PoW's gunnery VS BSM's gunnery

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hello everybody,

once established that "flat-earth scientist" is not a provocation.... (?) , and therefore assuming that also "fairy-tales tellers" (I myself tell fairy-tales to my young nephews) or "deniers against any evidence" should be considered in the same way....(personally, in the new respectful light of the forum, I would avoid, if not further provoked, to use them anyway),



let's get back to PoW vs BS gunnery facts and figures (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8491&start=315#p82614):

Byron Angel wrote: "A rate of fire of two salvoes per minute = one round per minute per gun = a competent but unremarkable rate of fire. 1 rpmpg is what the RN expected from capital ship main battery fire in the WW1 era. "

However, I don't have many examples of KGV class battleships performing better than this when in anger against another ship (not in exercises, of course). Does anybody have ?

In any case, here we are comparing PoW to Bismarck and the German ship (according to someone "at the peak of her efficiency") had the same RoF (assuming 108 ordered shots) or even worse, if anyone here insists to say that she lost almost no shot (96 is the minimum # of ordered shots for Bismarck to fire 93 shells).
Assuming 108, Bismarck is in line with PoW (0.93 rpmpg for BS vs 0.95 for PoW) , assuming 96 BS is far worse (0.82 rpmpg).

Therefore no doubt that PoW RoF performance was very good compared to Bismarck in that specific battle geometry and conditions.



Re. hit rate, PoW was inferior to BS, but 3 hits with 49 ordered shots (the ones ordered before the avoiding maneuvers and the turn away that surely scrambled her gunnery) and 38 fired shells is a very good result as well, as Santarini pointed out. In any case much, much better than Hood.



Bye, Alberto

[wadinga]

Fellow Contributors,

Since Admiral Santarini has produced a book of complex statistical analysis, an unqualified statement in which he says "two salvoes per minute", when we (and he) knows PoW fired three salvoes in minute 06:00 and no salvoes at all in minute 02, despite some turrets somewhere bearing, makes no sense. Equally since he, in the considerably more sophisticated break-down he makes of Bismarck's rate of fire, actually quantifies her maximum rate as two salvoes per minute at most, he confirms PoW did not exceed Bismarck's rate as a huge amount of spurious statistics have been expended to prove.

There is no evidence to support this statement only supposition and assumption:

we have PG film and photos showing at least 10 salvos fired after 6:03, photos showing at least 4 salvos after 6:07 and 2 salvos in the last minute action

This website has started to develop a problem, both on my posts and I note some others where text is randomly lost in the posted version, so below

This does not appear in the book, is based on unproven assumptions and the only thing "clear" is its irrelevance. Santarini says Bismarck cons

Should have said "Santarini says Bismarck was consistently firing 8 shells per minute, minute after minute and this can be contrasted with the output for PoW detailed in the table produced by Dunmunro and adjusted by Mr Virtuani himself. [URL

even with all her turrets bearing, this consistently high output was only exceeded once by PoW, in "mad" minute 06:00, with 9 shells, and otherwise was always less than Bismarck's output, dropping as low as 50% of her opponent's in minute 57, even though she had 9 "vaguely operational" guns against 8.

PoW's output per minute was always worse than Bismarck's, sometimes as low as 50%, even when she had more guns bearing, making a nonsense of the claim:

Therefore no doubt that PoW RoF performance was very good compared to Bismarck

I have a very clear idea of rate of fire for a ship:

I begin to doubt that this forum member has clear in mind what is "rate of fire".

It is number of shells fired per minute, pure and simple. If it were some spurious idea of how many times a nominal "group of guns" (quantity irrelevant) fired per minute, the basis of the Tedious Table of spurious statistics, McMullen could have upped his score by detailing pairs of guns to fire. As nine shells were fired in minute 06:00 that could have been 4.5 salvoes a minute. Nonsensical

Unfortunately since there is no information on Bismarck's firing, apart from the Baron's "40 shells", this can only be assumed as Santarini has done, based on his estimation and experience because he is attempting to simulate what actually happened without any detailed data. If he had wished to represent Bismarck's firing rate to be very slow, in order to prosecute a particular point of view, he might have done otherwise.

Those interested to know why "Flat Earth theory" entered this conversation should investigate:

Zeteticism differs from the usual scientific method in that using zeteticism one bases his conclusions on experimentation and observation rather than on an initial theory that is to be proved or disproved. A zetetic forms the question then immediately sets to work making observations and performing experiments to answer that question, rather than speculating on what the answer might be then testing that out.

