So Hood was laid down on the day of the Battle of Jutland, during which three British battlecruisers exploded. British sailors perceived the deaths of Queen Mary, Invincible and Indefatigable as a disaster and immediately began to investigate what happened. Numerous commissions started working in early June, that is, literally a few days after the tragedy, and all construction work on the newest series of battle cruisers was immediately stopped.
The reason for the detonation of the ammunition was identified quite quickly, it consisted in the special properties of the gunpowder used by the British - cordite, which is prone to an instant explosion when ignited. However, as experts rightly noted, it all starts with breaking through the armor - if the German shells did not easily perforate the towers, barbets and other protection of the English battle cruisers, then there would be no fires.
Nevertheless, the first proposal of the sailors - to strengthen the armored deck in the area of the ammunition storage - provoked a protest from the shipbuilders. They argued that in the presence of the second and third armor belts protecting the side to the very upper deck, the defeat of the ammunition cellar is practically impossible even with the existing thickness of the horizontal protection - they say that the projectile, piercing the side belt, loses much in speed, partially deforms, plus this changes the angle of incidence (when the vertical armor is pierced, the projectile turns to its normal, that is, it deviates from its original trajectory to a plane located at 90 degrees to the armor plate it pierces), and all this indicates that such a projectile either does not hit the deck armor completely, or it hits, but at a very small angle and ricochets away from it. Therefore, the head of the Tennyson D'Einkourt Shipbuilding Directorate proposed a very moderate adjustment to the protection of the latest battle cruisers.
In his opinion, first of all, the height of the main armor belt should be increased in order to improve the protection of the ship under water - D'Einkourt was worried about the possibility of a shell hitting "under the skirt", that is, into the unarmored side under the lower cut of the armor plates. So he proposed to increase the 203 mm belt by 50 cm, and in order to somehow compensate for the increase in mass, to reduce the thickness of the second armor belt from 127 to 76 mm. However, such a scheme, obviously, contradicted the previously stated arguments regarding the inaccessibility of artillery cellars for shells falling into the side protected by armor - it was obvious that the combination of 76 mm vertical and 38 mm horizontal protection would not be able to stop a heavy projectile. Therefore, D'Einkourt increased the thickness of the forecastle deck and the upper deck (obviously, only above the artillery cellars) to 51 mm. In addition, it was proposed to significantly strengthen the armor of the towers - the frontal plates were supposed to be 381 mm, the side plates - 280 mm, the roof - 127 mm. There were also some minor enhancements - it was proposed to cover the loading compartments for 140-mm guns with 25 mm sheets, and the armor protection of the chimneys should have increased to 51 mm.
Perhaps the only advantage of this variant of "strengthening" the armor protection was a relatively small overload relative to the original project: it should have amounted to only 1,200 tons, that is, only 3.3% of the normal displacement. At the same time, an increase in draft of 23 cm was expected, and the speed was supposed to be 31.75 knots, that is, the deterioration in performance was minimal. However, without a doubt, such "innovations" did not give a radical increase in security, which the future "Hood" needed, and therefore this option was not accepted by the sailors. However, he did not suit the shipbuilders either - it just took a little time for d'Eyncourt to get used to the new realities. His next proposal literally boggled the imagination - it was, in fact, about a 1.5-fold increase in the thickness of the armor - instead of 203 mm of the armor belt, 305 mm were proposed, instead of 127 mm of the second and 76 mm of the third belts - 152 mm, and the thickness of the barbets should be increased from 178 mm up to 305 mm. Such an increase in protection led to an increase in the mass of the ship by 5,000 tons or 13, 78% of the normal displacement according to the original project, but, oddly enough, calculations showed that the hull of a battle cruiser was able to withstand such an outrage without problems. The draft should have increased by 61 cm, the speed should have decreased from 32 to 31 knots, but, of course, this was a perfectly acceptable decrease in performance for such a large-scale increase in armor. In this form, the battlecruiser in terms of protection became quite comparable to the Queen Elizabeth-class battleship, while its speed was 6-6.5 knots higher, and its draft was 61 cm less.
This version, after some modifications, became final - it was approved on September 30, 1916, but after that discussions about changing certain characteristics of the cruiser continued. D. Jellicoe was especially successful in this, who constantly demanded new changes - some of them were adopted, but in the end the Shipbuilding Directorate had to fight off his demands. At some point, d'Eincourt even suggested stopping construction and disassembling the Hood right on the slipway, and instead design a new ship that would fully take into account both the experience of the Battle of Jutland and the wishes of the sailors, but then there was a significant delay in construction, and the first battle cruiser could have entered service no earlier than 1920 - that the war would last so long, no one could admit (and in fact this did not happen). The proposal of the Shipbuilding Directorate was rejected, but the final project of the ship under construction (with all the changes) was approved only on August 30, 1917.
