My Grandfather was trained on HMS Rodney in 1928. He would go on to command HMS Codrington (RN Destroyer) HMS Acasta (RN Destroyer) before WWII and was mentioned in despatches when the ship he was commanding, HMS Speedwell (RN Minesweeper) picked up 1668 men off the Dunkirk beaches in 1940! I just found his sextant in a marine shop last week and bought it back!
@@thalmoragent9344 A sextant is a navigational device. He must have sold it for money in the 1970's because the documents which came with it show it was re-configured in 1973! The only reason I know it's his is because he had his name carved into the metal and when I googled his name the sextant showed up!
If HMS Hood had been Rodney or Nelson she would not have needed to turn to take on Bismarck with all of her guns. The narrow target would have been much harder to hit.
@@davidelliott5843 And her armour would have given her greater protection than Hood. Unfortunately her low speed compared to Hood would mean that she wouldn't have got to the Denmark Straight in time for the battle and Bismark would have escaped into the Atlantic.
It grows on you! Now when I watch "Sink the Bismarck" I always look for Rodney to show up near the end with its unique shape! Too bad the movie doesn't show more of Rodney's involvement in the final battle with Bismarck.
Well done. It is not uncommon for American evaluation of foreign designs to be dismissive. This was very fair and the presenter was very knowledgeable.
Just think about it for a minute. The Nelson's outgunned and out armoured Bismarck on 13000 tons lower displacement despite entering service 12 years earlier. The only advantage Bismarck had was her speed. The Nelson's really were miracles of naval architecture.
The Bismarck was also inferior in protection firepower to the Colorados. The Treaty of Versailles restrictions gutted the German's ability to design large ships. They were playing catch up with the world. They were using the same kind of distributed armor scheme that they used in WWI.
The Bismark's armour was terribly outdated. it is wrongly remembered as 'semi invincible', but actually its armour made it very difficult to 'sink' but really quite easy to defeat. so many of its critical systems were above the armour, and during the final battle, it was disabled extremely quickly. The myths of invincibility come from the fact that they didn't sink, which is like saying a boxer who loses a fight on points badly is a great boxer for not being knocked out.
@@jamess2873 That's something that's bugged me. It doesn't matter how much the fanbois like to pretend it only sank by being scuttled. It was already reduced to the status of hazard to navigation.
Bismarck was 42,000 and Nelson 35,000 so 7,000 tons difference. Bismarck could make 30 knots and if you stretched Nelson to have the greater length and bigger machinery for her to be a 30 knotter she'd probably be 40,000 easy. As for her armor and firepower yes Nelson was better.
I was never a fan of their look, but I do like the citadel tower. The QE's that got properly modernized, Queen Elizabeth herself and Warspite were, imo, after the modernization, the best looking battleships ever. I wish Warspite had been preserved, but at least she avoided the breaker's yard by taking matters into her own hands.
We got The Royal Sovereign back from the Russians in the early 1960s it was scrapped on the Clyde, we should have preserved it for The Nations of The British Isles but it was discouraged by the devious denizens of Westminster and the BBC and The London Press killed the idea stone dead....
👍 Yeah, I'm American, but I'd put the WW2 updated Warspite in the top 2 or 3 for aesthetics. I like the modern, "modular" look of its superstructure. Another good looking battleship was the WW2 updated USS Tennessee. The Tennessee class were laid down during WW1. But by December 1941, they looked like an outdated design. But after the modernization, the Tennessee looked awesome! For instance, the Iowa class were 888' long x 108' wide. But after her modernization in early 1940s, the USS Tennessee was just 623' long x 114' wide, this meant that she was the widest US battleship ever, making it impossible for her to transit the Panama canal. 👉Here's a photo: m.facebook.com/photo.php/?fbid=1357288684400920
@freebeerfordworkers Strangely enough they're also probably the most thematically "British" ships ever built - at least if you go by the Royal Navy's tradition. The RN's entire philosophy was to close and make battle an close-to-medium range in any circumstance that wasn't absolutely certain defeat. Nelson and Rodney were ships that could only close and engage. They had no option but to get in close (or as close as they could, slow as they were compared to later ships).
Apparently during the chase for Bismark, and with worn out boilers Rodney made 25 knots on overload power. I think they look pretty cool. A very innovative design.
When I was going through my Royal Navy Officer's application process in the mid 1980s, my liaison officer was Capt Evans who, during WW2, served as a gunnery lt on HMS Nelson. He said that the enclosed bridge was hugely appreciated, the rear funnels made it pleasant but the ship was slow, a nightmare to manouever at slow speeds and the length of the propeller shafts made the engineering officer's jobs a nightmare.
I love the shape of the Nelson class battlesips - there is something really sinister, brutal and muscular about that 3 turrets forward layout and the almost futurisitc octagonal bridge. In fact, the set back superstructure and elongated forward section reminds me of a classic American muscle-car: the 69' Corvette Stingray!
Just come across this series and have enjoyed them . This chap know his stuff and seems quiet unbiased in his assessments of the ships from different nations. Very refreshing. Well done.
One thing I find incredible about the NelRods was that even though they were limited in tonnage, they managed to be extremely well-protected, with extremely powerful guns for the time, and even then- for the time, were some of the fastest battleships afloat- making 24 knots on trials. They were my favourite treaty-era battleships, and clearly outshone both the Colerados and Nagatos, and giving Hood a run for her money.
Bismark had just sunk Hood, Rodney stood in gun range and battered it with a hundred hits and did not get the recognition the ship should have, not much of a mention in the movie so hardly anyone knows Rodney name or that she was the unsung hero of the fight.
@@billiardsandsnookervideosn8319 The Admiralty didn't want to admit that a 20 year old battleship out performed their new KG5 battleship. It must be noted that the Admiralty kept the Rodney on a short leash afterwards in case the Tirpitz ever got out into the open sea.
@@tommachut7167 There is no substitute for 16inch guns. Rodney was definitely the right ship in the right place. I think there were a few times Terpitz was going out, or was out but went back worried Rodney may have been lurking. N
My initial reaction to the aesthetics of the HMS Nelson and HMS Rodney was similar to yours but I have since changed my opinion and find them to be an interesting variation on general Battleship design. I've become a fan of these ships. Still...as far as looks go...The KMS Scharnhorst with her Flared Atlantic Bows is my favorite. Of this 'era'.
I'm really enjoying these posts. Keep 'em coming. I met an elderly fellow a few years ago and had a couple of chats with him. He was well into his 90s then, but he'd been on Nelson during the Second World War. He was an interesting person to listen to though his stories were more from an operational rather than design perspective.
@@spaceskipster4412, he was quite an elderly gent and both times I met him he was in my office with his son for business. This meant that our conversations were a bit restricted. I just let him reminisce without questioning him on specfics. He mentioned that they'd been ordered north to participate in the Bismarck pursuit but all was over before they got close. He also talked about the Normandy bombardment. I wish I'd had better opportunities to properly discuss matters with him. Many years ago I did interview army veterans for a couple of books an author in the UK was working on. Those were far more in depth. I'd be happy to share and article I recently wrote about a Second World War RAF pilot I knew, if that is something that interests you. You might, of course, be strictly a naval guy.
I'm always interested in learning more about the British battleships. It also gives our British friends a chance to contribute to the discussion. The American and the Royal Navy worked closely during WWII. With the commissioning of HMS Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales, all of us "in the colonies" are hoping to continue this strong relationship.
Cheeky sod. The Nelsons were superb looking ships. The very epitome of what a battleship should look like; power incarnate. I suspect the Bismarck's crew must've been far from delighted when they saw that one of the capital ships heading directly for them was HMS Rodney.
@@AWMJoeyjoejoe Probably. Though it has been suggested Lutjens surmised that as the older of the two British capital ships, Rodney might be more vulnerable to longer range plunging fire than a new KGV. If so, it was a forlorn hope; the Nelsons' armoured deck ran up to 6.25". More likely, in view of Bismarck's constrained speed, the decision was indeed just to concentrate on the more heavily armed enemy.
@freebeerfordworkers Yep. PoW was brand new and when she sortied with 'Hood' to intercept Bismarck, civilian dockyard and engineering workers were asked if they'd stay onboard in view primarily of the ongoing problems with her quad 14" installations. Lucky they did, although at times during the Denmark Strait action she was still only getting off salvoes of 3 shells out of 10. As you say,The KG5s main battery reliability issues were, never fully resolved though by c1943 they were achieving an acceptable combat performance (Duke Of York in the Scharnhorst action, for eg)
@freebeerfordworkers Well, as stated, PoW was 'brand new' so her repeated main armament malfunctions during the Denmark Strait action were not surprising. As also alluded to, the KG5s 'Quad' installations had been very substantially de-bugged by 1943 and even more so by the time of some of the ships' service in the Pacific in 1945. Wrt Vanguard, it's important to remember both the initial premise on which she was ordered and the subsequent course of events. And that these together determined how and when she was finally completed. As well as that she WAS completed at all As for the 15"/42 cal Mk1, it was one of the best heavy guns of the C20th and though dating from WW1, was still a capable weapon even by WW2 standards. That this was the case is what made the Vanguard proposal for a "one off" capital ship credible to begin with.
@freebeerfordworkers Just want to point out that Prince of Wales fired the shot that doomed Bismarck, rupturing her forward fuel tanks and effectively ending her mission. Even though she was brand new and with unreliable guns she still did some damage.
The Nelson Class were equipped, by way of experiment, to use their main battery against low-flying aircraft while escorting convoys to Malta. A formation of torpedo bombers was engaged, and when all the smoke and spray dispersed they were no longer there, but there's a dispute over whether any were shot down or whether the crews simply saw the light and went home. The the turreted and director-controlled secondary armament was much better than the single, 6" mounts (locally aimed) which were common to the Queen Elizabeth and the Revenge Classes and probably the only secondary battery on any British battleship that might have engaged _cruisers_ with any degree of success. (The 5.25" dual purpose gun on later ships wasn't very effective against cruiser-thickness armour, but I don't think any RN battleship ever had to rely on its secondary battery to deal with a cruiser.)
Wholeheartedly agree with you about their looks. They look like cruiser builders started at the stem and tugboat builders started at the stern, and the money ran out near the middle.
