Battlecruiser HMS Hood
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 ก.พ. 2025
- When the British learned that Germany was launching the colossal Bismarck battleship and the heavy cruiser Prince Eugen to ravage the Atlantic, they drafted a plan to ambush them, no matter the cost.
On May 24, 1941, the battleship HMS Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser HMS Hood faced off in a savage naval engagement that became known as the Battle of the Denmark Strait.
However, the British greatly underestimated their German counterpart's naval audacity and firepower, and the cost to pay was too high.
Only minutes after the confrontation began, HMS Hood was hit near her aft ammunition magazines and the largest ship in the world started to sink immediately.
It was now up to HMS Prince of Wales to face their powerful opponent on her own and stop them before suffering even more dire consequences…
My father, who was 17 at the time told me how the loss of the Hood had an enormous effect of public morale. HMS Hood had been the ambassador of British power since its launch, and encapsulated the very heart of Empire.
It was a great looking ship but it had fatal flaws.
@@partygrove5321 Indeed, it is hard to imagine any single concept that cost more lives than the whole of the British battlecruiser design philosophy. The Germans built battlecruisers with battleship armor and intermediate guns. The British built battlecruisers with battleship guns and intermediate armor. The whole idea is so fundamentally flawed, because you have a ship that has same offensive threat level as a battleship but can be easily penetrated and destroyed by even the intermediate guns of the enemy battlecruisers, so they are priority targets even over actual battleships. They tried to fix Hood by adding more armor during construction, but the result was a ship with a strained hull that sat low in the water and was nearly hogging while _still_ not having enough protection.
Thats funny seei g how it never fired its guns in anger before this encounter
Unless you count oran
@@WardenWolf sorry but you've been taken on by old wives tales and myths. Hood had the same armour protection as a queen elizabeth class battleship when launched. British battle cruisers losses were mostly due to mal practice during the battle of jutland where the gun and magazine crews disabled safety locks to improve rate of fire.
@@bobbyrayofthefamilysmith24 I googled, and the hood has 6-12 inches, whereas the queen elizabeth has 13 inches.
HMS Hood was actually the longest British warship ever until the launch of the first Queen Elizabeth class super carrier in 2014.
But imagine what would have happened had we been able to build Nelson and Rodney to their full size.
My grandfather was killed during this battle, he served on the HMS Hood - R.I.P.
So was my uncle, may they all R.I.P.
@@arohk1579 Heroes to the last.
@@drewayling326 so very true :).
So sorry for your loss. My grandfather thankfully came back in one piece from the Pacific Theater. Even more so because unlike your case, my father wouldn't be born until 1960.
RIP to the fallen.
My Grandma lost her 18 year old brother on HMS Hood too.
War takes so many young lives, and sadly at sea, many can be taken in seconds.
A distant relative of mine died on the Hood, he was a boy 1st class, just 16 years old. I think he would have been my 2nd cousin.
stop trying to get your relatives glory.
@@gungasc shut up rurt beynolds
Fair winds and following seas
Thank you 😊 for sharing this incredible story
@@gungasc piss off, he isn't after glory, he is remembering the fallen. In this case, a relative of his.
Grow up.
The film clip shown at 0:38 is not, as implied, of HMS Hood exploding in the Denmark Strait in May 1941. It is a rather well-known sequence photographed by a Pathe News cameraman from HMS Valiant, which actually shows HMS Barham suffering a catastrophic explosion of her secondary and primary ammunition magazines during an action in the Mediterranean after being struck by three near-simultaneous torpedoes fired by German U Boat U-331 on 24th November 1941, resulting in the loss of 862 serving members of the Royal Navy, including Barham's Captain Geoffrey Cooke.
THE sinking of HMS Barham, that would be an interesting one Dark Seas.
I don't know all the details, but a medium was prosecuted or arrested under the Witchcraft act, because she let slip that the HMS Barham had been sunk. It was being kept secret.
SAD but the POW didn't survive the war either, & why didn't the Kriegsmarine have any carriers?
Glad someone else noticed. Well done, man.
@@carlorrman8769 Thank you. HMS Barham is not that well known, except through that film clip of her catastrophic demise. It always seemed to me remarkable that there were any survivors at all, considering the pressures that the shock wave must have generated. About 450 did survive, however. The Admiralty concealed the news of the sinking for nine weeks, in order to confuse and mislead the enemy, a common tactic in those times. HMS Barham actually did have quite a distinguished career, serving in both World Wars, seeing action at Jutland and in the early part of the 1939/1945 conflict, and her wreck was found in 2017 in the eastern Mediterranean, only a few miles north of the Libyan coast.
@@johnstedman4075 Hey thankyou. I just learnt a lot from you. Good on you, mate.
@@redwingrob1036 They nearly completed one, the Graf Zeppelin, but stopped to concentrate on things like U-Boats.
Drachinifel did an entire Video on why HMS Hood sank I would say to watch it after this
There was an expedition to examine the wreckage of the HMS Hood which confirmed plunging fire shell penetrated the light armor deck and instantly igniting Hood’s 15-inch magazine.
“How did the Bismarck manage to sink HMS Hood so quickly?
th-cam.com/video/4_jDaUSSPhc/w-d-xo.html
@@reecom9884 I just watched the documentary. They confirm that the 15 inch magazine exploded, but they only theorize how that may have happened and a possible shell path. Notice how the experts say what may have happened, not what did happen. It's still up for debate as to exactly how the magazines exploded.
Do one on the last stand of the Jarvis Bay. My neighbour was one of the only survivors. I remember him well. The last thing he remembered before waking up on a hospital ship was the gunnery spotter saying "you hit her...didn't even mar the paint"
Charging a heavy cruiser in a converted ocean liner, I can't even imagine.
There I a small park in Owen Sound called Jervis Bay Park. Most people don't know that one of the first citizens from the town killed during the war died on Jervis Bay. A town of 20,000 has 3 VC winners buried at Greenwood Cemetery.
It doesn't beat Valour Road in Winnipeg, but I would say it rates an honourable mention.
My late father, Lieutenant-Commander R.M. Wilmot, DSC, Royal Navy (Retired), went to Royal Naval College Dartmouth aged 13 in 1936, and so was only 16 when WW2 broke out. As a Midshipman, he was posted for training to HMS Hood. ...... He was transferred away 3 weeks before she sailed. ...... My father knew one of the 3 survivors - Midshipman Dundas.
