Bismarck construction flaws

[alecsandros]

Late edit:
- and because the damage presented by Ikeda seems dubious, I find it difficult to believe his damage assessment and drawing alltogether, as he is the only source mentioning this.

Why arent't there any near misses and splinter damage ? All the "Hits" drawn on the aft part of the ship are very close together, and could easily have come from a single near-miss, causing considerable splinter damage to that non-armored part of the ship [It happened to Sheffield and Rodney during the pursuit of Bismarck, it happened to Richelieu during the shelling at Dakar, it happened to Prince of Wales during her final day, etc. ] From the geometry of the battle, I would expect plenty of near-misses and splinter damage. Where is it ?

What happened on board Washington that they erred so badly in observing 5" hits ? They mentioned 40. How could they mistake 40 clear high-exploding hits, illuminating in the darkness as they hit, with anything else ? Ikeda mentions less than 20...

So, I find to many questions to be answered before accepting this view of the battle...

No offense intended,
Cheers,
Alex

[Rick Rather]

What happened on board Washington that they erred so badly in observing 5" hits ?

It's almost as though they were distracted from calmly and carefully counting, evaluating and tabulating each flash that occured. Maybe something was going on at the time...

[alecsandros]

What happened on board Washington that they erred so badly in observing 5" hits ?

It's almost as though they were distracted from calmly and carefully counting, evaluating and tabulating each flash that occured. Maybe something was going on at the time...

Aboard the ship there are individual spotters, Rick... Their job is to observe... transfer and record information.

[Rick Rather]

Really? How many ships have you served on? Do tell.

[alecsandros]

Really? How many ships have you served on? Do tell.

:)

That;s not the point...
Spotting salvos and damage done is essential for pretty much every battle... And that's what spotters do... during the battles...
If you know differently, do tell than :)

[Karl Heidenreich]

Alecsandros:

That;s not the point...
Spotting salvos and damage done is essential for pretty much every battle... And that's what spotters do... during the battles...
If you know differently, do tell than :)

Correct.

[Byron Angel]

Late edit:
- and because the damage presented by Ikeda seems dubious, I find it difficult to believe his damage assessment and drawing alltogether, as he is the only source mentioning this.

Why arent't there any near misses and splinter damage ? All the "Hits" drawn on the aft part of the ship are very close together, and could easily have come from a single near-miss, causing considerable splinter damage to that non-armored part of the ship [It happened to Sheffield and Rodney during the pursuit of Bismarck, it happened to Richelieu during the shelling at Dakar, it happened to Prince of Wales during her final day, etc. ] From the geometry of the battle, I would expect plenty of near-misses and splinter damage. Where is it ?

What happened on board Washington that they erred so badly in observing 5" hits ? They mentioned 40. How could they mistake 40 clear high-exploding hits, illuminating in the darkness as they hit, with anything else ? Ikeda mentions less than 20...

So, I find to many questions to be answered before accepting this view of the battle...

No offense intended,
Cheers,
Alex

Dear Alex,

Absolutely no offence taken! I consider you as one of the good guys here, even if we sometimes disagree on certain things from time to time.

You asked how WASHINGTON could over-estimate 5in hits. Read the battle reports from other night actions around Guadalcanal; it offers innumerable examples of the impossibility of obtaining accurate damage assessments in the midst of a confused night action; every flash was a hit; if the target ship disappeared from view, it was described as sunk. Fabulous descriptions of ships exploding, breaking in two and disappearing beneath the waves can be found in many battle reports: 90 pct of them were complete fiction.

On the other hand, how could WASHINGTON under-estimate 16in hits? IMO, the likely cause rests with the fact that hits by 16in AP projectiles with delay fuzes frequently escaped the notice of observers four to six miles away at night becuase they did not explode until they had penetrated well into the interior of the KIRISHIMA. Modern naval history offers many commentaries describing the difficulty of detecting major caliber AP hits from a distance, even in daytime engagements.

For such reasons, I value more highly the report of an on-the-scene observer who had time to perform a close-up examination of the damage to his ship than I do the visual impressions taken from a long distance at night in the midst of a battle.

Strictly my opinion of course.


B

[alecsandros]

You asked how WASHINGTON could over-estimate 5in hits. Read the battle reports from other night actions around Guadalcanal...

I understand your opinion Byron :)

My impression is that Kirishima only survived the slaughter because no AP shells exploded inside her, or very few have, because they went through-and-through. This is why there was so much flooding - the ship would have been holed on both sides.
The number of hits was probably exaggerated by the Japanese, in order to explain better at home why a second Kongo-class battleship was lost a day later of Hiei's dubious scuttling.

I think we can agree to disagree on this one ?

Cheers,
Alex

[Byron Angel]

I think we can agree to disagree on this one ?

Cheers,
Alex

..... Indeed. I think it's the gentlemanly thing to do in such cases.



Byron

[Djoser]

I too am a bit skeptical as to how the ship would sink after only 9 major calibre hits. Even as lightly armored as she was, you'd think it would take a lot more hits to do it. Even if they went through the other side, failing to explode inside the ship.

Also, I doubt very much anyone onboard could confuse the impact of an approximately 55 lb shell with that of a 2700 lb shell, whether or not the big one failed to explode. We're talking about 50 times more weight.

[alecsandros]

I too am a bit skeptical as to how the ship would sink after only 9 major calibre hits. Even as lightly armored as she was, you'd think it would take a lot more hits to do it. Even if they went through the other side, failing to explode inside the ship.