Samuel Rowbotham 1816 – 1884 used this approach to ignore the detailed logs of experienced circumnavigators like the Magellan expedition, Drake and others, probably dismissing them as lies and conspiracies, and concentrated very specifically on his Bedford Level experiment using his own very selective parameters to prove that since this water was flat, the whole world was flat, and that anybody who said otherwise was wrong or deliberately lying.

His Universal Zetetic Society became the Flat Earth Society and still espouses the deliberately distorted science which masquerades as an application of zeteticism.

All the best

wadinga

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hello everybody,

Wadinga wrote (mine in brackets): "he (Santarini) says "two salvoes per minute""

of course, as any reasonable gunnery officer, in his conclusions about PoW gunnery, Santarini gives the average RoF but Mr.Wadinga is right it was 1.9 and not 2.... So what ? (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8491&start=315#p82614).

Wadinga wrote: "even with all her turrets bearing, this consistently high output was only exceeded once by PoW, in "mad" minute 06:00, with 9 shells...

Again mixing ordered shots with shells (8*14 = 112, not 93, Bismarck did not fire 8 shells per minute)....
In minute 6:00 PoW ordered 15 shots (3 salvos of 5 guns from salvo 14 till 16) and fired (most probably) 11 shells (analysing McMullen GAR + Barben report = missing 1 shell from A1, 2 shells from Y2 and 1 shell from Y3) ....

For the last time, we cannot compare minute by minute firing (it would mean nothing and we don't have the full detail about Bismarck), only averages and PoW average actual RoF was 0.95 rpgpm while, depending on assumed ordered shots, Bismarck's was 0.93 (108 shots) or 0.82 rpgpm (96). It's an easy calculation(viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8491&start=300#p82599): may Mr.Wadinga please tell us where he disagrees ?

Wadinga wrote: "PoW's output per minute was always worse than Bismarck's"

Absolutely wrong: where is the evidence ? It's the other way round: in average PoW output (shells delivered) was better than Bismarck's. (6.6 vs 7.4) (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8491&start=315#p82614), when approximately "normalized" to take into account the salvos when Y turret was not bearing (see also previous point for "normalization").

Wadinga wrote: "I have a very clear idea of rate of fire for a ship:It is number of shells fired per minute, pure and simple.
I had written: "I begin to doubt that this forum member has clear in mind what is "rate of fire". "

Q.E.D.
He has no idea how British officers measure the RoF...
Can someone here explain (better than me...) to Mr.Wadinga the difference between "RoF as salvos per minute" and "RoF as effective salvos per minute" using McMullen definition (http://www.hmshood.org.uk/reference/off ... 09guns.htm)? I give up. He is not listening. He simply writes long posts, mixing everything together, with no mathematical demonstration of what he claims behind.

KGV_RoF-1.jpg (24.95 KiB) Viewed 935 times

The above is from KGV GAR on May 27: is it clear how British officers measure the RoF ?
Is it clear that RoF is always an average ?
Is it clear that shells fired / minute is a different parameter ?
Is it clear that 1.9 for PoW was a very good performance ?


Bye, Alberto

[wadinga]

Fellow Contributors,

It has been written:

Bismarck did not fire 8 shells per minute

Santarini says Bismarck fired 8 shells per minute in the tables p75 - 77. The Baron says 40 shells sank Hood. 5 broadsides composed of 10 salvoes by 4 guns in each salvo in five minutes. 8 shells per minute.

For the last time, we cannot compare minute by minute firing (it would mean nothing and we don't have the full detail about Bismarck)

I only hope it is the last time

No we don't have the detail about Bismarck, despite the minute by minute salvo table fabricated for her by certain posters entirely by speculation. Of course minute by minute firing is the only thing that did mean something to the participants in real time, the number of shots fired and how many were being received. Leach could see his ship was firing sometimes half as many shots per minute as a single opponent, not allowing for PG's fire in addition.

According to Santarini, Bismarck maintained her rate after switching to PoW. He realistically suggests that once Bismarck commenced an emergency turn to avoid imaginary torpedoes and her target commenced an emergency turn to avoid real shells, Bismarck's output dropped right down. He clearly thinks it is unreasonable to assume a uniform rate of fire over the whole period and applies a realistic model. He would not need to do so for McMullen who has already applied in effect the same principle.

