A correct attribution for the "Flash Effect" photo?

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dunmunro
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Re: A correct attribution for the "Flash Effect" photo?

Post by dunmunro »

Byron Angel wrote: Sun Dec 15, 2019 8:45 pm It appears in the photo under discussion that, while Bismarck is engaging a target off her port bow with three of her main battery turrets, turret Anton remains trained fore and aft. Is it perhaps possible that turret Anton was being held silent to avoid shock of gunfire from stressing her forward transverse bulkhead? This bulkhead may well have already been under considerable stress from the flooding forward and the shoring necessary to restore some safe margin of structural integrity still in progress.

Thoughts? Comments?

Byron
That's an excellent point. However, I would suggest that Anton would still be trained onto the target with guns loaded in case they are needed. The training of the forward turret might suggest that these photos were taken prior to, or after the Denmark strait engagement.
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Re: A correct attribution for the "Flash Effect" photo?

Post by Bill Jurens »

I have often wondered that myself.

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Re: A correct attribution for the "Flash Effect" photo?

Post by Herr Nilsson »

All turrets are pointing into the same direction of about 260°.
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Marc

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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: A correct attribution for the "Flash Effect" photo?

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hello everybody,
Byron Angel wrote: "It appears in the photo under discussion that, while Bismarck is engaging a target off her port bow with three of her main battery turrets, turret Anton remains trained fore and aft"
Both turrets are trained in exactly the same way (see their shapes):
nh69729_turrets.jpg
nh69729_turrets.jpg (22.78 KiB) Viewed 1694 times
In other photos (in a very high definition one, taken few seconds before the NH69729, also the gun muzzles are visible (their training close to the beam) and we can even see A turret missing rangefinder arm.... :wink:



Bill Jurens wrote: "I have often wondered that myself."
This late "doubt" is not mentioned at pag.226 of Mr.Jurens' book (repeating instead the "theory" of an "order" from Lutjens, not providing any reference), where the photo is attributed to the DS battle, as logical and universally accepted.




@Mr.Jurens and Mr.Dunmunro: when would have all these the photos been taken, according to your speculations ?



Herr Nilsson wrote: "All turrets are pointing into the same direction of about 260°."
Sure, turrets are trained to the same bearing: around 140° TRUE (download/file.php?id=3593) (on a 260° bearing, Bismarck would have been shooting against... polar bears in Greenland....and not even R.Winklareth proposed to reverse this photo...).



Bye, Alberto
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Re: A correct attribution for the "Flash Effect" photo?

Post by Herr Nilsson »

I think Byron was talking about NH 69730.
Alberto Virtuani wrote: Mon Dec 16, 2019 9:03 am
.. (on a 260° bearing, Bismarck would have been shooting against... polar bears in Greenland....and not even R.Winklareth proposed to reverse this photo...).
I wrote 260° and not 260° true.
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Marc

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Re: A correct attribution for the "Flash Effect" photo?

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hello everybody,
as Mr.Nilsson posted twice, I assume I can do the same.

However, for the future, I invite everybody to respect the restrictive "moderator" 's rules (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8756&start=45#p85212), to post once per day only, or to explicitely challenge them, as I do...


Herr Nilsson wrote: "I think Byron was talking about NH 69730....I wrote 260° and not 260° true."
I know very well what was written, but people here may be easily misled by such a "germanic" way to indicate bearings... I kindly suggest to say 140° (true) or 10° "fore of port beam", to avoid to confuse others....

Re. NH69730, same as NH69729, turrets shape (even if not clearly visible) is the same and their gun bearings very close too, as they were taken very shortly one after the other (download/file.php?id=3593).
NH69730_turrets.jpg
NH69730_turrets.jpg (12.74 KiB) Viewed 1672 times

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: A correct attribution for the "Flash Effect" photo?