My father went to HM Submarine Torbay, served in the Med & Indian Ocean, was awarded the DSC, and was moving towards commanding a submarine at war when the Japanese quit. ...... Post-war he commanded T-Class submarines until 1956, including in the Sea of Japan during the Korean War. ...... A boy forged in war, and a tough man to know - as hard as nails.
I always wonder why so few people survived these Battleship sinking when they have over 1000 sailors on them.
Last summer I toured the USS North Carolina. After spending more than three hours on it, I am shock that anyone survived.
When hit 100% of the service personnel are below deck. Also most were rural farmers, so maybe not the best swimmers and even if they did manage to disembark, they had to survive the 1000's of tons of heavy fuel oil on the surface.
@@nzs316 : Not to mention the water being just above freezing temperature. The Hood sank significantly north of where the Titanic sank, and hypothermia was a major killer among those who managed to get off the Titanic.
And let's face it. The explosion tore the aft third of the ship clean off. Any explosion that could tear the keel and armor belt on both sides pulverized internal bulkheads for hundreds of feet. It's unlikely most of the crew below decks in the after 2/3 of the ship survived the explosion.
It's is very miraculous that only three survived when you consider having the whole ship exploding......
A "Clash of the Titans" in the truest sense of the word.
They froze, the water was colder than the Titanic's/no rescue pickup
Germany: Sinks HMS Hood
Britain: and I took that personally
I can feel good, good about Hood!
You can feel good, good about Hood!
Thank you Mr. Miner!!
My dad’s cousin… Leo Stuart Bowers; was on this Battle Cruiser ( HMS Hood) too. He was only 18 at the time.
He never had the chance, to work his way up through the ranks of the Royal Navy. He was born and raised in Portsmouth.
Saturday evening 19th August 2023. Southampton England 🏴
If you're not already aware, if you visit the online HMS Hood association site, there is a "roll of honour" which includes an individual memorial page for each and every known crew member of HMS Hood, so as to maintain an online presence in memory of the tragic young men who lost their lives that day.
On the "roll of honour" is a page for
Leo Stuart Bowers
Date of birth: 20th December 1922
Place of birth: Havant, Hampshire, England
Parents: William and Ivy Bowers
Service: Royal Navy
Rank: Ordinary Seaman
Service Number: P/JX 157338
Joined Hood: Unknown
Left Hood: 24th May 1941 (loss of ship)
Together with a photograph of the tragic young man.
Sincerest respects to his memory.
I cannot get enough of your channels and their excellent content. It is mind boggling to imagine the hours and hours you have spent compiling the historical video and research. Resulting in hours of entertainment and education for myself and thousands of others. With a heartfelt Thank You! To your success Sir!
I can only imagine how terrifying it must of been for the sailors onboard the Hood.
most of them probably died instantly when the powder magazine exploded due to the shockwave
I was on porstside right at the front when she blew up she started to go down at the rear then went over to portside and the next thing I knew I was in the water and I drowned, I have been reincarnated twice since then but I very often shed a tear for all my ship mates
When I was in college, in about 1974, my housemate had a red leather upholstered chair, taken off the Prinz Eugen. Brass tag on it. Comfortable. His dad somehow got it after or during the war. It got smoke damage in a minor fire in his apartment and he tossed it in the dumpster. I wanted to save it but couldn't. No storage, no money. I regret it to this day.
The Hood was probably the most beautiful warship involved in that Battle of the Denmark Strait. Too bad her magazine was hit, and she sank so quickly. The real tragedy was the loss of almost her entire crew, valiant sailors who tried to fulfill their duty.
I had relatives on both sides of the war. My dad was born in Britain and an uncle was German. To say the least, my father had the last laugh.
This battle was very iconic of the entire war. Started badly for Britain 🇬🇧 but ended well.
Omg I need to go to rehab. First it's video of the day...now it's another one. Not enough time in the day. LOVE IT!!!👍👍👍💯
You still have some video that doesn't correlate with the narrative but, overall, this is one of your better videos. Keep 'em comin'!
Wow! Great vid, Ty.
One of the best parts of this channel is the narrator's voice.
When I hear his voice I know that I'm about to be entertained, and you learn something to boot....great site
Jon Pertwee, who would find fame after the war in the radio show The Navy Lark and as the third incarnation of Doctor Who on television, was a crewmember of HMS Hood, but was transferred off shortly before this mission for training for promotion. If not for that timing he would likely have been lost with so many of his shipmates.
Great videos keep them coming enjoy watching them all
I remember when they found her and just how badly destroyed she was. Seeing her I at least got a chance to see my Uncles Final resting place.
My greatgrandfather served on the Scharnhorst, his brother and best friend on the Bismarck. Sadly none of them survived both sinkings.
As a Brit the loss of the Hood is very much engrained into my psyche, however, it wasn’t so much a desire for revenge for the sinking of Hood, but a desperate need not to allow the Bismark into the Atlantic due to what would then follow. Hence from the start it was a desperate game of; “Sink the Bismark”, as per the film of the same name, as for her to get lose in the Atlantic would have terrible consequences and so everything plus the kitchen sink was thrown as sinking her. There was a similar focus on never allowing the Tirpitz out either
I've heard this story many times but it's the first time I've heard it was only 3 days later as many times as I've watched things one it
Enjoyed your video and I gave it a Thumbs Up as a support
This video needs some Johnny Horton in the background.
A person of culture and taste, I see. Usually you just see people quoting Sabaton, it does the heart good to see Johnny Horton getting a mention when it come to the Bismarck.
"We hit the deck a running, boys, and turned those guns around, and when we found the Bismarck we finally cut her down"
If you need an idea for a new video I’d love to see a video about HMS Glowworm Ramming Admiral Hipper. David vs Goliath of WW2
Admiral Hipper's CO ordered the survivors to be picked up even though they knew HMS Renown was in the area. "I won't allow brave men like that to drown like dogs." He even signaled the RN about the action and recommended they be awarded a VC which they were indeed awarded based on Admiral Hipper's dispatch.
I love how you gave credit for the Bismarck sinking to the Royal Navy.
yeah it is completely untrue it has been proven it was scuttled
So you're saying the crew would have scuttled the Bismark even if the Royal Navy hadn't hit it with naval gunfire hundreds to thousands of times, and torpedoed it at least twice, in that final battle?
@@paktahn
David Mearns dive to Bismarck showed extensive damage to her belt armour from the torpedoes and that her belt had been shattered in multiple places by British shells.
