Re: Main Turrets?
Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2009 6:55 pm
When Bismarck rolled over she cannot have gone completely over, or the turrets would have fallen out immediately and would be closely grouped on the ocean bed. The fact that these super heavy structures (1000 tons each) are scatttered, indicates that the ship carried them down for some way and they dropped away at different intervals. (see resurfacing thread).
I would tend to think the ship remained inverted as she went down and with so much air still inside her the descent would be slow. As the depth increased the intense pressure would have crushed the air inside the hull reducing bouyancy so that the accelerating descent righted her. I expect there is an engineer somewhere who could tell us at what depth the air would have been fully compressed, or compressed to the point where it lent no bouyancy to the hull.
The final descent would have been at good speed and the impact very great, which I believe is confirmed by the way the bottom shell plating has been blown outwards by the force of water in the hull. Much of the superstructure will have toppled at this point and would not likely have fallen off on simple inversion. Other wrecks where the hull has remained inverted have the superstructure still in place, but crushed into the sea bed.
I think a good gauge of the force of that impact can be seen where the heavy hinges on the armoured port side door to the forward gunnery control have fracture allowing the massively thick door to settle on the bridge deck. That would require some force.
Vic Dale
I would tend to think the ship remained inverted as she went down and with so much air still inside her the descent would be slow. As the depth increased the intense pressure would have crushed the air inside the hull reducing bouyancy so that the accelerating descent righted her. I expect there is an engineer somewhere who could tell us at what depth the air would have been fully compressed, or compressed to the point where it lent no bouyancy to the hull.
The final descent would have been at good speed and the impact very great, which I believe is confirmed by the way the bottom shell plating has been blown outwards by the force of water in the hull. Much of the superstructure will have toppled at this point and would not likely have fallen off on simple inversion. Other wrecks where the hull has remained inverted have the superstructure still in place, but crushed into the sea bed.
I think a good gauge of the force of that impact can be seen where the heavy hinges on the armoured port side door to the forward gunnery control have fracture allowing the massively thick door to settle on the bridge deck. That would require some force.
Vic Dale