This is a part of our series comparing battleships to the Iowa Class Battleships. To support this channel and the museum, go to: www.battleshipnewjersey.org/v...
I met one of the few survivors of the Bismarck crew in the early 2000's in South Australia. On a tour of his home I recognised a model of Bismark in a glass case in his study. He still loved his ship, and it brought him such great delight that I recognised her, that he opened up and gave me his story. From his explanation, it sounded like they were picked up by Dorsetshire. After the war he stayed on in the UK and later emigrated to Australia, the place looked like Austria out of the Sound of Music. I dont know how he got on, he was terminally ill with cancer, and I often wonder about him and his life.
Its sad that the only surviving British built battleship actually served in the Japanese navy. She is currently a museum ship in japan. It would be interesting to hear a review of her.
Sadly the UK was broke they had a ship built by the Frence in1797 captured at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 and renamed HMS Implacable and it served until 1949 when it was scuttled as they had no money to maintain it,
My father was a survivor of the Prince of Wales's sinking, he was adamant that she was hit by twelve torpedoes but then he was good at telling dits. According to Jane's British, Soviet, French and Dutch Battleships of world war two (1980 ), Prince of Wales took two torpedo hits on the port side in the first attack, one hitting near the port aft 5.25 inch guns, the other being the hit that caused the propeller shaft to flail about and open the hull up. " B engine room completely flooded in 18 minutes. Substantial damage and flooding was caused. The second attack scored four hits, all on the starboard side. there are some excellent drawings showing the hits and damage, a bit too much information to include in this comment. Of course, my old dad would have said, " Don't tell me son, I was there "! .
It was just (most likely) 1 torpedo on the port side, and that single hit doomed the ship, water was rushing in along the propeller shaft, flooding many compartments, she took onboard 14 k tons of liquid and was actually sinking. You also got to keep in mind that the warhead in this torp was tiny, even weaker than the ones dropped by the swordfishes. The 3 hits on the opposite side did actually right the ship for a while, making her "sink slower" than what would otherwise be the case.....
agreed, at least about the hit that doomed her. I'm not saying my father was correct about the twelve torpedoes, he was a character, actually was on the last ship to make it out of Singapore and somehow got involved in the Burma campaign ,He had the Burma clasp, didn't get home until 1943. nice video,wish we'd have saved a few capitol ships,but our political masters never had the will power to do so.
@@andrewfanner2245 I know about that report and I'm not claiming to be an expert. The after action reports shouldn't be ignored, however it's a moot point. Prince of Wales was lost to air attack, she and Repulse being the first capitol ships lost at sea to air attack.They would not be the last, as the Imperial Japanese Navy would find out later in the war. They were caught without air support and they paid dearly because of it.
Power to the AA armament was taken out by the first torpedo hit, wasn't it? Not that they would have survived anyway but that was still a critical loss of defense capability. The account of Repulse artfully dodging multiple torpedo strikes before finally succumbing to a pincer is both inspiring and sorrowful. An image of Churchill's face when he was informed of the loss would be worth a mint.
Would have been better off with 5" 3/8s and much better USN Mk.37 AA Directors !! The 5.25" had Mechanical issues, trained slow and a slower rate of fire. Just the facts.
I have read that the 5.25 mounts were capable of almost sniping aircraft out of the air late war with radar guidance at great ranges than the standard US 5 inch mounts. Sometimes catching kamikaze formations by surprise and breaking them up. Happy to hear views.
The one thing I didn’t hear mentioned was the upscaled bursting charge in the 14” shells for the KGV class. The idea being the the ships it was expected to fight would have to close to reliably penetrate the KGV’s armour, by which point the 14” would have equivalent penetration. The increased bursting charge was, if I remember rightly, equivalent to the larger calibers other ships were using.
Actually 14 inch Guns of KGV had great accuracy and range even 3 Km more range than 16 inch guns of north Carolina and south Dakota class battleships The BL 14 inch MK 7 gun had relatively heavy shell for its caliber the high angle trajectory and very good Deck armour penetration capabilities almost similar to 15 inch guns of the era even better at long ranges than them It was the only battleship class of WW2 that did anything against enemy Battleships This class was responsible for Sinking Bismarck by making it rubble of fire and Penetrations and by sinking Scharnhorst
The British 15inch mk1 was a phenomenal gun. Yes it was designed in ww1 but it was absolutely brilliant. Warspite armed with 8 of these scored one of longest at sea artillery shots on another moving ship ever recorded. Amazing guns
But just to satisfy my germaneness here: The longest hit was scored by the 11 inch 28 cm SK C/34 guns of the Scharnhorst class causing a really bad day for fellers at the HMS Glorious.
@@alsosprachzarathustra5505 thats true, but one month after this incident HMS Warspite scored a hit on an Italian battleship at the same range and so both ships hold the record
I was on the Eisenhower when the Wisconsin was active in the late 80’s.... often the Wisconsin was moored next to us often and the ship was strikingly beautiful. I was able to get onboard a couple of times to visit. Wow!! Morale was spectacular, food was excellent and the ship ready for inspection by the admiral at a moments notice. History, power and a great crew. Love these old battle ships
I worked aboard the Iowa and Wisconsin during refurb. I even rode the sea trial on Wisconsin. I’ll never forget how impressive these old Battle wagons were. Some of the specs as I remember on the Wisconsin. 887 feet long, 140 feet beam, 30 feet from first water line to baseline, 58,000 tons, as tall as a 17 story building from baseline to control cabin. Main bridge. Displaced enough water to flood an 40 acre field knee deep. May be some errors as this was more than 30 years ago.
@@jkeithgarner3396 we’re getting old 😂... I had a 30mm camera and took a lot of pics of the Wisconsin. I set up a tripod and went mid ship and made panoramic pic with the only lense I had. I think it took 8-10 shots. The Wisconsin was fresh out of rebuild and work ups. I had enlisted in a program called “Sea College”. It was designed to bring enlisted men into the Navy for 2 years, then into NROTC or the Naval Academy. In truth very few took either option. I served 2 years. At first I was assigned to V-2 (catapults) but I got my hands on the books to become an OS and after about 8 months, I struck in as an OS. Went from E-1 - non rated to E4 in OS in 8 months. Then got out using terminal leave at 22 months. Navy was very kind to me. I saved up $10,000 while living onboard. Then the Sea College program gave me almost $10800 in GI Bill plus a “kicker” of another $8000. For me, in 1988, that paid for all four years at a State School plus some. I ended up an airline pilot with the Navy paying for college plus about 1/3 of my flight training. The reason I mentioned what program I was in is, when I became an OS, I had an opportunity to cross deck to the Wisconsin. It was a huge, huge incentive. I almost did, but in doing so I would have lost all of the Sea College “kicker” and would have had to enlist for an additional 4 years for a total of 6 plus reserves. It was tempting even at that time, I was a huge history buff. I actually took two college level history classes while on IKE as we had several professors running college classes onboard.
I have several souvenirs from the Wisconsin a piece of the teakwood deck and a dummy shell from the Phalanx. From the Iowa I have the crystal door knobs from Roosevelt’s Stateroom including those from the bathroom door. What so unique about the bathroom was that it had a full tub in it as he was a paraplegic.
My grandfather served on her both during late WW2 and during the Korean War. He was a propellant bag loader (I don't remember the official name unfortunately) in turret two. Told me the story about when that 155mm gun chipped it's paint in 1952. He called it "cute" as he was loading the propellant bags that were going to send the HC rounds down range to turn the poor thing into a crater. Unfortunately he died when I was quite a bit younger from lung cancer. Rest in peace, grandad.
Great video and great channel, just donated. Between you and Drachinifel, you nicely fill a niche on RUclips that I and many others (well, some others) find really interesting.
You did not mention that the British 14 inch shells punched far above their weight. They re-engineered these rounds with more and better explosives and actually were better than many 15 inchers, maybe even some of the 16s. I don't know how their range compared though.
Great channel. Just discovered you as I'm also a big Drach fan. Always had a fascination with this class. I do concur that the RN got its money's worth. These ships were worked hard and served in all 4 oceans of the world plus the Mediterranian. POW certainly had an action packed, if short career.
Ryan, you sir, have one of the coolest jobs a fella could have. You do it very well. Thanks for these awesome documentaries ! I plan on paying a visit to the New Jersey this fall with my nephew. I hope we have the opportunity to meet you sir. I’m a Navy veteran and he’s a big battleship enthusiast ! I used to service a lot of the same electronics (radar and communications) that you have on the New Jersey.
Oh, when the British got the excellent American secondary gun radar sets, they surprised the hell out of the Japanese pilots who thought they were out of the American secondary range only to be blasted accurately by the longer ranged British secondary guns. The KGV class' were not undergunned though. They had better deck penetration than the 16/45s at 16,000yards and comparable belt penetration with a much larger bursting charge to offset the size.
I know the 14 inch shell went right through bismark's armour over penning it. so it can slice through bismark's armour with 1 shell then would tear up the iowa's if it hit
@@jackwardley3626 That would only happen if the Iowa did not remove itself from range. Remember once you see a salvo being fired you have a few minutes to move to an unexpected place. Nobody is shooting lasers at you.
Brilliant Ryan! Ryan, this is brilliant! As a Brit, I will always be biased,but you compare and contrast these ships with no bias. It's really hard to compare an Iowa to a kgv for many reasons,starting with around 40% weight difference. But as you said, our pressing concern was hulls in the water. The UK did what they had to do in all the services. They followed the principal of ' the best is the enemy of the good enough' the USA had the luxury of time and money to build the best and they did. But if you look at the cost, the kgvs cost $28m and the Iowa's $120m? Four ships for the cost of one! The UK made the right choice for its needs and affordability The USA did the same The Italians, Japanese and Germans did not. Game over. T
I also wanted to say. Love the videos. Hope to make it out to visit the New Jersey. Definitely in the top five museum ships i want to tour. You and your team are doing Great work. The pride and respect for vessels and the history really shows
My mother had a boyfriend who was the RAF liaison officer on KGV in 1945. He later became quite a famous artist but she met him as KGV was anchored out in Cardigan Bay in the process of doing a tour around Britain and he came ashore with some other men in a small boat. My mother was on the beach with her friend Iris when they made the shore and as he walked up the beach he said: "Let's take a look at the local talent" and Iris took offence to this and gave him a mouthful which stopped him in his tracks- and that is how he met my mother. Obviously, this is not your typical battleship story of lobbing shells etc but KGV was significant in my mother's life for this reason.
Nice video. To be fair to the Duke of York in the Battle of the North Cape (against the Scharnhorst). They fought within the arctic circle in December. they had 45 minutes of day light a day and 6 hours of twilight. in those conditions 70% salvo rate aint so bad. It was frigging cold. Those arctic convoys were nasty. just from a seafaring perspective.
Great presentation. If you ever get to London there is a magnificent large scale model of the King George V Battleship at the Greenwich Maritime museum, also at the entrance to the Imperial War museum there is a pair of complete 15in gun barrels. You really have to stand next to them to understand how big they are.
@@hmskinggeorgev7089 It always strikes me as odd that the KGV class have always had such a bad press, considering that they achieved everything that was expected of them. Considering the restrictions within which Goodall and his team worked, the final product was a credit to their efforts.
Yeah, we were flat broke and it was a luxury, and our country was devastated and needed re-building. Warspite should have been kept, the KGV Class probably wasn't even in the running. We won the war and there was a need for a new deal for the people for all the hardship, so the ending of slums, the NHS, social security, council houses, whilst in America the golden 1950's accelerated the quality of life for many, in the UK we had Rationing for decades. We were the sick man of Europe right up until the mid 1980's, post then we have pretty much boomed, and the Country is almost unrecognisable.
The King George V class is a very interesting take on the traditional Speed/Protection/Firepower balance, especially in view of the naval treaties. It's only in recent years that I've come to appreciate the design and the compromises that had to be made in order to meet the restrictions.
@@JohnRodriguesPhotographer Absolutely, and I think it goes underappreciated for that. Especially as the British actually stuck to the Treaty limits and still came up with a competent, competitive design that could match most of its peers, even though many of those were absolutely not treaty compliant. Things like the 14" shells having a bigger explosive charge than almost anything else to make up for the smaller calibre and penetration shows clever thinking.
Yeah, Richelieu and South Dakota also have an interesting balance, too. RiLieu excels in the speed category and SoDak excels in the firepower department. Them and KGV are my favorite treaty BBs that were built by treaty standards.
@@jayvee8502 early on anyway. They did get resolved, and don't go use North Cape to prove your point, every ship has error in drill and other setbacks in prolong battles. Howe and Anson didn't even have any issues.
