Question: What if the Bridge personell onboard Prince of Wales had gotten distracted (i.e. by incoming gunfire from Bismarck and/or Prinz Eugen), so that Prince of Wales crashes into the freshly exploding Hood. Would the damage be severe enough to put the Prince of from her fatal deployment to the east, or might it even be so devastating that Bismarck and Prinz Eugen can proceed to sink Prince of Wales as well?
Uhm, how do you think would the upgrades affect Hood's speed? Adding armor that much, plus new armaments, would surely affect it. Do you think it's realistic to retain that 30+ knots max speed after refit, or a new engine with more SHP would be used?
If the Hood successfully managed to land several hits in favorable conditions, do you think the Bismarck could have been severely damaged enough to have stopped right then and there? This is assuming no hits ended up on the Hood.
what do you think would happen if churchill send two heavy and recent aircraft carrier (Illustrious class) or other cv instead of Prince of Wales and Repulse and with more destroyer and cruiser for escort. Personnaly i think singapour would not be taken
Given their number of cruisers and their doctrine for smashing through US Navy cruiser squadrons, would the Japanese have got more effective results out of the Kongo's if they used them in the original battlecruiser role as cruiser killers then trying to use them as battleships?
A bit of film trivia. The actor who played the captain of the Prince of Wales in the film Sink The Bismarck, Esmond Knight, was a gunnery offices aboard the Prince of Wales and saw Hood explode. Just after that he was wounded by shrapnel which resulted in the permanent lose of sight in one eye but he received a series of treatments from Dr Vincent Nesfield designed to restore sight to his remaining eye. The treatment was a great success, restoring much of Knight's sight in that eye.
I cannot for the life of me remember the name of the actor but thier was one British actor who was rejected for a part in "The Great Escape" despite being one of the people who had actually taken part in the great escape
@@SSN515 I know I'm just trying to remember the name of the other actor who was rejected for the movie despite being one of the escapees. He wasn't a big name actor but had a relitivly solid career doing small parts on both film and TV in the 50s and 60s
This same actor walked around the "set" of the bridge of Prince of Wales, with his eyes closed and used his hands to feel the position of everything. He apparently said that he could tell that everything was in the right place, even though he wasn't looking. A small part in the film maybe, but his deliverance was very memorable and one of those people whome it would have been a privelage to shake hands with and thank for all their efforts on our behalf I think.
Note of interest. Hood never had a lower red hull. She was painted in an anti fouling grey. So for all you model makers of the Hood, paint her hull grey.
[The space between the rear funnel and the rear mast] "The Americans would put AA mounts there, the Germans would add a catapult, and Japan would put another turret... While the British made sure the Hood has the best tea-making facilities ever put on to sea" xD
@@kaijudirector5336 I politely disagree, as I hate that castle superstructure of modernized british ships, but of course it depends on personal taste. I like tripod masts.
I kept going back and ogling it. Not as tall as the Vanguard (which I remember) but a Hood/Vanguard mix and more elegant than Lord Strabolgi's 'super battleship'.
Father: "I'm so disappointed, how could you fail that exam?!" Son: "Just bad luck. Now, if that one cod in the North Atlantic had swum left instead of right..."
Two lucky strikes against seemingly impossible odds, one made Hood explode in mere seconds, the other doomed Bismark to her protracted, but no less certain agonizing death. Ares was certainly in some very bad mood those days.
heh, I personalyl have to wonder if all the ideas about needing to penetrate X thickness of armor... maybe the trick is that it wasn't? Maybe the Germans got lucky enough to hit a damaged armor plate? I dunno.
2:20 "But.. some minor change somewhere, butterfly in central park, a cod that swam left instead of right, a wisp of cloud that changed the surface temperature on a small patch of the ocean near the Azores. Whatever." I just love your deadpan delivery of that line.
This is so perfect. Drach really out did himself on this one. It doesn't even really feel like a What If, it feels like a normal episode in the history of a ship. It's slightly underwhelming... just like in real life. Drach restrained himself and didn't try to make it cool, he made it accurate. It's realistic to a scary extent. And unlike many what if, no one is out of character, what causes the change is extremely probable. And am completely stunned by this amazing video.
Meanwhile, in any game that lets me build ships, I tend to just make them into really big catamarans or trimarans. Or failing this, I would make it a pseudo-catamaran in which the two hulls are somewhat fused together, such that the profile of the vessel is somewhat W shape rather than the somewhat bulbous U-V shape of normal hulls. The real question (for me in this situation) is whether its viable to make a shallower turret. A W-hull which is shorter than a normal ship would of course be stable, and wouldn't need much armor for the upper bottom of the "W" part. So if the height of the ship (in terms of the total hull) were a bit less, then you start taking advantage of having less surface area you need to put armor on, as well as less stability issues from putting heavy armor on the wider deck (which is needed if we consider bombs from above). If you wanted to be really ambitious for the era, you could widen the "W" further and put wings in the bottom gap as basically hydrofoils to allow it to move a number of knots faster (Maybe 3-5? its not some modern lightweight hydrofoil we are talking about here). I wonder. We've seen the famous Russian "pancake" ship. But have there been any other interesting non-standard hull experiments in the past 500 years? I mean, there was also kinda the turtle ship, but it was still mostly a normal ship with just extra armor and basically made to NOT have a deck (it was designed to counter a navy that liked to board enemy ships, and did so very well by being loaded with heavy armor and high power, short range guns pointing everywhere to just make a huge mess of things... but the hull itself wasn't very special). Before things like a few modern stealth ship designs, how often have navies tried looking into non-standard hulls, or multi-hull designs, and so forth?
@@SephirothRyu basically you loose speed, the length of the waterline is a determining factor. A wider beam gives you a longer waterline when heeled over but this applies more to sailing ships than the post-steam era, typically speed is a key metric.
Fun story - my grandfather drove for the Admiralty during the war. He picked up two giant propellers for the Hood from the shipyard in Scotland and drove them all the way down to the south coast for a refit, with a police escort. Bought a paper when he got there, and read the news that she'd been sunk. Eventually had to drive the props all the way back up to Scotland. We're all part of history in our own small way I guess eh.
@@emperorflare8911 Likely a mixture of “good god” “this was a massive waste of time” and “im gonna rip hitlers ball off” Edit: balls changed to ball, hitler had only a singular ball
@@harryjohnson9215 Similarly, a good dhildhood friend of my dad - a real 'fireeater' by all accounts, transferred to submarines so he could see some 'real action'. He survived the war. The world is a strange old place.
Hood was lost 80 years ago this morning, though its heartening to see that all these years later she and the 1415 men who were lost with her, have not been forgotten. Respect to their memory.
I find it rather ironic that two ships that through the 20s and 30s were seen as if not the actual flagships but the spiritual flagships of their respective fleets. Both were destroyed in similar circumstances in the same year.
HMS Renown: Gifted with Jellicoe's/Iron Duke's Aimbot HMS Hood: Gifted with Beatty's/Queen Mary's rotten luck, experienced slight turbulence and then exploded.
Not just that, with Vanguard as a CV and modernised instead of Victorious the RN might save enough money (even while placing Hood in reserve) to make a good case for britain needing the CVA-01 class more than the TSR-2. In that case it would be Hood and 1-2 full fleet carriers carrying proper naval strike aircraft (instead of just VTOL Harriers) all bearing down on the Falklands. Yeah, that would be a bad time to be in the argentine armed forces.
Ironically enough, if Hood was somehow present with at the Falklands, I don't think the Argentinian Navy would have even attempted a sortie and the Belgrano would have stayed in port and finished out its days probably being scrapped in the 2000s. The possibility of a shootout between the Belgrano and the Hood while a wet dream for naval enthusiasts would have been impossible unless the Belgrano was able to somehow close range and use her faster rate of fire to eliminate Hood's fire control and command sections of the ship.
The other nice thing about that scenario is that had Hood returned from the Falklands as the victorious flagship of the expeditionary force, scrapping her would have lead to a huge public outcry and she'd probably be a museum ship by now.
If scrapping ships like Warspite and Queen Elizabeth was entirely about economics, then they went about it all wrong. Today, how many of you fellows in the comments would have been interested in purchasing a high quality knife or sword made from battleship steel, knowing full well, a large portion of the proceeds would be going to veterans charities and historical preservation societies?
That concept on a broad commercial basis didn't appear until the 1980s. Oddly, it was the Home Shopping Network that started that idea. Britain in the 1950s didn't have any inkling of the concept - and neither did the US - because it was too expensive/impossible to get the wide reach needed to make such a venture viable.
Her 'what if' refit design looks incredible! If I had the money and skills I could probably scratch build a model of that version of her using some other British warship kits spliced together, might be very rough but it could work??
I think her survival guarantees her a modernization/refit, Hood was the flagship of the RN, her repair rather than scrapping would be a huge morale boost.
...and I also mourn the loss of those Bismarck crewmen floundering near Dorsetshire's scrambling nets when the cruiser had to leave them, ostensibly because a periscope had been sighted.
