Naval History Forums

The Mk3 Fc radar used by the US battleships at Guadalcanal didn't have blind fire capability . They required optical bearings to shoot accurately. ........ That doesn't mean radar didn't often help a lot with gunnery, and the Mk8 was much better and the mk13 was a lot better than the Mk8. This is t...

In the final engagement against Bismarck, KGV suffered a number of drill failures, misfires and breakdowns due to machinery jamming and a number of guns in all three turrets were out of action for a good long while, some failures remaining until after the action. Vic Dale I had been under the impre...

I have no doubt that had PoW's radar worked that she would have outshot Bismarck quite handily, despite the lower output from her 14" guns. It would be interesting to see the material evidence that supports this outright falacy. Aside from being just a misleading commentary there is nothing th...

Regarding PoW's gunnery and whether it fell off due to KM gunfire: Pow scored her last hit on salvo 13. This was just prior to Hood blowing up, and the decisive factor in PoW's gunnery falling off was the necessity for several rapid course changes to avoid the sinking Hood and then the need to incre...

Studio one. [1949-10-24], Battleship Bismarck by Maurice Valency Author: Worthington Miner; Paul Nickell; Don Gilman; John DeMott; Paul Lukas; All authors Publisher: New York : CBS, 1949. Edition/Format: Film : English Summary: Dramatic anthology series that explored the televised medium's narrative...

.... Admittedly I can't explain why a 14" AP wouldn't penetrate the barbette at that range. I don't find that very surpriseing. First the shell penetrated the deck at almost a grazing angle. Looking at: http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNJAP_14-45_t41.htm Even with roll it would have impacted t...

Speaking of South Dakota, there is some interesting new information about her combat with Kirishima here:
http://www.navweaps.com/index_lundgren/ ... ndgren.htm

dunmuro: If the Swordfish hot came from one side of the ship and would certainily have destroyed not only the rudders but damaged seriosly the propellers (as we have been shown was the case with Bismarck´s central and one lateral propeller) then, how it could manouver with just one side of the prop...

Bismarck wasn't flawed because of her rudder design, rather she was flawed because she could not be steered by her propellers in the event of one or both of her rudders being damaged. The Allied battleships, with their 4 shaft propeller design could be steered by the propellers if the rudder was dam...

Here's a set of penetration tables that I created for various WW2 BB guns: http://www.sfu.ca/~dmunro/BB_Gun_pen.html Using NAaB 1.0, which can be found here: http://www.panzer-war.com/Naab/NAaB.html NAaB uses Nathan Okun's armour penetration formulas to estimate armour penetration with almost all WW...

And here is some scenes aboard Rodney including loading her 16" guns:

http://www.britishpathe.com/images//pre ... 038344.WMV

Here's interviews with Allied sailors,including Admirals Burnett and Fraser:

http://www.itnsource.com/shotlist//RTV/ ... U409110062

http://www.itnsource.com/shotlist//RTV/ ... X409110265

no sound unfortunately.

RN sea-air battles: 2nd battle of Sirte - a must see!!! http://www.itnsource.com/shotlist//RTV/1942/04/16/BGU408210037 Operation Pedestal: part 1: http://www.itnsource.com/shotlist//RTV/1942/08/24/BGU408250030 part2: http://www.itnsource.com/shotlist//RTV/1942/08/31/BGU408250035 part3: http://www.br...

Thank you Duncan! Really enjoyed those - althought the second Bismarck clip was "not found". On the Repulse clip - we would say in Jamaica that it "put goat mouth" on her (meaning that if you speak or boast about high expectations they will likely come to nothing - coming from t...