Is normalising the same as distorting for effect?

You can express rate of fire for an individual gun very simply. For an entire vessel it is more complex and ambiguous.

A salvo is meant to mean half the guns in the ship's armament. Firing fewer guns to unofficially boost the salvo rate is breaking the "rules" . Maintaining a salvo rate when fewer than half the ship's armament is available through breakdowns, is also breaking the rules, but allowable in action. According to Dunmunro's table (reproduced and approved by Mr Virtuani, PoW only fired two full salvoes (defined as half the guns in the ship's armament) in the entire engagement, salvoes 10 and 12. The chronic drop off in output after 06:00 is also highlighted which is about the time Leach had to make his decision, approved subsequently by both McMullen and now Santarini.

For webmaster I still keep losing text in preview and final post. Adding a bold or similar to it maintains it,

All the best

wadinga

[HMSVF]

Just to lighten the mood !


The Story of the 2 hunters and the 2 Bears.


The 2 (British) hunters are of different ages and experiences. The older hunter (Mr Hood) is experienced but has poor eyesight, the younger hunter (Mr P O Wales) has good eyesight but isn't an experienced shot.

So the 2 hunters come across 2 two Grizzlies of which one is a full blown adult male (lets call him Bismarck) and a small adolescent (lets call him Prince E).

Now Mr PO Wales manages to get a few shots off at the larger grizzly whilst the big ole bear is concentrating on Mr Hood - who somehow manages to mistake the smaller, less threatening bear, to big ole boy due to ageing eyesight and glasses.

By the time poor old Mr Hood has realised his mistake big ole Bismarck bear has managed to swipe old Mr Hood across the carotids and he promptly exsanguinates and drops to the floor stone dead.

Well poor old Mr PO Wales is somewhat shaken.



He's now on his own.



Facing 2 bears.



This wasn't part of the plan.


Big ole Bismarck turns on Mr PO Wales ,swipes left and right at him, catching right across the face and a few more blows to the torso.The smaller bear (Prince E) is snapping at his heel.

Poor old Mr PO Wales is somewhat stunned!



He's firing off shots left right and centre, furiously reloading shot after shot.




Sometimes he drops a cartridge, sometimes he doesn't cock the weapon properly.




He decides enough is enough and turns to run.




As the young buck tries to fire off again the one of the barrels of his double barrelled shotgun jams so he give up trying to fire on the move and legs it. Seeing as the bears don't follow he keeps track of the two from a distance and calls for help.




At the hospital after a check up it turns out that Mr PO Wales's facial injury wasn't as bad as he first thought, and whilst he had a few deep lacerations they were superficial and non life threatening (though one found in his groin had potential).

Of course an inquest is performed and because the offending Bear Bismarck was later tracked down and killed, the inquest was able (by identifying bullets) to see that Mr PO Wales had indeed managed to get 2 good shots causing Big ole Bismarck to limp and bleed ,and one that shaved a patch of hair off his midriff.

When the investigators went back to the scene they could see that Mr Hood had let of 5 or 6 rounds and hit nothing and that Mr PO Wales after Mr Hood had snuffed it ,had done nothing else but rearrange the foliage over a wide area.

Mr PO Wales statistically had fired off a huge number of rounds it was discovered.

However, most ended up in tree trunks, the soil and in bushes.

Whilst it was acknowledged that he had managed to fire off a lot of cartridges, it was observed that he had only hit ole Bismarck when Bismarck was focused on finishing off poor old Mr Hood. And he had missed some shots due loading error and a barrel jam.


Many years later when this tale was re-examined there were two schools of thought.

One camp thought that Mr PO Wales managed to let off a level of fire that was equal to ole Bismarcks performance because he managed to fire off "X" amount off shells in a short time frame and that Mr PO Wales was yellow and should have faced off that big ole grizzly in the best traditions of self sacrifice.

It was a big, dangerous bear and there were many a picnicker traversing the forest.




The second camp thought that Mr PO Wales didn't actually perform that well in comparison to the Grizzlies. Yes,he had fired many a cartridge, but he had only hit when the bear was busy with Mr Hood and hit nothing but Mother Nature after it.

They didn't think that Mr PO Wales was a particularly experienced hunter (though he showed promise) and had suffered a few jams whilst firing due to loading errors. They also thought that Mr PO Wales was wise to have extricated himself from the situation and to continue to track from a distance.