@Jonah Whale I think the implication is that there was no periscope and they just left, which given everything I've read about both navies (British and German) and being a brit myself, I don't think they would have left unless they genuinely thought there was a U-Boat threat.
Royal Navy: just a refit, enough to do the job will do. US shipyard; ignore them, I see more room for a gun there there there there there...... Royal Navy: (look of dread)
Regarding the issue of penetration, given that any heeling into the port turn will make a BIG difference to any impact direction, so does any seastate affecting Bismark! EVERYTHING beyond the hardware attributes and the issue of extra exposure below the waterline due to the bow-wave is literally a matter of luck! I think your hardware analysis and inclusion of the significance of the bow-wave was superb and far more rounded and thorough than anything else I've ever heard! Great job!!
@@ErikHare That's easy, it happened because the Hood was out classed. The Hood was not a Battleship. Also I don't really think that much luck was involved.
Well, I don't know about all the OTHER people, but when I saw your last "Hood" video, I recognized that your new theory accounts for a lot of various events which were all accounted for. I was convinced by how the theory explained the flare before the fatal blast. And the film clip showing up the way that the armor belts would be exposed clinched it. Thanks for showing us this likely sequence of unlucky events that conspired to suddenly end the Hood. Thanks for all that you do, and for doing it so well.
The theory is not Drach's, it and much of the research for these videos was first posited by Bill Jurens who Drach credits at the beginning of the first video. Jurens also provided some script feedback to these episodes I believe.
one question this scenario brings up: if not for the loss of the Hood, do you think the RN would have gone as all-out as they did to sink the Bismarck? Of course he was still a threat to the convoys and as an enemy capitol ship, but looking at the sheer number of vessels deployed in reality, would he have merited as much of a response without the aforementioned threat AND the blow to British pride IE sinking "the Mighty Hood" with "Contemptuous ease" as "Expedition Bismarck" put it? For instance, would Rodney have been redeployed so suddenly, considering she was on her way to a refit? Not to mention Prince of Wales wasn't damaged as badly in this scenario, so would she could have kept up the chase, linking up with KGV? would Force H have been redeployed? And in the event Force H was not redeployed, is there a chance Bismarck would have escaped? Much like the shell hit that did in the Hood, the torpedo hit was a 1-in-a-million shot, and could very well have not occurred. And had Rodney, with her 16-inch guns, not been present, would the Bismarck's final battle have been so seemingly 1-sided? I'm not suggesting the British would have just given up the chase, but one can't help but feel the loss of Hood pushed the RN to "kill a fly with a sledgehammer" so to speak.
Plus the British tended to sledgehammer any German capital ship they could find. Out of port, they threw whatever they had at it. In port, they developed very big bombs to drop on it (or place underneath it). Plus given what would happen if the Bismark found a convoy that didn't have a battleship in it, well, I don't think the British would have much choice but to hunt it down ASAP.
I think that public perception was only a small part of the equation. A German capitol ship breaking out and rampaging in the Atlantic was a morbid fear throughout the RN. It's always fun to speculate the impact of media coverage anyway.
It was not just the Bismarck. The Scharnhorst & Giesnau were both at Brest after successful Atlantic raids. Had Op Rehinbung succeeded the Brits would have been dealing with the ugly sisters, Bismarck, and Prinz Eugen sorting from the French coast, plus the Hipper and any others ready to sortie via Norway/Iceland. Combined with a submarine offensive and maximum effort at air recon it would have been a Worst Night Mare scenario. Sinking the Bismarck was part of a larger campaign to neutralize the threat to the sea lanes. There was also the air campaign to bomb the Scharnhorst & Gisenau, and any surface ships in range that were based in Germany or Norway.
dont forget the chance to fight the daleks, maybe as a hidden unit of UNIT .. launching from London (where she should be, instead belfast) and then some guy in a black suit says: all a hallucination :)
There’s the Excelsior-class USS Hood NCC-42296 in Star Trek. Cmdr. Riker, Lt.cmdr la Forge, and Dr. Crusher served on the Hood before being transferred to the Enterprise in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
20:46 "One can dream..." Yeah, that was one exceptional dream. It brought a tear to my eye. Dammit Drach! You have made me emotional. ;) I think I'm going to make a model of HMS Hood sailing for The Falklands. Thank you for this video. :)
My uncle served on the Hood. He was 14yrs of age but they didn't know. He boarded her at Panama and worked in it's laundry. He's of Jamaican origins and has long since passed. I sometimes wonder the various Nationalities that were aboard Royal Navy ships within the European theatre.
I've always loved the lines of the Hood. Isn't strange that war ships being weapons designed to kill can be elegant machines with a beauty all their own.
I have always wondered what older ships would have looked like after a WW2 refit. Have always loved the look of the US Standards and Italian battleships after they got rebuilt.
I know beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but imo she is probably the most elegant warship. Bismarck was herself a great looking ship, but the Hood had that je ne sais qoi!
I would give about 95% chances that Hood would be sent to USA for refit (similar to Rodney) since risk of occasional "visits" of the British shipyards by Luftwaffe between 1941 till 1944 was still high (what bombing of the Duke of York painfully proved) and since most major shipyards able to conduct Hood's refit were located within the range of the German bombers chances that Luftwaffe would in fact focus on her destruction while she would sitin the dock would be very high.
In the mid of 1941 the majority of the Luftwaffe was at Eastern Front. It would be a field day for the RAF, if the Luftwaffe had tryed to destrory HMS Hood in Rosyth Dockyard in an daylight attack. The Royal Air Force had destroyed Gneisenau in Kiel Dockyard in 1943 in a night time attack, but it was a lucky shot, because the stupid Nazis had let the ammunition on board.
31st August 1940 at 2040 Prince of Wales was damaged during a 160 bomber air raid whilst fitting out at Cammell Laird. A 250 lb bomb exploded between the basin wall and hull and caused flooding. Flooding also occurred through holes that had been made for fitting the internal degaussing cable. Dry docked and repaired with no significant delay.
Thank you Drach, and also Bill Jurens, for this fantastically thorough presentation. Wholly convincing. Speculation on the refitting of Hood along the lines of Renown is fascinating, especially the idea of using Vanguard’s supplies for parts - no way that the British war economy could have built two sets of new Battleship machinery, however, so no chance of seeing Hood and Vanguard sailing side by side. As Hood’s hull was over 20 years old, however, it seems unlikely that she would have been as satisfactory as a brand new Vanguard - look at the problems they had with HMS London’s hull hogging and sagging.
This and the recent video detailing the Hood sinking are both excellent! Both of these presentations answer a lot of questions and demonstrate a high degree of scholarly competence. Your Battle of Jutland series were also of the same high quality. All your presentations are well worth watching as they are informative, and enjoyable with great photos and film clips. Keep up the great work!
Okay, first: What a wonderful rational, grounded analysis into a 'what if' scenario to enjoy on Christmas day! Thank you this and I hope the holidays are treating you as admirably as you deserve for all the 'good art' you share with us all. Second: as hinted above, thank you for this whole channel - you've given much grist for the mill of my lifelong affection for naval warfare! And third: I have FINALLY caught up with your PRODIGIOUS backlog; I started checking your videos out due to looking for something useful to refer to in a discussion about the Battle Off Samar last November...which got me starting on your channel's content...and after a quarantine (thank you for helping me keep my sanity, btw) of watching/listening to you expound on the age of steam & steel? Well, again, thank you.
Do not forget the thin bulkheads between the magazines and powerplant being thickened to at least 4" of Non-Cemented Armor (or D-Steel, at least). If she was sent to the US, I think that this would have been definitely noted by the US overhaul personnel as a major problem, considering where she had just been heavily damaged in her fight with BISMARCK. I would hope that the British designers would be as observant.
Would have been brilliant to have her & vanguard as the “capital protection assets” kept in reserve & upgraded similar to the Iowa's so they could keep the carriers safe & provide the “cost effective” bombardment roles they were designed for all be it in support of Marines & not a naval campaign. Keep up the great work drach , watching the channel grow from 500 to what you've accomplished is inspirational. Take care , best wishes to you & “the mine” .
Given that the equally powerful and far newer HMS Vanguard of 1946 was scrapped in 1960, the absurd notion that a rebuilt Hood could have still been in existence as of 1982 is, well, totally delusional. The RN's missions post WW2 had little to no use for any battleships, nor did the nation have the cash to be able to afford one. Just manning one meant laying up at least one carrier and two or three cruisers, all of which were far more useful, and being ships, plural, could be in more than one place at one time.
The model of the refitted Hood is absolutely stunning. Looks superbly detailed and very well thought out I feel. Shout out to everyone who worked on both the 'as existed' and 'as refit' modelers. As I work in BIM, I'm curious as to what software was used to create the 3D models. Also, any chance that the refit Hood model could be slipped into the inbox of the WOWS devs... pretty please.
Drachinifel's ultimate British wet dream: HMS Hood is called back into active service for the Falklands, and it proceeds to stomp General Belgrano in the nuts at the "Battle of the Exclusion Zone".
Drachinifel's ultimate British nightmare: HMS Hood is called back into active service for the Falklands, and it proceeds to be sunk by one of Argentina's submarines.