He surmised that the scuttling sped things up by either an hour, or mere minutes.
@@paktahn You obviously haven't read the account of David Mearns expedition, and his subsequent conclusions. Or perhaps you have, but just don't want to believe him?
The RN gets the credit for sinking Bismarck regardless. The Germans didn't scuttle their best ship for no reason. It's like claiming Hitler wasn't defeated because he shot himself.
The German press did not mention Prinz Eugen in their initial broadcast for security reasons so Bismarck took all credit. The Admiralty were unsure of her identity as well that day.
Credit for what? Starting a fire on Hood's boat deck, which didn't have any relevance to her sinking?
Prinz Eugen was the only ship of the 4 to have an effect on the war. She scored the 1rst hit and maybe more on Hood and the most hits on Prince of Wales, took part in Cerebus, and provided covering support for civilians fleeing the Red Army. Prince of Wales covered one Malta convoy and hosted the foundation for the UN but her career was cut short
Survived 2 nuclear bombs
Prince eigan Was among manx ships that were used to test the effect of nuclear explosions on warships
But it was Bismarck that sank Hood.
The Prince of Wales was sunk off of Malaysia in 1941 by Japanese Army aircraft
What effect on the war? Her subsequent career consisted of fleeing back to home waters, attempting to reach Norway but losing her stern to a RN submarine, wandering around the Baltic, ramming and crippling a (German) light cruiser, and then acting as a floating gun battery as the German Eastern Front collapsed.
Hi, Folks.
Quote:
" .... HMS hood was hit near her aft ammunition magazines and the largest ship in the world started to sink immediately."
Unquote.
The Bismarck was a FAR larger ship than Hood. Hood did NOT "start to sink". She BLEW UP and the pieces that were left went to the bottom. The fact that she was GONE in 3 minutes does not leave a whole lottta time for it to 'start to sink'.
Just my 0.02.
You all have a wonderful day. Best wishes. Deas Plant.
Bismarck while slightly heavier than Hood (50700 tons Vs 47500 tons) was also 40ft shorter than her too.
Hi, @@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684.
I have the Bismarck at around 40 feet shorter as you said but around 4,350 tons heavier displacement - 53,486 metric tons against 49,136 metric tons. Most of this displacement difference would have been in Bismarck's much heavier armour, especially on the decks where Hood had virtually 'tissue paper' compared to Bismarck.
Bismarck also had much better engines which, in spite of her 'football' shape, could propel her at 30 knots compared to Hood's best of about 28 knots which was probably down to less than that due to past damage and old age.
Just my 0.02.
You have a wonderful day. Best wishes. Deas Plant.
@@dplant8961 Our figures differ slightly but the margin of difference remains roughtly the same (I'd be interested to hear where you got your figures, as I've NEVER heard them before, My figures are widely reported in numerous books on the subject, and confirmed by various Bismarck websites and the HMS Hood association website.)
As for Hood's speed, when she was built her top speed was recorded during her sea trials as 32.02 knots, though at the time of Denmark Strait due to age she was only able to reach 30 knots, but was limited during Denmark Strait to 27 knots as this was her escort, HMS Prince of Wales' top speed.
As for Hood's "paper thin" deck armour, Hood's main armoured deck was 3 inches thick (compared to Bismarck's 4 inch thick turtleback). Hood fielded the same overall armour scheme as the Queen Elizabeth battleships such as HMS Warspite that had survived everything the Kaiser's navy could throw at her when during WW1 at Jutland her steering motors overheated and she circled alone twice in front of the entire German battle fleet, and then went on into WW2 surviving encounters with Italian battleships and nazi glider bombs. Hood was as far removed from the likes of the WW1 Tiger and Indefatigable class battlecruisers as I am from a ballet dancer (and thats a VERY long way). The RN's nomenclature for Hood as a "battlecruiser" was entirely down to her speed, which outstripped all her WW1 battleship cohort by a factor of 6-7 knots, and not based on her being "lightly armoured".
Bismarck belt armour = 12.6 inches
Hood belt armour = 12 inches
Bismarck deck armour = 4 inches
Hood deck armour = 3 inches
Hood's vertical armour was well upto the standard of contemporary battleships, her weakest aspect was indeed her horizontal deck armour, but Admiral Holland was aware of this and had raced to close on Bismarck and had escaped the "danger zone" of plunging fire, only to be then hit by a million to one shot that found an obscure "achilles heel" in her vertical armour.
All the best Deas.
Hi, @@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684.
HMS Hood: hmshood.com/ship/hoodspecs1.htm
Bismarck: www.kbismarck.com/genedata.html
Comparison of Bismarck and hood - there is a comment here that Hood was down to about 26 - 27 knots due to boiler problems:
www.reddit.com/r/WarshipPorn/comments/i9ny10/bismarck_and_hood_size_comparison_583_x_1725/
Just my 0.02.
You have a wonderful day. Best wishes. Deas Plant.
@@dplant8961 I'm envious that you are able to post links to external pages in your comments !!! Any external stuff I post gets immediately deleted. Thank you for the pleasant exchange, all the best .to you, Deas.
I read a book when I was young about Britain’s Beaufort twin engine torpedo bombers. How about a video about those?
Bismark in motion, a beast made of steel.
Yeah, He was Pride of a nation, a beast made of steel!
Would really like to see a documentary about the HMS Vanguard, the last battleship in the world :D
I met a guy at a bus stop once who’s roommate had met a guy who’s uncle had a friend who’s grandpa had seen a poster of Hood back in WWII. Cool stuff.
The era of the battleship assumed that naval gun fire would be fired in a ballistic arch (45%) for maximum range hitting the enemy battleship below the waterline to sink it. Therefore, battleship had ballistic armor belt at the water line. The armor belt was place lower in the water to also act as a torpedo belt, lessening any torpedo damage. The closer an enemy battleship got, it would come in range for plunging fire; a higher ballistic arch allowing the naval shell to hit the top deck armor. A battleship had to compromise on armor or speed. HMS Hood didn’t have adequate deck armor and was scheduled for deck armor to be installed. Admiral Holland gambled and lost, trying to get in close and was sunk by plunging fire from Bismarck. There was an expedition to examine the wreckage of the HMS Hood which confirmed plunging fire shell penetrated the light armor deck and instantly igniting Hood’s 15-inch magazine.
