You Tube video - Battle of Denmark Strait part 2

[dunmunro]

Also, if there was even a very small target angle, PoW's belt would be immune.

[Terje Langoy]

Pardon me for acting as Captain Obvious but am I the only one to be bothered by the fact that the Bismarck actually operates as a submarine? This video appears to me as a manipulated version of Silent Hunter, using battleship appearances for a surface engagement between submarines. If you know how to manipulate the scripts for the game, you can control how you appear in game modus as well. However, It does raise one interesting question though. How well could a submarine game ever replicate an engagement between battleships? In the video a whole lot of things is created/done by the game itself with regards to external and internal conditions. For the duration of the battle it seems all the gamer can do is decide his own heading, speed and when to fire or not.

So, I for one arrive at the conclusion that we're viewing a fictional surface engagement between two seriously abnormal submarines, disguised as the Bismarck and the Prince of Wales. Personally I would not draw any similarities to the Denmark Strait battle, not even a hypothetical one.

[tommy303]

Yes it does appear to use Silent Hunter III as a game base. Silent Hunter II had a mod which allowed one to command a number of Kriegsmarine surface ships, and I suspect the gaming community has written something similar for SH3. All in all there were some interesting things in the SH2 surface scenarios, which combined aspects of the sister game Destroyer Command, but there were natural limitations imposed by the game itself which one couldn't get around--such as sighting the enemy--one had to accept sighting an enemy ship from fairly close range--under 18,000 yards which was the limit imposed by the game modules. I doubt very much if it really could give you good results in any historical scenario; I think the sudden sinking of the PoW follows a small explosion which shows one stack being blown over the side. In SH3 an explosion of this sort seems to be indicative of a fatal hit with an 8,8cm or 10,5cm deck gun, so one should not expect to see a realistic set of visuals in a major surface engagement.

[RF]

Is such a hit you describe from such small calibre possible, enough to sink a KGV?

In the actual battle POW was holed below the waterline but that didn't seem to impair the ships speed, let alone its ability to float.

[Bgile]

Is such a hit you describe from such small calibre possible, enough to sink a KGV?

In the actual battle POW was holed below the waterline but that didn't seem to impair the ships speed, let alone its ability to float.

I don't think you understand. The game is treating PoW like it was a submarine. It just LOOKs like PoW because they changed the graphics, but the damage is like two submarines shooting at each other with their deck guns.

[RF]

Bgile, you are quite right, I didn't understand what was going on, which was why I started this thread.