Posted on 04/14/2021 10:09:07 AM PDT by Onthebrink
Hood may have been two decades old but she wasn’t obsolete compared to other current ships. She was finished after the war with the lessons and improvements taken into account and actually led the way to current features. IIRC she had also been refitted, though the work on her deck armor was still to be done.
Instead of engaging the Germans she should have shadowed them. She was more than fast enough to avoid actual engagement until Bismarck was facing overwhelming odds from forces she could have easily summoned.
Actually the ability to loft higher arcing shots to the horizon was developed after Dreadnought. This is why most of the early Dreadnought types had their heaviest armor on the belts and turrets and relatively little on their decks.
Good alibi. I understand there was a seething anger at the Bismark for sinking the Hood. I read where one British seaman climbed down the cargo net to rescue a Bismark survivor who had his arms blown off. They tried to court-martial the Brit with "desertion of station while under fire", but cooler heads prevailed and it was later dropped.
One of Arizona’s refit features, she was basically a new ship afterwards, was doubling the maximum elevation of her guns to 30 degrees.
Agreed, even though Oklahoma sank in 1946, iirc.
So we lost two battleships at Pearl Harbor, of about 24 total that served during WWII.
Agreed, but likely the commander's mind set would not let him be just a passive observer. Maybe didn't realize how good the Bismarck's gunners were.
Thank You. I will look him up
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