Was Bismarck a mis-hitter?

[RF]

Based on track record he/she/it would certainly not have been stopping to pick up survivors.


And the Last Signal of Lutjens-In Full from the War Diary,

Schiff manovrierunfahig. Wir kampen zur letze granate Es lebe der Fuhrer Long Live the Fuhrer!

All the Best wadinga

There are plenty of instances of German heavy ships picking up survivors, where there was no risk to themselves in doing so, including Scharnhorst picking up survivors from Rawalpindi.
Survivors generally were not picked up in convoy situations or where there was a known proximity of British ships.
I don't think that Lutjens or Lindemann would have left sailors to drown any more than any other ship commander, and on Operation Berlin survivors were picked up.

On convoy attacks Bismarck would not be expected to hang around picking up survivors, any more than Scheer did with the attack on HX84. It is presumed other ships are around to pick up survivors....

With respect to survivors I think it is worth mentioning that U-boat crews did on occasion help survivors from ships they sank, even in the face of official disapproval from Donitz. The KM never had a policy of ''kill survivors'' it was simply a matter of operational necessity. The same operational necessity that caused Dorsetshire and Maori to leave Bismarck survivors in the water because of fears of imminent U-boat attack, the same reason that Devonshire didn't stop to pick up the survivors of hilfskreuzer Atlantis etc etc

And the quote about Lutjens signal - well we have plenty of evidence that Lutjens was far from the charachter portrayed by Karel Stepanek, this signal was political hyperbole, nothing else.

[Tiornu]

the cruisers gunnery did not wreck the Glowworm so much as to impair the ships speed

I don't know if that's true or not. Apparently the damage was severe enough to wreck Glowworm's steering.

my point was at at point blank range one salvo of eight inch should have blown the destroyer out of the water

I can't recall any instance in which that happened. The experience of Pacific warfare showed that heavy cruisers had a difficult time dealing with destroyers at close range.

[paulcadogan]

On Hood's gunnery:

Don't get me wrong RF - I'm agreeing with YOU. I'm the one, along with Antonio, who in a thread in the Hood forum helped convince Mr. Taylor that Hood's gunnery in the DS WAS good, at least at the outset. Obviously the smaller the target, the harder to hit. Renown had a similar experience at Cape Spartivento shooting at Bolzano - straddles but no hits.

But did you notice the locations of the hits Hood might have obtained with those salvoes - the bow and amidships below the waterline - very close to where PoW acually scored. The only diference is they would have been with successive salvoes earlier (3rd & 4th) rather than PoW's 6th & 10th and would have REALLY put a fire under Lindemann's tail to utter his famous words! We could have had a REAL battle between Hood and Bismarck, because when you look at it, it's very likely the two never actually exchanged fire....

On the topic of Hipper vs. destroyers:

In the Barents Sea she did take some time to hit Onslow, and Achates certainly absorbed much and took a long time to founder. But then how about Sheffield vs. Friedrich Eckholdt? Sheffield certainly made short work of her!

[Bgile]

Depends on the circumstances. One photo I've seen shows Glowworm dead ahead of Hipper and it doesn't look like any of the cruiser's guns can even hit her.

[VeenenbergR]

I never understood what Glowworm was doing. Trying to ram a big heavy cruiser of the Hipper Class is suicidal. Hipper survived and the brave Glowworm sank with all hands!!!

For a change Hipper caused a lot of casualties. Most of what I read about German warships is that they took heavy casualties during their engagements, when they were bombed by Bomber Command and when they were sunk.

About the relaods on Japanese heavy cruisers: they had all special rails to transfer spare torpedo's to the firing stations under the deck. These spare torpedo's caused many a heavy cruiser to be sunk when they were bombed in the battles around Leyte.
I think that this caused Chokai, Sozuya and Chikuma to be sunk after being bombed.

[lwd]

I never understood what Glowworm was doing. Trying to ram a big heavy cruiser of the Hipper Class is suicidal. Hipper survived and the brave Glowworm sank with all hands!!!

My understanding was that:
1) Glowworm didn't think she'd be able to get away anyway.
2) The damage she would do to Hipper would put her out of action for some time and if lucky might allow the British another shot at her.

