HMS Repulse 1916-41

[T66ORA]

Having served on the last Repulse, a Polaris submarine, we were always aware of the history of past ships bearing the name,it is 70 yes 70 years to the day since the Battlecruiser and the new Battleship HMS Prince of Wales were sunk by Japanese aircraft off Singapore. RiP lads.

[Simpo Two]

It was quite a blow, and one of those pivotal moments that marked the change from battleships to carriers as the prime naval unit.

I am still surprised that a battleship, designed to withstand multiple hits from naval calibre guns, can succumb to to bombs just falling at the speed of gravity onto armoured decks.

Given this success, why did we need Tallboys to sink the Tirpitz? Wouldn't hundreds of normal bombs done it more asily?

[IanMorewood]

Sad day but the naval powers that be still didn't appreciate how far air power had come on between the wars.

[DieselGriff]

Simpo Two said:

Given this success, why did we need Tallboys to sink the Tirpitz? Wouldn't hundreds of normal bombs done it more asily?

Whilst our own experience may deem it unnecessary the deck armour on the Tirpitz was such that even a very large number of direct hits with conventional HE bombs would have made no structural impact at all and as we wanted to sink her the Tallboy was the weapon of choice.

[Tango13]

Simpo Two said:

It was quite a blow, and one of those pivotal moments that marked the change from battleships to carriers as the prime naval unit.

I am still surprised that a battleship, designed to withstand multiple hits from naval calibre guns, can succumb to to bombs just falling at the speed of gravity onto armoured decks.

Given this success, why did we need Tallboys to sink the Tirpitz? Wouldn't hundreds of normal bombs done it more asily?

The reason Tallboys were needed to sink the Tirpitz was due to the Tirpitz having something like 16" of deck armour which no normal sized bomb would even dent. One Tallboy dropped from about 18,000ft punched clean through the entire ship before exploding underneath, another hit and detonated a main armament magazine. Even a near miss managed to stove in over 100ft of her hull!

[Simpo Two]

Ah right.

So all you need to do is put 16" of deck armour on your battleship and it's safe from (normal) aerial attack...? I'd have thought such a burden would have made it unstable and slow.

[Tango13]

Just checked my Janes book on battleships, turrets had about 16" of armour but the decks themselves were only up to 4" thick.

The other problem was the actual construction of the German ships, their interiors were highly compartmentalised so to get a decent amount of flooding you needed a very big hole to rupture a lot of bulkheads.

[FourWheelDrift]

HMS Repluse was hit by torpedoes, which would have been decisive in sinking it. A torpedo attack was impossible on the Tirpitz due to it's location and anti-torpedo protection. Which is why big bombs like Tallboys were needed on the Tirpitz. Plus it was stationary if it was moving you could probably forget it.

[Tango13]

FourWheelDrift said:

HMS Repluse was hit by torpedoes, which would have been decisive in sinking it. A torpedo attack was impossible on the Tirpitz due to it's location and anti-torpedo protection. Which is why big bombs like Tallboys were needed on the Tirpitz. Plus it was stationary if it was moving you could probably forget it.

You forget "Highball" and the "Johnny Walker" mines.

[FourWheelDrift]

Not really, they didn't sink the ship but Tallboy bombs did. Operation Catechism. 29 Tallboys dropped, 2 direct hits and one near miss.

[Tango13]

FourWheelDrift said:

Not really, they didn't sink the ship but Tallboy bombs did. Operation Catechism. 29 Tallboys dropped, 2 direct hits and one near miss.

The Tirpitz was finished as a fighting ship after the direct hit during operation Paravane two months earlier than Catechism. It was only bomber Harris' desire to prove his point to the Admiralty that resulted in Catechism.

[Simpo Two]

Tango13 said:

The Tirpitz was finished as a fighting ship after the direct hit during operation Paravane two months earlier than Catechism.

But did we know that at the time?

[Tango13]

Simpo Two said:

But did we know that at the time?

Yes. The Norwegian resistance was providing some excellent intelligence about the Tirpitz at the time of the attacks.

Harris, who held the Royal Navy in utter contempt wanted to proove that the bomber had made the battleship obsolete in the same way as Billy Mitchell and Curtis had previously.

[Simpo Two]

Tango13 said:

Harris, who held the Royal Navy in utter contempt wanted to proove that the bomber had made the battleship obsolete in the same way as Billy Mitchell and Curtis had previously.

And succeeded - though of course only when moored and when the Luftwaffe wasn't around. Had they got fighters up from Bardufoss it might have been a very different story.

[FourWheelDrift]

The SMS Ostfriesland the tired old German dreadnought that Billy Mitchell sunk (eventually after many attempts and five waves of bombers) was also stationary and not firing any anti-aircraft guns. It only had 2.5" deck armour, it wasn't made battle ready, watertight doors were left open, no damage control and most of the bombs missed (a sitting target). It's not surprising that Battleships continued to be be built.