Hood's sinking: the timing of that fatal hit

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ Paul Cadogan,

I think I have found the problem and the solution ... please take a look and make your evaluations.

4_cables.jpg

(83.82 KiB) Not downloaded yet

Bye Antonio

[wadinga]

Hi Antonio,

Whilst you are in a measuring mood, what is the lateral distance ie orthogonal between the Hood and PoW tracks at 06:00 on your new jpg?

All the best

wadinga

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ Wadinga,

Sean, it is in the pic name, ... 4 cables ... one cable = 185,2 meters ( 1/10 of a Sea Mile ) ... so 4 cables = 740,8 meters

That pic only shows that the angle is different between Rowell map ( not so correct with 20 degrees ) ... and the reality as reported with 30 degrees ... so more acute.

Bottom line that brings back at 06.01 Hood relative position compared to PoW on Rowell map and will make the photos and Rowell map more close and comparable.

Bye Antonio

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ Wadinga,

Sean, were you looking for those ones ? ... I am sure Paul will like them as well ...

Projection_04.jpg (93.56 KiB) Viewed 1562 times

Diagram_A_projection.jpg (95.08 KiB) Viewed 1562 times

Bye Antonio

[wadinga]

Hi Antonio,

Surely in fact the situation is slightly different and should be as as per your "Not Downloaded" 4_cables.jpg?

This official diagram applies only to the situation before 05:55, (actual open fire 05:53- more conspiracy?) and the turn of 20 degrees to port which would have brought the vessels apparently "closer" together as seen from PG's point of view at 06:00. Also in terms of the next planned additional 20 degrees the ships would have started less than 550m apart measured at right angles to their course.

I know you, as I, feel that Holland has received far more than a due share of criticism, but IMHO he should have opened out his formation somewhat and put PoW astern rather than leave her too close on the engaged quarter.

Even if the final turn had been executed, Holland would have still been 40 degrees off Lutjens' actual heading (260T v 220T) and closing the already short range too fast. PoW's estimate for German course was 212T. He may have been hoping to force the Germans to turn to starboard, but unless PoW dropped speed relative to Hood his ships would have been very close.

What is the right angle distance between tracks on your 4_cables after the turn and if another 20 had been turned what would it reduce to?

All the best

wadinga

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ Wadinga,

here the angles and the distances of the 2 turns at " one time " of 20 degrees :

Base relative distance on course 300 was 740 meters ( 4 cables ) relative angle of 50 degrees ( even if on the map is written being 45 degrees )

After the turn to 280 degrees course :

Relative distance still 740 meters or 4 cables, but the relative angle decreased of 20 degrees so 50 - 20 = 30 degrees

Same in case they were tuning to 260 degrees course :

Relative distance still 740 meters or 4 cables, and the relative angle was going to decrease of other 20 degrees so 30 - 20 = 10 degrees

Bye Antonio

[paulcadogan]

OK folks...here I go again...the newest installment - another LONG post! - of my quest to show how the last moments of Hood have been been made to generate confusion and controversy all because someone wrote down a time of 0600 for her demise, and that careful analysis of the available data, evidence and witness descriptions points to an earlier time, which once input-ted allows everything to fall into place!

Two very important items in analysing what happened are PoW's Gunnery Aspects Report and Salvo Plot. Though the plot may be very basic in terms of the ship's course, it is very specific with regards to the salvos, their timing and the ranges at which they were fired. In the report, McMullen describes incoming hits, issues encountered and other events that can be tied to specific salvos, and hence the times can be marked fairly accurately.

Antonio - you have once again pointed me to something that helps my case! Leach's narrative....the excerpt which you posted in the "Articles" thread:

"Prince of Wales" starboard 5.25" battery was now in action. Course had to be altered to starboard to avoid remains of "Hood"; meanwhile "Bismarck" had shifted main and secondary armament fire quickly and accurately onto "Prince of Wales". A heavy hit was felt almost immediately. And at 0602 compass platform was hit and majority of personnel killed. Navigating Officer was wounded; Commanding Officer unhurt.

Cross referencing that with the Gunnery Aspects Report:

The 5.25-in. armament opened fire at a range of 18,600 yards. After firing a deflection triple, a 15-in. shell passed through the superstructure supporting the H.A. directors.

