Message Traffic heard by RODNEY 24 May 1941

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

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alecsandros
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Re: Message Traffic heard by RODNEY 24 May 1941

Post by alecsandros »

paul.mercer wrote: Thu May 23, 2019 9:06 am
Byron Angel wrote: Tue May 21, 2019 3:53 am
northcape wrote: Tue May 21, 2019 12:13 am

If everybody would follow this example it would solve the problem quickly. I can only encourage everybody to do the same in order to restore rationality, purpose, and common sense in the forum. There is nothing to be gained in providing a stage and audience for this kind of behavior and endless repetition of opinions.

Hi northcape,
A dramatic step by any measure. But, given the current situation and the stakes involved (i.e., the long term heath and viability of this forum), it is worthy of serious consideration. I too am quite frustrated with the current situation.

B
Gentlemen,
Agreed!
@ALL

I suggest you start from scratch and make your own modelation of Battle of DS,
after which start posting your findings, results, schemes, drawings, charts, snippets, HERE, for everybody to see and take a poke at.

it would be so much better and enlightening.
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Re: Message Traffic heard by RODNEY 24 May 1941

Post by HMSVF »

paul.mercer wrote: Thu May 23, 2019 9:06 am
Byron Angel wrote: Tue May 21, 2019 3:53 am
northcape wrote: Tue May 21, 2019 12:13 am

If everybody would follow this example it would solve the problem quickly. I can only encourage everybody to do the same in order to restore rationality, purpose, and common sense in the forum. There is nothing to be gained in providing a stage and audience for this kind of behavior and endless repetition of opinions.

Hi northcape,
A dramatic step by any measure. But, given the current situation and the stakes involved (i.e., the long term heath and viability of this forum), it is worthy of serious consideration. I too am quite frustrated with the current situation.

B
Gentlemen,
Agreed!
Concur.
northcape
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Re: Message Traffic heard by RODNEY 24 May 1941

Post by northcape »

alecsandros wrote: Fri May 24, 2019 10:33 am

@ALL

I suggest you start from scratch and make your own modelation of Battle of DS,
after which start posting your findings, results, schemes, drawings, charts, snippets, HERE, for everybody to see and take a poke at.

it would be so much better and enlightening.
Hood and PoW intercepted BS and PE in the early morning and opened fire. A battle developed, and after a few minutes Hood was hit by a 38cm shell from Bismarck, igniting one of her main magazines. Hood exploded and sunk. PoW, who also hit Bismarck with a couple of 35.6cm shells, got hit by several 38cm and 20.3 cm shells within a few minutes afterwards. She turned away and Bismarck and PE continued on her course, but the german fleet commander decided to break off the entire operation and sail with BS to France as soon as a good opportunity arises.

Am I missing anything else which is both of historical relevance and supported by facts?
alecsandros
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Re: Message Traffic heard by RODNEY 24 May 1941

Post by alecsandros »

northcape wrote: Fri May 24, 2019 5:54 pm She turned away and Bismarck and PE continued on her course, but the german fleet commander decided to break off the entire operation
No, Bismarck and Prinz Eugen did not pursue Prince of Wales. They kept their course, and, at 6:03/4, turned away themselves after reports of torpedos coming their way have been received.
and sail with BS to France as soon as a good opportunity arises.
That decision was taken several hours later, after quarrels and disagreements between the officers and Luetjens and Lindemann, many of which considered a trip back to Norway was more rational.
Am I missing anything else which is both of historical relevance and supported by facts?
Yes, you do.

You need to add the tactical factors - Norfolk and Suffolk vectored in Hood and Prince of Wales, which couldn't intercept otherwise; Bismarck had main radar failure and had to slip back in the formation; Prinz Eugen hit an iceberg with one of the propellers, Holland deployed a search-comb of four destroyers to sweep for the enemy Northwards (search which turned out empty-handed , and made Holland use only radio broadcasts from Norfolk and Suffolk in plotting his own interception course, which, probably because of insufficient speed differentials, made him end up with his "T" crossed, rather then the other way around)
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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: Message Traffic heard by RODNEY 24 May 1941

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hello everybody,
northcape wrote:"PoW, who also hit Bismarck with a couple of 35.6cm shells, got hit by several 38cm and 20.3 cm shells within a few minutes afterwards."
No,
PoW hit Bismarck 3 times (it's not serious to "cancel" the third hit: it put out of action the whole airplane launching system of the ship...)
BS hit PoW 3 times (1 was not even acknowledged at the time and discovered only in when dry dock...)
PG hit PoW 4 times.


