DBWI - A visit to HMS Hood

So today i went to the National Museum of the Royal Navy in Portsmouth and had a guided tour on board the battlecruiser HMS Hood (1) i can tell you it is a visit to do if you ever go to Portsmouth.

(1) during the Battle of the Denmark Strait on May 24th 1941 she fired what many called a lucky shot which manged to hit and detonating Bismarck magazine which caused here to split in two, after the end of the Battle of the Denmark Strait she went into a 2 year overhaul which she had organically had been planned in 1939 but the outbreak of the war got in the way.
 
There's a lot of argument about whether it was HMS Hood that fired the 'lucky hit' or HMS King George V, usually involving tables of armor penetration characteristics of the more modern 14" battery or the older 15" battery.
 
There's a lot of argument about whether it was HMS Hood that fired the 'lucky hit' or HMS King George V, usually involving tables of armor penetration characteristics of the more modern 14" battery or the older 15" battery.

That is true, but i did not want to ask that question to the guide, he was such a nice old man who said he served on board here in the 1945 to 1946 period when she served in the Pacific.
 
Is Hood back in her 1941 state, or is it still equipped with the primitive radar and anti-aircraft guns it got for the Pacific?
 
There's a lot of argument about whether it was HMS Hood that fired the 'lucky hit' or HMS King George V, usually involving tables of armor penetration characteristics of the more modern 14" battery or the older 15" battery.

Oh god can we not start that debate. Please. I see it on the forums all the time...I hear it caused more than a few punch ups between sailors after a few pints in Portsmouth and Rosythe where the Hood and KGV often were based.
 
Is Hood back in her 1941 state, or is it still equipped with the primitive radar and anti-aircraft guns it got for the Pacific?

No they decided according to the guide it cost to much money to bring here back to how she looked in 1941, therefore she looks as she was when she was decommissioned in 1947.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
Is Hood back in her 1941 state, or is it still equipped with the primitive radar and anti-aircraft guns it got for the Pacific?
Hard to call that radar primitive, it was capable of gun control - though I suppose most of the sailors called a direct hit on the Kongo at that range a matter of pure skill... (well, it couldn't range splashes, but it could certainly give ranging data for the director and that's what mattered for those salvoes)
 
Hard to call that radar primitive, it was capable of gun control - though I suppose most of the sailors called a direct hit on the Kongo at that range a matter of pure skill... (well, it couldn't range splashes, but it could certainly give ranging data for the director and that's what mattered for those salvoes)
Had she not had the 1941-1943 upgrade i would not think she would survive the battle with the Kongo.
 
So today i went to the National Museum of the Royal Navy in Portsmouth and had a guided tour on board the battlecruiser HMS Hood (1) i can tell you it is a visit to do if you ever go to Portsmouth.

(1) during the Battle of the Denmark Strait on May 24th 1941 she fired what many called a lucky shot which manged to hit and detonating Bismarck magazine which caused here to split in two, after the end of the Battle of the Denmark Strait she went into a 2 year overhaul which she had organically had been planned in 1939 but the outbreak of the war got in the way.

Ah, Bismarck, the "she's a fast battleship, not a battlecruiser we swear". According to A Study in Uselessness: The History of the Kriegsmarine by James Hornfischer, the Bismarck class was basically a enlarged version of the aborted WW1-vintage Ersatz Yorck-class design. Turns out Krupp Steel can't save your ship if there's not enough of it. Hood, OTOH, had been overhauled extensively since her commissioning to the point that she had more in common with the new generation of fast battleships than with battlecruisers.

Of course, it wasn't quite the single-stroke sinking it's frequently been portrayed as. Bismarck had already landed several hits on Hood before she went kablooey.


There's a lot of argument about whether it was HMS Hood that fired the 'lucky hit' or HMS King George V, usually involving tables of armor penetration characteristics of the more modern 14" battery or the older 15" battery.

The evidence is pretty conclusive. Prince of Wales was pre-occupied with Scharnhorst and Gneisenau at the time Bismarck blew up. Scharnhorst was later sunk by Swordfish from HMS Victorious and HMS Ark Royal while limping back towards Norway.
 
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Which is pretty much a guarantee that it will...a great deal of the credit belongs on KG V's bridge, anyway; arguably Tovey's decision was the key factor in the chase.

When Suffolk and Norfolk lost contact, it was Lancelot Holland's intention to turn south and parallel the Germans' probable course track until contact was regained, which would have been a terrible decision-

by the time Suffolk regained contact, they would have been in the worst possible shooting position, having to make a long oblique approach from abaft the beam, after sunup, with light and gunnery gages against them; couldn't have given Bismarck a better chance if they had tried.

Tovey's decision- fitting for a man who was known before the war for "sheer bloody obstinacy"- to cut the corner and conduct what amounted to a head on charge to a point blank night action, was based on nothing more than pure tactical guesswork;

but it was probably the deciding factor in turning what could have been a nasty pounding match, after all look at the pounding Tirpitz took, into what amounted to an assassination. Fortunately Haruna was an easier target.
 