“How did the Bismarck manage to sink HMS Hood so quickly?
th-cam.com/video/4_jDaUSSPhc/w-d-xo.html
Nope. The angles at the range Hood was hit make that impossible. Drachinifel explains it fully here. th-cam.com/video/CLPeC7LRqIY/w-d-xo.html
The expedition proved no such thing. The whole centre section of Hood had disintegrated.
@@dovetonsturdee7033 Who said anything about any expedition?
Mathematically, at the range the Hood was from Bismark, IF the shell had penetrated the armored deck rather than the belt armor, THEN it's trajectory COULD NOT INTERSECT WITH ANY MAGAZINES. It's physically impossible for it to have happened that way.
@@andrewszigeti2174 I replied to ReeCom 98. Not to you.
After the sinking of the Bismarck the British ships picked up 110 German sailors and had to leave hundreds more for fear of U-Boats might be in the area on a reported periscope sighting. The after action report by German U-Boat U-74 near the sinking of the Bismarck; “U-74 heard sinking sounds but Kentrat (Captain of U-74) could not determine whether it was Bismarck or a British ship. He came to periscope depth and saw battleships and cruisers directly in front of him. He tried to maneuver into an attack position, but the weather was too bad and the seas too high to remain at periscope depth or to fire a torpedo. Wreckage and yellow life-jackets were visible…After the British ships left, Kentrat surfaced amid debris and dead bodies. The sounds they had heard that morning was Bismarck's destruction. They searched but they could find no one alive until that evening when they came across a raft carrying three sailors, Georg Herzog, Otto Höntzsch, and Herbert Manthey. U-74 searched for another day but found no one else alive and was ordered to return to Lorient. On the return trip, the three survivors recovered from their shock and gave the first statements of Bismarck's loss…” Picking up enemy survivors was common on both sides if it could be done without endangering your own ship in the process.
Good comentary.....why the exploding Barham?
HMS Barham exploding? What's that got to do with HMS Hood?
I've noticed many of the old World War 2 documentary use alot of random footage assuming nobody would know the difference as long as it's black and white.
One of the greatest Naval Battles
After the Royal Navy lost 3 battle cruisers at Jutland in 1916, you would think something had been learned. However they were pretty hard pressed at the time. The cost of war. Brave men indeed.
They learned quite a bit from that, and subsequent battlecruiser designs were changed reflecting those lessons.
1) First and foremost, the lesson of NOT disabling your flash protection between turret and magazine, and NOT storing extra powder and shells in the turret and barbette to speed rate of fire.
2) Next, most of the early battlecruisers were not armored anywhere near heavy enough to stand up to other capitol ships. The Renown and Repulse were immediately refitted with much thicker armor upon completion, and the Admiral class was designed with armor equivalent to the preceding Queen Elizabeth and 'R' class battleships.
But unlike quite a few of those battleships, Hood never got a modernization which might have saved it.
@@andrewszigeti2174
Considering the new theory is that Bismarck's shell slammed into the water in a "miss", slipped under the belt armour, punched through and started a fire that ended with her magazine detonating, no amount of extra armour would have saved her.
PoW suffered a similar strike from Bismarck, but the shell failed to detonate and would merely have slowed her speed, instead of blowing her up.
@@youraveragescotsman7119 : IIRC, one of the refit options involved a slightly deeper armor belt, especially in that aft area where the trough of the bow wave exposes more of the hull. This might have been deep enough to do the job. Drachinifel goes into quite a bit of detail about potential refits here. th-cam.com/video/Vqnk2-noeUY/w-d-xo.html
The hit to the PoW was a slightly different issue. It fell further short and had time to invert as it passed through the water. It actually punched through the PoW's hull backwards.Between damage from the impact with the water and the inversion (and the possibility of fusing problems on the Bismark), the fuse failed to function. It apparently hit low in the torpedo defense system - another point where the Hood was deficient as designed and a refit would have helped mitigate. Had it detonated, odds are the PoW would have been slowed significantly if not severely, likely too much to allow it to continue shadowing the Bismark.
But yes, unlikely to be fatal damage unless Bismark chose to pursue PoW and she couldn't escape.
@@andrewszigeti2174 Thanks for that. I am onto your first point. Your second point though, was news to me. Not as well learned as I thought. Thanks, man for sharing. Take care.
Thank you .
Good background summary, and careful phrasing of the British admiralty's failure to finish the urgently-needed deck armor project for Hood. With typical media coverage of the Hood vs. Bismarck encounter, the multiple hits on Bismarck by Prince of Wales are often ignored. To your credit, you develop the battle in more detail-- essentially, a battle cruiser with a major vulnerability and a heavily-armored battleship with good aim and better luck.
Hoods deck armour was 3 inches thick, at the ranges here bismarcks guns had just 2.5 inches of penetration. It's mathematically impossible
@@toothedacorn4724 The admiralty wasted months of planning for retrofitted new deck armor?
@@bobgreene2892 more deck armour is always nice, bit at the ranges we're talking about it isn't going to happen
The armour of the Hood was slightly thinner than the Bismarck and almost as thick as the Iowas
I like how they use the explosion of HMS Barham to illustrate the explosion of HMS Hood.
G in Gneisenau is silent. Just saying. Love your content. keep it up.
No, it's not.
For anyone who has sailed the open seas, you know that any size boat or ship is not a stable platform... its beyond my comprehension that they can hit a target 10 miles away!
The more advanced warships of that time had analog computers and gyroscopic stabilizer systems . The cream of the crop vessels had radars too . I was a US Navy Operations Specialist ( Radarman ) from 1985 to 1995 . Radar was in it's infancy during WW2 and was a game changing invention , mostly used by the Allies .
@@victorwaddell6530 Thank you Victor, most appreciated but, nonetheless the timing and precision required as a ship is pitching and rolling...come to think of it, i wonder if the early radar sets could pick up the actual misses as they hit the water.
I know from sailing with an active radar that the modern sets could pick up cresting waves if they were big enough.
You gotta give it to the lads watching a blip on an oscilloscope and then interpreting that information.
Cheers!
@@nzs316 Early radars, no. They were simple surface search radars. Even early fire control radars had trouble picking up misses. I think that capability wasn't developed until the mid-to-late war, around 1942-3.
@@nzs316 We would mark a target on our scope display and track the shells to the target for a second or so . When the shell struck the water we could see the splash . This was firing the 5 inch guns from a DDG and a CG .
@@andrewszigeti2174 Thank you.