The shot caused the director to jam temporarily in training and the Control Officer of the latter ordered all turrets to go into "aft control". This was carried out, but about the same time a 15-in. shell burst on the boat deck and seriously upset the after starboard H.A. director. The crew of this director had already been considerably blasted by "Y" turret firing on a forward bearing. The 15-in. shell burst threw the Control Officer off his feet, broke his telephone lead, and a splinter hit his earphones and very slightly wounded him. By the time he had regained control of the situation, the target was lost behind smoke astern.

And

A large line spread appeared temporarily in salvoes 11 and 12 and one or two shots fell ahead during this time.

And:

A.F.C.T., Mk IX. - The 14-in. table was run continuously for 32 hours and proved most reliable. The only incidents which occurred were as follows:-
During the first action after firing salvo 12, a heavy hit was felt on the starboard side and the director setting mechanical pointer was seen to be oscillating violently. At the same time a fuze was noticed to blow at the panel in the 14-in. T.S.

So...we have Leach, obviously quoting from McMullens report, but INSERTING that course was altered to starboard to avoid the wreck site after the 5.25's opened fire but before Bismarck shifted fire. Based on the ranges and times of the salvo plot, the 5.25's opened fire just before 0558, just after the A-arcs opened. They fired ONLY 3 salvoes before the hit came in that damaged the forward HACS director. Note that this MUST have come from Prinz Eugen and it also renders Leach's assertion that that hit came in from the same salvo as the compass platform hit as INCORRECT.

Now we have Leach altering course to starboard then a "heavy hit" was felt almost "immediately" after he noted Bismarck "rapidly shifted" fire. We have a "heavy hit" reported after salvo 12 in the G.A.R. We have the hit that exploded in the boat deck area blasting the aft HACS and preventing it taking over from the disabled forward director when ordered, preventing the 5.25's from further participation. It must have happened pretty quickly after the forward HACS hit to do that....

It is painfully obvious that these ALL refer to the same hit and Salvo 12's time puts it at just after 0559.

(Whether it came from Prinz Eugen or Bismarck does not matter and is hard to say...both may have been targeting PoW at that time. However I think a functional HE from PG would have exploded within a millisecond or two of striking the crane so would not have reached the funnel and the resulting blast should not have been as great as a 15-inch to "upset" the aft HACS director some distance away - but I could be wrong in that.)

We have the unusual spreads in salvos 11 and 12 time just before and just after 0559. We have Leach saying course was altered to starboard after the 5.25's joined the action. CONCLUSION - we have a sudden turn that disrupted the ship's gunnery at 0559.

MOVING ON.....2 BLUE

Those controversial 2 Blue signals. I would ask ANYONE here if they can find a SINGLE witness - Hood survivor or PoW crew - who describes TWO turns.... Not Captain Leach, not Geoffrey Brooke not Ted Briggs, not Bob Tilburn, not Anthony Hunter-Terry, not Esmonde Knight, not George Rowell... Any reference to a 2 Blue turn involves the ships turning to open the A-arcs, the second 2Blue being hoisted, then Hood was hit. Hunter-Terry said 0600.... YES that is what he noted, and YES that is what Leach wrote in his report.

Hunter-Terry also said Hood was hit by Bismarck's third salvo at 0557. But we know that at that time the ships were actually already in the 20 degree turn to port for the first 2Blue and we know that flag signal was made AFTER the hit that set Hood on fire! Hood was burning, the flag was hoisted, then it was executed so that somewhere between 0557 and 0558 PoW's A-arcs opened - and the turn was yet incomplete because she did not need the full 20 degrees to open the arcs. So much for Lt. Hunter Terry's precision of timing.,,,,which I'm sure he reported in good faith, but he's as human as everybody else! He was wrong about 0600 too...

Leach said the compass platform hit came in at 0602. We know that it came in earlier - so he was wrong in that regard. He was wrong about 0600 too...

So we have witnesses describing ONE smooth, controlled 20 degree turn together, executed in a manner to minimize disruption to gunnery - especially given Hood's old FC equipment. We have the turn nearing completion, so Hood's rudder is still over. The second flag is hoisted. Hood fires from an aft turret and the scream of Bismarck's 5th salvo (fired about 3 minutes after her first ranging shot) rises in crescendo until WHOOMPH!....the shell rips through into her vitals.....just after 0558. NO NEED FOR A TURN CONTROVERSY.

