Bismarck vs King George V and Rodney

False premise. There is no general principle that smaller shells penetrate better. Here are some general principles:
Low-trajectory shells do better against vertical armor.
High-trajectory shells do better against deck armor.
High-speed shells do better against face-hardened armor.
Heavyweight shells do better against homogenous armor.
Larger calibers do better against any armor.
Details of shell design--cap shape, cavity size, and so forth--have various effects.
You can manipulate these various properties to get the specific performance that you want. As you can see, some of the bonuses are mutually exclusive--e.g., a shell is either coming in on a high trajectory or a low trajectory. The British considered trying to deploy a mix of AP shells, some for attacking decks, some for attacking belts, but that presented a number of impracticalities. The Americans, with some more success, set up their 16in/50 guns to fire at three different muzzle velocities, meaning they could choose how steeply the shells descended to the target.

 

Go Iowas! The 13 inch belt is maybe a bit too thin for a ship of that status, I think.

 

I don't think the modern US ships were remarkably well armored, though they did have good protection for the main battery, conning tower, and steering gear. The belt gave adequate protection for the vitals due to the extreme inclination of the armor, but I don't like leaving all that hull volume exposed outside the protection.

 

Still, I'd say the Iowas were great all rounders. Heavy firepower is provided with nine 16-inch guns, speed at 33 knots, and adequate protection.

 

Yes, however they could have been supported by the italian subs. I´m sry, i´m right in school now, so I can´t use my books as sources, but there were at least 32 italian subs, which 1/3s would support this operation.

hmm, so the subs could also be somekind of a protection, when Bismarck was crippled, they just had to form a ring of protection underwater to attack the approaching enemy.

No time more,sry

Che.

 

I doubt if the Italians would fire on battleships. They almost never fired on merchants when destroyers, trawler, corvettes and frigates were in the neighbourhood. On the other side, BB's aren't made to hunt and finish subs.

I wonder how those subs would fire their torpedo's. Obvious a spread shot and aiming deep to go under the armor plate and break the ships back. But would they take time enough to calculate the exact course and speed to aim perfectly (with the canche of hitting nothing when the BB's evade the torps) or would they go for :bang: in all directions and hoping to hit something, no matter how those BB's turn?

Personnaly, with 10 subs arround i would give orders to 3 for perfect aiming with all torps firing at once and the other 7 to fire away to cover a large area.

 

How are they planning on doing that? Remember 30kt BB and 17kt subs. By the time Bismarck was crippled any subs in the mid Atlantic were hundreds of miles away. The speed difference is critical if you concentrate your U Boats then you'll get only one shot at making contact with the RN. If you fail the Uboats will never catch up. Spread them out and its unlikely more than one will get into firing range.

To be honest I think the best use the Germans could have made of their surface fleet would have been to concentrate it in Northern Norway and make a really serious attempt to sever the artic convoys.

 

"I doubt if the Italians would fire on battleships."
The destruction of enemy battleships was a key role of Italian submarines. Why would they not do so?

"Obvious a spread shot and aiming deep to go under the armor plate and break the ships back."
All torpedoes were designed to hit a hull below the level of belt armor. That would not break a battleship's back.

"But would they take time enough to calculate the exact course and speed to aim perfectly (with the canche of hitting nothing when the BB's evade the torps)"
Yes, the submarine would be aiming at the target.

"Personnaly, with 10 subs arround i would give orders to 3 for perfect aiming with all torps firing at once and the other 7 to fire away to cover a large area."
Submarines have no capacity to coordinate their fire. If ten were in position to make an attack, which is not possible at one time, all ten would be aiming to hit the target.

 

I should have mentioned with that last one "When i was Donitz and send 10 subs to assist the bismarck i would coördinate them in a line, let the go that way towards the brits, have 7 fire at random an 3 aiming"

 

It has already been noted that close coordination of subs and surface units was not practical. The Germans tried it in WWI and failed. The Italians tried in WWII and failed. The Japanese gambled hugely on the idea in WWII, and failed hugely; compare their results with those of the Americans who weren't even trying to coordinate with the battle fleet.
So how can the Germans get these slow boats to coordinate with a battleship whos position, speed, and bearing are not known?
Do you know what happens to torpedoes fired at random? That's all they hit.

 

But if you're aiming and the BB avoids them, he might still be hit by a torpedo that is fired at random. That's the way i see it, improving you're odds when the BB's turn away from a torpedo.

 

I'm sure that, as you consider it, you'll see that this is not a worthwhile option.
"Aha, a battleship. Fire torpedoes!"
"Where? What bearing? What speed?"
"It doesn't matter. Just pick a direction and fire."
Obviously this is not a promising attack plan. And I suspect you continue to harbor hopes that multiple boats could execute an attack at the same time when in fact even getting one sub in position to attack a warship is difficult. If we pretend for the moment that such a thing were practical, then why have the second sub fire at random? Why not have it attack after the ship makes its evasive turn, which reduces its speed and ability to take further evasive action?

 

Or better yet, have the subs fire at the battleship from either side, so wherever it turns it will always be exposing its full length to a torpedo.

 

But will the BB co-operate and sail between the subs?
And how will the subs coordinate their attacks if submerged and/or under radio silence

Tom

 

Oh, it'll never happen, but a man can dream, can't he?

 

If you're really intent on firing torpedoes that miss the target, you can have a single submarine do this, firing a spread passes on both sides of the battleship. Most "up the kilt" and "down the throat" attacks turned out like that anyway, as such target angles are extremely difficult.

 

A submarine crew doesn't know the required vector heading to fire torpedoes at when they spot a battleship? Is that likely?

 

No. Not if you see it and it's in reasonable torpedo range. And no submarine crew would waste ammo firing at random anyway.
You could, in theory, go deer hunting and choose not to aim at the deer but to simply fire randomly through the woods. This is unlikely to score you any deer and unlikely to win you any friends among the other hunters.

 

Well, thats 7 subs the RN doesn't have to worry about then.

It like having a squad of soldiers, and when the enemy attacks, you order two-thirds of them to keep their eyes closed while firing at the enemy :roll:

 

More than than, 7 out of 10 firing randomly, just 3 firing aimed shots!

Edit: Disregard since you'd corrected your post whilst I was typing mine.