More on KGV Class main armament problems

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wadinga
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Re: More on KGV Class main armament problems

Post by wadinga »

Fellow Contributors,

Hi Alberto,
the document that I cannot show them,
OK don't show us, just tell us what is in it, we might believe you.
and this should be the end of the story
You wish to promote your point of view in this forum whilst admitting withholding information, and on occasion taunting those who do not have access.
where is this info coming from to Godding? Was he on board?)
I have explained, he was in Y turret unlike Barben. He was an Ordnance Artificer. The guy who makes the guns go bang.

As for accepting the proposed timing of the film. Never. It is as wrong now as the day it was proposed, but this thread is about the KG V class armament.

No wonder Gerald Langley Head of the Gunnery and AA Warfare wrote on 26th August 1941
Serious defects arose in her main armament turrets.....
and Tovey wrote
The loss of output in PoW's case might have been much greater had it not been for the energetic measures taken to remedy defects before, during and between the different engagements.
By men like Godding who were there and saw what was going wrong.

All the best

wadinga
"There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today!"
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Re: More on KGV Class main armament problems

Post by Bill Jurens »

I was away from the computer on a brief vacation over the past few days, so have let daily commentary and moderation slip. This happens from time to time.

Having skimmed the previous few day's submissions, although I would say that many comments approached the line of acceptability, none of the infractions on either side were sufficiently egregious to justify deletion, banning, or redaction. The line between 'fair comment' and unacceptable criticism is rather broad and grey, and one must remember that taking offense and creating offense are are really not quite the same thing.

I would ask again that participants refrain from the use of 'emojis'. If they are used -- and there probably is SOME use for them -- please use them sparingly, and always use them in a positive role. It is difficult for anyone to be really offended by a single smiling emoji, which really simply expresses agreement, but much easier to be offended by multiple emoji's demonstrating wagging fingers and heads hitting brick walls. Those are the ones we need to avoid.

Some recent discussion has revolved around the alleged withholding of documentary evidence, either in whole or in part. While one can appreciate the legitimacy of this procedure from time to time, and understand that the provision of a complete text is often impossible for a variety of reasons, I can see little justification in withholding the gist of the missing material in the interim. In many cases, a short summary of the missing material might do just as well, and would allow other readers to determine if the redacted material is likely to be of any significant consequence.

Bill Jurens.
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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: More on KGV Class main armament problems

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hello everybody,
Wadinga wrote: "he was in Y turret unlike Barben"
Thanks, my mistake, it's so easy to get confused and to admit an error.

Therefore we have McMullen (report signed by Leach) and Barben stating that the problem was the shell ring jamming. Their version of facts is confimed and adopted by Tovey and later by Mr Bevir at the Admiralty, taking actions to fix the shell ring problem and not the shell hoist one.
On the other side, we have an artificer who remember something different... Another "cover-up" from the high ranks of the RN? Was only the central hoist impacted and not the whole turret ? Was PoW still able to re-engage immediately with 8 guns available ? Interesting....

IMO, however, Godding simply misremembered, confusing the main problem with the minor one that affected Y3 gun (see here http://www.hmshood.org.uk/reference/off ... 09guns.htm).


Wadinga wrote: "As for accepting the proposed timing of the film. Never. "
Of course, being totally unable to counter the arguments that demonstrate when the film was turned (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8491&p=82759&hilit=railings#p82759)...
A fair admission that there is no alternative whatsoever would have been much more dignifying.



Bye, Alberto
"It takes three years to build a ship; it takes three centuries to build a tradition" (Adm.A.B.Cunningham)

"There's always a danger running in the enemy at close range" (Adm.W.F.Wake-Walker)
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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: More on KGV Class main armament problems

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hello everybody,
Bill Jurens wrote: "I would say that many comments approached the line of acceptability, none of the infractions on either side were sufficiently egregious to justify deletion, banning, or redaction."
Therefore, it is accepted that a forum member can provoke at each post he writes in a week: fine, everybody will reach his conclusions.


Bye, Alberto
"It takes three years to build a ship; it takes three centuries to build a tradition" (Adm.A.B.Cunningham)

"There's always a danger running in the enemy at close range" (Adm.W.F.Wake-Walker)
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Re: More on KGV Class main armament problems

Post by paul.mercer »

Gentlemen,
This topic is going the same way as 'PoW's readiness for active service' and other topics before it,
Is it not time to shut this one down as well as we appear to be going in circles without any definite points being made and no definite conclusions arrived at with only increasingly hostile posts thrown at one another?
Perhaps Bill would like to comment and make the final decision?
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Re: More on KGV Class main armament problems

Post by HMSVF »

Bill Jurens wrote: Sun Jun 30, 2019 1:46 am I was away from the computer on a brief vacation over the past few days, so have let daily commentary and moderation slip. This happens from time to time.

Having skimmed the previous few day's submissions, although I would say that many comments approached the line of acceptability, none of the infractions on either side were sufficiently egregious to justify deletion, banning, or redaction. The line between 'fair comment' and unacceptable criticism is rather broad and grey, and one must remember that taking offense and creating offense are are really not quite the same thing.

I would ask again that participants refrain from the use of 'emojis'. If they are used -- and there probably is SOME use for them -- please use them sparingly, and always use them in a positive role. It is difficult for anyone to be really offended by a single smiling emoji, which really simply expresses agreement, but much easier to be offended by multiple emoji's demonstrating wagging fingers and heads hitting brick walls. Those are the ones we need to avoid.

