Tirpitz sails on part of Rheinubung

[Alberto Virtuani]

@Wadinga
Hi Sean,
you are right about the total number of shells delivered by PoW from 5:55 to 6:00, my mistake. However RoF is 1,895 for PoW in central control (as per GAR) and 1,86 for BS in 14 minutes assuming 104 shells ordered to fire.

you wrote: "Only PoW's 9th and 10th salvoes achieve 4 shells whereas Bismarck achieves 4 on every salvo. "

No, Bismarck fired 93 shells out of 104 (or 112), therefore an output of 89% (or 83%). NOT all salvos from Bismarck were of 4 shells.....

you wrote: "If Antonio's estimate is correct, then Bismarck fired 10 salvoes in the time PoW fired 9"

Let's assume Antonio estimate for that specific interval, do you consider this ratio a bad one in front of a ship "at the peak of her efficiency" (your words....)

I have already asked Antonio to provide his current estimate for Bismarck salvos (if he has a revised one or a more precise one) but even assuming that BS fired at different RoF during the 14 minutes, there is no dramatic difference between the 2 ship in this sense. For sure not the rate of 4 semi-salvos per minute at 6:04/6:05 as the film may suggest and you pretended to assume as her RoF..... Again, we don't know how Schneider was firing his guns at that very moment, when the target was opening range quickly and was under smoke screen, so the correct range should be acquired again.
I can imagine that rapid fire was not the best option at that time, compared with the interval 5:58-6:03 when we can imagine that Bismarck was on target and firing at maximum speed.

Bye, Alberto

[alecsandros]

As you can realize ... there was not much time between the 2 events according to Capt Leach own words ... just seconds ... and the PG film is telling us precisely when the Bismarck salvo landed on PoW, ... just between PoW salvo 15th and 16th, ... as we can see.

Hello Antonio,
... Capt Leach wrote those words after the battle... from his memory... heavily dizzy for the event due to a near-death experience...

I wouldn't take his words as describing a correct time sequence ...

I don't deny the possibility of Bismarck salvo 6 to have been partialy or totaly fired against the PRince of Wales. However, there is no proof of that... In fact, given Bismarck's situation, the most likely scenario is that salvo 6 was fired before or at the time that Hood exploded. I think you know why...

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ Alecsandros,

I see your point, ... but I do not only rely only on Capt Leach words .... but mostly on Ltnt A. Hunter-Terry precise timing ... and on the PG film sequence showing the Bismarck salvo landing on PoW sailing across the Hood sinking place.

I think we have spent already several post's about all those events timing on the last couple of years.

@ CAG,

you wrote :

I got your book by the way as a birthday present. Excellent !

Many thanks for your nice compliments on my Tirpitz book ...

Bye Antonio

[alecsandros]

Antonio,
time of flight of 380mm AP round at 17000 meters is 26 seconds...

Firing cycle for Bismarck's main artillery in rapid firing mode was 24 seconds or lower...

So... between salvo 5 and salvo 6 , the interval was 24 seconds or lower... So salvo 6 was probably fired before or during Hood's explosion. [my take is it was fired completely after 20-22 seconds of salvo 5, because Schneider could clearly see the projectile(s) ipacting Hood - "that realy ate into her", meaning smoke from the salvo 6th had already cleared]

---

If killing range was 16.000 meters, time of flight was still 24 seconds - so, again, there wouldn't be time to stop salvo 6 from being fired.

---

Fiddling around with small time intervals (required for - firing second turret group, compensating for Hood's 2-3 seconds explosion, waiting for smoke of own guns to clear, giving orders to the turrets, etc), one finds that salvo 6 had extremely little chance of not being fired against the HMS Hood, if Bismarck was indeed firing in rapid firing mode at the time.

[Cag]

Hi All,
You're welcome Antonio, credit where credit is due! I would if I may like to offer a word of caution. Alecsandros is correct that in the midst of battle any timings are relative, Hunter-Terry gave a good account, but even his testimony is subject to error. He gives the time of opening fire for Hood as 0552, yet other accounts including official ones give PoW opening fire at 0553, thirty seconds after Hood. This could mean Hunter-Terry's watch was 30 seconds out or that official records are wrong etc etc etc. I'm not doubting testimony given by witnesses who believed that what they were saying was correct, but I think that we must take these timings with a pinch of salt, 0552 could be 0552.30 could be 0553 all on the same ship! Rowell in his testimony admitted that his timings could be up to two minutes in error so these things do happen. Hunter-Terry's testimony is more detailed which helps timelines etc but IIRC there was a midshipman on Norfolk who noted the times etc for the log which were as detailed and gave completely different times!
Best wishes,
Cag.

