How did destroyers protecting convoys operate in bad weather during WWII?
score:11
You are really talking not about seaworthiness, but about stability. "Together with the Hague Visby Rules, the common law provides that the concept of "seaworthiness" covers: the ship, its equipment and supplies, the crew, the vessel's suitability for the particular cargo and its suitability for the particular voyage or for particular ports".
If the physics worked as you think, the most seaworthy ship would be the Monitor - with almost empty deck. But she was one of the worst. For being stable, the ship needn't have small masts or no guns or no towers. Saying simply, she needs to have its center of gravity below its center of buoyancy. The larger difference means the greater stability.
Forget the stability problems. On the contrary, the gun warships mostly were made even TOO stable - because they need stability for better gun aiming. (Yes, sometimes even the large gunships had problems with stability, but these always were the cases of some mistake in construction or arms placement or/and the ship was already damaged.)
How can something be too stable? Easily - being stable, the ship can't react to the wave softly, by evading, as normal ships do, but she stands hard against the wave strokes. So yes, the gun ships HAD a problem in bad weather, but absolutely different one - even their hard boards covered by armor couldn't stand strokes of serious waves forever and periodically had to be repaired. (The armor desks fasting started to wobble.)
When convoys had bad weather, they were really really happy, for that meant they have to think about the sea alone. U-boats and planes were at once too far away or far below and therefore not dangerous. Merely ships changed their order for freer one and went farther from the shore - to diminish the danger of collision - the only real one in that situation.
Upvote:3
According to my calculation from this official list,
US navy lost 5 or 6 destroyers due to bad weather conditions, with total loss of about 1,300 people.
Upvote:7
During World War II, there were normally no U-boat operations during storms. WW2 vintage submarines required surface visibility to attack and had to be at periscope depth or above to attack. During a storm this was more or less impossible, so it created a temporary truce in which neither side could attack.
Large naval ships tend to be very sea worthy. As far as I know only one destroyer, the Truxtun, was lost at sea in the North Atlantic due to a storm and this is only because the crew mistakenly grounded her in low visibility conditions.
More post
- 📝 Why didn't the Allies use a naval invasion to retake Norway?
- 📝 How did the British Army unit size and structure in WWI change from 1915 to 1918?
- 📝 Was Colonel Thomas Butler actually arrested?
- 📝 Who would have a good or fair command of Latin in medieval Western Europe?
- 📝 Why were Indians able to free themselves of the European Colonialists unlike South Africans?
- 📝 Was there a European response to the trail of tears?
- 📝 During the Míng Dynasty could local authorities make laws?
- 📝 Why didn't colonial empires exchange their colonies with others empire to make their territories whole?
- 📝 Religion in present-day Colombia before Spanish colonial influence
- 📝 Why did not the Byzantines attempt to recapture the holy land from the Arabs?
- 📝 How was religious diversity represented in the Thirteen Colonies?
- 📝 What is a mezrag-holder?
- 📝 Who is the model in this Edward Burne-Jones painting?
- 📝 When and where did it first became usual that the ID Card holder signed his card?
- 📝 Can anyone help identify this French military uniform?
- 📝 When did h*m*sexuality become unacceptable in Europe?
- 📝 Did Jewish families feel Nazi oppression was exceptional?
- 📝 Did a letter of marque give actual protection in the middle ages?
- 📝 How did cannibals in Jamestown obtain bodies for food?
- 📝 What aspects of Primo Levi's works are considered historically inaccurate?
- 📝 Which country traces its roots back to the oldest civilization?
- 📝 Was reincarnation part of the early Christian church?
- 📝 Did MacArthur ever consider ordering Wainwright's troops to fight an insurgency war, rather than surrendering?
- 📝 British war with France 1795?
- 📝 How did Tunisia's revolution (and Arab Spring) begin?
- 📝 What does this acronym and the symbol in the middle represent?
- 📝 When was the festival of the See of Peter in the 6th Century?
- 📝 What is this military patch with the silhouette of a pegasus on it?
- 📝 Has there been talk of a post-work economy before?
- 📝 What is meant by this medieval reference to combat 'under-ground'?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 How did destroyers protecting convoys operate in bad weather during WWII?
- 📝 During and right after the French Revolution, how did France maintain and operate such a big army all over Europe?
- 📝 What was American anti-tank doctrine during WWII on paper, and how did it differ from in practice?
- 📝 How did Nazi Germany finance itself during WW2?
- 📝 How did pilots know when to release bombs on airplanes during World War2?
- 📝 How did the authorities not find the speakeasy clubs during the prohibition?
- 📝 How did the Nazis plan to defeat America during World War II?
- 📝 How did cities operate in medieval times?
- 📝 How beneficial were war bonds to the US during WWII
- 📝 How did people deal with ice on the roads during the horse-and-buggy era?
- 📝 Did German submarines communicate with allied convoys during battle?
- 📝 Why did Churchill become the PM of Britain during WWII instead of Lord Halifax?
- 📝 How did the Allies communicate during World War II?
- 📝 How did Finland treat Jewish locals during WWII?
- 📝 How did Allies secure southern flank during "Race to the Rhine"?
- 📝 How did Bligh navigate during his open boat voyage after losing The Bounty?
- 📝 How long did it take US fleet submarines during World War 2 to charge their batteries?
- 📝 How did the way commanders ask their troops to deal with the immediate death of their comrades vary by country/culture during WWII?
- 📝 During the U.S. Prohibition, how did they get away with drinking alcohol?
- 📝 How did himuros operate for storing and transporting ice in Heian Japan?
- 📝 How much time did people have to take shelter during the Blitz in 1940-41?
- 📝 How did Soviet soldiers resist tanks during the battle of Shumshu?
- 📝 How did the KPD relate to the German state during the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact?
- 📝 How did one's statistical chance of survival as a hidden Jew change during the course of the Nazi occupation of northern France?
- 📝 During the French Revolution, how did the French address non-citizens?
- 📝 How did pumps work during the Age of Sail?
- 📝 How and why did the Cavalry lance temporarily fall out of favour during the 16-18th centuries?
- 📝 How long did it take to copy a Bible during the early propagation of the Christian faith?
- 📝 How did tobacco affect the English colonies economically during the 17th Century?
- 📝 How did China deal with the Black Death during the second plague pandemic?