Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Nikademus


How dare you! where's my cement filled glove...... Well on further thought, i can see where it would be confusing given some of the parameters. I should probably say in terms of her protection scheme, the designers were thinking more along the lines of expected local conditions in the NS and Atlantic in similar vein to the earlier conflict, with visibility conditions similar hence the emphasis against flatter trajectory shellfire. Thats at least the Gazrke view for the most part.

Yamato, IMO the best looking Battleship.

"Hey, a packet of googly eyes! I'm so taking these." Hank Venture

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Sorry. Your the one who mentioned Taranto. It was hardly a great moment for the design and talk about rudders is pretty irrelevent when the ship is in mortal danger of sinking, a situation Bismarck was not in after a similar # of hits by the same weapon.

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If your trying to say that the spacing of Littorio's props and rudders would prevent a similar level of damage, then i don't agree. No battleship was immune to such an event, nor do I agree that the KGV class prop and rudder arrangement was a signifigant weak point in comparison to other designs. In theory one would think flooding would be minor at the ends most of time, problem is it didn't always happen that way, especially if one is talking a stern hit. PoW ultimately suffered nearly 10,000 tons of flooding in her case. A similar event involving serious flooding occured to the USS Pennsylvania which fortunately was at anchor and in condition Zebra. (hatches secured) I am aware of hits on the Littorio class. The damage and flooding were fairly extensive in most cases. I'll refresh myself on them tonight when i get home.

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I thought the issue was about the statements regarding Bismarck.

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Your the one who mentioned aircraft facilities. If you don't want me to answer, don't ask the question.

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Thx. I know. The question, is would Littorio have been in any better position given similar location (Atlantic + current conditions) and similar hit location. I don't think it would produce a major change. Had Bismarck's crew freed the rudder, they might have saved themselves. Detached, they were probably still doomed. A hit on Littorio that jammed the main rudder with debris would probably have made the secondary rudders of little use. If one or both facing props were disabled, the problem is magnified, more so in the Atlantic for which Littorio was not designed to operate in. Then there's the question of flooding. I do think that her chances might be slightly better overall, but not to a degree that warrents the comment; "Bismarck was a seriously flawed design"

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I like the Littorio class and actually tend to rate them better than the Bismarck class though as with all comparisons, it doesn't mean that the other design can't get the job done. Its even more subjective given the two classes were designed to operate under very different conditions.

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ORIGINAL: Dili

The hit at back of Littorio at Taranto didnt damaged more than the rudder. That was that is comparable to Bismarck.

Littorio took 2 more hits at bow plus the fact that were no trained flood control parties at anchor is what made the bow drop.

It was one more evidence of a hit destruction that was not catastrophic. Except for POW and Bismarck.

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I am trying to say that what happend to Bismarck and POW could not happen to Littorios.

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Just that you seem to think that Mediteranean has only Sea State 3 or 4.

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I mentioned aircraft facilities because it is that design decision that saved space at mid of the ship making possible to have the rear turret more distant to the rear end, making possible to spread the propeller arrangement.

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Explain how in Littorio you could have the main rudder jammed and all proppeler from one side disabled at same time? Btw it happened to Vittorio Veneto have 1 proppeler and one auxiliary rudder disabled at Matapan.

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I agree. A battleship is full of holes where a lucky hit can destroy a day, or it is just enough that the Sea motion makes a battleship impenetrable where in theory should not or where it should be protected and it was not enough.
I actually think the Littorios were a very flawed design in deck protection but since they were laid down in 1934 it is understandable. Bismarck were a very flawed design in some basics and that is not so understandable.

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So wait...was Bismark designed from the ground up as a ship of the line or a raider?

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Refresh my memory on the consequence to Scharnhorst.

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ORIGINAL: Tiornu

One of the early hits from DoY caused a fire in both forward magazines. I'm told, that's not a good thing.

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ORIGINAL: Tiornu

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So wait...was Bismark designed from the ground up as a ship of the line or a raider?

Well well. You may want to peruse a copy of Tim Mulligan's article "Ship-of-the-Line or Atlantic Raider? Battleship Bismarck Between Design Limitations and Naval Strategy." The general impression is that the Germans were building a set of tools with no particular job in mind.

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It was far more than that. The damage from the other two hits was such that Littorio's forcastle submerged bringing the props partially out of the water. Counterflooding and quicker reaction might have slowed things a bit but the influx of water and impact on trim were severe. In the sea state that Bismarck was in, the ship would have been in crippled status and might probably have foundered completely under similar conditions. Bismarck, the flawed design in your words, took a similar # of torps without being nearly as inconvenienced by floatation damage. I find it unfair to isolate one aspect and ignore the others when throwing out a claim of "flawed" Thats why i see Taranto as a poor comparison example.

