Naval History Forums

Hi Dunmunro and all, Interesting bits of film, but I would say the ship is proceeding at relatively slow speed in both cases and therefore minimizing pitch into the waves and consequently how much of the green stuff comes aboard. Here is David K Brown, Deputy Head of the RN Corps of Naval Constructo...

Hello Paul, (and I hope we can tempt others to post and keep things going in these troubled times) i wonder if a different configuration like 4 triple 14" or 1 x 4 + 1 x 2 14" guns on both ends of the ship Not without tearing up the plans and accepting an enormous delay. The RN wanted to start build...

Fellow Contributors, Interestingly, according to Dulin Garske & Sumnall's US Battleships of World War The North Carolinas were laid down as 3 turret quad 14" Mk 11 ships and the design only changed when building was already underway to 3 turret triple 16" ships. The confusion over what their armamen...

Fellow Contributors, The original design brief for the KG Vs was for three quadruple turrets giving a 12 14" gun broadside. "Artist Impressions" including RN promotional posters show this configuration, but concerns to further boost overall protection meant downsizing of the armament weight budget. ...

Fellow Contributors, It would be a shame if this thread which has had many useful contributions from Herr Nilsson, Byron Angel, Paul Mercer, Hans Zurbriggen and others including Bill Jurens were to be locked and therefore isolate these earlier postings. The vitriol which was liberally splashed acros...

Fellow Contributors, Today is an excellent day, as the second perpetrator of a concerted and co-ordinated attack on truth in historical research has chosen to leave this site thus restoring its value and reputation as a place where real facts and occurrences are discussed in a civilised manner. I co...

Hi Dave, Further thoughts. It would be interesting to get the verbatim details on this information Now compounding this puzzlement are GkDos documents which indicate that Tirpitz, S&G, and PG were instructed to use M4 Neptune (referred to as Barracuda by Bletchley Park) for War Ops beginning Oct 23 ...

Hello Francis, Looking at Koop and Schmolke various titles and Whitley's German cruisers/destroyers the consensus seems to be: Z24 Korvettenkapitan Martin Saltzweider Z27 KK Karl Schmidt Z28 KK Hans Erdmenger Z29 KK Kurt Rechel Z30 KK Heinrich Kaiser Friedrich Ihn KK Gunter Wachsmuth Richard Beitzen...

Fellow Contributors, For Dave, supplemental. Hinsley is contradictory himself about Neptun. In British Intelligence in WWII Vol 2 Appendix 4 in a table he says Barracuda/Neptun was in use from May 1941 onwards to the end of the war. In the same volume p 216 speaking of the run up to PQ 17 he says a ...

Fellow Contributors, Hi Dave. You are identifying many of the inconsistencies in the information coming from sources sometimes relying on memory and incorporating generalisations. These are my musings: Neptun, called Barracuda by the British was introduced in May 1941, apparently specifically for th...

Fellow Contributors, This site http://dubm.de/en/u-boats-in-spain/ describes the limited happenstances where U-boats in the Real World used Spanish resources. Fantasy U-Boat bases on islands should stay in the Hollywood world of Indiana Jones where they belong. OpanaPointer, no-one holds you persona...

Fellow Contributors, Hello Paul, French politics before, during and after The Collapse were extremely complicated, and there was a tussle for power in Vichy administration. See book Reluctant Enemies by Warren Tute. One of the things affecting many countries in the 30s, UK included ,was an absolute ...

Fellow Contributors, Whilst I agree pretty much 100% with Dave, there remains the knotty problem of fuel supplies, even assuming the Germans could either man the ships themselves or find enough Fascist-leaning French sailors to do their bidding. Perhaps sticking the relatives of less-enthusiastic po...

Hello Marcelo, These names were merely pre-war outline contingency plans much like the US Rainbow codes, but were superceded by actual, less obvious, operational codenames once they became reality. It would have been unforgivably stupid to link the peacetime contingency name with the wartime target....

Fellow Contributors, I was actually working on NH69724 NH69724 is surely the exploding Hood picture, taken on the port side of PG. Title: Battle of the Denmark Strait, 24 May 1941 Description: Explosion of the British battlecruiser Hood. Smoke from HMS Prince of Wales's gunfire is faintly visible ju...