(07-25-2016, 10:22 AM)Psyentific Wrote: Please do not confuse Battlecruiser with Battleship. The British Royal Navy did that in 1916 and paid for it dearly.
It's not 1916, but 1940. They paid dearly for not having armour piercing shells, which the Germans did, in 1916. Their lyddite shells were also less stable, causing them to explode if fire broke out in the ammunition storage. The German TNT (Nobel was German) was much more stable and it was able to be fused to explode after penetrating the hull, which lyddite wasn't.
Battlecruisers were essentially the same as battleships, except for having two important differences. The first was that they were faster, which enabled them to catch and destroy smaller warships, and the second was that this was made possible by having thinner deck armour (although they were armoured the same everywhere else). In 1940 the British sent the battlecruiser Hood to sink the German battleship Bismarck. The engagement was fought from afar, which meant that shells were fired in tall arches, falling at the ships' decks. One of Bismarck's penetrated the Hood's deck and exploded in her ammo storage. You know the rest of the story. If the captain took this into account and reduced the distance as quickly as possible, the equal(ish) caliber shells would hit each ship in the equall(ish)ly thick armour belt, and the result would probably be different (perhaps one of the ships would disengage after suffering heavy damage, I doubt any would be sunk).
![[Image: 396AUfe.png]](https://i.imgur.com/396AUfe.png)