What would benefit from advanced battery technology?

[sjard]

Originally Posted by Agramer

Hood was Battleship,and one of biggest around WWII.

You might be confusing it with the Bismarck, which sank the Hood.

[sgtcallistan]

Originally Posted by Agramer

I said best,not biggest.

Bismarck = 50.900 metric tons fully loaded

Yamato = 71.659 fully loaded

Hood = 49.140

USS Arizona(Pennsylvania class) = 31.400 (Sunk in Pearl Harbour)

Missouri(Iowa class) = 45.000

Hood = 49.000

Neither did I. Nor did I claim they were the best. And I pointed out my ignorance of, for example US battleships of the same timeframe.

[Agramer]

Originally Posted by Wiki

Battlecruiser or Fast Battleship

Although the Royal Navy always designated Hood as a battlecruiser, some modern writers such as Anthony Preston have characterised her as a fast battleship, since the Hood appeared to have improvements over the revolutionary Queen Elizabeth-class battleships. On paper, the Hood retained the same armament and level of protection, while being significantly faster.[6] Around 1918, the US naval staff in Great Britain became extremely impressed by the Hood which was described as a "fast battleship", so they advocated that the USN should develop a fast battleship of its own. Ending up, the US continued with their existing designs, the well-protected slow battleship South Dakota-class and the fast, lightly armoured Lexington class battlecruisers.[7] However, influences from Hood showed on the Lexingtons with the reducing of the main armour belt, the change to "sloped armour", and the addition of four abovewater torpedo tubes that were added to the four underwater tubes that had been included in the original design. [8]

and

Originally Posted by Wiki

To add to the confusion, Royal Navy documents of the period often describe any battleship with a speed of over about 24 knots (44 km/h) as a battlecruiser, regardless of the amount of protective armour. For instance, the never-built G3 battlecruiser was classified as such though it would have been more of a fast battleship than the Hood.[9][10]

Classification as a battlecruiser notwithstanding, Hood was the largest warship of any kind in the world at her commissioning and held the title until the German Bismarck entered service in 1940. Hood was the largest vessel ever to serve in the Royal Navy until the battleship HMS Vanguard, which was not commissioned until 1946. Hood was the longest warship until the commissioning of the Japanese battleship Yamato in 1941; Hood is currently the longest warship that ever served in the Royal Navy, which would finally be surpassed by the new Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers which are expected to enter service in 2014 at the earliest.

Hence our misunderstanding.

Also,Admiral Graf Spee was "pocket battleship" with only 16.000 metric tons fully loaded .

Compare it to Hoods 49.000.
Also lets,not forget that Hood was biggest ship between WWI and WWII.

Yes,there was some trade off of Armour vs speed,but size alone determine it as Battleship (Compare Hood with Pennsylvania class battleships 31.000 metric tonnes).

Both Bismarck and Hood could go 57 km/h(31 miles) ...Does that make Bismarck an Battlecruiser?

Reason why Hood didnt perform is his obsoleteness compared to "modern" ships.

[Þorkell]

Originally Posted by Agramer

Yes,there was some trade off of Armour vs speed,but size alone determine it as Battleship (Compare Hood with Pennsylvania class battleships 31.000 metric tonnes).

Size alone? Not armour, armament, tactical role (so to speak), the designation the user gave her?

[Agramer]

Originally Posted by Þorkell

Size alone? Not armour, armament, tactical role (so to speak), the designation the user gave her?

Armour => 3ple deck armour could stop any preWWII shell (delayed fuse and bigger guns made it obsolete)

Armament => main guns were same as pre WWII Battleship ones(again making them obsolete for Battleship duels)

Tactical role => intercept/outrun (though It did destroy French Battleship in Mediterranean and chased another off)...alas Bismarck had same speed(again making Hood obsolete)

So my conclusion is that Hood was Battleship( lighter in armour,better at speed for his generation of ships) but by WWII was obsolete and in bad repair(Hood never recieved WWII upgrading that some other Capital ships did)

[Darkwalker]

Well, I would not say Hood was in"bad repair" since the ship was fully functional. It lacked the upgraded armor of HMS Repair and HMS Refit but otherwise was battle-ready. Hood was a ship trapped between the "Jellicoes Firecrackers" and the modern "Fast Battleship" that made them obsolete. Bismark (that has sizes up to 53.000 tons given) simply was more modern and had access to better steel


"Pocket battleship" was a british slang term, NOT an official designation. The three "Deutschland" class ships where heavy cruisers (and later designated as those) build as replacements (under Versaille rules) for elder pre-Dreadnaught ships (IIRC Braunschweig-class) The term came from their armament (6x28cm) that was rather heavy for the size

[Jonas]

I assume the OP question is already defunct but what the heck. Personally I'd suggest Transistors really, its something they'd be able to apply fairly quickly given the time frame (1942) and be the easiest for the GM to work out. Pretty much electronics would be lighter, more rugged, and more potent.

Now if you wanted to pick a particular side, giving Germany information on nuclear weapons could shake things up a bit, especially if that info allows them to build a operation version their V2's can launch. Now suddenly instead of a mere ton of HE your dealing with a few Kilotons, though it'd be balanced out by the likelihood of it taking a year or two for all the necessary retooling. Jets, while nice are pretty useless to them as they lacked access to a suitable source of refractory metals necessary for advanced axial flow turbojets.

