Bismarck at DS after the second turn

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ Wadinga,

we are doing a serious work, with geometry and mathematics, mainly using the known official bearings among the various warships.

I am personally not interested on your opinion about the Prinz Eugen battle map in general in this moment, we spent way too much time on it already, is a well known concept since months now.

If you are in disagreement about what has been presented, just show us what is your way to see those events with a comparable map just like Herr Nillson did above, so we can evaluate what is correct from what is incorrect, using geometry and mathematics.

If you are unable to do it demostrating what you are trying to sustain, ... that by the way has already been demonstrated not possible as you surely have read above, ... I am sorry for you, ... but your words will just remain, ... words of a general disagreement about what has been presented and already demonstrated being correct, ... and nothing else, ... nothing more.

You surely must have a reason to act in this way, ... but I will not care anymore about it, ... we have a moderator in this forum now.

Bye Antonio

[wadinga]

Hello Alberto,

I am surprised you think

idea really too far fetched for words

is mocking. It is not meant to be. Mocking would be if I asked you to calculate how far ahead of Bismarck PG would have to be on a heading of 220T in order to actually be 2Km (as you speculated) closer to PoW on first sighting. (I make it 4.917Km by the way).

Here is a real description from an expert witness looking through high powered binoculars. He sees Bismarck first. So the 05:37 bearing is Bismarck.

Something suddenly came up over the horizon to grow slowly but distinctly ; the top of a mast. Then a little to its left something else. I shall never forget the thrill of that moment. A squat grey lump on a stalk, with bars protruding each side- the Bismarck's main armament director.

Then he sees the funnel top etc, etc . Then afterwards-

Shifting my binoculars a little I picked up a second director a good way to the left and then the performance repeated itself- stalk, lump, tower, pyramid but on a smaller scale.

Geoffrey Brooke. Alarm Starboard.

Here is another person's writing with their estimate of the range on initial sighting:

Hood and Prince of Wales resumed first degree of readiness at 0510. There was a long wait while the horizon became gradually more distinct and at last at 0535 Bismarck and Prinz Eugen were sighted bearing 335 degrees on an approximate course of 240 degrees, range approximately 38,000 meters.

William J Jurens1987


We shall find out soon whether anything has changed his mind in the intervening years.


For Antonio:

we are doing a serious work, with geometry and mathematics, mainly using the known official bearings among the various warships.

I am personally not interested on your opinion about the Prinz Eugen battle map in general in this moment, we spent way too much time on it already, is a well known concept since months now.

I hope we are all interested in the Prinz Eugen battle map right now and into the foreseeable future until it is replaced with more comprehensive information from the Jasper Gunnery report because we are indeed doing serious work here and currently that is the only source for the only German bearing. Jasper in the KTB only mentions the inclination of the opponent, not its bearing. Therefore there is no German "official bearing" and we can never spend enough time evaluating and re-evaluating the quality of information on this officially "useless and worthless" map.

You have also left out another official bearing out of OS1- PoW's 05:44 "1 Battleship 1 Cruiser bearing 325T Distance 14 miles Course 230T".

I do not have the mapping ability to generate my own maps but that does not dismiss the perfectly valid points I believe I make. They can surely be incorporated for evaluation, if this is genuinely a co-operative effort here, instead of an attempt to steamroller through an idée fixe.

All the best

wadinga

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ Wadinga,

on December 2nd, 2018 I have posted :

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8335&start=165#p81496

The bearing communicated at 05:44 from PoW was 335° T and not 325° T as you can read on the posted original messages.

Initial_bearings_BC1_to_German_squadron.jpg (36.99 KiB) Viewed 1770 times

It is the 3rd message I posted time ago when I started this demonstration with bearings A,B, C and D, ... later simplified on those 4 initial points, ... but still valid and confirmed of course.

You can put it is the way you like, ... those initial 4 points are correct between PG and PoW and Bismarck does not have anything to do with them.

Who knows when and if we were going ever to find Jasper bearings and gunnery map if ever made, ... meanwhile we do this job with what we have after a very careful and precise analysis as you can see.

Again, ... those 4 point reference are correct, ... and in fact there is nothing that can demonstrate them being not valid and reliable.

Bye Antonio

[wadinga]

Hello Antonio,

The collated messages supplied by Duncan has a different wording:

"My 0537B. 1 Battleship 1 Cruiser bearing 325T Distance 14 miles Course 230T" (Prince of Wales 0544B/24)

Followed by "My 0541B. Enemy altered course to port." (Norfolk 0550B/24)

The Hood sighting message you have quoted, shorter and less detailed, is also different to the one on Duncan's listing.