Belgrano was just a Brooklyn class cruiser, formerly known as the USS Phoenix, a survivor of Pear Harbor with 11 battle stars ⭐️ under her belt . As good a tried and true US Navy ship as was ever built, she was never designed to take on a vessel such as HMS Hood by herself. As the Belgrano, she was 47 years old when she sank. It would never have been a match for the Hood. I’m sorry to say, as a citizen of the city she was originally named for, I’m glad she had a quick and dignified death from HMS Conqueror vs slugging it out with Hood.
I am aware it would have been nearly impossible for this to happen, it's just interesting to think about. A WW1 "Battle of Coronel/Battle of the Falklands" style capital ship gunnery duel occurring during an age of Exocets and advanced sensor platforms would have been a sight to see. Maybe we could get this analysis as an April Fool's video from Drach.
Terrific tutorial in the “what-if’s” of policy and naval construction as they might have affected Hood. Drachinfel and Felton are tops in their fields. Kudos.
Thank you for a very interesting programme, I really liked your alternative time-line and the refitting of a non sunk HMS Hood. Your explanation as to the cause of the conflagration by the main mast. It is the most well explained version of probability of what happened.
How lacking in joy in the world of possibilities do you have to be to post: "So what? She sank, get over it!" and all the variants of that sentiment. Thank you, Drach, for another wonderful piece that takes a bit of fantasy and applies some nice real-world details and potentials to it all.
Merry Christmas, good sir, to you and yours. Thank you VERY much for all of the gifts you have given us this year, especially these most recent Hood videos (the previous video on the destruction of the Hood may have been your very best yet).
Superb Video. Well done. She would have gone to America for refit. The refit images here are incredible. What a beautiful ship. If they couldn't keep Warspite, they'd never have kept Hood. This scenario is as good as we get. Thank you.
Hood did/would have a _slightly_ better chance of surviving, simply due to being more well known and loved. Combined with being very recently modernised would help. She still isn't making it past the 60's, but there is *some* small hope for her compared to the other BBs.
whilst it would be a shame not to see Vanguard completed, it breaks my heart that Hood didn't survive the Denmark strait. It would have been really cool to see her revised and rebuilt. She was a beautiful ship after all.
Not if it defeated the Bismark. Not to mention, as a symbol of the RN, she would likely have been involved in just about every theater. From Normandy to Tokyo Bay. I think she'd be pretty well remembered
Here's a thought if Hood survived how would we remember Bismark? Would she still be as famous or would she join the other German battleships in infamy?
@@fouloleron2002 - Great point after all how many people have heard of RMS Aquitania yet she was the longest serving and one of the most quietly successful ocean liners of them all. Served with distinction through two world wars from 1914 to 1950. That's a pretty impressive record but other then ocean liner geeks nobody has ever heard of her.
@@enoughothis Warspite and (if she had survived the war) Hood definitely should have been made museum ships. It’s like a giant recruitment station where you implant the seeds of “the navy is really cool.” It’s an absolute travesty that Britain scrapped every remaining battleship in her inventory. I know Britain was just about broke after the war, but it’s just mindblowing that they’d just scrap these monuments to pride in the Royal Navy.
@@loganb7059, I was thinking the same thing. It's funny how a nation that gets all starry-eyed over brave sailors and their proud ships can show so little regard for them when those ships and sailors fulfill their purpose. The English sailors who defeated the Spanish Armada were left to die of disease on their ships after the battle was over, because that was cheaper than paying them. Legendary ships like the Warpsite deserve to be preserved for their role in history not unceremoniously broken apart for scrap. These ships defended nations and toppled empires!
@@enoughothis I am usually a pretty level headed guy but the people who decided to send the Warspite to the breakers deserved to be shot for treason against the empire and basic human decency.
Fantastic video I have often wondered about this ‘what if’ so I throughly enjoyed this video and I love the 3D model of the suggested refit, she was a beautiful ship and I really like the look of the refit too.
Two weeks saved my Father. When he and his two friends enlisted he was two weeks away from his eighteenth birthday so had to have his enlistment papers signed by my Grandfather, who refused. His two friends were posted on HMS Hood as stokers in the boiler room. RIP all who lost their lives.
@@NashmanNash well, it has to be close to the shell to cook, but far enough not to be burnt as soon as the shell explodes, given the explosive mass that is there, and the sudden heat, maybe around 5-10 meters from shell exploding, assuming the cod WILL be cooked instantly on all sides
Thomas No, not particularly. The only surprise Gaijin could conjure up at this point was that they dropped comparable ships to the Hyuga for every other nation next patch and raise their BR to 7.0. That would at least level the playing field.
@@armagonarmagon3980 7.0 should be the bare minimum battleships should be at.. Later ships should absolutely be 7.7 or higher... heavy and light cruisers fighting Battleships is NOT fun..!
Aye I shat myself as well, but it's probably a model done by the same modellers that Gaijin gets models made by. They're beautiful models all of them & my favorite is the Svetlana class Cruiser model, They really should keep making many more beauties.
Never been much for Naval history, but there's always a few BIG points - Trafalgar, the Nile, River Plate, the Bounty, Jutland, and Hood. But I've always looked at much of them from a technical point. Wondering if Drach has a Naval Engineering background from how he can so easily reference the engineering technicalities of such a big and complicated ship, and come up with such well thought-out answers and conclusions. I'll definitely be watching more!
He was. Iirc, when he started this channel he was still active in civilian ship design. He is currently retired though. Edit: I just noticed this comment is 2 years old.
But....if it served Vanguard's role, it may have served alongside Jean Bart during the Suez Crisis Then possibly sent to reserve while receiving some upgrades(change pom-pom to sextuple bofors while removing Oerlikon, then to either Sea Cat or Sea Wolf) Then called up to defend the fleet for the Falklands, staying at the center of the fleet until it's time to vaporize shore positions(after the exocets and submarines are suppressed) AND THEN, the value of battleships being proven(especially with the modernized Iowa's running around at this time), MAYBE modernized along the same lines as the Iowa(3 or 4 phalanx, some quad exocets, 4x tomahawk quad launchers, and probably modernizing her SAM to 2x 32-cell Sea Wolf) AND ONCE THATS DONE she would be called for Desert Storm, serving alongside Wisconsin and Missouri to once again vaporize offending shore positions, before returning home for her final rest at a museum berth
I would love to see a serise of these videos of what some ships would be like if they had a refit or different refit (Like actually upping the armour on the Kongo's)
Japan of the 20s-40s, being a government that had no need to account to it's public, could spend a fortune to update their battleline, and knowing that they'd be the ones starting the war, a bit of data that they did not share with anyone else, and so, they could do it on their timeframe. The 30s Kongo rebuilds also went farther, in that those ships were also lengthened, as well as widened. The only other navy that managed to do that was Italy, and their ruler also didn't have to win elections.
If Ted Briggs said the order to turn was given than that's what happened, he was right there behind the Admiral and heard everything. There was never any doubt as to whether the order was given the only doubt is to whether she started the turn or not and when you look at the rudder pictures from the wreck it's hard over. The order was given...maybe 10 seconds to late to matter. RIP heroes.
Thanks so much Drachinifel for your great uploads. Ever since I was a boy I've had a fascination for battleships (in spite of being totally anti- war) Your channel has been amazing for me :-)
She was a beautiful ship and the more modernized variant is even more pleasing to the eye. She would have been an ideal fast carrier escort in the Pacific if she had survived. AA guns and more AA guns.
I found this video very interesting and much better than many videos I have seen about the Hood. You have been the only person that has commented on how worn out the Hood was. I'm also glad you explained why in your opinion it wasn't the main magazine that exploded. I pointed this out on another video on the Hood and was told it had to be because the ship blew up. Its been a while since I read it I'm sure that the Anatomy of the ship HMS Hood mentioned that the Hood had sustained several hits during the battle and gave to alternate theories one was the 4inch magazine exploding the other was the above-water torpedo tubes warhead store being penetrated I'm curious as to what others think of the second theory.
Christmas and New Year seem to have come together and earlier. A great gift to naval enthusiasts. Great video and deepest thanks for uploading. Happy Christmas
When I was a kid I only saw the side profile of Hood in books and thought the two anchors were on both sides of the ship. I was really confused when I grew up and couldn’t see any anchors on the port side of the ship in photos.
Tanaka: okay you can get Hood in the game, but not before defeating her FULLY refitted form (and we will magically turn her into a 200+ plane aviation battleship) as the boss of upcoming event!
I tend to think that she would have been sent to the US for serious repair work, and possibly reconstruction. Given the fine work US yards were doing repairing other Royal Navy combatants, and the desire to spare her German bombing, the Hood would likely not have remained in British waters for long had she survived her encounter with the Bismarck. A great many large combatants were being seriously delayed as the emphasis was placed on building corvettes, frigates and other ASW vessels, so keeping Hood in a British yard would have exposed her to that issue; she likely wouldn't have been repaired by 1944! No, she'd have made the journey to the USA like Warspite did before her. She'd have likely received American radars and fire control, as well, after American entry into the war. As the pride of the fleet, the Royal Navy would have insisted upon it.