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I'm sure the designers of Pennsylvania and Prince of Wales throught the same as well. No warship is immune to multiple damages in the rear. The spacing of Littorio's props and her rudders is not so great that such isolation can be counted on much less guranteed.

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I don't recall saying that. The North Atlantic does however have a far higher tendancy for rough sea states however and at the time of Bismarck's hit was enough to hinder and prevent emergency damage control measures that might have saved the ship. To assume that Littorio would preform better by default is unwarrented in my opinion. I would cast doubts on any BB under those conditions, far from base with two intact BB's in hot pursuit

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Spreading the propeller arrangement is good however it is no gurantee of isolation of damage. It must also be counted against what Tiornu mentioned, the fact that Littorio's armor protection for the gear was poor, and that aux rudders were not very effective, esp if the main rudder is jammed.

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Explain how it could not. You keep saying the spacing makes it impossible, but there are multiple examples of severe damage resulting from stern hits. You call them "worst case". Fine, any hit to a BB's rear area is pretty much "worst case" Bismarck's situation was exaserbated by her being in a sea state that prevented her DC crews from possibly extracting the situation.

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I guess we differ in philosophy or maybe in language. I don't consider either design to be "Flawed". What makes a design "flawed" to begin with? All BB designs contain strengths and weaknesses. Both classes had strong and weak points. To me a truely "Flawed" design is one that cannot fullfill it's combat role to any effective degree. Neither ship warrents that label. Both could fight, both were dangerous opponents.

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ORIGINAL: rtrapasso

In Re: Type XXI - see Clay Blair's book Hitler's U-Boat War - The Hunted 1942-1945 (Blair has been accused of being way over the top in being pro-U-boat, so if anything he is tends to be too forgiving of their faults) - pages 709-710 (paperback edition) - thi s passage from page 710 (discussing the faults of the type XXI): "Impractical Hydraulic System. The main lines, accumulators, cylinders and pistons of the hydraulic gear for operating the diving planes, rudder, torpedo-tube outer doors, and antiaircraft gun turrets on the bridge were too complex and delicate and were located outside (emphasis in the original text, not mine) the pressure hull. This gear was therefore subject to saltwater leakage, corrosion, and enemy weaponry. It could not be repaired from inside the pressure hull."

Blair devotes another section describing the finding of a U.S. assessment team.

Other problems of the Type XXI mentioned:

- Poor Structural Integrity (actual diving depth was less than the later type VII).
- Underpowered Diesel Engines
- Poor Habitability and Sanitation (i.e.: drinking and washing water was interconnected.)

Other authors have mentioned poor surface maneuverability, but this is a problem common to streamlined subs in general.


As for the stern weakness of the Bismarck and other large German ships - several developed rather catastrophic failure (not just the CA mentioned) but it is late and i should have been asleep 1 hour ago, so i won't pursue this at the moment...

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ORIGINAL: Prince

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ORIGINAL: Tiornu

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So wait...was Bismark designed from the ground up as a ship of the line or a raider?

Well well. You may want to peruse a copy of Tim Mulligan's article "Ship-of-the-Line or Atlantic Raider? Battleship Bismarck Between Design Limitations and Naval Strategy." The general impression is that the Germans were building a set of tools with no particular job in mind.

That was the main problem in german naval command. The ships were built first, without having a strategy how to use them. And that isn`t only an impression, that is the fact. As in any other navy, the old-school admirals favored the battleships. And german navy was told, that a war against england was not to break out until 44 or 45. Thats the reason while there was a patchwork of ships, without having a clue how to use them.

And Bismarck wasn`t the only bad design, the destroyer had problems with their high-pressure turbines,same counts for the T and S-Boats, the cruisers were short-runners. The only well desgined shps were the Königsberg CLs. And they were strategically useless.

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ORIGINAL: Dili


First the torpedos that hit Bismarck were only 2 and the other hit was at midship protected by bulkheads. Like if that is a comparison at all! The two more torpedos that hit Littorio were at bow: one at A turret and and the other even more in front. I would like to see the results for Bismarck of 2 torpedos near same place and same side...

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Like i said flooding parties were not available/trained at anchor, and counter flodding was not tempted because it was easy to beach the ship. Later in war Littorio took another hit in same place outside TDS, only one torpedo and came back without problems.

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For the size of damage that Torpedos make (excluding Long Lance since i never saw the damage) yes the separation of Littorios was enough.

