Greatest RN ship From 1900-1945

[Lesforan]

For me, it's got to be the Hood.

The criticism of the Hood is probably well-deserved. She does have her faults. Part of this problem was the fact that naval strategy was evolving over her long lifetime. Is she a battlecruiser or a fast battleship? She was concieved as a battlecruiser, with the speed and armor arrangment of a battlecruiser. Her giant size is due to the number of boilers required to make her battlecruiser speed.

That she is an orphan in her class was the result of the Washington Naval Treaty. If the other members of the Admiral class had been built, the concentration of Britian's tonnage allotment would have been too consumed by this class. If her sisters' hulls had been laid down, this class might have resulted in the same huge battlecruiser/aircraft carrier conversions seen in the USN and IJN (imagine a carrier based on a Hood hull!).

But I digress. The real reason I picked the Hood was that she has so many people who have loved her over the years. To this day she is my favorite, matched only by the Bismarck class. She has a tremendous following among both ship historians and modelers, most of whom have never seen her. What other ship of any navy has had the round the world pr value of Hood? Think of the reconfigurations she has gone through over the years. What other ship has fans attracted so by her appearance? If you look at her as she appears today, very much in existence beneath the Denmark strait, her graceful lines are still apparent.

The Hood is not only my favorite British ship of the period, but is at the top of my list overall. If you would compare the following Hood has in the modelling community alone with the others listed, it would indicate the regard this ship is held in to this day.

[Filipe Ramires]

You got it all right, Lesforan!!!! Hood was THE very symbol of Britain naval power for many years. She did have indeed her faults and she was sadly doomed by them...armour problems. Being a battlecruiser and having all the 4 of the class completed I guess she and her sisters would turn to be something like Courageous and Glorious turned out to be or eventually (like the japanese did with the Kongos) an eventual upgrade to "full" battleship status!
As if she was the biggest battlecruiser built ever or if she was the very first fast battleship built I am sticking with the old school...she as designed and built...with some modifications of course (war lessons) as a battlecruiser and so she remais as such to me.
I am probably one of the most "suspicious" lads here on the board when speaking of Hood. People who know me for sometime here on the board are aware that Hood is my very favourite ship and those that are closer to me do know that I have at least a couple of frames with photos of those sheer beautiful lines of her on my office.
Whatever happened to her could have happened to any true battleship afloat by the time. She had less armour to defeat the shells and which in fact doomed her but people tend to look at her as the "victim" of Bismarck gunfire when in fact Hood had much more of History during the 20 years before her sinking. How many more ships (apart from Repulse and escort) did an Empire Cruise? How many warships had 262,2 meters long by the time she was sunk? Her records speak for themselves! She didn't prove to be a good fighter in real terms that's true but she really represented very well the Royal Navy for many years and tell the world how a warship can be of some beautty afterall!
Of course this isn't to take credit to any of the RN ships quoted on the poll above...specially Warspite which was a true battlehorse to Britain and that had most likely the biggest war record of the RN capital ships of WWII!!!

[Werner]

Hood was more a victim of the Admiralty's financial controllers than the Bismarck. She was a fine ship when commissioned, best of the type for a decade or more. After that, she should have had a refit along the lines of Queen Elizabeth. Instead she went to war largely with a 1920s fit.

Another problem seems to be the volatility of her powders. It was economical to keep the powder as long as possible. While it was bagged and in the magazine aboard ship or ashore, the volatile ethers and water slowly evaporated and made them dangerous.

A British comparison of RN and USN powders found British powder much more likely to be touched off by flash or fire. They should have thrown out the old powders before the war and adopted a better formula, but that too was an expense left for others to pay. The price was high, indeed.

If Britain could have lavished her capital ships with resources like the Japanese or Americans, the outcome of many engagements would have been dramatically different. I think the "Counties" and the big destroyers show how a modern or modernized British warship could be a very potent unit, at the top or nearly the top of the list, worldwide.

Instead, Hood, the "R"s and several Queen Elizabeths were ignored at the alter of the budget gods. The USN coal-burners received more modernization and care than did these British ships.

[Laurence Batchelor]

Interms of the money spent on Hood by the Admiralty both the original battlecruiser design in 1915, to redesign her post Jutland 1916 as more a fast battleship, to build her and to man her for 20years with a large crew she has to possibly be in that light one of the worst things ever built to protect the British Islands and her Global Empire.

She offered poor value for money, she offers the same firepower as an QE or R class which the later has 6inch secondary's. Of course Hood has the Mk2 15" and a little more range as built. Her main usefullness is her speed and thus she was one of the few heavy ships which could operate with a carrier until the KGV's began to commission from the Winter of 1940 onwards.

