I have always asked myself "What if?" and now we have a place I can ask someone other than myself
This one I have on and off tangled with and here is sort of the scenario I came up with.
The engagement goes just as history tells us but starts to branch off at the famous "lucky" hit, the Hood get's hit and suffers severe damage. The hit causes major structural damage and one of her smaller magazines to cook off which in turns damages her power plant. With a total loss of fighting capability the Hood drifts out of the fight leaving POW to continue the fight, here my scenario kind of goes back in line with history as far as the duel between POW and the German fleet only difference being instead of retiring POW doubles back to aid the Hood and takes one more hit damaging her slightly more. Upon return to England, the two ships are evaluated as to their repairs needed and it is found that the POW will be able to refit and get back into action via British yards but the Hood is deemed to be almost a near loss. Churchill needing to maintain the pride and morale of the British navy and people, works it out for her to repaired so that she can make the journey to the states for total repair. Motives being political as well as propoganda, it is kept top secret and to the British people the Hood has been repaired and has been dispatched to the Far East to help counter the Japanese threat looming on the horizon to British interests. She arrives in the states for her repairs and due to her supposed quick repair and deployment she is not modernized in interests of getting her back into service as quickly as possible. She is repaired from June to November of 41' and returned to service with minimal modifications and joins the home fleet again by December. While she was in the states, she was heavily evaluated with the US Navy even drawing up their own plans for how to improve the ships fighting capability. The war goes on and the Hood serves proudly and she gets some radar and AA upgrades but no further modernization, never seeming to get into much frontline action as the RN is affraid of a repeat of the Denmark strait action but she does get the distinction of being the flagship of the British fleet present at the Normandy landings. With Germany's surface fleet no longer a threat by the end of 1944 and with losses mounting in the Pacific due to Japan's new terror weapon the Kamikaze, the US pressures the RN to start moving units to the PTO to help with the drive into the home islands of Japan. Operation Olympic plans for capitol ship losses prompts the US to look at ways of providing relief so that damaged ships can return to repair facilities and to just have enough firepower to protect the troop landings and the fast carriers. They turn to their findings of the Hood and due to her size and speed, it's determined that a 8 month overhaul would produce a ship by the end of 1945/beggining of 1946 that would be able to help cover casulaties of the operation. After seeing the appauling actions taking place on and around Iwo Jima and Okinawa to come, the US worked a joint venture with the RN to modernize her by US standards and maintain her British status as a symbol of the Royal Navy's pride and strength. By March of 1945 the Hood was in US hands.
Now at this point, I have not finalized what her apperance and finial configuartion would be. This is based on the A-bombs either not being successful or never happening. I figure we would be looking in the area of the armament of at least the Pearl Harbor rebuilds, one configuration I have been batting around would mount 8x15in,19x5/38,10x40mm quad and probably 25-35 20mm twins. Her weight would be compensated by heavily cuting down her superstructes and adding to her buldges on her hull still allowing her to make 27 knots and be able to operate with the North Carolina and South Dakota class BB's. I will see if I can finalize this theory if anyone is interested.
Matt