Tirpitz sails on part of Rheinubung

[alecsandros]

I think what is really mean't was that Bismarck was as ready at the time as it could be with its ''green crew'' and equipment. Only a combat mission could improve matters any further, by the crew gaining combat experience and use of the equipment.

.

... Different (mixed) 105mm and 20mm types and lack of aft AA director-domes (meaning with equipment inside) can't be made to function without actual equipment...

Perpetual mechanical failures imply either human error, or poor equipment, or poor equipment installation. In any case, it does not show a ship to be combat ready :)

Politics trumps military preparation everytime.

[wadinga]

Come on Alecsandros,

make-shift armament

A couple of 10.5cm mounts were a slightly different mark to the others? So what. Look at the photographs of the ship during this period. Everything is spick and span and freshly painted. This is not a ship with tens or hundreds of shipyard people and crew trying desperately to fix problems, with half completed jobs, dirt and grease lying around everywhere. I have seen a few ships being refitted and they don't look like the Bismarck photos from September through to May.

Ignoring the reality won't make it go away...

Whose reality, the librarian's? A revisionist story dreamt up in 2001 shortly after Winklareth's book? The Baron is yet another experienced naval officer writing about the mission, who makes no excuses of ill preparation during the work up. Well he can't really, since apparently he was off ashore drinking beer for many nights.

There may only be four hours between sunset and sunrise in the Denmark Straits but as is clear from accounts persistant fog and snow kept visibility way down most of the time. As one would expect.

Leaving British imports alone for months during the summer was not an option, whilst Bismarck's crew further perfected their training in holystoning the deck and polishing the brasswork.

Question:Admiral Lutjens, would you like to wait until you have 4 battleships or go now with only one to attack the British? In war strategic objectives override the desire of the fighting man to sit around until he has everything he wants. Because he never will get everything.

BTW has anyone considered whether the german supply ships could have kept the Uber Task Force in fuel?

All the best

wadinga

[alecsandros]

A couple of 10.5cm mounts were a slightly different mark to the others? So what. Look at the photographs of the ship during this period. Everything is spick and span and freshly painted. This is not a ship with tens or hundreds of shipyard people and crew trying desperately to fix problems, with half completed jobs, dirt and grease lying around everywhere. I have seen a few ships being refitted and they don't look like the Bismarck photos from September through to May.

8 x 105mm guns SK C33 and 8 guns SK C37
12 x 20mm guns SK C30 and 8 guns SK C38

forward pair of AA directors installed in Dec 1940. aft pair of AA directors not mounted (other equipment mounted instead)

The flak was heavily criticised in the AVKS report and required to be modified (which did not happen )

Whose reality, the librarian's? A revisionist story dreamt up in 2001 shortly after Winklareth's book? The Baron is yet another experienced naval officer writing about the mission, who makes no excuses of ill preparation during the work up. Well he can't really, since apparently he was off ashore drinking beer for many nights.

The Baron has a sizeable quantity of errors in his book, no matter how much I like his book myself

The British commented on his good social skills but lack of technical skills, btw.

There may only be four hours between sunset and sunrise in the Denmark Straits but as is clear from accounts persistant fog and snow kept visibility way down most of the time. As one would expect.

... Luetjens traveled at 27kts in order to stay beneath a weather front moving west and south-west. Visibility in the strait was different from visibility in the overall mission.

Leaving British imports alone for months during the summer was not an option, whilst Bismarck's crew further perfected their training in holystoning the deck and polishing the brasswork.

... German wargaming prior to the mission showed Bismarck to be discovered each and every time, before passing into the open ocean. 20 hours of daylight gives you that. Despite that, Raeder insisted.

Question:Admiral Lutjens, would you like to wait until you have 4 battleships or go now with only one to attack the British? In war strategic objectives override the desire of the fighting man to sit around until he has everything he wants. Because he never will get everything.

Luetjens replied he wanted to wait. Nevertheless, Raeder convinced him.

[wadinga]

Hello Alecsandros,

It's a shame you weren't GrossAdmiral in WWII, no Kriegsmarine ship would ever have gone out to face the RN and the sea war would have been over before it started. You cannot wait for everything to be absolutely 101% perfect because no complex weapon ever is. You have to fight with what you have.

Perpetual mechanical failures imply either human error, or poor equipment, or poor equipment installation.

There has never been a perfect warship where everything worked perfectly all the time. Even German manufactured things which appear perfect when completed, may fail under the rigorous trials of the sea and the enemy's wrath. These are not consumer goods with a CE mark and a five year parts and labour guarantee.

Scharnhorst's boiler tubes were destroyed by Operation Berlin, and needed 10 weeks' repairs ruling her out of helping Rhine Exercise. Is that because she still wasn't fully worked up in 1941 having had her keel laid in 1935? Both her and Gneisenau often lost use of Anton turrets in heavy weather, does this un-eliminated fault mean neither ship was ever fully-worked up? Gneisenau took 73 11" shells to sink Chilean Reefer therefore her gunnery was not yet at "peak efficiency" in 1941, and there were thus serious crew training issues. Or not?