@@richardschaffer5588 That I'm not sure about. The RN wanted 5" 38s after the HMS Delhi experiment but there weren't enough around at that moment to refit the older RN cruisers. However, the 'tween decks mount that the armoured carriers and some Queen Elizabeth-class battleships received would have been likely. That would have reduced topweight, which the older ships needed. And, it would have maintained AA commonality with the rest of the Royal Navy.
Mr Drachinifel- I have been watching your videos since the 1st one on HMS Tiger over a year ago. I like your presentation style and the proper British accent that goes with it. Now, while your 5 minute guides were entertaining & informative your new presentation form as this is much better. They take a topic and explore it in depth to the extent possible. Your videos on naval engineering and armaments have given good first principles on these topics to fellows like me from a non technical background. The videos you did on RN cruiser development & armoured carriers taught me many new things. I would request if you would take this format forward into perhaps detailed look at armour layouts and ship design philosophies of various navies.
One thing I actually think would have gone different (and not even conceringing the Hood herself) would be that I honestly don't think the Bismarck would have been sunk - or at least that fast. One has to remember that IRL, she destroyed (one might even say obliterated) the pride of the Royal Navy famously causing the British to basically go "okay, fuck it, we're going all in here". Had the Hood survived (or even sunk after less of a cubstomp)... I honestly don't think the British would have diverted nearly as many ressources to sinking this one German battleship
Just like Tirpitz, @@travistucker1033. Also, we wouldn't have one of the most famous raids, and the germans declaring that enemy commandos is the same as enemy spies.
The Hood was pretty much doomed from the start Holland knew this . Still targeting the right ship and scoring even 2 or 3 hits . He had the time but ... Doomed from the start I can't figure why it was even sent . Another bad Churchill decision.
It certainly hardened the attitude but given all those ships were on patrol looking for Bismarck then those resources were already deployed. Once Bismarck tripped any patrol then the plan was in place to close and destroy. That's why Bismarck and other German raiders had orders to not engage warships if at all possible. Any damage or loss of speed potentially doomed them as would be the case for Graf Spee and Bismarck.
@@travistucker1033 Pretty much what I presume, yeah, she would likely have continued her mission for a bit (possibly) before being forced into a French port for repairs due to the hits she received. And from there on it would have rained bombs until she would have been gone
Her sister ships were to be built to a slightly different design. Here's some interesting trivia. Jon Pertwee (later to play the third "Doctor" in the Dr. Who series) served in the Royal Navy during WWII and was to become part of the Hood's crew once it returned from the hunt for the Bismark.
Pinned post for Q&A :)
Question: What if the Bridge personell onboard Prince of Wales had gotten distracted (i.e. by incoming gunfire from Bismarck and/or Prinz Eugen), so that Prince of Wales crashes into the freshly exploding Hood. Would the damage be severe enough to put the Prince of from her fatal deployment to the east, or might it even be so devastating that Bismarck and Prinz Eugen can proceed to sink Prince of Wales as well?
Uhm, how do you think would the upgrades affect Hood's speed? Adding armor that much, plus new armaments, would surely affect it. Do you think it's realistic to retain that 30+ knots max speed after refit, or a new engine with more SHP would be used?
If the Hood successfully managed to land several hits in favorable conditions, do you think the Bismarck could have been severely damaged enough to have stopped right then and there? This is assuming no hits ended up on the Hood.
what do you think would happen if churchill send two heavy and recent aircraft carrier (Illustrious class) or other cv instead of Prince of Wales and Repulse and with more destroyer and cruiser for escort. Personnaly i think singapour would not be taken
Given their number of cruisers and their doctrine for smashing through US Navy cruiser squadrons, would the Japanese have got more effective results out of the Kongo's if they used them in the original battlecruiser role as cruiser killers then trying to use them as battleships?
A bit of film trivia. The actor who played the captain of the Prince of Wales in the film Sink The Bismarck, Esmond Knight, was a gunnery offices aboard the Prince of Wales and saw Hood explode. Just after that he was wounded by shrapnel which resulted in the permanent lose of sight in one eye but he received a series of treatments from Dr Vincent Nesfield designed to restore sight to his remaining eye. The treatment was a great success, restoring much of Knight's sight in that eye.
Richard Todd played his commanding officer in the Longest day, next to an actor playing himself.
I cannot for the life of me remember the name of the actor but thier was one British actor who was rejected for a part in "The Great Escape" despite being one of the people who had actually taken part in the great escape
@@SSN515 I know I'm just trying to remember the name of the other actor who was rejected for the movie despite being one of the escapees. He wasn't a big name actor but had a relitivly solid career doing small parts on both film and TV in the 50s and 60s
This same actor walked around the "set" of the bridge of Prince of Wales, with his eyes closed and used his hands to feel the position of everything. He apparently said that he could tell that everything was in the right place, even though he wasn't looking. A small part in the film maybe, but his deliverance was very memorable and one of those people whome it would have been a privelage to shake hands with and thank for all their efforts on our behalf I think.
Must have been tough having to recite the line about HMS Hood being blown up. Also, the American reporter was playing himself.
Note of interest. Hood never had a lower red hull. She was painted in an anti fouling grey. So for all you model makers of the Hood, paint her hull grey.
Pity, a red Hood looks way better
Did not know that.
Well atleast there in good company cause in oceonliner designs video it was a Mitch match of red and green in there thumbnail
Did this also apply to other British warships at the time, or was this just applied to Hood only? I'm curious.
@@bigsai4472KGV was painted the same way in '41
[The space between the rear funnel and the rear mast] "The Americans would put AA mounts there, the Germans would add a catapult, and Japan would put another turret... While the British made sure the Hood has the best tea-making facilities ever put on to sea" xD
Hmm, is that perhaps a Yuro reference?
🤣🤣🤣 Plantation of tea trees onboard hood
No wonder it got tea-bagged. And it's disappointing to see that the historically accurate camo doesn't show the ship in two separate pi......static
And the french would add room service, a concierge, and a trendy if overpriced bistro... oh wait that's just predreadnoughts.
Its a Yuro reference, quoted from Hot Majestick Shtick(How to Hood)
The model of a refitted Hood is gorgeous. Beautiful ship.
I personally believe a refitted Hood would have been the most beautiful ship ever made if they made her that way.
Elongated New Orleans class
@@kaijudirector5336 I politely disagree, as I hate that castle superstructure of modernized british ships, but of course it depends on personal taste. I like tripod masts.
The H.M.S.HOOD was launched in 1920. By the time she was sunk she was 21 years old. Bismarck was launched in 1939. 2/ 14 / 39.
I kept going back and ogling it. Not as tall as the Vanguard (which I remember) but a Hood/Vanguard mix and more elegant than Lord Strabolgi's 'super battleship'.
Turns out: she would return to us, as HMS Hood the White!
@Chris George In our darkest hour, Hood returns.
"Hood,NOOOOO" "Ahead Flank,you fools"
And Bismarck comes sailing out of the fog bank at flank speed, wearing " the ONE RING OF POWER " !
This new Hood’s more grumpy than the old one.
At the turn of the tide?
Father: "I'm so disappointed, how could you fail that exam?!"
Son: "Just bad luck. Now, if that one cod in the North Atlantic had swum left instead of right..."
Yes, it was that Bolivian hummingbird that caused me to fail my driving test..... 🙄
Plot twist: The son was talking to his father admiral Holland alone at night circa 1945
Two lucky strikes against seemingly impossible odds, one made Hood explode in mere seconds, the other doomed Bismark to her protracted, but no less certain agonizing death. Ares was certainly in some very bad mood those days.
Honestly Hood had a more fitting death than HMS Repulse being bombed to death by planes, or even worse, HMS Renown being sold for scrap.
Hood and Bismarck lay on the ocean floor exactly 1100 miles from each other
heh, I personalyl have to wonder if all the ideas about needing to penetrate X thickness of armor... maybe the trick is that it wasn't? Maybe the Germans got lucky enough to hit a damaged armor plate? I dunno.
@@immort4730 I’m sure the crew of HMS Renown are quite a bit happier.
@@immort4730 yeah, at least Hood died in battle.
2:20 "But.. some minor change somewhere, butterfly in central park, a cod that swam left instead of right, a wisp of cloud that changed the surface temperature on a small patch of the ocean near the Azores. Whatever."
I just love your deadpan delivery of that line.
He said butterfly not bus flying.
Azores
This was perfect
Chaos theory!
Ditto
This is so perfect. Drach really out did himself on this one. It doesn't even really feel like a What If, it feels like a normal episode in the history of a ship. It's slightly underwhelming... just like in real life. Drach restrained himself and didn't try to make it cool, he made it accurate. It's realistic to a scary extent. And unlike many what if, no one is out of character, what causes the change is extremely probable. And am completely stunned by this amazing video.
Do note, any discussion outside of hood in Falklands is strictly prohibited.
