Would love to see an image of that, or would it be visually the same as OTL?
Just picture her being a bit shorter(what with the lower speed not requiring quite as fine of lines) and less low in the water since she'd not be weighed down by the modifications since they'd be part of the design from the start. Maybe a couple feet wider to accommodate the void and liquid TDS( which did tend to be wider, although with the need for less boilers due to the design being slightly slower the room for the TDS would probably be freed up might free up the space with widening the desig ). For getting an image that's outside my area of expertise
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And by every conceivable measure Bismarck and Prinz Eugen and not Hood should have been sunk at the Battle of the Denmark Strait even with Holland not having Suffolk,Norfolk, and his destroyer screen with him like he should have before engaging. Alas the gods of war are fickle creatures who love to make the most unlikely events occur which are oftentimes stranger than any work of fiction
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And if you bring a gun I'll bring a tank and so on and so forth until you get to nukes where you really can't go much further
McPherson
Banned
Lessons learned to be sure, but as I noted elsewhere, Lancelot Holland, even with such an improved Hood, had to make the SAME tough choices to catch Lutjens and bring him to battle. The Battle of the Denmark Strait could have gone the other way IF Holland could have turned sooner and brought on a parallel fight at belt punching range as he wanted.
Some of those choices would be to hang back and shadow or wait for his cruiser destroyer support, but in those seas, that meant he would have to reduce speed and might lose the Bismarck. Other choices were to angle the merge less acutely, but again that would mean a longer chase and in the sea and weather conditions prevalent (especially the poor RADAR weather) Lutjens might escape him by a turn east.
There really was no magic "solution" I see that helps alter those fundamentals except the PoW being worked up properly and being better than SHE was.
I question why you think Hood was the worse ship of her Era?
| Laid down: | 1 September 1916 |
| Launched: | 22 August 1918 |
| Commissioned: | 15 May 1920 |
So era wise the closest ships would be, Tennessee class or Ise/Nagato each has strong and weak points but on average I don't think Hood is badly off?
And the USN knew it but for some strange reason barring Admiral Sims no one on the general board wanted to redesign the Lexingtons because they didn't want to effectively make the rest of the USN'S battlefleet obsolescent. Admiral Sims being the sane man he was pointed out that Hood was already there and god knows what the next thing the UK will build will be(as we all know it was the G3s)
Hoods FC is higher up, and obviously an Admiralty FC rather than the Dreyer V. That alone may aid in correctly spotting Bismarck compared to mixing it up otl.
Then you've got gunnery. Hood landed her first salvo just off Prinz Eugens bow before changing to target Bismarck and working back to find the range. If she's targeting Bismarck from the start, you've got a good chance of hitting early on.
Next point, Bismarck’s golden BB. I had an entire argument with someone about where it was likely to have hit, probably through the upper belt and through the bend in the "turtleback".
With the deck armour extended out to the inner hull wall that won't happen.
Suffolk and Norfolk aren't that far behind, but Holland needs to slow the germans down for the cruisers to catch up.
If Hood lands hits on Bismarck early enough she could pull a Rodney knocking out FC and turrets. Prinz Eugen needs to be dealt with, british battlecruisers had a knack for dodging torpedoes, but yeah I wouldn't want to risk it.
Simultaneously I can't imagine Hood handling the hits PoW took, but she can presumably fire back unlike PoW. Going to be a pretty gruesome knife fight if Lutzens doesn't try to run.
Worked up PoW is a big game changer, 18 heavy guns firing consistently and (pretty) reliably at Bismarck at PE isn't ending well.
McPherson
Banned
IDKE about that one. The light conditions were "terrible". Was the FoV in the lens setup superior enough to spot silhouette size differences at those ranges?
Here is a good point. Hood was the West Virginia of the Royal Navy; which means her shooting was "excellent" as in being a fleet champion.
Another good point. Hard to argue that if the shell hit had not reached into that seam that a Yamato type magazine explosion would have happened. Two meters anywhere offset else? Golden BBs seem to have been a WWII BB curse with Royal Oak, Roma, Arizona and Prince of Wales all getting one. It was a miracle that Pennsylvania did not join the list.
Again I do not know the protection scheme well enough, but it sounds right to me.
Agreed.
Here I am knowledgeable. As long as the British keep a 100 second run time torpedo distance (~ 6000 meters) as Lee did at Second Guadalcanal against Japanese Type 93s from about a half dozen IJN ships who launched 40 of them at USS Washington and missed with all of them, there is no way the Prinz Eugen's LOUSY by comparison torpedoes can reach Holland that he cannot dance out of their wakes.
Parallel order... PoW can still lay on 6 shell ladder straddles despite her mechanical casualties.
Agreed.
Plus if we have to account for the fact that if the Admiral class had been designed based on what I recommended its highly likely at least another one would have been finished due to no Jutland redesign at which point its likely that Tovey keeps the Prince of Wales with him and Holland would get the two Admrials both of which would have been fully worked up. Moreover its highly unlikely that the Golden BB that kill Hood would have managed to get through the slightly thicker uniform belt.
Speaking of HMS Hood and her fatal hit.
I was reading that when Bismarck's shell struck PoW below the water (The dud), it entered the water short, travelled down then arched back up, penetrated the hull, deflected 20 degrees forward and then came to a stop against the TT bulkhead.
I realize the fatal hit on Hood was seen from PoW, but could it have punched through the armour then defected inside the hull into the magazines? If so, it could quite as easily deflected forward say, AWAY from the magazines. That would have disabled some engines and in turn reduced Hoods speed. What would happen in that instance? Bis and PE would run hard but would PoW stay with Hood or pursue alone?
I was reading that when Bismarck's shell struck PoW below the water (The dud), it entered the water short, travelled down then arched back up, penetrated the hull, deflected 20 degrees forward and then came to a stop against the TT bulkhead.
I realize the fatal hit on Hood was seen from PoW, but could it have punched through the armour then defected inside the hull into the magazines? If so, it could quite as easily deflected forward say, AWAY from the magazines. That would have disabled some engines and in turn reduced Hoods speed. What would happen in that instance? Bis and PE would run hard but would PoW stay with Hood or pursue alone?
Depends I suppose, but a 1.5 ton lump of steel moving at a few thousand feet per second slamming into the engine spaces will do a fair whack of damage through kinetic energy and splinters if nothing else. All you would need to do is take out a turbine or a few boilers and you'll get enough of a speed drop off so that Hood can't catch Bis & PE.
McPherson
Banned
We will likely never know. The approximate hit location on Hood is inferred from British and German photographic evidence and eye witness testimony plus dives on the sea grave, BUT the Hood, from what we think we know now, exploded apart into two or maybe three pieces before she sank. One of the hull separations was that magazine explosion we now know happened, and it erased a lot of evidence at the strike location. This is why @Hood 's statement about the hull seam along the bend in the turtleback is so compelling. There is just enough structural evidence left in the wreck to suggest that was probably the hit location in the remains.
Really? I mean, the after section of the ship is utterly destroyed.....