"Am I missing anything else which is both of historical relevance and supported by facts?"
Willing to reconstruct the battle means studying the tracks available (4 out of 6 involved ships), all the messages, all the available cross-bearings reported, all the official reports (narratives and GARs), putting them together and getting to a conclusion a bit more detailed than: "a battle developed"....
We are lucky we have plenty of information regarding the battle on May24 from both sides, that allow a much better reconstruction, already done, published in 2005, further refined in 2017 and that will be published in the coming years in a new, extra-detailed version, that will put together every piece of info.



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: Message Traffic heard by RODNEY 24 May 1941

Post by Byron Angel »

Alberto Virtuani wrote: Sat May 25, 2019 6:48 am BS hit PoW 3 times (1 was not even acknowledged at the time and discovered only in when dry dock...)
PG hit PoW 4 times.
Once again ..... how can the above claim of three hits made upon PoW by Bismarck, seventy-eight years after the fact, possibly be stated as such a categorical fact when the RN technicians and experts who physically inspected the damage were themselves unable to agree on the caliber of the hit? It might be three hits; it might be four hits - it remains to this day an officially unsettled issue. Objectivity plays a very important role in any effort to reach an honest appreciation of events.

- - -
Alberto Virtuani wrote: Sat May 25, 2019 6:48 am We are lucky we have plenty of information regarding the battle on May24 from both sides, that allow a much better reconstruction, already done, published in 2005, further refined in 2017 and that will be published in the coming years in a new, extra-detailed version, that will put together every piece of info.
I look forward with the greatest interest and curiosity to the time when publication of this work will permit it to reach a broader audience than those few us here on the KBismarck forum.


B
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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: Message Traffic heard by RODNEY 24 May 1941

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hello everybody,
Byron Angel wrote: "it might be four hits"
No, please read the full damage report. A 15" does not match the angle of descent (and the ricocheting of the shell on the light chart house roof). It's very unlikely the shell could be a 15"

Hit_n2.jpg
Hit_n2.jpg (44.19 KiB) Viewed 1562 times

The "probability" that it was a 15" is only coming from the wrong feeling of Leach in his narrative that the shell came from the same salvo as the n.1 (CP hit). There are no technical evidences pointing to a 15" shell other than the narrative...


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: Message Traffic heard by RODNEY 24 May 1941

Post by Byron Angel »

The Board of Inquiry clearly were a good deal less certain about this point; they left it as an open issue, only offering an opinion that is was probably 8in.

Instead of asserting 3 hits as a "fact", it should once again be presented as an "opinion" or a "belief" based upon one's interpretation of available data. No reasonable person is going to criticize an expression of opinion. I'm not sure why the distinction between opinion and fact is apparently so difficult to grasp.

B
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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: Message Traffic heard by RODNEY 24 May 1941

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hello everybody,
"...only offering an opinion that is was probably 8in."
No, clearly saying that the damage and the descent angle were not consistent with a 15" shell.

What was the only hint pointing to a 15" (not even listed by the board...) ? Answer please.



I'm not sure why the distinction between "probable" and "possible" is apparently so difficult to grasp...


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: Message Traffic heard by RODNEY 24 May 1941

Post by wadinga »

Fellow Contributors,

I have always been interested in the precise nature of the Bridge Structure hits. Mr Virtuani has kindly provided an excerpt where an official opinion is given, but I have never seen any mention of physical evidence of a 15" hit provided for either the Compass Platform or Director Tower hits. If a substantial 38cm windshield detached on impact, there is no mention in any account of such debris, which would be mightily prized, being found. The same is true for the Crane hit where if an A/P fuze was triggered and the shell exploded above the deck, there should have been a large slug of Krupp steel embedded in PoW's midships.

On another thread, people are discussing the behaviour of projectiles on impact as if they were mathematical certainties, predictable and repeatable, whereas the reality as demonstrated aboard PoW is far from that.

The shell removed in the dock was definitely 15", Brooke mentions several fragments the size of cricket balls either of 15" or 8" location unknown and the manhandling of the unexploded 200lb shell from the 5.25" handling room. Two of these occurrences are facts and clearly defined by evidence, the nature of other hits are informed opinion.