My great grandfather served on Nelson during WW2, I’ve still got his shellback certificate for when he crossed the equator to see the Japanese surrender at Singapore.
from Fraser, husband of Leslie The lower deck, (US = enlisted men), nicknamed the two ships 'Nelsol' and 'Rodnol' as they had the appearance of fleet auxiliary oil tankers ! Apparently there were two of these whose names ended in 'ol'. Also the two battlecruisers Repulse and Renown were nicknamed "Refit" and "Rebuild" as they seemed to always be in dock for repairs or refitting ! Just thought you'd all like to know
@@robertewing3114 also Outrageous - HMS Courageous, Uproarious - HMS Glorious , Curious - HMS Furious and HMS Pepperpot - HMS Penelope (after she was riddled with splinter damage from an air attack)
@@JevansUK ABC Sailed to begin his C-inC Med in the Penelope, which made him and James Somerville Peper and Salt respectively, something to sprinkle on Italian Pola, I mean Pitza or Pizza! Hanging dictators upside down improves their flavour, and certainly the battle of Matapan was a meal of murder. Penelope did it, who would have thought it? And Somerville, twice a knight at his age - signalled ABC.
I have been following some battleship channels for a while, but this video gave some new insights into battleship design issues and how they were solved. Viewers can keep in mind that machinery power output improved dramatically after the 1920's using increased steam pressure boilers, so many nations refitted their machinery spaces and upped the speeds possible and freed up room for other use.
The problem with placing nine 16 Inch guns clustered together is recoil. After her engagement with Bismarck, Rodney had more damage from her own gun's recoil than from enemy fire. She had to go into port for repairs for things like warped bulkheads, sprung fittings, water-tight doors that would not open or close due to bent doorways/bulkheads. So much concussive force concentrated in one area, with all guns firing in the same direction over and over again, was very hard on her hull!
@FalklandsRforeverBritish Not dramatised at all, i can read you the full report, which has a lot more in it than what i listed. This is why in future shore bombardment missions, the ship would engage targets with her guns bow-on when ever possible. This can even be seen in a rare video of a fire mission after D-Day. Don't remember if it was Rodney or Nelson.
According to both Brown and Friedman the Iowas had to have their entire main armament redesigned as the intended 16/50 guns and turrets would not fit the barbette rings so it was not only the RN that had a few problems. Rodney also has the distinction of being the only battleship in history to hit another with a torpedo(the class carried oxygen enriched 24 inch torpedoes in submerged tubes)during the fight with Bismarck
To be fair, the Nelson tried to fit a 45,000 ton ship into a 35,000 ton displacement limit; other navies had some disasters from trying to do stuff like that (i.e. the Mogami-class). Making the Nelsons WITHOUT screwing up or scaling down would have been a miracle.
Indeed had the RN been allowed to build the ship class it so dearly wanted they would have had a ship superior to what became the Iowas in the 1920s in the form of the G3's
@@davidmcintyre8145the G3 would have been faster, better armoured and more heavily armed than any other capital ship until the Yamato class. And Yamato would have only edged them on firepower at that point ON PAPER. I'm pretty sure Ryan did a recent video comparing the guns of NJ and Yamato, and the increased rate of fire of the 16" gun probably more than made up for the difference in broadside weight in practice 😊
Sorry! But I thing they look AMAZING and BEAUTIFUL! I absolutely love the design. Having said, that I also LOVE how the IOWAs look. They were, (and still are) amazing Battleships, and how lucky that they were (at least) turned into museums. How great it would have been, if the Nelsons' were still here as museums. Also, nice work with the videos! I have watched most of your tours of the interior areas of the New Jersey, and it provides another perpective about the Battleship and how it would feel like to work and live there. Keep up the excellent job in preserving those ships, and thus giving us the opportunity to learn about their history.
I learned a lot from this - even though I was well aware of the Nelson's. I also was impressed with your ability to keep an open mind on things. For a guy who works with an Iowa class ship? One might expect you to be extremely partial to them/all things American. Yet you seem to be excellent at 'calling a spade, a spade'. That is most appreciated for historical commentary, imo. Thank you for this. ☮
Nelson and Rodney were, despite being reputed for weathervaning, very manoeuvrable and were the only 2 British capital ships never to accidentally hit the gates at scapa flow
17:00 - I kinda like how the Nelsons look, actually; having all three big turrets in a line at the front makes their firepower more visually striking for me when it's all clustered together, and it just looks kinda neater to have the big turrets all together instead of spread out in the front and back parts of the ship.
Good assessment of the Nelson class, thanks very much. A few years ago, I read some rather 'flag-waiving' official press releases dating from the time they came into service. The location of all three turrets forward was explained, according to this official nonsense, by stating that British battleships don't need guns facing aft...because British battleships never run away ! The age of misinformation has been going on longer than we think ! ;)
It wasn't all just hurrah! -patriotism in the press. That was pretty much Jackie Fisher's way of thinking. And he had a lot of influence way past his retirement.
@@Bird_Dog00 Yes, but the reason given for placing all the turrets forward was not as stated - that's my point. Instead of simply citing the constraints of the Washington treaty, they concocted this vainglorious claptrap.
Well while propagandist the statment is sort of true for how Rodney was expected to operate, ie with pre existing naval supremacy and destroyers behind it to protect it during a retreat if necessary
BISMARCK by WWII standards was not that heavily armored except for the side waterline hull which had that highly-sloped thick Wh armor "turtleback" deck behind the side belt to deflect shells that penetrated intact the belt around the waterline (slightly above or below it). This side hull armor was the WWI-style "don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes" type but souped-up to handle typical circa-15" AP shells with blunt-point noses (the 12.6" KC n/A armor side belt would strip off any AP cap or windscreen from the nose of a penetrating shell). The cost of such a design was that the gap between weather deck (top hull deck) and the thick primary armored deck to which the upper edge of the slope locked several feet inboard of the belt had to be lowered to only just above the waterline, which meant that an entire deck of hull was no longer behind/below the heavy deck armor and could be torn up by shells that punched through the rather thin armor of the weather deck or 5.71" KC n/A armor amidships upper hull side so this additional upper hull was sacrificed to prevent engine/boiler/magazine damage from large-caliber AP shells hitting from the side. (IOWA had its armored 2nd deck only a single deck below its weather deck and meeting the upper edge of the side belt, protecting with heavy armor one additional deck of internal volume to help keep the ship from sinking if flooded.) If the ship did not have to worry about aircraft bombs or ship- or aircraft-launched torpedoes causing flooding damage that would lower the hull in the water, this would have been acceptable (shells in the engines or magazines are stopped better here). But at longer range, shells would be hitting the flat deck armor due to their long fuze delays and, except for the area over the main magazines, the added weight of the sloped deck sides caused the flat deck over the large engine and boiler rooms to be thinned down to only 3.2" Wh armor, much too thin to stop anything larger than heavy cruiser shells. Also, as more AA guns and such were added to BISMARCK, the armored deck began to end up below the waterline, allowing flooding over the entire inside of the ship above it if torn up by shell fragments and any significant flooding of the lower hull for any reason occurred (singe torpedo hit, even). BISMARCK was totally designed for close-in WWI-type fighting, possibly assuming that bad weather in the North Sea would prevent long-range gunfights using optical directors/range-finders (no radar, remember). BISMARCK was thus in some ways the last WWI-era battleship design, being a kind of "super-HOOD" battle-cruiser in concept (nobody in the German Navy thought that the BISMARCK Class was going to defy the British on a one-on-one battleship gunfight level). As opposed to this, NELSON and RODNEY, as mentioned, were supposed to be the first "modern" post-WWI battle-cruiser concept ships with their engine rooms cut down to keep their weight under the new limits, resulting in battleships that were about the same speed as the faster WWI-era ships, not the high-speed designs replacing HOOD originally envisaged. They had the thin deck armor over the engine/boiler rooms that BISMARCK also had, though the armor was one deck higher, as in IOWA, to help increase the ability to take some flooding without sinking. The British lightweight 2049-pound 16" Mark IB AP shells were the first version of the new long-windscreen "B" pattern for reduced air drag and longer range flight, though their design was unique to British AP shells in that the nose was not a curved single arc-of-circle shape ("Secant Ogive" if the joint with the upper edge of the cylindrical side has a shoulder of crease, indicating a longer, more pointed nose shape, and "Tangent Ogive if they merge smoothly with no crease), but a long cone-shaped nose with a rounded shoulder at the shell side joint. This shape of nose was also used by the Japanese in their later Type 91 AP shells introduced in 1931 and in many US Army artillery shells, as it gave reduced drag, but it also made the nose narrower and lighter in weight and when this kind of lightweight AP shell was no longer considered a good idea due to barrel wear problems, the British reverted back to their WWI-era basic shell design with a new "B" nose shape with a thicker, heavier AP cap and nose and a long Secant Ogive curved windscreen to get the increased range (required older ships to have their magazines and shell handling devises modified and only some of their older ships got this upgrade, while others, like HOOD, had to use the improved WWII AP shells that retained the basic end-of-WWI shorter, less-streamlined "A" nose shape, which was slightly lighter in weight due to less cap width and less windscreen length, though otherwise virtually identical to the "B"-nosed heavy shells used by the improved ships.. The use of a high-velocity, lightweight AP shell to get added range with guns that could elevate much higher than the older ships could (even after overhauls the older 15"-gunned ships never could elevate their guns as high as RODNAY and NELSON could) was compromised due to the higher gun wear and ship weight-restriction rules imposed on post-Washington Treaty warships -- the latter causing ship blast shock problems due to not-quite-adequate hull strength. Though much was very slowly fixed over the years, the design was considered a failure and never repeated. (IOWA, like the other new US battleships of WWII, used an exaggerated concept of the British heavy shell/lower-velocity gun pattern used prior to and after NELSON and RODNEY, elevating their guns to the same high angle as NELSON and RODNEY to get the maximum possible range, but using the increased weight of the "super-heavy" new AP shell design, with a long streamlined shape much like the British "B" nose design, to reduced air resistance by inertia to keep the longer range, not just a higher velocity that could be lost and still have enough to get to the longer range. The US shells would also penetrate better against deck armor due to more weight giving them better energy retention at those long ranges than any lightweight shell could. The lightweight, high-velocity shell concept was only really viable for short-range fire against face-hardened hull/turret side armor and the great improvements in fire-control were assumed to make long-range fighting more probable -- actually, during WWII most battleship battles turned out to be at rather short range, better fire-control not withstanding, so "go figure"...)
Completely off subject but I just needed to share Today after my bike ride I got to meet a member of the flying tigers. Never got his name. Though I did give a stern 2 finger salute and thanked him for his service 96 years old 🙌
I absolutely love "The Ugly Duckling Look" of the "NELROD's" ! Yes, they did look exactly like a modern Container Ship as, if it was converted into a Battlewagon but, that's what makes them Cool in my opinion !
