[13], As a fleet flagship, her complement was 115 officers and 1,860 men in 1947. The side and roof armour of the 5.25-inch turrets was 2.5 inches (64 mm) thick. Apart from the Iowas and HMS Vanguard, the Bismarcks and the Yamatos were the two largest classes of battleships ever built.

They went deep enough, the shell Bismarck fired wouldn't have hurt PoW if it hadn't been a dud, it travelled to far underwater, if it was live it would have initiated before reaching PoW's hull. Bonus - nice piece comparing the wartime battleships (this segment on the armor) http://www.combinedfleet.com/b_armor.htm. These stoppages and changes prevented her from being completed before the end of the war. And you thought the American battleships were nasty. Had the Battle of the Marne gone the other way, Germany might have forced France from the World War I in the early fall of 1914, just as it did in the spring of 1940. However, before long both Bismarck and Tirpitz begin to lose speed, cutting off any chance of escape. This exceeded the width of the docks at Rosyth and Plymouth, which severely limited the number of docks that could handle the ship but these changes were approved by the Board of Admiralty on 17 April 1941. The secondary conning tower aft had 2 inches (51 mm) of armour on its sides. This weapon, though rugged and accurate, was still not remotely in the same league as the U.S. 16" or Japanese 18" guns in terms of power and range. With Kido Butai (the Japanese carrier force) engaged elsewhere, the Imperial Japanese Navy assigns HIJMS Yamato and HIJMS Musashi (with a similarly constituted support group) the task of catching and destroying the German ships. The Royal Navy anticipated being outnumbered by the combined German and Japanese battleships in the early 1940s, and had therefore started building the Lion-class … This was cancelled due to King George's declining health and Vanguard briefly became flagship of the Mediterranean Fleet in early 1949.

The Bismarck got a shell under the Prince of Wales belt that would have done massive damage if it had went off.

With good fire control the "speed" advantage so favored by the Royal Navy would be mitigated. The longitudinal distance between the inboard and outboard propellers was increased from 33.5 to 51.5 feet (10.2 to 15.7 m) to reduce the chance of a single torpedo wrecking both propeller shafts on one side and watertight access trunks were added to all spaces below the deep waterline to prevent progressive flooding through open watertight doors and hatches as happened to Prince of Wales. She displaced 44,500 long tons (45,200 t) at standard load and 51,420 long tons (52,250 t) at deep load. Not perfect but its the best we got. From a pure 'rating standpoint', she also suffers from a number of drawbacks: An unarmored superstructure, which was a poor design choice in all of the later British battleship designs. There were four American Mark 37 DCTs for the 5.25-inch guns, each carrying the twin domes of Type 275 gunnery radar.

The longitudinal distance between the inboard and outboard propellers was increased from 33.5 to 51.5 feet (10.2 to 15.7 m) to reduce the chance of a single torpedo wrecking both propeller shafts on one side and watertight access trunks were added to all spaces below the deep waterline to prevent progressive flooding through open watertight doors and hatches as happened to Prince of Wales. Load Deep: 52250 tons/58400 tons. And so if the WV and CA performed as they did at night due to superior radar fire control what would a ship like the Vanguard do on a clear day with similar predictive fire control capabilities? The battle of Surigao Strait would be more indicative of a clash between the two, the West Virginia with 16 inch and the California with 14 inch Guns but radar fire control each scored several hits over 28 km. She'd look even better without those shrouds around her gun barrels where they meet the turret. Could Hitler's super warship best the biggest battleship ever built? That's also more than the Bismarck-class. A detachment from the ship participated in his funeral procession before she departed for her post-refit shakedown cruise on 22 February. Stronger if we assume equal amounts, but the Yamato has a lot more armor than the Vanguard. [16] After trials, the three-bladed propellers on the inboard shafts were replaced by five-bladed propellers in a failed attempt to reduce vibrations of the inboard propeller shafts. The ship was provided with a powder-handling room above the shell room to mimic the arrangement that turret's hoists were designed to handle, and another set of hoists moved the propellant charges from the magazines to the powder-handling room. All of her multiple Bofors mounts were removed at this same time. Forward it tapered to a thickness of 2 inches (51 mm) and a height of 8 feet (2.4 m) and aft to the same thickness but a height of 11 feet (3.4 m).

