide actions is really not the way to go.
    1
  57.  @TTTT-oc4eb  Plan Z was never anything more than a fantasy. It would require starving both the army & the Luftwaffe of vast quantities of resources, something which was never going to happen.
    1