That was a very good analysis of the KGV class and it basically comes to the conclusion that the decisions to make them that way also lead to some of the difficulties they had. A more direct comparison is the North Carolina. Both were the first newly designed treaty ships. Both had some teething issues. Where the brits went one way the Americans went the other. Was the North Carolina better designed for it's intended job? Probably. The Americans had two more years to figure things out. Even then they didn't get everything right, like propeller vibrations. It was just a massive leap forward from older traditional standard BB designs. I keep thinking of the long lance torpedo hit the NC took and kept station at 26 knots. That was a big hole.
According to the US Navy's damage report regarding that torpedo hit, the explosion came close to detonating the ship's magazines. Yes, a single Japanese torpedo nearly sank an American battleship.
@@williamjpellas0314 I read the report. The flash might have reached the T1 magazine. They didn't know. If it did, the sealed system worked. They noted no significant structural damage around the turret, plenty around the impact of course.. Minimal flooding with a 36ft hole. Counter flooding to bring it back on an even keel. This wasn't a light aerial torpedo either.
Great commentary - I really like the KGV class - at first glance they appear weak but when you get into it especially in terms of delivering a ship quickly and value for money they were great designs - it's often underappreciated that they were intended to be followed within a year or so by the Lion class - Essentially 16" KGVs upscaled to Iowa size, even the Admiralty report on the building program basically said based on everything they had planned RN should be in a strong position unless Britain went to war in 1939.....
The depth of armour was highly significant. I respectfully refer you to @drachinifel 's excellent analysis of the destruction of HMS Hood. Thank you for such an even-handed analysis.
Seconded. Extremely in depth and comprehensive thing, so it is. I'd be very surprised if there is ever an analysis of the Hood's death that will supercede it.
Should do a comparison with the Kirov class "battlecruisers". One of the main reasons the Iowas were reactivated. Also maybe Renown class, I know they really aren't comparable, but hey.
Thanks for filming and posting this just because I poked you! very cool! One thing I've got from watching a lot of your videos is that i really struggle to work out where everything is, and what is related to what in the ships structure. I had an idea that it might be cool to do a 'deck walk' of each main deck, especially the engineering spaces, end to end, to give us an idea of the whole thing on each level. not in depth of each bit, but like your 'top to bottom' video, except, end to end of specific decks. Something i would have loved to do when i was there in person! Keep up the great work.
We will add it to the list. In the mean time, if you haven't already seen it, we posted the deck plans on our community page recently and that will give you a pretty good idea of what's what and where. As a reminder though, there are 18 levels so there's lots of places to look!
@@BattleshipNewJersey Ha!, yeah I'm not saying you need to do one for 'every' level, even though at the rate you put out videos that would only take a fortnight. But engine rooms end to end, and broadway end to end, and maybe the bridge levels. maybe an exterior deck walk bow to stern pointing out interesting bits. I did that on the tour, but others won't have been there.
@@BattleshipNewJersey Would it be possible to clearly show the the compartment number at the beginning of an episode ? I have the old detail & scale for the Enterprise which describes the meaning of the numbers. Something about how the ships personnel were organized into divisions ?
When we shoot something space specific we try and show a map of where we are. But heres some additional details on how the bulls eye compartment numbers work: ruclips.net/video/R5XraTB3aZ8/видео.html
You need to talk about the difference in ammunition design. This is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT concerning the effectiveness of the guns! For example, the new British "B" (long windscreen shape) shells -- and the retroactive versions, otherwise more-or-less identical (slightly lighter in weight and with less streamlining to shorter ranges, is all) with shorter "A" noses that could be used in the older battleships that had not had the appropriate shell handling modifications (HOOD, for example) -- introduced in the early 1930s for their 14" and 15" guns (the 16" used an earlier very lightweight "B" design from the mid-1920s) were VERY unusual (in fact. I had to rebuild portions of my FACEHARD face-hardened armor penetration program just to handle the various versions of these new British AP shells, which took some time to accomplish, let me tell you!). The shells were somewhat heavy, as were most earlier British AP shells (other than the 16" used by NELSON and RODNEY, which were considered a failure), but they had a totally new specification requirement that nobody else made top priority (something to be aimed at, to be sure, but not if it compromised armor penetration, so ihat it was usually a number 2 or 3 priority in AP shell design), to wit, that remaining intact after impact was the first to be maximized at all cost. The result was to create shells that were reasonably "normal" in their effectiveness against thinner face-hardened ("Cemented" in British terminology) armor; that is, up to caliber thickness of US Class "A" armor or the British and other foreign equivalent, at 30 degrees impact from right-angles as zero, which was a typical WWII-era impact test angle for most such ammo used by most nations (US was the exception, using 35-40 degrees as its test angle and somewhat thicker test plates, too), up to Cemented plates about caliber thickness (14" or 15", respectively). Because of this design requirement, the shells had a rather unique and complex base plug design that allowed the shell base, if the shell hit at a highly oblique angle, to flatten out without the base plug crushing the fuze or snapping off when it slammed into the side of the hole it was making (The Hadfield Patent Relief Base Plug design), which did work exactly as specified -- no problem there. However, they also made the middle and lower body of the shell so soft that it could literally bend into a banana (NO JOKE!) and remain in one piece. This was shown quite conclusively when the US Navy tested some of these British 14" Mark IB N.T. (Night Tracer in the bottom of the fuze, just like used in many kinds of tank ammo) against 17.3" Class "A" barbette plates (IOWA type) and 18" Class "B" turret port (face) plates (SOUTH DAKOTA single-thickness version plate type) at 30 degrees. The two projectile fired, one at each plate, did not penetrate more than a few inches (11" in the 18" port plate). The shell hitting the 17.3" plate broke up, which also could occur with non-penetrating US shells, though not as often as with British shells. The one hitting the 18" plate bent into a banana, fell backward out of the cone-shaped pit in the plate, then its hardened nose snapped off, making the shell look like a very large solid elbow macaroni made of steel (other than the post-impact nose damage, the shell remained completely "effective" and would have exploded if it had had a filler and fuze, though with minimal effect, to be sure since it was outside of the target it hit). In comparison, the US 14" Mark 16 MOD 8 AP shells fired at the same impact energy (slightly higher in velocity due to their slightly lower weight) completely penetrated the plates, with the 18" penetration causing the base plug to be broken off as it slammed against the side of the hole (vindicating the British base plug, but obviously nothing else!). It was decided not to even try to get the British shells to penetrate plates that thick as a lost cause. British ammo, unlike US ammo, would have been in serious trouble against YAMATO, though against BISMARCK it would have worked -- and obviously DID work -- exactly as designed no matter where it hit.. You simply had to choose your opponent carefully with British guns...
Or it could be argued that modern battleships in general were more vulnerable to superficial damage than to knock-out penetrations of armoured citadels. Only two modern battleships were destroyed by surface action in WWII, Bismarck and Scharhorst. Though the Scharnhorst's eventual destruction was sealed by a 14" shell hit which penetrated a boiler room, thus slowing its speed, both the Scharnhorst and Bismarck were destroyed as functional warships long before either sank and both were sunk by torpedo damage, plus possible scuttling in Bismarck's case. Their destruction was through superficial damage to their armament, targeting equipment, command positions and internal communications. A heavily armoured battleship with a larger number of faster-firing guns capable of causing large amounts of superficial damage, may have been more efficient in dealing with other modern battleships, than one with thinner armour mounting fewer larger calibre guns. I'm sure you can see which classes I am referring to.
@@urseliusurgel4365 "The ships to battle cruisers", of course. More smaller ships ganging up on a few large ships is a good idea as long as you can get those smaller ships to the point that they can still go everywhere (more-or-less) that the big ships can (range, speed, enough on-board supplies, ability to handle bad weather, etc.) AND that it is possible to call those smaller ships so that they can converge on the larger ships when needed (if they are too spread out, they lose their numerical advantage). The fight of those three British cruisers against ADM GRAF SPEE shows that concentration does work, but the damage that they took in doing so indicates that it was a near thing, with a few of those 11" shells hitting in different places could have made lots of British wreckage and one victorious German warship. Knocking out several of BISMARCK's guns early in that final battle was done by AP shells penetrating armor, so the results cannot be called "superficial"; they were major forms of damage. Sinking a ship is of no consequence once you have wrecked its ability to do anything anymore. If the British had been vengeful, they could have stopped firing after BISMARCK was a burning wreck and just sailed off, leaving one destroyer to pump more torpedoes into her if she started her engines again, allowing her remaining crew to drown... No difference to the war itself.
@@nathanokun8801 Nathan, when trying to figure the effective thickness increase of inclined belt armor, is it just right triangle trig (i.e. the actual thickness is the base, the adjacent angle is the sum of the angle of inclination of the armor plus the angle of decent of the incoming shell and the effective thickness is the hypotenuse) or is there more to it than that?
@@timothyschmidt9566 The calculations are more complex than just simple trigonometry, since, as noted, the projectile's reaction to the initial impact and, as it makes a hole (or tries to), determines its ability to continue to concentrate its impact forces on the smallest area of the armor surfaces in contact over the entire time that the projectile is passing through the plate (which can deform or break the projectile and thus affect , slightly or greatly, the projectile's ability to continue penetrating). Face-hardened armi is designed to destroy projectiles before or, failing that, during their penetrations through the plates. Thus, reducing penetration is only half of their purpose; the rest is reducing the projectile to solid-shot, especially in pieces, which makes the penetration, if achieved, much less damaging to the ship hit. Homogeneous, ductile armor, as used in decks, for example, is primarily designed to try to stop a projectile that is assumed to remain more-or-less intact by, at highly-oblique impacts, causing it to glance off rather than stop the shell cold before it gets entirely through the plate hit. Thick homogeneous armor, mostly used by the WWII US battleships for their extremely thick conning towers and turret faces, as shown in the 18" plate tests mentioned above, can do major damage to projectiles, too, though these damage effects to the projectile are more limited to if the projectile barely penetrates at an oblique angle so that the sideways forces as the projectile tries to get through the hole its nose has just made are prolonged -- even the best AP projectile can be heavily damaged if they remain stuck in the plate or just barely have the energy to get through. With face-hardened armor, significant extra velocity than just that needed to penetrate can reduce damage, too, but it usually takes more excess velocity to reduce the time-in-plate and to minimize the slamming of the shell against the hard face as the shell tried to get through the plate, especially the very hard face layer that can break off the lower body of a projectile like snapping it over your knee much better than a soft homogeneous plate of the same thickness can. While face-hardened armor almost always fails by the same method -- punching out the hard face layer, intact or in pieces, through the plate back as a huge plug -- so the damage effects and energy needed to penetrate are more due to the limitations of various projectiles to damage than to the armor reaction -- homogeneous armor deforms in several ways that depend drastically on both the thickness of the armor compared to the size of the shell: Thin ductile plates can "dish" (dent over a wide area around the impact point), for example, and this makes thinner homogeneous plate stronger than you would expect if you just tried to project the penetration versus impact velocity results of thicker plates downward; this does not happen in face-hardened armor unless it is too brittle and a huge hole is broken out of the plate (a "cartwheel" or "disc", depending on who is reporting the results) like a rock through a glass window (not a dent!). This dishing effect at highly oblique angles makes thin homogeneous armor much better at causing projectiles to glance off than the brittle face-hardened armors, which is why homogeneous armor is usually the only type used for horizontal protection, with the sole exception being some WWII battleships (mostly French) thick turret roofs where AP aircraft bombs were (erroneously as it turned out for them in WWII) were considered the primary threat and face-hardened armor (high quality with minimum brittleness, to be sure) was used. The 15" British AP shell from HOOD that punched at extremely high obliquity a hole in the roof of the DUNKERQUE turret demonstrated conclusively the reason for not using face-hardened armor against highly-oblique impacts; a cookie-cutter outline of the projectile's side, minus its thin windscreen, was made as the hole in the roof of the turret, with the nose of the projectile snapping off and flying away, but the middle and lower body of the projectile, in burning pieces, along with all of the 5.9" face-hardened armor plate pieces within that outline, flew into that 2-gun sub-section of the double-compartment turret of these 4-gun turrets and knocked it out, leaving the mount with only two guns remaining in action. A homogeneous armor roof might have caused the shell to glance off with merely a long deep dent. Also, even more complex, while nose shape does not change projectile penetration much against face-hardened armor (except to make a projectile more or less subject to the nose breaking on impact in some cases), the shape of the projectile nose and, in some cases, the shape of the projectile's AP cap edge (the angle where the cap face meets the cap side so that it can in some designs act like a sharp corner of a chisel) both make a HUGE difference in the ability of the projectile to penetrate at any angle against any thickness of armor. And we are assuming no projectile damage to confuse things, either. These effects are considerable and cause the penetration versus striking velocity plots to diverge enormously by just reshaping the nose, keeping everything else equal, when trying to penetrate various homogeneous plates of identical material, but just different thicknesses at varying impact angles. This is so complicated that I have not done more than a small amount of study of this, even though IO was able to almost completely define very precisely how face-hardened armor reacts under the same impact conditions (my very complete FACEHARD program in BASIC at NAVWEAPS.COM where the English-type Source Code files define everything I currently know about penetrating face-hardened armor OF EVERY TYPE I KNOW OF AGAINST EACH INDIVIDUAL PROJETILE DESIGN THAT I KNOW OF. Cannot do that with homogeneous, ductile armor, unfortunately, even after 50 years of work....
