Quote:
Originally posted by Willem Fick
[B]The Hood had a weakness in that the shell entered through the deck and hit the magazine directly. The various magazines in the ship were linked, so that lead to a series of massive explosions, sending it to the bottom in no time at all. Lucky shot, but quite effective still!
I have always been a huge fan of naval guns, and was lucky enough to see a 14" ships gun at the Imperial War Museum in London (Iowa class has 15"?), and to say its a big mother is quite the understatement. I would love to have been able to see them in action.
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The Hood was designed to be fast and heavily armed. It had very light armor for it's displacement, and a design flaw that a lucky hit exploited to maximum effect.
The Iowa had much, much more armor than Hood. It's deck was three distinct layers of armor plated steel(Class A and STS IIRC) with two spaced gaps in between, and no critical compartments were in any of the upper decks that would be struck by a deck penetration. The Iowas were the personification of the perfected battleship. The only thing that an Iowa is really particularly vulnerable to is torpedos, especially modern keel detonators.
PS: The Iowas have nine Mk7 16"/50 guns.