Talk:Nelson-class battleship

message: There’s a good amount of detail in this article.  There is, however, a contradiction.  The following:
“he crews were warned to never fire all the 16-in (406-mm) guns at the same time, because this would damage the deck - clearly, a serious handicap on a fighting ship. This is a long-standing rumour, and was disproved at the final action with Bismarck, where Rodney did fire the occasional full broadside without any adverse effects!”
sits at odds with the last sentence:
“Despite these difficulties, both Nelson and Rodney had successful careers during World War II, the latter vessel helping to sink DKM Bismarck in 1941 (although the guncrews ignored engineers' instructions during the battle, and inflicted more damage on their own ship than Bismarck did.)”
So did Rodney actually sustain damage from firing full broadsides?194.72.92.36 14:45, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure this is contradictory. The first paragraph you cite is talking about the deck planking, but this was replaced and the new teak planks were not affected by firing a full broadside. The last paragraph is talking about "damage" and I would not think this would be a term applied to superficial effects to the deck. I think it refers to structural damage, but clearly the article lacks this detail. Wiki-Ed 13:55, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Lt-Cdr Wellings USN who was travelling on the Rodney to back to Boston after service as assistant naval attaché in London and present at the battle reported to the Navy Department that the stresses of the damage to the deck-planking "were transmitted to the decks below, causing some damage to bulkheads, stanchions and athwartships beams" (Kennedy, Ludovic: Pursuit: The sinking of the Bismarck p.224) Jpacobb (talk) 14:48, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Contradiction?

message: Shouldn't the turrets be 'A', 'B' and 'Q'? Calling it 'C' implies that it was superfiring over 'B' and capable of firing in the forward arc. 'X' would imply it could train aft, therefore to me 'Q' is the logical name as it can only fire on the beams and restricted fore / aft angles. Emoscopes Talk 18:59, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In RN usage, 'Q' referred to "midships" turrets i.e. those aft of the forward superstructure. The Nelsons' third turret was still forward of the bridge. HLGallon 01:10, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Turret names

message: I am reading a little book about Cromarty, written by someone who remembers the RN activity in the area during the 1930s.  He says that the Nelson and Rodney were known in the Royal Navy as the Cherry Tree Class" because of being "cut down by Washington".  --jmb 08:19, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is mentioned in the article. It sounds like the kind of thing that wasn't ever used at the time, but has been copied and copied and copied from e.g. a single Usenet post ever since. There are a dozen or so relevant Google returns for "cherry tree"+nelson+battleship, but they're all derived from this Wikipedia article. On the other hand, the phrase is mentioned in Nathan Miller's "War at Sea" (a real book published in 1996), albeit that the author is American, and this is the kind of cutsey-pie US-centric nonsense that Americans tend to generate. -Ashley Pomeroy (talk) 22:33, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Cherry Tree Class

message: The image :Image:HMS Rodney (1925).jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here.  In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page.  Please check
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This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --09:28, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Image copyright problem with Image:HMS Rodney (1925).jpg

message: Were these Yarrows or the very similar Admiralties?  Rippon (see article) cites them, along with the Kent class cruisers as a significant innovation in the development of the Admiralty. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:51, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Boiler types? 

message: One of the cited articles http://www.ibiblio.org/maritime/media/index.php?cat=1075 actually cites its source as Wikipedia. So Wikipedia claims to be citing from that site, but that site is citing Wikipedia. Bit problematic.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.209.30.117 (talk) 20:57, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Circular Reference 

message: "nonetheless it created much public outcry" - does 'it' refer to the scrapping? It could and should be clearer.
Regards to all.
Notreallydavid (talk) 22:45, 15 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: it wasn't in the source, so I stripped it out. GraemeLeggett (talk) 08:55, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I combined the Conway's quote with the previous quote which is from the older version of this article, although at the present I am not able to spend the time looking for which version. It was the version by user: Vanguard53 on 08 July 2012 .The Dart (talk) 02:25, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Service 