NEXT....Compass Platform

With Hood's demise beginning at around 0558 and PoW turning in avoidance at 0559, we can therefore move forward the timing of the compass platform hit to the region of 0559:50 rather than 0600:50 keeping the relative positions of Hood & PoW the same as in the 0600 scenario. BUT....we now have a reasonable amount of time for Captain Leach to recover from the blast, get to his feet, pick his way though the bodies and wreckage, get through the hatch, go down the ladder to the lower bridge and get to the voice pipe to give the order to turn away. NO CHANGE in the rapidity of his decision, NO CHANGE in whatever judgement you choose to place on it....NO NEED for anyone to ask "How could he possibly do that and start the ship turning in 40 seconds! One minute 40 seconds is amazing enough as it is...but is MUCH more feasible.

I have one more piece of evidence at this time but I'll put it in another post because now....after the above marathon I am ready to post my battle map, which is based on everything I've said.

[paulcadogan]

NOTE: PLEASE take some time to read my previous post before scrutinizing this track chart which I have tried to make as clear as possible.

The time slots may not be perfectly positioned, but I have tried to portray what I think happened and when based on all that I have noted previously:

[paulcadogan]

And the last item of this marathon:

Hood's salvos!

In the DS battle we don't know for sure how many salvos Hood actually fired, but do have an estimate of 10 salvos from Paul Schmalenbach aboard Prinz Eugen.

Antonio used this figure in his DS battle reconstrcution.

But what can we figure out from actual data we DO have? OK...we have PoW's salvo plot and we know from Holland's orders that the two ships were firing in G.I.C. with each ship firing in its time sector to concentrate fire on Bismarck and not confuse fall of shot. So,,,there would be an alternation of salvos - Hood then PoW then Hood then PoW etc.

So if we take PoW's salvo plot, we can insert possible salvos for Hood in sequence with PoW's starting from before 0553 when Hood fired her first salvo pair (as PoW fired in pairs - alternating the guns from each turret.

When you do this...10 salvos for Hood take you to.....I'll give you one guess!!

0558!!!

With possbly the salvo fired just before her demise being number 11???

See my "Hood Salvo Plot" below....

DS Track Chart 0558 PC - Salvo Plot for Hood.jpg (93.85 KiB) Viewed 1493 times

My friends ALL. You must see by now that I am not engaging in wishful fantasies. I LOVE the Hood and have no desire to see her diminished further by being under enemy fire for only 3 minutes rather than 5 before disintegrating. But so many lines of evidence leading to the same answer cannot be denied to hold substance.

I REALLY and SINCERELY hope you can see the merit of what I am saying.

In all humility...

Paul

[Steve Crandell]

Looks to me like you did a really good job, Paul.

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

I agree with Steve, ... it looks like a job very well done from your side Paul.

You know that I have a different opinion but before commenting on it I want to carefully re-analyze everything once again, .... because your efforts surely deserve the best consideration from my side.

In any case I want to personally congratulate you for the very professional analysis you have done, ... BRAVO ! ...

Bye Antonio

[paulcadogan]

Thanks so much Steve and Antonio!

I'd also like to add that in doing all this I have realized that the ONLY "evidence" for 0600 is the statements by persons such as Captain Leach and Lt. Hunter-Terry. (Yes accepted by the Boards...but the Boards/Admiralty also accepted that Bismarck opened fire immediately after Hood and before PoW, and that Bismarck's third salvo caused the fire on Hood... )

Not Jasper who did not see Hood hit because he had shifted his instruments on to PoW....

Not Schmalenbach (whose description actually supports a very small time interval between PG's hit and the fatal salvo):

I deem it as very probable, nearly certain, that the above mentioned salvo was from Prinz Eugen [and that it] caused the conflagration. A few seconds later a salvo from Bismarck hit the ship aft, and that resulted in an explosion of massive consequence.

Certainly not Brinkmann whose time annotation is even further out...0601:30...

Not the Baron, who does not give a time, but whose description states that Bismarck went to "full salvos good rapid" after an opening salvo that was short and a 400 m bracket whose long salvo was over and base salvo was straddling. If her 5th salvo destroyed Hood...good rapid?....0600 would have been "not-so-good slow"!!!

Not Suffolk (or Wake-Walker) who IMHO gave the time closest to reality of ANY of them for Hood's demise....0559.

Also ...this just popped into my head....the turn to port by Norfolk at 0600....