The Germans when HMS Hood blew up, might have thought, remembering how the Battle Cruisers HMS Queen Mary and Invincible exploded in WWI, "she came attacking us the same old way, and we sank her the same old way!"
This was taken from the book "Battleship Bismarck: A suvivor's story" Written by Baron Burkhard von Mullenheim-Rechberg, Bismarck's senior ranking survivor.
"Over the telephone I heard an ever louder and more excited babble of voices-it seemed
as though something sensational was about to happen, if it hadn't already.
Convinced that the Suffolk and Norfolk would leave us in peace for at least a few minutes,
I entrusted the temporary surveillance of the horizon astern through the starboard director
to one of my petty officers and went to the port director. While I was still turning it toward
the Hood, I heard a shout,
"She's blowing up!"
"She"-that could only be the Hood! The sight I then saw is something I shall never forget. At
first the Hood was nowhere to be seen; in her place was a colossal pillar of black smoke reaching into the sky.
Gradually, at the foot of the pillar, I made out the bow of the battle cruiser projecting upwards at
an angle, a sure sign that she had broken in two. Then I saw something I could hardly believe: a
flash of orange coming from her forward guns! Although her fighting days had ended, the Hood
was firing a last salvo. I felt great respect for those men over there."
People have criticized Admiral Holland for blundering straight into Bismarck’s plunging fire zone with inadequate deck armor. The naval maneuver for speed is to charge at full speed and turn to allow all guns to bare and fire and speed away from the enemy using your superior speed. Admiral Holland used the HMS Hood’s battle cruiser speed to charge into the Bismarck’s plunging fire zone to get into position to turn and allow all guns to fire. There was an expedition to examine the wreckage of the HMS Hood which confirmed plunging shell fire penetrated the light armor deck and instantly igniting Hood’s 15-inch magazine. It wasn't penetrated in the hull between the armor belts. The expedition saw no side hull penetration, only the huge deck damage near the front main mast near the Admiral's quarters. The ship's bell, near the Admiral’s quarters, was buried by the twisted deck plates from the explosion of the entire 15-inch magazine going up instantly. The expedition also saw that Admiral Holland had initiated the hard turn to have all guns bare and fire and HMS Hood was turning by the position of the ship’s rudder to fire. In war you go to war with what you have and try to use your ship’s best attribute to win. Winning or losing can be just a matter of inches or seconds away.
“How did the Bismarck manage to sink HMS Hood so quickly?
th-cam.com/video/4_jDaUSSPhc/w-d-xo.html
Their native is wrong though, making the turning opens up Hood to a full penetration of the main belt. The whole of aft magazine group is gone so the only thing the deck shows is that massive explosion broke up through it. Fall of shot from Bismarck is only around 10-13 degrees I'm not sure that bismarck can reach down 3 decks before the fuse goes off to reach the magazine.
@@JevansUK The analysis by the Marine Architectural Engineer on the damage section of part of the Admiral's quarter over the 15-inch magazine found on the sea floor in his professional opinion was due to plunging fire, it is less fiction than a shell going in-between the armor belt and in between Hood's trough during battle in rough sea with large waves. Using WW2 ship’s log for position and distance between ships and using recorded optical sighting information looking through rain, bad weather, in rolling seas to log for distance and possible gun angle that was based on mechanical watches for time, propeller shaft rotation for ship speed, and estimated local ocean currents in the North Atlantic winter seas for navigational position puts in huge errors. With the rough seas adding to the gun angle errors moment by moment in raising and falling seas would make it is impossible to know ballistic gun angles in the battle or actual distances between ships. There wouldn't be any speed trough in high winter waves as the bow crashed into the waves and Hood's rudder was hard over as she bared her guns to fire. In a hard turn, the shift in momentum would have buried her hull to the enemy fire.
@@reecom9884 You seem to have an obsession with posting the same thing over and over again.
Only Hood's bow and stern sections survive on the seabed in any recognisable form. Which 'Marine Architectural Engineer' has carried out such an analysis on a piece of Hood which no longer exists?
The Bismarck was designed to win the Battle of Jutland. Unfortunately for the Germans, that was in 1916. In 1941, Bismarck's air defense was completely inadequate, and the secondary battery had no antiaircraft capability and thus was essentially wasted weight.
Bismarcks secondary battery had aa capability it was just there was an aa secondary battery and a surface only secondary battery as apposed to most nations who were using dual purpose batteries. Bismarck would not have won the battle of juttland 2.0 in 1941. He had less armour than the R class and was about as well armed, all he had going for him was speed, considering the Rs were the weakest of Britians capital ships... bismarcks design was grossly inefficient
Hood was supposed to get a major refit primarily to reinforce the deck armor. This was unfortunately put off because of the outbreak of hostilities. Could things have turned out differently if Hood had gotten it's overhaul? One can only guess.
Yes, they would have as Hood would have in dry-dock in the US at the time.
@@kennethfears9254 Not so. The planned 'Large Repair,' actually an extensive modernisation along the lines of Renown or some of the Queen Elizabeths, would have taken place in a British yard. RN ships did receive refits in US yards, but not extensive rebuilds.
Crazy how all because of rockets that the whole class of armor ( witch is battle ships and heavy cruisers) along with big guns are obsolete now and we only use destroyers.
That's what happens when you use a ship type in a role it's not designed for.
The Kriegsmarine surface forces were both badly designed and mostly sunk by the time Bismarck sailed. That's why she was only escorted by Prinz Eugen.
Not so much badly designed, as over-engineered and inefficient. The Hipper class was broadly the same as a British County class, just on half again the displacement. The Bismarks were somewhat better, with similar main armament to a QE, more speed, and noticeably better armor... again, on 150% of the full load displacement.
@@andrewszigeti2174 "noticeably better armour" the queen Elizabeths had 13 inch belts, bismarck had a 12.6 inch belt that was inclined in a way that made it less effective at any range greater than point blank
@@toothedacorn4724 : Can I get a source on that claim? Because it's the general opinion of every naval historian and naval engineer I've read from that the Bismark's main armor was superior to that of the QE's due to more modern steel quality. Neither ship had sloped main armor belt. The QE's upper armor strake is inclined inwards, so that would not have been very good vs. long-range fire, but that's not the main belt. Bismark had an additional turtledeck of armor internally, which has it's own benefits... and problems.
Calling Hood the "world's largest ship" is highly inaccurate. "World's largest battlecruiser", certainly, but Bismarck was heavier at full load and both the King George V and US's South Carolina class were roughly equivalent at full load. Hood was the largest warship of her era, no doubt, but by 1941 there were larger.