Post by wadinga »

Fellow Contributors,

Cogent and polite discussion without insults. Splendid.
In his conclusions, however, he summarised (over-simplifying, see viewtopic.php?f=1&t=552&hilit=side+to+p ... ship#p3884...) that BS was on 90° course vs PG beam, to counter the "parallel" course theory.
Mr Winklareth was stunned to hear Mr Bonomi suggest the ships were on 90 degree courses to one another. At no time did the latter attempt to disabuse the former of this, because he clearly accepted it himself having established the handrail evidence himself. He surely did not "over-simplify" or "summarise" , in other words distort reality, merely to win an argument with a parallel lines devotee, that would surely be poor practice. That Mr Bonomi refused to rework his conjectural tracks for many years (or accept any constructive criticism of them) until March this year, to accommodate the evidence in the photographs which he had failed to recognise initially, is ...........unfortunate.

Without evidence of camouflage etc in the Flash picture there is no cast iron guarantee of Denmark Straits provenance. Whatever recent writers say, based on hearsay, is largely irrelevant, but Mullenheim-Rechberg, Schmalenbach and Busch all say it was, and they were all there. There is a danger in saying "because we don't know from a report that Anton failed to track the enemy continuously at DM, this picture does not come from there" Again it is informing what the photo shows from an unwarranted intuition.
just repeating his "mantra": the Gefechtskizze is "useless and worthless" (where Schmund clearly referred to British tracks and distances, not to Brinkmann's own ship plot, being the only credible evidence we have.
Vice Admiral Schmundt could have no independent knowledge of British tracks and a cursory view of these very photographs shows Bismarck firing at a time when PG is travelling at 90 degrees to her, an event unrepresented on the Gefechtskizze.
The position of "Prinz Eugen" in relation to "Prince of Wales" cannot be derived from the battle sketch. It is useless and worthless. The ship is herewith directed to resubmit a new battle sketch that is based on the actual data provided by the computing station, and in the future, [PG is admonished] to pay greater attention to the preparation of battle sketches.
It has often been observed that I am not a naval officer, and thus cannot "know" of such things, but for an official report to be described as "useless and worthless" is surely a most serious rebuke, indicating that is known to be not credible evidence, by someone who access to evidence and conversations with crewmen in 1941 we do not have.

All the best

wadinga
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Re: A correct attribution for the "Flash Effect" photo?

Post by HMSVF »

It’s a pity the HMS Hood forum wasn’t still around.

I seem to remember a lot of debate in regards to photographs. Were they,weren’t they.

Practice shoots or the real thing? Even down to where rails were.
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Re: A correct attribution for the "Flash Effect" photo?

Post by Bill Jurens »

I am happy to see that the "new rules"-- although they may seem somewhat onerous, seem to be helping somewhat, and recent discussions have, I think, been fairly productive.

Please do conform to the "Once per Day" rule. This may take a bit of getting used to.

Please do pay more attention to length. Some of the latter postings have (even excluding snippets) run to over twice the allowed limit, one going to 312 words. Please COUNT YOUR WORDS before posting. If you use a word processor to write the original post, and thereafter ‘cut and paste’ into the forum, the word count can be done automatically.

I will assume that errors made to date have been accidental. Except in truly unusual circumstances, future postings exceeding 150 words will be truncated.

This posting, incidentally, is 149 words long. If I can do it, you can, too…

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Re: A correct attribution for the "Flash Effect" photo?

Post by Byron Angel »

Herr Nilsson wrote: Mon Dec 16, 2019 9:45 am I think Byron was talking about NH 69730.
You are correct, Marc - I was referring to the photo image included by Mr Rico in his Denmark Strait essay.

If no proof confirms that this photo was taken during the morning engagement, Bismarck's longitudinal trim apparently being rather down at the bows suggests that it was taken on the 24th earliest.

If taken in the morning, the photographer (no auto-exposure camera technology) closed down the F-stop (note the dark sky relative to time of day) before taking the picture in order to avoid gun flash over-exposure. Alternate theory: is it possible that the photo was taken around dusk on the 24th, during the brief exchange between Bismarck and Prince of Wales before Prinz Eugen's separation?

FWIW.

Byron
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Re: A correct attribution for the "Flash Effect" photo?

Post by Bill Jurens »

I find it unlikely that the photographer would have attempted to adjust exposure to get a good picture of the gun flash. (How would he really know what the correct exposure for the gun flash was likely to be?) The dark background in the print is probably because the exposure was nominal for the conditions, i.e. did not account for flash, but the bright gun flash highly overexposed the film in the flash areas. The person who printed the image in the darkroom, over-exposed the flash area in order to retain some detail there -- that's the most interesting part of the photo, but was unable to 'hold back' the residual portions of the negative, so these areas were also over exposed on the print as well. That gives you the dark background.

