Strange battleship features?

How about the various bizaire layouts of main gun turrets, I have always found it amusing.
Common terms: forward turrets are usally called turret A and B, the aft turrets are X and Y, the wing turrets mounted on the side amidship (typical of WWI dreadnaughts) are P and Q turrets.

Most people are familiar with the balanced four twin-turret design (ii ii O ii ii) such as the HMS Hood, the Bismarck and the Queen Elizabeth, or the three triplet layouts (iii iii O iii)of the Iowa, South Dakota, Nelson, Yamato. But here are some odd balls:

1. King George-V mounted 10 x 14-inch guns: quadriple guns on turret A(fore) and X (aft), but featured a twin mount on B turret (fore): iiii ii O iiii

2. USS Nevada has triplet 14-inch guns on turret A and Y, and superfiring twin B and X turrets: iii ii O ii iii. Maybe not that odd

3. Orion/: five twin turrets in centerline: A,B,X,Y, and one turret midship: ii ii O ii O ii ii

4.Fuso and Ise: 12 x 14 inch guns mounted in 6 twin turrets: A,B,X,Y and P and Q wing turrets: ii ii O ii ii O ii ii

5. Italian Conte di Cavour mounted 13 x 12 inch guns: iii ii O iii O ii iii

I heard somewhere that the British at one point laid down a class of dreadnaughts which carried "all" of its main guns in the foreward turrets and none in the rear. It was claimed that the Royal Navy never runs away from a fight and thus rear-firing guns were not needed. I can't found anything to substantiate this rumor

 

Quote:

"I heard somewhere that the British at one point laid down a class of dreadnaughts which carried "all" of its main guns in the foreward turrets and none in the rear. It was claimed that the Royal Navy never runs away from a fight and thus rear-firing guns were not needed. I can't found anything to substantiate this rumor"

Well this 'rumor' ended up being called HMS Nelson and HMS Rodney!

http://www.bismarck-class.dk/other_craf ... odney.html

 

as an example for the british we have HMS Rodney

 

One more oddity was HMS Agincourt, the real "turret farm". It had seven (!) twin turrets, totalling 14 main guns. Guns were 12"/45 guns. Ship was originally built for Turks but it was taken over by RN.

 

Another couple of odd facts about Agincourt. Before Jutland there was a theory within the RN that if Agincourt fired all her guns together she would roll over. In fact when she did cut loose for the first time observers on several other ships thought she'd blown up! RN CinC Admiral Jellico actually signelled to ask if they were okay.

The RN usually named its turrets after letters but in the case of Agincourt they were named after the days in the week. Finally her appearance was so different that other ships in the fleet were often given there place in the line relative to Agincourt (ie forth ship forward of..)

 

The French also built two all-forward designs, but they retained wide arcs for all guns by putting them all into two turrets.
The weirdest turrets, of course, must be the two-storey things the Americans put on their pre-dreadnoughts.

 

In real battle, battleships rarely fire its main guns forward or backward in line with the ship, but instead they are fired on the side. Obviously this will allow you to concentrate all of your guns on one target. Also, the concussion, smokes, and flames when firing the guns in line with the ship often can have cause unpleasant damage to your own ships.

 

In the case of the Nelsons, having the gun's so close to the widest part of the ship meant that the muzzles were usually close to something on board, even when firing at targets directly abeam. The incidence of blast damage is increased.

 

I took a picture of the USS New Jersey 16-inch guns from the forward bridge. if it fires its guns forward, it would have wreaked havocs to the forward structures, including the radar station.

 

During the pursuit of Nowaki off Truk, Iowa weaved left and right to avoid having to fire directly ahead.

 

Not to mention the forward AA guns...and gunners!

 

Thankfully, there were no AA guns located near the bow. Usually the main decks are cleared during firing, I don't think any sailer would want to be caught on the open deck when nine 16-inch guns fired simultaneously. The flash, concussion and noise will probably drive any man histerical, if not deaf.

 

Atlantic Bow

I don't know what the fuzz was about but in WWII the Kriegsmarine made a big deal about replacing the traditional straight stem with "atlantic bow", such as in the Prinz Eugen and Scharnhorst, and even in some of their submarines.

 

Re: Atlantic Bow

Apparently they tried to make their ships more seaworthy. Atleast "Twins" were quite wet forward, even after installing atlantic bow.

 

"Strange" feature:

 

I remember hearing about this incident; it took an embarrassingly long time to get MISSOURI free of the mudbank she'd run aground on. Several days, IIRC.

 

One strange feature (in my opinion) on some battleships was the ram bow. One does wonder how anyone expected a battleship to get close enough to an opponent to use it! Or how the ramming ship would survive afterwards, with the entire enemy fleet shooting at them.

Only two vessels were, to the best of my knowledge, ever sunk by the ram bow of a battleship. The first was HMS VICTORIA, rammed and sunk by HMS CAMPERDOWN in the Mediterranean during fleet maneuvers in 1885, IIRC. The other was a German U-boat (whose number I can't remember) rammed and sunk by HMS DREADNOUGHT during WW1. This was also the only submarine ever sunk by a battleship, BTW.

 

New York may also have rammed and sunk a German sub, entirely by accident. However, there is one other undisputed case of a battleship sinking a sub--Warspite at Narvik.

 

Pagoda fighting mast?

Many destroyers also have specified bow design so they can ram surprised submarines that are caught with their pants down while surfacing. I am not sure if this ever occurred in WWII.
What about the massive "pagoda foremast" that was adopted by the Japanese capital ships in WWI and WWII such as the Fuse, Ise, Kongo, Yamato, .... I am not sure I want to sit way up there while the ship is being shelled by 2,000 lb projectiles.

 

With weaving, could they just try to open arc for aft turret?

Corpcasselbury, that u-boat rammed by HMS Dreadnought was U-29. And I believe ram bow got some success during American civil war and maybe some other conflicts during that same period. After that there wasn't that much naval warfare, not until Russo-Japanese war.

Liang, I believe that ramming u-boats by destroyers happened quite often. One incident comes to my mind straight away, U-100. That night was perhaps most darkest for German u-boat forces. U-100 was located by radar, apparently first sub to be found that way. U-99 and U-100 were both sunk during that night 17th March 1941, U-99's commander Otto Kretschmer was most succesful U-boatcommander during WW2 and U-100's commander Joachim Schepke was 12th. succesful, althought his (and Kretschmers) career was only 18 months.

Those pagoda masts were used because there wasn't any more space in horisontal level, they must go vertical.