Of course she is arguably the most beautiful warship of any navy ever built throughout the entire 20th Century. The best way to analyse her design though is she is much closer in 1920, as built, to a QE class, she is virtually a 30knt QE class! comapre the armour schemes. Then compare her to Repulse or Renown and their armour schemes as first built, you will see why on retrospect we can call her the world's first attempt at a 30knt battleship.

At the time she comissioned or when on the 1924 Empire Cruise this term wasn't around at the time and thus she was always classified a battlecruiser for simplicity. If you also look at the Royal Navy's proganda, whoops sorry PR! material at the time, you will always read "HMS Hood the world's most powerful battleship" "HMS Hood the world's largest warship afloat etc etc" part of this is press stupidity and part of this is she really isn't a true battlecruiser and is considered something a little bit different.

She also operated as part of the BC squadron in the early months of the war really only as part of a fast squadron to hopefully bring to action Scharnhorst & Gneisenau or a Pocket battleship. Thus you will find her covered in such battlecruiser books. It is only post WW2 we can look back on reflection and see her design history in the context of all the 20th building programs.

Finally I'm not here to slate Hood, I'm just here to make you aware that history is revisionist we reinterpret things constantly. I once considered Hood just as merely 'just the last Royal Navy's last battlecruiser' However as I began to read some of the best references, and started to ask questions and think 'out of the box' my opinion is now revised. She was the world's first attempt towards a 30knt battleship brought about from Jutland experience, and one pretty damn fine looking one at that!

[phil gollin]

......... Another problem seems to be the volatility of her powders. It was economical to keep the powder as long as possible. While it was bagged and in the magazine aboard ship or ashore, the volatile ethers and water slowly evaporated and made them dangerous.

A British comparison of RN and USN powders found British powder much more likely to be touched off by flash or fire. They should have thrown out the old powders before the war and adopted a better formula, but that too was an expense left for others to pay. The price was high, indeed. ...........

No

The problems of cordite in WW1 was due to impurities caused by poor manufacturing (this was put right before the end of WW1)

WW2 cordite was a new type which comenced manufacture in 1928 and was subject to continuous stability trials

The supposed USN trials of cirdite don't really demonstrate anything. There were equivalent small scale British tests on land propellants which merely showed that any comparison of the various types of propellant (both British and US) was a very complicated matter which depended upon temperature both of the propellant and the flame used and basically said it would only be sorted out by many more experiments.

[Laurence Batchelor]

Another problem seems to be the volatility of her powders. It was economical to keep the powder as long as possible. While it was bagged and in the magazine aboard ship or ashore, the volatile ethers and water slowly evaporated and made them dangerous.

A British comparison of RN and USN powders found British powder much more likely to be touched off by flash or fire. They should have thrown out the old powders before the war and adopted a better formula, but that too was an expense left for others to pay. The price was high, indeed.

I have to agree with Phil to my understanding the cordite issues were resolved in WW1, with such a large Navy as the RN had keeping track of how long cordite was in storage in anyof the naval bases/stores or in fleets of ships spanning the globe was a very difficult job of record keeping and organisation.

Once the RN discovered they were keeping cordite charges for too long a period and its quality wasn't checked frequently enough, the Ministry of Munitions along with the Admiralty in WW1 put in new procedures including stricter manufacturing tolerances, greater record taking and tracking and also more frequent testing schedules this problem became resolved.

[Werner]

I have to agree with Phil to my understanding the cordite issues were resolved in WW1, with such a large Navy as the RN had keeping track of how long cordite was in storage in anyof the naval bases/stores or in fleets of ships spanning the globe was a very difficult job of record keeping and organisation.

I wouldn't be so sure of that. American experience with powders in the 1980s proved that given enough time, any powder will become unreliable, uneven and dangerous. The loss of water and ether caused New Jersey to give dreadful performance off Beiruit, and this was only corrected by unbagging all powders into a large vat and remixing them, because the loss of volatiles was uneven through the bag based on several factors. Even then, batch variations were solved only by adding a doppler radar over the center gun of each turret to measure shell speed and make compensations in the fire control solution.

The WW.I tests were on new powders. The British formula at this time was still vulnerable to age and temperature effects.

Anyway, a huge "smoking gun" on this (no pun intended) is that Hood was lost to a main magazine detonation when all the observers put the fatal stroke near the mainmast. The explosion must have ruptured the after engine room bulkhead, and flash must have entered the magazine.

