Denmarck Straits: Hood´s gunnery fault?

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Karl Heidenreich
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Denmarck Straits: Hood´s gunnery fault?

Post by Karl Heidenreich »

Sometime ago there was a discussion about the Dreyer Table in the Naval Technic chapter of this forum. It was stated that the Dreyer Table was inferior to the Admiralty Table that were in use in other RN surface units, but not in Hood; Dreyer was on Hood.
At the beggining of Denmarck Strait the British had some three minutes of initiative, very important, which PoW used to straddle Bismarck but that Hood didn´t seize against Prinz Eugen. PoW was using ATFC which maybe was the difference between the perfomances of those two vessels.
But, after the Germans answered the British fire the Hood wasn´t able to straddle her enemy. Was it due to the "spotting top" hit that destroyed any notion of Central Fire Control?
And, to finish: at the Bismarck´s final battle, on May 27th, the KGV and Rodney spent almost 15 minutes to straddle a disabled, slow moving and unmanouverable Bismarck, having all the advantages of the case, which is very interesting. Why something like this happened?
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Gudbrandur
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The Hood problem,

Post by Gudbrandur »

Karl, this is a good point.

Is it possible that an accident hapend onboard the Hood having the ship blowing up from the inside. The explosion from the Hood was heard to Reykjavík city with windows shacking. That was a long distance away. This could have been in the panick of the moment.

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Post by RF »

The eyewitnesses on both sides say there was no substantial sound of an explosion when Hood blew up. The idea of windows shaking in Iceland's capital is laughable.

According to several writers Hood found the range of Prinz Eugen with her third salvo, just prior to Hood receiving its first hits. Several shell splinters came on board the Eugen, when analysed after the operation in Berlin they were found to be from Prince of Wales, ie 14 inch shell calibre not 15 inch. This has not been satisfactorily explained except in terms of poor shooting by Prince of Wales, but even this is difficult to believe - as Prinz Eugen was two miles ahead of Bismarck, it would have to be a diabolical standard of naval gunnery to miss a target by nearly two miles.
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Post by Karl Heidenreich »

Prince of Wales was firing at Bismarck, not Prinz Eugen.
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Post by Terje Langoy »

Now we're talking! This is really interesting. I'll just throw out a few options for you to dismiss or approve.

Could she have been firing on both ships? Separated fire of the main artillery? Or straddled the Prinz during her "range-finding" salvos? Just a wild theory, but please follow me on this one. From the zero position of the British guns, they would have to train them to starboard side during the interception, right? I don't know the angle but somewhere between zero and some 20-25 degrees starboard? We know that the Prinz sailed ahead of the Bismarck and was wrongly identified as the flagship to begin with. Could the Pow have fired her first round/s on the Prinz or did she discover the error before opening fire? Is it possible to miss the target by such a distance during the first salvos? Wouldn't they aquire the range closing in from left to right, meaning that the Pow was shooting ahead of the Bismarck in order to find her range?

Or was the German investigation so colored by propaganda that they deliberately lied? Claiming the Hood was a straight-up poor shot just to keep the DS battle a total Bismarck victory and the Hood completely missing her target?
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Post by Karl Heidenreich »

It´s clear that Hood was firing to PE from the begining of the engagement, PoW was the one firing at Bismarck, with very good aiming. Antonio Bonomi has a very good article about this.
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Post by tommy303 »

There were times during the battle when Bismarck and Prinz Eugen were fairly close together due to manouvering and the shell fragments which came aboard were probably from a shell or shells which landed in between the two ships. Just such an occurance can be seen in the famous film clip of the action. That there was no damage associated with the shell splinters indicates that they were pretty much spent and simply fell on the cruiser.

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The Bismarck.

Post by Gudbrandur »

Can we adress the matter and have a common sense discusstion on the matter of the Hood blowing up from within,? or if there was a golden bullet from the Bismarck and if so, what for an bullet.? The blowing up of the Hood sounded like an volcanic eruption, a deep down sound with ecco of over 200 miles. This is no joking matter. It´s a fact.
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Ds battle

Post by Antonio Bonomi »

Ciao all,

at the beginning of the battle ( 05.55 ) Bismarck was some like 2.500 meters behind the Prinz Eugen following the cruiser in line of battle ( see photo Nh 69722 ).

Hood was firing to Prinz Eugen and with good range, at least initially, probably the shell fragment found on board Prinz Eugen at the end of the battle was out of one of those Hood salvoes.

