More on KGV Class main armament problems

[Byron Angel]

With all due respect, but I don't think your decision is a fair one.
Alberto is working on his own, and surrounded by all this negativity he can't do much anyway.

Hi Alecs,

Unfair? I think not. Far from it. Your views on the DS topic, in many respects, appear to coincide with those of the individual in question here. Yet I cannot recall you ever having been even politely admonished, much less suspended. Why do you suppose that is? I would suggest the likely answer is that you conduct yourself here in a polite and adult manner.

I do not presume to speak for the moderator; what follows is spoken upon my own account. It is clear to me that this latest disciplinary action taken against the gentleman is based upon one thing and one thing only - an insistence on the part of the cited individual to employ insult and invective whenever confronted by any strong disagreement to his views, opinions and theories. This individual has ignored and dismissed repeated appeals and warnings to moderate his behavior and appears to consider himself unilaterally exempt from any standard of forum conduct. This behavior, which has persisted over a very lengthy time, has poisoned the atmosphere of this forum. It has driven away numerous contributors and participants, including some noteworthy naval historians. Worse, it has provoked retaliation from others (yes, gents - we all know who we are) which has further upset the forum.

The above chaos is obviously what has driven Mr Rico, the owner of this fine and praiseworthy forum, to seek the aid of Bill Jurens. I have known Bill for a LONG time. One would be hard pressed to find a more polite, helpful, even-tempered, reasonable, respectful, resourceful and intelligent gentleman. The vile and ridiculous attacks upon Mr Jurens by the two gentlemen in question only highlight the severity of the problem.


B

[alecsandros]

The above chaos is obviously what has driven Mr Rico, the owner of this fine and praiseworthy forum, to seek the aid of Bill Jurens. I have known Bill for a LONG time. One would be hard pressed to find a more polite, helpful, even-tempered, reasonable, respectful, resourceful and intelligent gentleman. The vile and ridiculous attacks upon Mr Jurens by the two gentlemen in question only highlight the severity of the problem.

I'm sorry, but many people on Kbismarck tend to forget why they are here: because they have been reading material posted by Antonio , Alberto , etc, since many years now.

Banning them is simply banning the forum !

[Byron Angel]

I'm sorry, but many people on Kbismarck tend to forget why they are here: because they have been reading material posted by Antonio , Alberto , etc, since many years now.

Banning them is simply banning the forum !

Hi Alecs,
If I am not mistaken, this KBismarck forum was/is the creation of Mr Jose Rico. The fact that the two Italian gentlemen have chosen to intensively post here to share their studies and express their opinions does not in my opinion confer any "ownership status", or any unique right to control the discussion, or any special privileges with respect to standards of conduct, or carte blanche to freely insult and abuse those who they feel are cramping their style. If they feel that they are being unreasonably treated, they are certainly free to seek alternative discussion sites or create their own.

Strictly my opinion, of course.

B

[wadinga]

Hello Byron,

I agree with all you have said.

This is surely not a debating society, where opposing points of view are generated solely for the sake of controversy and equally matched teams of participants are judged on their persuasiveness. We here are interested in real history and uncovering the detail of things which really happened. A & A have presented their views for years, have persuaded nobody (with one notable exception) and when faced with what they consider a "negative response" have, in their frustration, resorted to insults, invective and now assertions of unfair treatment from the Moderator. I consider the general response to have been extremely positive in removing every ounce of credibility from A& A's argument, and confirming the status quo has nothing seriously wrong with it.

They are alone (ish) because a jury of their peers having had the supposed "evidence" constantly and repeatedly thrust in their faces, has made it clear to them that their assertions have no basis in reality. Despite this they have assiduously and repetitiously promoted their views in the hope that some credulous people will appear and accept their version of events as gospel, and that all previously accepted records and knowledge are lies and the expertise which accepts it gullible or dishonest. In their view, this might include respected authors such as Alan Raven and Bill Jurens who have appeared here, but also pretty much everybody else who has published on the subject since 1941. This is the basis of revisionism and Conspiracy Theory and the thirst for fame/notoriety it can generate.

It is clear from the excerpts of KGV's detailed technical report that the surging and sliding of poorly secured 14" shells at various points in the loading cycle on several turrets, was a problem in a seaway or as a result of any manoeuvring, whether particularly violent or not. PoW commenced two turns, one under Holland's orders and a second harder one away from Hood's wreck before away "turnaway" was commenced. Even those who dismiss the eyewitness accounts of PoW's large heading change towards the enemy are prepared to accept that it generated heeling. Is it not at least possible that it was this heeling that resulted in the jamming of the Y turret shell ring?