Meanwhile, in any game that lets me build ships, I tend to just make them into really big catamarans or trimarans. Or failing this, I would make it a pseudo-catamaran in which the two hulls are somewhat fused together, such that the profile of the vessel is somewhat W shape rather than the somewhat bulbous U-V shape of normal hulls. The real question (for me in this situation) is whether its viable to make a shallower turret. A W-hull which is shorter than a normal ship would of course be stable, and wouldn't need much armor for the upper bottom of the "W" part. So if the height of the ship (in terms of the total hull) were a bit less, then you start taking advantage of having less surface area you need to put armor on, as well as less stability issues from putting heavy armor on the wider deck (which is needed if we consider bombs from above). If you wanted to be really ambitious for the era, you could widen the "W" further and put wings in the bottom gap as basically hydrofoils to allow it to move a number of knots faster (Maybe 3-5? its not some modern lightweight hydrofoil we are talking about here).
I wonder. We've seen the famous Russian "pancake" ship. But have there been any other interesting non-standard hull experiments in the past 500 years? I mean, there was also kinda the turtle ship, but it was still mostly a normal ship with just extra armor and basically made to NOT have a deck (it was designed to counter a navy that liked to board enemy ships, and did so very well by being loaded with heavy armor and high power, short range guns pointing everywhere to just make a huge mess of things... but the hull itself wasn't very special). Before things like a few modern stealth ship designs, how often have navies tried looking into non-standard hulls, or multi-hull designs, and so forth?
@@SephirothRyu basically you loose speed, the length of the waterline is a determining factor. A wider beam gives you a longer waterline when heeled over but this applies more to sailing ships than the post-steam era, typically speed is a key metric.
Fun story - my grandfather drove for the Admiralty during the war. He picked up two giant propellers for the Hood from the shipyard in Scotland and drove them all the way down to the south coast for a refit, with a police escort. Bought a paper when he got there, and read the news that she'd been sunk. Eventually had to drive the props all the way back up to Scotland. We're all part of history in our own small way I guess eh.
What was his reaction when Hood sank?
@@emperorflare8911 Likely a mixture of “good god” “this was a massive waste of time” and “im gonna rip hitlers ball off”
Edit: balls changed to ball, hitler had only a singular ball
My great uncle was transferred from hood to a K.G. 5 battleship a week before she left for the Denmark straight
@@harryjohnson9215
Similarly, a good dhildhood friend of my dad - a real 'fireeater' by all accounts, transferred to submarines so he could see some 'real action'.
He survived the war. The world is a strange old place.
@@robertcottam8824 it is indeed
Hood was lost 80 years ago this morning, though its heartening to see that all these years later she and the 1415 men who were lost with her, have not been forgotten. Respect to their memory.
A boy sailors who was adopted by my maternal grandmother was one of the 1415. #wewillrememberthem
My late father remembered his father cursing a storm when the sinking of the Hood was announced on the radio.
He must have been extremely happy once the news that Bismarck sank came in.
I find it rather ironic that two ships that through the 20s and 30s were seen as if not the actual flagships but the spiritual flagships of their respective fleets. Both were destroyed in similar circumstances in the same year.
@@ki-youngjang4067 bismarck become submarine
@@philvanderlaan5942 Well Bismarck was only launched in 1939, so it didn't spend the 20s and 30s doing anything.
@@calebdoty9090 ship I was thinking of was USS Arizona
Plot twist: I actually survived this
Sire. You made no attempt to escape from the bridge.
You been noughty, sir.
Much lol sir
I'll blame you for that...
sire, what happened ??
HMS Renown: Gifted with Jellicoe's/Iron Duke's Aimbot
HMS Hood: Gifted with Beatty's/Queen Mary's rotten luck, experienced slight turbulence and then exploded.
more like "cursed"
@@gokbay3057 blursed, beautiful and cursed
Totally speechless. 😶😶
Be a Jellicoe not a Beatty
The thought of hood blasting some poor Argentine position out of existance with 15 inch guns is... just... what a world we might have made
It would have been amazingly 🤩
Not just that, with Vanguard as a CV and modernised instead of Victorious the RN might save enough money (even while placing Hood in reserve) to make a good case for britain needing the CVA-01 class more than the TSR-2. In that case it would be Hood and 1-2 full fleet carriers carrying proper naval strike aircraft (instead of just VTOL Harriers) all bearing down on the Falklands.
Yeah, that would be a bad time to be in the argentine armed forces.
@@IO-hh2fz Chances are that Argentina would not have invaded if Britain had a full fleet carrier.
Ironically enough, if Hood was somehow present with at the Falklands, I don't think the Argentinian Navy would have even attempted a sortie and the Belgrano would have stayed in port and finished out its days probably being scrapped in the 2000s. The possibility of a shootout between the Belgrano and the Hood while a wet dream for naval enthusiasts would have been impossible unless the Belgrano was able to somehow close range and use her faster rate of fire to eliminate Hood's fire control and command sections of the ship.
The other nice thing about that scenario is that had Hood returned from the Falklands as the victorious flagship of the expeditionary force, scrapping her would have lead to a huge public outcry and she'd probably be a museum ship by now.
Whoever rendered the modernized hood did one hell of a job. Bravo 👏 thats one beautiful ship
If scrapping ships like Warspite and Queen Elizabeth was entirely about economics, then they went about it all wrong. Today, how many of you fellows in the comments would have been interested in purchasing a high quality knife or sword made from battleship steel, knowing full well, a large portion of the proceeds would be going to veterans charities and historical preservation societies?
Me!
Stop it. My blood pressure can only go so high.
@George and Ruth Mallory Easy to say with eighty years of hindsight...
That concept on a broad commercial basis didn't appear until the 1980s. Oddly, it was the Home Shopping Network that started that idea. Britain in the 1950s didn't have any inkling of the concept - and neither did the US - because it was too expensive/impossible to get the wide reach needed to make such a venture viable.
No sword but I have my grandads little wooden barrel with 'from the teak of h.m.s Queen Elizabeth' on it.
Her 'what if' refit design looks incredible! If I had the money and skills I could probably scratch build a model of that version of her using some other British warship kits spliced together, might be very rough but it could work??
I managed to read this as you wanting to actually build a full sized working warship. Idk how i managed
I wish, but my dockyard could only accommodate a 350th scale version if I'm lucky. I'm not sure if the world would agree with a 1:1 scale Warship😂
@@majoriix FBI wants to know your location
@@flexelsson1625 Crap... I think more than just the fbi want to find me!
I think you could kitbash a refit using parts from a Vanguard kit, to save you from needing a scratch build.
She was a beautiful ship.
In my opinion the refit version Drach has shown looks very good. But the original one.. I personally can't stand it.
@@fritzfeuerdorn2833 fully agreed about the refit but why can't you stand the original?
@@fritzfeuerdorn2833 or, given that username is this just a German engineering vs British engineering thing hahaha (kidding, kidding)
@@1IbramGaunt I've been found out! Abord!
See would have been a “head turning, darn sexy” given the model refit we were shown... still what was, was.
I think her survival guarantees her a modernization/refit, Hood was the flagship of the RN, her repair rather than scrapping would be a huge morale boost.
Let’s not forget the 1,415 crew who died in defense of His Majesty’s Royal Navy on 24 May 1941, lest we forget.
My uncle was one of those men.
...and I also mourn the loss of those Bismarck crewmen floundering near Dorsetshire's scrambling nets when the cruiser had to leave them, ostensibly because a periscope had been sighted.
They fought to spread Communism.
@@YTRulesFromNM Who did, the crew of H.M.S Hood?
@Jonah Whale I think the implication is that there was no periscope and they just left, which given everything I've read about both navies (British and German) and being a brit myself, I don't think they would have left unless they genuinely thought there was a U-Boat threat.
Hood goes to US for refit 🤔 give her 8 twin 5”/38 mounts and ALL the 40mm bofors 😈
How US place AA guns:
do you see free spaces ?
Why are there free spaces?
Put AA gun there
All the Bofors and all the Oerlikons
"how many AA guns should we put on HMS Hood?"
Royal Navy: "yes"
😂😎
All
Royal Navy: just a refit, enough to do the job will do.
US shipyard; ignore them, I see more room for a gun there there there there there......
Royal Navy: (look of dread)
Regarding the issue of penetration, given that any heeling into the port turn will make a BIG difference to any impact direction, so does any seastate affecting Bismark! EVERYTHING beyond the hardware attributes and the issue of extra exposure below the waterline due to the bow-wave is literally a matter of luck! I think your hardware analysis and inclusion of the significance of the bow-wave was superb and far more rounded and thorough than anything else I've ever heard! Great job!!
If it's an issue of penetration a bit of heat and lube usually does the trick. Maybe a tap or two.
The bottom line is that we know for a fact that a very lucky hit was scored. It's a question of exactly how it happened.
@@ErikHare That's easy, it happened because the Hood was out classed. The Hood was not a Battleship. Also I don't really think that much luck was involved.