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You keep bringing the Bismarck specific situation like sea state etc. A Design flaw must be analysed in context of many possible situations. If the sea state was a bit better what would Bismarck do with Jammed rudder? Not much. It cannot loose the rudder since her 3 axis arrangement isnt the best to do engine steering.

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Because there is about 30 m between the end of first pair of propellers and the main rudder. There is no way one torpedo could damage 2 propelers in one side plus the main rudder.

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I can understand that Littorio were flawed in her deck protection being from 1934 , i cannot understand the Bismarck rudder/propeller arrangement after so many years of ship design.

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ORIGINAL: mikemike


The K-Class CL's had a very clever, radical basic design (mostly unfairly underestimated; for instance, the placement and spacing of the after turrets allowed all main guns to be fired straight ahead at longer ranges. Those two aft turrets had firing arcs no other ship of WWII could have duplicated), but they were just too fragile, trying to remain within Versailles displacement limits. Königsberg was sunk by bomb near-misses that stove in the hull and fired fragments deep into the unprotected machinery spaces, and Karlsruhe's bow once was crumpled like tissue paper by heavy seas on a training cruise.

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PTO was mostly an Air affair

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ORIGINAL: Prince

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ORIGINAL: Tiornu

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So wait...was Bismark designed from the ground up as a ship of the line or a raider?

Well well. You may want to peruse a copy of Tim Mulligan's article "Ship-of-the-Line or Atlantic Raider? Battleship Bismarck Between Design Limitations and Naval Strategy." The general impression is that the Germans were building a set of tools with no particular job in mind.

That was the main problem in german naval command. The ships were built first, without having a strategy how to use them. And that isn`t only an impression, that is the fact. As in any other navy, the old-school admirals favored the battleships. And german navy was told, that a war against england was not to break out until 44 or 45. Thats the reason while there was a patchwork of ships, without having a clue how to use them.

And Bismarck wasn`t the only bad design, the destroyer had problems with their high-pressure turbines,same counts for the T and S-Boats, the cruisers were short-runners. The only well desgined shps were the Königsberg CLs. And they were strategically useless.

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Actually it was at least 3 hits, possibly 4.

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Like i said flooding parties were not available/trained at anchor, and counter flodding was not tempted because it was easy to beach the ship. Later in war Littorio took another hit in same place outside TDS, only one torpedo and came back without problems. I think the three large holes in the ship posed a problem as well. The largest one was 50feet by 32 feet.

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So the designers hoped. You cannot gurantee such results. At Taranto the ship suffered considerable structural damage to her steering gear foundations just from the shock alone.

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I keep bringing up the Sea State because it was critical to Bismarck's fate. If your going to judge Bismarck based primarily on one occurance you can't pick and choose your variables. As for "Design Flaw", that remains debatable. Littorio benefited from not being expected to leave the Med in her service career. This allowed her to devote weight saved for items such as heavier armor armor protection and redundancy of certain systems such as her rudders. As with most things even there, there were tradeoffs. A system like Littorio's steering arrangement sacrificed additional maneuverabilty afforded to a more traditional twin rudder system. Bismarck's design opted for the latter for those reasons as well as criteria which would see her operate in less restricted waters. Thats not a design flaw...its called trade offs.

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The possibility is reduced at the price of a larger area that a torpedo could damage the ship's propulsion means. To say there is "no way" is not supportable based simply on the distance estimate. A torpedo in the right place could damage the steering gear and/or disable both props. Given Littorio's redundancy of rudders, a hit closer to the main rudder is probably preferable to damage to the props.

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A lucky hit in a critical area doesn't automatically make it a design flaw. Thats where we disagree.

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ORIGINAL: Dili

Well with 3 or 4 you dont know if that was overkill since it sunk, but as always it depends where it hit. Like when someone says that Yamato needed to get 10, maybe 4 or 5 that it took were enough to send it to the bottom.

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Yes but in unarmored places the hole would always be big if the detonation of torpedo is correct. The size of it 15m is 10m less than the distance between auxiliary rudder pair and main rudder.

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Well the torpedo hit there what do you expected?

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That might be a misunstanding, to find a design flow we have to check all ambient variables and if that design flow it is more or less contant constant trough them. In this case Bismarck is in much more trouble than Littorio from flat Sea State to heavy Sea State.

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Littorio auxiliary rudders were used for comon maneuvering too. The ship used the 3 rudders to operate when necessary. Maybe that is why it escaped many aerial torpedo attacks.

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Yes a catastrophic damage but less chance of it or more chance of damage but less critical.
There is no way :) around physics. You can see the damage that Torpedos do in image i posted. The area at rear is also a more dificult place to detonate do to curvature.

