Having been reading through this book ( I find it enjoyable) I am having a problem with page 422. As per the authors, the ship has about a 5 degree list to port, and a 16" shell from Rodney penetrated her 320 mm belt from starboard. So far, so good. Now as per the diagram, the shell detonates above the armor deck. Still okay. But the diagram shows shell fragments blowing through the 80 mm armor deck and sending metal into the boiler room. From my understanding, 80 mm of armor quality steel should be sufficient to deflect the fragments. So my question is, when the shell hit the belt armor, could it have been deflected downward by a few degrees (say 10 or so), hit the armor deck, send fragments of deck armor downwards, have the shell rejected by the deck armor, ricochet upwards, and then detonate? If there were no fragments piercing the armor deck, I am fine with that diagram, but my gut and limited knowledge of these matters I must question this. This is not apples to apples, but did not Musashi take a 1000 pound bomb hit that was rejected by the armor deck but fragments from the armor deck were driven into a machinery space? Am I missing something here?
statistics: Posted by caerbannog — 4:41 PM - 1 day ago — Replies 9 — Views 191