Artillery
The main caliber of the "Hood" was represented by eight 381-mm guns in four turrets. We have already indicated their characteristics several times, and we will not repeat ourselves - we will only note that the maximum elevation angle that the Khuda towers could provide was already 30 degrees during construction. Accordingly, the firing range of 871 kg projectiles was 147 cables - more than enough for the then existing fire control systems. However, in the early 1930s, new 381-mm projectiles with an elongated warhead entered service with the Royal Navy, which provided a firing range of 163 kbt.
However, the Khuda tower installations had their own nuances: the fact is that the towers of the previous project could be charged at any elevation angle, including the maximum 20 degrees for them. The loading mechanisms of the Khuda towers remained the same, thus, when firing at elevation angles over 20 degrees. the guns of the battle cruiser could not be charged - they had to be lowered at least to 20 degrees, which reduced the rate of fire when firing at long distances.
However, such a solution can hardly be considered a major flaw in the design of the towers: the fact is that loading at angles of 20-30 degrees required more powerful, and therefore heavier mechanisms, which unnecessarily made the structure heavier. The British made 381-mm turrets extremely successful, but such a modification of the mechanisms could reduce their technical reliability. At the same time, the turret mechanisms provided a vertical guidance rate of up to 5 deg / s, thus, the loss of rate of fire was not too significant. An undoubted advantage was the replacement of tower rangefinders from "15-foot" (4.57 m) to much more accurate and advanced "30-foot" (9, 15 m).
Peacetime ammunition was 100 rounds per barrel, while the bow towers were to receive another 12 shrapnel for each of the guns (shrapnel was not relied on the aft towers). Wartime ammunition was supposed to be 120 rounds per barrel.
Interestingly, the Hood's main caliber could be significantly different from the original four two-gun turrets. The fact is that after the booking was drastically increased in the project, the admirals suddenly started thinking, is it worth it to stop there, and whether not to increase the firepower of the future ship just as dramatically? The choice was nine 381-mm guns in three three-gun turrets, ten of the same guns in two three-gun and two two-gun turrets, or even twelve 381-mm guns in four three-gun turrets. The most interesting thing is that everything could have turned out if it were not for the desperate reluctance of the British to adopt three-gun turrets. Despite the fact that many countries (including Russia) successfully operated such towers, the British still feared that they would have low technical reliability. Interestingly, just a few years later, the same Englishmen used only three-gun turrets in promising battleships and battle cruisers. But alas, at the time of Hood's creation, such a solution was still too innovative for them.
I must say that the "Hood", surprisingly, was quite capable of carrying ten and twelve such guns. In the version with 12 * 381-mm, its normal displacement (taking into account the reinforcement of the reservation) exceeded the design by 6,800 tons and amounted to 43,100 tons, while the speed should have remained somewhere between 30, 5 and 30, 75 knots … In general, the ship, no doubt, significantly lost in all qualities that before Jutland seemed important to British sailors, such as high side, low draft and high speed, but they still remained at an acceptable level. But the result was a real supermonster, a thunderstorm of the oceans, protected at the level of a good battleship, but much faster and one and a half times superior in combat power to the strongest ships in the world. Most likely, the possibilities of modernization in this case would not be particularly great, but … as you know, in reality, "Hood" never received a thorough modernization.
As for the technical reliability of the towers, the Hood would still not have had a chance to fight in World War I. British designers, and in this case, the three-gun turrets "Nelson" and "Rodney" could be better than in reality.
The anti-mine caliber of the battle cruiser was represented by 140-mm "Greek" cannons, which, according to the initial project, were supposed to install 16 units, but during construction they were reduced to 12 units. For a long time, the British themselves were completely satisfied with the capabilities of the 152-mm artillery, and the 140-mm artillery systems were designed by order of the Greek fleet, but with the beginning of the war these guns were requisitioned and thoroughly tested. As a result, the British came to the conclusion that, despite a much lighter projectile (37.2 kg versus 45.3 kg), 140-mm artillery outperforms six-inch artillery in its effectiveness - not least due to the fact that the calculations were able to maintain a high rate of fire much longer. The British liked the 140-mm cannon so much that they wanted to make it a single weapon for the anti-mine caliber of battleships and the main caliber of light cruisers - for financial reasons, this was not possible, so only the Furies and Hood were armed with this type of gun.