[Cag]

Hi All,
Just a note to say I think it was a Paymaster Commander Bailey who noted the time that Hood opened fire as 0553, different ship different watch!
Best wishes,
Cag.

[Cag]

Hi All,
Sorry to post again but had another thought regarding the local control salvoes. Salvo 18 would have fired either Y1 or Y4 as Y2 and Y3 are out of action. Then we are saying that in the first local control salvo, salvo 19 Y1 and Y4 fired together which means a first delay in between 18 and 19 due to Y1 or Y4 re loading correct? Then we have a second delay whilst either Y1 or Y4 fires in salvo 20?(Y3 still out of action) If this is so why didn't Y1 also fire in salvo 20 as the delay allows a reload? This had made my brain hurt so much I've gone cross eyed!
Best wishes
Cag.

[Alberto Virtuani]

Cag wrote: "why didn't Y1 also fire in salvo 20 as the delay allows a reload?"

Hi Mr. Cag,
two possible explanations IMHO. Let's assume Y4 fired in salvo 20 (it could have been Y1 instead):
1) Y1 is loaded but cannot be fired due to a normal misfire or to another (worse?) problem
2) the Y turret (loading ring) jams before it's able to re-load Y1.
I would tend to say it's 2) because no problem is reported in the GAR for Y1 and if it was just a misfire they would have fired it at salvo 21, or....possibly 22.....

Bye, Alberto

[Cag]

Hi All,
Thanks Alberto, I think the turret ring jam occured at salvo 20 according to the GAR which may not solve the mystery. You are correct in saying that the GAR reports no problems with Y1 or Y4, but that still leaves us with two delays, one between salvoes 18 and 19 and one between salvoes 19 and 20 for reloading?
Best wishes,
Cag.

[Alberto Virtuani]

Cag wrote: "that still leaves us with two delays, one between salvoes 18 and 19 and one between salvoes 19 and 20 for reloading"

Hi Mr.Cag,
yes, the delay between salvo 18 and 19 is evident also from the correlation between the gunnery report in graphical form, where we see salvo 18 fired some seconds before 6:02 and the photo NH69731 where salvo 19 lands at 6:03:25, as per Antonio's timing. With a flight time of about 20 seconds, this gives well more than 1 minute. This is also well in line with the delay due to the switch of the control from central to local, that could possibly not be happening in few seconds.

The delay between salvo 19 and 20 is something new, for me at least, but if they had to re-load the same gun that had just fired, for sure we have a larger delay than between two (semi-)salvos, more close to the one between two broadsides, I would say 40 to 50 seconds at least.

Bye, Alberto

[wadinga]

Hi Alecsandros and Alberto,

For the 7 missed shots by Bismarck, one happened before Hood blew up.

Because the the Baron says" Then I heard Schneider again: Wow, was that a misfire? That really ate into him." The him would be Schneider and his annoyance was that one of the guns had misfired, or failed to be ready on time.

As for

and you pretended to assume as her RoF

Excuse me, I haven't pretended anything and you better talk to Alecsandros because he has identified the same maximum rate of fire for Bismarck too. It is Antonio, as I showed, who has derived this rate of fire. If you dispute it, take it up with him.

You have asked me about a GAR for Bismarck but I am not the expert on her or Tirpitz. Your friend is. We know about PoW from the salvo chart with each salvo marked ( I estimated times) and Duncan has worked out which guns correspond to which salvo.

Antonio has published, a long time ago, a timetable for Bismarck based on 8 shots a minute, every minute, until the turnaway, with admission that some guns missed their slots. I don't what the provenance is for this, other than taking the total shots reported expended and dividing by the time all turrets and then only the aft turrets bore.

The Baron says Schneider fired the first salvo and then waited for it to fall before reporting it short and firing another. With the time of flight plus overhead it probably couldn't happen in 30 secs so the second might have been fired maybe ten seconds after the fall of the first. I expect the early salvoes were fired quite slowly. But what happened when Schneider ordered "Full salvoes, good rapid" ? If Antonio has identified Bismarck firing at a rate of 24 seconds at 06:04 why can't Bismarck do the same at Hood earlier? Leach watched his flagship destroyed in a welter of rapidly fired heavy calibre shells by his vastly better prepared opponent, and he knew that after a period of time in which his enemies would decide that Hood was finished, and was no longer a valid target, they would adjust their aim and turn this fatal stream of death on him. A decision that would surely only be made after a consultation between Lutjens and Lindemann. Unlikely in 24 seconds.