Awesome videos. These comparatives are done very well and impartially (speaking as a Brit). You seem to do it without notes too which is incredibly impressive. Thanks.
Please review the Colorado class 16” standard battleships. I would especially like to hear more about West Virginia post refitting. It would be very interesting to hear a comparison of WeeVee to Maryland and Colorado, compared to North Carolinas, South Dakotas, and Iowas. Third, how the technical advantages of WeeVee made her effective in Surigao Strait vs Maryland and others.
Great video, I felt for the POW when it was chasing the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen by itself, while guns were going on and offline, It also fought in the Mediterranean before its demise in the Pacific. I don't think POW ever did watertight compartment air tests.
I recall reading that when the British went to build the King George V battleships they had a great deal of trouble with the armor. It had been so long since British steel mills had made battleship armor plate that the specialist equipment to do so was in poor repair or had been scrapped entirely and may of the specialist technicians who knew how to make such plate had died or retired without being able to properly pass on their knowledge.
Not quite. We had kept the armour knowledge thankfully. The problem was not the knowledge but the greatly reduced manufacturing CAPACITY due to 1930s closure of yards due to the depression and some very short sighted plans to rationalize capacity.
Actually the KGB class had best armour in WW2 it's armour used best metalorgy and the result was 20% stronger armour than any other armour available of same weight It had better armour than even iowas
it’s honestly crazy to think that the kgv class were considered the second best protected ships outside of the Yamato. Amazing ships and sad to hear bout the prince of wales wreck being effectively destroyed by illegal scrappers, desecrating a tragic gravesite
Disagree about the deep belt helping anti-torpedo protection. Solid plate is caved in by the "water hammer" of an underwater explosion due to the water (of essentially infinite thickness on the far side) holding the blast bubble confined so that it exerted more force against the ship hull, on top of the greatly enhanced concussion shockwave transmitted by the blast "brisance" through the water into the hull directly in front of the torpedo warhead impact point. The collapse of the bubble allowed water from the far side to ram into the hull again and again as the bubble moved upward, which did not do the ship any good, either. That is why anti-torpedo systems were so deep in battleships and had layers of spaced plates with water- (or oil-) and air-filled compartments to gradually soak up the blast and fragmentation effects -- though even 3' (1 meter) of water could stop most of the tiny fragments from a thin torpedo casing. Also, as noted, hits outside of the anti-torpedo systems can also be "curtains".
So this might be an odd question but to your knowledge did the KGV's do any broadside refueling like the Iowa's? (PWS is my favorite WW2 BB so curious if she might have undertaken in such maneuvers) TY!
Show New Jersey’s engine room and if you can locate someone who worked down there ( That master chief for example have him discuss steaming the plant. I was a machinist mate and would love to hear about how the plant steamed.
If not the Vanguard, at least one of the KGV ships should have been preserved. The British Govt. at the time had many large combat ships to scrap, saving one would not have made much difference at all economically.
@@niclasjohansson4333 More than a shame, a scandal and very short sighted. Historically, the R.N. the most famous navy in history, and yet not a single battleship remains from the 20th century.
@@paullewis2413 What do you mean short sighted? They were broke, the only real capital ship they could have saved was HMS Vanguard but even then the cost to restore, turn her into a museum ship, and maintaining her was still a very expensive job that nobody was willing to pay for at the time
Did you also think about doing a video about older ships? Especially the greek armored cruiser Georgios Averof from 1910 might be interesting, as she is the last of her kind in existence and even still afloat.
Battleship New Jersey, A very good and honest comparison, many 'warts and all' points raised. As a British engineer rtrd I have a great fondness of all things 'guns' and Battleships are the daddies of that and the fact that the USA had the good sense to preserve some were us British did not saddns me. I can only say I wish I could afford to visit the Iowa but sadly that will never happen, but I can thank you for all these great comparison videos. Drachinifel did a very interesting couple of videos on the Pearl harbour recovery of the damaged ships and I wondered if there was any USA info on all the lessons learned once it was seen how those ships were damaged badly enough to sink and if/how that was used to make ships being designed or built after better protected?
I would love to see a video talking about the replacement of belt armor on the south dakotas and iowas if they had been damaged in battle. I know it would be a lot more involved than external armor but was it designed to be replaced a certain way? Thanks in advance!
To summarize near the end of WWII specifications of both ship classes, the KGV have better armor and protection with their Ducol steel and A type protection than the Iowas, but the Iowas excel in main battery guns and fire control systems/computers and also the Iowas have better maneuverability than the KGV.
Yes. South Dakota was same displacement, timeframe, etc vs KG5. Iowa had 35K limitation lifted and cost alot more (I believe about $100m vs $65m for SD and $68m for Supercarrier Midway). SD was about the same speed with 130,000 shp, Short with wide beam to maximize armor protection at 12in angled. 3x3 16/45 guns firing super heavy 2700lb shell. Side note: The American dual 5/38 DP gun had an official ROF of 15 but in practice was closer to 22.
It’s funny how modern video games have always considered Bismarck, Yamato,, Musashi as World War II dreadnaughts. Great video as always, please don’t stop anytime soon
Great vid! Any chance to make a comparison of Iowas and Kirov class? Iowas were recommissioned (in part) to counter the Russian battlecruisers in the 1980s. P.S. I believe this was already requested in one of the above comments. Thanks!
I'm sure the Kirov would prevail. It was newer, had much better range, and was nuclear powered. It's like Yamato vs. Iowa. The Yamato has a good chance of winning up close. In Iowa vs. Kirov, the Iowa has a decent chance up close but gets destroyed from a distance. Iowa Class main guns, range: 43.3 km Kirov Class anti-ship "Shipwreck" missiles, range: 625 km Later upgrades to the Iowa included Harpoon anti-ship missiles with a range of 280 km. Still not enough. There was also an anti-ship version of the Tomahawk with a range of 460 km. It would only be relevant with extreme luck. The Iowa has no realistic way to beat the Kirov. The USA would use the Air Force to attack the Kirov, not a battleship. If all else fails, drop a ballistic missile on the Kirov. It's that big a threat. But the Russian Navy was always notorious for not patrolling far from home. Lack of supplies. The Kirov had nuclear power and had unlimited range, but if it was in deep sea it would most likely be alone, and make for an easy target. Although the Kirov is all about attack, it's purpose was defensive. Keep a few of these bad boys close to Russia and if the USA comes close with a carrier strike group, send out the Kirov. That was its purpose. Its job was to destroy a US carrier strike group if we ever got too close, so we never did. This is a very powerful ship.
@@protorhinocerator142 Once you get into the anti-ship missile era, it becomes much less a question of throw-weight but of targeting and detection. While the Kirov missiles had a range of 625km, it needed some way of targeting them - and that is where all comparisons go out the window, because in that case it becomes a question of "whoever detects first gets to fire first". And at that point, you get more into fleet compositions and reconnaissance efforts than into theoretical single ship combat. I do agree the Kirovs were powerful (and beautiful) ships - I think you shortchange the Iowa class - but the overall concept is that they weren't designed/rebuilt for the same mission anymore - the Iowa's were recommissioned to serve as the center for power-projection fleets when a carrier wasn't around - and to supply the Marines with the fire support they might need when the entire fleet was down to only 5/54 guns, while the Kirov was designed to show the flag around the world, and try to have a large enough alpha strike of SSMs to overwhelm an American fleet. Thankfully we never got to see if they would work in practice.
This would always be an unfair comparison, the American equivalent to the KGVs were the North Carolinas as they were both designed during similar timeframes. The KGVs however stayed at 14” guns because of how far along they were and there wasn’t enough time to redesign them to use 16” guns, which would have led them to the Lion-class. A better contender to comparing to the Iowa class would be the beauty that is HMS Vanguard. I’ll say this though: The KGVs has terrible bow designs, that flat, low bow was a terrible idea.
The bow design resulted from a requirement to shoot directly over the bow at short range. Really didn't work out. A turret was regularly casrepped a la Scharnhorst (which was even worse)
It would be interesting to know, what you think about the different abilities at sea. There was an article comparing an Iowa-Class-Battleship and a King George (or was it the Vanguard with the same hull?) during manoevres at heavy weather conditions related to there stability.
thanks for this comparison, very interesting. The poor AA protection was a real weakness, which perhaps was unappreciated at the design stage. As you mention, difficult to to adapt as time passes. A real shocker though on gun rate of fire and reliability; that runs contrary to all naval commonsense. It really should have been appreciated and resolved before it was too late to do anything other than tinker. They did very well as a class in spite of these definite issues thanks to the brave men who served.
Sorry to ask a question slightly off subject. But how are the charges initiated on 16 inch guns? I know on smaller guns sometimes use a flash cartridge similar to a blank round. Are large naval guns fired in the same way?
Yea, they use a cartridge, I think it was a .308. The primerman put the blasting cap into the breech when the shell and powder were being loaded from below in the gun pit.
The British thought that if they stuck to the treaty really close the others would do the same, and hence the KGVs.. We know now that her enemies were not .
Indeed, if it weren't for the USN assuming the Yamato and Musashi were armed with 16" guns I'm sure we'd have our own 18" gunned ships like the USS Georgia seen in WoWS.
The British got their fingers burnt with the Dreadnought class. They started an arms race with the rest of the world. The KGVs were being built only about 30 years later so they did not want to trigger another arms race. Especially bearing in mind the political situation of 1930s.
The U. S. did the same with its between the war ships. Our treaty cruisers compared horribly to the Japanese; hence, the reason we lost so many early in the war.
Always thought that 'unrotated projectiles' were basically rockets with HE warheads. Never heard of them launching balloons or wires to snag dive bombers.
Learned somewhere the KGV 14 inch guns relied on “extra high velocity” to get more penetration from the narrower shell. Similar to what was going on with small arms leading to the 5.56 mm NATO at 3,300 FPS ammunition eventually.
No your confusing it with the 16 inch of the Nelson's, that drank heavily from what turned out to be the flawed German school of thought of a lighter higher velocity shell equals more pen, half m v sq. Whilst in theory true, it doesn't hold at combat ranges as a lighter faster shell bleeds energy of faster than a heavier shell. The KG V 14 inch gun rectified this by having a proportionately heavier shell for its calabre than the Nelson's. Don't be mistaken Nelson's shells were heavier, but relative to their calabre they were lighter. Also on a side note British shells had a much heavier bursting charge than the US shells
Thanks, team. I started looking online and found that after the problems with the Nelson/Rodney 16 inch, high-velocity trials, the British moved back to "normal" shell speeds. As a result, the KGV's had about the lightest broadside weight of WWII. There were also issues with complex safety interlocks intended to prevent Jutland type magazine explosions that interfered with the function of the KGV guns both in trials and battles, especially for the Prince of Wales battle with Bismarck.
With hindsight, it can be fairly said that the KGVs were gd value for money inspite of their theoretical deficiency in firepower. They sank 2 enemy capital ships. A better record than any other battleship class in WW2
@@bmc7434 Scharnhorsts were not cruisers at all. Check the stats. They are as heavily armored as most contemporary BBs and faster. They traded heavy armament for speed. Compare them to the Alaska class, which is a cruiser, and which the USN called a cruiser. Scharnhorsts were battleships by design, and were used as such.
Ryan, it’s funny. When I first started watching this video, I thought you were wearing an early Capt. Pike uniform, before Capt Kirk.....lol. Please wear one next time! :o)
If it came to that Japan at the time would have built the A-120. Basically a yamato with 510mm main guns but a 3x2 gun layout instead of 3x3. For America it would've been the montana class battleships but it went into the favor for the essex class carriers as the iowa class could already fulfill the needs.