The 140-mm installation had a maximum elevation angle of 30 degrees, the firing range was 87 cables at an initial speed of 37, 2 kg of a projectile of 850 m / s. The ammunition load consisted of 150 rounds in peacetime and 200 in wartime, and was equipped with three-quarters high-explosive and one-quarter armor-piercing rounds. Interestingly, when designing the delivery of these shells, the British tried to learn from the tragedy of the battleship "Malaya", where the explosion of ammunition in the casemates of 152-mm guns led to the mass death of crews and the failure of almost the entire anti-mine caliber of the ship. This happened due to the accumulation of shells and charges in the casemates, so that this would not happen in the future, the "Hood" did the following. Initially, shells and charges from artillery cellars fell into special corridors located under the armored deck and protected by the side armor belt. And there, in these protected corridors, ammunition was fed to individual elevators, each designed to serve one gun. Thus, the likelihood of an ammunition explosion, according to the British, was minimized.
Interestingly, the British considered the possibility of placing 140-mm artillery in the towers, and this decision was found to be very tempting. But due to the fact that the towers greatly increased the "upper weight" of the battle cruiser, and most importantly - they had to be developed from scratch and this would greatly delay the commissioning of the "Hood", it was decided to abandon them.
Anti-aircraft artillery was represented by four 102-mm cannons, which had an elevation angle of up to 80 degrees, and fired shells weighing 14, 06 kg with an initial speed of 728 m / s. The rate of fire was 8-13 rds / min., The reach in height was 8,700 m. For their time, these were quite decent anti-aircraft guns.
Torpedo armament
As we said earlier, the initial project (even with a 203-mm armored belt) assumed the presence of only two torpedo tubes. Nevertheless, the Shipbuilding Directorate was overwhelmed by doubts about their usefulness, so back in March 1916, the designers turned to the Admiralty with a corresponding question. The sailors' response was: "Torpedoes are a very powerful weapon that can become a major factor in a war at sea and even decide the fate of a nation." It is not surprising that after such a statement, the number of torpedo tubes in the final project "Hood" reached ten - eight surface and two underwater! Then, however, the four surface torpedo tubes were abandoned, but the six remaining (more precisely, two one-tube and two two-tube) can hardly be called a victory of common sense.
They relied on an ammunition load of twelve 533-mm torpedoes - having a weight of 1,522 kg, they carried 234 kg of explosives and had a range of 4,000 m at a speed of 40 knots or 12,500 m at a speed of 25 knots.
Reservation
The basis of the vertical protection was a 305-mm armor belt 171, 4 m long and about 3 m high (unfortunately, the exact value is not known to the author of this article). Interestingly, it relied on an excess-thick side plating, which was 51 mm of ordinary shipbuilding steel, and in addition, it had a slope of about 12 degrees - all this, of course, provided additional protection. With a normal displacement, 305-mm armor plates were 1.2 m under water, in full load - by 2.2 m, respectively, depending on the load, the height of the 305-mm armor section ranged from 0.8 to 1.8 m. of a large length, the belt protected not only the engine and boiler rooms, but also the supply pipes of the main caliber towers, although part of the barbette of the bow and stern towers protruded slightly beyond the 305-mm armor belt. A 102-mm traverse went to them from the edges of the 305-mm armor plates. Of course, their small thickness attracts attention, but it must be borne in mind that vertical booking was not limited to the citadel - at 7, 9 m in the bow and 15, 5 m in the stern from the 305 mm belt, 152 mm of armor plate on 38 mm lining were In this case, the nose was protected by 127 mm plates from 152 mm of the armor belt for a few more meters. This vertical protection of the bow and stern ends was closed by 127 mm traverses.
It is also interesting that the British considered the penetration of 305 mm of armor plates under the water insufficient to withstand shells that fell into the water near the side, but had enough energy to hit the underwater part of the hull. Therefore, below the 305 mm belt, another 76 mm belt with a height of 0.92 mm was provided, supported by 38 mm plating.
Above the main armor belt, the second (178 mm thick) and third (127 mm) were located - they were located on a 25 mm substrate and had the same angle of inclination of 12 degrees.