I wouldn't say highly inaccurate, she was the longest warship until the launch of Yamato. I would normally refer to ship size in terms of displacement, but the video is a bit sensationalized
@@dannymcneil341 Sadly, at the end of the day, British ships were a lot like British cars: badly designed deathtraps. Britain's fleet was composed of a large quantity of "good enough" ships, though many had fatal flaws which limited their usefulness or combat survivability. It is hard to think of a naval design doctrine that cost more lives overall than the whole of the British battlecruiser concept.
@@WardenWolf so that's just incorrect, what fatal flaws are you talking about here
@@WardenWolf 1. Ship's sizes are not determined with full load. It's by standard deplacement, where Hood was actually heavier than Bismarck.
2. Battlecruisers at Jutland exploded due to unsafe ammunition practices, not because the ships themselves were poorly designed.
3. "...many had fatal flaws which limited their usefulness or combat survivability."
Which ships are these and what are their fatal flaws? Unless you can give a concrete answer, I am going to assume that you know fuck all about any of what you just said.
Our local pub in Greenwich was called the The Hood!
Drachinifel issued a detailed theory about how Hood was sunk. He shows that Hood was probably hit in a wave trough that exposed the hull below the armour belt.
PoW was also hit under the waterline with the shell stopped near the keel. However it went in backwards and failed to explode.
By that account, Hood was seriously unlucky.
By the way, shock from Bismarck’s own guns wrecked its radar.
There was an expedition to examine the wreckage of the HMS Hood which confirmed plunging fire shell penetrated the light armor deck and instantly igniting Hood’s 15-inch magazine.
“How did the Bismarck manage to sink HMS Hood so quickly?
th-cam.com/video/4_jDaUSSPhc/w-d-xo.html
The British shells were crap. The PoW hit the Bismarck three times but the shells failed to detonate. However one of them did puncture one of Bismarck's fuel tanks.
@@partygrove5321 Which of the German shells which hit Prince of Wales exploded? Pray tell.
@@dovetonsturdee7033 All of them, especially the one that hit the Bismarck's fuel tank.
@@partygrove5321 You don't seem to have read my question properly.
The footage of the ship exploding , is HMS BARHAM
Thanks for a post that points out Admiral Holland was aware of Hoods weakneses.
It was also called unsinkable. I guess we all learned that calling something unsinkable is asking to be sunk
What was called unsinkable?
So, just so we’re absolutely clear…… Hood didn’t blow up because of “plunging fire’ - OK!? We are clear on this, yes? Good. Just making sure.
HMS Rodney beat Bismarck’s brains in. Took 30 mins and didn’t take a single hit in return.
Oh snap got dark sea 🌊 😏 😍 Chanel now !
Lol the only vid I didn't learn somthing new 😅
Thx!
Massive blow to England. One of my favorite stories of ww2. Sink the Bismarck.
The episode of dogfights that covered this was great
The analysis by the Marine Architectural Engineer on the damage section of part of the Admiral's quarter over the 15-inch magazine found on the sea floor in his professional opinion was due to plunging fire, it is less fiction than a shell going in-between the armor belt and in between Hood's trough during battle in rough sea with large waves. Using WW2 ship’s log for position and distance between ships and using recorded optical sighting information looking through rain, bad weather, in rolling seas to log for distance and possible gun angle that was based on mechanical watches for time, propeller shaft rotation for ship speed, and estimated local ocean currents in the North Atlantic winter seas for navigational position puts in huge errors. With the rough seas adding to the gun angle errors moment by moment in raising and falling seas would make it is impossible to know ballistic gun angles in the battle or actual distances between ships. There wouldn't be any speed trough in high winter waves as the bow crashed into the waves and Hood's rudder was hard over as she bared her guns to fire. In a hard turn, the shift in momentum would have buried her hull to the enemy fire.
“How did the Bismarck manage to sink HMS Hood so quickly?
th-cam.com/video/4_jDaUSSPhc/w-d-xo.html
Only Hood's bow and stern sections survive on the seabed in any recognisable form. Which 'Marine Architectural Engineer' has carried out such an analysis on a piece of Hood which no longer exists?
While the subject is still hotly debated to this day, there is incontrovertible proof that the Germans scuttled Bismarck, and this resulted in her sinking. A submersible camera, from none other than James Cameron, was able to locate the supposed torpedo hit made by the British, which they claimed sank her. While the torpedo penetrated the outer hull, it never made it to the inner hull and was found lodged and unexploded. While it's doubtful that Bismarck could have endured much more and would have eventually sank, she was one tough bitch that took more than any other ship could have taken at the time, except for maybe Prinz Eugen, which survived the two atomic blasts.
Having to scuttle your navy’s flagship after it was crippled in battle is FAR preferable to having the floating hulk captured and towed triumphantly into an enemy port. The German officers could not risk that happening,
@@timonsolus And they did their job well. I remember the National Geographic cover of her, resting upright on the ocean floor and being blown away at the fact that four years after the Titanic, Ballard scored yet another archaeological find of the century. I really find it fascinating that she is still structurally in remarkable condition.
@@timonsolus The idea of the hulk of Bismarck being towed to a British port is infantile. When she sank, Bismarck was settling by the stern, listing heavily, and suffering from extensive internal fires. She was simply not towable. Nor, indeed, would Tovey, whose battleships were already low on fuel, have thought for a moment about trying.
@@American_Jeeper You should look up David Mearns' later inspection. His view was that any attempt to scuttle Bismarck would have brought forward her sinking by 'a matter of minutes' only.
@@dovetonsturdee7033 : Then why did the German crew scuttle Bismarck?
F for the Hood.
Its weird, to know that few human decisions, could change the world we live in today.
DARK documentary channels are always entertaining
There was an honoury [if you will] forth survivor from ther Hood. Jon Pertwee the British actor/entertianer best known in the UK for playing Doctor Who amoungst others. Befroe Hood left on hew illfated last trip, Petrtwee had the offer to come ashore and transfer to Naval intellagance working with a certain Ian [007] Fleming. I for one could imagine as Pertwee went down the gangplank the Captian remarking; "If you're going to go spying. Spy me the Bismark.....!"
WHO?😉
Would of been nice if the story was about the 3 survivors. The battle is already well known.
Their experience has been well documented but even today there are things we do not know about what happened that day.
