HMS Hood exposes the unrotated projectile's flaws

A demonstration aboard HMS Hood at Scapa Flow turned embarrassing when a wind change carried the parachute wires into the ship's rigging and superstructure as Churchill, Admiral John Tovey, and scientific adviser Frederick Lindemann watched. Operational mountings also misfired, and one firing burned sailors in harbor. The Admiralty inquiry into Hood's loss noted that the boat-deck fire involving unrotated projectiles or four-inch ammunition did not cause the sinking, countering a later theory about the weapon. By then the fleet had already decided to remove the system, whose instability made blowback onto the firing ship a serious practical defect. HMS Newcastle and HMS Birmingham were among the last large ships to retain the launchers, marking the rapid end of this fleet experiment.