The length of the second belt was slightly lower than the main one, its edges barely "reached" the barbets of the first and fourth towers of the main caliber. From its edges approximately to the middle of the barbette of the aft tower there were 127 mm traverses, but there was no such traverse in the bow - 178 mm armor belt ended in the same place as 305 mm, but further from it 127 mm armor went into the nose, and here it is which, in turn, ended with a traverse of the same thickness. Above, there was a much shorter third armor belt with a thickness of 127 mm, which protected the side up to the deck of the forecastle - accordingly, where the forecastle ended, the armor ended there. In the stern, this armor belt was not closed by a traverse, in the bow its edge was connected to the middle of the barbet of the second tower with 102 mm armor. The heights of the second and third belts were the same and amounted to 2.75 m.
The horizontal protection of the hull was also very … let's say, versatile. It was based on an armored deck, and three of its sections should be distinguished; within the citadel, outside the citadel in the area of the armored side and outside the citadel in the unarmored extremities.
Within the citadel, its horizontal part was located just below the upper edge of the 305 mm armor belt. The thickness of the horizontal part was variable - 76 mm above the ammunition magazines, 51 mm above the engine and boiler rooms, and 38 mm in other areas. 51 mm bevels went from it to the lower edge of the 305 mm belt - it is interesting that if usually on warships the lower edge of the bevel was connected to the lower edge of the armored belt, then at Hood they were connected to each other by a small horizontal "bridge", which also had 51 mm thickness … Outside the citadel, in the area of the armored side, the armored deck had no bevels and ran along the upper edge of 152 and 127 mm of the belt in the bow (here its thickness was 25 mm), and also over the 152 mm of the belt in the stern, where it was twice as thick - 51 mm. At the unarmored ends, the armored deck was located below the waterline, at the level of the lower deck and had a thickness of 51 mm in the bow, and 76 mm in the stern, above the steering mechanisms. From the description of the reservation given by Kofman, it can be assumed that the lower deck had armor protection in the area of the cellars of the main caliber towers with a thickness of 51 mm (in addition to the armor deck described above, but below it), but the extent of this protection is unclear. Presumably, the protection of the cellars here looked like this - within the citadel above the artillery cellars there was 76 mm armor of the armored deck, but it did not cover part of the cellars of the first and fourth towers of the main caliber, thinning to 25 mm and 51 mm, respectively. However, under this deck there was still an armored lower deck, whose thickness in these "weakened" areas reached 51 mm, which gave a total thickness of the horizontal protection of 76 mm in the bow and 102 mm in the stern.
This "injustice" was leveled by the main deck, located above the armor deck on top of the upper edge of the 178 mm armored belt, and here everything was much simpler - it had a thickness of 19-25 mm in all places, except for the bow towers - where it thickened to 51 mm - thus, taking into account the main deck, the total horizontal protection was leveled up to 127 mm in the areas of the artillery cellars of the main caliber towers.
Above the main deck (above the 76 mm armor belt) was the forecastle deck, which also had a variable thickness: 32-38 mm in the bow, 51 mm above the engine and boiler rooms and 19 mm further aft. Thus, the total thickness of the decks (including armor and structural steel) was 165 mm above the artillery cellars of the bow towers, 121-127 mm above the boiler rooms and engine rooms, and 127 mm in the area of the aft towers of the main caliber.
The towers of the main caliber, which had the shape of a polyhedron, were very well protected - the frontal plate had a thickness of 381 mm, the side walls adjacent to it were 305 mm, then the side walls were thinned to 280 mm. Unlike the 381-mm cannon towers on the ships of the previous types, the roof of the Hood's towers was practically horizontal - its thickness was 127 mm of homogeneous armor. The barbets of the towers above the deck had quite decent protection with a thickness of 305 mm, but below it changed depending on the thickness of the armor protection of the side, behind which the barbet passed. In general, the British sought to have a 152 mm barbet behind the side armor of 127 mm and a 127 mm barbet behind the 178 mm armor.
"Hood" received a much larger conning tower than the ships of the previous types had, but it had to pay for some weakening of its armor - the front of the conning tower was 254 mm of armor plates, the sides - 280 mm, but the rear protection consisted of only 229 mm plates. The roof had the same 127 mm horizontal armor as the turrets. In addition to the conning tower itself, the fire control post, the KDP, and the admiral's combat room, located separately from the conning tower (above it), also received quite serious protection - they were protected by armored plates from 76 to 254 mm thick. Below the conning tower, the rooms under it, up to the forecastle deck, had 152 mm armor. The aft control room for torpedo firing had 152 mm walls, 102 mm roof and 37 mm base.
