PoW readiness for active service

Discussions about the history of the ship, technical details, etc.

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pgollin
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Re: PoW readiness for active service

Post by pgollin »

wadinga wrote: Fri Apr 19, 2019 9:53 am
........ Recently I have accessed the Vickers report confirming that only one practice main armament firing took place during which each gun fired six rounds. ......


Is this the same "Vickers letter" (not report) that Antonio kept mentioning ?

IF so, does it mention interlocks ?

.
Byron Angel
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Re: PoW readiness for active service

Post by Byron Angel »

I too would be interested to learn more. For example, what exactly transpired? Did the entire exercise go off smoothly without mishap? Or were difficulties encountered and, If so, of what sort?

Any chance that this document could be forwarded to Jose for posting to his KBismarck forum archive???
Not pushing, just asking.

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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: PoW readiness for active service

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

:ok: Hello everybody,
Wadinga wrote: "Recently I have accessed the Vickers report confirming that only one practice main armament firing took place during which each gun fired six rounds..."
Totally incorrect statement (extensive redactionWJJ)

What Mr.Wadinga has "accessed" (extensive redaction. WJJ)is evidently only Mr.Barben (Vickers foreman in charge on board PoW during the operation) 2 pages attached report in which the last gunnery trial on May 15 is mentioned, with 6 shots fired by each gun, with 60 shells delivered (perfect, but no indication of the RoF at which the guns were fired, I suspect very slow due to the exceptional 100% output efficiency....).

(Redaction WJJ) he should be aware that Vickers report is made up of around 20 more pages written by Mr.Wilkinsons (the chief engineer and designer of the 14" turrets) who describes at length the gunnery trials at sea, done in early May at his presence (with work that never stopped "day or night"), much more extensive than the mentioned final trials (replenishment of ammunition and gun cleaning was even needed after those extensive trials...), with the conclusions, lessons learnt and actions put in place, all included in a report sent to the Admiralty (containing also with the exact number of rounds fired in total).


The above quoted sentence is another vain attempt to still support the "fairy tale" of the "poor green ship that could only fire 6 rounds per gun before having to face a ship at the peak of her efficiency" and similar things...


Bye, Alberto
Last edited by Bill Jurens on Mon Apr 22, 2019 12:24 am, edited 1 time in total.
"It takes three years to build a ship; it takes three centuries to build a tradition" (Adm.A.B.Cunningham)

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wadinga
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Re: PoW readiness for active service

Post by wadinga »

Fellow Contributors,

(Redactions madeWJJ)Mr Cag does not mean what he found out during his visit to Cambridge should remain unavailable. Private messages are a useful comms channel. :cool:
(I suspect from whom, btw, a forum member who received this small part from me, promising not to diffuse the info...)
And now the other "true contributor" is caught red-handed (Redaction made WJJ) admitting withholding information in order to distort the evidence available. It would appear he revealed just a part of the information to some other forum member, specifically to mislead him, whilst withholding the full knowledge.

All the best

wadinga
"There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today!"
Byron Angel
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Re: PoW readiness for active service

Post by Byron Angel »

Given the apparently confidential nature of this Vickers report, we will perforce simply have to proceed on the basis of the information presently available to us.

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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: PoW readiness for active service

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hello everybody,

(Extensive redaction WJJ)

1) Mr Wadinga posted that PoW fired only 6 shots per gun before fighting Bismarck (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8523#p82911). This is simply false (intentionally or not, he has not clarified yet, as he seems to say that he has seen the whole report, and in this case (redaction made. WJJ)

2) I have already said I will never provide him any further info on the Vickers report (regretting to have provided so many to people not willing to learn), therefore no surprise for that. Here the facts (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8523&p=82937#p82929)

(Redaction made.WJJ) "poor green ship sent to fight Bismarck after having fired only 6 rounds per gun" when there were other extensive trials, analyzed and reported to Admiralty before...

