Naval History Forums

As the Bismarck sank, her four main battery turrets fell off as she went bottom up on her dive to the sea bottom. As she sits on the sea bed now, hull right side up, all four turrets are thus missing. Have any of the four main battery turrets been located during all the searching that has gone on around her?

Thanks - VdT

Yes, a main turret was found lying upside down. See John Asmussen's site:
http://www.bismarck-class.dk/bismarck/w ... eck_3.html

I think Ballard found one and later Cameron found another. The other two turrets haven't been found.

Seems every expedition is granted one turret.

The David mearns Expedition claimed to have found Caesar, different from the one (I think unidentified one) found initially by Ballard.
The picture they show
http://www.hmshood.com/hoodtoday/2001ex ... index.html
looks different from the turret the Cammeron expedition found and photographed
http://www.bismarck-class.dk/bismarck/w ... eck_3.html
So that would bring the count up to three with only one missing.

Ufo

Ufo - Thanks, interesting! Do we know which of the four turrets has yet to be discovered?

VdT

The one the Mearns expedition found, they claim is Ceasar. They found very characteristic splash marks on its faceplate that match the direct hit it suffered. So that one is accounted for.

The next is a guessing game. To me it looks on the pictures of the Cammeron expedition (John Assmussen’s page) as if the turret has no ears, hence no range finder of it’s own. That would make that one Anton.

I think the first one found had never been identified. That leaves either Bruno or Dora missing and the other being the one found by Ballard.

Difficult though! They do look similar. The barbette of Dora shows very distinctive marks from penetrations and near penetrations. If the rotary structure of the known turret is intact one should find damage corresponding to the hits making it Dora or missing the marks making it Bruno.
The blown out rear of Bruno could be an other possible identifier.

Bill Jurens might know. He knows the fish around the wreck by their first name

Ciao,
Ufo

Just a brief comment based -- at this stage anyway -- only on my offhand memory.

My recollection surrounding the videotapes and survey information taken by the James Cameron expedition is that they in fact found all four of Bismarck's turrets. They are -- again as I recall -- distributed roughly in a straight line on the bottom, with one offset apparently from being run over by the hull of the ship as it slid along the bottom. We saw only two turrets during the Channel 4 Expedition of 2001.

I really can't recall any features which could be used to positively identify the turrets seen in 2001, and I certainly don't recall any 'splash marks' on the turret faceplate(s), which were more or less entirely buried in the mud and/or covered in wreckage. My detailed memory of the Cameron videotapes is fading, and I did not take many detailed notes during my viewing of them.

Hope this helps...

Bill Jurens.

I think the turrets are missing due to the angle of dive of Bismarck. I understand she sank at quite a distance from where she "settled" due to the angle of her descent.

My understanding was that Bismarck sank on a more or less even keel and then slid down the side of an underwater mountain....

I was not talking about the level at which she landed but the angle of descent. She started her descent miles from where she sank beneath the waves.

The programs and Ballard state that the ship capsizad and slid as she came to her final resting place. This means when she capsized the gravity mounted 15in turrets fell out. Also for a correction of the high angle of descent, than was an illusion caused by the traveling Bismarck did when she hit the sea mount. When she hit she slid down a ways to her final resting position. Also eyewitness accounts show it was cloudy that day, so navigation was not completely acurate. Just contributing.

Gents, tried this question on another board. Some of you have seen it perhaps. Anyway – I’ll ask it here also. I was at the local used book store with my nephew – he wanted some Jules Verne. Saw a copy of Ballard’s Bismarck. Heard of it but never actually looked through a copy before. Pictures and renderings showed Bismarck upright on the bottom. Question, when Bismarck turned over on her way down, her main battery turrets fell away. Why did the 5.9 secondary turrets remain attached? Are they locked onto their races somehow?

Thanks.

Good question! The only calibre of naval artillery on Bismarck that was not locked in and were gravity-mounted were... The 15in guns. The secondaries were all locked in by plates or joints to keep them (the lighter guns) from either falling out by heavy seas or from jumping out when firing. They did the designing before they built it so everything was set in stone, more or less.

From what I understand, the Bismarck, after capsizing (loosing her turrets on or near the surface and having her stern and admiral's bridge blown off my hydrodynamical forces), did have an angled descent trajectory while staying relatively upright (after flipping back over after capsizing). That would explain why she was hard to find, she sank in one place, drifted underwater to another on her journey down, and finally sailed through the mud down the slope of the volcano she landed on to her final resting place. That would also explain the strewn out placement of the debris, besides the current of course. The heavier pieces (the turrets, the admiral's bridge, and the stern) would have gone almost straight down from their breaking spot (where Bismarck really sank) to the bottom (where they are now).

I agree with Bill, from what I saw from the Cameron footage were the turret tops almost completely submerged in sea floor mud. You can barely see the turrets, they appear in the rippled mud here and there. So the faces are almost completely covered. Another way I could see the turrets identified, is the number of stories they have, from what I understood some had more or less than others. Also if some more barrel was showing we could possibly determine which one was Dora(?), the one what had it's barrels split open from a hit, unless that happened to more than I saw in the paintings...

I'd love to be able to study the gunhouses, but it doesn't look too likely that we will ever get a chance to do so.

Not without disturbing the wreck (which I would vehemously dissaprove of, for it is a wargrave of thousands of poor and brave German sailors). The only real way would be to use a propulsor of some sort to blow the mud out of the way, then if the things don't collapse or fall over you could possibly see them.