The till man IV Battleship would have been build, is basically a huge colorado class with 3x5 18 inch guns(MK 1A 457mm guns which through tests became the iconic MK7 406mm) and insane AA defense, the ship size was limited to be able to pass through Panama canal Montana class would have been built as well, but using the 457mm instead of the 406mm guns probably UK specially would have built something crazy, they tested 457mm guns many times after ww1 they even mounted two on the hms furious before converting it to a carrier They were planning to build a class of battleship under the name U4-U5(do not confuse with Lion class), later the design was changed under the name N3 battleship both of them using 18 inch guns On that same generation of ships were the battlecruisers under the project name G3, having 3x3 16 inch guns each In case of Germany The H class battleships were going to be built even with treaty existing, they got canceled after the sinking of Bismarck and Tirpitz, their scraps were used to make more tanks The most powerful, logical, H class batleship was the design H-42 this one having 8- 12 420mm guns and a displacemente between 50 and 70k long tons They had many, many battleships designs, one of the would be the L20e a having 8 16.5 inch guns which later became the bayern, one with 16 inch guns and torpedos which later became the schanhorst and gneiseinau with 283mm and 381mm after gneiseinau repair
Ryan, are there any good foreign museum battleships? Or ships of other classes? Maybe you can swap video with other curators and provide you own commentary.
Thanks, this is great, a bit like Drachinifel. In 1984 I lived near the Brooklyn bridge and saw USS Iowa. This Brit sat on a bench with a contemporary US stranger who said "I talked to some of those sailors, they are ok" or similar. I'm a pacifist hippy type (I'm guessing so was he) but Iowa is my favourite battleship so I'm contradictory I guess.
Hi, first time I have seen one of your videos I liked your laid back style and fairness. As an older British guy I have always loved battleships, but never seen one. My uncle went down with the Hood. It always upset me with the state of the British navy after WWI. Before then Brtain could outbuild everyone. But World War One cost it so much money to finance the war and the help Russia etc. That is had to sell most of its investments in America - property and railwoads and had to borrow money from the USA. So it could not afford to build or mantiam many ships. Plus the naval treaties, But just imagine as you say if Britiain had not built those 5 ships. The Royal Navy would have had no chance against the new German and Italian and Japanese ships
You need to visit a USS BB at one of the several locations. I have been on-board the USS Alabama & the USS Missouri. Sorry about your Uncle. Too bad it was not rebuilt before the war. The PoW should have been the lead ship in the column, not the HMS Hood. Holland could still manage the battle from the Hood. The Hood would have had time to get some hits on the Bismarck, maybe one of those shell could have penetrated the German's deck armor.
Ryan, Your videos are great, really appreciate them. One small thing. You've often mentioned that gun barrels need to be ordered early in the process because they have a long lead time. Why do they have a longer lead time than so many of the other systems onboard?
The gun barrels are actually a very complicated piece of machinery and require specialist machinery to make them - you aren't just taking a big piece of steel and drilling a hole in it. The gun is not an actual single piece, there is a liner for the gun - this is what has the rifling and which can be replaced when the ship fired too many rounds. Also, the chamber has to be specially reinforced to not burst when the first round is fired - and this is very complicated. It is fascinating to read how these guns were built (it has been 15 years since I read that article which is why this isn't more detailed) - but gun barrels, especially the big ones, are very complicated.
Well... lets put it this way, for Battleships the two longest lead items were the guns and the machinery plant.... so guns and engines. It took longer to make the guns than it did to build the hull.....
Sorry I'm late to this great work as always only complaint is that the main belt was 15in max not 14.7 and main deck was 6in not 5.88in. although about 1/4th of the sources say the figures you listed but that's not a big concern everything else lines up with the books I have on the class so well done as usual. Hope to visit you guys in the New year :)
Not really sure why some sources say the KGV had minutely thinner protection then they actually had, my assumption is someone got the figures from a slightly thinner plate on the belt (maybe from the transitional section of the armour)
from Fraser, husband of Leslie If you visit the Royal Armories museum at Fort Nelson situated on the high ground at the back of Portsmouth, there is one of the 14" guns from a KGV class on display. This museum is for the history of artillery.
The KGV's get stick for their 'small' 14-inch guns, but I doublt any survivors from the Bismarck or Scharnhorst found them to be small or 'weak' The KGV's were designed with strict limits, combined with the naeive idea that 'if we go with 14-inch guns then everyone will, got to set an example' and the USN did start going with them, but when Japan pulled out of the LNT then the USN just invoked the escalator clause and used 16-inch guns. The RN was then in a pickle, the guns HAD to be ordered soon if they wanted the first ships to be ready by 1940. Any delay redesinging the turrets into a triple 15-inch or even designing a new 15-inch Mk2 gun would have meant a long delay, so they were then forced to go with the 14-inch gun. And it worked out fine really. You can't go "Ahh but they jammed...just look at the Prince of Wales." Because she was still basically unfinished with a completely green crew and hadn't had a shake down. And despite her issues, the hit forwards on Bismarck basically mission killed her by wrecking a fuel tank. So yes the KGV's were small and sure as hell had issues, but they did the job.
@@ianwalker404 They did, but then again there was also stoppages and issues with almost any capital ship firing their main guns for sustained periods. The battleships that pounded the Fuso and Yamashiro into rubble did the same, they had jams or feeding problems or stoppages, usually due to crew error or mechanical error. These were hugely complex machines being used in periods of extreme stress and danger and under those conditions, people make mistakes.
Bismarck would have finished off Prince of Wales , if Admiral Lutjens was not on board, the Bismarck's captain wanted to finish her off ( probably the two heavy cruisers as well .)., as he headed back home.
Loving the channel and the Iowa class battleships but I'm with the King George the 5th class, highly underrated. The British superstructure design always looked so modern for it's time. The British made the most of their ships plus they have the centuries old tradition of naval warfare on their side
The issue with the KGV is they had reliability problems with their turrets and had some severe fundamental design flaws that were revealed under fire, to disastrous results. It has been discovered that what sank HMS Prince of Wales was not the torpedo hits directly, but rather one of the propeller shafts breaking loose and shredding the watertight bulkheads to much of the aft section of the ship. It could have survived the 4 hits it took, but the ship effectively sank itself due to poor structural integrity in the shaft guides. The remaining ships were refit to prevent this, but poor ability to remain functional under fire was a continuing problem. This is not like the South Dakota that suffered an electrical failure during its first battle; that issue was quickly remedied and the class was overall sound and the problem did not repeat. The KGV's, on the other hand, had some fundamental design flaws that put their suitability and survivability in question.
@@WardenWolf Friedman and others disagree... The main issue with the KGV's is they were still essentially Treaty Battleships, Britain did not have that extra 2.5 years to redesign their new battleships that the US had. As for issues under fire, we will never know, as the Iowas never actually faced the kind of surface actions the KGV's did. No Iowa ever fought a surface action with other Battleships, and by the time the Iowas entered service the air war against Japan was essentially won. There is no such thing as a perfect warship, I will point to you Popst War exercises alongside HMS Vanguard in the Atlantic, where the Iowas were unable to clear their front turrets for action in the sea state whilst Vanguard had no issues..... Thats a pretty serious design flaw in my estimation, if you cannot use two thirds of your firepower......
@@alganhar1 Vanguard was the last British battleship and was unique. The problem is British ships tended to be like their cars: okay on paper but massively flawed in practice. The only good British battleships were the QE class and Vanguard.
I am trying to understand why there were assigned so many sailors assigned to an Iowa Class ship. Any chance of doing a video on the overall crew structure of the Iowa class?
the Iowas, Essex's were small citys. guys taking care of the hull, line handling, aa batteries, big guns, hundreds just cooking food, then radar, .... 24/7 . and hopefully seamen learning so they can do a job of someone Dead or disabled....
Great WWII Video footage.. Maybe you can make a vid using WWII film and narate thru it about the battle and ships you recognize.. That would be cool. I saw a WWII vid on an Italian guys channel on here. It contained a lot of Graphic combat scenes dead US sailors ect ect. The Navy heavily edited these scenes.
Just a quick fyi- the 1 1/4" main deck plating of ductile steel serves a different purpose then the 5.88" armoured plate. The characteristics of armour steel is hard but also brittle. Where as ductile steel has much great tentsile strength. That means it could withstand stretching and twisting without being weakened or cracking. Most likey helped with overall haul performance when traversing heavy seas
I met one of the few survivors of the Bismarck crew in the early 2000's in South Australia. On a tour of his home I recognised a model of Bismark in a glass case in his study. He still loved his ship, and it brought him such great delight that I recognised her, that he opened up and gave me his story. From his explanation, it sounded like they were picked up by Dorsetshire. After the war he stayed on in the UK and later emigrated to Australia, the place looked like Austria out of the Sound of Music. I dont know how he got on, he was terminally ill with cancer, and I often wonder about him and his life.
Wow. Just wow mate.
q
@Aussie Pom And is this not what our Lord commanded us to do?
@@francisbusa1074
God is good
@Aussie Pom
I guess even in war, Sailors do share the same sort of heart.
Very good honest assessment of the class. They did their job and did it well. Deserve to respected more. Very good BB's.
Its sad that the only surviving British built battleship actually served in the Japanese navy. She is currently a museum ship in japan. It would be interesting to hear a review of her.
mikasaaa
Yep she was built in barrow in Furness 40 miles from me
Sadly the UK was broke they had a ship built by the Frence in1797 captured at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 and renamed HMS Implacable and it served until 1949 when it was scuttled as they had no money to maintain it,
If you want to cal that a battleship
@@terrybarrett2368 lol what???
My father was a survivor of the Prince of Wales's sinking, he was adamant that she was hit by twelve torpedoes but then he was good at telling dits. According to Jane's British, Soviet, French and Dutch Battleships of world war two (1980 ), Prince of Wales took two torpedo hits on the port side in the first attack, one hitting near the port aft 5.25 inch guns, the other being the hit that caused the propeller shaft to flail about and open the hull up. " B engine room completely flooded in 18 minutes. Substantial damage and flooding was caused. The second attack scored four hits, all on the starboard side. there are some excellent drawings showing the hits and damage, a bit too much information to include in this comment. Of course, my old dad would have said, " Don't tell me son, I was there "! .
It was just (most likely) 1 torpedo on the port side, and that single hit doomed the ship, water was rushing in along the propeller shaft, flooding many compartments, she took onboard 14 k tons of liquid and was actually sinking. You also got to keep in mind that the warhead in this torp was tiny, even weaker than the ones dropped by the swordfishes. The 3 hits on the opposite side did actually right the ship for a while, making her "sink slower" than what would otherwise be the case.....
agreed, at least about the hit that doomed her. I'm not saying my father was correct about the twelve torpedoes, he was a character, actually was on the last ship to make it out of Singapore and somehow got involved in the Burma campaign ,He had the Burma clasp, didn't get home until 1943. nice video,wish we'd have saved a few capitol ships,but our political masters never had the will power to do so.
Look up the Explorer's Club report Job 74. Probably the most conculsive write up with input from one of the surviving engineering officers.
@@andrewfanner2245 I know about that report and I'm not claiming to be an expert. The after action reports shouldn't be ignored, however it's a moot point. Prince of Wales was lost to air attack, she and Repulse being the first capitol ships lost at sea to air attack.They would not be the last, as the Imperial Japanese Navy would find out later in the war. They were caught without air support and they paid dearly because of it.
Power to the AA armament was taken out by the first torpedo hit, wasn't it? Not that they would have survived anyway but that was still a critical loss of defense capability. The account of Repulse artfully dodging multiple torpedo strikes before finally succumbing to a pincer is both inspiring and sorrowful. An image of Churchill's face when he was informed of the loss would be worth a mint.
I love how the secondary batteries are like having a pair of DD's strapped to your side.
Or light cruisers if you include ships like Iowa's AA.
Would have been better off with 5" 3/8s and much better USN Mk.37 AA Directors !! The 5.25" had Mechanical issues, trained slow and a slower rate of fire. Just the facts.
@@177SCmaro KGV had an improved Dido class light cruiser on each side.
@@ronniefarnsworth6465 They got better over time of course.
@@adamtruong1759 Yes, in time.
I have read that the 5.25 mounts were capable of almost sniping aircraft out of the air late war with radar guidance at great ranges than the standard US 5 inch mounts. Sometimes catching kamikaze formations by surprise and breaking them up. Happy to hear views.
They could reach out and say 'Good day old chap!' out to around 6km I believe.