...About the relaods on Japanese heavy cruisers: they had all special rails to transfer spare torpedo's to the firing stations under the deck. These spare torpedo's caused many a heavy cruiser to be sunk when they were bombed in the battles around Leyte.
I think that this caused Chokai, Sozuya and Chikuma to be sunk after being bombed.

I'm not sure if it was the reloads, the torpedos in the tubes, or the oxygen plant or some combination that resulted in severe damage to a number of Japanese cruisers. Shattered Sword credits the damage control officer of one of the Japanese CA with saving her because he ordered the torpedos jettsoned.

[Tiornu]

I never understood what Glowworm was doing. Trying to ram a big heavy cruiser of the Hipper Class is suicidal. Hipper survived and the brave Glowworm sank with all hands!

Some of her crew survived. Her senior surviving officer reported that the ship had lost steering control. That would mean the collision was accidental. In any case, Glowworm was a hopeless case by that point.

Shattered Sword credits the damage control officer of one of the Japanese CA with saving her because he ordered the torpedos jettsoned.

Mogami managed to jetison her torpedoes at Midway and survived. She was unable to jettison her torpedoes at Surigao Strait and did not survive.

[VeenenbergR]

Interesting point: were the Japanese torpedo's a greater danger for their own ship then the enemy when the torpedo's were still in their tubes and if being bombed (or shelled?)? Why was that??? is this also true for ships of other nations?

[lwd]

Torpedoes and depth charges both contain substantial amounts of high explosive. They former also contains fuel. In the case of the Japanese torpedoes they also contained O2. These represent a hazard as long as they are on board ship. If the ship has reloads and these are not designed for rapid dumping then the hazard is extended.

[dahlhorse]

Excellent point but for a lucky rudder hit those british ships might have felt the sting of bismarcks 15" guns!!

Ok, time to drag some under-educated, ill-informed, 20/20 hindsight illogic into a well versed debate.
Why on earth would a halfway prudent navy, such as the KM, not train for a worst case situation?

Hi Steve,

What happened to Bismarck on 26 May 1941, i.e. having her steering jammed by a torpedo was more than a worst-case situation, if you know what I mean. It was a catastrophe that no amount of pre-planning could have made serious roads into. The Kriegsmarine was aware that the ship was very difficult to steer by propellers alone, as tests in the calmer waters of the Baltic had shown, but it's hard to see how you can plan for every eventuality (especially a one in a million torpedo hit, given Bismarck's double bottom and the protection it afforded to much of the ship).

Antonio has supplied a good technical response as to why the ship was doomed on 27 May 2005.

As to my point about Bismarck's detractors, it is clear that by no means everyone who posts to this forum is an admirer of the ship. The evidence for this is the nature of what is said about her.

Patrick

[RF]

Coming back to Hipper vs. destroyers there is also another comparison of the Scharnhorst/Gneisenau using their 15 cm guns against Acasta and Ardent, although of course Scharnhorst was torpedoed.

At close range a cruiser should make mincemeat of a destroyer, assuming the range isn't so close the guns cannot bear below minimum depression. I suppose it is a question of manouvering into position to fire and then of accurate fire.

[RF]

On Hood's gunnery:

Don't get me wrong RF - I'm agreeing with YOU. I'm the one, along with Antonio, who in a thread in the Hood forum helped convince Mr. Taylor that Hood's gunnery in the DS WAS good, at least at the outset. Obviously the smaller the target, the harder to hit. Renown had a similar experience at Cape Spartivento shooting at Bolzano - straddles but no hits.

But did you notice the locations of the hits Hood might have obtained with those salvoes - the bow and amidships below the waterline - very close to where PoW acually scored. The only diference is they would have been with successive salvoes earlier (3rd & 4th) rather than PoW's 6th & 10th and would have REALLY put a fire under Lindemann's tail to utter his famous words! We could have had a REAL battle between Hood and Bismarck, because when you look at it, it's very likely the two never actually exchanged fire....

You mean that Hood never fired on Bismarck.....

