should have the prinz eugen stayed with the bismarck ?

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

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sineatimorar
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Re: should have the prinz eugen stayed with the bismarck ?

Post by sineatimorar »

After reading the last post it clear that people think that it if the PG had stayed, the orginal 'lucky' hit would have still occurred and the two would have remained together until the end. To the former, no one could say ya or na to that. Personally I am of the belief that the 'odds' of successfully hitting the BS would have lengthened considerably, thus reducing the chances; others belive differently, and in all probabilities either camp is equally correct as in reality it did not happen so nobody really knows.

As to the latter situation of the PG staying with a CRIPPLED BS , this probability never would have occured, as all historical scenarios of similar circumstances show that Admiral would definitely have transferred to the PG and parted company for at that point his safety would have been paramount. This is basic Naval practice. What could be debated is what have been done to the crippled ship. If the PG had been crippled, he would have most probably been scuttled except I hesitate in saying this as this practice is usually carried out in a fleet situation where safe evacuation can be reasonably guaranteed. This is clearly not the case. I do not think there is a historical case of a crippled capital ship in no immediate danger of sinking would be scuttled until the risk of sinking became inevitable.

It was never my intention to suggest anything other than what I have written here. As some historically un-supportable speculations were creeping into the debate I thought it was time to remind participants that any speculation should have some basis in historical behaviour and tactics.
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Re: should have the prinz eugen stayed with the bismarck ?

Post by alecsandros »

paul.mercer wrote: Agreed the extra AA might have made a difference at the start, but once Bismarck was crippled there is no way PE is going to be able to see off two battleships and a cruiser, The outcome would be that Messrs Ballard and Cameron would be investigating two wrecks instead of one.
No,
with PG close by the chances of Bismarck being crippled are significantly reduced.
Hood could not distinguish correctly between PG and BS, so the Swordfish pilots would have a much harder time distinguishing the ships, especialy on that weather.
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Re: should have the prinz eugen stayed with the bismarck ?

Post by sineatimorar »

It is one of the by_products of making your ship similar in appearance and layout. Not only is it easier to transfer personal between ships as the crews would be use to the basic layout, the enemy have a problem Identifying which is which.
ede144
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Re: should have the prinz eugen stayed with the bismarck ?

Post by ede144 »

The KM did it by purpose and found it very successful
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Re: should have the prinz eugen stayed with the bismarck ?

Post by Paul L »

alecsandros wrote:
paul.mercer wrote: Agreed the extra AA might have made a difference at the start, but once Bismarck was crippled there is no way PE is going to be able to see off two battleships and a cruiser, The outcome would be that Messrs Ballard and Cameron would be investigating two wrecks instead of one.
No,
with PG close by the chances of Bismarck being crippled are significantly reduced.
Hood could not distinguish correctly between PG and BS, so the Swordfish pilots would have a much harder time distinguishing the ships, especialy on that weather.

Definitely agree. The 'string bags' even miss identified the British Cruiser as a German ship and attacked it, since the weather was bad....so targeting PG instead of BS sounds very plausible. The very fact of the rudder hit is something of a miracle hit.

http://www.bismarck-class.dk/bismarck/h ... dohit.html
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Re: should have the prinz eugen stayed with the bismarck ?

Post by paul.mercer »

Paul L wrote:
alecsandros wrote:
paul.mercer wrote: Agreed the extra AA might have made a difference at the start, but once Bismarck was crippled there is no way PE is going to be able to see off two battleships and a cruiser, The outcome would be that Messrs Ballard and Cameron would be investigating two wrecks instead of one.
No,
with PG close by the chances of Bismarck being crippled are significantly reduced.
Hood could not distinguish correctly between PG and BS, so the Swordfish pilots would have a much harder time distinguishing the ships, especialy on that weather.

