Shipbucket

That's an interesting article Adam,

I like the way that Commander Hornby-Phipps is written off casually as a 'junior' officer. On board a ship like Revenge (H-P's home ship) there would be the captain at the top and underneath him would be 2 or 3 people ranked Commander (the second in command, the engineering senior officer, and possibly the Gunnery officer. At Commander level he would have intimate knowledge of his ship, its functions and dysfunctions. If he is not capable of making a determination on which bits are better on Baden and which bits are worse than his own ship then I would like to know who is.

The bits about reverse mindset are interesting but too general to say that Commander Hornby-Phipps was one of those afflicted with that problem. You do not get to be second in command (or other senior station) on board an RN battleship by being swayed by what amounts to enemy infiltration.

The reverse of the reverse also comes into play, you do not praise your enemies ships to say that they are better than yours because that acts against morale. You might show the enemy ships some respect but that would be as far as it goes. In 1919-21 there would be respect for the vanquished foe but that is all. The war itself would be too fresh at hand and the loss of ones brother officers too much of a reminder of German 'efficiency' to want to praise the German Navies ships.

If someone of Commander Hornby-Phipps' status has said that overall one-on-one that he felt that Baden was better than his own Revenge I would tend to believe him. The quote from him is on the overall comparison of the two ships and that would include the good and bad (stinkers) systems on both. The DNC report is looking for deficiencies and highlights the major ones, but I would bet my last dollar that if the same level of report was done on Revenge in comparison that the same DNC report would be looking for all that is good on Revenge than what is bad. The Admiralty would not want to spend too much time praising the enemies vessels. Any opinion that disagreed with the 'party' line would be ignored and safely written off as 'junior' officer malarkey.

Hmmm I do go on, but it is an interesting subject.

Hi Krakatoa,

Indeed, it is interesting. What would be interesting would be to see the differences between Commander Phipps Hornby's assessment and the DNC - was it a difference of fact or of opinion, to what extent (did Commander Phipps Hornby or the DNC overstate the importance of one particular thing the RN \ HSF did particularly well in their assessment or was it a more general thing).

Myself, I'm really not sure who was "in the right".

Regards,
Adam
ugh, early morning typing ... corrected!

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Aha! The plot thickens,

What is referred to as Commander Phipps-Hornby is actually:

Windham Mark Phipps Hornby (1896-1987), son of Admiral R S Phipps Hornby, entered the Navy in 1909 and was promoted to Sub-Lieutenant in 1916. He joined the RAMILLIES in 1917, was promoted to Lieutenant in 1918, to Lieutenant-Commander in 1925 and retired in 1932.

Which alters the playing field considerably. As a Lieutenant on board a battleship he would have been easily described as a junior officer. He would have been one of dozens on board. The weight of opinion of a Lieutenant is far less than what was described as a 'Commander' which would normally be 2nd in Command of a battleship. I would say they have described him as a Commander as being his final retired rank of 1932.

That would then undermine my faith in his opinions by about 50%, he might still be right, but his ability to be able to validate the differences between the two ships would be much less.

It is often stated that the Bismarck Class were basically improved Baden's in terms of armour layout. I was reading only the other day that the punishment Bismarck withstood at close range was a vindication of the Baden's armour scheme - the caveat it - at the ranges fought during WW1 (circa 10,000 yards). Impressive then but probably less so for the 1930s and 1940s.

Revenge's armour was considered superior to the Queen Elizabeths (it had less tapered belts which saved money but also improved overall thicknesses) and her deck armour was better placed, again for the short-range low-trajectory type of battles for that era. The sixth QE, Audacious, would most likely have had revised armour based on the Rs. Most of the R's had some extra armour added but only Royal Oak had any decent amount added and even that was insufficient for the longer-range diving shells experienced later. The Revenge Class was not perfect, the metracentric height was too high and bulges made them roll more and topweight was never available for serious rebuilding or alteration of armament. Remember they had been designed as cheaper vessels but all-oil firing was changed to mixed coal/oil due to supply concerns and they proved overweight. They were not the pinnacle of the dreadnought era and by the 1930s were outdated. Baden would equally be outdated by then and would such rebuilding make any sort of economical sense?

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Hi Hood,

I've wondered if the Bismarck would have had such a towering reputation if KGV and Rodney had stood further off and punched through the deck armour instead of the belt...

With regards to the Baden refit, it might make sense if included as part of the treaty obligations - wasn't there a "no replacements for x years" provision in there? Under those circumstances you might well find yourself making an economical attempt at basically building a new battleship in the old hull, no?

Ad

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Both France and Italy had provisions by the Washington treaty to build replacements for their old ships, but neither side used that. The "battleship holiday" started with London treaty in 1930.

During the 'battleship holiday' is when all the countries did their rebuilding programs of the old battleships.

France did not do the same amount of rebuilding of ships as they were building Dunkerque and Strasbourg during that period.

The Italians did the most comprehensive rebuilds. Followed by Japan.

I have tried for a rebuild somewhere between what the RN did and the Japanese level.

Edit: I added the quad turret because I wanted to do an overhead to see how it turned out for my next project. The original secondary DP battery was to be four twins per side.

Much the same with Hood, had she been able to fight at ranges she was designed for she may have lived on to fight another day and her reputation would have endured. Both Hood and Bismarck were heavily propagandised, Hood was shown to fall short of the public claims made for her and yet Bismarck and Tirpitz retain their reputation today. Admittedly both did absorb a lot of punishment.

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Never-Were British Aircraft

The Bayerns in my opinion had much better underwater protection to start (based on Breyer) with except for the underwater torpedoes. As an example a hit there apparently had a lot to do with the sinking of Seydlitz at Jutland. Also, would you do an update on the propulsion system? One weakness compared to the QE's was speed. I have also played around with modernizing the Bayerns and layout of the main battery makes it more difficult since the "B" and "X" turrets are so close together.