The evidence is pretty conclusive. Prince of Wales was pre-occupied with Scharnhorst and Gneisenau at the time Bismarck blew up. Scharnhorst was later sunk by Swordfish from HMS Victorious and HMS Ark Royal while limping back towards Norway.

Well if the Germans ever allow diving to the Bismarck than we might find some answer who fired the 'lucky hit'.
 
Well if the Germans ever allow diving to the Bismarck than we might find some answer who fired the 'lucky hit'.

Well she's down deep and she is a war grave, I can't blame the Germans for not letting folks send subs or robots down to her.
 
So today i went to the National Museum of the Royal Navy in Portsmouth and had a guided tour on board the battlecruiser HMS Hood (1) i can tell you it is a visit to do if you ever go to Portsmouth.

(1) during the Battle of the Denmark Strait on May 24th 1941 she fired what many called a lucky shot which manged to hit and detonating Bismarck magazine which caused here to split in two, after the end of the Battle of the Denmark Strait she went into a 2 year overhaul which she had organically had been planned in 1939 but the outbreak of the war got in the way.

I too am glad that the Navy kept HMS Hood on as a Museum ship (and I too would echo the ops sentiment and recommend that you pay her a visit) I just wish (Having visited the USS Enterprise Museum) that they had done the same for HMS Ark Royal veteran of (to name but a few) 1st and 2nd Taranto, The convoy battles, Club runs as well as 1st and 3rd South China sea's etc - but one is better than none I suppose!

I think it's easy to see what doomed the Bismarck - HMS Norfolk maintaining radar contact throughout the night despite the adverse conditions allowed the Hood and KGV to intercept Bismarck at sun up in a position to cross the Bismarcks 'T' and for the initial part of the engagement outmatch her 18 guns to 4.

As for which shell hit the German BB well those big heavy fat slow 15" shells would have been coming down near vertically at those ranges and linking Hood to KGVs modern Fire control made sure that both ships straddled the Bismarck fairly quickly at long range .

I think it's likely that one of Hoods 15 shells hit either forward of Anton or between Anton and Bruno Turrets and penetrating the deck entered or detonating near, the powder magazine (bypassing the angled armor) which unlike the other modern treaty designs of the day was above the Shell room and horribly exposed to such shell fire and aircraft bombs.

It's worth noting that HMS Hood at Denmark Strait had exactly the same type of design (with less armor!) having never been upgraded (Her Turrets were later modernised to the Mk1n standard during her 'Deep Refit' which aside from increasing the gun elevation swapped the Shell and Powder Magazine around as had been done in the 3 Modernised Queens and the Renown).

This does mean that the Hood was susceptible to a similar type of 'plunging' hit at this sort of range and some ATL scenarios place Hood at an angle were she receives a similar hit instead.

However I think it came down to the Bismarck and a Heavy Cruiser vs 2 Battleships, 2 Heavy Cruisers and 6 destroyers (and that does not include the other vessels in the area) - so I think that it would be safe to assume that even if Hood had been destroyed by a lucky hit - Bismarck and Prinz Eugen would still have been badly outgunned and out numbered and their fate would not have changed.
 
As long as this does not turn into a Hood Vs King George V i am fine, i think it would give the tour guide i had a hart attack if he discoverer that there are still people who think it was the King George V who fired the 'lucky hit'.
 
I too am glad that the Navy kept HMS Hood on as a Museum ship (and I too would echo the ops sentiment and recommend that you pay her a visit) I just wish (Having visited the USS Enterprise Museum) that they had done the same for HMS Ark Royal veteran of (to name but a few) 1st and 2nd Taranto, The convoy battles, Club runs as well as 1st and 3rd South China sea's etc - but one is better than none I suppose!

At least you can visit Illustrious and Victorious in Liverpool and Portsmouth respectively.
 
I have visit enough carriers in my life, more a BB person, to bad the two Montanas are still part of the mothball fleet.
No kidding. The Carrier Row museum on Long Island is impressive for the first couple days visiting it, and you have to admire the conservation effort involved in preserving every Casablanca class carrier at a single facility, but it did get kind of samey after the tenth or eleventh in a row.

(Feel free to make non canon, but I'm always amused that as soon as one ship is a war museum in a TL like this, suddenly every ship is.)
 
No kidding. The Carrier Row museum on Long Island is impressive for the first couple days visiting it, and you have to admire the conservation effort involved in preserving every Casablanca class carrier at a single facility, but it did get kind of samey after the tenth or eleventh in a row.

(Feel free to make non canon, but I'm always amused that as soon as one ship is a war museum in a TL like this, suddenly every ship is.)


OOC: none cannon, the casablanca class is not something like a enterprise or hood.
 
On a more somber note, I once visited the Force Z memorial in the Arboretum. It seemed like an inadequate thing, to honor the loss of three capital ships and so many of their crews.

I found myself wishing that Indomitable had scraped that reef harder -- Phillips would never have gone looking for a fight without her air cover, inadequate though it proved to be.
 
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