Firstly an apology to Mr Virtuani. There was apparently no need to employ the practice of redaction since the second sentence did not contradict the first, according to our native German speaker. Also I am unclear how emphasising his relevant experience is at all "mocking" or insinuates anything. A straight question, If you had known your fire control solution was lagging behind the target because you were turning too fast would you still have fired? How would missing because you were turning at an unknown rate and which would soon change again help re-acquire the target?
Herr Nilsson Once again a straight unbiased contribution, thank you. So am I right in understanding:
That Jasper says shells were fired during the two turns and the shots landed laterally displaced from the target, presumably because the "Seitenvorzündwerk could not compensate for the extreme turn including the heeling Busch describes. Further that the:Due to that (literally "in connection with that" and "that" means turning and firing) the battery was temporarily displaced laterally from the target two times.
is merely the claim ( superfical explanations) from the designers/manufacturers. But because of the inevitable lag (and filtering of jitter and extreme values) the gyros in these "Vorsprung durch Technik" systems could not deliver what their designers hoped they could deliver, ie a correct solution compensating forany and all circumstances of vessel motion.Even if the ship turns rolls or pitch the complete firing solution is permanently corrected automatically.
They were sensibly designed around minor yaw and rolling movements but not the extreme turns PG undertook. Whatever "Vorzündwinkel" was applied, it was clearly wrong.
As Thorsten has said:
This complex automatic system thus required manual override and Jasper confirms it was inadequate to prevent wasted shots (displaced laterally is surely gunnery officer jargon for complete miss) fired as Prinz Eugen was turning.It requires additonal observing of target movements and additional manual corrections to overcome the potential error by lagging.
IMHO familiarity with the performance of modern fire control systems is irrelevant in regard to those of the 1940s. Advances in Gyros including GPS gyros and electronic computer Kalman filtering to derive real trends out of noisy values, features with which I am familiar from Seismic surveying, are nothing like 1940s systems. Firing during the turns PG made was clearly a waste of time and ammunition.
Does he say whether it was done at full speed with hard over rudder in a North Atlantic swell? I suspect not.According to Paul Schmalenbach Prinz Eugen held firing exercises later in war with complete 360 degrees turns and the shell impacts succesfully stood on target
Thorsten, you may attribute, I believe, the very first exposure of the erroneous nature of the story of the "plunging shot" to none other than Bill Jurens, whose 1987 Warship International article revealed the low angle at which any shot from Bismarck would have arrived at Hood. Those TV writers have merely parroted the error several generations of writers have made. However, just because one Revisionist has got something right..........................BTW, obtaining a "good firing solution" is by no means a trivial process, as one could derive from the superfical explanations of naval historicans in all Hood and Bismarck TV documentations. In my eyes, they have absolutely no clue about naval gunfire and ... control. The highlight is the "plunging shot", wich caused the loss of Hood falling almost vertically from the sky.
All the best
wadinga