Also, I doubt very much anyone onboard could confuse the impact of an approximately 55 lb shell with that of a 2700 lb shell, whether or not the big one failed to explode. We're talking about 50 times more weight.

And I am very skeptical that such a small ship could survive 20 x 16" explosive hits inside without sinking immediately.

Perhaps the truth is somewhere in the middle...

[Francis Marliere]

Really? How many ships have you served on? Do tell.

Rick, no offense here but it's difficult to agree with you. I don't buy the idea that one need a navy backround to study naval history. I guess that people studying the great plague of 1348 don't need medieval and/or medical backround.

Best,

Francis Marliere

[lwd]

... And I am very skeptical that such a small ship could survive 20 x 16" explosive hits inside without sinking immediately. ...

I'm not at all sure about that but if Washington hit her 20 times I would be very much surprised if there were 20 high order explosions. Remember the US had a corrosion problem with their fuses early in the war. I think recovering a shell or two after the Torch landings was how they discovered it. If this is the case it's almost sure that it wasn't fixed by the time of the engagement between Washington and Kirishima. I don't know what the dud rate would have been but wouldn't be surprised if it exceeded 30% and possibly by a considerable margin. Then there could be cases as pointed out where shells hit surface at high enough angles to disable the fuses as well. The proposed underwater hits may also be problematic as far as going high order. I think it's been mentioned that shells have a tendency to turn over and travel base first underwater which can destroy the fuse on impact.

[lwd]

yellowtail:

Exception... I think the South Dakotas were somewhat better ships, if we're measuring by the pound (or kilo) and they were a little smaller. Not a a great diff, but enough to make that exception... a notable exception. Otherwise.. when it comes to warships, guns, horsepower, and bank accounts... bigger is generally better. Most of the time.

You remind me so much to lwd and his ridiculous stances, really. Only that he knew a lot better what he was talking about than you.

Talk about a back hand compliment. Care to point out even one stance of mine that was ridiculous?

Of course 4 x 2 was better than 3 x 3: pick up the Raven and Roberts book on British battleships and the full lenght explanation is right there and has been there for decades.

No of course to it at all. Some navies prefered it others didn't. The ones that did thought the advantages out wieghed the disadvanatages in their service other navies thought the other way. With US doctrine 3x3 was almost assuredly better than 4x2 and 4x3 better yet. With German doctrine that's another matter.

Let's bring up the decaping deck of Bismarck's class that makes the Iowa and South Dakota classes a joke. Please!

A decaping deck makes two classe of battleships a joke? and you say I take ridiculous stances.

here I was thinking they were expensive, capable ships.

Capable, how? The only thing an Iowa has sunk in their long history is a trawler at Truk and the spaceship in the movie Battleship.

So by your recogning all the US CVNs. and SSBNs, and SSN's aren't capable? There's a huge difference between capability and what was acomplished historically. As for Iowa only sinking a trawler she helped on a couple of others and I don't see any reason to denigrate her because other ships fired on the same targets. Again you credit me with ridiculous stances ... time to look in the mirror isn't it?

And the last battle of BS was difficult for fire control because they could not steer asteady course. Nevertheless was Schneider able to straddle Rodney. Would not a lucky hit destroyed the coning tower. Maybe some hits on Rodney whould. And later on KgV would have shown, that it was not the easy going win it may looks like today.

Correct. It is more than we can say during Truk where two Iowa Class battleships, fully operational, where unable, with combined fire, to sink a lonely destroyer Nowaki or the South Dakota poor performance during II Guadalcanal using radar and still being unable to hit anything from a enemy-filled enviroment.

Simply amazing. You think it demonstrates a lack of skill to repeadedly straddle a wildly maneubering destroyer at over 35,000 yards and then engage is speculation like this??? As for SoDak you mentione her problems but never the circumstances that affected them. I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

[lwd]

I'd have posted this with the last one but my browser was acting up.

If there is a need to differentiate between American and Japanese battleships, there is one characteristic comparison that eclipses all others, and it can be expressed in this way: 27-12.

The US Navy won WWII, as the US and it's allies did in land and air, due to numerical and industrial superiority.

If you are talking capability of the USN you are at least partially right. You forgot to mention that the USN was also on a par with or superior technically and training wise as well.

On a 1 to 1 analysis, in men, tanks, subs, battleships, fighters, pilots, etc. the axis were by far more efficient and deadly.

This is simply not accurate. US Battleships certainly proved more deadly to their battleship foes than any axis battleships. As far as fighters goes the much maligned F4F had a loss exchange ratio vs zeros of essentially 1:1 kind of hard to make a claim for axis supperiority in terms of planes and pilots there.

Bismarck was sunk because it was hunted by a complete fleet of battleships, battlecruisers, aircraft carriers, cruisers and destroyers. All those resources would not have been available then Bismarck would have done it to France.

Really? So if Renown wasn't in on the hunt Bismarck would have made France? Of course I'm not sure how this is relevant to anything. Particularly Bismarck construction flaws.

Another inconvinient truth: haven't South Dakota at Guadalacanal have not been with USS Washington and fighting an aging "modernized" 14" HE armed Kirishima and Iron Bottom Sound would have had a US battleship at the bottom.

Hardly an "inconvinient truth". A possiblity certainly but hardly a certainty.

Over estimated? Of course.

Certainly not from anything you've presented. Of course some will overestimate them ins some areas and others underestimate them in areas as well. We know which way your beliefs and opinions lie.