[47], Buckingham Palace announced in November that King George VI was planning to take a short cruise for his health aboard Vanguard, which meant that her Admiral's suite again had to be modified to accommodate him and his staff. It consisted of six-inch non-cemented armour over the magazines that reduced to 5 inches (127 mm) over the machinery spaces.

Load standard: 45200 tons/46000 tons.

After its completion on 2 March, the ship trained with several of the Royal Navy's carriers before arriving back at Portsmouth on 25 March. On 31 August, she began a shakedown cruise to the Mediterranean and returned to Devonport on 12 November.
The end of hostilities following Japan's surrender reduced the need for new warships, and consequently the ship was not commissioned until 12 May 1946. British capital ship design philosophy favored protection over fire power and speed over protection, the epitome being the Battle Cruiser (HMS Hood and the HMS Lion in WWI showing the flaws in this thinking). She became flagship of Home Fleet again on 13 May when Admiral Sir George Creasy hoisted his flag.

I wouldn't call 2 inches less belt plate and 3(?) [20] They had a maximum depression of −5° and a maximum elevation of 70°. No, I was talking about the hit that bent the prop shaft, that meant there was a devils choice, keep the engine stopped and be a sitting duck, or try and get it running again, and end up with the prop shaft ripping open a massive gash in the hull from which there was no escape. By their own admission, British naval officials rated Vanguard's AA suite an '8' to Iowa's '10', even though Vanguard was commissioned after the war ended, and used American Mk37 directors. An Action Information Centre was fitted below the main armour deck with facilities to track aircraft and ships around Vanguard. The Japanese concentrate their fire on Bismarck, which has slowed to a stop and ceased firing. Their total output of 3,720 kilowatts (4,990 hp) was the largest of any British battleship. Damn, I guess they learned after the disaster that was the sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse by Japanese air attack, too bad that this improvement came so late into the war, too late to see any action. The ship was well regarded as seaworthy, able to keep an even keel in rough seas. Which weaker turret armor was a flaw of British capital ships. In July, the ship began an overhaul in Devonport, which lasted until August 1948. [40] By this time, a total of £11,530,503, including £3,186,868 for the modernisation of the main armament, had been spent on producing Vanguard. After manoeuvres with Indomitable, during which her aircraft "sank" the battleship, the ship made port visits in Genoa and Villefranche-sur-Mer before returning for a brief refit in Devonport on 14 March. [50], Admiral Sir Michael Denny replaced Creasy as Commander-in-Chief, Home Fleet, on 5 January 1954 and Vanguard participated in Exercise Medflex A with Dutch and French ships in March. Each Mark VI sextuple 40 mm Bofors mounting was provided with a separate CRBF ("close range blind fire") director fitted with a Type 262 radar, although the ship never mounted her complete outfit of those directors. [10][11], A proposal was made in 1942 to convert Vanguard to an aircraft carrier. He serves as a senior lecturer at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky. While moored in Fareham Creek, during her time in the reserve fleet, waterline shots of Vanguard in Portsmouth Harbour were filmed for the title sequence of the 1957 comedy film Carry on Admiral. The other intangible would be one of munitions quality especially in late 45, as the Japanese military declined in quality control as the war progressed. [40] By this time, a total of £11,530,503, including £3,186,868 for the modernisation of the main armament, had been spent on producing Vanguard. The side protection system had a maximum depth of 15 feet (4.6 m) but this decreased significantly as the ship narrowed at its ends. Two hours into the engagement, an explosion rocks Tirpitz; the crippled battleship soon capsizes and sinks. On 31 August, she began a shakedown cruise to the Mediterranean and returned to Devonport on 12 November. She was pulled off by five tugboats an hour later, and made her final exit from Portsmouth. The square or transom stern was retained as it was estimated to improve speed at full power by 0.33 knots (0.61 km/h; 0.38 mph). After the Battle of the Denmark Strait in 1941, 1.5-inch (38 mm) non-cemented armour bulkheads were added on the sides of the magazines, to protect them from splinters from any hits from plunging shells that might have penetrated the ship's side beneath her belt.

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