@@thomasb1889 What I heard was big UK ships started a practice of stocking powder out of the armored storage areas for ease of passing it up to the guns. That one shot Hood took set everything off.
@@nightwaves3203 That was WWI and along with pre-stocking they also locked the blast doors between sections of the magazine to turret system.
@@thomasb1889 Whatever it was the Hood went quick
@@nightwaves3203 True but if the speed had only been a little slower the spot where the water was pulled away from the hull would have been somewhere else or gone and the shell would have had to go through water and would likely not have penetrated. Some times it is pure luck on who gets smacked and who doesn't. My point was that the captain of the Hood had maneuvered his ship to the range where the Bismarck should have be able to penetrate the deck or the belt which in the era was called the invulnerability range.
Hello, I love you TH-cam channels and I know that you are more focused on US History, but could you consider to make a video on the Indo-Portuguese War of 1961? In that war, there was a naval battle were a Portuguese sloop (the NRP Afonso de Albuquerque ) had to face an Indian naval force comprised of a fleet of 8 combat ships, and a aircraft carrier. The Portuguese lost (of course) but the sloop did put up a fight, upholding the Portuguese Navy motto: "Honor patriam pro patria videt te"🧐
I wonder what the battleship Roma or the Vittorio Veneto have to do with the Rhine operation at minute 5 with 43 seconds of the video
Can't wait to correct everything they get wrong about this
The number of pocket battleships was nothing to do with cost, they were only allowed the deutchland class by treaty
Bismarck getting out Scott free is unlikely to have forced a surrender, it would have just made the supply situation worse not untenable. You'd likely just see the nelsons and more modern cruisers deployed to convy escort
Not every British ship was sent tobthe Denmark strait, not even all the ships with Hood were sent, the knlu ships sent were hood, Prince of Wales and their escorting destroyers, King George V and Victorious remained behind to collect cruisers to reinforce hood and Prince of Wales.
Hoods deck armour was not poor, it was only about an inch thinner than bismarcks. The armour was 3 inches thick and the 15inch guns on bismarck had just 2.5 inches of penetration at 20000 yards and 2.2 at 18000, the engagement happened between these two ranges.
Assuming bismarck did penetrate the deck armour it would be at too shallow an angle to strike the magazine in the very bottom of the hull
Any WW2 German warship larger than a destroyer was a waste of resources.
even the destroyers were of inefficient design
You how many u boats you can build with the amount of steel sunk into Bismark, a lot
@@oliverwells8011 … All the Kriegsmarine cruisers and battleships. Such a fleet was never going to win against the Royal Navy. Let alone the battleships of the US Navy
they were part of Plan Z program a massive fleet to counter the RN but the war started before they could finish the program and running out of time, with little and limited resources so they were left with what they have finished from the project en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Z.
@@oboblang248 no they were not inefficient design they just dont have enough fuel to go around the atlantic that explains why they are not sending any destroyers with any capital ship sortie in the atlantic.
Bismark sustained heavy damage, but was not sunk.....the crew scuttled it.
Very true, Shame that it's rarely mentioned.
Agreed I think it's funny how the British claim they sunk the Bismark when in all actuality Bismarck's own crew sunk her not the British
400+ hits
No it was sunk. The crew scuttled it because the British could easily have torpedoed her into ship heaven. Either way she was going down.
the ship was sinking before the scuttling orders were given. at the time, the crew only had access to a very small section of the ship in the stern due to raging fires and extensive flooding. it is extremely unlikely, borderline impossible than anyone walked through rooms engulfed in flames to set off bombs in the bottom of the ship.
And what about the Hood's survivors like the title says? No details. Sheesh these are slick videos but the info many times is wrong or lacking guys
3 men out of 1,418 survived. What do you wan to know? What their favorite color is? 🤣🤣🤣
3? Wow. perhaps the highest percentage of losss of life.
Some ships go down with all hands
The Japanese carrier Chiyoda had a larger crew and went down with no survivors.
Didn't the Bismarck start to shoot back 15 minutes later after being shot at?
That background music tho 🥵
The Prince Eugen even with stood an atomic blast .
You'd be surprised how many ships can
"Without proper escort" is right, and reminds me of the US Indianapolis, with nuclear stuff for Tinian. They had a bad couple of days.
You needed to finish the story, her rudder being struck, etc
Also the fact that the crew scuttled the Bismarck.
What was their story? How did they survive and what happened to them afterwards?
Atleast 2 possibly the third were forced from the ship by some sort of implosion after the ship sank they were then picked up by the cruisers
@@toothedacorn4724 I meant the rest of the war and beyond.
Min 7 and 22 Seconds, Gneisnau and Graf Spee in the Denmarck Strait Battle?
Fact if the matter is in ww2 the hood was not even in the top 10 biggest war ships
Really? Which ten were bigger, in 1941?
Kind of irrelevant, since almost all of them were commissioned after Hood sank.
Hood was a Battle Cruiser which was supposed to Shoot and Scoot.
Bismarck was a pocket Battleship that was supposed to stand and fight.
It was a technology that was 25 years in difference,
Unfortunately, the Hood stood and died.
Unfortunately , it was the by the Bismarck that was
hit by a torpedo from a warplane that was 20 years obsolete.
Talk about Irony.
If Hitler had spent the money in building the Bismarck on building submarines, he might have won WW2.
But he loved those Battleships.
bismarck was not a pocket battleship
@@kuwanger12 i know its very wrong many ppl just dont know what theyre saying
Hood was as heavily armored as the preceding QE and R class battleships. She just didn't get a modernization as several of those early battleships did. With the same armament and armor as those battleships, experts consider her to be the first modern Fast Battleship. But the British classified her as a battlecruiser solely on her top speed of over 30 knots.
The so-called 'Pocket Battleships' were 10,000 tons and had 6-11" guns. Bismark was five times the displacement and had 8-15" guns. There's nothing 'pocket' about the Bismark class Battleships.
And if Hitler had built more submarines instead of the surface navy, the Brits would have slowed their own surface construction somewhat to build even more escorts and destroyers. Action, reaction.
@@andrewszigeti2174
The destroyer escorts were built by the US at the request of and for the British in 1941, as they did not have enough surface war vessels to protect their convoys against German submarines. When the US entered the War, they built many more.