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The size of the holes, and the substantial flooding it caused with the concurrent change in trim, especially to the bow plane was very serious and demonstrates how far damage can reach....and thats just the direct physical damage. Shock and flooding damages can reach still further. You are free to dismiss it by blaming the crew. In fairness though, since Bismarck's steering arragements receive much scrutiny because of the one hit, its just as fair to consider Littorio's 3 torpedo hits and how it would have impacted her survival had she been in Bismarck's place in the stormy Atlantic that fateful day.

Fortess fortuna iuvat

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ORIGINAL: juliet7bravo

I'd have to agree with the guys who mentioned the Liberty/Victory class ships. These are the ships that won the war. End of story. Everything else is just group masturbation. They met and exceeded their designed role better than any other class of ship built, by any nationality.

Bigger boys stole my sig

(in reply to juliet7bravo)

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ORIGINAL: hawker

One opposite example,put Bismarck at Matapan instead of Vittorio Veneto and Italians would won the day
That english cruisers which approach VV to less then 20000 yards would now be at the bottom of Mediteranian sea

Bigger boys stole my sig

(in reply to hawker)

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ORIGINAL: Prince

Yep, but what were they good for? Raiding? When even the Battleships weren`t allowed to attack convoys escortet by a single obsolete british BB?

They where CLs, not of any use for a power in geographical disadvantage, being clever designed, being good looking, but not of any Use. As the BBs a clear show that germans Admirals didn`t learn from WWI. Challenging the Brits, they had two Options, building a fleet to blast the brits away (could be done with short ranged BBs to open a landing path) or cutting their supplys (Raiders or better U-Boats) but Cls were useless, except for training crews.

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ORIGINAL: Dixie

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ORIGINAL: hawker

One opposite example,put Bismarck at Matapan instead of Vittorio Veneto and Italians would won the day
That english cruisers which approach VV to less then 20000 yards would now be at the bottom of Mediteranian sea

Of course they would Because Bismarck was the most brilliant ship ever built.... Somehow I doubt that the battle would have changed.

Fortess fortuna iuvat

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ORIGINAL: mikemike

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ORIGINAL: Prince

Yep, but what were they good for? Raiding? When even the Battleships weren`t allowed to attack convoys escortet by a single obsolete british BB?

They where CLs, not of any use for a power in geographical disadvantage, being clever designed, being good looking, but not of any Use. As the BBs a clear show that germans Admirals didn`t learn from WWI. Challenging the Brits, they had two Options, building a fleet to blast the brits away (could be done with short ranged BBs to open a landing path) or cutting their supplys (Raiders or better U-Boats) but Cls were useless, except for training crews.

What most people who so fervently dump on the Reichsmarine ships fail to consider is the circumstances under which those ships were designed and built. The Versailles Treaty was designed to open up Germany to any military adventure the Allies, and especially France (and later Poland) might be tempted to undertake. The absolute number one task for the Reichsmarine was to protect the German coasts from enemy naval forces, especially in the Baltic, where all coastal defence installations had had to be dismantled. You probably know what ships Germany had left - nothing completed after 1908 except a number of torpedo boats which had already been found inadequate in 1915. Those ships were generally of so little military value and in such a decrepit state that they had been relegated to secondary duties in WWI - some serving as barracks ships. New construction was absolutely essential, and, with only six cruisers allowed, those ships had to have the maximum of firepower that could be extracted from the very restrictive displacement allowed. It's a pity that, with the CLs, the designers overreached themselves, but the basic layout would have produced very useful ships had the designers had an additional 1500 tons of displacement to play with. Ironically, the only really sound German cruiser was Emden, which had an obsolete layout and was too slow, but would have been effective in WWII - half of the RN CL's were no more modern. Until maybe 1937, the expected enemy in all planning was France, against which the Reichsmarine might well have conducted a useful trade war before the French Navy began to receive really modern ships.

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ORIGINAL: hawker


Well,switch Littorio for Bismarck. Littorio would be sunk at Danemark strait by Hood and PoW
Hood and PoW would be without scratch probably because Littorios could hardly hit anything at sea.
Probably most uneficient ships of WW2

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ORIGINAL: Dixie

At the risk of sparking an arguement:
I'm not so sure. Just because they won the war, does not make them a good design... The method and speed of construction is what made them so useful rather than their design itself.

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ORIGINAL: Nemo121

I'm surprised no-one has mentioned Liberty ships. Without the supporting echelons armies are only so many ill-fed men without bullets after no more than 4 or 5 days of combat ( often less ).





True enough, but they were not particularly well-designed ships: notably, they tended to break in half without warning (and sink)... after several occurrences of this, the design was reinforced, but they continued to have serious problems with structural cracks threatening catastrophic failure.