We should be careful. There never was a Board of Inquiry regarding PoW, its performance or damages, only one regarding Hood. The damage report fragment supplied by Mr Virtuani came from a dockyard report and was not evidence in any Board of Inquiry. Even this fragment is completely equivocal, first it says there is a probability it was 15" and only a possibility it was 8", then in the summary it reverses this. Mr Virtuani supplies his own opinion which disregards this equivocal position. Clearly those who actually examined the physical evidence based on their experience and knowledge were not so sure as Mr Virtuani.

The damage done to Bismarck's aircraft handling system was so insignificant that no-one noticed it had even happened until days afterwards. Perhaps they should have been checking for that sort of thing instead of making a false funnel! When it was finally discovered it would appear little effort was expended trying to find a solution.

All the best

wadinga
"There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today!"
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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: Message Traffic heard by RODNEY 24 May 1941

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hello everybody,
"Clearly those who actually examined the physical evidence based on their experience and knowledge were not so sure as Mr Virtuani."
No, they were just not willing to contradict the statement written by Leach in his narrative.

All evidences point to a "light" shell ricocheting over the roof of the charthouse (download/file.php?id=3526).


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: Message Traffic heard by RODNEY 24 May 1941

Post by Byron Angel »

Alberto Virtuani wrote: Sun May 26, 2019 7:33 pm No, they were just not willing to contradict the statement written by Leach in his narrative.

Can any evidence be put forward to support this allegation? If not, it must be consigned to the realm of conjecture.
Yet again ..... theories and opinions do not equal facts.

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Re: Message Traffic heard by RODNEY 24 May 1941

Post by alecsandros »

Gentlemen,

I am nearing the outer end of my limited window of posting on Kbismarck (I have , maybe 1 week left, maybe). Work and health issues are catching up with me, and sincerely diving into this type of debates is putting an emotional strain on me, that has been noticed by my family and colleagues. It's hard to let go completely, but after that time, posting will probably be much rarer, if at all.

I want to thank Alberto, Byron, Bill Jurens, Dave Saxton, Herr Nilson, and, lately, Northcape (who showed fair play in his reply that summed-up his variant of the battle of Denmark Strait), for their considerate and informative replies published in the previous 4 weeks or so. I have many others to thank for making this forum stay alive through the years, Thorsten, Karl Heidenreich, Francis Marliere, Paul Mercer, Marcelo Malara, Aurora, RF, Chris, Bgile, thomas303, Jose Rico, Duncan (Dunmuro), Wadinga, and of course, Antonio..... And many others, to whom I appologise for not remembering them right now.

I hope this debate - or series of debates - will come to a peacefull conclusion some years from now on, when the publishings of Antonio and Alberto will start being printed.

With this in mind, I want to stress to you the importance of a good permanent health. Debates, especially hot ones, put a wear on each participant, and that ultimately boils down to some type of health issues. If a person has a natural predisposition towards high blood pressure, choleric temperament, etc, this type of behavior will reinforce the natural patterns, which, in the end, will cause heart and pulmonary issues (amongst others...).

This is not to say that writting on Kbismarck will give you a heart disease, just that you should be carefull over how much you invest emotionally in anything that you do.

===

In the punctual matter of damage suffered by Prince of Wales, I hope we can all settle on the phrase that the British battleship received 7 direct hits and was surrounded by shell splashes (salvos) at each 10-15 seconds (on a continous basis until the smoke screen became completely effective). I'm basing this on Prinz Eugen's average salvo interval as described in her warlog (27-28 seconds between salvos), and on Bismarck's footage showing the battleship discharging roughly 2 salvos/min from the main guns and 4 salvos/min from teh secondary guns. I do not want to enter in a number crunch here, just to underline that the weight of shells put in the air , towards the Prince of WAles, per minute, was a significant one (and a menacing one).

Best Regards,
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Re: Message Traffic heard by RODNEY 24 May 1941

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hello everybody,
Byron Angel wrote: "Can any evidence be put forward to support this allegation?"
Can any other evidence whatsoever be put forward supporting that the hit n.2 was a 15" shell ? Therefore the "allegation" is the only logic explanation....


Bye, Alberto
Last edited by Alberto Virtuani on Mon May 27, 2019 8:48 pm, edited 3 times in total.
"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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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: Message Traffic heard by RODNEY 24 May 1941

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hi Alec,
while we would surely all miss you, I want to wish you the best luck for both your health and work !

Hope to hear from you better news very soon,
Ciao
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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