Naval History Forums

HMSVF wrote: ↑Thu May 30, 2019 6:24 pm

As I said it’s a very pro German thesis.

It's the simple truth.
The endless debates here and in other places are simple modes of explaining away a tactical error, but one executed with good intentions and based on the available information, which was incorrect.

We don’t know whether standing off and entering 20 km exchange would have been better. It is not about working better, it's about doing the correct thing according to tactical situation and orders. As it was, Leach was simply extremely lucky that day, firstly by not being killed on the spot by a sh...

It's a difficult situation to observe,
but don't make it hindsight please.
Capt. Leach was there under orders. Was he under orders to disengage after loss of Hood ?
Who was second in command after Holland was gone ? Did Capt. Leach receive orders to disengage from the second in command or not ?

Hi Alec, I fully agree on the tactic you suggest. Re. the number of available guns what you say is correct in case we accept that the shell ring would have jammed even in case of a "smooth" turn to port to open range instead of as a result of the hard turn to disengage.... In case the smo...

@Wadinga while not thining Capt Leach was a coward, I do not consider his decision to disengage as a 'good' one. A better option would have been steadiyng at 20km from the enemy and pounding away with his 5 working heavy guns. But with the info he possesed at 6:00, that's what he thought was best fo...

@Wading I'm writing this from my cell phne, in the hospital. The percentage of misfires for Prinz Eugen can't be plotted on the time axis because there are no data for that. The KTB says one turret missed 13 consecutive salvos, indicating some sort of a jam or other mechanical problem. Other 2 turre...

Was this not a similar problem that DoY had at North Cape and if so it is surprising that this was not altered? I don't think the turrets could be made water proof, no matter how much they tried. All navies had trouble with that. Prince of Wales was attacking head on, and had much trouble coming fr...

Alberto Virtuani wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2019 7:43 pm
..very annoying for someone, who would have preferred the comfortable "fog of war", apparently...


Bye, Alberto

Yes, and if anybody goes "up" high enough, there wouldn't even be any battle of DS at all... After all, what's a few minutes in history.....?

The problem is not the theory or a specific opinion, but simply the circumstance that the theory is considered as fact. The procedure to do so is irrational/non-scientific (e.g. taking parts of the theory, for example the track reconstruction, to prove other parts of the theory). There is no point ...

@Wadinga During second action, Prince of wales fired 12 salvoes (of 4 to 5 guns each) totalling 48 ordered shots, of which 41 shots actually fired, and 7 shots misfired. We can not compare that to Prinz Eugen on a per shell basis, because the battleship and cruiser used different shells, in terms of...

@Wadinga Everybody is discussing 6:00, but nobody wants to look at 18:00 , on May 24th... Who looks there finds Prince of Wales effective output of 85% , the same as Prinz Eugen' s. === For Bismarck versus Prince of Wales, all available accounts show the gunnery output in the relevant time frames , ...

So far, of course, my simple question still awaits a cogent response. B Dear Byron, as an opinion , as uninformed as it might seem or be, my suggestion is to try to create a less aggravating dialogue, with less explicit demands. I know that the solidity of a house rests on the solidity of it's foun...

Gentlemen, I am nearing the outer end of my limited window of posting on Kbismarck (I have , maybe 1 week left, maybe). Work and health issues are catching up with me, and sincerely diving into this type of debates is putting an emotional strain on me, that has been noticed by my family and colleagu...

You're thinking that the report about Bruno's back being blown off was somehow mis-remembered, as a time interval, and actually took place at 9:02 ? I don't think it would be impossible, especially as I have been told that ranges at 9:02 were around 16-17km, thus anything could happen. I remain rese...

If "2nd engagement" means the few salvos between PoW and BS later that day, then this statistical comparison to the DS battle is not valid (very different sample size). During 2nd engagement, Prince of Wales fired 41 shots under director control (out of 48 ordered), versus 55 fired during...