The Nelsons may have been ugly, but they did have a lot of firepower. The US even considered copying the Nelsons when designing the North Carolinas. Early designs of the North Carolinas had all three turrets forward of the superstructure.
Och...The eye of the beholder...For me, ever since, as a kid at the fireside, quietly listening in awe...from those of mine who knew her... they were beloved, truly spectacular, brilliantly designed, 'Crusader Castles on the sea.'' There's the great auld tale, famous through-out the fleet, of when, on one Christmas Eves' night, early in the war, a plucky little RCN Flower Class Corvette, all alone, in a winter's gale, deep off Newfoundland, in howling monstrous conditions, picked up a 'Ghostly' radar blip at extreme range, and challenged...'' You!.. Identify.. or we will engage!''... Reply: ''Flower''... ''This is Nelson''...'' Carry on Canada, and your Grand wee Navy!!''... ''Merry Christmas''.🍁 🩸 🥃 Reply: ''God Bless you everyone Nelson''..... ''Merry Christmas''....''Pass''.
Thanks very much for making this video on HMS Nelson & Rodney as it was my request, originally. Lots of great info covered here. However, one issue I would have liked to have had addressed would be the advantages or disadvantages of the main battery arrangement in terms of arcs of fire for this ship design vs. the more traditional layout as in Battleship New Jersey. I believe Turret 3 was significantly limited in its arc of fire and also when trained fully aft, would cause blast damage to the superstructure. And, of course, there is no main battery coverage for targets behind the ship. Do you have comments on these points? What were the firing arc positives over a traditional layout?
Yep, it's an impressively polished performance with very few errors or omissions, and no really serious ones at all. To address your questions and remarks on blast and arcs of fire, they're also well made and knowledgeable. So... to the best of my own knowledge, in fact the blast damage was not especially serious structurally, being limited mainly to lighter deck fittings. YET it was inconvenient to say the least and turret 3 OR the superfiring turret 2 did not have to be trained fully aft to inflict it. Firing on ANY bearing aft of 90 degrees (broadside) might and usually did break most of the glass in the bridge windows. The upshot being that in peacetime, firing arc was restricted to that 90 degree max. The problem was eventually mitigated by reducing the size of the bridge windows and fitting blast deflectors beneath them. In wartime of course it was accepted that damage of this sort would occur. The Nelsons' designed 'B' arc was 60 degrees (30 deg port and 30 deg stbd of straight aft) so theoretically the guns could be trained to bear on a target up to 60 degrees aft of dead-abeam. In practice however, I suspect any remotely sane captain would order a change of course of at minimum 5 or more likely 10 degrees to permit any target to be engaged at a more comfortable 50 degrees aft, or preferably less than that... and after all, it's not as if these ships either could, or in any case would be trying to outrun anything. OK, during the Bismarck's sortie HMS Rodney did, amazingly, manage to attain 25kts, but in an attempt to pursue and close the enemy, not to escape. Which brings us to your closing question. The firing arc positive was that in the immensely more likely case a Nelson was trying to engage a maybe understandably reluctant enemy BB, all nine main battery guns could be more easily brought to bear without need for a very large change in course.
No positives over a conventional layout. The benefit was a reduced length citadel that could be armoured against 16" shellfire whilst on a restricted displacement.
My father served aboard the Nelson and briefly on the Rodney during WW2. He commented that the gunnery of the secondary armament (pre radar-controlled) during firing practice in 1940 was appalling. While escorting a convoy to Malta he was aboard when Nelson was torpedoed by an S.M.79. His locker was flooded and his tank watch which he kept as a memento was ruined. He later served aboard the Malaya, u.S.S.South Dakota ( as liaison communications with our Home Fleet) during her spell as distant cover for Russian convoys, as well as Valiant. Unlike many shipmates he survived. You could choose which of the services you were conscripted into and given the appalling losses of trench warfare during WW1 he chose the NAVY which unfortunately like our Bomber Command had the highest loss of life!. 👍🏻🏴
It should be noted the Nelson's were actually among the first, possibly THE first, ships with "dual purpose" secondaries in turrets. Although they were not entirely successful in that role because they traversed too slowly....the 6" gun batteries were designed to be capable of high angle elevation to fire at aircraft. And while the slow traverse prevented accurate targeting, the range and power of the 6" when firing high explosive shells in barrage would likely have contributed to making they sky above the Nelson's a dangerous place for attacking planes. Though, I'm not sure if by WW II the 6" were actually used in that role anymore, they were capable of it.
You missed one important issue with the design, which the Rodney suffered from particularly - because weight was saved by cutting back on bracing, hogging (flexing of the hull in high seas) caused the seams to open up in the bow. This was made worse by the hammering that Rodney endured during the chase to catch Bismark and was never fully addressed. My dad joined the ship in June of 1941 and told us that the pumps had to be run almost flat out just to stop her sinking.
You are correct. And the British managed to keep this highly effective design a secret for many decades. Some people say the British cheated but anyone could have done the same thing IF they had thought of it. It's not the UK's fault no one tried to do the same. This is in direct contrast to the Japanese and German methods which bluntly lied and broke solemn treaty's. Why some people seems to think this was smart of them I cannot understand. Applying that logic to today they would be applauding nations building and stockpiling NCB weapons.
The G3 and the N3 were similar to the german H-43, and H-44 designs. They were a mental exercise before the Naval treaties, and when the treaties were announced they were hurridly put together to look like a proper design so they would have something on the negotiating table, where the others at the table were building actual ships. Both the Japanese, and the U.S. were building actual ships that would be superior in every way to british ships, while the british were unable to pay for ships and crews they already had let alone new ships. Thus the Washington Naval Treaty was born, and the British wonderships were thrown out as new wonder weapons.
@@admiralakbar9673 The Admiralty definitely paid a shipyard to start construction but there is no photographic evidence of it getting as far as laying down a keel
@@justinarchibald3857 I think the design process for G3 / N 3 was a bit further along than just a mental exercise.....the long lead items like the triple 16' gun turret was already in development and on order.
I like them, very unique concept. Nothing else quite matches them except maybe French Richelieu Class Battleships with their 2 quad turrets. There has to be some downside to this layout as from what I understand, once the Escalater clause kicked in and war broke out, these naval treaties went out the window. I mean there has to be a drawback as once there was no limits on battleship size or armament, they never built a improved version on the NelRods, like with 4 screws, or more range, or armor, ect
They may look ugly to you but if one was 10 miles away and coming at you angled at 10° you could admire the 9 flashes from 16 inch guns sending shells in your direction.
Both, tbh. They were in essence a scaled back N3 with G3 armament.. + some innovative new ideas to maintain very high levels of protection on the treaty displacement limit
Nelson and Rodney were nicknamed "the Oil Tankers" because, from a distance, they resembled that type of ship, with a long low fore part, and the superstructure far aft.
Interesting video. My father served on HMS Rodney. Bags of great background and technical information, the first time I have heard some of this detail. I totally disagree about their smooth, streamlined look. They are beautiful and elegant. Could I politely suggest a tiny bit more prep to allow more ease of flow in your presentation? Thank you
As, at 23 knots they Nelsols were fast enough to out-pace any other battle fleet, and the reasons for the loss of the battlecruisers were, for the most part, not the defeat of their armour, munition handling issues were far more to blame. Little surprise in the similarities in some of the features of US and RN ships, as for much of WW1, the interwar years and WW2 the two navies had pretty much open book relationships. The looks? Love them myself, far more modern looking than any other battleship, and far more in line with current designs. Very much look forward to your piece/s on the G3s and N3s
Agreed, other ships are "I'm here to look pretty and shoot things". Meanwhile Rodney and Nelson were "I'm here to kill you, nothing more, nothing less".
Because the funnels were so far aft, and because of the rearwards placement of the superstructure, the ships reminded the sailors of oil tankers and so were nicknamed the 'Nelsol' and the 'Rodnol'....
Nice video, I've done quiet a bit of reading on the 1920s program and DNC Eustace T D'Enycourt had wanted to push all the turrets fore of the machinery space for the reason of he felt that with a thick armour deck was required for the range of naval combat their was a risk that the expected chase or closure to decisive range would expose these to the danger of a shell slipping through the holes cut for the boiler uptakes and on into the aft magazine. With the rearrangement they would only be vulnerable from within the blind spot. The 6 inch gun on Nelrods were designed as dual purpose but of course aircraft performance outstripped their train and elevation rates by the 30s as with the 8 inch guns on the County class cruiser.
There wasnt any British bases on the continent of Antarctica until 1943 and then quite a few in the 50's. However a Refueling station was maintained in the Falkland islands 1000km to the north that covered the British Antarctic and Sub Antarctic islands for several hundred years.
[Continued] Fourth, the ability of a blunt hardened cap (not a factor in soft or tough caps) to assist penetrating sloped homogeneous, ductile armor depends on the corner of the hard face (acting as the "chin" of the shell on initial impact, even if the cap is broken during the penetration process) digging a notch into the plate that starts the plate surface to bend upward in front of the shell. The sharpness of the corner of the cap where the edge of the face of the cap meets the upper edge of the cap side ("skirt") is the important factor here. From what I now understand, the amount of notching does not matter, no matter what shape the cap edge is, so you always get the same, roughly, bonus: A drop of 12% in the necessary velocity to penetrate the plate completely. Just WHEN the bonus applies gets complicated and I have only limited data. The typical US Army or Navy WWII hard cap had about a 150-degree angle at this corner (a very blunt conical face and a tapering skirt that conformed to the narrowing of the windscreen for drag reduction; there were several variations of this, but the ones issued during WWII all complied to this design, whether the windscreen was screwed onto the edge of the cap or, in early US Navy WWII caps, screwed into the softer steel near the bottom of the skirt with the upper cap inside and hidden from view. The later German AP caps in their tank and anti-tank guns used a very similar cap edge design. A sharper corner, such as used by the Japanese Type 88, Type 91, and final Type 1 AP shells with the Cap Head instantly knocked off at all impact angles over 45 degrees, had about a 105-degree angle for the edge, while the German and British "Knob-and-Ring" AP caps (Krupp and Firth/Firth-Brown) with a large done over the tip of the nose and a wide "Saturn Ring" nearly flat region to the edge of the cap face, where the angle was also about 100-105 degrees. The US Army/Navy and later German Army AP caps required about at least a half-caliber plate at 50 degrees obliquity to have the beneficial bonus effect to penetration. As the obliquity increase, the plate thickness steadily dropped down to only about 0.2-caliber at near 80 degrees (above 80 degrees I assume the projectile always ricochets). This is due to the thinner plates for each angle being able to dent ("dish") downward and the sharp edge of the cap not being able to "get its foot in the door" to cause the needed chisel action. With a sharper edge like the noted naval caps, I assume (I have almost no data) that the needed minimum thickness for any given obliquity would go down due to better chisel action, perhaps by 25% or so under the US test data, though this is just a guess. Note that caps with no corners, such as the post-WWI contoured Hadfield AP caps (used intermixed with Firth/Firth-Brown caps randomly I assume, as both were used as issued by whatever was in the shore station's magazines at the time the ship came in) or any French AP shell even-more-contoured AP caps, get NO bonus EVER for the cap being there, other than a general blunter-nose-shape bonus/penalty if the cap remains intact during most of the penetration (if it shatters on impact, then it gives no shape bonus/penalty, either). Unfortunately, I have little data on much of this topic, either with non-US AP caps or nose shape effects for more than a very few special cases. This is a very complicated topic. It demonstrates how complicated the universe really is, since we are just talking about two pieces of metal being banged together. No wonder biology is complicated almost beyond belief...