Do you have any idea where the 05:50 bearing on the Gefechtsskizze comes from, the one with a 300Hm annotation? Presumably initial sighting.

All the best

wadinga

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hello everybody,

Wadinga wrote: "So the 05:37 bearing is Bismarck. ....Geoffrey Brooke. Alarm Starboard."

A pity for Mr.Wadinga that Brooke does not give a precise timing for his mentioned "observations" , that he was not the one sent to the crow nest to look at the horizon and that his sighting is not at the origin of the 05:37 message. He was much, much lower and he did not see the German ships at 05:35 despite the false statement above.

If you are high enough, you see first the closer ship, if you are much lower, you see the first one coming out of the horizon, the taller (not the bigger) even if slightly more far.

Anyway, even forgetting Brooke and White, the fact that 334°or even 335° could not be the Bismarck has already be geometrically demonstrated and graphically shown by Antonio and Mr.Nilsson in their calculations (download/file.php?id=3346) where, even assuming BS was sailing at the same speed as PG, her bearing from PoW should have been around 337°at 05:35 (in order to be 330° at 06:00). With BS sailing faster, more than 340°.

he wrote: "I do not have the mapping ability to generate my own maps but that does not dismiss..."

the problem is that he NEVER proposed any other different "starting point", thus his inability to draw map is just an excuse to avoid to say where he wants to start from. Actually, he does not want to start from anywhere.


Bye, Alberto

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ Wadinga,

it should be a typo on the Admiralty copy of the messages, ... because the original message is the one I have posted.

To have the obvious confirmation, it is enough to read the Official Capt J.C. Leach report:

There was a long wait while the horizon became gradually more distinct and at last at 05.35 a suspicious object was sighted and an enemy report made at 05.37. "Hood's" report followed immediately.
Enemy bore 335 degs. And was on an approx course of 240 degs., "Bismarck" astern of a lighter ship.
Course was altered 40 degs. By blue pendant at 05.37 and at 05.41 "Prince of Wales" was stationed on a bearing of 080 degs.
At 05.49 B.C.1 signalled : "G.S.B. 337 L.1" and a further blue two making to course 300 degs. Was executed.

The 325°T bearing you have found is very evidently an error on the transcription.

In any case this PoW second 05:44 message does not have anything to do with the PoW first one of 334°T at 05:37 .

Consequently the 4 points are confirmed once again between the Prinz Eugen and the PoW, just as demonstrated.

Bye Antonio

[Bill Jurens]

As "plain old Bill":

The posting of the messages to the Admiralty is useful, and these messages probably represent what is nearest to a primary-source as we can get. I do wonder, however, how precise or accurate these might be with regard to reconstructing a track chart. For example, do the times listed represent the actual times the observations were made, the times the messages (presumably encoded in the interim) were transmitted by the ship in question, or the times (presumably decoded in the interim) when the messages were considered 'received' by the Admiralty. It seems unlikely to me that the times mentioned were intended to permit some sort of real-time reconstruction of a rapidly-developing tactical situation, but were more likely sent to inform the Admiralty about the general tactical situation and suggest that action was likely imminent. But I just don't know. In that regard, comments welcome...

As moderator:

Again, I'd ask that correspondents refrain from including potentially inflammatory commentary in their postings. Mr. Virtuani's comment that Wadinga's use of the phrase "...really too far fetched for words." is noted, and Wadinga's phrasing might fairly be interpreted as somewhat provocative. (In that regard, it should be noted that written commentary can often be interpreted more harshly than intended, particularly as it is unaccompanied by aural tone patterns and body-language). Still, one might consider it kind of borderline. To his credit, Wadinga retracted that statement in a subsequent memo, stating it was not intended in a mocking tone. Good.

Comments in reply, e.g. "[Wadinga's] inability to draw map is just an excuse to avoid to say where he wants to start from. Actually, he does not want to start from anywhere." and "{What frustrates me] ...is the petulant insistence of this guy [Wadinga] to refuse what is evident to everybody." lie somewhat beyond what I would consider productive and acceptable, particularly insofar as they imply both destructive motivation and lack of intelligence. One can only hope that this does not begin a subsequent slide back to the bottom again.