So the question is who was more effective ?




Mr PO Wales who managed to get a couple of shots that caused Bismarck grizzly a limp and some blood loss?





Or Bismarck grizzly who in the same time period managed to get in enough blows to kill Mr Hood and give Mr PO Wales a bit of a pasting?


Best wishes to all





HMSVF

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hello everybody

Wadinga wrote: "Santarini says Bismarck fired 8 shells per minute...The Baron says 40 shells sank Hood"

..without specifying whether they were speaking of shells or shots. Of course they were ordered shots (8*14 = 102, much more in line with the proposed 108, especially after the initial "slow" ranging salvos, than to 93...)....

Wadinga wrote: "Of course minute by minute firing is the only thing that did mean something...."

...and that's why no G.O. reported any minute by minute RoF....

Wadinga wrote: "You can express rate of fire for an individual gun very simply. For an entire vessel it is more complex and ambiguous. "

that's possibly why all G.O. express RoF of their vessel, never of a single gun....

Wadinga wrote: "He clearly thinks it is unreasonable to assume a uniform rate of fire over the whole period and applies a realistic model."

...he did not studied the film and the photos showing exactly the opposite and he used a proven wrong map....
Is Mr.Wadinga stiull suggesting his map is the right one ? Has he understood that the range closing rate does not allow to think so ?

Wadinga wrote: " I still keep losing text in preview and final post..."

possibly too long and verbose ? May I suggest to use arithmetical formulas instead ?


Bye, Alberto

[dunmunro]

For the last time, we cannot compare minute by minute firing (it would mean nothing and we don't have the full detail about Bismarck), only averages and PoW average actual RoF was 0.95 rpgpm while, depending on assumed ordered shots, Bismarck's was 0.93 (108 shots) or 0.82 rpgpm (96). It's an easy calculation(viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8491&start=300#p82599): may Mr.Wadinga please tell us where he disagrees ?

We know when PoW opened fire (0553) and we have some idea when she fired her last salvo (~0604) and during that time frame she fired 59 rnds or 5.4 rnds/min. We know when PoW opened fire (0553) and when ceasefire was ordered (0611) and during that time she fired 59 rnds or 3.3 rnds/min

We know how many rnds Bismarck fired (93) but we don't know the exact open fire and ceasefire times. Using the times for PE (0555-0609 or 14mins) we get 6.6 rnds/min.

These are the only valid comparisons we can make; anything else requires fabrication of data that we don't have.

We know that after Hood's destruction that Bismarck scored 3 hits on PoW and received, possibly, one 14in hit in return (although you claim 3 hits to zero) and that PE scored 4 additional hits. So during the time frame immediately following Hood's loss, when we can directly compare PoW's shooting to her KM opponents, it was, at best, 7-1 in favour of the KM and at worst 7-0. We know that PoW's 14in output was lagging badly at this time and that, due to battle damage, PoW's 5.25in battery had ceased fire altogether.

So making valid comparisons using the data available to us, we can see clearly, that PoW's fire was largely ineffective after Hood's loss while her KM opponents scored 7 direct hits; causing the complete loss of all 5.25in output, damage to PoW's aircraft and air launching capability, damage to PoW UW with substantial flooding, damage to her main machinery causing a considerable loss of sustained power and the loss/injury of many of her command personnel. Even the most biased commentator would have to conclude that PoW was receiving damage at such a rapid rate, that prolonging a close range engagement against two efficient opponents was very likely to result in the loss of, or crippling damage to, PoW, with a very low likelihood of inflicting sufficient damage in return to justify continuing such an unequal engagement.

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hello everybody,

Dunmunro wrote: "We know when PoW opened fire (0553) and when ceasefire was ordered (0611)"

Should I comment again on such an enormity, lightly repeated once again and apparently tolerated here by everybody ?
Does this forum member support Tovey incorrect turn away time at 6:13 too ?

6:11 is simply an incorrect timing in the log (as well as open fire 14", incorrectly registered as... 5:59, or Hood sinking at... 6:05 ), and this is proven by the PoW GAR, showing the timing of all salvos (including the last ones just after minute 6:03)...

PoW_Log_May_24.jpg (22.57 KiB) Viewed 880 times

We know exactly how long lasted the relevant fire action of PoW because her G.O. McMullen defined the interval (8 minutes + 58 seconds), inconvenient as it can be for Mr.Dunmunro.
If in disagreement, Mr.Dunmunro should address his complaints to McMullen, who defined once forever all the gunnery parameters that MUST be used for PoW gunnery (http://www.hmshood.org.uk/reference/off ... 09guns.htm).