We now know from recently released details in Barben's material, Y turret used the "workaround" of rotating the turret to points where shells were available when the shell ring was stalled and effectively locked to the ship, but there is no mention of this procedure for B turret.

Depending on the load status of the shell ring at the time of the jam, this workaround allowed Y turret at the slow rate of fire prevailing to load for several minutes after the shell ring was immobilised. The last few shots from PoW were only possible by taking the mountain to Mahomet.

All the best

wadinga

[paul.mercer]

Gentlemen,
Once again yet another topic has ended up as a rather bad tempered slanging match, this time even involving our moderator who (as always)is doing his very best to keep the peace.Surely, as adults, it must be possible to discuss and debate each others theories and opinions without getting to the stage where contributors are suspended or the thread being locked because we will not accept someones views - even if they are deemed as outrageous by fellow contributors! This forum has given all of us a great deal of pleasure over the years and has no doubt contributed a huge amount of knowledge to us all on a great many subjects and not just Bismarck herself, if this type of aggressive posting carries on every time a new topic is introduced we are in great danger of Bill Jurens getting fed up with the bickering and having to intervene and the whole Forum being closed down by Mr Rico.
Please gentlemen,for the sake of this Forum, let's cool it down a bit and think about our replies and not pour scorn on each others points of view because we do not agree with them.
Come on chaps, we can do this!

[northcape]

I'm sorry, but many people on Kbismarck tend to forget why they are here: because they have been reading material posted by Antonio , Alberto , etc, since many years now.

Would be interested to learn on what you base this statement on, or what makes you confident to speak for the motivation of other people. I for myself find a lot of different interesting information here, and I'm actually more bothered then enlightened by the never-ending repetition of certain theories and reconstructions. Which, to make it worse, are not presented as theories but as the ultimate and only truth. For years and years. If this and all the noise associated with it is going to stop, I don't consider it as a loss to the forum.

Also, neither of the two gentlemen is banned from the forum - I don't know where you have this impression from.

[alecsandros]

@northcape
I once lauded you for your fair-play. Today you showed that you don't know what fair play is... Perhaps you are still young.
For you to have the right to talk about what Antonio/Alberto did would first imply YOU would start reading their posts from the beginning... which you have not.

Same goes for Wadinga and , sadly, for Byron, who have teamed up against ALberto in a very unchivalrous way.

Weeks and months of poking at the bear will eventually cause the bear to be aggressive. That is what you did here.

And you are NOT entitled to JUDGE the persons who are BANNED , for the simple and humane reason that they can NOT talk back (again, thanks to YOU, the glorious posters of Kbismarck, who can count how many angels can dance on a pin head, but can't come to terms with simple matters.)

Feel free to applaud yourself and put all your nightmares to sleep: there aren't any boogy men around to scare you.

I'll be gone as well.

[Bill Jurens]

Just to correct Northcape's posting, technically Alberto HAS been banned from posting, but only for another five or six days. This was done not to restrict the presentation of arguments pe-se, but in an attempt to control what I perceived to be an inappropriately aggressive tone in the way those arguments were being presented. Readers will note that I specifically invited him to re-join the forum after the ban has expired. The same invitation, incidentally, applied (and applies) to Mr. Bonomi, who was banned for only a day, and has -- for whatever reason(s) chosen not to rejoin.

I have seen (until perhaps quite recently) neither no need or justification to in any way redact the posts of Alecsandros, who has generally presented his opinions -- whether seen to be controversial or not -- in at least reasonably respectful language. In that regard, I would encourage him to continue to post. Should he choose to withdraw from the forum, that is (rightfully) his decision alone.

I would like to thank correspondents for their commentary, both pro and con, over the past few days, which -- by and large -- have been coherently and respectfully submitted.

Time will tell how things go from here...

Bill Jurens

[Francis Marliere]

Gents,

I totally agree with Byron. I have nothing personnal against A&A and don't care about their theory. However the tone of the forum has become depleasant for a while and I'm glad that Bill Jurens tries to stop that. IMHO, the moderator has been very, very patient with our italian friends, and has taken the good decisions.

Best regards to all, and many thanks to Bill Jurens.