The one thing I didn’t hear mentioned was the upscaled bursting charge in the 14” shells for the KGV class. The idea being the the ships it was expected to fight would have to close to reliably penetrate the KGV’s armour, by which point the 14” would have equivalent penetration. The increased bursting charge was, if I remember rightly, equivalent to the larger calibers other ships were using.
Correct. The 14 inch bursting charge was very large.
Actually 14 inch Guns of KGV had great accuracy and range even 3 Km more range than 16 inch guns of north Carolina and south Dakota class battleships
The BL 14 inch MK 7 gun had relatively heavy shell for its caliber the high angle trajectory and very good Deck armour penetration capabilities almost similar to 15 inch guns of the era even better at long ranges than them
It was the only battleship class of WW2 that did anything against enemy Battleships
This class was responsible for Sinking Bismarck by making it rubble of fire and Penetrations and by sinking Scharnhorst
@@Kreatorisbackytbro did you forget the nelson class?
The British 15inch mk1 was a phenomenal gun. Yes it was designed in ww1 but it was absolutely brilliant. Warspite armed with 8 of these scored one of longest at sea artillery shots on another moving ship ever recorded. Amazing guns
But just to satisfy my germaneness here: The longest hit was scored by the 11 inch 28 cm SK C/34 guns of the Scharnhorst class causing a really bad day for fellers at the HMS Glorious.
@@alsosprachzarathustra5505 thats true, but one month after this incident HMS Warspite scored a hit on an Italian battleship at the same range and so both ships hold the record
Firing at the Italians is like getting a handicap in your favor.
As long as the magazine was secured yeah I guess.
@@celebrim1 It’s the Glorious. Handicap right there.
I was on the Eisenhower when the Wisconsin was active in the late 80’s.... often the Wisconsin was moored next to us often and the ship was strikingly beautiful. I was able to get onboard a couple of times to visit. Wow!! Morale was spectacular, food was excellent and the ship ready for inspection by the admiral at a moments notice. History, power and a great crew.
Love these old battle ships
I worked aboard the Iowa and Wisconsin during refurb. I even rode the sea trial on Wisconsin. I’ll never forget how impressive these old Battle wagons were. Some of the specs as I remember on the Wisconsin. 887 feet long, 140 feet beam, 30 feet from first water line to baseline, 58,000 tons, as tall as a 17 story building from baseline to control cabin. Main bridge. Displaced enough water to flood an 40 acre field knee deep. May be some errors as this was more than 30 years ago.
@@jkeithgarner3396 we’re getting old 😂...
I had a 30mm camera and took a lot of pics of the Wisconsin. I set up a tripod and went mid ship and made panoramic pic with the only lense I had. I think it took 8-10 shots.
The Wisconsin was fresh out of rebuild and work ups. I had enlisted in a program called “Sea College”. It was designed to bring enlisted men into the Navy for 2 years, then into NROTC or the Naval Academy. In truth very few took either option. I served 2 years. At first I was assigned to V-2 (catapults) but I got my hands on the books to become an OS and after about 8 months, I struck in as an OS. Went from E-1 - non rated to E4 in OS in 8 months. Then got out using terminal leave at 22 months. Navy was very kind to me. I saved up $10,000 while living onboard. Then the Sea College program gave me almost $10800 in GI Bill plus a “kicker” of another $8000. For me, in 1988, that paid for all four years at a State School plus some. I ended up an airline pilot with the Navy paying for college plus about 1/3 of my flight training.
The reason I mentioned what program I was in is, when I became an OS, I had an opportunity to cross deck to the Wisconsin. It was a huge, huge incentive. I almost did, but in doing so I would have lost all of the Sea College “kicker” and would have had to enlist for an additional 4 years for a total of 6 plus reserves.
It was tempting even at that time, I was a huge history buff. I actually took two college level history classes while on IKE as we had several professors running college classes onboard.
I have several souvenirs from the Wisconsin a piece of the teakwood deck and a dummy shell from the Phalanx. From the Iowa I have the crystal door knobs from Roosevelt’s Stateroom including those from the bathroom door. What so unique about the bathroom was that it had a full tub in it as he was a paraplegic.
@@jkeithgarner3396 that’s amazing. Make sure you have the knobs documented. They will have value
My grandfather served on her both during late WW2 and during the Korean War. He was a propellant bag loader (I don't remember the official name unfortunately) in turret two. Told me the story about when that 155mm gun chipped it's paint in 1952. He called it "cute" as he was loading the propellant bags that were going to send the HC rounds down range to turn the poor thing into a crater. Unfortunately he died when I was quite a bit younger from lung cancer. Rest in peace, grandad.
My dad was a Royal Marine on Howe. North Africa, Russian convoys, Battle of Atlantic, kamikazes off Formosa.
That is a formidable diversity of areas of operation, from Hot Med, filthy Atlantic, ridiculously cold Arctic, then tropical far east.
Your dad was a cool dude
Ship's bell from Howe is on display in St. Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh
Great video and great channel, just donated. Between you and Drachinifel, you nicely fill a niche on RUclips that I and many others (well, some others) find really interesting.
Thanks for your support!
Better comparison would be Vanguard and Iowa
Our vanguard comparison can be found here: ruclips.net/video/WXPQgm7V9Yc/видео.html
You did not mention that the British 14 inch shells punched far above their weight.
They re-engineered these rounds with more and better explosives and actually were better than many 15 inchers, maybe even some of the 16s. I don't know how their range compared though.
@Brian Roome Accent or not his content is great.
Great channel. Just discovered you as I'm also a big Drach fan. Always had a fascination with this class. I do concur that the RN got its money's worth. These ships were worked hard and served in all 4 oceans of the world plus the Mediterranian. POW certainly had an action packed, if short career.
Ryan, you sir, have one of the coolest jobs a fella could have. You do it very well. Thanks for these awesome documentaries ! I plan on paying a visit to the New Jersey this fall with my nephew. I hope we have the opportunity to meet you sir. I’m a Navy veteran and he’s a big battleship enthusiast ! I used to service a lot of the same electronics (radar and communications) that you have on the New Jersey.
Oh, when the British got the excellent American secondary gun radar sets, they surprised the hell out of the Japanese pilots who thought they were out of the American secondary range only to be blasted accurately by the longer ranged British secondary guns.
The KGV class' were not undergunned though. They had better deck penetration than the 16/45s at 16,000yards and comparable belt penetration with a much larger bursting charge to offset the size.
A good example of the 2 nations having a "sharing is caring" moment
I know the 14 inch shell went right through bismark's armour over penning it. so it can slice through bismark's armour with 1 shell then would tear up the iowa's if it hit
@@jackwardley3626
That would only happen if the Iowa did not remove itself from range.
Remember once you see a salvo being fired you have a few minutes to move to an unexpected place.
Nobody is shooting lasers at you.
Brilliant Ryan! Ryan, this is brilliant! As a Brit, I will always be biased,but you compare and contrast these ships with no bias.
It's really hard to compare an Iowa to a kgv for many reasons,starting with around 40% weight difference. But as you said, our pressing concern was hulls in the water. The UK did what they had to do in all the services. They followed the principal of ' the best is the enemy of the good enough' the USA had the luxury of time and money to build the best and they did.
But if you look at the cost, the kgvs cost $28m and the Iowa's $120m? Four ships for the cost of one!
The UK made the right choice for its needs and affordability
The USA did the same
The Italians, Japanese and Germans did not.
Game over.
T
Ya ya it’s late but very well said, hello from across the pond!
I also wanted to say. Love the videos. Hope to make it out to visit the New Jersey. Definitely in the top five museum ships i want to tour. You and your team are doing Great work. The pride and respect for vessels and the history really shows
My mother had a boyfriend who was the RAF liaison officer on KGV in 1945. He later became quite a famous artist but she met him as KGV was anchored out in Cardigan Bay in the process of doing a tour around Britain and he came ashore with some other men in a small boat. My mother was on the beach with her friend Iris when they made the shore and as he walked up the beach he said: "Let's take a look at the local talent" and Iris took offence to this and gave him a mouthful which stopped him in his tracks- and that is how he met my mother. Obviously, this is not your typical battleship story of lobbing shells etc but KGV was significant in my mother's life for this reason.
Very well rounded and informative talk about these ships. Thanks.
This is exactly what makes history and the stud it he of so fascinating. It’s like the most interesting university lecture you ever had.
My Grandad was on HMS King George V, I have some fab photos including ones of the Bismarck from the deck during conflict. Plus the ships mileage logs.
Should upload them somewhere, would be awesome to see
My dad too busy below decks handing out battle snacks
Nice video.
To be fair to the Duke of York in the Battle of the North Cape (against the Scharnhorst). They fought within the arctic circle in December. they had 45 minutes of day light a day and 6 hours of twilight.
in those conditions 70% salvo rate aint so bad. It was frigging cold.
Those arctic convoys were nasty. just from a seafaring perspective.
Great presentation. If you ever get to London there is a magnificent large scale model of the King George V Battleship at the Greenwich Maritime museum, also at the entrance to the Imperial War museum there is a pair of complete 15in gun barrels. You really have to stand next to them to understand how big they are.
My grandad was on king George v in ww2 😁
Yknow I didn’t know that, I’ll hafta check it out for myself when I’m there next, love the kgv class
Fine ships! Always underrated but they did everything that was asked of them.
Indeed
Prince of wales just had a bad start in the Denmark straight and a sad demise in the Pacific
@@dezmindoroschuk7774 It really is a shame
@@hmskinggeorgev7089 It always strikes me as odd that the KGV class have always had such a bad press, considering that they achieved everything that was expected of them. Considering the restrictions within which Goodall and his team worked, the final product was a credit to their efforts.
@@dovetonsturdee7033 because ships like Bismarck, Yamato and Iowa are mythologised due to 15 inch or bigger guns.
How refreshing to watch someone give reviews without idiotic flag waving in favour of their own country.A wonderfully informative channel.
Thanks, that's great. KG5, was my favorite, battlewagon.
Such a shame that the UK didn't preserve any of these ships. 😥
Not as great a shame as the scrapping of HMS Warspite.
@@StuSaville agreed
Money. After the war the UK did not have any, and that was made worse by the way the Govt of the US treated the UK after the war.
Yeah, we were flat broke and it was a luxury, and our country was devastated and needed re-building. Warspite should have been kept, the KGV Class probably wasn't even in the running. We won the war and there was a need for a new deal for the people for all the hardship, so the ending of slums, the NHS, social security, council houses, whilst in America the golden 1950's accelerated the quality of life for many, in the UK we had Rationing for decades. We were the sick man of Europe right up until the mid 1980's, post then we have pretty much boomed, and the Country is almost unrecognisable.
@@mwnciboo "We were the sick man of Europe right up until the mid 1980's". Much of this was self inflicted though.
The King George V class is a very interesting take on the traditional Speed/Protection/Firepower balance, especially in view of the naval treaties. It's only in recent years that I've come to appreciate the design and the compromises that had to be made in order to meet the restrictions.
Protection was #1 firepower #2 speed #3. In the context of what they were attempting, it is a good design.
@@JohnRodriguesPhotographer Absolutely, and I think it goes underappreciated for that. Especially as the British actually stuck to the Treaty limits and still came up with a competent, competitive design that could match most of its peers, even though many of those were absolutely not treaty compliant. Things like the 14" shells having a bigger explosive charge than almost anything else to make up for the smaller calibre and penetration shows clever thinking.
Yeah, Richelieu and South Dakota also have an interesting balance, too. RiLieu excels in the speed category and SoDak excels in the firepower department. Them and KGV are my favorite treaty BBs that were built by treaty standards.
@@adamtruong1759 Too bad KGV turrets are prone to give a lot of troubles.
@@jayvee8502 early on anyway. They did get resolved, and don't go use North Cape to prove your point, every ship has error in drill and other setbacks in prolong battles. Howe and Anson didn't even have any issues.
That was a very good analysis of the KGV class and it basically comes to the conclusion that the decisions to make them that way also lead to some of the difficulties they had. A more direct comparison is the North Carolina. Both were the first newly designed treaty ships. Both had some teething issues. Where the brits went one way the Americans went the other. Was the North Carolina better designed for it's intended job? Probably. The Americans had two more years to figure things out. Even then they didn't get everything right, like propeller vibrations. It was just a massive leap forward from older traditional standard BB designs.
I keep thinking of the long lance torpedo hit the NC took and kept station at 26 knots. That was a big hole.
According to the US Navy's damage report regarding that torpedo hit, the explosion came close to detonating the ship's magazines. Yes, a single Japanese torpedo nearly sank an American battleship.