He should simply try to have all the information (including the most interesting report sent to Admiralty at the end of the gunnery trials in early May) before speaking of readiness of PoW anymore...


Bye, Alberto
"It takes three years to build a ship; it takes three centuries to build a tradition" (Adm.A.B.Cunningham)

"There's always a danger running in the enemy at close range" (Adm.W.F.Wake-Walker)
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Re: PoW readiness for active service

Post by paul.mercer »

Hi Alberto,
You wrote: He should simply try to have all the information (including the most interesting report sent to Admiralty at the end of the gunnery trials in early May) before speaking of readiness of PoW anymore...
Could you remind us what that report said?
Also, while accepting that PoW would have fired more than 6 shells (or whatever!) surely we should accept that many of her crew were new to the ship and the fact that she had Vickers engineers on board still working on the guns,so they must have known that she was not really ready to take on a ship like Bismarck and of course this was made clear when problems stated to arise (as the always seem to do) when one needs them most.
What is apparent that as both KGV and later DoY had problems with their guns in battle is that the quad turrets and their operating systems were never really cured.
I realise that you perhaps feel duty bound not to reveal all the contents of the report, but does it not seem strange that after all this time it still remains confidential which must arouse suspicions as to why it was never made public - after all, in this day and age of nuclear weapons who would be bothered about 14" guns in quad turrets?
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Re: PoW readiness for active service

Post by pgollin »

paul.mercer wrote: Sun Apr 21, 2019 9:49 am
....... What is apparent that as both KGV and later DoY had problems with their guns in battle is that the quad turrets and their operating systems were never really cured. ......
Not true FROM THE READILY AVAILABLE FILES AND GUN MANUALS ! ( i.e. everything except A & A's mysterious letter. )

At the time of the Bismarck actions, there were definitely problems, MAINLY associated with interlinks ( which is why it is VERY odd that A & A haven't mentioned them ). This why I am very suspicious of the A & A claims regarding the supposed Vickers letter. It does not seem to cover what the main issue was that took much effort to get right.

Re. the quads, there was NOTHING different about the guns and their interlock mechanisms in the pairs as compared with the quads. What was the difference were the shell rings and other items unique to the quads. These were a smaller problem, but necessary to fix. The Gunnery Department was happy with the 14-inch mounts by the end of 1941.

The DOY problems in the Battle of the North Cape WAS a shell ring problem, but was due to an extreme wave movement so whilst not perfect, it was not regarded as a problem with the mounting. The extreme movement was noted on the bridge so (although I am sure that A & A won't agree) was NOT just a gunnery department "excuse".

.
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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: PoW readiness for active service

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hello everybody,
Paul Mercer wrote: "Could you remind us what that report said?"
Hi Paul, I have done here (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8523&start=15#p82929) and previously here (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6834&p=76840&hilit=barben#p76840) providing a lot of new info, albeit not trusted by every single member, apparently...

Basically Mr.Wilkinson accounted for gunnery machinery exercises taking place in April (never stopping works "day or night") and gunnery trials (actually firing the guns) in early May. He does state neither the number of trials nor the numbers of fired rounds. However, as many conclusions were made from these trials, we can conclude they were quite extensive trials, based on which a full report could be sent to the Admiralty, following a conference held on board with Admiralty, ship and Vickers representatives.
Mr.Wilkinson states that all gunnery data were transmitted to the Admiralty in a detailed report, including the number of rounds fired...
Following Mr.Wilkinson's leave, Mr.Barben stayed on board and assisted to the last trials run on May 15 with 60 rounds perfectly fired.

Was that enough to get to full readiness ? Surely not.
Was PoW severely unprepared when she met Bismarck ? Surely not.
Was Bismarck so much more trained than PoW ? I'm not sure, not having the details (number and fired rounds) of Bismarck gunnery trials.
Was KGV, at the time of the DS battle, so much better fit than PoW to face Bismarck ? I very strongly doubt.


