Naval History Forums

The Pinguin was the most sucessful raider (Hilfskruezer) I was going by tonnage rather the actual number of victims, as I alluded to by mentioning Pinguins' tally of 28 victims. One problem here is assessing the mine damage done by Pinguin off Australia. I believe Pinguin executed the most successf...

Tiornu wrote:Yamato is much larger and more heavily armed.

I believe the original H-Classe Hitler wanted were to be 21 inch gun calibre rather than the 16 inch later settled on.

Would H-Classe armour stand up to 18.1 inch shell hits?

Gary, if God built the Scharnhorst, how come she sank....

Gary wrote:
Texas had 14 inch guns not 16 inch.

I'm not an expert on the US Navy and had assumed the Americans used 16 inch on all their battleships.

However the principle of my basic argument is the same.

Gloworm's steering was gone by all accounts. Some say the ramming of Hipper was accidental. Hipper's main guns probably wouldnt have been able to depress enough to hit a target that close in. The accounts I have read were that Glasford-Snell rammed Hipper right angles at full speed, rupturing a fue...

I forgot to ask in my last post, were Leipzigs' 15 cm guns power loaded?

The thing about the British guns were they were hand loaded, similar to field guns. The US 6" guns were loaded with power operated equipment, and I suspect the German guns were similar. With had loading you could maintain a high rate of fire for a short time, but the crew would quickly become ...

I am interested in forum participants' opinions on a (seemingly) little explored train of events in the Bismarck saga. After exhausting his escorts, Tovey was lucky to have Vian's 4th Destroyer Division available as replacements. WS-8B's presence was a fluke... it should have been hundreds of miles...

-- or even of it being collapsed. I wonder if this stern seperation happened when the ship hit the sea bed and slid? None of the survivor's reports mention the stern showing distortions, etc., and most who survived were well aft. Much to ponder here. George According to Ballard et al, the seperatio...

Hi Patrick, I'm a bit late, but I would like to present my views on this topic anyway. I have always maintained that the hit on the compass platform was the primary reason for the Prince of Wales to turn away from the Bismarck and withdraw from the scene. The other hits, while significant, did not ...

There seems to be very little information on this. Were these men kept isolated from other units - would their presence and previous ship present problems of morale for other units or indeed were they kept ''under wraps'' because they would remind people of a German defeat? This is quite possible in...

Doing this by the modification of some production lines at the Krupp Industries without disturbing other important war resources. As far as I know, Krupp called the shots. The Kriegsmarine during the Kaiser's and Hitler's time got what Krupp decided. Testing a new naval gun in 1935 - 39 would have ...

Good question. In the movie "Sink the Bismarck" there is a shot of the turret crew running to their positions inside. They climb a ladder in the barbette and went thru a hatch below and aft the turret. From the caps worn by these crewmen it is clearly on the British ships. One thing notic...

About RNfanDan post I find something very curious: Holland was defeated by a combination of fate and incompetence, alone. Never I had found that Holland commit a "blunder" in the strict meaning of the word: how could he had known that PE was leading the German formation? How would he had ...

And the ship was under attack during the night by British destroyers. This is true, and she was also being followed by Sheffield. One factor here is that if Bismarck was able to maintain the right direction at say seven or so knots, there would be an hourly divergence of say at least fifteen miles ...