@@williamjpellas0314 I read the report. The flash might have reached the T1 magazine. They didn't know. If it did, the sealed system worked. They noted no significant structural damage around the turret, plenty around the impact of course.. Minimal flooding with a 36ft hole. Counter flooding to bring it back on an even keel. This wasn't a light aerial torpedo either.
The USN never resolved the vibration issues in the NC, as I understand it. Seriously impacted its top speed.
@@williamjpellas0314 That's the long lance for you.
The best comparison is to the likely enemy, and the United States Navy was never the likely enemy.
I'm very happy to see the class treated with respect. good video.
Great commentary - I really like the KGV class - at first glance they appear weak but when you get into it especially in terms of delivering a ship quickly and value for money they were great designs - it's often underappreciated that they were intended to be followed within a year or so by the Lion class - Essentially 16" KGVs upscaled to Iowa size, even the Admiralty report on the building program basically said based on everything they had planned RN should be in a strong position unless Britain went to war in 1939.....
The depth of armour was highly significant. I respectfully refer you to @drachinifel 's excellent analysis of the destruction of HMS Hood.
Thank you for such an even-handed analysis.
Seconded. Extremely in depth and comprehensive thing, so it is.
I'd be very surprised if there is ever an analysis of the Hood's death that will supercede it.
Should do a comparison with the Kirov class "battlecruisers". One of the main reasons the Iowas were reactivated. Also maybe Renown class, I know they really aren't comparable, but hey.
yeah maybe compare the updated Iowas
Thanks Ryan I'm glad that I'm not alone in not being able to remember stuff. ;-)
Thanks for filming and posting this just because I poked you! very cool!
One thing I've got from watching a lot of your videos is that i really struggle to work out where everything is, and what is related to what in the ships structure. I had an idea that it might be cool to do a 'deck walk' of each main deck, especially the engineering spaces, end to end, to give us an idea of the whole thing on each level. not in depth of each bit, but like your 'top to bottom' video, except, end to end of specific decks. Something i would have loved to do when i was there in person!
Keep up the great work.
We will add it to the list. In the mean time, if you haven't already seen it, we posted the deck plans on our community page recently and that will give you a pretty good idea of what's what and where. As a reminder though, there are 18 levels so there's lots of places to look!
@@BattleshipNewJersey Ha!, yeah I'm not saying you need to do one for 'every' level, even though at the rate you put out videos that would only take a fortnight.
But engine rooms end to end, and broadway end to end, and maybe the bridge levels. maybe an exterior deck walk bow to stern pointing out interesting bits. I did that on the tour, but others won't have been there.
@@BattleshipNewJersey Would it be possible to clearly show the the compartment number at the beginning of an episode ?
I have the old detail & scale for the Enterprise which describes the meaning of the numbers.
Something about how the ships personnel were organized into divisions ?
When we shoot something space specific we try and show a map of where we are. But heres some additional details on how the bulls eye compartment numbers work: ruclips.net/video/R5XraTB3aZ8/видео.html
You need to talk about the difference in ammunition design. This is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT concerning the effectiveness of the guns! For example, the new British "B" (long windscreen shape) shells -- and the retroactive versions, otherwise more-or-less identical (slightly lighter in weight and with less streamlining to shorter ranges, is all) with shorter "A" noses that could be used in the older battleships that had not had the appropriate shell handling modifications (HOOD, for example) -- introduced in the early 1930s for their 14" and 15" guns (the 16" used an earlier very lightweight "B" design from the mid-1920s) were VERY unusual (in fact. I had to rebuild portions of my FACEHARD face-hardened armor penetration program just to handle the various versions of these new British AP shells, which took some time to accomplish, let me tell you!). The shells were somewhat heavy, as were most earlier British AP shells (other than the 16" used by NELSON and RODNEY, which were considered a failure), but they had a totally new specification requirement that nobody else made top priority (something to be aimed at, to be sure, but not if it compromised armor penetration, so ihat it was usually a number 2 or 3 priority in AP shell design), to wit, that remaining intact after impact was the first to be maximized at all cost. The result was to create shells that were reasonably "normal" in their effectiveness against thinner face-hardened ("Cemented" in British terminology) armor; that is, up to caliber thickness of US Class "A" armor or the British and other foreign equivalent, at 30 degrees impact from right-angles as zero, which was a typical WWII-era impact test angle for most such ammo used by most nations (US was the exception, using 35-40 degrees as its test angle and somewhat thicker test plates, too), up to Cemented plates about caliber thickness (14" or 15", respectively). Because of this design requirement, the shells had a rather unique and complex base plug design that allowed the shell base, if the shell hit at a highly oblique angle, to flatten out without the base plug crushing the fuze or snapping off when it slammed into the side of the hole it was making (The Hadfield Patent Relief Base Plug design), which did work exactly as specified -- no problem there. However, they also made the middle and lower body of the shell so soft that it could literally bend into a banana (NO JOKE!) and remain in one piece. This was shown quite conclusively when the US Navy tested some of these British 14" Mark IB N.T. (Night Tracer in the bottom of the fuze, just like used in many kinds of tank ammo) against 17.3" Class "A" barbette plates (IOWA type) and 18" Class "B" turret port (face) plates (SOUTH DAKOTA single-thickness version plate type) at 30 degrees. The two projectile fired, one at each plate, did not penetrate more than a few inches (11" in the 18" port plate). The shell hitting the 17.3" plate broke up, which also could occur with non-penetrating US shells, though not as often as with British shells. The one hitting the 18" plate bent into a banana, fell backward out of the cone-shaped pit in the plate, then its hardened nose snapped off, making the shell look like a very large solid elbow macaroni made of steel (other than the post-impact nose damage, the shell remained completely "effective" and would have exploded if it had had a filler and fuze, though with minimal effect, to be sure since it was outside of the target it hit). In comparison, the US 14" Mark 16 MOD 8 AP shells fired at the same impact energy (slightly higher in velocity due to their slightly lower weight) completely penetrated the plates, with the 18" penetration causing the base plug to be broken off as it slammed against the side of the hole (vindicating the British base plug, but obviously nothing else!). It was decided not to even try to get the British shells to penetrate plates that thick as a lost cause. British ammo, unlike US ammo, would have been in serious trouble against YAMATO, though against BISMARCK it would have worked -- and obviously DID work -- exactly as designed no matter where it hit.. You simply had to choose your opponent carefully with British guns...
Or it could be argued that modern battleships in general were more vulnerable to superficial damage than to knock-out penetrations of armoured citadels. Only two modern battleships were destroyed by surface action in WWII, Bismarck and Scharhorst. Though the Scharnhorst's eventual destruction was sealed by a 14" shell hit which penetrated a boiler room, thus slowing its speed, both the Scharnhorst and Bismarck were destroyed as functional warships long before either sank and both were sunk by torpedo damage, plus possible scuttling in Bismarck's case. Their destruction was through superficial damage to their armament, targeting equipment, command positions and internal communications. A heavily armoured battleship with a larger number of faster-firing guns capable of causing large amounts of superficial damage, may have been more efficient in dealing with other modern battleships, than one with thinner armour mounting fewer larger calibre guns. I'm sure you can see which classes I am referring to.
@@urseliusurgel4365 "The ships to battle cruisers", of course. More smaller ships ganging up on a few large ships is a good idea as long as you can get those smaller ships to the point that they can still go everywhere (more-or-less) that the big ships can (range, speed, enough on-board supplies, ability to handle bad weather, etc.) AND that it is possible to call those smaller ships so that they can converge on the larger ships when needed (if they are too spread out, they lose their numerical advantage). The fight of those three British cruisers against ADM GRAF SPEE shows that concentration does work, but the damage that they took in doing so indicates that it was a near thing, with a few of those 11" shells hitting in different places could have made lots of British wreckage and one victorious German warship. Knocking out several of BISMARCK's guns early in that final battle was done by AP shells penetrating armor, so the results cannot be called "superficial"; they were major forms of damage. Sinking a ship is of no consequence once you have wrecked its ability to do anything anymore. If the British had been vengeful, they could have stopped firing after BISMARCK was a burning wreck and just sailed off, leaving one destroyer to pump more torpedoes into her if she started her engines again, allowing her remaining crew to drown... No difference to the war itself.
@@nathanokun8801 Nathan, when trying to figure the effective thickness increase of inclined belt armor, is it just right triangle trig (i.e. the actual thickness is the base, the adjacent angle is the sum of the angle of inclination of the armor plus the angle of decent of the incoming shell and the effective thickness is the hypotenuse) or is there more to it than that?
@@timothyschmidt9566 The calculations are more complex than just simple trigonometry, since, as noted, the projectile's reaction to the initial impact and, as it makes a hole (or tries to), determines its ability to continue to concentrate its impact forces on the smallest area of the armor surfaces in contact over the entire time that the projectile is passing through the plate (which can deform or break the projectile and thus affect , slightly or greatly, the projectile's ability to continue penetrating). Face-hardened armi is designed to destroy projectiles before or, failing that, during their penetrations through the plates. Thus, reducing penetration is only half of their purpose; the rest is reducing the projectile to solid-shot, especially in pieces, which makes the penetration, if achieved, much less damaging to the ship hit. Homogeneous, ductile armor, as used in decks, for example, is primarily designed to try to stop a projectile that is assumed to remain more-or-less intact by, at highly-oblique impacts, causing it to glance off rather than stop the shell cold before it gets entirely through the plate hit. Thick homogeneous armor, mostly used by the WWII US battleships for their extremely thick conning towers and turret faces, as shown in the 18" plate tests mentioned above, can do major damage to projectiles, too, though these damage effects to the projectile are more limited to if the projectile barely penetrates at an oblique angle so that the sideways forces as the projectile tries to get through the hole its nose has just made are prolonged -- even the best AP projectile can be heavily damaged if they remain stuck in the plate or just barely have the energy to get through. With face-hardened armor, significant extra velocity than just that needed to penetrate can reduce damage, too, but it usually takes more excess velocity to reduce the time-in-plate and to minimize the slamming of the shell against the hard face as the shell tried to get through the plate, especially the very hard face layer that can break off the lower body of a projectile like snapping it over your knee much better than a soft homogeneous plate of the same thickness can. While face-hardened armor almost always fails by the same method -- punching out the hard face layer, intact or in pieces, through the plate back as a huge plug -- so the damage effects and energy needed to penetrate are more due to the limitations of various projectiles to damage than to the armor reaction -- homogeneous armor deforms in several ways that depend drastically on both the thickness of the armor compared to the size of the shell: Thin ductile plates can "dish" (dent over a wide area around the impact point), for example, and this makes thinner homogeneous plate stronger than you would expect if you just tried to project the penetration versus impact velocity results of thicker plates downward; this does not happen in face-hardened armor unless it is too brittle and a huge hole is broken out of the plate (a "cartwheel" or "disc", depending on who is reporting the results) like a rock through a glass window (not a dent!). This dishing effect at highly oblique angles makes thin homogeneous armor much better at causing projectiles to glance off than the brittle face-hardened armors, which is why homogeneous armor is usually the only type used for horizontal protection, with the sole exception being some WWII battleships (mostly French) thick turret roofs where AP aircraft bombs were (erroneously as it turned out for them in WWII) were considered the primary threat and face-hardened armor (high quality with minimum brittleness, to be sure) was used. The 15" British AP shell from HOOD that punched at extremely high obliquity a hole in the roof of the DUNKERQUE turret demonstrated conclusively the reason for not using face-hardened armor against highly-oblique impacts; a cookie-cutter outline of the projectile's side, minus its thin windscreen, was made as the hole in the roof of the turret, with the nose of the projectile snapping off and flying away, but the middle and lower body of the projectile, in burning pieces, along with all of the 5.9" face-hardened armor plate pieces within that outline, flew into that 2-gun sub-section of the double-compartment turret of these 4-gun turrets and knocked it out, leaving the mount with only two guns remaining in action. A homogeneous armor roof might have caused the shell to glance off with merely a long deep dent.
Also, even more complex, while nose shape does not change projectile penetration much against face-hardened armor (except to make a projectile more or less subject to the nose breaking on impact in some cases), the shape of the projectile nose and, in some cases, the shape of the projectile's AP cap edge (the angle where the cap face meets the cap side so that it can in some designs act like a sharp corner of a chisel) both make a HUGE difference in the ability of the projectile to penetrate at any angle against any thickness of armor. And we are assuming no projectile damage to confuse things, either. These effects are considerable and cause the penetration versus striking velocity plots to diverge enormously by just reshaping the nose, keeping everything else equal, when trying to penetrate various homogeneous plates of identical material, but just different thicknesses at varying impact angles. This is so complicated that I have not done more than a small amount of study of this, even though IO was able to almost completely define very precisely how face-hardened armor reacts under the same impact conditions (my very complete FACEHARD program in BASIC at NAVWEAPS.COM where the English-type Source Code files define everything I currently know about penetrating face-hardened armor OF EVERY TYPE I KNOW OF AGAINST EACH INDIVIDUAL PROJETILE DESIGN THAT I KNOW OF. Cannot do that with homogeneous, ductile armor, unfortunately, even after 50 years of work....