Perhaps Wadinga could have said that the observations were 'not credible to me'. To me, this gets the point across just as well, though perhaps not quite as dramatically. I am not sure that there is any way to constructively rephrase the comments regarding Wadinga as 'not wanting to start from anywhere', and being one to 'refuse what is evident to everybody.' at all, but perhaps the author can suggest a less aggressive set of alternatives.

For what it is worth, we might want to try to emulate Herr Nilsson's style; his commentaries represent, at least in my mind, near-perfect models of tact, brevity, and diplomacy.

Off for Christmas shopping...

Bill Jurens

[Byron Angel]

Concur with Mr Jurens here. The exact nature of the times denoted on the signal transmissions are unspecified. Are they the actual times that the sightings and bearings were taken? Ore are they the times at which the signals were transmitted?

Can anyone advise on standard RN signal practice contemporary to that point in time?

B

NOTA BENE - Amid all this exciting discussion, debate and dialogue, let us please not forget to extend to one another Season's Greetings and best wishes for a happy, healthy, peaceful and prosperous 2019.

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ Bill Jurens,

I agree with your analysis above, ... as that is a brief summary what this re-construction work is all about at the end, ... a careful analysis of what we do have, ... not very precise given the today possibilities, ... but state of the art on 1941, ... and a logic selection of what is reliable and possible compared to what is unreliable and mostly impossible.

This patient and careful work does generate a series of possibilities, ... that once merged together in a whole scenario and available evidence, are reducing them to just few left possibilities, ... and once analyzed with the single warship course and speed and the many battle witnesses reports and accounts, ... are reducing them once again mostly to a single possible solution, ... like the 334° T bearing between PoW and PG.

Your example of what has been done above with Herr Nillson on the 4 key points is just right on the money about this way to proceed, ... and in fact it did generate a base agreement in my personal opinion, ... that is the correct way to do this work.

The key are the bearings and not the distances that can only be used as a verification parameter when reliable and available, ... like the around 15.000 meters at 06:00 between PG and PoW determined from Jasper report, ... or the 16.450 yards on the Rowell map and McMullen gunnery plot between the Bismarck and the Hood, ... that are enabling us to define the battlefield map scale and do generate automatically all the other distances that will be based on the warships course and speed and will be verified with the other available bearings backwards and forwards during this very brief battle.

This way we can realize as said what is possible from what is not possible and move ahead, ... step by step, ... and just as I did in my 2003-2005 work, ... we will make it, ... and this time most likely a lot more precisely and verified, ... and mostly hopefully agreed by everybody.

@ Byron Angel,

on some messages list ( CS1 radio log for example ) there are the time of origin ( T.O.O ) and the time of delivery ( T.O.D. ) or time of reception ( T.O.R ) in the Admiralty.
But this will not help us about the interval occurred between the information generation by the spotters ( the real bearing time evaluation on board the warship ) and when the message has been transmitted from the warship radio and that will be of course the time of origin ( T.O.O ).

What we are listing and discussing about is mostly always the time of origin from the warship radio ( T.O.O. ).

In this regard we can all evaluate what occurred on board PoW regarding that first enemy in sight radio message at 05:37 ( T.O.O. ) from PoW radio transmission thanking Capt. J.C. Leach report :

There was a long wait while the horizon became gradually more distinct and at last at 05.35 a suspicious object was sighted and an enemy report made at 05.37.

The suspicious object as we should have all clearly realized by now was the Prinz Eugen coming out from the mist being the first and closest warship in the German squadron line.

This clearly tells us that the delay between the spotting event at 05:35 and the radio transmission on board PoW at that time was around 2 minutes, which seems reasonable to me. We have of course a similar delay also for the war diary inputs from the bridge.

@ all,

I take the occasion to wish all the forum members as well as all the occasional readers of this forum a Merry Christmas and a Happy 2019 for them and their loved ones, ... directly from Vimercate - Italy.

Bye Antonio

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hello everybody,

First of all, Merry Christmas and Happy new Year to everyone (and families) from the Italian Alps !

Bill Jurens wrote: " I am not sure that there is any way to constructively rephrase the comments regarding Wadinga as 'not wanting to start from anywhere', and being one to 'refuse what is evident to everybody.' at all, but perhaps the author can suggest a less aggressive set of alternatives."

After Mr.Wadinga duly retracted his mocking, I'm more than happy to rephrase my above (induced) aggressive words (I'm afraid that, in light of facts, I cannot change their meaning, however):

"In Mr.Wadinga's last months posts there was no proposal of any alternative Observation Set, no acknowledgement of any "starting point", refusal to admit even what was mathematically demonstrated. There were just unrelenting attempts to criticize someone else work and to highlight discrepancies from selected accounts, jumping from one topic to another.
This attitude, IMO, implies that he was not very "motivated" to begin a constructive work, preferring to try to perpetuate the indeterminacy around this battle."


