Naval History Forums

Thanks a lot,

Francis

Gentlemen,

In 1941, Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen were damaged by British bombers while in Brest. Description of damage, and the duration of repairs is often vague. Do you know when repairs on each of this ships were terminated ?

Thanks for any help,

Francis

Bill,

thanks for this very interesting comments. Feel free to elaborate if you wish.

Thanks !

Gents, I am looking for information about the German destroyers that took part in operation Rösselsprung (the action against convoy PQ17). I have found sources, but they are conflicting, and I don't know which one is the more reliable. I am looking for the name of the ships and of their CO, and if p...

Gents, I do not have time to elaborate, so I just make two quick comments. 1 - If French Navy is seized by force, neither Germany nor Italy have the trained crewsz to operate French ships. Even if French government decides to join the Axis, it is probable that French armed forces suffer from a lot o...

gents, sorry of the question has already been discussed, but I wonder about the ability of WWII armor to protect a ship from the impact of an antiship missile. What would happen if an old style cruiser, such as ARA General Belgrano (former USS Phoenix, BROOKLYN class) is hit by an Exocet ? Best rega...

Despite having a long coastline, France is more a 'land' country than a 'naval' one, and for centuries had difficulties in building a strong navy. France has long boundaries, especially with Germany and Spain, which in the last centuries, were dangerous foes. So the priority for France was always to...

Dear Bill,

nothing personnal against our Italian friend, but your decision to ban him is IMHO sound. It's was the only solution to save this forum.
I guess it's what he wanted anyway.

Best regards, and thanks for your efforts

enemy target ( PoW ) was completely shrouded in chemical smoke Gents, as far as I know, but I understand that I can be mistaken, smoke generators uncommon on large ships (they were fitted on destroyers and sometimes cruisers). Hence, POW probably emitted funnel smoke. Can someone confirm whether it...

Gents, I totally agree with Byron. I have nothing personnal against A&A and don't care about their theory. However the tone of the forum has become depleasant for a while and I'm glad that Bill Jurens tries to stop that. IMHO, the moderator has been very, very patient with our italian friends, a...

Paul, as far as I know, the French air force did not hold back its fighters. It's quite the contrary. Units were thrown - and wasted - in the battle as soon as they were available, without coordination and support. It's true that there were dozens of modern fighters and bombers in the 'rear'. They w...

As far as I know, each quad turret on Richelieu and Jean Bart was in fact divided in two parts with 2 guns each. The guns of each 'half turret' were fired together in 4-guns salvoes (hence the dispersion problem).

Alecsandros, you're right, there were were problem with the shell design (some had a small cavity for poison gaz that weakened the structure). However, as far as I understand things, this problem is not related to dispersion.

Best regards,

Francis

Gents,

as far as I understand, excessive dispersion on Richelieu & Jean Bart was the consequence of interference between shells, because guns were too close. I guess that firing a gun then another would slow rate of fire but prevent this problem.

Best regards,

Francis Marliere