Guns vs naval armour in ww1

[delcyros]

Preliminary note:


I have been submerged for a while now and am now going to finish my study on major calibre impacts of naval guns versus naval armour (capital ship armour) in ww1.
Some of the results encountered have surprised me, so I will give only brief and preliminary notes at this time.


Sources:

Note that no attempts are made to deal with primary sources first hand. Altough I would be more than happy to get my hands on original docs!

Literature:
My primary source for this study is the comprehensive work of J. Campbell, Jutland. An analysis of the fighting. This work thoroughly goes through hit after hit in the major battle of Jutland. I also used other works (Sumida, Jones, Lambert, Massie, Marder) to complement informations gained by Campbell, esspeccially for non Jutland Combats.

Actions covered:
Falklands, Doggerbank, Jutland, Dardanelles, Black Sea engagements. For comparative reasons, I also included the post war firing trials on SMS BADEN with the improved APC shells.


Statistical background:
All in all over 400 major calibre impacts have been analysed for drawing conclusions. Statistical investigations are based on the statistical package of the social sciences (SPSS).


Intention of the study:
My primary intention of this study will be composed of the following aims:
A) Probability of hitting different parts of an ship. For saying so, I have run around comments like:

"...armour belts were virtually never hit in ww1 and ww2..." -Nathan Okun
or
"...deck armour is more important because the number of hits on armour belts are negliable" -I. Charles.

while reading these comments, I naturally asked myselfe (and the commentators) on what sources and statistics these comments are based on. I have never got any other answer than authoritative comments (...he said so), nor could I get statisfying informations in the books aviable on the matter. I believe, this justifies an investigation of this very question in detail with the help provided by the aforementioned authors and the sound statistical services provided by SPSS.

B) Relative performance of penetration from APC, CPC and base fuzed HE-rounds on their respective target plates. These are "REAL WORLD" -results, not the prooving ground results known from other studies. If a projectile pierces in a condition fit to burst a plate installed as it was on the ships structure, this is a very serious issue.

C) Stability of the filler to rapid deceleration.



I also would like to encourage as many as possible to comment and contribute to the problems outlined above. I run this thread in order to cover multiple problems associated with the big ´ol guns. From time to time I will submit results, starting with A) next week.

best reagrds,
delc

[timshatz]

Definitely looking forward to your study delc. Think it will be most interesting. Especially the comments about deck armor being far more important than side armor. If your study confirms that perspective, it would give a whole new outlook to how warships SHOULD have been made.

Just briefly, it seems that side armor thickness is more of a throwback to the ways battles were fought in the previous century than a conscience design perspective. Designers built warships for fighting at 5,000 yards (or less) and the engagements ended up being fought at 10,000+ yards. Flat fire became irrelivent and plunging fire the threat.

Looking forward to it.

[renrich]

Del. I too am looking forward to your analysis. Tim raised an important factor about the fast moving trend toward gunfire at long ranges with plunging fire. A little like the revolution that needed to take place in infantry tactics with the advent of the rifled musket and Minie ball and the attendent increase in effective range.

[Glider]

Count me in. I admit that I was surprised by the comments on deck armour if only because most of the guns had limited elevation and the rangfinders were such that ranges were limited.

I look forward to it.

[parsifal]

Campbell has written an exhaustive book on Naval weaopons of WWII. There are also some good general refernces for WWII in the 1944-5 Janes, and the Conways series. There is some discussion in the books about immune zones, which seems to indicate to me that deck hits became the predominant hit as the range increased, due to plunging fire. The protective zone appears to be the zone where the main belt is the major point of impact. and is expressed as a maximum and a mi9nimum. Below the minimum, the shell doing the hitting is assumed to be penetrating the belt.

I dont know much about WWI, except that engagement ranges appear to be generally less than those of WWII, where radar and better optics were probably a major factor.

I would be very interested to see the results of your study I do not consider myself any sort of expert in this area, but have some books that may be a help....

I have been thinking about doing a "best BB of WWII" poll. Or has that already been done

[timshatz]

Parsifal, I think it was done. Bismark and North Carolinas came out on top. Not sure though, but I think it was 1941 as the year picked to measure.

[parsifal]

: I thought it might have been. I have a back up suggestion..."Best prewar Battleship. " Would poll refurbished BBs like the Warspite, as well as the interwar construction completed before the outbreak of the war. that way the usual nominees get excluded from the poll, and we might get some intersting results.

All I gotta do is work out how to post new poll and everything will go just fiine

[timshatz]

[quote=parsifal;352949]: I thought it might have been. I have a back up suggestion..."Best prewar Battleship. " Would poll refurbished BBs like the Warspite, as well as the interwar construction completed before the outbreak of the war. that way the usual nominees get excluded from the poll, and we might get some intersting results.
QUOTE]


That would be interesting. Have to keep some BBs out of it. Might be better to do it right after the WW1 or in the mid 30s. Keep the newer stuff of rearmament out of it.