@@urseliusurgel4365 you forgot that the Japanese battleship kirashima was destroyed in surface action by the battleship USS Washington!
Very informative. Do you know how many allied ships were in Tokyo Bay at the surrender? How many were capital ships? Thanks
Awesome videos. These comparatives are done very well and impartially (speaking as a Brit). You seem to do it without notes too which is incredibly impressive. Thanks.
Fascinating stuff! Thanks.
Please review the Colorado class 16” standard battleships. I would especially like to hear more about West Virginia post refitting. It would be very interesting to hear a comparison of WeeVee to Maryland and Colorado, compared to North Carolinas, South Dakotas, and Iowas. Third, how the technical advantages of WeeVee made her effective in Surigao Strait vs Maryland and others.
Excellent vessels and thank God we had them to help face down the Kriegsmarine in time.
TY Ryan and team.
Love these videos!
ultimate humble brag: "...than this battleship." while pointing at the floor : D Some people do have cooler offices than others.
Just found this excellent channel👍 Let go aft👍🍺🍺🍺
The French Navy's Richelieu class versus both would have been interesting.
The size comparison is a bit...
Thanks for the video!
Great video, I felt for the POW when it was chasing the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen by itself, while guns were going on and offline, It also fought in the Mediterranean before its demise in the Pacific. I don't think POW ever did watertight compartment air tests.
I recall reading that when the British went to build the King George V battleships they had a great deal of trouble with the armor. It had been so long since British steel mills had made battleship armor plate that the specialist equipment to do so was in poor repair or had been scrapped entirely and may of the specialist technicians who knew how to make such plate had died or retired without being able to properly pass on their knowledge.
Not quite. We had kept the armour knowledge thankfully. The problem was not the knowledge but the greatly reduced manufacturing CAPACITY due to 1930s closure of yards due to the depression and some very short sighted plans to rationalize capacity.
Grandad was on this ship in ww2
Actually the KGB class had best armour in WW2 it's armour used best metalorgy and the result was 20% stronger armour than any other armour available of same weight
It had better armour than even iowas
@@Kreatorisbackytwould that be from Sheffield? Daniel Doncaster and similar yards?
it’s honestly crazy to think that the kgv class were considered the second best protected ships outside of the Yamato. Amazing ships and sad to hear bout the prince of wales wreck being effectively destroyed by illegal scrappers, desecrating a tragic gravesite
Thank you. Very informative.
That was cool information.
Thank you!
Excellent work 👍
Disagree about the deep belt helping anti-torpedo protection. Solid plate is caved in by the "water hammer" of an underwater explosion due to the water (of essentially infinite thickness on the far side) holding the blast bubble confined so that it exerted more force against the ship hull, on top of the greatly enhanced concussion shockwave transmitted by the blast "brisance" through the water into the hull directly in front of the torpedo warhead impact point. The collapse of the bubble allowed water from the far side to ram into the hull again and again as the bubble moved upward, which did not do the ship any good, either. That is why anti-torpedo systems were so deep in battleships and had layers of spaced plates with water- (or oil-) and air-filled compartments to gradually soak up the blast and fragmentation effects -- though even 3' (1 meter) of water could stop most of the tiny fragments from a thin torpedo casing. Also, as noted, hits outside of the anti-torpedo systems can also be "curtains".
So this might be an odd question but to your knowledge did the KGV's do any broadside refueling like the Iowa's? (PWS is my favorite WW2 BB so curious if she might have undertaken in such maneuvers) TY!
Show New Jersey’s engine room and if you can locate someone who worked down there ( That master chief for example have him discuss steaming the plant. I was a machinist mate and would love to hear about how the plant steamed.
Check this out: ruclips.net/video/14IDMMAhGRg/видео.html
If not the Vanguard, at least one of the KGV ships should have been preserved. The British Govt. at the time had many large combat ships to scrap, saving one would not have made much difference at all economically.
Its a shame that no British capital ships was preserved !
@@niclasjohansson4333 More than a shame, a scandal and very short sighted. Historically, the R.N. the most famous navy in history, and yet not a single battleship remains from the 20th century.
I’d say HMS Warspite was the leading contender for preserving. Her battle history far far outmatched any warship in history
@@paullewis2413 What do you mean short sighted? They were broke, the only real capital ship they could have saved was HMS Vanguard but even then the cost to restore, turn her into a museum ship, and maintaining her was still a very expensive job that nobody was willing to pay for at the time
@@geoffday2
I agree, as did many at the time.
But sadly, the point that the British Government was near bankruptcy, is a valid point.
Did you also think about doing a video about older ships? Especially the greek armored cruiser Georgios Averof from 1910 might be interesting, as she is the last of her kind in existence and even still afloat.
Battleship New Jersey, A very good and honest comparison, many 'warts and all' points raised. As a British engineer rtrd I have a great fondness of all things 'guns' and Battleships are the daddies of that and the fact that the USA had the good sense to preserve some were us British did not saddns me. I can only say I wish I could afford to visit the Iowa but sadly that will never happen, but I can thank you for all these great comparison videos. Drachinifel did a very interesting couple of videos on the Pearl harbour recovery of the damaged ships and I wondered if there was any USA info on all the lessons learned once it was seen how those ships were damaged badly enough to sink and if/how that was used to make ships being designed or built after better protected?
I always thought of them as similar to South Dakota. Shrink the length in order to double down on armor.
I would love to see a video talking about the replacement of belt armor on the south dakotas and iowas if they had been damaged in battle. I know it would be a lot more involved than external armor but was it designed to be replaced a certain way? Thanks in advance!
Like refuelling a nuclear powered ship?
To summarize near the end of WWII specifications of both ship classes, the KGV have better armor and protection with their Ducol steel and A type protection than the Iowas, but the Iowas excel in main battery guns and fire control systems/computers and also the Iowas have better maneuverability than the KGV.
I would think the King George V's were more maneuverable due to their hull form.
@@adamtruong1759 Yep
were anu main battery shells interchangable between the navies? love your videos
I'd think the King George V class was more of a contemporary of the South Dakota class
Yes. South Dakota was same displacement, timeframe, etc vs KG5. Iowa had 35K limitation lifted and cost alot more (I believe about $100m vs $65m for SD and $68m for Supercarrier Midway).
SD was about the same speed with 130,000 shp, Short with wide beam to maximize armor protection at 12in angled. 3x3 16/45 guns firing super heavy 2700lb shell.
Side note: The American dual 5/38 DP gun had an official ROF of 15 but in practice was closer to 22.
It’s funny how modern video games have always considered Bismarck, Yamato,, Musashi as World War II dreadnaughts. Great video as always, please don’t stop anytime soon
Great vid! Any chance to make a comparison of Iowas and Kirov class? Iowas were recommissioned (in part) to counter the Russian battlecruisers in the 1980s.
P.S. I believe this was already requested in one of the above comments. Thanks!
I'm sure the Kirov would prevail. It was newer, had much better range, and was nuclear powered.
It's like Yamato vs. Iowa. The Yamato has a good chance of winning up close. In Iowa vs. Kirov, the Iowa has a decent chance up close but gets destroyed from a distance.
Iowa Class main guns, range: 43.3 km
Kirov Class anti-ship "Shipwreck" missiles, range: 625 km
Later upgrades to the Iowa included Harpoon anti-ship missiles with a range of 280 km. Still not enough.
There was also an anti-ship version of the Tomahawk with a range of 460 km. It would only be relevant with extreme luck.
The Iowa has no realistic way to beat the Kirov.
The USA would use the Air Force to attack the Kirov, not a battleship. If all else fails, drop a ballistic missile on the Kirov. It's that big a threat. But the Russian Navy was always notorious for not patrolling far from home. Lack of supplies. The Kirov had nuclear power and had unlimited range, but if it was in deep sea it would most likely be alone, and make for an easy target.
Although the Kirov is all about attack, it's purpose was defensive. Keep a few of these bad boys close to Russia and if the USA comes close with a carrier strike group, send out the Kirov. That was its purpose. Its job was to destroy a US carrier strike group if we ever got too close, so we never did. This is a very powerful ship.
@@protorhinocerator142 Once you get into the anti-ship missile era, it becomes much less a question of throw-weight but of targeting and detection. While the Kirov missiles had a range of 625km, it needed some way of targeting them - and that is where all comparisons go out the window, because in that case it becomes a question of "whoever detects first gets to fire first". And at that point, you get more into fleet compositions and reconnaissance efforts than into theoretical single ship combat.
I do agree the Kirovs were powerful (and beautiful) ships - I think you shortchange the Iowa class - but the overall concept is that they weren't designed/rebuilt for the same mission anymore - the Iowa's were recommissioned to serve as the center for power-projection fleets when a carrier wasn't around - and to supply the Marines with the fire support they might need when the entire fleet was down to only 5/54 guns, while the Kirov was designed to show the flag around the world, and try to have a large enough alpha strike of SSMs to overwhelm an American fleet. Thankfully we never got to see if they would work in practice.
This would always be an unfair comparison, the American equivalent to the KGVs were the North Carolinas as they were both designed during similar timeframes. The KGVs however stayed at 14” guns because of how far along they were and there wasn’t enough time to redesign them to use 16” guns, which would have led them to the Lion-class.
A better contender to comparing to the Iowa class would be the beauty that is HMS Vanguard.
I’ll say this though: The KGVs has terrible bow designs, that flat, low bow was a terrible idea.
The bow design resulted from a requirement to shoot directly over the bow at short range. Really didn't work out. A turret was regularly casrepped a la Scharnhorst (which was even worse)
@@timkeffer6860 casrepped?
@@Aelvir114 CASREP is USN short hand for broken. CASCOR is casualty corrected, when we fixed something.
Yeah, the if the KGV's were fitted with a flare bow, I would rate them much higher.
@@adamtruong1759 Flared bows made ships always look better imo
It would be interesting to know, what you think about the different abilities at sea. There was an article comparing an Iowa-Class-Battleship and a King George (or was it the Vanguard with the same hull?) during manoevres at heavy weather conditions related to there stability.
Great video. Just as always!))))
thanks for this comparison, very interesting. The poor AA protection was a real weakness, which perhaps was unappreciated at the design stage. As you mention, difficult to to adapt as time passes. A real shocker though on gun rate of fire and reliability; that runs contrary to all naval commonsense. It really should have been appreciated and resolved before it was too late to do anything other than tinker. They did very well as a class in spite of these definite issues thanks to the brave men who served.
Personally, I don't think AA of any type is a flaw or weakness in a ship. Lies more with the AA gun itself, the ammo, doctrine, crew, etc.
@@adamtruong1759 That is the point I was making and I seem to remember was commented on in the video. Clearly some of any type is better than none!
The 14" guns on the KV-class had great hitting power for their size. In some ways the armor scheme was superiorr to battleships of their era.
Sorry to ask a question slightly off subject. But how are the charges initiated on 16 inch guns? I know on smaller guns sometimes use a flash cartridge similar to a blank round. Are large naval guns fired in the same way?
Yea, they use a cartridge, I think it was a .308. The primerman put the blasting cap into the breech when the shell and powder were being loaded from below in the gun pit.
Great video!
My brother was a BT on the Iowa back in late 80s👍😊
The British thought that if they stuck to the treaty really close the others would do the same, and hence the KGVs.. We know now that her enemies were not .
Indeed, if it weren't for the USN assuming the Yamato and Musashi were armed with 16" guns I'm sure we'd have our own 18" gunned ships like the USS Georgia seen in WoWS.
The British got their fingers burnt with the Dreadnought class. They started an arms race with the rest of the world. The KGVs were being built only about 30 years later so they did not want to trigger another arms race. Especially bearing in mind the political situation of 1930s.
The U. S. did the same with its between the war ships. Our treaty cruisers compared horribly to the Japanese; hence, the reason we lost so many early in the war.
If a treaty ship is well designed, it can be competitive.
@@adamtruong1759 , absolutely.
Very informative you do a great job
Always thought that 'unrotated projectiles' were basically rockets with HE warheads. Never heard of them launching balloons or wires to snag dive bombers.
Why?