@@go2mikerenzi Hood was technically a Fast Battleship, Hood had armor on par with Queen Elizabeth-class of Battleships
@@KatyushaLauncher the Royal Navy always designated Hood Go Boom as a battlecruiser
Well, I don't know about all the OTHER people, but when I saw your last "Hood" video, I recognized that your new theory accounts for a lot of various events which were all accounted for. I was convinced by how the theory explained the flare before the fatal blast. And the film clip showing up the way that the armor belts would be exposed clinched it. Thanks for showing us this likely sequence of unlucky events that conspired to suddenly end the Hood. Thanks for all that you do, and for doing it so well.
The theory is not Drach's, it and much of the research for these videos was first posited by Bill Jurens who Drach credits at the beginning of the first video. Jurens also provided some script feedback to these episodes I believe.
@@DrFatalChunk - Thanks for setting me straight. Good video, though.
one question this scenario brings up: if not for the loss of the Hood, do you think the RN would have gone as all-out as they did to sink the Bismarck? Of course he was still a threat to the convoys and as an enemy capitol ship, but looking at the sheer number of vessels deployed in reality, would he have merited as much of a response without the aforementioned threat AND the blow to British pride IE sinking "the Mighty Hood" with "Contemptuous ease" as "Expedition Bismarck" put it?
For instance, would Rodney have been redeployed so suddenly, considering she was on her way to a refit? Not to mention Prince of Wales wasn't damaged as badly in this scenario, so would she could have kept up the chase, linking up with KGV? would Force H have been redeployed?
And in the event Force H was not redeployed, is there a chance Bismarck would have escaped? Much like the shell hit that did in the Hood, the torpedo hit was a 1-in-a-million shot, and could very well have not occurred. And had Rodney, with her 16-inch guns, not been present, would the Bismarck's final battle have been so seemingly 1-sided?
I'm not suggesting the British would have just given up the chase, but one can't help but feel the loss of Hood pushed the RN to "kill a fly with a sledgehammer" so to speak.
The British were hunting Bismarck, Churchill needed to sink it or he might be forced out of office
Definitely, especially when RN now have one less capital ship fast enough to catch Bismarck.
Plus the British tended to sledgehammer any German capital ship they could find. Out of port, they threw whatever they had at it. In port, they developed very big bombs to drop on it (or place underneath it).
Plus given what would happen if the Bismark found a convoy that didn't have a battleship in it, well, I don't think the British would have much choice but to hunt it down ASAP.
I think that public perception was only a small part of the equation. A German capitol ship breaking out and rampaging in the Atlantic was a morbid fear throughout the RN. It's always fun to speculate the impact of media coverage anyway.
It was not just the Bismarck. The Scharnhorst & Giesnau were both at Brest after successful Atlantic raids. Had Op Rehinbung succeeded the Brits would have been dealing with the ugly sisters, Bismarck, and Prinz Eugen sorting from the French coast, plus the Hipper and any others ready to sortie via Norway/Iceland. Combined with a submarine offensive and maximum effort at air recon it would have been a Worst Night Mare scenario. Sinking the Bismarck was part of a larger campaign to neutralize the threat to the sea lanes. There was also the air campaign to bomb the Scharnhorst & Gisenau, and any surface ships in range that were based in Germany or Norway.
Maybe she would joiin Yamato in outer space. OK, that option is technically still open.
dont forget the chance to fight the daleks, maybe as a hidden unit of UNIT .. launching from London (where she should be, instead belfast) and then some guy in a black suit says: all a hallucination :)
😄😆😋😅😛😂😝😜
Space Battlecruiser Hood. Sounds like a cool spin-off.
There’s the Excelsior-class USS Hood NCC-42296 in Star Trek. Cmdr. Riker, Lt.cmdr la Forge, and Dr. Crusher served on the Hood before being transferred to the Enterprise in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
imagine a gun that can fire daleks at your enemy, that on spaceship hood. Now idea how the borg would react to someone shoting daleks at them :)
20:46 "One can dream..." Yeah, that was one exceptional dream. It brought a tear to my eye. Dammit Drach! You have made me emotional. ;)
I think I'm going to make a model of HMS Hood sailing for The Falklands. Thank you for this video. :)
Just a "subtle" "No no old chap. We aren't done quiet yet so why don't you toodle on?"
I don't care what anybody says. Hood was a beautiful warship.
Amen! Such a shame she had such an inglorious end
She was. And though she's in three pieces, technically speaking, she's still with us.
Thanks.;))
She truly was a magnificent Battlecruiser
@@haube7028 🤨🤨
My uncle served on the Hood. He was 14yrs of age but they didn't know. He boarded her at Panama and worked in it's laundry. He's of Jamaican origins and has long since passed. I sometimes wonder the various Nationalities that were aboard Royal Navy ships within the European theatre.
Woah, now that’s certainly intriguing
The hell they didn’t know. A case of don’t ask, don’t tell. Boys have been sailing on British ships for centuries.
Especially exotic laundry bois.
When you have been up since 6am the previous day and dont care about sleep when a great naval history video is released
Been up since 11:30am the previous day, I don’t need sleep anyway
You can sleep when you are dead
Y'all deserve some sleep. History is cool and all, but your brain will work better on some sleep.
I've always loved the lines of the Hood. Isn't strange that war ships being weapons designed to kill can be elegant machines with a beauty all their own.
One word to corroborate your comment...
Spitfire.
I have always wondered what older ships would have looked like after a WW2 refit. Have always loved the look of the US Standards and Italian battleships after they got rebuilt.
Despite tears and a strong sense of nostalgia, this is quality content.
I know beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but imo she is probably the most elegant warship. Bismarck was herself a great looking ship, but the Hood had that je ne sais qoi!
I would give about 95% chances that Hood would be sent to USA for refit (similar to Rodney) since risk of occasional "visits" of the British shipyards by Luftwaffe between 1941 till 1944 was still high (what bombing of the Duke of York painfully proved) and since most major shipyards able to conduct Hood's refit were located within the range of the German bombers chances that Luftwaffe would in fact focus on her destruction while she would sitin the dock would be very high.
HMS Duke of York was bombed by the Luftwaffe??
When did that happen??
Or better, what did you smoke??
In the mid of 1941 the majority of the Luftwaffe was at Eastern Front.
It would be a field day for the RAF, if the Luftwaffe had tryed to destrory HMS Hood in Rosyth Dockyard in an daylight attack.
The Royal Air Force had destroyed Gneisenau in Kiel Dockyard in 1943 in a night time attack, but it was a lucky shot, because the stupid Nazis had let the ammunition on board.
I think you're thinking of Prince of Wales being bombed whilst under construction in Liverpool
31st August 1940 at 2040 Prince of Wales was damaged during a 160 bomber air raid whilst fitting out at Cammell Laird. A 250 lb bomb exploded between the basin wall and hull and caused flooding. Flooding also occurred through holes that had been made for fitting the internal degaussing cable. Dry docked and repaired with no significant delay.
@@admiralsirrusty3465 :
Thats It!
What a lovely surprise to see all the recent HMS Hood content. Well done and thank you!
We need Merch with refitted Hood on it. I would kill for a t-shirt or poster with that beautiful fictional hood on it
Human or otherwise? Bit of distinction needed here.
Thank you Drach, and also Bill Jurens, for this fantastically thorough presentation. Wholly convincing. Speculation on the refitting of Hood along the lines of Renown is fascinating, especially the idea of using Vanguard’s supplies for parts - no way that the British war economy could have built two sets of new Battleship machinery, however, so no chance of seeing Hood and Vanguard sailing side by side. As Hood’s hull was over 20 years old, however, it seems unlikely that she would have been as satisfactory as a brand new Vanguard - look at the problems they had with HMS London’s hull hogging and sagging.
This and the recent video detailing the Hood sinking are both excellent! Both of these presentations answer a lot of questions and demonstrate a high degree of scholarly competence. Your Battle of Jutland series were also of the same high quality. All your presentations are well worth watching as they are informative, and enjoyable with great photos and film clips. Keep up the great work!
Was having a crap day, woke up late and shit weather, now there is a 40 minute drach video looks like im gonna love it. thanks drach
Always wanted a video on this subject, stellar job Drach
Digging these "what if?" scenarios
Here's one, Bismarck at Guadalcanal.
@@MrSleepy677 or Bismarck at Bismarck Sea. Or better yet, Yamato at the Denmark Strait, and Musashi at Norwegian waters.
@@champagnegascogne9755 Throw in with Bismarck's rudder still getting hit, but It's by a long lance.
@@MrSleepy677 Imagine the Yamato-class BBs trying to survive the earthquake bombing raids
@@champagnegascogne9755 Better yet, picture Yamato and Musashi participating in the Channel Dash.
I never tire of looking at the beautiful lines of the Hood.
Okay, first: What a wonderful rational, grounded analysis into a 'what if' scenario to enjoy on Christmas day! Thank you this and I hope the holidays are treating you as admirably as you deserve for all the 'good art' you share with us all.
Second: as hinted above, thank you for this whole channel - you've given much grist for the mill of my lifelong affection for naval warfare!
