Posted on 06/04/2008 5:36:24 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Torpedo explosions were simulated by means of dynamite blasts sent against the specially designed steel caisson, built like a section of a ship’s hull, which may revolutionize battleship construction.
The test blasts were heard all over the southern part of the city. Navy yard aides explained the experiment was routine, but elaborate precautions were taken to assure secrecy.
In a general message from Washington at 9 o’clock this morning, all vessels in the Delaware River were ordered to “stand clear” of the navy yard.
The wall of specially designed armor plates, like those of a heavy battleship, was put on the raft and the charges of high explosives were hurled against it.
Studies to determine the effect of the simulated torpedo fire on the caisson, supposedly made up of a series of water-tight compartments, were begun after the explosions.
The new design is an outgrowth of the so-called blister or false hull developed by the British Navy in the World War. The blisters were efficacious, but further tests indicated room for improvement.
The Naval Treaty of 1922 held up the experiments in this country for a time, but the new billion dollar building program of the navy put engineers at work to perfect new plans for defense against torpedoes.
The new watertight compartment design was tried out first with scale models in tanks. Later tests were made with a full-size model at Norfolk.
Results of these tests were so satisfactory that another model was developed at Philadelphia. It is this one that was baptized by fire in the Delaware River today.
Try reading the DATE on the article.
She was a battlecruiser. Biggest ship in the Royal Navy. And SOME work had been done up armoring her [Her bow got awash in heavy seas]. She had 15” guns, but by 1941 was slower than BISMARCK [the first fast battleship with decent armor/ guns.
SCHARNHORST was sunk principally by gunfire from HMS DUKE of YORK [10 x 14” main batteries], and HMS. GLASGOW [a heavy cruiser with, I believe, 8” guns].
I read the date on the excerpt and not the article itself. Try reading the rest of the posts and you’ll see this has been pointed out about 15 times so you’re post really wasn’t necessary.
?? HMS Hood was a WWI era battlecruiser
Yes, she’d had some up-armoring done due to the losses of Royal Navy battlecruisers at Jutland, but wasn’t she still less armored and less well designed to take hits than any new battleship of 20+ years later? I’m no expert..... but I thought the cordite/ammo rooms were poorly placed compared to what came later, and that HMS Hood blew up from one direct hit to a magazine?
I am on the lookout for an early reference to "second world war" or "World War II." It will probably appear sooner than I might expect. In a similar vein, I already have a reference to "rock and roll." In fact, it is from 6/5/38. Tune in tomorrow.
CORSETSHIRE = DORSETSHIRE
HOOD apparently took a 15”er into the magazine of her ‘C’ turret, and a fire ran forward cooking off the forward magazines as well. When they found the wreck, the front third was gone.The rest was in two different pieces.
LOL..got me!!
If you ever visit the USS North Carolina, berthed in Wilmington, NC, you can see the crack in the armor belt from that torpedo.
The link doesn’t work properly, though the problem seems to be the site. I can get this much by searching the site, though:
One advanced warhead uses plasma energy to effect destruction via a focused planar wave with detonation pressure many ti...
COOL. I hope I can get the rest of it!
We do have a few but they are fully stealthy and invisible.
I believe you are correct about Kongo. I had forgotten her. But she was a pre-WW1 design, too.
Shinano was the 3rd Yamato hull, and did sink after receiving a spread from Archerfish. However, Shinano was not completed, and didn’t have the seals on the watertight doors (in other words, she leaked). And her complement was not a crew, but just a bunch of relatively untrained guys. They didn’t know how to save the ship. She should not have sunk from the Archerfish torpedoes.
The German crew always insisted they scuttled the hulk of Bismarck.
In a straight-up fight, then, I think HMS Prince of Wales was the only WW2 battleship sunk solely as a result of torpedo hits.
Does HMS Barham count?
HMS Hood was a WW1 erea battlecruiser, and was lightly armored by battleship standards. Even so, she had 42,000 tons displacement, more than the King George V, North Carolina, South Dakota and Nagato classes of battleship. Seems they put all the steel in the wrong places. As her survivor Ted Briggs said: “She was a beautiful ship but she had a glass jaw.”
There have been quite a few undersea technothriller novels of subs using this type of torpedo, I think Patrick Robinson might have been one of the authors, technically its possible to create a “bubble” of superheated plasma, it just all depends on if we really can currently do it, so many black projects and believe it or not a lot we may not ever hear about for a long time, last resort weapons I would venture to say because if the other side knew we had them then its another arms race.
I do enjoy reading about these old articles and it amuses me to think some muslim group thinks its current technology.
HMS Barham was a WW1 Queen Elizabeth class “SuperDreadnought,” she saw action with Evan-Thomas’ 5th Battle Squadron at Jutland.
The Indianapolis wasn’t a BB...
Mark
Done.
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