Interesting.  The same thing that allowed the Bismarck to last through so many reported hits ( shots coming in at too shallow an angle and going right through the superstructure instead of exploding inside the ship ) turns out to be a factor in proving it couldn't have killed the Hood alone.

tankerbuilder

that ALL BRITISH ships were guilty of.Remember the HOOD was over ten years old at the time too.Armor plating and it,s location changed with the newer BRITISH ships.The truth is the HOOD was insufficiently armored ANYWHERE to take on the BISMARK.

The Hood was a battle cruiser and not a battle ship as was the Bismark.   The British Battle cruisers were not designed to fight in the front line of the fleet, that was the Job of the Battle Ships.   The British did realize the problems inherent in their Battle cruiser philosophy after Jutland.   But even with the modifications made to the Hood during her construction, you can't turn a battle cruiser into a battle ship.  The fact the ship was 10 years old had nothing to do with it.  I would imagine the majority of the Battle ships used in WWII were in fact designed  and build 10 years prior to WWII and many were hold overs from WWI.

The German philosophy a ship building can be summed up simply as "A ships first mission is to remain afloat" , thus they tended to have more Armour, but smaller guns.   "Castles of Steel" by Peter Massey is great read and sums this all up much better then I can.

The Hood was sunk by the Bismark. She rattled off 9 salvoes in about 20 minutes, and the Hood blew up.

I also remember watching the program that tankerbuilder is talking about.   It was well-done and made a convincing argument, using modern technology and forensic analysis, to support their theory of what caused the Hood to blow up. 

I'm reminded that for years it was thought that the Arizona was blown up by a bomb that went down the smoke stack, based the film taken at the time of the explosion.  That photographic evidence showing a blast coming up out of the stack was incorrectly interpreted as being caused by a bomb going down the stack, rather than from the overpressure of the forward magazine exploding and venting up the stack.

The only fact that we know for sure is that the Hood exploded and many brave British sailors lost their lives in an instant.  Whether the shot came from the Bismark or the Prinz Eugen probably didn't mean much to their families and friends.

Mark

I thought the Zuiho sank the Hood?

According to the the Prinz Eugen's Captain, as recorded in the ship's war diary, it is not likely that the Prinz Eugen sank the Hood since, by the time she sank, Eugen was engaging Prince of Wales.

There is also a good discussion/debunking of that idea here:

http://www.kbismarck.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=297

From'The Loss of the HMS Hood: A Re-Examination" by William Jurens:

http://www.warship.org/no21987.htm

"Speculations concerning Prinz Eugen's shells usually revolve around the idea that although her projectiles would have had little or no chance of penetrating Hood's belt armor at the specified range and obliquity, due to their "plunging" trajectory, they might have set off the after magazines after penetrating Hood's relatively thinly armored decks.  In support of this, one article purporting to reproduce a diagram of the relative trajectories of Bismarck's and Prinz Eugen's guns has been drawn so as to give an angle of fall exceeding 35 degrees.⁷⁸  A quick examination of the range tables, however, shows that such an angle is highly exaggerated, to say the least.  In reality, due largely to the higher initial velocity of Prinz Eugen's guns, at the range at which Hood was engaged the angles of fall of both Bismarck's and Prinz Eugen's guns were remarkably similar.  Over the ranges of interest, the angle of fall of Prinz Eugen's projectiles was only about 13°-19°, an angle which cannot in any meaningful sense be construed as "plunging fire."  Further, the striking velocity of Prinz Eugen's shells could not have exceeded about 460 meters per second.  Even assuming that the shells could have found a spot to hit the deck directly, at the calculated angle of fall the official German armor penetration curves for this gun, though not reproduced here, allow them a penetration of only about 40-60mm of homogeneous armor at best.  In fact, as was the case of the 380mm gun, the curves for these conditions are effectively "off the graph," strongly implying almost no possibility of intact penetration at all.  Even at the closest possible range, belt armor penetration at the calculated obliquity of 47° would have only been about 100mm for an intact projectile and 103mm for a broken one, both of which are well under the thickness of even Hood's uppermost and thinnest belt.

Although a hit from Prinz Eugen could possibly have caused the fire in Hood's after superstructure, it would have been almost impossible for such a hit to have penetrated to the after magazines.⁷⁹  Prinz Eugen may have been able to hurt the Hood, but she would almost certainly be unable to kill her."

I wasn't there so all I can do is quote stories I've seen on TV. But Manny was around then. I bet he has some old war buddies that were there that could tell us what really happened.

I thought Manny was the chief gunnery director officer on the Prinz Eugen so that can lead to only one conclusion.................................. MANNY SANK THE HOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Actually, there is some truth to that...I was actually in an officer exchange program at the time with the Japanese Navy.  The Zuiho was able to infiltrate the waters of the North Sea when the Bismark action took place.  I was an observer on the Zuiho at the time, and we carried 11 Zeros, 6 Kates and 6 Vals.  We were screened by the Bismark and the PE.  I can tell you now that the Hood was sunk by a 800kg bomb from a Val...there, I said it...

AHA!  So I was half right !  Now we all know.

                                                                             Pat.

Even better than I thought, he was actually there. Mystery solved.

Thanks for clearing that up Manny!  One of histories mysteries solved...

Now just out of curiousity, you've mentioned in the past that you've got a little flight experience... you wouldn't have happened to be at the controls of said Val at the time, wouldya???

Question?  Why didn't Manny and the Zuiho stick around to knock out Ark Royal and the rest of Force H and then go on to save the Bismark?  Unless Manny secretly coveted Lutjen's command and wanted to see him fail....................................

                                                                                              Pat.

bbrowniii

Thanks for clearing that up Manny!  One of histories mysteries solved...

Now just out of curiousity, you've mentioned in the past that you've got a little flight experience... you wouldn't have happened to be at the controls of said Val at the time, wouldya???

So the Hood wasn't sunk by Godzilla!?!?!?

I hate to catch Carsanab making up tall tales about his exploits... 

HI; The fact is you are dead right about that!! The ROYAL NAVY men I met while in service and in merchant service under the BRITISH FLAG did show that the fellows were no cowards.I believe that everyone should definitely remember , that no matter where they  were they are brave men in all UNIFORMS from all eras and their sacrifice should never be shortchanged no matter who did what. Ask anyone in uniform if they want peace and they will be the first to emphatically say YES. GOD BLESS them all! There that sums it up I guess ,and I hope the last part of my statement didn,t offend anyone. tankerbuilder