A worthy description. My only criticicm would be "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" perhaps ? I prefer to think that HMS Nelson and Rodney "had prescence" . . ? My father had worked on HMS Rodney, during WW2, at its original constructors, Cammell Laird, of Birkenhead, on the River Mersey estuary.
I have always wondered why they put the super-firing 16" turret in the "B" position instead of the "C" position. The citadel length would have been identical. Having the taller barbette in the "C" position would put it closer to the center of buoyancy and improve load distribution. Also, having the super-firing turret in the "C" will allow the "B" turret to fire forward over the "A" turret at long range where it can elevate sufficiently.
Best guess? Having the superfiring turret so close to the superstructure would’ve caused serious problems. I vaguely recall the Royal Navy spending much of the 1920’s working on reinforcing the superstructure to cope with that.
@@Cailus3542 Well... as far as the blast is concerned, having the non-superfiring turret in that position have the same problems. As a matter of fact, a superfiring turret would have been "kinder" to the superstructure and stuff on the deck like the forward pair of 6" MK XXII as the muzzles will not be as close to the deck when firing towards the rear quadrant and the blast would not be reflected as intensely from it.
Actually the British tower style superstructure (or Queen Anne's mansions) as they were called were highly effective and much superior to the old bridge design used on ships like the Iowa's. It provided dry conditions to the people who controlled the ship in battle and suffered from much less vibration, which was a good thing for the range finding equipment. Personally I like that bridge design While good ships the Iowa's had severe flaws you skip over. The long narrow bow had little reserve buoyancy and would have caused problems if they faced another Battleship which hit them there. The bow also had problems dealing with the heavy weather more commonly found in the Atlantic. in rough seas HMS Vanguard was easily able to keep pace with them due to her vastly more seaworthy design. A fight between Vanguard and New Jersey in bad weather would greatly favor the British ship. I think your passion for the Iowa's makes you overlook their flaws and prevents a fair comparison. A fight between Nelson and an Iowa would be a close thing pitting speed vs superior armour. Also the Nelson's were much lighter ships and given the pace of technology advances, several generations older. An much fairer match up would be New Jersey vs a modernized G3. And I think I know where I'd place my money on that fight.
The state of both ships and their load out affects seakeeping. I have seen it suggested that during Operation Mariner in the 50's when Iowa and Vanguard sailed together, their load out may not have been similar. According to some sources, Vanguard seldom carried much ammunition on board a majority of the time. The Iowa often carried a significant ready load. This would make Iowa heavier, affect bouyancy, and lower freeboard. Vanguard would perhaps not have sailed as much more "dry" to the same degree loaded down in the same fashion. Nevertheless, Vanguard did have a reputation for being a fine seaboat.
I agree. A lot of Americans are under the mistaken impression that the Iowa's were perfect battleships. It's true they are very impressive and are excellent ships, but they are still under gunned and under armoured for their size. They sacrificed protection and seakeeping for speed. The South Dakota's had very similar armour and armament on 13,000 tons lower displacement. That's a lot of extra displacement just to buy a few knots extra speed.
@@AWMJoeyjoejoe - the fact that so many enthusiasts are interested in “what if” alternative histrionics is, in fact, quite revealing: battleships had so precious little historical impact on actual 20th Century Warfare outcomes.
@@petersouthernboy6327 Vanguard would probably be like Renown with an extra capacity to be used only if needed. The "only if needed" part was rather hard to impose on Renown, once the crew found that they could call up an extra 40,000 hp with no problems being experienced it proved difficult to get that particular genie back in the bottle.
While watching the "making of" features on the Lord of the rings DVDs I saw the design meetings about the URUK HAI and they were only armoured on the front because they were designed to be super agressive, never retreat so would never show their back to the enemy. Rang a distant bell and then I thought " Aaah! the HMS Rodney".
Regarding her AA by the end of the war her AA suite included 6 4.7 inch AA guns, 16 40 mm Bofors and 61 20 mm Oerlikons as well as multiple different radar types and directors so all in all not bad
FYI Rodney while on route to the US for a well deserved refit was diverted to confront Bismarck, where she maintained 25 knots in pursuit, and don't forget unlike the Iowa class Nelson and Rodney like most other RN Battleships could fire line ahead without flooding the forward gun turrets.
There is the story that when Rodney & King George V met up Admiral Tovey asked the Rodney`s captain what speed he could make. Dalrymple-Hamilton replied 22 knots. Tovey ordered a fleet speed of 22 knots. Shortly after, as Rodney began to drop behind, Rodney signalled "regret to inform you that your 22 knots is a bit faster than mine".
what are the ladders on (the front) the 16 inch Mark 7 guns on the New Jersey used for? also did the New Jersey and her sister ships ( Iowa, Missouri, and Wisconsin) have "smoke generators" installed during their construction?
The answer to your question about the ladders is simple, to allow access to the turret roof. During WWII there were 20mm or 40mm AA guns mounted on the roofs of #2 and #3 turrets, plus even without equipment mounted up there the crew still needs easy access for routine maintenance including 'chipping and painting' (some things never change.) Smoke generators? I don't recall reading about chemical 'smoke generators' being installed on any of the battleships like they were in destroyers and other light forces. Oil fired ships were capable of generating big billowing clouds of black oil smoke (just like you see in the movies) by varying the ratio of fuel to air being fed to the boiler fireboxes, cut the amount of air being forced into the firebox and increasing the amount of fuel means that the oil doesn't burn completely, the smoke is actually vaporized, unburned fuel oil for the most part.
Excellent content! I learned a lot watching this video. I would like to mention that the Nelson and Rodney got bad marks in some quarters for having weak structures. As I understand it wood was used structurally in the deck. Rodney in particular suffered deck damage from the use of her main armament. Also I disagree with the comment about appearance! I think they look awesome! Best regards and keep up the good work!
I think the Iowa class battleship design is the sleekest design where everything just seems to fit and looks like it belongs where it should. I can't see that with the "Nel-Rods."
![[TH] JFT vs RLF - VCT Ascension Pacific - Day 2](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/PuIH7w_jO6c/mqdefault.jpg)
My Grandfather was trained on HMS Rodney in 1928. He would go on to command HMS Codrington (RN Destroyer) HMS Acasta (RN Destroyer) before WWII and was mentioned in despatches when the ship he was commanding, HMS Speedwell (RN Minesweeper) picked up 1668 men off the Dunkirk beaches in 1940! I just found his sextant in a marine shop last week and bought it back!
What's a Sextant? And how did he lose it to a Marine Shop?
@@thalmoragent9344 A sextant is a navigational device. He must have sold it for money in the 1970's because the documents which came with it show it was re-configured in 1973! The only reason I know it's his is because he had his name carved into the metal and when I googled his name the sextant showed up!
Great story and glad you found a piece of your family's history.
@@thalmoragent9344 FFS could you not Google it?
Fantastic find!
I actually find Nelson class a quite good looking ship. Brutalistic superstructure and three turrets up front in a row mean all business.
it's like; naw, I'm shooting you with ALL my guns, NOW
Kinda an 'I don't retreat' attitude.
If HMS Hood had been Rodney or Nelson she would not have needed to turn to take on Bismarck with all of her guns. The narrow target would have been much harder to hit.
@@davidelliott5843 And her armour would have given her greater protection than Hood. Unfortunately her low speed compared to Hood would mean that she wouldn't have got to the Denmark Straight in time for the battle and Bismark would have escaped into the Atlantic.
It grows on you! Now when I watch "Sink the Bismarck" I always look for Rodney to show up near the end with its unique shape! Too bad the movie doesn't show more of Rodney's involvement in the final battle with Bismarck.
Well done. It is not uncommon for American evaluation of foreign designs to be dismissive. This was very fair and the presenter was very knowledgeable.
Just think about it for a minute. The Nelson's outgunned and out armoured Bismarck on 13000 tons lower displacement despite entering service 12 years earlier. The only advantage Bismarck had was her speed. The Nelson's really were miracles of naval architecture.
The Bismarck was also inferior in protection firepower to the Colorados. The Treaty of Versailles restrictions gutted the German's ability to design large ships. They were playing catch up with the world. They were using the same kind of distributed armor scheme that they used in WWI.
The Bismark's armour was terribly outdated. it is wrongly remembered as 'semi invincible', but actually its armour made it very difficult to 'sink' but really quite easy to defeat. so many of its critical systems were above the armour, and during the final battle, it was disabled extremely quickly. The myths of invincibility come from the fact that they didn't sink, which is like saying a boxer who loses a fight on points badly is a great boxer for not being knocked out.
@@jamess2873 That's something that's bugged me. It doesn't matter how much the fanbois like to pretend it only sank by being scuttled. It was already reduced to the status of hazard to navigation.
Bismarck was 42,000 and Nelson 35,000 so 7,000 tons difference. Bismarck could make 30 knots and if you stretched Nelson to have the greater length and bigger machinery for her to be a 30 knotter she'd probably be 40,000 easy.
As for her armor and firepower yes Nelson was better.
@@ingurlund9657 I was going off combat loaded displacement, 37k tons for Nelson and 50k tons for Bismarck.
I was never a fan of their look, but I do like the citadel tower. The QE's that got properly modernized, Queen Elizabeth herself and Warspite were, imo, after the modernization, the best looking battleships ever. I wish Warspite had been preserved, but at least she avoided the breaker's yard by taking matters into her own hands.
Yes.
Warspite has a very modern look. QE was slightly different.