The Hood's armor was not protective against high descending German naval shells.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destroyer_escort
@@richpontone1 The British called such ships corvettes and built hundreds of them, primarily of the Flower class. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flower-class_corvette
The Hood's DECK armor was not proof against a high-angle penetration. When she was designed in WWI, a hit at that long of a range was regarded as being a fluke at best. Needless to say, that had changed by 1940.
This is why Tolland had his force charge the Bismark nearly head-on to close the range as fast as they could, to avoid exactly this sort of high-angle hit on the deck. And it worked. It has been mathematicallly demonstrated that at the range Hood was hit, the shot COULD NOT HAVE penetrated the deck and into a magazine.
What almost certainly happened is a fluke hit caused by Hood's specific hydrodynamic properties at high speed. If you look up pictures of the Hood moving at top speed, you'll notice the trough of her bow wave coincides quite nicely with the reported location of the explosion. So the most likely explanation is that a shell from Bismark fell just short of Hood, and after a brief amount of travel underwater hit the Hood UNDER it's armored belt. From there it probably punched into a 4" magazine and detonated, causing that magazine to blow up, which then quite likely punched into the aft main magazine.
Drachinifel does a great job of explaining it in detail, including diagrams of the shot angles involved. th-cam.com/video/CLPeC7LRqIY/w-d-xo.html
The Japanese sank the Prince of Wales later by aerial attack. For all their naval prowess, the British had poor management of their ships. Just saw a video that mentioned that Prinz Eugen not only survived the war, but was used as a test ship for two nuclear bomb tests and survived both. I don't think those two heavy cruisers could have handled her.
The Hipper class cruisers were massively inefficient designs. She had the same basic armor, weapons, and speed as the County class cruisers who were supposed to engage her... on half again the displacement.
One on one, she'd have a good chance. Two on one in the same class is a losing battle for most ships. Either Prinz Eugen splits its fire and has less accurate salvos (it's generally accepted you need a minimum of six guns per salvo to get a good CEP), which means it takes longer to start scoring hits, OR you engage just one cruiser at a time, allowing the other to manage it's fire control unopposed which means it will, on the average start scoring hits sooner than a ship taking fire. And once you start landing hits, you rapidly start eroding fire control capabilities because main rangefinders and the like cannot be heavily armored.
In other words, either the Eugen concentrates on (for example) the Suffolk, meaning the Norfolk is likely to start getting hits first, or it splits its fire and BOTH British cruisers are likely to start scoring hits first.
This is why, with the cruisers delayed, Tolland ordered the PoW to engage the Eugen while he took on the Bismark. Hits from Eugen were unlikely to sink either battleship, but they could start significantly degrading the combat effectiveness of whichever one she targeted.
Alot of these ships can withstand nuclear detonations, alot of ships survived operation cross roads, the British were fighting a war on three fronts thousands of miles away from ecah other you can't exactly blame them for "poor management" even if that was the cause of Prince of Wales sinking
@@toothedacorn4724 Ah.... define 'withstand nuclear detonations'.
Yes, the hulls physically survived. The superstructure was wrecked. Fire control was a total loss, meaning your guns are now on local control.... assuming they're still functional at all. And the entire crew would have taken a lethal dose of radiation, which imposes it's own degradation of capability...
@@andrewszigeti2174 yeah she also sprung a leak and sunk as a result of the tests my point is she wasnt special for making it as far as she did
@@toothedacorn4724 As much luck as anything else. Seemed to be a common theme among German ships in WWII; one ship of each class got all the luck... and the rest sank.
Superb German gunnery sent HMS Hood to Old Davy Jones Locker .
What you mean is excellent gunnery compounded by a million to one luck sealed HMS Hood's fate.
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 Sir OK
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684he's 100% correct
@@ValleyProud916 No he's only 50% correct.
The German’s took care of Business!
Just as the RN did 3 days later.
Now tell us how Bismark was finally sunk
it's not like the Nazis had a big navy, so if you have to wait for each operation months just so your whole fleet is finally ready, you get nowhere, plus the enemy has more time to prepare for your departure
So I get why they didn't wait, enemy force was split cause they didn't know where they would appear, hence they sank Hood... It was a good call I guess
what ship fight have you planned for russia and ukraine?
2:55 before the British "sherlanderrrrr"
Hood... the largest ship in the world? At that time it was the troop ship Queen Elizabeth.
It was a mistake to build Bismarck and Tirpitz how many U-boats could have been built with that steel and money
then it would be even a huge mistake to build a massive fleet of u boats
How many Flower-class corvettes could have been built with the steel and money from the KGV and Vanguard class battleships?
Germany does not act in a vacuum. If Germany does something, the Allies react to it.
The shot that took out the Hood was a magic bb. Drachinfel has an excellent video on that as at the range the Hood was hit the Bismarck could not penetrate the deck nor the belt. The cliffs notes version is that because of the high speed of the hood a small section of hull below the belt was exposed because of how the water went past the ship. th-cam.com/video/CLPeC7LRqIY/w-d-xo.html
Actually your wrong in that, The Bismarck used High Velocity shells that very well would pen. The problem is that the detonating fuses for the shells were flawed and fewer then 50% ever detonated. The angle that the shell that penned The Hood's powder magazine had to come in at to do what it did could only have been fired by the Prince Eugen. The Bismark didnt sink The Hood. The British Admiralty lied.
@@chrisrmorriscm At the range that he hit happened if it had hit the belt it would not have penetrated. Instead it hit below the belt. Look at the animation and the small section of hull exposed. In that era sea officers constantly discussed the range invulnerability range which varied with what ship you were fighting and for the Hood vs the Bismarck it was 16k yards give or take but the Hood was running at flank speed which exposed a small section of hull below the belt.
There was an expedition to examine the wreckage of the HMS Hood which confirmed plunging shell fire penetrated the light armor deck and instantly igniting Hood’s 15-inch magazine.
“How did the Bismarck manage to sink HMS Hood so quickly?
th-cam.com/video/4_jDaUSSPhc/w-d-xo.html
@@chrisrmorriscm This would be the Prinz Eugen which fired High Explosive rather than Armour Piercing shells throughout the action, I suppose? The Prinz Eugen which, at the time of Hood's explosion, was firing at Prince of Wales?
Oh, and the muzzle velocity of Bismarck's main guns was 2690 fps. That of Hood's 2467 fps, of Rodney's 2614 fps, and of KGV/PoW's 2483 fps. Greater, certainly, but hardly 'High Velocity.'
@@reecom9884 how light was hoods deck? How much drck armour could a 15 inch shell penetrate at this range