Fixing this sort of a high-contrast image, especially in a fairly improvised darkroom without a master-printer at the easel can represent an insurmountable challenge.

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Re: A correct attribution for the "Flash Effect" photo?

Post by Bill Jurens »

My apologies. Broke my own rule and posted twice -- and now three times -- in one day.

Accidental.

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Re: A correct attribution for the "Flash Effect" photo?

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hello everybody,
Bill Jurens wrote: "I am happy to see that the "new rules"... seem to be helping somewhat...
If I can do it, you can, too… -."
Disagree. They just allow "majority" here to support each other, "silencing" my answers...
Not answering questions (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8756&start=60#p85224) obviously makes your posts shorter....





Wadinga wrote: "Mr Winklareth was stunned to hear Mr Bonomi suggest the ships were on 90 degree courses to one another."
...in 2006 Mr.Wadinga supported Antonio (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=552&hilit=side+to+p ... t=15#p3997), just jumping to a conclusion, while Antonio cautioned him (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=552&hilit=side+to+p ... t=15#p4026):
"YES, I agree about the perpendicular angle of the camera lens to the railing itself. "
Even if ignored, this still stands solid.

Wadinga wrote: "That Mr Bonomi refused to rework his conjectural tracks for many years (or accept any constructive criticism of them) until March this year, to accommodate the evidence in the photographs which he had failed to recognise initially, is ...........unfortunate. "
He himself realised the need of minor refinements (not necessarily to the tracks themselves...), while someone has very "unfortunately" not yet acknowledged his macroscopic errors (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8526#p82783, viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6728&start=2250#p84821)

Wadinga wrote: "Vice Admiral Schmundt could have no independent knowledge of British tracks.... "The position of "Prinz Eugen" in relation to "Prince of Wales" cannot be derived from the battle sketch. It is useless and worthless. The ship is herewith directed to resubmit a new battle sketch that is based on the actual data provided by the computing station..." "
Exactly, Schmundt never criticised PG track: he said that respective positions (obviously clear from TS range plot) cannot be derived because of the abominable PoW track.
Gefechtskizze PG track was not "ruined" by blood :stop: . It is PERFECT (unfortunately for the "indeterminateness" fans...) and used in all credible battle reconstructions (download/file.php?id=3593).

Will we ever see Mr.Wadinga "constructive" alternative ? I guess not...


Bye
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Re: A correct attribution for the "Flash Effect" photo?

Post by Herr Nilsson »

Alberto Virtuani wrote: Mon Dec 16, 2019 10:56 am I kindly suggest to say 140° (true) or 10° "fore of port beam", to avoid to confuse others....
For a true bearing one have to know the course, which is unknown. Therefore I have to use relative bearings, which was about 260° (I tend to 259°) in this case. That means about 10° (I tend to 11°) "aft of port beam".

@Byron

Apart from multiple other criteria: The dawn engagement was at extreme range, but Bismarck fires her secondaries in this picture. It's very safe to say NH 69730 is from the Denmark Strait Battle.
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Marc

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Re: A correct attribution for the "Flash Effect" photo?

Post by wadinga »

Fellow Contributors,
YES, I agree about the perpendicular angle of the camera lens to the railing itself.
Ignored? No, it's the clincher.

Mr Bonomi identified the railing very precisely as the main deck side rail near the centre 4.1" mount, ie parallel to the centreline and thus defining the vessel's course at that moment. 90 degrees to Bismarck's.
He himself realised the need of minor refinements (not necessarily to the tracks themselves...)
He realised his conjectural tracks were completely wrong and could not face having to rework the whole thing. In March this year he started.

Can "useless and worthless" also be PERFECT? PoW's position/track cannot be derived because PG's track is incorrect as is clear from these photos. Surely the "blood" reference is not related to supposed British falsification of records?

Herr Nilsson: precise/correct as always.
"silencing" my answers
Consensus equals probability.

All the best

wadinga
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