Definitely agree. The 'string bags' even miss identified the British Cruiser as a German ship and attacked it, since the weather was bad....so targeting PG instead of BS sounds very plausible. The very fact of the rudder hit is something of a miracle hit.

http://www.bismarck-class.dk/bismarck/h ... dohit.html
I'm sorry chaps, but I think you have missed the point I was trying to make, it is that if PE had stayed with Bismarck AFTER she had been hit in the rudder then PE would been sunk. I agree that the torpedo hit may not have happened if PE had been around to add her AA fire to Bismarcks, but then it might, it was as you say a very lucky hit
no one can tell what the outcome would have been, we can only speculate, which is what this forum is all about.
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Re: should have the prinz eugen stayed with the bismarck ?

Post by sineatimorar »

How true Paul. The orginal purpose of the question was to speculate over the decision processes that were faced by admiral and his command team. I wanted to read what others thought may or may not have been the options that were considered at the time. Secondary to that is what may have occured if the other choice had been made. I think the desire has been and still is been fulfilled. It just that any speculations about actions after the decision event have to have some based on historically what has occurred in similar scenerios of past events. Otherwise we could accused of idle speculation and I hope we are all a bit more serious about this than some posts would indicate.
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Re: should have the prinz eugen stayed with the bismarck ?

Post by Paul L »

Lutjens actions during 'Operation Berlin' seem ideally suite to the surface raider mission criteria, but with 'Operation Rheinübung' many mistakes are made. Assuming Lutjens didn't have a lobotomy, why such a different approach in Rheinübung? Was it the restrictions that Raeder placed on this mission compared to Berlin... or was Hitler breathing down their necks to produce results?

As to the sequencing of torpedo hit vs Bismarck or PG & BS, how would PG have connected with BS after the Torpedo Hit?

Only realistic way I can see is if they were together all the time.
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Re: should have the prinz eugen stayed with the bismarck ?

Post by Paul L »

ede144 wrote:The KM did it by purpose and found it very successful


Next what if question.....what if all German warships were built to look Like Bismarck....just scaled up or down to fit to size and mission :wink:

".....was not head of gestapo for 5 years...I make joke"
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Re: should have the prinz eugen stayed with the bismarck ?

Post by sineatimorar »

The first part about Lutjen is right on the money! Why did he seem to 'go completely of the reservation' as it were ? This question is the crux of the whole point to this question; I suspect if I looked into what exactly grabbed
my interest in the Bismarck's story, this question of WHY? did it for me. My whole interest in the WW2 probably stems from the question of 'How could a group of people, who acted so carefully for so many years to recover what their country had lost, suddenly rush ahead into the shear insane madness that eventually engulfed them'? What happened to Lutjen could be a reflection of this. I have seen writings suggesting that under the insane racial policies of purity of the German race, there may have been a question about his family's background. That there had been a threat ( of blackmail maybe) of dicovery ? I have no idea if there any truth to this, it is just one example of the weirder scenarios that have cropped up when I started to focus my research on Lutjen's story.

As to the other bit about linking up? I admit to been a bit unsure what you meant. If it is how the transfer would have occurred, either by boat or bosun's chair I expect.

Or have I lost my funny bone somewhere along the line ?
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Re: should have the prinz eugen stayed with the bismarck ?

Post by Dave Saxton »

How was Luetjens radically different during Rhine Uebung compared to Operation Berlin?

The Kriegsmarine was nothing like the SS or the Waffen SS.
Entering a night sea battle is an awesome business.The enveloping darkness, hiding the enemy's.. seems a living thing, malignant and oppressive.Swishing water at the bow and stern mark an inexorable advance toward an unknown destiny.
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Re: should have the prinz eugen stayed with the bismarck ?

Post by sineatimorar »

No nothing like that. The 'article' I read suggested that he and his family had been initially successful in hiding it when the Nazi came to power, but at some point during the war he thought discovery was close to occurring. How or why this ties up with the explaining his performances at sea was never made. At the time I was trying to discover more about him, something that went into what sort of personality did he have, that sort of thing, and as I said it was one of the weirder 'articles' to pop up.