If the Bismarck AVKS report was actually "heavily critical" of anything it would have merited at least a stark warning in the KTB. It isn't mentioned because all the items are of minor importance and things the crew of 2,000 men could work around. They are important to a librarian in 2001, who wants to write something highly controversial and contrary to expert knowledge (hmm that sounds very familiar ). He very likely never has never been on a ship in his life, but I think we should be guided by the opinions of the men who were trusting their lives to Bismarck. So much so that the ship spent night after night anchored or alongside during April and early May to allow the crew plenty of furlough and then some nice undisturbed rest. See the KTB for the days and times. Please don't suggest the Baron was so untechnical he didn't know whether he was in a bar in Danzig or on the ship. This leave regime applied because the ship was worked up fully.

Wargaming isn't war. There is always risk. The supplies coming across the Atlantic were putting bombs on german cities, and tanks against Rommel's forces in the desert and raw materials in British factories and Bismarck couldn't be sitting in harbour for month after month, for the rest of 1941, waiting until she got a matching set of absolutely identical SKC37s. You don't win wars by being a "Fleet in Being". Sooner or later you have to go out and kill something.

Which they did most efficiently with their equipment and their training in the Denmark Straits. And then later, they were overwhelmed.

All the best

wadinga

[alecsandros]

:)

Again, ignoring official documents won't make them go away.

===

Bismarck had issues with all sorts of equipment failure - machinery, rudder, crane, catapults, main artillery lifts. These are the ones that come to mind now.

Scharnhorst had troubles when overloading her machinery, and when water flooded her main turrets, because of her low freeboard. It's a bit different from Bismarck.

As for her KTB vs AVKS, you observed yourself the lack of details or complete non-existence of details from the KTB. Same here.

[alecsandros]

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[alecsandros]

Sending Bismarck in the Atlantic was an insane mission, doomed from the start.

Luetjens knew this, but was convinced to follow orders.

[A Raven]

That is because the German Navy was inferior.
Message timed out at 7,00 est 2/3/06.

[Herr Nilsson]

It dawns on me that you've never read any other German war diary or report. Right?

[alecsandros]

It dawns on me that you've never read any other German war diary or report. Right?

You mean how severe they were in appreciations and possible improvements in efficiency ?

[Alberto Virtuani]

Wadinga wrote: "You cannot wait for everything to be absolutely 101% perfect because no complex weapon ever is. You have to fight with what you have."

Hi Sean,
Yes, finally I fully agree with you !

I do hope you will be able now to apply the same concept to the RN too and to Capt.Leach on PoW at DS, just after Hood exploded....

Bye, Alberto

[Herr Nilsson]

It dawns on me that you've never read any other German war diary or report. Right?

You mean how severe they were in appreciations and possible improvements in efficiency ?

That's no answer.

[alecsandros]

Wadinga wrote: "You cannot wait for everything to be absolutely 101% perfect because no complex weapon ever is. You have to fight with what you have."

Hi Sean,
Yes, finally I fully agree with you !

I do hope you will be able now to apply the same concept to the RN too and to Capt.Leach on PoW at DS, just after Hood exploded....

Bye, Alberto

[RF]

:)

Bismarck had issues with all sorts of equipment failure - machinery, rudder, crane, catapults, main artillery lifts. These are the ones that come to mind now.

The second sentence is the key qualification to the first - being wise after the event.

The problem with debates over an issue like this is that it pushes proponents into expressing increasingly extreme positions and this destroys rational debate and turns it into the sort of party political ding dong you see at elections.

I don't think that Rheinubung was a suicide mission or that it was doomed, even with only two ships. Lutjens advised against it because he felt there was a better alternative - whether that really was realistic he couldn't judge because he was not in possession of the facts Raeder couldn't disclose to him. Lutjens did believe that it was highly likely to fail and end in his death, but then that could have happened on Operation Berlin.

In the outcome Bismarck was only just caught and destroyed, just as the iceberg that did for Titanic did only just enough damage to tip the ship just past the tipping point.

Had Bismarck reached Brest having sunk Hood the mission would have been judged a success by the Germans even though no merchant ships or convoys were attacked.

In war you have to improvise with what you have - that goes for all forms of warfare, not just at sea. Sometimes the improvisation fails, sometimes it brings unexpected, unplanned for success. That is what makes the study of war so fascinating.

One final point. The hilfskreuzer were a typical piece of improvisation. They for the most part were hardly fit for the purpose, look at Widder, look at Thor and Kormoran with their dodgy engines. They weren't initially expected to be successful, yet they sank far more merchantmen than the regular warships, and those dodgy engines didn't stop Voltaire or Sydney being sunk.

[alecsandros]

It dawns on me that you've never read any other German war diary or report. Right?

You mean how severe they were in appreciations and possible improvements in efficiency ?

That's no answer.

Well, I did read several others... All English translations.
But what is the value of this information pertaining to this topic ?