[Laurence Batchelor]

The WW.I tests were on new powders. The British formula at this time was still vulnerable to age and temperature effects.

Which tests? RN or USN? much of the cordite used by Royal Navy ships in WW1 was years old and went unrecorded how old it was. I can't remember the exact figures but alot was over 10 years old.

After the Admiralty realised this all cordite greater than 10years old was destroyed and all others were tested and checked more vigorously, the manufacturing was also changed.

As far as I'm aware no powder problems came to light in WW2, except supply problems and then of course from 1942 the super-charges were used to increase the range for the unmodified 15" twins.

[Werner]

Charges available in 1941 would have been a variation of Cordite MD, the Cordite SCB being what was destroyed. The MD formula was unchanged from the Boer War and was very susceptible to flash. The big revision after WW.I was improvements in handling and flash protection (down from the turrets and from handling rooms to magazine lobbies) in any case.

The demand for antiaircraft shells being what it was beginning in the mid 1930s, the ordinance department would have diverted all available production into these calibers and types, leaving the ample supply of 15-inch bag powders on hand to age.

[Laurence Batchelor]

Charges available in 1941 would have been Cordite MD, the Cordite SCB being what was destroyed. The MD formula was unchanged from the Boer War and was very susceptible to flash. The big revision after WW.I was improvements in handling and flash protection (down from the turrets and from handling rooms to magazine lobbies) in any case.

The demand for antiaircraft shells being what it was beginning in the mid 1930s, the ordinance department would have diverted all available production into these calibers and types, leaving the ample supply of 15-inch bag powders on hand to age.

Although a redirection towards AA shells was apparent in the 1930s often they were totally different manufacturers to the large calibre cordite charges. The safeguards put in place towards the end of WW1 meant that the build up of cordite main armament charges in the Navy as a whole never reached the 'risky levels' as was found in WW1.

Tons of it was destroyed in the inter-war period, partly from scaling down from war levels (the older it was the more likely it was to be destroyed), but mainly the Admiralty had all the testing procedures in place, this often meant RN capital ships were never very well magazined in the inter-war period, Of course the Admiralty had all the sinking/explosion data and findings from several boards of enquiry in WW1 after a few ships were lost to these 'accidents' to make sure the risk of repeating a similar blunder was much less likely.

Its important to understand the USN before 1942 had very little war experience for its battleships, whereas the Royal Navy had 4 years of WW1 and 3 years of WW2 by the same time. The USN repeated many of the same technical faults which the Royal Navy had already ironed out either in WW1 or from 1939-42 as a generalization.

What's up Werner are you having Chuck withdraw symtoms?

[Werner]

I just think the issue of chemical stability of powders has been underexamined.

As for experience, it's interesting that at the end of a long period of development of powders in WW.II, Cordite SC T most closely resembles USN powders used from WW.I onwards.

[phil gollin]

I just think the issue of chemical stability of powders has been underexamined.

As for experience, it's interesting that at the end of a long period of development of powders in WW.II, Cordite SC T most closely resembles USN powders used from WW.I onwards.

Absolutely wrong - totally different chemistry

[phil gollin]

Charges available in 1941 would have been a variation of Cordite MD, the Cordite SCB being what was destroyed. The MD formula was unchanged from the Boer War and was very susceptible to flash. The big revision after WW.I was improvements in handling and flash protection (down from the turrets and from handling rooms to magazine lobbies) in any case.

The demand for antiaircraft shells being what it was beginning in the mid 1930s, the ordinance department would have diverted all available production into these calibers and types, leaving the ample supply of 15-inch bag powders on hand to age.

ALL pre 1928 cordite was disposed of by WW2.

1: It was over its disposal date

2: A totally different solventless cordite was used.

You're all mixed up

[Werner]

I just think the issue of chemical stability of powders has been underexamined.

As for experience, it's interesting that at the end of a long period of development of powders in WW.II, Cordite SC T most closely resembles USN powders used from WW.I onwards.

Absolutely wrong - totally different chemistry

I meant in terms of shape. A hollow tubular grain rather than a cord or rod.

There seems to be a change in composition from MD to SC solventless in the late thirties, I am only assuming that the press of work on antiaircraft ammunition would mean the big powder bags would be the last converted to the newer formulas.

For the May 1941 timeframe, I think you'd have to be careful to say for certain what powders were aboard Hood.

[Guest]

For the May 1941 timeframe, I think you'd have to be careful to say for certain what powders were aboard Hood.

NO

It will be SC because it was the only type in service