I will avoid any further "aggression", hoping that Mr.Wadinga will do the same and will finally start a collaboration too, either proposing his own "starting point" for this battle reconstruction or finally acknowledging what has been posted by Antonio / Herr Nilsson (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8335&start=270#p81642 , download/file.php?id=3346), already apparently accepted by the others.


Bye, Alberto

[wadinga]

Hello All,

I appreciate guidance from the Moderator and gladly adopt his suggestion of saying "not credible to me" for the idea that on the line of sight one might see a 17000 ton cruiser and be unable to see a 47000 ton battleship just a few hundred metres beyond. We have Geoffrey Brookes' detailed eye witness account of seeing Bismarck first. Which surely applies to the forward DCT as well. Sighting from a Crow's nest does not have the high power magnification or gyrocompass corrected bearing available to the DCT, but the same order of seeing things appear over the horizon curvature applies. Also the lack of mention of mist. If correctly identifying the first German sighting as Bismarck requires rejigging of the courses between then and 06:00 then so be it. The current model is evidently wrong. The British turns would result in the sloughing off of speed for instance, the turn at 05:55 may have been delayed or not have happened at all. Both Rowell (Iceland letter) and Norfolk (radio report) mention perceived course changes by the enemy, and the straight line course is PG's representation only.

Once again I would like to record my appreciation for the time and effort of those discussing this matter in a foreign language (English), but I regret I cannot understand this at all:

If you are high enough, you see first the closer ship, if you are much lower, you see the first one coming out of the horizon, the taller (not the bigger) even if slightly more far.

I hope my simple lack of comprehension will not induce anything.

I do not believe there is evidence for this assertion:

The suspicious object as we should have all clearly realized by now was the Prinz Eugen coming out from the mist being the first and closest warship in the German squadron line.

If the British had been dead ahead on the German course of 220T this could be true. But they weren't, the were on the beam. Those versed in the arts of geometry and mathematics can verify just how much closer PG could have been on the line of sight to the British. I make it less than one kilometre for all reasonable spacings, ie 3Km or less, bearing in mind Schmalenbach says Bismarck was stationed at an average distance of 16Hm of his ship throughout his watch.

PoW's first report (either version) does not identify the single vessel mentioned as enemy. Whatever Knocker White was looking at, through hand-held glasses, and whenever he first saw it and reported it, it's identity was not initially recognised as enemy. We must remember nobody in PoW really knew where Norfolk and Suffolk were until later. The single vessel sighted and reported could have been one of them or some other vessel. It is pure hindsight to assume they knew it was an enemy vessel and they actually reported a large vessel because they did not know.

Only when two fast moving ships were seen in company could the report of enemy vessels be made with certainty. Bill and Byron's perceptive reminder about inadvertently assuming TOO times are close to the actual time an event occurred, should be taken onboard by everybody. I have personally pointed out many times there is no computer "time-stamping" of logged events in this era, and even if gunnery systems mark an elapsed time since clock start, it's relationship to chronometric time is not certain.


All the best to everyone for Christmas


wadinga

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hello everybody,

Wadinga wrote: " I regret I cannot understand this at all: "If you are high enough....."

I'm very sorry I was unable to explain better. I should have possibly said:
"If you are high over the sea enough (so that earth curvature does not affect the "visibility" of a ship above the horizon), you see first the closer ship, because the only limit is given by transparency of the air: even when visibility is very good, mist is not totally absent).
This happened at 05:35, when White saw the closer (1 or 2 km, depending on delta speed between PG and BS), being the Prinz Eugen, from 19 sm.
His position was so high over the sea (50 meters) that he could theoretically see German tops from 30 sm distance.

If you are much lower (as Brooke and the others were), you see the first one coming out of the horizon, the taller (not the bigger, because weight has nothing to do with appearance as well as the dimension of the hull because the hull is still below the horizon) even if slightly more far, because what affect your visibility is the earth curvature effect, not the transparency of the air.
This happened to Leach, Brooke and the others after 05:44, when they saw two ships (05:44 message, not giving yet the relative positions of BS and PG of course) and could finally start comparing the dimensions (I would guess not before they were well below 15 sm distance) .