Picture those on Norfolk's bridge watching the battle unfold. Hood is hit and there is a flash of flame from her. Does Wake-Walker INSTANTLY, before the smoke could even rise properly into the air, turn around and say to Captain Phillips..."Turn to course 220!" with the ship instantly going hard over to the new course??!

Or do they watch aghast as smoke envelopes Hood, they see PoW close on her and realize disaster has struck, Wake-Walker gives the order to Phillips who then moves to the voice pipe to transmit the order to the helm, the helmsman spins the wheel so by 0600 the ship goes into her turn?

One again...the human "time-needed-to-get-things-done" factor creeps in. If Norfolk began her turn AT 0600, then either Wake-Walker anticipated Hood being destroyed at that time, or Hood's destruction commenced earlier....

Antonio...you have just GOT to see the logic in all of this . No great disruption to your reconstruction other than to move your time allocations for NH69724 and PoW's salvo in the PG film back by about a minute. Then when you look at the distance covered by PoW in NH69731 in order to turn away and have smoke trailing behind her to the right (her port quarter now facing the Germans)...it is all clear and PERFECT. Everything falls into place, controversies go out the window!

[Dave Saxton]

MOVING ON.....2 BLUE

Those controversial 2 Blue signals. I would ask ANYONE here if they can find a SINGLE witness - Hood survivor or PoW crew - who describes TWO turns.... Not Captain Leach, not Geoffrey Brooke not Ted Briggs, not Bob Tilburn, not Anthony Hunter-Terry, not Esmonde Knight, not George Rowell... Any reference to a 2 Blue turn involves the ships turning to open the A-arcs, the second 2Blue being hoisted, then Hood was hit. Hunter-Terry said 0600.... YES that is what he noted, and YES that is what Leach wrote in his report.

Are you saying that neither Hood or POW started any second turn? That POW did not is most probable, but what about Hood? Further reduction of target angle to BS really goes some ways toward making a magazine penetration more possible.

[paulcadogan]

Are you saying that neither Hood or POW started any second turn? That POW did not is most probable, but what about Hood? Further reduction of target angle to BS really goes some ways toward making a magazine penetration more possible.

Hi Dave...well in an earlier post I suggested that Hood may have simply continued turning because this is what was intended by Holland, but IF there was a hit at the base of the bridge and the signalmen responsible for hauling down the 2 Blue flags were killed or injured (Ted Briggs though he heard his "oppo" calling for help) then PoW would not have seen an "execute". So it is POSSIBLE that Hood was continuing to turn, but that is an uncertainty. So instead of 2 separate turns, we have one...combined for Hood.

Still I would think that even at that target angle, BS could punch through to the magazines......

[RNfanDan]

The possibility of HMS Hood having executed a second 20°turn to port before her destruction, particularly without (apparently) waiting for Prince of Wales to hoist-and-dip bunting in acknowledgment, would only have served to put her further to PORT of Leach's ship.

My point? The further to port Hood progresses, the less PoW needs to swerve starboard to avoid her. On the other hand, there IS that rudder, now part of Hood's wreck on the seafloor, which is frozen in a left-helm position...

If it is allowed that the flagship DID put her helm over to port, as intended, it is not necessarily disallowed that she could have done so, only JUST BEFORE the disastrous explosion which ended her. This isn't, by the way, an attempt to divert from the recent, remarkable exchanges --I think Paul (for the second time in what, a week?) is once again in "the cat-bird's seat" with matters. I simply want to keep any notion of a port-turning Hood quite separate from the PROVEN fact that Leach's ship DID execute a significant Hood-avoiding, starboard turn.

The trend in this (and other) threads over the past few months, has been to continually erase any suggestion of what has been termed as a "Crazy Ivan". Indeed, in the track charts posted most recently prior to Dr. Cadogan's, we have seen what amounts (albeit gradually) to a greatly "flattened-out" track path, where there SHOULD be a definite and noticeable starboard turn, by PoW.

I won't bother belaboring this point further, except to reiterate that the turn---which was acknowledged by ALL sides, not just Brooke and McMullen aboard their heeling ship as it executed the wreck-avoiding turn around Hood's remains---defines a point in space and time on the diagrams which cannot be continued forward, if it is ignored (or expunged for the sake of convenience).

Care must to be taken not to move an attack-blocking chessman, while one's own King is in check....

Dan