Learned somewhere the KGV 14 inch guns relied on “extra high velocity” to get more penetration from the narrower shell. Similar to what was going on with small arms leading to the 5.56 mm NATO at 3,300 FPS ammunition eventually.
Lower Calibre shells tend to have higher velocity which has benefits and drawbacks as far as ballistics are concerned
No, it was slower than most other guns, similar in velocity to the 15"/42 and 16"/50 (with AP shells). Only the US 16"/45 was a lot slower.
I thought the 14 inch guns relied on having a larger bursting charge in their shells than the competition.
No your confusing it with the 16 inch of the Nelson's, that drank heavily from what turned out to be the flawed German school of thought of a lighter higher velocity shell equals more pen, half m v sq. Whilst in theory true, it doesn't hold at combat ranges as a lighter faster shell bleeds energy of faster than a heavier shell. The KG V 14 inch gun rectified this by having a proportionately heavier shell for its calabre than the Nelson's. Don't be mistaken Nelson's shells were heavier, but relative to their calabre they were lighter. Also on a side note British shells had a much heavier bursting charge than the US shells
Thanks, team. I started looking online and found that after the problems with the Nelson/Rodney 16 inch, high-velocity trials, the British moved back to "normal" shell speeds. As a result, the KGV's had about the lightest broadside weight of WWII. There were also issues with complex safety interlocks intended to prevent Jutland type magazine explosions that interfered with the function of the KGV guns both in trials and battles, especially for the Prince of Wales battle with Bismarck.
With hindsight, it can be fairly said that the KGVs were gd value for money inspite of their theoretical deficiency in firepower. They sank 2 enemy capital ships. A better record than any other battleship class in WW2
Which capital enemy ships did they sink?
@@riazhassan6570 Bismarck and Scharnhorst
Scharnhorst was basically a heavily Cruiser much like the Alaskans; Bismarck shuttle herself
Not sure if it can claim the Bismarck. KGV’s role was relatively small compared to that of Rodney. Also, German sailors eventually scuttled it
@@bmc7434 Scharnhorsts were not cruisers at all. Check the stats. They are as heavily armored as most contemporary BBs and faster. They traded heavy armament for speed. Compare them to the Alaska class, which is a cruiser, and which the USN called a cruiser. Scharnhorsts were battleships by design, and were used as such.
Good Job thx. 😀
Excellent content.
Ryan, it’s funny. When I first started watching this video, I thought you were wearing an early Capt. Pike uniform, before Capt Kirk.....lol. Please wear one next time! :o)
I always wonder what would have happened if the the various naval treaties had not happened.
How MASSIVE could the ultimate bb have been?
If it came to that Japan at the time would have built the A-120. Basically a yamato with 510mm main guns but a 3x2 gun layout instead of 3x3. For America it would've been the montana class battleships but it went into the favor for the essex class carriers as the iowa class could already fulfill the needs.
The till man IV Battleship would have been build, is basically a huge colorado class with 3x5 18 inch guns(MK 1A 457mm guns which through tests became the iconic MK7 406mm) and insane AA defense, the ship size was limited to be able to pass through Panama canal
Montana class would have been built as well, but using the 457mm instead of the 406mm guns probably
UK specially would have built something crazy, they tested 457mm guns many times after ww1 they even mounted two on the hms furious before converting it to a carrier
They were planning to build a class of battleship under the name U4-U5(do not confuse with Lion class), later the design was changed under the name N3 battleship both of them using 18 inch guns
On that same generation of ships were the battlecruisers under the project name G3, having 3x3 16 inch guns each
In case of Germany The H class battleships were going to be built even with treaty existing, they got canceled after the sinking of Bismarck and Tirpitz, their scraps were used to make more tanks
The most powerful, logical, H class batleship was the design H-42 this one having 8- 12 420mm guns and a displacemente between 50 and 70k long tons
They had many, many battleships designs, one of the would be the L20e a having 8 16.5 inch guns which later became the bayern, one with 16 inch guns and torpedos which later became the schanhorst and gneiseinau with 283mm and 381mm after gneiseinau repair
Montana
Excellent as always, well-researched and unbiased. Also saw your presentation to the Western Front Association.
Ryan, are there any good foreign museum battleships? Or ships of other classes? Maybe you can swap video with other curators and provide you own commentary.
There’s a predreadnought in Japan, and depending on how you define Battleship, HMS Warrior
@@elimgarak8785 The Mikasa in Japan was built in Britain.
Thanks, this is great, a bit like Drachinifel. In 1984 I lived near the Brooklyn bridge and saw USS Iowa. This Brit sat on a bench with a contemporary US stranger who said "I talked to some of those sailors, they are ok" or similar. I'm a pacifist hippy type (I'm guessing so was he) but Iowa is my favourite battleship so I'm contradictory I guess.
Hi, first time I have seen one of your videos
I liked your laid back style and fairness.
As an older British guy I have always loved battleships, but never seen one.
My uncle went down with the Hood.
It always upset me with the state of the British navy after WWI.
Before then Brtain could outbuild everyone.
But World War One cost it so much money to finance the war and the help Russia etc.
That is had to sell most of its investments in America - property and railwoads and had to borrow money from the USA.
So it could not afford to build or mantiam many ships.
Plus the naval treaties,
But just imagine as you say if Britiain had not built those 5 ships.
The Royal Navy would have had no chance against the new German and Italian and Japanese ships
You need to visit a USS BB at one of the several locations. I have been on-board the USS Alabama & the USS Missouri. Sorry about your Uncle. Too bad it was not rebuilt before the war. The PoW should have been the lead ship in the column, not the HMS Hood. Holland could still manage the battle from the Hood. The Hood would have had time to get some hits on the Bismarck, maybe one of those shell could have penetrated the German's deck armor.
Drachinifel said have a look, I'm glad he did, Great Content 🇬🇧 🇺🇸
Ryan, Your videos are great, really appreciate them. One small thing. You've often mentioned that gun barrels need to be ordered early in the process because they have a long lead time. Why do they have a longer lead time than so many of the other systems onboard?
The gun barrels are actually a very complicated piece of machinery and require specialist machinery to make them - you aren't just taking a big piece of steel and drilling a hole in it. The gun is not an actual single piece, there is a liner for the gun - this is what has the rifling and which can be replaced when the ship fired too many rounds. Also, the chamber has to be specially reinforced to not burst when the first round is fired - and this is very complicated. It is fascinating to read how these guns were built (it has been 15 years since I read that article which is why this isn't more detailed) - but gun barrels, especially the big ones, are very complicated.
@@JohnKollar -- thanks for the reply. Your post is enlightening.
As simple enthusiasts that make the gun go boom rate was surprising!
How many years did it take to build a 16 inch battle ship gun ?
sounds like they need to desgined it, build the infanstructure to make it then resources
Well... lets put it this way, for Battleships the two longest lead items were the guns and the machinery plant.... so guns and engines. It took longer to make the guns than it did to build the hull.....
Sorry I'm late to this great work as always only complaint is that the main belt was 15in max not 14.7 and main deck was 6in not 5.88in. although about 1/4th of the sources say the figures you listed but that's not a big concern everything else lines up with the books I have on the class so well done as usual. Hope to visit you guys in the New year :)
I have ask, why is the belt 14.7", seems like a very odd thickness, along with 5.88".
Not really sure why some sources say the KGV had minutely thinner protection then they actually had, my assumption is someone got the figures from a slightly thinner plate on the belt (maybe from the transitional section of the armour)
great job my brother...
from Fraser, husband of Leslie
If you visit the Royal Armories museum at Fort Nelson situated on the high ground at the back of Portsmouth, there is one of the 14" guns from a KGV class on display. This museum is for the history of artillery.
Well, at least we preserved something
The KGV's get stick for their 'small' 14-inch guns, but I doublt any survivors from the Bismarck or Scharnhorst found them to be small or 'weak' The KGV's were designed with strict limits, combined with the naeive idea that 'if we go with 14-inch guns then everyone will, got to set an example' and the USN did start going with them, but when Japan pulled out of the LNT then the USN just invoked the escalator clause and used 16-inch guns. The RN was then in a pickle, the guns HAD to be ordered soon if they wanted the first ships to be ready by 1940. Any delay redesinging the turrets into a triple 15-inch or even designing a new 15-inch Mk2 gun would have meant a long delay, so they were then forced to go with the 14-inch gun. And it worked out fine really. You can't go "Ahh but they jammed...just look at the Prince of Wales." Because she was still basically unfinished with a completely green crew and hadn't had a shake down. And despite her issues, the hit forwards on Bismarck basically mission killed her by wrecking a fuel tank. So yes the KGV's were small and sure as hell had issues, but they did the job.
I gather the KGV had issues with guns jamming during the Bismark action, and DOY did too against the Scharnhorst
@@ianwalker404 They did, but then again there was also stoppages and issues with almost any capital ship firing their main guns for sustained periods. The battleships that pounded the Fuso and Yamashiro into rubble did the same, they had jams or feeding problems or stoppages, usually due to crew error or mechanical error. These were hugely complex machines being used in periods of extreme stress and danger and under those conditions, people make mistakes.
Bismarck would have finished off Prince of Wales , if Admiral Lutjens was not on board, the Bismarck's captain wanted to finish her off ( probably the two heavy cruisers as well .)., as he headed back home.
@@tommatt2ski Bismarck with a damaged bow could not do anything POW.
Not at all ship related but the cheap laser printed rings are a great idea! I went through 3 soft rings before I got the right one
Thanks Ryan
Loving the channel and the Iowa class battleships but I'm with the King George the 5th class, highly underrated. The British superstructure design always looked so modern for it's time. The British made the most of their ships plus they have the centuries old tradition of naval warfare on their side
The issue with the KGV is they had reliability problems with their turrets and had some severe fundamental design flaws that were revealed under fire, to disastrous results. It has been discovered that what sank HMS Prince of Wales was not the torpedo hits directly, but rather one of the propeller shafts breaking loose and shredding the watertight bulkheads to much of the aft section of the ship. It could have survived the 4 hits it took, but the ship effectively sank itself due to poor structural integrity in the shaft guides. The remaining ships were refit to prevent this, but poor ability to remain functional under fire was a continuing problem. This is not like the South Dakota that suffered an electrical failure during its first battle; that issue was quickly remedied and the class was overall sound and the problem did not repeat. The KGV's, on the other hand, had some fundamental design flaws that put their suitability and survivability in question.
The Iowa probably could have defeated all five KGV battleships at once.
@@WardenWolf Friedman and others disagree...
The main issue with the KGV's is they were still essentially Treaty Battleships, Britain did not have that extra 2.5 years to redesign their new battleships that the US had. As for issues under fire, we will never know, as the Iowas never actually faced the kind of surface actions the KGV's did. No Iowa ever fought a surface action with other Battleships, and by the time the Iowas entered service the air war against Japan was essentially won.
There is no such thing as a perfect warship, I will point to you Popst War exercises alongside HMS Vanguard in the Atlantic, where the Iowas were unable to clear their front turrets for action in the sea state whilst Vanguard had no issues..... Thats a pretty serious design flaw in my estimation, if you cannot use two thirds of your firepower......
@@alganhar1 Vanguard was the last British battleship and was unique. The problem is British ships tended to be like their cars: okay on paper but massively flawed in practice. The only good British battleships were the QE class and Vanguard.
@@WardenWolf Do you think they all suffered from Lucas electrical systems?
I am trying to understand why there were assigned so many sailors assigned to an Iowa Class ship. Any chance of doing a video on the overall crew structure of the Iowa class?
the Iowas, Essex's were small citys. guys taking care of the hull, line handling, aa batteries, big guns, hundreds just cooking food, then radar, .... 24/7 . and hopefully seamen learning so they can do a job of someone Dead or disabled....
Have you seen the SIZE of these mofos!
The Philadelphia translation of this phrase was recently gifted to us by a guest, here we say "Look at the size of that jawn!"
@@BattleshipNewJersey in florida we say woodjall look at the size of thatnn mayonaisse sum bigguns...
Great WWII Video footage.. Maybe you can make a vid using WWII film and narate thru it about the battle and ships you recognize.. That would be cool. I saw a WWII vid on an Italian guys channel on here. It contained a lot of Graphic combat scenes dead US sailors ect ect. The Navy heavily edited these scenes.
Just a quick fyi- the 1 1/4" main deck plating of ductile steel serves a different purpose then the 5.88" armoured plate. The characteristics of armour steel is hard but also brittle. Where as ductile steel has much great tentsile strength. That means it could withstand stretching and twisting without being weakened or cracking. Most likey helped with overall haul performance when traversing heavy seas
Just so everyone knows, its Ducol Steel, not ductile steel.