We got The Royal Sovereign back from the Russians in the early 1960s it was scrapped on the Clyde, we should have preserved it for The Nations of The British Isles but it was discouraged by the devious denizens of Westminster and the BBC and The London Press killed the idea stone dead....
👍 Yeah, I'm American, but I'd put the WW2 updated Warspite in the top 2 or 3 for aesthetics. I like the modern, "modular" look of its superstructure. Another good looking battleship was the WW2 updated USS Tennessee. The Tennessee class were laid down during WW1. But by December 1941, they looked like an outdated design. But after the modernization, the Tennessee looked awesome!
For instance, the Iowa class were 888' long x 108' wide. But after her modernization in early 1940s, the USS Tennessee was just 623' long x 114' wide, this meant that she was the widest US battleship ever, making it impossible for her to transit the Panama canal.
👉Here's a photo: m.facebook.com/photo.php/?fbid=1357288684400920
Few US battleships that were damaged or sunk in Pearl were modernized as well and they look like a South Dakota class
the nelson class: business up front, party out back.
So the "mullet" battleships.
@freebeerfordworkers Strangely enough they're also probably the most thematically "British" ships ever built - at least if you go by the Royal Navy's tradition. The RN's entire philosophy was to close and make battle an close-to-medium range in any circumstance that wasn't absolutely certain defeat.
Nelson and Rodney were ships that could only close and engage. They had no option but to get in close (or as close as they could, slow as they were compared to later ships).
@@bairdrew The British propaganda at the time said they had all guns forward because the RN "never retreats".
Apparently during the chase for Bismark, and with worn out boilers Rodney made 25 knots on overload power. I think they look pretty cool. A very innovative design.
For me they didn't look awful at all, they were one the best looking and unique battleship design ever. They look so menace and scary to face against.
I agree. They look to me like a Knight in armour.
Germans of Bismarck felt that.
When I was going through my Royal Navy Officer's application process in the mid 1980s, my liaison officer was Capt Evans who, during WW2, served as a gunnery lt on HMS Nelson. He said that the enclosed bridge was hugely appreciated, the rear funnels made it pleasant but the ship was slow, a nightmare to manouever at slow speeds and the length of the propeller shafts made the engineering officer's jobs a nightmare.
I love the shape of the Nelson class battlesips - there is something really sinister, brutal and muscular about that 3 turrets forward layout and the almost futurisitc octagonal bridge. In fact, the set back superstructure and elongated forward section reminds me of a classic American muscle-car: the 69' Corvette Stingray!
@@ObsydianShade yesss
Sinister.......good word 👍
Wish I'd kept mine! (Stingray that is).
Just come across this series and have enjoyed them . This chap know his stuff and seems quiet unbiased in his assessments of the ships from different nations. Very refreshing. Well done.
One thing I find incredible about the NelRods was that even though they were limited in tonnage, they managed to be extremely well-protected, with extremely powerful guns for the time, and even then- for the time, were some of the fastest battleships afloat- making 24 knots on trials.
They were my favourite treaty-era battleships, and clearly outshone both the Colerados and Nagatos, and giving Hood a run for her money.
Rodney turned Bismarck into a floating wreck. Such a shame her achievements are barely remembered.
rodney battered a listing battleship with an inoperative rudder
@@PolarisIII and blown off fire control cables, so the Bismarck wasn’t able to fire accurately
Bismark had just sunk Hood, Rodney stood in gun range and battered it with a hundred hits and did not get the recognition the ship should have, not much of a mention in the movie so hardly anyone knows Rodney name or that she was the unsung hero of the fight.
@@billiardsandsnookervideosn8319 The Admiralty didn't want to admit that a 20 year old battleship out performed their new KG5 battleship. It must be noted that the Admiralty kept the Rodney on a short leash afterwards in case the Tirpitz ever got out into the open sea.
@@tommachut7167 There is no substitute for 16inch guns. Rodney was definitely the right ship in the right place. I think there were a few times Terpitz was going out, or was out but went back worried Rodney may have been lurking.
N
I like the lines of the Nelson and Rodney. They look mean and the superstructure has a medieval, menacing appearance - perfect for the Royal Navy.
My initial reaction to the aesthetics of the HMS Nelson and HMS Rodney was similar to yours but I have since changed my opinion and find them to be an interesting variation on general Battleship design. I've become a fan of these ships. Still...as far as looks go...The KMS Scharnhorst with her Flared Atlantic Bows is my favorite. Of this 'era'.
I'm really enjoying these posts. Keep 'em coming. I met an elderly fellow a few years ago and had a couple of chats with him. He was well into his 90s then, but he'd been on Nelson during the Second World War. He was an interesting person to listen to though his stories were more from an operational rather than design perspective.
What did he do onboard? It would be interesting to hear about his experiences. 👍🏼 🇬🇧 😊
@@spaceskipster4412, he was quite an elderly gent and both times I met him he was in my office with his son for business. This meant that our conversations were a bit restricted. I just let him reminisce without questioning him on specfics. He mentioned that they'd been ordered north to participate in the Bismarck pursuit but all was over before they got close. He also talked about the Normandy bombardment. I wish I'd had better opportunities to properly discuss matters with him. Many years ago I did interview army veterans for a couple of books an author in the UK was working on. Those were far more in depth. I'd be happy to share and article I recently wrote about a Second World War RAF pilot I knew, if that is something that interests you. You might, of course, be strictly a naval guy.
And of course Rodney was the only battleship to successfully torpedo another one
It's not totally sure tho...
@@Mgaming61 close enough
@@Mgaming61
I heard Rodney got 1 torpedo hit out of 8 fired versus Bismarck.
@@HighlanderNorth1 It's not totally confirmed, many sources say yes! Others say otherwise...
Torpedoes on a battleship? What "genius" thought up that "brilliant" idea?
The extent of your knowledge and enthusiasm is mighty impressive Sir!
I'm always interested in learning more about the British battleships. It also gives our British friends a chance to contribute to the discussion. The American and the Royal Navy worked closely during WWII. With the commissioning of HMS Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales, all of us "in the colonies" are hoping to continue this strong relationship.
Cheeky sod. The Nelsons were superb looking ships. The very epitome of what a battleship should look like; power incarnate. I suspect the Bismarck's crew must've been far from delighted when they saw that one of the capital ships heading directly for them was HMS Rodney.
Bismarck targeted Rodney first, despite it being the older ship. That shows how feared these ships were.
@@AWMJoeyjoejoe Probably. Though it has been suggested Lutjens surmised that as the older of the two British capital ships, Rodney might be more vulnerable to longer range plunging fire than a new KGV. If so, it was a forlorn hope; the Nelsons' armoured deck ran up to 6.25". More likely, in view of Bismarck's constrained speed, the decision was indeed just to concentrate on the more heavily armed enemy.
@freebeerfordworkers Yep. PoW was brand new and when she sortied with 'Hood' to intercept Bismarck, civilian dockyard and engineering workers were asked if they'd stay onboard in view primarily of the ongoing problems with her quad 14" installations. Lucky they did, although at times during the Denmark Strait action she was still only getting off salvoes of 3 shells out of 10. As you say,The KG5s main battery reliability issues were, never fully resolved though by c1943 they were achieving an acceptable combat performance (Duke Of York in the Scharnhorst action, for eg)
@freebeerfordworkers Well, as stated, PoW was 'brand new' so her repeated main armament malfunctions during the Denmark Strait action were not surprising. As also alluded to, the KG5s 'Quad' installations had been very substantially de-bugged by 1943 and even more so by the time of some of the ships' service in the Pacific in 1945.
Wrt Vanguard, it's important to remember both the initial premise on which she was ordered and the subsequent course of events. And that these together determined how and when she was finally completed. As well as that she WAS completed at all
As for the 15"/42 cal Mk1, it was one of the best heavy guns of the C20th and though dating from WW1, was still a capable weapon even by WW2 standards. That this was the case is what made the Vanguard proposal for a "one off" capital ship credible to begin with.
@freebeerfordworkers Just want to point out that Prince of Wales fired the shot that doomed Bismarck, rupturing her forward fuel tanks and effectively ending her mission. Even though she was brand new and with unreliable guns she still did some damage.
The Nelson Class were equipped, by way of experiment, to use their main battery against low-flying aircraft while escorting convoys to Malta. A formation of torpedo bombers was engaged, and when all the smoke and spray dispersed they were no longer there, but there's a dispute over whether any were shot down or whether the crews simply saw the light and went home. The the turreted and director-controlled secondary armament was much better than the single, 6" mounts (locally aimed) which were common to the Queen Elizabeth and the Revenge Classes and probably the only secondary battery on any British battleship that might have engaged _cruisers_ with any degree of success. (The 5.25" dual purpose gun on later ships wasn't very effective against cruiser-thickness armour, but I don't think any RN battleship ever had to rely on its secondary battery to deal with a cruiser.)
♫ Come, cheer up, my lads, 'tis to glory we steer... ♫
Their majestic dilatoriousness, said ABC, when answering their helm...
Wholeheartedly agree with you about their looks. They look like cruiser builders started at the stem and tugboat builders started at the stern, and the money ran out near the middle.
The most beautiful battleships ever. They look like art deco power boats. A pity they didn't go like powerboats. Even today they look futuristic.
@FalklandsRforeverBritish I said it looks like a power boat not goes like one, read the post. The design is classic 1920's modernism. I am British.
My great grandfather served on Nelson during WW2, I’ve still got his shellback certificate for when he crossed the equator to see the Japanese surrender at Singapore.
These are the most menacing looking ships ever built. No retreat, no surrender, only forward, firing.
Very Royal Navy tradition in fact.
from Fraser, husband of Leslie
The lower deck, (US = enlisted men), nicknamed the two ships 'Nelsol' and 'Rodnol' as they had the appearance of fleet auxiliary oil tankers ! Apparently there were two of these whose names ended in 'ol'.
Also the two battlecruisers Repulse and Renown were nicknamed "Refit" and "Rebuild" as they seemed to always be in dock for repairs or refitting !
Just thought you'd all like to know
Refit and Repair!
@@robertewing3114 also Outrageous - HMS Courageous, Uproarious - HMS Glorious , Curious - HMS Furious and HMS Pepperpot - HMS Penelope (after she was riddled with splinter damage from an air attack)
@@JevansUK ABC Sailed to begin his C-inC Med in the Penelope, which made him and James Somerville Peper and Salt respectively, something to sprinkle on Italian Pola, I mean Pitza or Pizza! Hanging dictators upside down improves their flavour, and certainly the battle of Matapan was a meal of murder. Penelope did it, who would have thought it? And Somerville, twice a knight at his age - signalled ABC.