And third: I have FINALLY caught up with your PRODIGIOUS backlog; I started checking your videos out due to looking for something useful to refer to in a discussion about the Battle Off Samar last November...which got me starting on your channel's content...and after a quarantine (thank you for helping me keep my sanity, btw) of watching/listening to you expound on the age of steam & steel? Well, again, thank you.
Do not forget the thin bulkheads between the magazines and powerplant being thickened to at least 4" of Non-Cemented Armor (or D-Steel, at least). If she was sent to the US, I think that this would have been definitely noted by the US overhaul personnel as a major problem, considering where she had just been heavily damaged in her fight with BISMARCK. I would hope that the British designers would be as observant.
Would have been brilliant to have her & vanguard as the “capital protection assets” kept in reserve & upgraded similar to the Iowa's so they could keep the carriers safe & provide the “cost effective” bombardment roles they were designed for all be it in support of Marines & not a naval campaign. Keep up the great work drach , watching the channel grow from 500 to what you've accomplished is inspirational. Take care , best wishes to you & “the mine” .
Given that the equally powerful and far newer HMS Vanguard of 1946 was scrapped in 1960, the absurd notion that a rebuilt Hood could have still been in existence as of 1982 is, well, totally delusional.
The RN's missions post WW2 had little to no use for any battleships, nor did the nation have the cash to be able to afford one. Just manning one meant laying up at least one carrier and two or three cruisers, all of which were far more useful, and being ships, plural, could be in more than one place at one time.
The model of the refitted Hood is absolutely stunning. Looks superbly detailed and very well thought out I feel. Shout out to everyone who worked on both the 'as existed' and 'as refit' modelers. As I work in BIM, I'm curious as to what software was used to create the 3D models. Also, any chance that the refit Hood model could be slipped into the inbox of the WOWS devs... pretty please.
Drachinifel's ultimate British wet dream: HMS Hood is called back into active service for the Falklands, and it proceeds to stomp General Belgrano in the nuts at the "Battle of the Exclusion Zone".
Drachinifel's ultimate British nightmare: HMS Hood is called back into active service for the Falklands, and it proceeds to be sunk by one of Argentina's submarines.
@@jarink1 most likely outcome
HMS Hood, 1980's refrotfit
www.deviantart.com/zyfle/art/H-M-S-Hood-Modernized-794685488
Belgrano was just a Brooklyn class cruiser, formerly known as the USS Phoenix, a survivor of Pear Harbor with 11 battle stars ⭐️ under her belt . As good a tried and true US Navy ship as was ever built, she was never designed to take on a vessel such as HMS Hood by herself.
As the Belgrano, she was 47 years old when she sank. It would never have been a match for the Hood.
I’m sorry to say, as a citizen of the city she was originally named for, I’m glad she had a quick and dignified death from HMS Conqueror vs slugging it out with Hood.
I am aware it would have been nearly impossible for this to happen, it's just interesting to think about. A WW1 "Battle of Coronel/Battle of the Falklands" style capital ship gunnery duel occurring during an age of Exocets and advanced sensor platforms would have been a sight to see. Maybe we could get this analysis as an April Fool's video from Drach.
Terrific tutorial in the “what-if’s” of policy and naval construction as they might have affected Hood.
Drachinfel and Felton are tops in their fields. Kudos.
Thank you for a very interesting programme, I really liked your alternative time-line and the refitting of a non sunk HMS Hood.
Your explanation as to the cause of the conflagration by the main mast. It is the most well explained version of probability of what happened.
*"She was really running more on Hopes, Prayers, and Duck tape"*
God I love this channel
- duct tape -
HMS Hood really was in need of a really extensive overhaul but they just didn't get around to it
How lacking in joy in the world of possibilities do you have to be to post: "So what? She sank, get over it!" and all the variants of that sentiment.
Thank you, Drach, for another wonderful piece that takes a bit of fantasy and applies some nice real-world details and potentials to it all.
Merry Christmas, good sir, to you and yours. Thank you VERY much for all of the gifts you have given us this year, especially these most recent Hood videos (the previous video on the destruction of the Hood may have been your very best yet).
Superb Video. Well done. She would have gone to America for refit. The refit images here are incredible. What a beautiful ship. If they couldn't keep Warspite, they'd never have kept Hood. This scenario is as good as we get. Thank you.
Hood did/would have a _slightly_ better chance of surviving, simply due to being more well known and loved. Combined with being very recently modernised would help. She still isn't making it past the 60's, but there is *some* small hope for her compared to the other BBs.
Deckspace that doesn't kill planes: ...
*the US Navy would like to know your location*
Essex Class Carriers have been deployed to the location 😂
@@le_floofy_sniper_ducko *SCREAMS IN 32 PLANNED SHIPS*
Lol.
whilst it would be a shame not to see Vanguard completed, it breaks my heart that Hood didn't survive the Denmark strait. It would have been really cool to see her revised and rebuilt. She was a beautiful ship after all.
Not to mention the 1,415 people who died.
Well, one thing is for sure. If Hood had survived we wouldn't remember her as well as we do today.
Not if it defeated the Bismark. Not to mention, as a symbol of the RN, she would likely have been involved in just about every theater. From Normandy to Tokyo Bay. I think she'd be pretty well remembered
Here's a thought if Hood survived how would we remember Bismark? Would she still be as famous or would she join the other German battleships in infamy?
@@danielhowe5435 pretty much. Her reputation is massively overblown I'm afraid.
A ship very hard to sink, but very easy to defeat.
Pretty similar to the argument that if Titanic didn't sink, nobody would have heard of her, apart from a few ship enthusiasts.
@@fouloleron2002 - Great point after all how many people have heard of RMS Aquitania yet she was the longest serving and one of the most quietly successful ocean liners of them all. Served with distinction through two world wars from 1914 to 1950. That's a pretty impressive record but other then ocean liner geeks nobody has ever heard of her.
Upon rewatching, the animations in this video and the previous one on Hood are truly excellent
Great Wednesday fun. You,ve raised the bar with these two Hood Videos. Cheers
She would probably survive the war, but she would end up being scrapped in the post war era.
So you mean she wouldn't be converted to a sort of "Missle Battlecruiser" that would serve until the Falklands and be converted to a museum ship?
Huh
The Warspite herself was sent to the scrappers but she refused that indignity and sunk herself on the way.
@@enoughothis Warspite and (if she had survived the war) Hood definitely should have been made museum ships. It’s like a giant recruitment station where you implant the seeds of “the navy is really cool.” It’s an absolute travesty that Britain scrapped every remaining battleship in her inventory. I know Britain was just about broke after the war, but it’s just mindblowing that they’d just scrap these monuments to pride in the Royal Navy.
@@loganb7059, I was thinking the same thing. It's funny how a nation that gets all starry-eyed over brave sailors and their proud ships can show so little regard for them when those ships and sailors fulfill their purpose. The English sailors who defeated the Spanish Armada were left to die of disease on their ships after the battle was over, because that was cheaper than paying them. Legendary ships like the Warpsite deserve to be preserved for their role in history not unceremoniously broken apart for scrap. These ships defended nations and toppled empires!
@@enoughothis I am usually a pretty level headed guy but the people who decided to send the Warspite to the breakers deserved to be shot for treason against the empire and basic human decency.
The Title : The Refit of HMS Hood - What if she survived?
The Thumbnail : Renown class Battlecruisers go brrrrr
Fantastic video I have often wondered about this ‘what if’ so I throughly enjoyed this video and I love the 3D model of the suggested refit, she was a beautiful ship and I really like the look of the refit too.
Two weeks saved my Father. When he and his two friends enlisted he was two weeks away from his eighteenth birthday so had to have his enlistment papers signed by my Grandfather, who refused.
His two friends were posted on HMS Hood as stokers in the boiler room. RIP all who lost their lives.
Yes! More Hood! Not many if any people talk about her refit.
"Cod turning left..."
I will never be able to look at fish and chips the same way...
is there a range at wish a detonating shell can perfectly cook a cod?
@@jwadaow Well..as there IS a way to cook a chicken by slapping it...probably yes :D
@@NashmanNash well, it has to be close to the shell to cook, but far enough not to be burnt as soon as the shell explodes, given the explosive mass that is there, and the sudden heat, maybe around 5-10 meters from shell exploding, assuming the cod WILL be cooked instantly on all sides
For a moment, I was seriously concerned that the thumbnail of the video was from a War Thunder dev blog XD
After Hyuga, would Hood even be surprising anymore?
Thomas No, not particularly. The only surprise Gaijin could conjure up at this point was that they dropped comparable ships to the Hyuga for every other nation next patch and raise their BR to 7.0. That would at least level the playing field.
@@armagonarmagon3980 7.0 should be the bare minimum battleships should be at.. Later ships should absolutely be 7.7 or higher... heavy and light cruisers fighting Battleships is NOT fun..!
Aye I shat myself as well, but it's probably a model done by the same modellers that Gaijin gets models made by.
They're beautiful models all of them & my favorite is the Svetlana class Cruiser model, They really should keep making many more beauties.
Christmas came early
Yes, yes it did (ps sorry for dislike I miss clicked)
This is one of those videos you didn't know you were looking forward to until you have seen it! This is awesome!!!!!!!!!