Additionally Leach could hardly discount the fact that PG was firing her main armament, and the secondaries of both ships were blazing away at him at shortening range and the suggestion that all this ancilliary fire was ineffectual and could be ignored is just ridiculous.

PS Alecsandos, you must remember that for the "Leach Panics" theory to work Leach is entirely unhurt by his experience and bounds over to the apparently undamaged voicepipes or down two decks to the Conning Tower, in order to order a craven withdrawal.

heavily dizzy for the event due to a near-death experience

is not "on message".

All the best

wadinga

[alecsandros]

Because the the Baron says" Then I heard Schneider again: Wow, was that a misfire? That really ate into him." The him would be Schneider and his annoyance was that one of the guns had misfired, or failed to be ready on time.

... There are those explanations; there is one more possible, IMHO: Schneider was counting the splashes... he probably saw only 2 splashes from one turretgrouppen salvo... he expected to see 4 columns of water.. and only saw 2...
he asked "was that a misfire ?", because he did not see enough columns... which means... possibly there realy was a misfire... and possibly Hood was struck by more than 1 shell (the one "that realy ate into him")... another shell that Schneider did not see hiting the battlecruiser... and which did not produce a column of water... We can't know for sure, but it's a possibility... Bill Jurens made some 3d models and corresponding trajectories for 16-17000 meters killing range... he got between 15 to 20% probability that 2 shells from the same turretgroupen could hit Hood at historical target angle... But... as there were 2 x turretgroupen salvos fired.. cummulative probability is between 30 to 40% for a double hit...

Not that this proves anything; but it's a possibility... (with statistics attached :) )

[alecsandros]

As for Bismarck;s actual slavo plot per unit of time, it is a puzzle for me since at least 5-6 years ago...

Only hard evidence that I read so far are:
- March 1941 AVKS trials - main elevators transported 23 to 25 x 380mm rounds per minute to the turrets, giving 2.8 - 3.1 rounds per minute per gun transported per 1 minute.
- May 1941 Prinz Eugen film (if it is not altered) - shows Bismarck firing her main turrets at interval as low as 23.5 seconds... implying a rate of fire of about 2.5 rpmpg...

Prinz Eugen's actual rate of fire during the battle was also considerably below that which was to be expected from her artillery.

Best of luck,

[Cag]

Hi All,
Alberto I think you've got a good point with the change over to Local Control causing a delay, so in salvo 18 we have Y1 reloading, Y2 and Y3 out of action, Y4 firing. There's now a delay caused by switch over to after control allowing Y4 to reload, and salvo 19 sees Y1 and Y4 fire together followed by a delay to reload these guns, but in salvo 20 only one gun fires. The shell ring jam however would not affect Y1 reload as the shell ring is in the shell handling room and shells would have been hoisted to the working chamber above during salvo 19 or would already have been in the working chamber in either the traversers or gun loading cages and therefore would be available to load and fire (As actually happened with Y4 gun). Y2 and Y3 had problems in salvo 11 and 12 that did not affect the gun until salvoes 14 and 15, so I presume any problem with the shell ring would affect the non existant salvo 22? This still leaves with a mystery as to why Y1, reloaded at the same time as Y4 did not fire in salvo 20, it seems impossible to have Y1 reloaded during salvo 19 and to sit idle at salvo 20 and 21 with a round up the spout!
Best wishes,
Cag.

[Alberto Virtuani]

Wadinga wrote: " If Antonio has identified Bismarck firing at a rate of 24 seconds at 06:04 why can't Bismarck do the same at Hood earlier? "

Hi Sean,
simply because Bismarck fired only 93 shots in 14 minutes. If she fired 32 in 1.5 minutes at 6:04 and we know she fired at least 40 before 6:00, then there is no way she could rapidly fire at PoW between 6:00 and 6:03 (and I'm sure she did...) and then fire at least 3 to 4 salvos after 6:05 as photos show.

One thing is the theoretical RoF of a gun and of a loading mechanisms; one other is the practical RoF of a ship in action due to the non-ideal elevation of her guns, to the time to wait for the slowest guns in the salvo, to the need to train and to elevate to adjust the aim, even to the sea conditions affecting the mechanisms compensating for the instability of the platform, etc.
No ship, in a real situation, will fire at the theoretical RoF of her guns. Easily, you drop by half, exactly what happened to Bismarck, to PG and to PoW at DS. I personally think they fired all very quickly for being in a real situation.

Antonio identified the same pair of turrets firing at intervals of 24 secs, we don't know whether 1 or 2 guns in each turret were firing.....

Bye, Alberto