message: "Armour weight was also reduced by using an internal, inclined armour belt sloped outward at 72 degrees vertically, 14 in (360 mm) thick over the main magazines and control positions to 13 in (330 mm) over the machinery and 6-inch gun magazines. The slope increased the relative thickness of the belt to a plunging projectile."
How does a sloped armor belt increase thickness from "plunging fire"? Plunging fire is that which is coming almost straight down, and having the armor sloped would actually cause the fire to strike more directly, not more obliquely. The sloped armor on a tank is designed to protect from direct fire; an incoming shot at 45deg striking a glacis plate sloped at 45deg the opposite direction = a 90deg relative strike, effectively head on. A plunging shot at an angle of 56deg striking a 45deg slope gives a relative angle of 34deg. Truly vertical shots would strike at an angle of 22.5deg, whereas they would strike a vertical armor plate at 0deg, basically end-on, assuming it actually hit the armor plate at all. A 72deg slope would just make these numbers even higher; a steep slope protects best against DIRECT fire, and is more vulnerable to plunging fire.
This would only make sense if it was a sloped armored DECK. A sloped BELT is less effective against plunging fire, since you are comparing it to a vertical piece of armor, but a sloped DECK is compared to a normal horizontal deck, and has much the same effect as a sloped piece of armor. The only way it can "increase the relative thickness to plunging fire" is relative to a HORIZONTAL armored deck. If it is a "belt", then sloping it would not increase the relative thickness to plunging fire, but it would increase the amount of horizontal area covered. The most theoretically effective piece of armor against fire from the vertical is armor that is totally vertical, since it has an relative angle to the shots of 0deg, effectively impervious. However this requires a second piece of armor on top. Having a single sloped piece doing double duty as belt and deck armor may not "increase the relative thickness to plunging fire", but it does effectively reduce the amount of horizontal armor you DO need to provide, or at least it minimizes the area vulnerable to plunging fire. On tanks, the main reason for sloped armor is to increase thickness to direct fire, but a secondary benefit is that it reduces the size of the thinly armored deck, since any plunging shot that previously would have penetrated the deck around the outer perimeter now will strike the heavily armored, sloped belt armor instead.
This is probably pedantic, but I think it could be explained in a more lucid fashion as an attempt to use a single piece of armor for both belt and deck protection, saving much weight and cost over using separate belt and deck armor components.
I also am not sure about the "outward sloping" armor. To me this implies that the armor slopes outward at the TOP, which seems very unlikely to me, since it would be totally contrary to the practice I just described. And it would be even worse at protecting from plunging fire, since it would tend to deflect the shots back inwards. Outward sloping armor would theoretically protect a tank just as well from direct fire as any other type of armor, but it would make packaging much more difficult, and you lose all the other inherent benefits, such as protection from plunging fire.
64.223.107.150 (talk) 03:31, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sloping armor vs "plunging fire"? 

message: Why does the article place such emphasis on the amount of blast damage from the guns? I thought this was quite common with large guns on battleships, especially when fired at certain bearings. What is the difference between the Rodney firing her X turret abaft the beam and a normal battleship firing their B turret abaft the beam? The HMS Hood coudln't fire her Y (I think it was Y; the second from the aft) turret in the forward quarter firing position without causing blast damage to the half deck adjacent to it. All battleships had problems with decking being smashed by the blast, especially at low elevations, and railings and other fittings not removed from the deck before firing were often destroyed. I think this emphasis mostly is caused by A: the fact that the 16" guns were even more powerful than the ones the RN was accustomed too, and so caused even greater damage than usual, and B: the fir deck planks were particularly prone to damage. It may be that the unusually large superstructure with extensive glazing also caused more problems than the usual bridge structure. But the implication seems to be that it has something to do with the layout and design of the ship, and that seems very unlikely to me. I've read a number of accounts of the general damage caused by heavy guns firing; it was not at all unusual. The Nelsons didn't have any more deck fittings than any other battleship, and the proximity of the guns was not in any was out of the ordinary. 
Also, why would firing broadsides cause more damage to the deck than single gun or single turret salvos? I can understand broadside firing, or even full turret firing causing structural damage from the concentrated shock, but I can't see why it should make any difference to the blast damage on deck. Blast damages whatever is within close proximity to it. I don't see why firing several guns at once should increase the blast effect of any or all of them combined. 
The only difference I can think of between the Nelsons and a normal battleship is that the X turret is mounted further aft than is normal, and so the muzzles won't be able to extend over the side of the ship before firing, which could inflict more blast on the deck underneath. This same area of deck could also conceivably act to reflect the blast back when firing abaft the beam, increasing the blast damage to the bridge structure. Just an idea. 
But any battleship would have the same problems with firing over the decks when firing the A turret ahead of the ship. Indeed, if I remember, that was considered to do that most damage. Although 16" guns would tend to make it even worse. Maybe that's why the Yamato class was fitted with all-metal decking on the forward part of the vessel.
64.223.107.150 (talk) 04:35, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gun blast damage