In addition to armor, "Hood" received, perhaps, the most advanced underwater protection among all ships of the Royal Navy during the war. It was based on boules, which had a length of 171.4 m, that is, the same as the 305 mm armored belt. Their outer skin was 16 mm thick. They were followed by 12.7 mm side sheathing (or bulkhead inside the boules) and another compartment filled with metal pipes 4.5 m long and 30 cm in diameter, while the ends of the tubes were hermetically sealed on both sides. The compartment with the tubes was separated from the other rooms of the ship by a 38 mm bulkhead. The idea was that a torpedo, hitting a boule, would spend part of its energy on breaking through its skin, after which the gases, hitting a fairly large empty room, would expand and this would significantly reduce the impact on the side skin. If it is also broken through, the pipes will absorb the energy of the explosion (they will absorb it, deforming) and in any case, even if the compartment is flooded, they will provide a certain buoyancy reserve.
It is interesting that in some figures the tube compartment is located inside the case, while in others it is inside the boules themselves, which of this is correct, the author of this article does not know. It can be assumed that in the widest parts of the hull the "tubular" compartment was in it, but closer to the extremities it "moved" to boules. In general, as you can understand, the width of such anti-torpedo protection ranged from 3 to 4, 3 meters. At the same time, oil compartments were located behind the specified PTZ, which, of course, also played a certain role in protecting the ship from underwater explosions. In the areas of the bow towers of the main caliber, these compartments were wider, in the area of the engine and boiler rooms - narrower, but along their entire length a 19 mm bulkhead separated them from the rest of the hull. To somehow compensate for the smaller width of the fuel compartments along the turbines, the bulkheads inside the boules were thickened from 12.7 to 19 mm, and in the area of the aft towers of the main caliber, where the PTZ was the least deep - even up to 44 mm.
In general, such protection can hardly be called optimal. The same metal pipes clearly overloaded the hull, but hardly provided an increase in protection adequate to the mass spent on them, and the increase in buoyancy that they could provide was absolutely scanty. The depth of the PTZ is also difficult to consider sufficient, but this is by the standards of the interwar period and the Second World War - but for a military-built ship PTZ "Khuda" was a big step forward.
Power plant
As we said earlier, the rated power of the Hood machines was 144,000 hp, it was expected that at this power and despite the overload the ship would develop 31 knots. Steam was provided by 24 Jarrow boilers with small diameter hot water tubes - this solution gave an advantage of about 30% power compared to "wide tube" boilers of the same mass. The specific gravity of the Khuda steam turbine unit was 36.8 kg per hp, while that of Rinaun, which received a traditional chassis, this figure was 51.6 kg.
During the tests, the Hood mechanisms developed a power of 151,280 hp. that with a displacement of the ship 42 200 tons allowed him to reach 32, 1 knots. Surprisingly, but true - with a displacement very close to full (44,600 tons), with a power of 150-220 hp. the ship developed 31, 9 knots! It was an excellent result in every respect.
Of course, thin-tube boilers were quite new for the British on large ships - but the experience of operating them on destroyers and light cruisers led to the fact that there were no serious problems with their operation on the Hood. On the contrary, in fact they turned out to be even easier to maintain than the old wide-tube boilers of other British military-built battleships. In addition, the Hood power plant demonstrated excellent durability - despite the fact that over 20 years of its service the boilers have never been changed and its power plant has not undergone major modernization, in 1941, despite the fouling of the hull, the Hood is capable of was to develop 28.8 knots. One can only express regret that the British did not dare to immediately switch to boilers with thin tubes - in this case (if desired, of course!) The protection of their battlecruisers with 343-mm guns could be significantly increased.
The normal oil reserve was 1,200 tons, the full one - 3,895 tons. The cruising range at 14 knots was 7,500 miles, at 10 knots - 8,000 miles. Interestingly, at 18 knots, a battle cruiser could travel 5,000 miles, that is, it was not only a "sprinter" capable of overtaking any battleship or battle cruiser in the world in battle, but also a "stayer" capable of quickly moving from one oceanic region in another.
The seaworthiness of the ship … alas, does not allow giving it an unambiguous assessment. On the one hand, it cannot be said that the ship was excessively prone to rolling; from this point of view, in the opinion of the British sailors, it was a very stable artillery platform. But the same British sailors gave "Hood" the nickname "the largest submarine" quite deservedly. More or less good with flooding was on the deck of the forecastle, but still there "flew" due to the fact that the huge ship sought to cut through the wave with its hull, and not rise on it.
But the feed was poured constantly, even with mild excitement.
The huge length of the ship led to its poor agility, and the same could be said about acceleration and deceleration - both the "Hood" did very reluctantly. Not the biggest problem in artillery combat, but this battle cruiser was not intended at all to dodge torpedoes - fortunately, during the years of his service, he did not have to do this.
