Naval History Forums

Gentlemen, Alberto wrote:The truth is possibly in the middle between PoW GAR (outlining Vickers' guns problems) and Vickers-Armstrong report (outlining PoW crew errors). As it seems that no-one is going to give ground on this subject would it not be wise to accept what Alberto wrote (above) and perh...

Gentlemen, I presume OT means Off Topic, if so I really cannot see why my last post should be, it appears that we are discussing the gunnery performance of the two ships, hence my points of the overall condition of PoW and the unfamiliarity of her crew plus lack of a long 'workup' (all taken from Ta...

Gentlemen, I have just had another look at Tarrent’s book on the KGV class ships and it appears that from the outset he was not particularly impressed with them in comparison with either Bismarck or Tirpitz particularly on a one on one fight. He makes a number of comments on PoW’s readiness in the e...

Gentlemen, In a previous post Dunmunro wrote: Except that Mcmullen excluded the salvos fired via local control and also any salvos requested but not fired after Y turret ran out of ammunition. I'm a little puzzled by this, surely given the relatively small amount of shells fired during the engagemen...

Hi Dunmunro,
Thanks for the info, I see your point!

Hi Jos'e,
I seem to remember I had a book entitled 'The Fuhrer Naval Conferences' which was published some time ago, is this newer information that what was in the book?

Hello Paul, would it not be logical to assume logical but uninformed by evidence. That is the problem with trying to derive complex theoretical conclusions from the crudest mathematical analysis, ie 10 is more than 8. Or dividing the number of shells fired by a guessed duration of firing. There are...

Gentlemen, Once again i am going to throw my self open to your experience, only two questions this time! the first is the rate of shells fired by both ships, as PoW had 10 against 8 would it not be logical to assume that her rate of shells fired (until her guns started to play up) would initially be...

Thanks again Antonio,
I'll try and get hold of that book
Paul

Hi Antonio, @ Paul Mercer, 'we have deeply analyzed that event on a dedicated thread 6 years ago, ... you can read all in here : viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6276&hilit=hit+comp ... orm#p56258 For any additional help about it, ... just feel free to ask, ... it is only history, ... nothing else.' Many thanks ...

Gentlemen, May I ask a question which may seem a bit naive to you all? Most of of us have probably seem the film 'Sink the Bismarck' and while accepting that it was just that - a film- loosely based on events at the time, (which incidentally hardly mentioned or showed Rodney's part in the battle) I ...

Gentlemen, While not sufficiently knowledgeable to be able to make any judgement on this particular debate, there are perhaps at least 10 or more books that have been published over the years on the first and the final Bismarck action, many of them expressing different views and opinions of what hap...

Thanks Bill, I stand by my last post in which I pleaded with everyone to tone down the rhetoric. If you are going to close down this thread, perhaps you might also consider also closing down 'If Bismarck had made it to France' which showed signs of going the same way is this one. Let us accept that ...

Gentlemen, Please, please stop this now, it is getting us nowhere except to possibly helping to destroy this forum. Over the years members like Alberto, Antonio, Byron, Dave, Wadinga and many others have been very kind and patient in answering what probably seems to them my rather naive questions an...

Hi Neil, Many thanks for your detailed reply. Would it be safe to say that in fact all the arguments and mathematics put forward re shell v armour when debating the merits of one ship against another are based on probability, but are purely theoretical as no-one can reliably say what happens when a ...