alecsandros wrote: ↑Sat May 11, 2019 6:24 pmHello,HMSVF wrote: ↑Sat May 11, 2019 1:42 pm Therefore all accounts ascribe the hits to Prince of Wales and thus indirectly criticize Hood's gunnery, with the more-informed ones identifying the ancient and unmodernised fire control system as a major factor. Lord Chatfield pointed out in 1941 Hood had fought a ship 25 years younger than herself and since speed, guns and armour remained pretty much viable, the archaic Dumaresq/Dreyer table slated for replacement over 20 years previously and thus obsolete when installed, must be singled out.
HMS Hood executed gunnery trials in 1938, 1939, in poor visibility and at medium to long range - about 15000y to 19000y IIRC, and fired her guns in anger - with excellent results - in 1940 at Mers-el-Kebir , from 17.500y to 18500y (range was increasing with time), against ships at anchor, and later against a fleeing battlecruiser (Strasbourg) and escort destroyers (http://www.hmshood.org.uk/reference/off ... 34-317.htm) (she fired about 36 semi-salvos at Mers-el-Kebyr, in about 15 minutes - but a critical aspect is that she had her aft turrets un-masked...).
In all accounts that I have read about those events, her gunnery team - and gunnery results - were reportedly good to very good.
And yes, I know she was scheduled for an upgrade in 1941, but it is a stretch to say she did poorly at DS because of "obsolescent" fire control, because the same "obsolescent" FC produced good results in other gunnery shoots (and IIRC, other RN battleships , equipped with the same FC , did good and very good against the enemy as well).
Yes, we do know which salvos hit, because we know which salvos straddled. And yes, I know there is a possibility that some non-straddling salvos did produce hits, but based on Prince of Wales gunnery report, and salvo plot, that possibility is very remote .No one knows which of PoW's salvoes hit,[...]
Yes, that is easily explained by battle geometry.Bismarck is supposed in the revisionist version to have switched targets and hit PoW in 50 seconds, including time of flight.
Capt Leach's account explains this , as his decision of turn away was taken after the demise of the Hood, and therefore manouvred hard to exit the battle area. His manouvre to avoid Hood is superimposed on the same trajectory of the "exit".although the same promoters say there were minimal manoeuvres around Hood, when they need to explain away their ridiculously short speculative timeframe and recorded angle of shell passage through the Compass Platform.
Think the quoting system has gone awry as that wasn't me!
Tagging on.
Another point possibly worth considering is that Germany used stereoscopic range finding and the British coincidence. In almost all the texts I have read the Germans invariably would get the range quicker with their system but the British system was better at holding the range once they had it (which makes sense as from what I can gather the stereoscopic system demanded excellent eyesight and concentration, if the gunnery officer tired then the accuracy would fall off). Hood has the best of the WW1 Dreyer tables (? IV ? -was this the mk that "borrowed" from Pollens "Argo clock)" but still relies on a coincidence range finder (although admittedly a big 30 footer).
So you you have an older ship with an older system where the results take a little longer to come than the german equivalent. Unfortunately time isn't on Hoods side as the battle lasts only 6 (?) minutes and the problems are exacerbated by time being wasted firing at the wrong vessel (and she didn't have the weather gauge from what I can gather). If luck had been on her side and she had blown up when she did I would have thought that once found the range she would probably have held it reasonably well (if like previous actions/battles).Whether she would of held together or rapidly become hors de combat is another issue. Unfortunately she never got the chance, she was a older, glass jawed ship, with a fire control that was known to take a while to get into its stride.Time was definitely not on her side.
best wishes HMSVF