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Electricity usage

Posted: Thu Nov 07, 2019 7:06 pm
by bracer
Hi gents!
I have been wondering how the usage of electronics onboard affected the ship.
Did they need to use devices like radar carefully to save diesel?
Was it common to keep devices turned off to save diesel?
Could "everything" be turned on at the same time or was there not enough watts produced for all systems to be online simultaneously?
Would it affect the topspeed of the ship to have all generators working?

Many questions! I appreciate any answers, be it based on Bismarck or any other wwii era warship.

Kind regards,
Daniel

Re: Electricity usage

Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2019 12:20 pm
by pgollin
In the WW2 era, all steam powered (propelled) warships would have produced their electricity from turbo-generators (i.e. steam powered). They would have batteries and diesel powered generators for emergencies.

Obviously for diesel powered ships and all submarines then they would diesel electric generated electricity.

The electrical demands (other than for propulsion on diesel electric ships) were really very small compared to that required for emergency pumps.

So general electrical usage was not really a problem

Re: Electricity usage

Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2019 1:07 pm
by bracer
Hi pgollin!

Thank you for the answer!
Then it's clear to me.

Cheers!