WW II History Discussion

[Captain Seafort]

Good point, although I'd dispute the details. PoW was hit on the shaft bracket, causing the shaft to fail. She still had some limited manoeuvrability. Bismarck's problem was that the entire stern collapsed, jamming both rudders and preventing her from being steered by varying revolutions.

[BigJKU316]

Yeah, the HMS Furious never had one. She did have her forecastle raised, so may be thinking of that.

Like I said before, the design was based on moderate range. In fact, the design was based more like a WW1 era battleship with the exception of the all or nothing US Battleships. Though the arrangement does have some flaws like having cables in front of armor and so forth. The secondary armament is not that good either but we are basing this off of US and British ships. Though the British did go through I believe four different caliber DP guns.

I think the US 5/38 was more the exception than the rule on DP guns, at least when it came to the total package. The US really did not even improve on it when it tried to in the 5/54 of late war years.

[McAvoy]

That is true. The 5"/38 cal. is basically a clean split between a 5"/25 (AA) and a 5"/51 cal. (SA).

Besides the 38 caliber wasn't that great until the VT fuse anyway.

[BigJKU316]

That is true. The 5"/38 cal. is basically a clean split between a 5"/25 (AA) and a 5"/51 cal. (SA).

Besides the 38 caliber wasn't that great until the VT fuse anyway.

The gun and mount and really the fire control in and of themselves were fine, they suffered from the same restrictions as all non-VT guns, which was that it is damn hard to set fuzes correctly on the things. The gun itself was not really flawed though. It was about the perfect combination of range, shell size and weight and responsiveness for a naval gun.

[McAvoy]

True.

The USN always loved the 5" gun.