If the OP reads this I'm curious as to what their PC's did end up doing.

[copeab]

Originally Posted by Jonas

If the OP reads this I'm curious as to what their PC's did end up doing.

I'm going to have to wait to answer that until after next weekend's session, as some of my players read these boards ;)

[fredtheobviouspseudonym]

Hood had, IIRC, a good crew as it had had a good reputation between the wars -- skilled sailors prefer to serve with other skilled sailors. (See the USS Texas, frex.)

However, its fire control systems had not been upgraded. Joseph Wellings, then captain USN, had spent a cruise on Hood some months before Denmark Strait and reported that her fire control equipment was no better than that on USS Florida when he had been on her for his midshipman cruise in the early 1920s. (See On His Majesty's Service: Observations of the British Home Fleet from the Diary, Reports, and Letters of Joseph H. Wellings, Assistant U.S. Naval Attache, London, 1940-41, by Joseph H. Wellings.

Wellings had some advantages which we do not -- he had actually been on Hood and was a professional naval officer, retiring as an admiral.

One point that many people miss about the loss of Hood (and hence, Bismarck's effectiveness) is that the range was only 18,500 yards (see http://hmshood.com/history/denmarkstrait/bismarck2.htm) and William Jurens' article {http://www.warship.org/new_page_1.htm}. As such this would be inside the immune zone for most battleships. i.e., Hood's well known armor weakness might not have mattered. If Bismarck had received an equal 15" or possibly even 14" "golden bullet" hit at that range she might have blown up as well.

Bismarck's success, then, was due in some part to luck and some part to better gunnery (more hits = more chance of a "golden bullet"). Design may not have had much to do with it.

I put in the qualifiers as it is possible that the range was within Bismarck's immune zone. In which case, as a former US presidential press secretary was known to say, the above several paragraphs are "inoperative."

Added notes from Mr. Okun's work on Bismarck's protection (http://combinedfleet.com/okun_biz.htm) --

Bismarck's belt could be penetrated by her own relatively high-velocity, low weight 15" shells at some 28,000 yards; while I'm sure that the RN 15" was less effective 18,500 yards is a LOT closer. However, punching her "turtle-back" armored deck to get to the magazines was basically NOT possible. So -- the previous paragraphs (sorry, guys) are indeed inoperative.

From Mr. Okun's work -- "Using the 1.67 caliber nose shape with the body weight and diameter of the 38 cm Psgr. L/4,4 projectile without its AP cap, I plotted the striking velocity needed for complete penetration of a 4.33" Wh plate (assumed to be similar to U.S. Navy WWII STS plates against which my test data was compiled) versus obliquity from 45 degrees to 68 degrees. On the same graph I then used my face-hardened armor penetration computer program to plot the remaining velocity and the impact obliquity on the 4.33" plate - which equals the 68o backward plate slope minus the projectile's downward exit angle after penetrating the side armor - for the 38 cm projectile after it hits the 12.6" belt (plus backing) at a Target Angle of 90o (only angle of fall affects obliquity). The two curves gradually converged but never met, indicating that the sloped deck was impenetrable to the German 38 cm projectile at all ranges, as designed.

"Similar computations with British 14-16" projectiles concerning hitting the sloped 4.33" deck after going through the 12.6" belt gave identical results. Even the 18.1" (46 cm) guns on the IJN YAMATO would have had to be placed directly against the side armor of the BISMARCK to have even a chance of penetrating that sloped deck. The German designers had done a very good job in this one protection area!

"Note that the 4.33" plate extends only slightly above the ship's waterline at normal draft, so a close-range, almost horizontal shot has to hit very near to or below the waterline to hit the sloped part of the deck, even if penetration were possible. If the ship is partially flooded and has a higher waterline, then only underwater hits an the belt could hit this sloped deck, with all other hits ricocheting off of the flat center deck area or passing above the deck and hitting the far side of the ship if the fuze did not detonate the projectile first. On top of this, it is difficult to get a projectile to penetrate the surface of the water at such shallow impact angles, even with Japanese-style diving shells, so underwater hits at these ranges would be very rare. Needless to say on top of all that, if you can get close enough to get any side/deck penetrations with a big-enough gun, the target that you are firing at is already "kaput" and such penetrations are of no consequence anyway!

"My computations also indicate that, as expected, the 3.15-3.74" horizontal portions of the lower armored deck could not be penetrated under any conditions after penetrating the 12.6" side belt by any projectile used on any actual warship.

"FINAL CONCLUSION: The BISMARCK's internal vitals could not be directly reached through the side belt armor under any normal circumstances due to the sloped "turtle-back" armored deck design, making its design the best of all given in this article for this purpose."

[Jonas]

Originally Posted by copeab

I'm going to have to wait to answer that until after next weekend's session, as some of my players read these boards ;)

Cool, I can wait.

Actually, one thing that may be really useful is not tech but information. Specifically that on something resembling modern combined arms tactics. Its not a war winner, but any side could substantially benefit from 50+ years of refinement regarding tactical, strategic, and logistical theory.