alecsandros wrote:dunmunro wrote:
You are saying that Bismarck's FC wasn't effected by being under fire, but by the same token, neither was PoW's.
No.
I'm saying more than that.
Bismarck obtained straddles and hits during the entire battle, against 2 manouevreing targets, and while under fire.
PoW obtained less straddles and less hits during the first 5 minutes, against a single manuevreing target, while being completely unopposed.
PoW fired 14 salvos up to 0600, when Hood exploded (in fact salvo 13, the last to hit may have been the last fired, prior to the beginning of the manoeuvres around the sinking Hood), so at that point PoW had fired 41 rounds and scored 3 hits, see:
http://www.sfu.ca/~dmunro/POW_salvo.jpg
for a summary of rounds fired.
Here's the salvos fired, versus time:
http://www.hmshood.org.uk/reference/off ... encIVa.gif
and here's the chart showing Hood's last position:
http://www.hmshood.org.uk/reference/off ... encIVb.gif
You can see that from salvo 5 to 14, PoW had the range and her fire was effective, and during this interval she fired 10 salvos and 31 rounds, for 3 hits. Clearly, if PoW had a functioning radar system, her fire would have been far more effective, as for the first 5 salvos Bismarck's range was not known.
Bismarck, OTOH, had the advantage of radar and of having her A arcs open. This gave her larger salvo patterns, and a better hit probability per salvo. Bismarck had the added advantage that when Hood exploded, PoW basically sailed right into Bismarck's firing solution, and only a minor adjustment was needed to stay on target. Prinz Eugen began firing at PoW shortly after 0558, so from that point onward PoW was underfire, and from 0600 onward, underfire from both KM ships, and the manouevers needed to deal with that situation disrupted her FC.