Hi all its Neil here with a new post for Casting Off. In this post I will talk about HMS Hood as I've painted up the model and I will give a bit of the Hoods history and involvement in WW2. In previous posts I've given my theory on how the ship type would work in game but as I did that in the post about the HMS Duke of York so instead I though that now I have three different battleships for the Royal Navy I will compare the three.
HMS Hood, and Admiral-class Battleship/Battlecruiser, was probably one of the most famous Royal Navy ships of her time and is still very well known. Hood is a more of a battleship than a battlecruiser which mounted battleship caliber guns onto a cruiser hull with the idea that battlecruisers can travel as fast as a cruiser bringing battleship level firepower to a fight. Battlecruisers lacked armour in comparison to battleships but the idea was that battlecruisers can outfight lighter ships and use their speed to keep them engaged while being able outrun anything that they couldn't outgun.
Hood was commissioned in 1920 and because of the various naval treaties which limited building new ships was refitted between the wars rather than being replaced. Hood served as the flag ship of the Royal Navy Home Fleet and was a very visible symbol of the Royal Navy both in Britain and to the rest of the world, being part of fleet reviews and even school visits. Hood was often the first warship that people saw and many recruits to the navy would cite visits to Hood as to why they joined up. In WW2, Hood was still part of the Home Fleet and even took part of the sinking of the French fleet at Oran following the capitulation of France. The sinking of the French fleet was carried out to deny the possibility that the German Reich would seize the ships, the second largest fleet after the Royal Navy in Europe. This attack has been viewed as controversial as the terms of surrender declared that the French fleet would remain under France's command but Churchill and his cabinet decided the risk was too large so order the attack.
Hood perhaps is most famous for her final voyage and destruction at the guns of the Bismark at the Battle of the Denmark Straits. This involved her and the HMS Prince of Wales intercepting the battleship Bismark and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugan to prevent the Bismark from conducting convoy raiding out in the Atlantic. On paper the match favored the Royal Navy, especially with the position of the two Kriegsmarine ships begin relayed by shadowing cruisers with radar. When the two Royal Navy ships encountered the two Kriegsmarine ships, it started as a fairly normal engagement between capital ships but problems started to occur for Hood and Duke of York, first guns of the Prince of Wales kept malfunctioning reducing her broadside and then Hood was hit by Bismark which resulted in her complete destruction and loss of all but 2 of her crew. The death of Hood was dramatic, the analysis of it generally concludes that a shell from Bismark breached one of the magazines which first lead to a massive fireburst around the main mast then catastrophic detonation which breaks the Hood in two. The loss of Hood kicked of the Hunt for the Bismark, a massive hunt for the killer of the pride of the British fleet that engaged nearly all Royal navy ships in the North Sea, North Atlantic and even some from the Mediterranean to get revenge for the loss of the Hood. If you are interested in finding out in more detail about this Battle and the Hunt for the Bismark that ensued I would recommend these two videos (well sets of videos); first from Extra Credits who look at the whole event and second from Drachinifel who also has videos on is analysis on why Hood blew up and what the theoretical refit of Hood could have been like.
In game, Hood looks to be a solid choice with good guns, good speed, respectable if not great armour and even some torpedoes if you decide to get super close for some reason. Hood can be used as a great aggressive piece able to use her heavy guns and speed to pounce on cruisers, she does have a decent Hull point pool as well so can duel with other capital ships but her armour of 5+ does make her easier to damage than other battleships.
As I said at the beginning of the post, I've already look at the role of battleships in Victory at Sea so I will be comparing the three currently available battleship classes of the Royal Navy, the Admiral-class, Queen Elizabeth-class and King George V-class battleships. I will look at firepower, survivability and cost. I wouldn't look at the refits but rather just at the base stats for the ships to keep things simpler.
Firepower
The main guns of the three battleships all have similar stats with an AP of +2 and DD of 3 meaning that each hit has the same potential for dealing damage to enemy ships but the Admiral and Queen Elizabeth both have 8 of these guns while the King George V has 10 so get two extra shots giving it a greater chance of doing consistent damage as well as a higher damage spike by rolling more dice. Range-wise for these the King George V has a bit of extra range over the other two so its suffers less penalties and more bonuses contributing to its consistency.
Looking at the secondary armament between the three, there is not really much in in terms of dice but the King George V does have better AP making it easier to get through light ship armour. The Admiral-class does also gets torpedoes on each side with 2 dice and a reload if something gets a bit too close or if the Admiral-class decides to rush the enemy.
Overall the King George V does have the better firepower but not by much over the Admiral and Queen Elizabeth who are almost identical with the Admiral having a very slight edge with its torpedoes.
Survivability
For survivability there are three things to really look at, the Hull Pool, Armour Value and the Anti-Air Defenses. For the Hull Pool, the Admiral has 96, the King George V has 89 and the Queen Elizabeth has 73 which puts the Admiral-class on top but when you take Armour into account the Admiral only has a 5+ armour which is the same as the Queen Elizabeth but the King George V has a 7+ which makes it much better at not taking damage which probably puts the King George V on top. Along with the better armour vs guns the King George V also has the best torpedo protection with 3 compared to 2 on the other alongside an Armoured Deck to protect against plunging fire.
The anti-air defenses again put the King George V on the top of the pile with Local 6 along with a 10 dice DP (dual purpose) secondary battery, which gives 11 dice against aircraft as DP guns add half their dice vs aircraft without VT fuses, when compared to the Local 6 plus 4 dice DP for the Queen Elizabeth (so 8 dice) and the Admiral only getting Local 5 and 4 dice DP for 7 dice.
Once again the King George V class sits at the top of the pack for Survivability with Admiral in the middle and Queen Elizabeth at the bottom.
Cost
From the two above the King George V is coming out as the better battleship, which as the most modern in real life is not surprising but as this is a game you need to take the points into account as that's how you will generally be building your fleet for a game so we need to look at how much bang you get for your buck as it were. Unsurprisingly the King George V-class is the most expensive coming in at 600 points, the Admiral-class sits in the middle at 400 points and the Queen Elizabeth-class is the cheapest at 375 points. On a straight cost to output and staying power look I would say that it is very hard to say which is best, the Admiral looks to be well balanced but doesn't have any Aircraft for scouting or Radar for improved bad weather gunnery. To my eyes I think that for cost the Admiral just comes out on top, with King George V in second and Queen Elizabeth in last place but all look to be very viable choices.
I hope that this has been helpful, and if you disagree or think I have missed something please let me know in the comments. This is all based solely on a theoretical look at the ship cards and assuming that they're being played a bit in a vacuum in a decent sized game something around 2000-3000 points mark I'd say as an estimate. Hopefully my next Casting Off post will kick off my look at the upcoming full rulebook release which I hope to take a few posts to go through and see how it plays, what scenario play is like and also what pick up games might look at. If you want to see WIP pictures of whats currently on my painting table check out my Instagram. See you again soon for some more Victory at Sea in Casting Off!
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