I know Renown and Repulse were rushed back to the dockyard to be massively up-armoured, their original armour spec was pitiful.
@FalklandsRforeverBritish there were also hms pork and hms pine which made the broken hms porcupine after she was torpedoed.
I have been following some battleship channels for a while, but this video gave some new insights into battleship design issues and how they were solved. Viewers can keep in mind that machinery power output improved dramatically after the 1920's using increased steam pressure boilers, so many nations refitted their machinery spaces and upped the speeds possible and freed up room for other use.
The problem with placing nine 16 Inch guns clustered together is recoil. After her engagement with Bismarck, Rodney had more damage from her own gun's recoil than from enemy fire. She had to go into port for repairs for things like warped bulkheads, sprung fittings, water-tight doors that would not open or close due to bent doorways/bulkheads. So much concussive force concentrated in one area, with all guns firing in the same direction over and over again, was very hard on her hull!
Bulllllshiiiit
Rodney's list of repairs after the battle is well documented.@@brentrussell780
@FalklandsRforeverBritish Not dramatised at all, i can read you the full report, which has a lot more in it than what i listed. This is why in future shore bombardment missions, the ship would engage targets with her guns bow-on when ever possible. This can even be seen in a rare video of a fire mission after D-Day. Don't remember if it was Rodney or Nelson.
According to both Brown and Friedman the Iowas had to have their entire main armament redesigned as the intended 16/50 guns and turrets would not fit the barbette rings so it was not only the RN that had a few problems. Rodney also has the distinction of being the only battleship in history to hit another with a torpedo(the class carried oxygen enriched 24 inch torpedoes in submerged tubes)during the fight with Bismarck
To be fair, the Nelson tried to fit a 45,000 ton ship into a 35,000 ton displacement limit; other navies had some disasters from trying to do stuff like that (i.e. the Mogami-class). Making the Nelsons WITHOUT screwing up or scaling down would have been a miracle.
Indeed had the RN been allowed to build the ship class it so dearly wanted they would have had a ship superior to what became the Iowas in the 1920s in the form of the G3's
@@davidmcintyre8145the G3 would have been faster, better armoured and more heavily armed than any other capital ship until the Yamato class. And Yamato would have only edged them on firepower at that point ON PAPER. I'm pretty sure Ryan did a recent video comparing the guns of NJ and Yamato, and the increased rate of fire of the 16" gun probably more than made up for the difference in broadside weight in practice 😊
the Nelsol and Rodnol nicknames came from them looking like oilers, as all oiler names ended in 'ol'
They may not have been the prettiest of battleships but they certainly looked badass.
Sorry! But I thing they look AMAZING and BEAUTIFUL! I absolutely love the design. Having said, that I also LOVE how the IOWAs look. They were, (and still are) amazing Battleships, and how lucky that they were (at least) turned into museums. How great it would have been, if the Nelsons' were still here as museums. Also, nice work with the videos! I have watched most of your tours of the interior areas of the New Jersey, and it provides another perpective about the Battleship and how it would feel like to work and live there. Keep up the excellent job in preserving those ships, and thus giving us the opportunity to learn about their history.
At the end of the day, looks have nothing to do with the ships fighting capacity, that’s down to the guns and armor and these ships sure delivered!!
The golden triangle of all weapons, speed, defense, and firepower.
Thank you very much. Great talk about this important class of battleships.
And that girls and boys is how you asserting dominance with superstructure....
I love the look of the Nel/Rod class! Everything up front? Just looks like a clenched fist!!! Tough looking as the Iowa's in my opinion.
Nelsons were really well armored mean turtles. Slow, but borderline indestructible, if the armor belt was as good as advertised.
The Rodney did win a boxing match with the Bismark :o
I learned a lot from this - even though I was well aware of the Nelson's.
I also was impressed with your ability to keep an open mind on things.
For a guy who works with an Iowa class ship? One might expect you to be extremely partial to them/all things American.
Yet you seem to be excellent at 'calling a spade, a spade'.
That is most appreciated for historical commentary, imo.
Thank you for this.
☮
Nelson and Rodney were, despite being reputed for weathervaning, very manoeuvrable and were the only 2 British capital ships never to accidentally hit the gates at scapa flow
17:00 - I kinda like how the Nelsons look, actually; having all three big turrets in a line at the front makes their firepower more visually striking for me when it's all clustered together, and it just looks kinda neater to have the big turrets all together instead of spread out in the front and back parts of the ship.
An old design but with amazing careers; the Queen Elizabeth battleships a comparison please?
Good assessment of the Nelson class, thanks very much. A few years ago, I read some rather 'flag-waiving' official press releases dating from the time they came into service. The location of all three turrets forward was explained, according to this official nonsense, by stating that British battleships don't need guns facing aft...because British battleships never run away ! The age of misinformation has been going on longer than we think ! ;)
It wasn't all just hurrah! -patriotism in the press.
That was pretty much Jackie Fisher's way of thinking. And he had a lot of influence way past his retirement.
@@Bird_Dog00 Yes, but the reason given for placing all the turrets forward was not as stated - that's my point. Instead of simply citing the constraints of the Washington treaty, they concocted this vainglorious claptrap.
Well while propagandist the statment is sort of true for how Rodney was expected to operate, ie with pre existing naval supremacy and destroyers behind it to protect it during a retreat if necessary
BISMARCK by WWII standards was not that heavily armored except for the side waterline hull which had that highly-sloped thick Wh armor "turtleback" deck behind the side belt to deflect shells that penetrated intact the belt around the waterline (slightly above or below it). This side hull armor was the WWI-style "don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes" type but souped-up to handle typical circa-15" AP shells with blunt-point noses (the 12.6" KC n/A armor side belt would strip off any AP cap or windscreen from the nose of a penetrating shell). The cost of such a design was that the gap between weather deck (top hull deck) and the thick primary armored deck to which the upper edge of the slope locked several feet inboard of the belt had to be lowered to only just above the waterline, which meant that an entire deck of hull was no longer behind/below the heavy deck armor and could be torn up by shells that punched through the rather thin armor of the weather deck or 5.71" KC n/A armor amidships upper hull side so this additional upper hull was sacrificed to prevent engine/boiler/magazine damage from large-caliber AP shells hitting from the side. (IOWA had its armored 2nd deck only a single deck below its weather deck and meeting the upper edge of the side belt, protecting with heavy armor one additional deck of internal volume to help keep the ship from sinking if flooded.) If the ship did not have to worry about aircraft bombs or ship- or aircraft-launched torpedoes causing flooding damage that would lower the hull in the water, this would have been acceptable (shells in the engines or magazines are stopped better here). But at longer range, shells would be hitting the flat deck armor due to their long fuze delays and, except for the area over the main magazines, the added weight of the sloped deck sides caused the flat deck over the large engine and boiler rooms to be thinned down to only 3.2" Wh armor, much too thin to stop anything larger than heavy cruiser shells. Also, as more AA guns and such were added to BISMARCK, the armored deck began to end up below the waterline, allowing flooding over the entire inside of the ship above it if torn up by shell fragments and any significant flooding of the lower hull for any reason occurred (singe torpedo hit, even). BISMARCK was totally designed for close-in WWI-type fighting, possibly assuming that bad weather in the North Sea would prevent long-range gunfights using optical directors/range-finders (no radar, remember). BISMARCK was thus in some ways the last WWI-era battleship design, being a kind of "super-HOOD" battle-cruiser in concept (nobody in the German Navy thought that the BISMARCK Class was going to defy the British on a one-on-one battleship gunfight level).
As opposed to this, NELSON and RODNEY, as mentioned, were supposed to be the first "modern" post-WWI battle-cruiser concept ships with their engine rooms cut down to keep their weight under the new limits, resulting in battleships that were about the same speed as the faster WWI-era ships, not the high-speed designs replacing HOOD originally envisaged. They had the thin deck armor over the engine/boiler rooms that BISMARCK also had, though the armor was one deck higher, as in IOWA, to help increase the ability to take some flooding without sinking. The British lightweight 2049-pound 16" Mark IB AP shells were the first version of the new long-windscreen "B" pattern for reduced air drag and longer range flight, though their design was unique to British AP shells in that the nose was not a curved single arc-of-circle shape ("Secant Ogive" if the joint with the upper edge of the cylindrical side has a shoulder of crease, indicating a longer, more pointed nose shape, and "Tangent Ogive if they merge smoothly with no crease), but a long cone-shaped nose with a rounded shoulder at the shell side joint. This shape of nose was also used by the Japanese in their later Type 91 AP shells introduced in 1931 and in many US Army artillery shells, as it gave reduced drag, but it also made the nose narrower and lighter in weight and when this kind of lightweight AP shell was no longer considered a good idea due to barrel wear problems, the British reverted back to their WWI-era basic shell design with a new "B" nose shape with a thicker, heavier AP cap and nose and a long Secant Ogive curved windscreen to get the increased range (required older ships to have their magazines and shell handling devises modified and only some of their older ships got this upgrade, while others, like HOOD, had to use the improved WWII AP shells that retained the basic end-of-WWI shorter, less-streamlined "A" nose shape, which was slightly lighter in weight due to less cap width and less windscreen length, though otherwise virtually identical to the "B"-nosed heavy shells used by the improved ships.. The use of a high-velocity, lightweight AP shell to get added range with guns that could elevate much higher than the older ships could (even after overhauls the older 15"-gunned ships never could elevate their guns as high as RODNAY and NELSON could) was compromised due to the higher gun wear and ship weight-restriction rules imposed on post-Washington Treaty warships -- the latter causing ship blast shock problems due to not-quite-adequate hull strength. Though much was very slowly fixed over the years, the design was considered a failure and never repeated. (IOWA, like the other new US battleships of WWII, used an exaggerated concept of the British heavy shell/lower-velocity gun pattern used prior to and after NELSON and RODNEY, elevating their guns to the same high angle as NELSON and RODNEY to get the maximum possible range, but using the increased weight of the "super-heavy" new AP shell design, with a long streamlined shape much like the British "B" nose design, to reduced air resistance by inertia to keep the longer range, not just a higher velocity that could be lost and still have enough to get to the longer range. The US shells would also penetrate better against deck armor due to more weight giving them better energy retention at those long ranges than any lightweight shell could. The lightweight, high-velocity shell concept was only really viable for short-range fire against face-hardened hull/turret side armor and the great improvements in fire-control were assumed to make long-range fighting more probable -- actually, during WWII most battleship battles turned out to be at rather short range, better fire-control not withstanding, so "go figure"...)