Paul Mercer wrote: "I realise that you perhaps feel duty bound not to reveal all the contents of the report, but does it not seem strange that after all this time it still remains confidential... "

(Lengthy Redaction WJJ)


A gift for you, as you kindly requested some more info from Vickers report:
Mr.Wilkinson conclusions re. the early May gunnery trials: "Trials were satisfactory, some minor faults were invariably found on such a mass of machinery, and even in times of peace eliminated"
As a disclaimer, I have always said that Mr.Wilkinson cannot be considered impartial about the design of "his" turrets and he speaks in name of his firm (a very interested party), therefore I think we have to take Tovey, Leach and McMullen reports together with Mr.Wilkinson (+Mr.Barben) report and to conclude that the truth is possibly half way...
I find interesting the last sentence, raising doubts about the fact that these mountings could ever been made perfect.


Bye, Alberto
"It takes three years to build a ship; it takes three centuries to build a tradition" (Adm.A.B.Cunningham)

"There's always a danger running in the enemy at close range" (Adm.W.F.Wake-Walker)
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Re: PoW readiness for active service

Post by dunmunro »

Here's what I received from Alberto:

http://www.sfu.ca/~dmunro/images/Barben.pdf

which is commonly being called the Barben report.
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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: PoW readiness for active servic

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hello everybody,

many thanks to Mr.Dunmunro for publishing something that he received confidentially from me. Please see here the message I had sent him before sending the extract of the report (Redaction by moderator WJJ)


(Attachment redacted as it reveals private e-mail address. W.JJ.)



Redaction by moderator WJJ) my mistake. I will never do the same error again and someone else will find and publish the full "Vickers" report (further 20 page s).


At least, someone doubting about it can check whether I change the documents that I post or not)...

(Redaction by moderator — attachment reveals private e-mail address WJJ)
Bye, Alberto
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"It takes three years to build a ship; it takes three centuries to build a tradition" (Adm.A.B.Cunningham)

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Re: PoW readiness for active service

Post by dunmunro »

Alberto Virtuani wrote: Sun Apr 21, 2019 8:38 pm Hello everybody,

many thanks to Mr.Dunmunro for publishing something that he received confidentially from me.

You placed me in an impossible situation. If you had distributed these excerpts to all interested parties, this could have been avoided. (Redaction by moderator WJK)
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Re: PoW readiness for active service

Post by Bill Jurens »

I have been out of town and away from the computer for the past few days, and so effectively unable to moderate in detail. I can see via a quick check in that behaviour and commentary have degraded to unacceptable levels again. I will be back in action again late Wenesday.
In the interim I would ask that posters consider this particular thread locked until it is opened again.
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Re: PoW readiness for active service

Post by Bill Jurens »

I have made an effort to go over previous posts and make redactions as required. I’m not entirely happy with the results, but they are the best I can do at the moment.
We can reopen the thread again, but I would again ask all participants to restrict their commentary to the historical issues at hand and refrain from personal commentary and attacks on others.
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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: PoW readiness for active service

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hello everybody,
Dunmunro wrote: "You placed me in an impossible situation. If you had distributed these excerpts to all interested parties, this could have been avoided."
It was my material and my decision, not Mr.Dunmunro's ones. He was in no way in an impossible situation: he was simply bound to silence. The "interested parties" could have asked me a copy, as Mr.Dunmunro did at that time, when I made the mistake to send it to him.


(Redaction by moderator WJJ) as everybody can check from this snapshot, once eliminated the "privacy issue": this serious fact speaks for itself, providing a possible explanation why so many people here are not much interested in the "honor" when discussing the story of the DS battle...

Private Message.jpg
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I'm surprised that the moderator is more attentive to "privacy issues" or terms like "taxpayer" than to the fact that some people here is not able to keep their word, that is really a severe behavior problem.


Bye, Alberto
"It takes three years to build a ship; it takes three centuries to build a tradition" (Adm.A.B.Cunningham)

"There's always a danger running in the enemy at close range" (Adm.W.F.Wake-Walker)
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