[Alberto Virtuani]

@Bill Jurens,

Bill Jurens wrote: "I have read Northcape's post again quite carefully and cannot personally see anything provocative in it at all. It does not take sides, merely characterizing the debate itself as 'childish' and 'ridiculous'. " (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8556&start=90#p83914)

Constructively intended, I totally disagree and suggest to everybody (especially the ones who have commented about the decision) to read again the post (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8556&start=90#p83911) as well as my answer.

The "debate" mentioned is obviously the one initiated by Antonio and me already in 2013 (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5830&start=60#p54918, when I had just joined this forum. This debate has been freely defined "childish, ridiculous, hilarious and utterly pathetic"... extremely provoking IMO.

If it's not a provocative post, then nobody should feel personally attacked if someone says that the way rules are enforced on this forum since a while is "childish, ridiculous , hilarious and utterly pathetic" (northcape kind words, NOT mine) because this is intended to criticize the forum management method, not the moderator himself, thus no personal attack.... I have been much less "offensive" than this in my answer (albeit, I admit, much more aggressive (against you only), fully deserving a disciplinary action), criticizing the way the moderation was done (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8556&start=90#p83913).

I feel however that implicit provocations (that IMHO are even more "sneaky" in some way) should be stopped immediately as well as explicit attacks and punished even more severely, because the other way of "interpreting" what is actually personal attack is quite hypocritical.

I hope you can finally see the implicit provocation in the mentioned post: if not, then we must agree to disagree and conclude that we simply have a very, very different perception of what can provoke and what cannot...

I would really appreciate to hear back from you (in your role of moderator) in case I have missed some good reasons for banning only me for one full week, after I had been provoked and there was no intervention from you.
Also, have a look at some other words used during my absence in my regards, please see my following posts.


I do hope my firm criticism will be taken as constructive, though....


Bye, Alberto

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hello everybody,

disregarding other evident provocations (again received during my forced absence), apparently allowed in this forum, like "revisionist" (that has even a strong political nuance...), "conspiracy theory" , etc of this and other posts...viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8556&start=105#p83927)

Wadinga wrote: " A & A... have, in their frustration, resorted to insults.... They are alone (ish) because a jury of their peers having had the supposed "evidence" constantly and repeatedly thrust in their faces, has made it clear to them that their assertions have no basis in reality"

They are alone, but they have a reconstruction of the events matching all available evidences + geometrically correct + logically consequent. Their "peers" are many more, very obstinate to deny any evidence, but they have only their "indeterminateness" theory , wisely "suggested" to them as a possible last line of defence against the overwhelming evidences presented against the old version of the whole story, from the battle reconstruction to its "regrettable aftermath".

The frustration, of which Mr.Wadinga speaks, is only their frustration (started immediately, already in 2013, when the "cover-up theory" was initially proposed, with insults (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5830&start=15#p54817, viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5830&p=54913&hilit=idiot#p54913), therefore I kindly invite Mr.Wadinga and Mr.Angel to please not even try to pass the incorrect message that we are the ones who have "resorted to insults" ((viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8556&start=105#p83927)) nor that we" insult and abuse" (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8556&start=105#p83926) whoever is of another opinion, because this is simply not true.
The author of the very first insults (btw, never condemned by anybody among the ones who pretend now to be so "sensitive" to the forum tones and personal attacks ...) was at least "smart" enough to understand at once in 2013 (not only after some years as someone else) that our "theory" was just logic and true and that he had no way to counter it, except provoking and trying to silence us.

We will publish our version of facts, your side cannot publish anything new, just repeating the old "novel" sold by British Admiralty + Kennedy and claiming the "indeterminateness" of a real event happened in the real world at a determined time on May 24, 1941.

"Even those who dismiss the eyewitness accounts of PoW's large heading change towards the enemy are prepared to accept that it generated heeling. Is it not at least possible that it was this heeling that resulted in the jamming of the Y turret shell ring? "

No, it is not.
Please, read the PoW GAR (http://www.hmshood.org.uk/reference/off ... 09guns.htm) that perfectly fix the time when the problem occurred (the same problem mentioned by Barben too): salvo 20 (not even 19...).
The Barben's workaround was possibly put in place after the jam occurred, to get the turret ready in case to fire again (at slower RoF) until the ring was back in action at 8:25, thus to "carry on" during the retreat, had Lutjens decided to follow PoW to finish her.