I learn something new every time I read what you have written, Mr. Okun.
Thanks for the share!
I love the way they look. That low silhouette really helps.
Completely off subject but I just needed to share
Today after my bike ride I got to meet a member of the flying tigers. Never got his name. Though I did give a stern 2 finger salute and thanked him for his service
96 years old 🙌
I absolutely love "The Ugly Duckling Look" of the "NELROD's" ! Yes, they did look exactly like a modern Container Ship as, if it was converted into a Battlewagon but, that's what makes them Cool in my opinion !
The Nelsons may have been ugly, but they did have a lot of firepower. The US even considered copying the Nelsons when designing the North Carolinas. Early designs of the North Carolinas had all three turrets forward of the superstructure.
Och...The eye of the beholder...For me, ever since, as a kid at the fireside, quietly listening in awe...from those of mine who knew her... they were beloved, truly spectacular, brilliantly designed, 'Crusader Castles on the sea.''
There's the great auld tale, famous through-out the fleet, of when, on one Christmas Eves' night, early in the war, a plucky little RCN Flower Class Corvette, all alone, in a winter's gale, deep off Newfoundland, in howling monstrous conditions, picked up a 'Ghostly' radar blip at extreme range, and challenged...'' You!.. Identify.. or we will engage!''...
Reply: ''Flower''... ''This is Nelson''...'' Carry on Canada, and your Grand wee Navy!!''...
''Merry Christmas''.🍁
🩸
🥃
Reply: ''God Bless you everyone Nelson''..... ''Merry Christmas''....''Pass''.
Thanks very much for making this video on HMS Nelson & Rodney as it was my request, originally. Lots of great info covered here. However, one issue I would have liked to have had addressed would be the advantages or disadvantages of the main battery arrangement in terms of arcs of fire for this ship design vs. the more traditional layout as in Battleship New Jersey. I believe Turret 3 was significantly limited in its arc of fire and also when trained fully aft, would cause blast damage to the superstructure. And, of course, there is no main battery coverage for targets behind the ship. Do you have comments on these points? What were the firing arc positives over a traditional layout?
Yep, it's an impressively polished performance with very few errors or omissions, and no really serious ones at all. To address your questions and remarks on blast and arcs of fire, they're also well made and knowledgeable. So... to the best of my own knowledge, in fact the blast damage was not especially serious structurally, being limited mainly to lighter deck fittings. YET it was inconvenient to say the least and turret 3 OR the superfiring turret 2 did not have to be trained fully aft to inflict it. Firing on ANY bearing aft of 90 degrees (broadside) might and usually did break most of the glass in the bridge windows. The upshot being that in peacetime, firing arc was restricted to that 90 degree max. The problem was eventually mitigated by reducing the size of the bridge windows and fitting blast deflectors beneath them.
In wartime of course it was accepted that damage of this sort would occur. The Nelsons' designed 'B' arc was 60 degrees (30 deg port and 30 deg stbd of straight aft) so theoretically the guns could be trained to bear on a target up to 60 degrees aft of dead-abeam. In practice however, I suspect any remotely sane captain would order a change of course of at minimum 5 or more likely 10 degrees to permit any target to be engaged at a more comfortable 50 degrees aft, or preferably less than that... and after all, it's not as if these ships either could, or in any case would be trying to outrun anything. OK, during the Bismarck's sortie HMS Rodney did, amazingly, manage to attain 25kts, but in an attempt to pursue and close the enemy, not to escape.
Which brings us to your closing question. The firing arc positive was that in the immensely more likely case a Nelson was trying to engage a maybe understandably reluctant enemy BB, all nine main battery guns could be more easily brought to bear without need for a very large change in course.
No positives over a conventional layout. The benefit was a reduced length citadel that could be armoured against 16" shellfire whilst on a restricted displacement.
I like the look of Nelson class battleship a lot !!! Thats my fav class of battleship !!
My father served aboard the Nelson and briefly on the Rodney during WW2. He commented that the gunnery of the secondary armament (pre radar-controlled) during firing practice in 1940 was appalling. While escorting a convoy to Malta he was aboard when Nelson was torpedoed by an S.M.79. His locker was flooded and his tank watch which he kept as a memento was ruined. He later served aboard the Malaya, u.S.S.South Dakota ( as liaison communications with our Home Fleet) during her spell as distant cover for Russian convoys, as well as Valiant. Unlike many shipmates he survived. You could choose which of the services you were conscripted into and given the appalling losses of trench warfare during WW1 he chose the NAVY which unfortunately like our Bomber Command had the highest loss of life!. 👍🏻🏴
The Nelsons are my favorite British battleships and are in my top 10 favorites
I love the Nelson class. With all the guns up front she looks like a Croc
Thanks for the entertaining presentation of real information, miles better than us having to plough through waffle.
"Godawful"?
No way that Norman castle citadel and brutal row of turrets looks bloody marvellous.
It should be noted the Nelson's were actually among the first, possibly THE first, ships with "dual purpose" secondaries in turrets. Although they were not entirely successful in that role because they traversed too slowly....the 6" gun batteries were designed to be capable of high angle elevation to fire at aircraft.
And while the slow traverse prevented accurate targeting, the range and power of the 6" when firing high explosive shells in barrage would likely have contributed to making they sky above the Nelson's a dangerous place for attacking planes. Though, I'm not sure if by WW II the 6" were actually used in that role anymore, they were capable of it.
Well a refit plan for the Nelrods would replace the 12 6" guns with 12 5.25" DP Guns and the 6 4.7" AA battery with 12 4.5" DP Guns
You missed one important issue with the design, which the Rodney suffered from particularly - because weight was saved by cutting back on bracing, hogging (flexing of the hull in high seas) caused the seams to open up in the bow. This was made worse by the hammering that Rodney endured during the chase to catch Bismark and was never fully addressed. My dad joined the ship in June of 1941 and told us that the pumps had to be run almost flat out just to stop her sinking.
I think the British had water excluded from the treaty because they were designing ships with water filled torpedo protection.
You are correct. And the British managed to keep this highly effective design a secret for many decades. Some people say the British cheated but anyone could have done the same thing IF they had thought of it. It's not the UK's fault no one tried to do the same.
This is in direct contrast to the Japanese and German methods which bluntly lied and broke solemn treaty's. Why some people seems to think this was smart of them I cannot understand. Applying that logic to today they would be applauding nations building and stockpiling NCB weapons.
@@johnfisher9692 I agree, we have this situation with the CCP now, they cry foul if anyone does what they are doing or wish they thought to/could do.
It would be really cool to compare NJ to the G3 , the Nelrods unbuilt predecessor.... the capabilities of the Iowas and G3 are very similar
The G3 and the N3 were similar to the german H-43, and H-44 designs. They were a mental exercise before the Naval treaties, and when the treaties were announced they were hurridly put together to look like a proper design so they would have something on the negotiating table, where the others at the table were building actual ships. Both the Japanese, and the U.S. were building actual ships that would be superior in every way to british ships, while the british were unable to pay for ships and crews they already had let alone new ships. Thus the Washington Naval Treaty was born, and the British wonderships were thrown out as new wonder weapons.
@@justinarchibald3857 I might be wrong, but didn't they already start construction on the G3's? (for a few weeks or something)
Admiral Akbar, I think you'll appreciate this episode: th-cam.com/video/24-0BcsNWQU/w-d-xo.html
@@admiralakbar9673 The Admiralty definitely paid a shipyard to start construction but there is no photographic evidence of it getting as far as laying down a keel
@@justinarchibald3857 I think the design process for G3 / N 3 was a bit further along than just a mental exercise.....the long lead items like the triple 16' gun turret was already in development and on order.
I like them, very unique concept. Nothing else quite matches them except maybe French Richelieu Class Battleships with their 2 quad turrets. There has to be some downside to this layout as from what I understand, once the Escalater clause kicked in and war broke out, these naval treaties went out the window. I mean there has to be a drawback as once there was no limits on battleship size or armament, they never built a improved version on the NelRods, like with 4 screws, or more range, or armor, ect
Nelson class was phenomenal
Am fascinated by your efforts.
They may look ugly to you but if one was 10 miles away and coming at you angled at 10° you could admire the 9 flashes from 16 inch guns sending shells in your direction.
Rodney, the only battleship to torpedo another battleship, I think.
The island South Georgia is not so far from the Antartic and we had a whaling station there, so fuel would have been available.
They look fantastic
The N3s were 18" gun battleship designs. The Nelson class were derived from the G3 battlecruiser design.
Both, tbh. They were in essence a scaled back N3 with G3 armament.. + some innovative new ideas to maintain very high levels of protection on the treaty displacement limit
I like the look and features of HMS Rodney!
Love these ships, stripped down to badass gun platform.
Handsome battleships ....🇬🇧
True, I wouldn’t call them pretty like the Iowa’s or HMS Vanguard. “Handsome” does suit them!
Nelson and Rodney were nicknamed "the Oil Tankers" because, from a distance, they resembled that type of ship, with a long low fore part, and the superstructure far aft.
They were known by the sailors as Nelsol and Rodnol for that very reason.
Interesting video. My father served on HMS Rodney. Bags of great background and technical information, the first time I have heard some of this detail. I totally disagree about their smooth, streamlined look. They are beautiful and elegant. Could I politely suggest a tiny bit more prep to allow more ease of flow in your presentation? Thank you
As, at 23 knots they Nelsols were fast enough to out-pace any other battle fleet, and the reasons for the loss of the battlecruisers were, for the most part, not the defeat of their armour, munition handling issues were far more to blame.
Little surprise in the similarities in some of the features of US and RN ships, as for much of WW1, the interwar years and WW2 the two navies had pretty much open book relationships.
The looks?
Love them myself, far more modern looking than any other battleship, and far more in line with current designs.
Very much look forward to your piece/s on the G3s and N3s
I always thought Nelson and Rodney were beautiful in a utilitarian brutal fashion
Agreed, other ships are "I'm here to look pretty and shoot things". Meanwhile Rodney and Nelson were "I'm here to kill you, nothing more, nothing less".
The Nelson class was a tough bruiser.
A very accurate and fair presentation... Well done.
Because the funnels were so far aft, and because of the rearwards placement of the superstructure, the ships reminded the sailors of oil tankers and so were nicknamed the 'Nelsol' and the 'Rodnol'....
