The Ship Model Forum

What level were the rails placed on?
The Soviets actually used slabs of granite to bolster Marat's deck armor...if "armor" is the right word for it.

It was my understanding at the time that they were overhead when walking out of the battery casemate onto the quarterdeck. I think the Japanese (and British) "Forecastle Deck" in this ship. They were overhead and not under foot.

As for marble, remember a lot of ships relied on coal "crush zones" to defeat shells or torpedoes. I think Dunkerque carried coal for this purpose even though she was an oil-burner.

As for steel rail as armor, I don't know. Steel rail in use during the first half of the Twentieth Century had a strength of 618 N mm2

_________________
If an unfriendly power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.

-- "A Nation at Risk" (1983)

I don't want to take this even further off-topic, but has there been any public release of the information regarding the studies made on the Hiroshima and/or Nagasaki blast victims? What about long-term studies such as generational effects, etc.? (By public, I mean outside the research and medical communities that no doubt studied them at length).

_________________
Danny DON'T "waterline"...!

There are any number of institutions within and outside Japan which continue to monitor the statistics and epidemiology. Their reports are accessible by the general public with a little patience.

_________________
If an unfriendly power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.

-- "A Nation at Risk" (1983)

Coal does a reasonably good job of absorbing torpedo explosions and localizing splinters, but not a good job of stopping shells. marat's granite wasn't much help either. A 28cm shell went straight through and penetrated into the ammo spaces--as a dud, fortunately, or Marat would have had yet another magazine blast.

Based on movies posted here recently it is pretty obvious there is no practical defense from a modern torpedo warhead detonated below the keel.

The area of countermeasures must necessarily be in hand. Decoys work sometimes, and have been improved. There are rumblings about anti-torpedo weapons. This would seem to be a place for great advances in protection.

_________________
If an unfriendly power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.

-- "A Nation at Risk" (1983)

Lot of good the granite did. Wasn't one of Hans-Ulrich Rudel's famous victories the single-handed sinking of 'Marat' with one SC 500 and four SC 250 bombs unloaded from his Stuka?

The explosion of the forward magazine was before the granite business. Hence my remark about the 28cm dud. Rudel's attack destroyed the forward part of the ship, which trimmed to touch the harbor bottom. The other three 12in mounts were all returned to action.

Marat's granite armor might be false. Photographic evidence shows that her hull was painted with an extraordinary scheme designed to mimic courses of stonework as might be found on a sea wall or jetty. Her turrets and superstructure were painted to resemble houses and building that might sit atop such jetty. This may be the origin of the granite deck story.

OMG - stop the presses!! Chuck actually logged in before posting!!

_________________
Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery

It would appear to me that granite would be a poor material to use because it would lack flexibility. The shock of a hit, or even shock transmitted to it from hits in other parts of the ship, could turn it into crushed rock. While this could probably afford greater splinter protection than coal, it could certainly increase the amount of shrapnel from subsequent hits.

Steel rail could certainly serve as splinter protection and to initiate fuses.
It, too is prone to fracturing. The rails rolled before the turn of the century were actually more resilient than later production. Rails produced before 1935 were subject to internal voids (later cooling methods eliminated this flaw). Probably the biggest variable in using rail would be its size. Rail in English-using countries is rated by its weight in pounds per yard. All rail, no matter when produced, is made in a variety of sizes. This allows its economical use for track according to its intended use per ton-mile over a given period. One thing to bear in mind here is that rail was never intended to be used this way. The stuff is intended to flex under load. Its only hardened surface is the top and edges of the rail. It is designed to hold up under continous compression loads, not sudden shocks. Owing to their intentionally springy nature, rails would present an additional hazard during an attack.

_________________
Les Foran
On the Oregon Trail

I've been known to err from time to time.

While it's generally true that steel won't become radioactive due to the gamma based radiation of an X-ray machine. Nuclear Bombs give off alot (and I do mean ALOT) more in the way of Neutron radiation which at those energies has the ability to not just radioactively contaminate wahever material is on the steel (aka paint) but can also cause the steel to be "activated" as we say in the nuclear power world. the boats in close that weren't immediately sunk by the A-bomb test would have deffintely been radioactively activated by that amount of Neutron radiation.

Those are great pictures of the Nagato, it's a sad way to go for a capable enemy ship such as her. Like was mentioned above it would have been interesting to see here and some of her japanese contempories saved as museum ships either in the US or in their japanese homes. I would give me left arm for a tour of a Yamato.

_________________
Am I strange, that every time I see a picture or mention of the Yamato, I hear Starblazers music in my head?
Battleship Myspace Group:
http://groups.myspace.com/Battleships

If I am not mistaken, Dunkerque carried foam of vulcanized rubber, not coal. Its purpose was to take up lots of volume while using up only a minimal amount weight, thus enable the ship to maintain trip by excluding water from TDS compartments after the torpedo hit. It wasn't there strictly to absorb the torpedo hit, which it would have been ill able to do.

I don't recall one way or the other regarding Dunkerque and coal, but the French definitely used coal for protection in some heavy cruisers. Suffren had an auxiliary coal boiler which allowed the French to use the coal without counting it against her standard displacement. By the time you get to Dupleix, the boiler was gone but the coal remained, though it was never included in her standard displacement. Cheaters!

Everyone cheated.

When calculating the standard displacement of the Nelsons and loudly proclaiming the Nelsons to be honorably underweight by Washington treaty standards, the British neglected to include the weight of the liquid in the liquid loaded TDS onboard the Nelson.