Thank you for a very thoughtful presentation on the possibilities and variations of the destruction of one of the most beautiful ships of all time.
That's a great what if!! Thanks and Merry Christmas!! J
“Removal of the conning tower because no one used it”
But, but ..... her conning tower is what makes hood stand out to me
IKR. But since what "stands out" to us was never "stood in" by her command staff removing it made sense and saved tons of topside weight.
Never been much for Naval history, but there's always a few BIG points - Trafalgar, the Nile, River Plate, the Bounty, Jutland, and Hood. But I've always looked at much of them from a technical point. Wondering if Drach has a Naval Engineering background from how he can so easily reference the engineering technicalities of such a big and complicated ship, and come up with such well thought-out answers and conclusions. I'll definitely be watching more!
He was. Iirc, when he started this channel he was still active in civilian ship design. He is currently retired though.
Edit: I just noticed this comment is 2 years old.
Absolutely fantastic. Love the digital model!
Would love to see a modernised hood in WOWS
That be greate!
you can! its called Vanguard :)))
Hopefully, if (when?) they introduce British battlecruiser line split, we'll see something similar in the form of an Admiral-class.
@@8ouroboros841 i agree so they can add battlecruisers like courageous class, renown class, G3 class, or even incomparable
I'm a blitz player... I'd settle for them making her playable.
Not gonna lie I’ve been waiting for this one for a long time
The optimism in trying to preserve her in this is brilliant
But....if it served Vanguard's role, it may have served alongside Jean Bart during the Suez Crisis
Then possibly sent to reserve while receiving some upgrades(change pom-pom to sextuple bofors while removing Oerlikon, then to either Sea Cat or Sea Wolf)
Then called up to defend the fleet for the Falklands, staying at the center of the fleet until it's time to vaporize shore positions(after the exocets and submarines are suppressed)
AND THEN, the value of battleships being proven(especially with the modernized Iowa's running around at this time), MAYBE modernized along the same lines as the Iowa(3 or 4 phalanx, some quad exocets, 4x tomahawk quad launchers, and probably modernizing her SAM to 2x 32-cell Sea Wolf)
AND ONCE THATS DONE she would be called for Desert Storm, serving alongside Wisconsin and Missouri to once again vaporize offending shore positions, before returning home for her final rest at a museum berth
Happy Holidays Drachinifel. Thankyou for all the wonderful content.
Beautiful model of a hypothetical Hood refit!! Fun video, thank you.
I would love to see a serise of these videos of what some ships would be like if they had a refit or different refit (Like actually upping the armour on the Kongo's)
Japan of the 20s-40s, being a government that had no need to account to it's public, could spend a fortune to update their battleline, and knowing that they'd be the ones starting the war, a bit of data that they did not share with anyone else, and so, they could do it on their timeframe.
The 30s Kongo rebuilds also went farther, in that those ships were also lengthened, as well as widened. The only other navy that managed to do that was Italy, and their ruler also didn't have to win elections.
I agree. The HMS Hood was a beautiful warship that met with fate. She has gained our greatest respect. The British should always be proud of her.
If Ted Briggs said the order to turn was given than that's what happened, he was right there behind the Admiral and heard everything. There was never any doubt as to whether the order was given the only doubt is to whether she started the turn or not and when you look at the rudder pictures from the wreck it's hard over. The order was given...maybe 10 seconds to late to matter. RIP heroes.
Look at the hit rate for, say, this video- within just 120 minutes. You deserve & earned this!
Thanks so much Drachinifel for your great uploads. Ever since I was a boy I've had a fascination for battleships (in spite of being totally anti- war) Your channel has been amazing for me :-)
She was a beautiful ship and the more modernized variant is even more pleasing to the eye. She would have been an ideal fast carrier escort in the Pacific if she had survived. AA guns and more AA guns.
My grandma told me back in 1982, that her cousin was a communications officer on Hood back in the 1930's; I was pretty chuffed about that.
"While Bismarck's captain is all for it..." So true, Captain Lindemann with his "I will not have my ship shot out from under my @ss" comment.
would have been more like arse I'm supposing.
I found this video very interesting and much better than many videos I have seen about the Hood. You have been the only person that has commented on how worn out the Hood was. I'm also glad you explained why in your opinion it wasn't the main magazine that exploded. I pointed this out on another video on the Hood and was told it had to be because the ship blew up.
Its been a while since I read it I'm sure that the Anatomy of the ship HMS Hood mentioned that the Hood had sustained several hits during the battle and gave to alternate theories one was the 4inch magazine exploding the other was the above-water torpedo tubes warhead store being penetrated I'm curious as to what others think of the second theory.
The evidence of the wreck of Hood refutes any suggestion of the torpedoes having been involved.
Christmas and New Year seem to have come together and earlier.
A great gift to naval enthusiasts. Great video and deepest thanks for uploading.
Happy Christmas
When I was a kid I only saw the side profile of Hood in books and thought the two anchors were on both sides of the ship. I was really confused when I grew up and couldn’t see any anchors on the port side of the ship in photos.
Wargaming and also Tanaka: write that down, write that down
Gaijin: meh
Tanaka?
@@loganb7059 ; Kantai Collection's head honch.
@@loganb7059 He who must not be named.
Well, we do not want WT Naval going apeshit with all these superdreads and BC's just running around the place...
Tanaka: okay you can get Hood in the game, but not before defeating her FULLY refitted form (and we will magically turn her into a 200+ plane aviation battleship) as the boss of upcoming event!
I tend to think that she would have been sent to the US for serious repair work, and possibly reconstruction. Given the fine work US yards were doing repairing other Royal Navy combatants, and the desire to spare her German bombing, the Hood would likely not have remained in British waters for long had she survived her encounter with the Bismarck. A great many large combatants were being seriously delayed as the emphasis was placed on building corvettes, frigates and other ASW vessels, so keeping Hood in a British yard would have exposed her to that issue; she likely wouldn't have been repaired by 1944! No, she'd have made the journey to the USA like Warspite did before her. She'd have likely received American radars and fire control, as well, after American entry into the war. As the pride of the fleet, the Royal Navy would have insisted upon it.
And 5” 38s & Ford fire control ala Dido.
@@richardschaffer5588 That I'm not sure about. The RN wanted 5" 38s after the HMS Delhi experiment but there weren't enough around at that moment to refit the older RN cruisers. However, the 'tween decks mount that the armoured carriers and some Queen Elizabeth-class battleships received would have been likely. That would have reduced topweight, which the older ships needed. And, it would have maintained AA commonality with the rest of the Royal Navy.
Wonderful and fine research.....I bow to your fine prognostication
Mr Drachinifel- I have been watching your videos since the 1st one on HMS Tiger over a year ago. I like your presentation style and the proper British accent that goes with it. Now, while your 5 minute guides were entertaining & informative your new presentation form as this is much better. They take a topic and explore it in depth to the extent possible. Your videos on naval engineering and armaments have given good first principles on these topics to fellows like me from a non technical background. The videos you did on RN cruiser development & armoured carriers taught me many new things. I would request if you would take this format forward into perhaps detailed look at armour layouts and ship design philosophies of various navies.
One thing I actually think would have gone different (and not even conceringing the Hood herself) would be that I honestly don't think the Bismarck would have been sunk - or at least that fast. One has to remember that IRL, she destroyed (one might even say obliterated) the pride of the Royal Navy famously causing the British to basically go "okay, fuck it, we're going all in here". Had the Hood survived (or even sunk after less of a cubstomp)... I honestly don't think the British would have diverted nearly as many ressources to sinking this one German battleship
He probably would have ended up being hit in port by a tall boy bomb later in the war.
Just like Tirpitz, @@travistucker1033.
Also, we wouldn't have one of the most famous raids, and the germans declaring that enemy commandos is the same as enemy spies.
The Hood was pretty much doomed from the start Holland knew this . Still targeting the right ship and scoring even 2 or 3 hits . He had the time but ...
Doomed from the start I can't figure why it was even sent .
Another bad Churchill decision.
It certainly hardened the attitude but given all those ships were on patrol looking for Bismarck then those resources were already deployed. Once Bismarck tripped any patrol then the plan was in place to close and destroy. That's why Bismarck and other German raiders had orders to not engage warships if at all possible. Any damage or loss of speed potentially doomed them as would be the case for Graf Spee and Bismarck.
@@travistucker1033 Pretty much what I presume, yeah, she would likely have continued her mission for a bit (possibly) before being forced into a French port for repairs due to the hits she received. And from there on it would have rained bombs until she would have been gone
Blessed alternate timeline
Damn she looks beautiful painted tropical white in her '44 refit condition.
Her sister ships were to be built to a slightly different design. Here's some interesting trivia. Jon Pertwee (later to play the third "Doctor" in the Dr. Who series) served in the Royal Navy during WWII and was to become part of the Hood's crew once it returned from the hunt for the Bismark.
Very interesting! I vaguely remember u answering one of my questions about Hood from ur drydock sessions so thanks for taking it into more detail!