Nice video, I've done quiet a bit of reading on the 1920s program and DNC Eustace T D'Enycourt had wanted to push all the turrets fore of the machinery space for the reason of he felt that with a thick armour deck was required for the range of naval combat their was a risk that the expected chase or closure to decisive range would expose these to the danger of a shell slipping through the holes cut for the boiler uptakes and on into the aft magazine. With the rearrangement they would only be vulnerable from within the blind spot. The 6 inch gun on Nelrods were designed as dual purpose but of course aircraft performance outstripped their train and elevation rates by the 30s as with the 8 inch guns on the County class cruiser.
The British Battle Cruisers at Jutland blew up largely due to poor power handling procedures in an effort to increase the firing rate...
There wasnt any British bases on the continent of Antarctica until 1943 and then quite a few in the 50's. However a Refueling station was maintained in the Falkland islands 1000km to the north that covered the British Antarctic and Sub Antarctic islands for several hundred years.
Haha, they look... different, but to me they are good looking ships.
[Continued]
Fourth, the ability of a blunt hardened cap (not a factor in soft or tough caps) to assist penetrating sloped homogeneous, ductile armor depends on the corner of the hard face (acting as the "chin" of the shell on initial impact, even if the cap is broken during the penetration process) digging a notch into the plate that starts the plate surface to bend upward in front of the shell. The sharpness of the corner of the cap where the edge of the face of the cap meets the upper edge of the cap side ("skirt") is the important factor here. From what I now understand, the amount of notching does not matter, no matter what shape the cap edge is, so you always get the same, roughly, bonus: A drop of 12% in the necessary velocity to penetrate the plate completely. Just WHEN the bonus applies gets complicated and I have only limited data. The typical US Army or Navy WWII hard cap had about a 150-degree angle at this corner (a very blunt conical face and a tapering skirt that conformed to the narrowing of the windscreen for drag reduction; there were several variations of this, but the ones issued during WWII all complied to this design, whether the windscreen was screwed onto the edge of the cap or, in early US Navy WWII caps, screwed into the softer steel near the bottom of the skirt with the upper cap inside and hidden from view. The later German AP caps in their tank and anti-tank guns used a very similar cap edge design. A sharper corner, such as used by the Japanese Type 88, Type 91, and final Type 1 AP shells with the Cap Head instantly knocked off at all impact angles over 45 degrees, had about a 105-degree angle for the edge, while the German and British "Knob-and-Ring" AP caps (Krupp and Firth/Firth-Brown) with a large done over the tip of the nose and a wide "Saturn Ring" nearly flat region to the edge of the cap face, where the angle was also about 100-105 degrees. The US Army/Navy and later German Army AP caps required about at least a half-caliber plate at 50 degrees obliquity to have the beneficial bonus effect to penetration. As the obliquity increase, the plate thickness steadily dropped down to only about 0.2-caliber at near 80 degrees (above 80 degrees I assume the projectile always ricochets). This is due to the thinner plates for each angle being able to dent ("dish") downward and the sharp edge of the cap not being able to "get its foot in the door" to cause the needed chisel action. With a sharper edge like the noted naval caps, I assume (I have almost no data) that the needed minimum thickness for any given obliquity would go down due to better chisel action, perhaps by 25% or so under the US test data, though this is just a guess. Note that caps with no corners, such as the post-WWI contoured Hadfield AP caps (used intermixed with Firth/Firth-Brown caps randomly I assume, as both were used as issued by whatever was in the shore station's magazines at the time the ship came in) or any French AP shell even-more-contoured AP caps, get NO bonus EVER for the cap being there, other than a general blunter-nose-shape bonus/penalty if the cap remains intact during most of the penetration (if it shatters on impact, then it gives no shape bonus/penalty, either). Unfortunately, I have little data on much of this topic, either with non-US AP caps or nose shape effects for more than a very few special cases.
This is a very complicated topic. It demonstrates how complicated the universe really is, since we are just talking about two pieces of metal being banged together. No wonder biology is complicated almost beyond belief...
A worthy description. My only criticicm would be "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" perhaps ?
I prefer to think that HMS Nelson and Rodney "had prescence" . . ?
My father had worked on HMS Rodney, during WW2, at its original constructors, Cammell Laird, of Birkenhead, on the River Mersey estuary.
Liking the look of a battleship came a distant second to practicality back in the early to mid 20th century.
It was HMS Furious a very heavy cruiser or light Battle Cruiser, that was fitted with 2 X 18" Guns. Subsequently rebuilt into an aircraft carier
The only nicknames I recall for the pair were Nelsol and Rodsol, a combination of the ship names and the suffix for fleet oilers.
I have always wondered why they put the super-firing 16" turret in the "B" position instead of the "C" position. The citadel length would have been identical. Having the taller barbette in the "C" position would put it closer to the center of buoyancy and improve load distribution. Also, having the super-firing turret in the "C" will allow the "B" turret to fire forward over the "A" turret at long range where it can elevate sufficiently.
Best guess? Having the superfiring turret so close to the superstructure would’ve caused serious problems. I vaguely recall the Royal Navy spending much of the 1920’s working on reinforcing the superstructure to cope with that.
@@Cailus3542 Well... as far as the blast is concerned, having the non-superfiring turret in that position have the same problems. As a matter of fact, a superfiring turret would have been "kinder" to the superstructure and stuff on the deck like the forward pair of 6" MK XXII as the muzzles will not be as close to the deck when firing towards the rear quadrant and the blast would not be reflected as intensely from it.
Actually the British tower style superstructure (or Queen Anne's mansions) as they were called were highly effective and much superior to the old bridge design used on ships like the Iowa's.
It provided dry conditions to the people who controlled the ship in battle and suffered from much less vibration, which was a good thing for the range finding equipment.
Personally I like that bridge design
While good ships the Iowa's had severe flaws you skip over. The long narrow bow had little reserve buoyancy and would have caused problems if they faced another Battleship which hit them there.
The bow also had problems dealing with the heavy weather more commonly found in the Atlantic. in rough seas HMS Vanguard was easily able to keep pace with them due to her vastly more seaworthy design. A fight between Vanguard and New Jersey in bad weather would greatly favor the British ship.
I think your passion for the Iowa's makes you overlook their flaws and prevents a fair comparison. A fight between Nelson and an Iowa would be a close thing pitting speed vs superior armour.
Also the Nelson's were much lighter ships and given the pace of technology advances, several generations older.
An much fairer match up would be New Jersey vs a modernized G3. And I think I know where I'd place my money on that fight.
The state of both ships and their load out affects seakeeping. I have seen it suggested that during Operation Mariner in the 50's when Iowa and Vanguard sailed together, their load out may not have been similar. According to some sources, Vanguard seldom carried much ammunition on board a majority of the time. The Iowa often carried a significant ready load. This would make Iowa heavier, affect bouyancy, and lower freeboard. Vanguard would perhaps not have sailed as much more "dry" to the same degree loaded down in the same fashion. Nevertheless, Vanguard did have a reputation for being a fine seaboat.
Vanguard needed another 3 knots of speed.
I agree. A lot of Americans are under the mistaken impression that the Iowa's were perfect battleships. It's true they are very impressive and are excellent ships, but they are still under gunned and under armoured for their size. They sacrificed protection and seakeeping for speed. The South Dakota's had very similar armour and armament on 13,000 tons lower displacement. That's a lot of extra displacement just to buy a few knots extra speed.
@@AWMJoeyjoejoe - the fact that so many enthusiasts are interested in “what if” alternative histrionics is, in fact, quite revealing: battleships had so precious little historical impact on actual 20th Century Warfare outcomes.
@@petersouthernboy6327 Vanguard would probably be like Renown with an extra capacity to be used only if needed. The "only if needed" part was rather hard to impose on Renown, once the crew found that they could call up an extra 40,000 hp with no problems being experienced it proved difficult to get that particular genie back in the bottle.
While watching the "making of" features on the Lord of the rings DVDs I saw the design meetings about the URUK HAI and they were only armoured on the front because they were designed to be super agressive, never retreat so would never show their back to the enemy. Rang a distant bell and then I thought " Aaah! the HMS Rodney".
I love the citadel style.
I think they look great. My favorite British Battleship.
HMS Rodney ripped Bismark apart firing at point blank range, guns level
Regarding her AA by the end of the war her AA suite included 6 4.7 inch AA guns, 16 40 mm Bofors and 61 20 mm Oerlikons as well as multiple different radar types and directors so all in all not bad
FYI Rodney while on route to the US for a well deserved refit was diverted to confront Bismarck, where she maintained 25 knots in pursuit, and don't forget unlike the Iowa class Nelson and Rodney like most other RN Battleships could fire line ahead without flooding the forward gun turrets.
There is the story that when Rodney & King George V met up Admiral Tovey asked the Rodney`s captain what speed he could make. Dalrymple-Hamilton replied 22 knots. Tovey ordered a fleet speed of 22 knots. Shortly after, as Rodney began to drop behind, Rodney signalled "regret to inform you that your 22 knots is a bit faster than mine".
HMS Rodney was one of the ships that engaged and helped sink the German Battleship Bismarck in revenge of HMS Hood.
My father served on Rodney at the time of the Bismark engagement,
what are the ladders on (the front) the 16 inch Mark 7 guns on the New Jersey used for? also did the New Jersey and her sister ships ( Iowa, Missouri, and Wisconsin) have "smoke generators" installed during their construction?
I was wondering the same thing about the turret ladders...
The answer to your question about the ladders is simple, to allow access to the turret roof. During WWII there were 20mm or 40mm AA guns mounted on the roofs of #2 and #3 turrets, plus even without equipment mounted up there the crew still needs easy access for routine maintenance including 'chipping and painting' (some things never change.)
Smoke generators? I don't recall reading about chemical 'smoke generators' being installed on any of the battleships like they were in destroyers and other light forces. Oil fired ships were capable of generating big billowing clouds of black oil smoke (just like you see in the movies) by varying the ratio of fuel to air being fed to the boiler fireboxes, cut the amount of air being forced into the firebox and increasing the amount of fuel means that the oil doesn't burn completely, the smoke is actually vaporized, unburned fuel oil for the most part.
Excellent content!
I learned a lot watching this video. I would like to mention that the Nelson and Rodney got bad marks in some quarters for having weak structures. As I understand it wood was used structurally in the deck. Rodney in particular suffered deck damage from the use of her main armament.
Also I disagree with the comment about appearance! I think they look awesome!
Best regards and keep up the good work!
A ship designed to slug it out - after the Bismarck they always kept one in the home fleet in case the Tirpits ventured out
I think the Iowa class battleship design is the sleekest design where everything just seems to fit and looks like it belongs where it should. I can't see that with the "Nel-Rods."
Iowa class, probably designed to keep up with fast carrier forces.
They buried their bows in heavy seas as a consequence.