Anyway, as said, the final proof of the above is that BS bearing, even keeping her at the same speed of PG, would have been 337° and not 334° at 05:35, in order to match 330° and 323° at 06:00 (download/file.php?id=3346). With a delta speed of 2 to 3 knots it would be over 340°.
Any objection to the above map and to the iconsequent conclusion that 334° at 05:37 was referred to PG ?


Bye, Alberto

[dunmunro]

We know that Brooke had to be viewing Bismarck because his director never shifted targets, and apparently never did the forward DCT because both directors were slaved to the same bearing. The field of view in Brooke's optics was very small and he couldn't see Prinz Eugen during the action.

[Bill Jurens]

I am smiling at the improved tone of the recent commentaries and replies. One hopes that the hatchet is now buried, and will remain buried throughout the new year.

Regarding the visual observations, I seem to recall some British observations stating that there was a substantial mirage effect on some bearings and wonder if this sort of effect might well have distorted the visual appearance, and even the time of appearance of some targets, especially during the early stages of the approach. If one were estimating range via an observation of what proportion of a given target was visible above the horizon, even a small mirage effect might change this estimate significantly. A difference of 15 feet or so in the apparent position of the 'cutline' through the target could easily result in a range mis-estimate of 3000 yards. A ship which should be technically 'hull down' could appear at full waterline height. I wonder if this might help to explain some of the notations where the targets appear to be 'looming', etc. which suggests that they were changing size more rapidly than expected.

Those with more sea experience than my own, i.e. those accustomed to checking exact radar and GPS distances vs visual appearance may be able to help here. This sort of ability to check real with visual distances was certainly not very common during World War II.

My thanks to our correspondents for some interesting discussions, and my best wishes for good will and Merry Christmas to all...

Bill Jurens

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ Bill Jurens,

while I am following with interest this discussion about what may happen on the horizon under many different visibility conditions and situations, ... from different height of observation, ... just as we did with the mirage occurrence time ago, ...to discover later that the mirage effect was an invention and Capt Ellis with his warship was in a very different situation on that moment based on his own autobiography, ... I like to underline some facts we discussed on the last post's.

It is a fact that a ship that was at around 15.000 meters from the PoW at 06:00 on bearing 323°T from her ( having PoW at 143°T ), ... when traced back for 23 minutes until 05:37 with a straight line at average 27-28 knots speed will be at around 334° T bearing from the PoW position at 05:37, ... based on the PoW known sailed track at 28 knots average, ... just as demonstrated above.
This ship is the German heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, ... no doubts.

Similarly it is a fact that a warship that was at 330°T bearing from the PoW at 06:00, ... at something like 16.450 yards from her, ... when traced back for 23 minutes until 05:37 with a straight line at average 27-28 knots speed will be at around 337° T bearing from the PoW position at 05:37, ... based on the PoW known sailed track at 28 knots average, ... just as demonstrated above.
This ship is the German battleship Bismarck, ... no doubts, ... and I have evaluated the Bismarck sailing at the same Prinz Eugen speed ( 27-28 knots ) in a very conservative way, ... while most likely the Bismarck did sail that run faster than Prinz Eugen and consequently was some degrees back of the 337° T ( a greater angle toward the 340° T ) we have demonstrated with that easy geometrical and mathematical demonstration.

Geometry and mathematics are not opinions, ... and my above map improved by Herr Nillson is up here to show those facts.

Consequently this discussion about the visibility, ... is loosing a lot of importance and it is just a theoretical exercise about the general visibility at sea.

Based on the above, I like to know who else in this forum is thinking that the warship identified by the PoW at the horizon coming out from the mist at 05:37 ( in reality at 05:35 ) was the Bismarck and not the Prinz Eugen.
Of course after having declared that, ... one should explain us in which way and doing what kind of run that warship was at 330°T from the PoW at 06:00, ... while respecting the available evidence like the photo Nh 69722 and the taken bearing at 05:53 from the Norfolk, showing the Bismarck on bearing 275,4°T following the Prinz Eugen on bearing 272,1°T from the Norfolk position at 05:53.

Norfolk_bearings_0553_BS_PG.jpg (31.02 KiB) Viewed 1603 times

Last but not least one should explain where is going to end up being the Prinz Eugen at 06:00 in this new depicted scenario.

It should not take much to understand that it is not possible and not supported by mathematics ( speed and course ) and geometry ( known bearings ).

But we can wait those vacation days waiting for the final conclusions to be reached by the persons that still have difficulties understanding those easy concepts, ... before moving ahead.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everybody, ... Bye Antonio