Y_turret_jam.jpg (35.21 KiB) Viewed 1070 times

Bye, Alberto

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hello everybody,

northcape wrote (quoting Alecsandros): "I'm sorry, but many people on Kbismarck tend to forget why they are here: because they have been reading material posted by Antonio , Alberto , etc, since many years now.
Would be interested to learn on what you base this statement on, or what makes you confident to speak for the motivation of other people." (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8556&start=105#p83929)

Would be interested to see when some forum members have posted the last factual information on this forum. I mean, posting some data, document, or historical argument, not just supporting his team opinions as a football club supporter, without being able to provide any info whatsoever.....

"Which, to make it worse, are not presented as theories but as the ultimate and only truth. "

Not at all. Just the best available timed battlemap, the best interpretation of the proven false statement contained in the reports and the best logical reconstruction of the "regrettable aftermath".
We do think it is possible to do better better than us, but for sure we have not see anybody here able to do that, just to avoid confrontation on facts claiming "indeterminateness", "typos", "old sailor's memory failures", "meaningless average values", etc. for everything....

"If this and all the noise associated with it is going to stop, I don't consider it as a loss to the forum. "

...I feel the same for some other much more annoying "noise" I hear in the forum....



Btw, is the word "noise" referred to other forum members opinions a nice one ?



Bye, Alberto

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hello everybody,

Byron Angel wrote: "This individual has ignored and dismissed repeated appeals and warnings to moderate his behavior and appears to consider himself unilaterally exempt from any standard of forum conduct. "

It's exactly the other way round as anyone can see from the past posts: each time the tones are lowered, someone from the other side jumps in only to provoke, not to discuss, with the intent to cause a reaction. I may be too sensitive and I surely exceeded in my reactions (not very recently, I must say), but I have never started insulting someone if not heavily provoked, and you should know this fact very well by now....

"The vile and ridiculous attacks upon Mr Jurens by the two gentlemen in question only highlight the severity of the problem."

Read back, please. We have never attacked Bill Jurens (who is, as you say, surely very polite and respectful in his posts). We have always answered politely to his questions when addressing him.

What we question(ed) is not Bill Jurens as a person or as a forum member, but his ability to "forget" his right to express his views in order to play the moderator role, putting aside his own personal opinion (that everybody should have understood as being (legitimately) on one single side of the "debate") and playing this delicate role in a "super-partes" way. Again this should be intended as a constructive criticism.
If this is a fault, then I'm guilty.


Btw, is the word "vile" a nice one?
Isn't this a personal attack against me (made worse by the fact I was not allowed to answer at the time) ?
Why are you allowed to use it (it's on this forum since days now with no redaction), while I'm not allowed to react to it as deserved?
Try to provide a logic explanation, please....


Bye, Alberto

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hello everybody,

Alecsandros wrote: "Feel free to applaud yourself and put all your nightmares to sleep: there aren't any boogy men around to scare you. " (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8556&start=105#p83930)

A perfect summary of the psychological situation here...

The comfortable "fairy tale" (already proven wrong by the evidences showed to everybody on this forum since 2013) can still be kept alive in their dreams only if we are out of this "debate", but it will be anyway unavoidably destroyed by the new coming publications.... Count down has already started for step 1): the battle reconstruction based on reports, cross bearings, photos, film and all available evidences (planned for publication in 2021).
Step 2): "gunnery facts vs legends", "documented regrettable aftermath" and "demonstrated cover-up" will follow: there is no hurry for this, as all information is luckily still available in the British Archives and can be cited (as S.Roskill, the official historian of the Royal Navy for WWII, has clearly showed in his books)....


Bye, Alberto

[dunmunro]

The above chaos is obviously what has driven Mr Rico, the owner of this fine and praiseworthy forum, to seek the aid of Bill Jurens. I have known Bill for a LONG time. One would be hard pressed to find a more polite, helpful, even-tempered, reasonable, respectful, resourceful and intelligent gentleman. The vile and ridiculous attacks upon Mr Jurens by the two gentlemen in question only highlight the severity of the problem.

I'm sorry, but many people on Kbismarck tend to forget why they are here: because they have been reading material posted by Antonio , Alberto , etc, since many years now.

Banning them is simply banning the forum !

Sorry, but that's not true, but it might seem that way now because of the way A&A's views and the need to refute them has dominated the forum in recent years.