They show actual PoW RoF having been fairly good compared to Bismarck's (1.89 salvos per minute vs 1.85 for BS, assuming 108 shots, worse (even 1,64) if less than 108) and effective # shells / minute favorable to PoW without any assumption (7 - 7.4 vs 6.4 -6.6 rpm) (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8491&start=315#p82614).



Regarding the wisdom (or the timidity) of Leach's decision to retreat, I have already said that this is NOT the right thread and I will not come back on such discussion to avoid any further regrettable dispute with clearly biased people.


Bye, Alberto

[dunmunro]

We know exactly how long lasted the relevant fire action of PoW because her G.O. McMullen defined the interval (8 minutes + 58 seconds), inconvenient as it can be for Mr.Dunmunro.

PoW fired 21 salvos. When was the last one fired? What was the time interval between first and last salvo?

When was ceasefire ordered?

[Byron Angel]

We know exactly how long lasted the relevant fire action of PoW because her G.O. McMullen defined the interval (8 minutes + 58 seconds), inconvenient as it can be for Mr.Dunmunro.

PoW fired 21 salvos. When was the last one fired? What was the time interval between first and last salvo?

When was ceasefire ordered?

The fact that (according to Mullenheim-Rechberg) Bismarck continued her fire at Prince of Wales until range reached 22,000 meters (24,000 yards) is a complete irrelevancy. After 0602, Bismarck, in process of herself withdrawing, was taking "free" shots at a now silenced Prince of Wales which was presenting a difficult target evading away at 27 knots under smoke. One might just as well ask what Prince of Wales' rate of fire was after salvo 21 - irrelevant.

The more interesting comparison would be to compare the gunnery of the two ships between 0553 and 0602.

B

[dunmunro]

.

The more interesting comparison would be to compare the gunnery of the two ships between 0553 and 0602.

B

And that is what we cannot do because we don't know how many hits Bismarck (or PE) scored on Hood. All we know is that Bismarck scored at least 1 x 38cm hit on Hood, resulting in her destruction. Other hits were scored on Hood but we have no accurate details.

We can roughly compare their gunnery from when Bismark and PE changed targets to PoW, and the resulting comparison is not very favourable for PoW.

[Byron Angel]

.

The more interesting comparison would be to compare the gunnery of the two ships between 0553 and 0602.

B

And that is what we cannot do because we don't know how many hits Bismarck (or PE) scored on Hood. All we know is that Bismarck scored at least 1 x 38cm hit on Hood, resulting in her destruction. Other hits were scored on Hood but we have no accurate details.

We can roughly compare their gunnery from when Bismark and PE changed targets to PoW, and the resulting comparison is not very favourable for PoW.

The conclusion of the review board convened to investigate Hood's loss based its official findings upon the most stringent rules of evidence. i.e. - the evidence had to be indisputable with corroboration by multiple witnesses. However, we are blessed today to live in an age of intellectual freedom. Having read the witness testimony of the observers aboard Prince of Wales, many of whom were presumably experienced and knowledgeable officers, I would estimate that Bismarck straddled Hood by her third salvo and likely ultimately scored three or four hits before Hood disqualified herself as a target of further fire by blowing up.

Strictly my opinion, of course.

B

[Bill Jurens]

I am wondering if the phrase 0611 Ceased Fire 14" listed in a memo above actually reflects the last shots fired. "Cease Fire" could mean "This was when the last shots were fired.", but it can also mean "This was when the formal order to stop shooting was given." In the latter case, nobody may have been shooting at all for some time, as for example on a rifle range where shooters may have expended a large number of rounds, but nobody goes out to the targets until a cease-fire flag is flown, to indicate not that one has stopped shooting, but only that no further shooting is allowed, even if all of the guns at that time had already been silent for a considerable interval.

That's the sort of discrimination which would have been evident to all in 1940, but may be somewhat ambiguous today...

Bill Jurens

[Byron Angel]

Indeed, Mr Jurens. One of the annoying pitfalls in my study of history is a confrontation with something that was once such common knowledge that no one felt the need to define it for posterity.

B

[Bill Jurens]

The things "all men once knew" are, ironically, sometimes the least properly recorded...