Hello everybody,
@ Algonquin-R17,
you wrote :
I know you have discussed this 1990 map many times however even if it was only plotted by Paul Schmalenbach he was still a German officer present at the time. As such, in my opinion only, he would make his best efforts to record this event accurately, because it was a significant event in the German Navy. He would have no motivation to be sloppy about it as he was contributing to German Naval history.
I agree with you on the above statements, Paul Schmalenbach on 1960 did surely his best efforts to help Jochen Brennecke on realizing the DS battle map given what he had available at the time, and I assume his memories and few photos, based on what he wrote after on his 1978 map caption.
You added :
I do not know enough about it at this point however I will continue to study it. One statement that I will make is that I cannot accept that anyone, original battle participants or current naval students can determine from the film or photos at what compass bearing the ship was on based upon the direction the guns were pointing. Certainly any 12 opinions on that would not have a consensus about. I would need something more substantial than that to dismiss the map.
The study of what Paul Schmalenbach did to evolve his DS battle map realizations will surely help you to understand the whole evolution of this historical battle map re-construction.
I made this study myself on 2003, when I first started working on my DS battle map in order to challenge and demonstrate being wrong R. Winklareth theory about the Bismarck reverse photos.
It is a mandatory step to make, otherwise you run a risk to go in confusion with maps and books and year of their publication.
I already described the evolution showing the maps on the above links, but I can summarize it to make it easier for you to understand what Paul Schmalenbach did :
1) On 1960 he realized the above map for Jochen Brennecke book.
2) On 1971 he used that map on his Prinz Eugen Warship profile magazine publication.
3) On 1972 he already had made a different version of the battle map for the Bismarck Warship profile magazine publication.
Now I assume in the timeframe 1972 to 1978 the Prinz Eugen original battle map became available as well as the Prinz Eugen Rheinubung film.
In fact we had after realized by Paul Schmalenbach for his book on Prinz Eugen history a next evolution of the DS battle maps.
4) On 1978 he realized a new version of the battle map using the PG original track and drawing the Bismarck on top of it, still the British ship tracks were not correct, but in the photo caption Schmalenbach clearly described the process he used to determine the Bismarck correct track using the photo and film analyzed in the correct sequence of the events, now that he had the PG track and key events available associated to the correct timings. To be noted that he surely at that point had available other documents like the Jasper report, the Reimann torpedo report the PG KTB ... etcetera etcetera, ... so he could do from a German track stand point a much more complete work on their tracks.
5) On 1980 he was requested obviously by the Baron von Mullenheim Rechberg to work on his book map, together with Prof. Jurgen Rohwer from Stuttgart, and he obviously started from his 1978 German track map, but now he had also available the British correct tracks from the PoW documents having become available too, so he could really do finally his best merging all the available official information.
Even the Norfolk and Suffolk were finally placed in an almost correct position on this last realized DS battle map.
The result is the map we all know very well since it is widely used on all books and websites, like you can verify on this website as well as on the Hood website too.
This is what Paul Schmalenbach did and his maps evolution.
After having realized all this, that final 1980 DS battle map was the base of my 2003/2005 work that starting from that correct reference base, developed further more what Paul Schmalenbach correctly did already on 1980, in more details.
Last point is obviously related to the fact that the Baron von Mullenheim Rechberg used on 1990 for his second book edition the old and wrong 1960 first map realized by Paul Schmalenbach.
He did it after having utilized the last produced 1980 correct one, since the old wrong 1960 one was abandoned by Paul Schmalenbach himself long before obviously.
I do not have the answer to the reasons of this occurrence but only my personal opinion, ... and everybody can guess why he did it now.
What is for sure is the fact that the 1960 initial DS battle map is wrong by the own admission of Paul Schmalenbach who initially made it, having had after the original documents that made it obsolete and demonstrate its evident limits, just as we can all very easily verify with today original documents availability exactly like Paul Schmalenbach did on 1978/1980 long before us.
Hope it is all clear now, ...
Bye Antonio
In order to honor a soldier, we have to tell the truth about what happened over there. The whole, hard, cold truth. And until we do that, we dishonor her and every soldier who died, who gave their life for their country. ( Courage Under Fire )