Look so far I can not see what Reader could have said to put 'the wind up Lutjen' as it were. The threat of been 'dismissed' never changed between operations, so why the difference? Surely he did not get in a completely put off the operation because it did not go the way he thought it should in the final arrangements? Was his ego that bad?
Theses are all the type of questions that we need to ask about why the change in demeanor from a competent commander to almost a bumbling mentally defective fool ? The change seems to be been quite remarkable.
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Re: should have the prinz eugen stayed with the bismarck ?

Post by Paul L »

Dave Saxton wrote:How was Luetjens radically different during Rhine Uebung compared to Operation Berlin?

The Kriegsmarine was nothing like the SS or the Waffen SS.

In 'Rheinübung' he rushes to the 'Denmark Straits' , forgoing refueling in the hope to break through with surprise, fails to get surprise but plunges on anyway- in violation of the first instruction Raeder gave him [to make a surprise break out into the Atlantic] ???

In 'Berlin' months earlier- he attempts a break out east of Iceland , makes vague contact with British Cruiser and doubles back to Artic for days, which he wisely spends refueling and re planning for another opportunity to slip through. In theory he could have done this several times. He should have done this in 'Rheinübung'.

In 'Rheinübung' he rushes into Battle with superior forces [BC & BB vs BB & CA ] against doctrine???? Contrast with "Berlin" he runs away from slow BB escorted convoy with his two BC looking for undefended convoys...which was the prudent thing to do given their strategy & doctrine .

In "Rheinübung" he gives up the campaign after his battleship is damaged in the first battle, while In "Berlin" he struggles on with Twins engine problems for months and never gives up the campaign.

One campaign he acts with wisdom and prudence while in the other he acts rash & foolish.
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Dave Saxton
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Re: should have the prinz eugen stayed with the bismarck ?

Post by Dave Saxton »

1) In the private instructions Luetjens gave to Brinkmann he said he planned on running the strait without waiting if the weather was favorable. It was. He told Brinkmann to use radar for navigation in the event the visibility was too poor. The favorable weather was begining to break up though after they began to run the strait.

2) This was a sound and wise policy proven in April when the Scheer ran the straits. At that time they enccountered two cruisers, but the Scheer detected them with radar in time and the British cruisers failed to sight the Scheer. The British never knew the Scheer was there, although the Germans watched the second cruiser steam past 10km away in at night. The first cruiser they had watched steam past on radar while the Scheer hid in a fog bank. KzS Meisel reported similar experiences with the Hipper.

3) Once Luetjens contacted the cruisers within the strait he had to expect he would quickly evade them given the favorable weather conditions. Only after he was commited did it become apparent that the British had attained a radar capability they did not have before.

4)After the Battle of Denmark Strait he placed the mission above all by first shepparding the Prinz Eugen into the Atlantic to continue the mission, and then by taking the Bismarck to France where it could resume the operation without needing to break out again, which might be difficult given the the new found radar capability of the enemy.
Entering a night sea battle is an awesome business.The enveloping darkness, hiding the enemy's.. seems a living thing, malignant and oppressive.Swishing water at the bow and stern mark an inexorable advance toward an unknown destiny.
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Re: should have the prinz eugen stayed with the bismarck ?

Post by sineatimorar »

This is the wonderful thing about a debate, two post talking about the same thing with completely opposed opinions.
One thing he did not rush into battle at Denmark straits, he hesitated. Like should he turn back and fight a running battle to the north, should he continue and fight as he did? My interuption of his operational orders state the operation's success is contingent on a successful brake out without the enemy been aware. Independent operations were to be carried out as opportunity allowed once in the Atlantic. The tone of that part being if the PG stumbled over a heavy escorted convoy, he could whistle up support from the BS. No where in his orders does it state fully independent Ops was to be considered.There could be a wonderful debate here on who was escorting who in this Op.
I hold that depended on the situation. At Denmark Straits PG is the obvious escort; Hunting convoys the roles was to be swapped for the most part. It all depended on what the circumstances were. Remember to Tp was suppose to a company the BS in a repeat of the earlier ops.
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