Death Star Moment for WWII Ships

[Lostfleet]

The Nelson factor had a big impact on British Naval thinking up to WW1. Historically the RN believed in weight (big guns) and speed of broadsides, the same as they did during the Napoleonic wars (RN ships on average fired two broadsides for a French Man-o-Wars one, they also carried carronades, the French didn't). This is a contributing factor why the RN vessels at Jutland stacked shells and cordite in their turrets and left the lift fire-doors open to increase the speed of reloading and subsequently broadside rates. Germany, thanks to good old Carl Zueiss focused on accuracy and traded larger guns for heavier armour plate.

Beatty lost his 'fast cat' Battle Cruisers at Jutland because he failed to use their design advantage - speed and big guns which could out range most German Dreadnoughts. The philosophy of the design being to stand-off and hammer your adversary before they can get in range, hence the reason for sacrificing armour plate for bigger guns and speed. His huge ego and thirst for glory resulted in him taking his ships within range of the much more heavily armoured German ships!

Two must read books, which discuss these factors in depth are:

Robert K. Massies 'Dreadnought' and 'Castles of Steel'

I will check those books, ( a good reading list from this forum )


A few days ago there was a documentary about a joint Canadian US exercise where they sank an old Canadian Frigate with gun fire ( 5" guns). One of the Commanders observing the exercise commented that the Frigate would be in serious trouble if one of the 5" shells hit the VLS launcher meaning the ship would probably blow up. Do you think a direct shell or missile hit would cause that? ( Same effect of hitting ammunition store area of WWII era ships I guess)

 

[AegisFC]

A few days ago there was a documentary about a joint Canadian US exercise where they sank an old Canadian Frigate with gun fire ( 5" guns). One of the Commanders observing the exercise commented that the Frigate would be in serious trouble if one of the 5" shells hit the VLS launcher meaning the ship would probably blow up. Do you think a direct shell or missile hit would cause that? ( Same effect of hitting ammunition store area of WWII era ships I guess)

I've seen that documentary and it was rubbish. VLS is well protected and you can activate a deluge system flood out individual cells, entire modules or the entire launcher. When hit the MK-41 will probably be ruined but it won't just blow up.

 

[kato]

Maybe he meant that particular frigate?

I.e. without crew and damage control - although of course there wouldn't be any volatile materials in the launchers anyway, so nothing to explode there.

 

[Lostfleet]

Maybe he meant that particular frigate?

I.e. without crew and damage control - although of course there wouldn't be any volatile materials in the launchers anyway, so nothing to explode there.

No he meant when the crew and equipment was in place. I didn't know VLS had that complicated safety features.

Also it was interesting to see some F-18 trying to score on the ship with their guns only while she was sinking. I guess the total point of the whole exercise was to see the effectiveness of the guns on the planes and the ships on the surface targets.

 

[Grand Danois]

Saw that documentary as well. Found the most interesting part to be the ASuW use of the ESSM (?) (and that the first missiled got stuck in the launcher!).

The Huron eventually went down to gunfire from the 76mm oto that used to have been part of the fit out of the Huron itself.

 

[AegisFC]

No he meant when the crew and equipment was in place. I didn't know VLS had that complicated safety features.

Also it was interesting to see some F-18 trying to score on the ship with their guns only while she was sinking. I guess the total point of the whole exercise was to see the effectiveness of the guns on the planes and the ships on the surface targets.

All modern weapons magazines have protective sprinkler systems and good drainage, in the Mk-41 the system is designed into the launcher rather than around the launcher and you can isolate individual cells or modules.
The point of the excersice was to give the ships and planes something to shoot at, all of her water tight doors were welded open and she had no DC ability, if they would of just set Zebra (sealing all water tight doors and scuttles) the ship would of remained afloat much longer, a modern warship can take a lot of punishment especially if you have a well trained DC crew.