PoW was firing at Bismarck, not very close initially, much better soon after.

When the PG Rheinubung film shows Bismarck turning to starboard from the Prinz Eugen side, they are some like 1000-1500 meters distant one from another, Prinz Eugen is turning while Bismarck already did it earlier.

YES, some shells ( 2 in reality, the 20 and 21st salvo from PoW made of 1 shell each from Y turret ) are visible on that film, falling close to Bismarck stern ( 20th ) and ahead her bow ( 21st ).

One can consider those PoW shells falling in between Prinz Eugen and Bismarck, but I personally think those were much closer to Bismarck compared to Prinz Eugen position; while the 19th salvo made of 2 shells from PoW Y turret in local control felt very short from the German squadron.

Kpt H. Brinkmann of Prinz Eugen at the end of the battle, during the Officers briefing, was convinced PoW was firing to Prinz Eugen as well during the battle.

His Artillery Officers told him that PoW never fired to Prinz Eugen as they were carefully looking at what was going on.

So, very likely, that shell fragment was probably out of an initial Hood salvo falling very close to Prinz Eugen.

Many references can be found on the book ' Prinz Eugen im ersten gefecht ' available here in this website.

Otherwise read the book ' The story of the Prince Eugen' still wrote by Fritz Otto Busch ( Kpt Ltnt - KM Reserve and PK Officer, director of the war magazine : Kriegsmarine ) that was on board Prinz Eugen that day and a very good witness of what happened.

Ciao Antonio :D
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Post by Karl Heidenreich »

Gubrandur:
The blowing up of the Hood sounded like an volcanic eruption, a deep down sound with ecco of over 200 miles. This is no joking matter. It´s a fact.
There must be a malinterpretation because what was reported from Reykjavik was the sound of the battle itself, the gunnery from the ships involved. The blowing of Hood is often reported not as an explosion but as a conflagration, without sound but a pulse. Captain Leach on PoW and, I believe, survivor Ted Briggs, agreed that there was not gigantic sound when Hood blew.

But the issue is the Hood´s gunnery performance, anyway, which was affected, or not, by the hits of Bismarck and PE during the battle.
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Post by Djoser »

I am sure that while the explosion was not as loud as you would think it should be, there must have been some noise, and a large pressure wave in the air. A 45,000 ton ship doesnt get blown in half without a peep being heard--unless there is already so much damned noise it seems to be silent.

Perhaps compared to the enormous din of 14 and 15 inch guns going off, it was not so loud, but there had to have been some effect there.
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The Bismarck

Post by Gudbrandur »

The more powder you use in a gun, the bigger the bang. I have a shotgun and a big rifel, I know. The Hood bang was different. This was not a 5 minut/many mussel sound, it was a one time big bang and a sound wave. The Hood blowing up sound was reported by many from many locations on the west coast of Iceland. This is about gunnery performance, is it possible, that in the heat of the moment, that the gun, guns, one or more where owerloaded and the gun mecanisme just gave in and back fired.? It has hapend and is hapening with old and new guns. The Hood was an old, she. Did the gun, guns of the Hoood, backfire down into the powder storage room.? Any gun experts out there.
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Post by Terje Langoy »

How is that even possible? I've never heard of any warship turret, or gun barrel if you'd like, experiencing backfire. To alter your question, could a shell penetrating any turret of the Hood ever be able to set off the lower munition storages?

From what I've learned about Hoods final, the cordite set ablaze in her magazine supposedly burned so furiously that her hull litterary melted. That she succumbed due to sudden, enourmous heat. Not an explosion. But that's what I've learned, not nescesarily the truth. Maybe someone else can confirm or dismiss this?

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Post by tommy303 »

Hood's guns were adequately strong and in fact could have taken supercharges if need be. These heavier than the normal service charges and were supplied to such 15in gunned ships which had only 20* elevation and increased the muzzle velocity so as to allow them to shoot to over 30 000 yards. Hood's guns could elevate to 30* so she was never issued super charges, but there was no reason her guns could not have withstood the heavier charges. It would have been, as well, very difficult if not impossible to over load the guns as the ammo hoists could only deliver four quarter charges and one shell to each gun at a time.

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Post by Karl Heidenreich »

Still, this thread is about the gunnery and spotting problems that Hood could experience during DS. The audio issues could be seen anyplace else.
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