XBradTC

So, the World of Warships is abuzz with the  news that the British battlecruiser HMS Hood will soon be released into the game.

And one of the first things virtually  the entire community noticed was the AA guns. 178mm rocket launchers? Really?
Really.

In the years before World War II, the Royal Navy recognized the ever  growing threat to surface ships that airplanes posed. A good deal of effort was put into improving the long and short range air defenses of the ships of the fleet. Usually this consisted of high angle secondary batteries of 4” guns, and a host of 40mm guns.

But one interesting approach was what became known as the 7” Unrotated Projectile.

A small, lightweight mount could be bolted on to just about any  flat surface on a warship (and deck space is always at a premium), with an array of 20 tubes designed to fire a short range 7” fin stabilized rocked. That fin stabilization gave rise to the odd name, in that unlike many rockets, these were not spin stabilized.

A salvo of 10  rockets would be fired in the path of an incoming enemy aircraft. Here’s where things got weird. Rather than simply exploding, the bursting charge released a small explosive charge supported by three parachutes on 400 foot long lines. The thought was this would effectively form an aerial minefield. As a plane ran into one of the suspension lines, the charge would be drawn to the plane, and destroyed.

Alas, it didn’t really work.

Further, the wind could easily cause the charges to drift back to the launching ship, or its escorts. While the charge was too small to do serious direct damage, it’s still less than optimal.

HMS Hood did actually still have it’s UP launchers aboard when she was sunk by the Bismarck.

The RN however, by that time, had realized the launchers were essentially worthless, and they  were soon removed from those ships that still had them.