The key question to your last sentence is really of whether Hood blows up, ie. does Hood hit Bismarck say twice, but then still blows up as the Bismark's fire is unaffected by the two hits, OR is Hood's first hits enough to upset the Bismarck's firing so that the Hood does not blow up at the point it did?

If the former then the role of POW after Hood blows is far more crucial. If Captain Leach in POW sees Bismarck has taken heavy damage would he continue the action instead of breaking off, despite the problems of her gunnery? And if Bismarck is substantially slowed by a Hood hit on the bows then how soon do Norfolk and Suffolk open up with their 8 inch guns effectively?

If Hood doesn't blow - well this has been discussed at extreme length in various other threads on this forum over the years so I won't repeat the arguements here except to say that the consensus of opinion appeared to be that Bismarck would be doomed - it would be a question of how long the ship lasts and of whether PE gets away.

[RF]

I never understood what Glowworm was doing. Trying to ram a big heavy cruiser of the Hipper Class is suicidal. Hipper survived and the brave Glowworm sank with all hands!!!

There is a logic to this. The British had a very big navy. The Germans had a navy with a small surface fleet. The loss of one destroyer to the British was far, far less significant than the loss of a heavy cruiser would be to the Germans. So if the destroyer is going to be lost anyway, there is nothing to lose and possibly much to gain by ramming the cruiser.....

[Vic Dale]

Hi to all.

At the commencement of battle, Bismarck was steaming at 10 knots which was the limit at which she could hold anything like a fixed course. Even so she was remarkably unstable and kept hauling away to port. This is due to the damaged rudder jammed at 12 dgrees to port, which required counter rotaion of her port shaft and some variation between the other two.

In this situation the gunners will have been faced with a real problem, because the ship could suddenly haul away faster than the turrets could train, or if not quite as fast as that, the constant change of target bearing, in relation to the ship will have made it almost impossible for them to hold the target long enough to gain accuracy for line, even though they were correct for range. The sudden turns probably kept the after guns imnttermittently wooded (blinded by the ship's structure).

Even so, they did manage to get close to the target and one shell burst near to Rodney's bow deep in the water, causing damage to the torpedo transfer track and buckling other structures in the vicinity, some rivets were popped and flooding occurred locally.

Bismarck's target at this time was Rodney which remained ahead of the ship and as the after guns could not see the target for most of the time will have played little part in the action.

At 0910, Mullenheim Rechberg in the after gunnery control was tasked to take over control of the after guns and fire on KGV. This may have been a decision to divide fire, or it may mean that the forward guns had been knocked out. The main gunnery control in the foretop could not be contacted at this time, though it may well have been still directing what remained of the foward guns after they had been hit.

Mullenheim Rechberg fired 4 salvoes and fully expected to get straddles with the next few salvoes. His position was put out of action before this could be put to the test, however, but even so he had no complaints of the conditions under which he was working. He was able to calmly make his calculations and seemed confident that he could gets hits on KGV without difficulty. The range was down to 11,000 yards by this time and he had a clear view of the target.

By the time the after guns began firing, Bismarck's speed had dropped off to about 3 knots and I believe that this was down to a command decision, taken to try and aid the gunners, by giving them a laterally stable gun platform from which to direct fire. The ship's engines were still intact and working well right up to the time that the scuttling charges were blown, so reducing speed was a deliberate act and had the ship's command been aware that this was the right thing to do at the beginning of the action, who knows what damage she may have done to her antagonsits, before her own guns were finally put out of action.

In Bismarck's situation at 0845 that morning it may be that slowing the ship and dividing fire would have been tactically the right things to do, but this flew in the face of standard battle practice. I think it shows that the officers and men of the Bismarck maintained good order and discipline right up to the end - much like the parachutist whose primary and secondary shutes have failed, nevertheless determines that he will at least make a text-book landing. This was demonstrated time and again during that terrible conflict - given a hopeless situation they all went to the text-book and relied on the way they had been trained

Vic

[Bgile]

I believe Mullenheim Rechberg did straddle KGV. He had just ordered "Good Rapid" fire when his post was disabled.