Bismarck and her contemporaries

Discussions about the history of the ship, technical details, etc.

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RF
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Re: Bismarck and her contemporaries

Post by RF »

The Germans did use captured French and British tanks during WW2 - and copied the Soviet T-34.

That was after in the spring of 1939 of using seized Czech tanks to equip three completely new panzer divisions, bringing up the Heers' total of the six panzer divisions used for the invasion of Poland. These Czech tanks were based on original French designs.
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Re: Bismarck and her contemporaries

Post by alecsandros »

Yes, but the most formidable and feared tanks were the Tigers, and King Tigers, which evolved from a German research project.
The Panthers were influenced though by the T-34...
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Re: Bismarck and her contemporaries

Post by boredatwork »

Irrelavent to the discussion. By Karl's implied logic if something "LOOKS" vaguely like something else then the engineers in question did not have the competance to design it without directly copying the latter's technology.

Again compare the A7V with the Russian T-19 and decide which the Tiger "LOOKS" more like.

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Re: Bismarck and her contemporaries

Post by alecsandros »

boredatwork wrote:Irrelavent to the discussion. By Karl's implied logic if something "LOOKS" vaguely like something else then the engineers in question did not have the competance to design it without directly copying the latter's technology.
I wanted to give a long detailed and biting reply,
But I decided to drink 2 beers instead.

I'm much better now :D

Welcome back to the forum :)
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Re: Bismarck and her contemporaries

Post by tommy303 »

There are comparatively few designs that do not owe anything to something that has gone before it, as human knowlege and therefore human technology is cumulative. One can say, for instance that the King Tiger owed a great deal to the earlier Panther; the Panther in turn owed some aspects of its design to the PzKw III (torsion bar suspension), while other aspects were a result of the lesson learnt from the Russian T-34. The T-34 itself owed much to its immediate predecessor, the BT7, which in turn owed much to American J Walter Christie's M1928 tank which had been purchased by the USSR and modified to suit Red Army specifications.

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Re: Bismarck and her contemporaries

Post by Karl Heidenreich »

I think that with the exemption of Alexandros everybody's else is missing the point, the concept and prefer to pin on an example to draw a Reductio ad Absurdum conclusion. No problem, point taken, next time we discuss comic books.
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Re: Bismarck and her contemporaries

Post by boredatwork »

alecsandros wrote: I wanted to give a long detailed and biting reply,
But I decided to drink 2 beers instead.

I'm much better now :D

Welcome back to the forum :)
Thanks, I probably won't be back long because I don't want to waste my summer writing long detailed replies either. :wink:

And please don't take offense at my previous snappy response. The point I was trying to make was not that post war tank design derived no benefit from wartime developments but rather that one person's *opinion* as to the visual similarity between two tanks which really don't resemble one another (at least nowhere to the degree say the B-29/Tu-4 did) is not really "evidence" to evaluate the degree to which one influenced the other.


The "if it is a good weapon it was either invented by Germans, based on stolen German technology, or not really good at all and only made an impact through superior numbers" refrain is every bit as annoying as "It's flying the stars and stripes, it must be superior to everything else" :P
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Re: Bismarck and her contemporaries

Post by boredatwork »

Karl Heidenreich wrote:No problem, point taken, next time we discuss comic books.
I thought Avengers was surprisingly good for a comic book based movie.
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Re: Bismarck and her contemporaries

Post by Karl Heidenreich »

boreatwork:
I thought Avengers was surprisingly good for a comic book based movie.
It was good, however I liked more Battleship. It was nice to see that an Iowa finally sunk something... :whistle:
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Re: Bismarck and her contemporaries

Post by alecsandros »

Karl Heidenreich wrote:boreatwork:
I thought Avengers was surprisingly good for a comic book based movie.
It was good, however I liked more Battleship. It was nice to see that an Iowa finally sunk something... :whistle:
:lol: :lol: :lol:
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Re: Bismarck and her contemporaries

Post by boredatwork »

Karl Heidenreich wrote:
It was good, however I liked more Battleship. It was nice to see that an Iowa finally sunk something... :whistle:
Now if only they could make you a movie where one of those unsinkable German BBs actually stayed afloat eh?
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Re: Bismarck and her contemporaries

Post by Karl Heidenreich »

boreatwork:
Now if only they could make you a movie where one of those unsinkable German BBs actually stayed afloat eh?
No need. There is already a british made movie in which the lone German ship stands against the might of practically all the Royal Navy Atlantic forces and that is why is the most famous battleship in History. :cool:
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Re: Bismarck and her contemporaries

Post by Djoser »

boredatwork wrote:Irrelavent to the discussion. By Karl's implied logic if something "LOOKS" vaguely like something else then the engineers in question did not have the competance to design it without directly copying the latter's technology.

Again compare the A7V with the Russian T-19 and decide which the Tiger "LOOKS" more like.
What was the point of posting these two pictures, one a tank built in WW I and the other a tank produced in 1931? Neither of which looks anything at all like a Tiger tank. I don't get it...
tommy303 wrote:There are comparatively few designs that do not owe anything to something that has gone before it, as human knowlege and therefore human technology is cumulative. One can say, for instance that the King Tiger owed a great deal to the earlier Panther; the Panther in turn owed some aspects of its design to the PzKw III (torsion bar suspension), while other aspects were a result of the lesson learnt from the Russian T-34. The T-34 itself owed much to its immediate predecessor, the BT7, which in turn owed much to American J Walter Christie's M1928 tank which had been purchased by the USSR and modified to suit Red Army specifications.
Pretty accurate summation of these tanks' development.
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Re: Bismarck and her contemporaries

Post by Djoser »

RF wrote:
yellowtail3 wrote:
In fact it would have been no easy task for any battleship in Ww 2 to sink Bs or TP.. Even Bs last battle wasn't that easy going for the RN.
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Isn't that the truth. big ships, lots of armor and compartments... they're supposed to be tough. And Bismarck's last battle did require considerable ammo expenditure, and a few torpedoes. She may not have put up much fight - or not much effective fight - but she was definitely hard to put down.
The real test would have been the Bismarcks' crew operating at peak efficiency in that battle, instead of already being worn down by four days of continuous battle stations....
Agreed. Crew fatigue and morale was a very real factor in naval combat, but rarely gets the attention it deserves.

But the real test would have been the crew operating at peak efficiency and the rudder functional. Of course in that case there wouldn't have been a battle, the Bismarck would have made it home; to be welcomed with accolades for passing his first strenuous test of combat effectiveness--going up against two capital ships with only a cruiser's support and kicking their asses royally.

No disrespect to the brave men fighting on the Hood and POW that day.
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Re: Bismarck and her contemporaries

Post by yellowtail3 »

Djoser wrote: But the real test would have been the crew operating at peak efficiency and the rudder functional. Of course in that case there wouldn't have been a battle, the Bismarck would have made it home; to be welcomed with accolades for passing his first strenuous test of combat effectiveness--going up against two capital ships with only a cruiser's support and kicking their asses royally.
(shrug) perhaps. Or, that torp might have hit a few yards away, and removed a screw... and she might have gotten caught the next day. Or, hit my more torpedoes by further strikes the next morning. But that didn't happen: instead, she gets crippled by an obsolescent biplane, doesn't hit anything all night or the next day and gets scuppered... so much for royal ass kicking.

BIsmarck's contemporaries may or may not have done better. It's hard to imagine any of them showing worse gunnery against biplanes.
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