Some recent discussion has revolved around the alleged withholding of documentary evidence, either in whole or in part. While one can appreciate the legitimacy of this procedure from time to time, and understand that the provision of a complete text is often impossible for a variety of reasons, I can see little justification in withholding the gist of the missing material in the interim. In many cases, a short summary of the missing material might do just as well, and would allow other readers to determine if the redacted material is likely to be of any significant consequence.

Bill Jurens.

Bill,

My apologies! I was watching a film with the missus whilst secretly reading the thread! 3 claps were sent as it was less obvious than typing out a reply!
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Re: More on KGV Class main armament problems

Post by HMSVF »

paul.mercer wrote: Sun Jun 30, 2019 9:53 am Gentlemen,
This topic is going the same way as 'PoW's readiness for active service' and other topics before it,
Is it not time to shut this one down as well as we appear to be going in circles without any definite points being made and no definite conclusions arrived at with only increasingly hostile posts thrown at one another?
Perhaps Bill would like to comment and make the final decision?

Totally agree Paul.

When you have one side disclosing sources and the other withholding them it's a pretty pointless exercise.Its essentially comes down to how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

Again, the case for prosecution is "unproven" - hindered as supposedly confirmatory evidences have been withheld.


Best wishes

HMSVF
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Re: More on KGV Class main armament problems

Post by Byron Angel »

The problem, as I see it, is this: One faction has studied the evidence and produced what they ardently believe and assert to be the definitively accurate account of the event. Others, myself included, view the evidence as being in many respects far too inconsistent and contradictory to make such a claim.

Drawing upon a religious metaphor, this has evolved (or devolved) into a struggle between the doctrine of papal infallibility versus the school of agnosticism. Whether these two schools of thought can ever be reconciled is a question I cannot answer.

Does anyone have any thoughts as to where we might go from here?


B
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Re: More on KGV Class main armament problems

Post by northcape »

Byron Angel wrote: Sun Jun 30, 2019 2:33 pm

Does anyone have any thoughts as to where we might go from here?


B
Nowhere.

As mentioned so many times before, the only constructive way forward is to avoid to get into religious discussions like this and don't open the door for missionaries. You have rightfully drawn a comparison to the disagreement between the parties of science (which is my translation of agnostics) and religion/ideology. In my view/experience, there is nothing to be gained from a discussion between these two parties. They just speak different language and have different aims. An ideology/religion is a statement/opinion without the need for any factual basis, so there is no way (or need) to counter it with facts and rationality. Of course it gets muddy when the missionaries leave their territority of the 10 commandments, and mix their dogmas with a wrong understanding of science.
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Re: More on KGV Class main armament problems

Post by Bill Jurens »

My thanks to those who have offered suggestions, etc. Often (one might say, usually) the best way to lead is to listen.

I would agree that there is essentially zero probability of the opposing viewpoints, one -- at least by my reading -- being that a fairly definitive history has already been created requiring only subsequent confirmation and refinement, the other being that the best reconstruction possible is that no very detailed and reliable reconstruction is actually possible at all, are once again at loggerheads.

In that regard, as has been done before, I think it reasonable at this point to close the thread down after everyone has -- and may take -- the opportunity to present one additional 'closing statement'. Contributors should phrase this carefully, as an overtly belligerent and/or aggressive tone, especially if it is directed in 'ad-hominem' style, is likely to be deleted or at least heavily redacted.

The thread was held open open a few weeks ago upon a request to do so pending the submission of some new material which might justify some additional discussion and/or potentially some reassessment. This material, which does indeed appear to be essentially new -- and for which we should all be grateful -- was indeed subsequently posted. My sense of it is that meaningful constructive commentary upon the content has by now been, for better or worse, exhausted.

In that regard, it is my intention to impose a voluntary shutdown of this thread after final submissions have been received, commencing about 36 hours from now. (I will post a concluding text.)

My intention is not to formally lock the thread. That being said, insofar as rehashing old evidence at this point probably represents a futile and frustrating endeavor, I would, as before, ask participants to refrain from additional posting (less, of course, their closing arguments mentioned above) unless and until commentary can be directed towards some new and particularly relevant documentary evidence. This essentially would follow the process, once delayed, that was originally intended to be put in place a little while ago.

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Re: More on KGV Class main armament problems

Post by HMSVF »

Bill Jurens wrote: Sun Jun 30, 2019 4:58 pm My thanks to those who have offered suggestions, etc. Often (one might say, usually) the best way to lead is to listen.

I would agree that there is essentially zero probability of the opposing viewpoints, one -- at least by my reading -- being that a fairly definitive history has already been created requiring only subsequent confirmation and refinement, the other being that the best reconstruction possible is that no very detailed and reliable reconstruction is actually possible at all, are once again at loggerheads.

In that regard, as has been done before, I think it reasonable at this point to close the thread down after everyone has -- and may take -- the opportunity to present one additional 'closing statement'. Contributors should phrase this carefully, as an overtly belligerent and/or aggressive tone, especially if it is directed in 'ad-hominem' style, is likely to be deleted or at least heavily redacted.

The thread was held open open a few weeks ago upon a request to do so pending the submission of some new material which might justify some additional discussion and/or potentially some reassessment. This material, which does indeed appear to be essentially new -- and for which we should all be grateful -- was indeed subsequently posted. My sense of it is that meaningful constructive commentary upon the content has by now been, for better or worse, exhausted.

In that regard, it is my intention to impose a voluntary shutdown of this thread after final submissions have been received, commencing about 36 hours from now. (I will post a concluding text.)

My intention is not to formally lock the thread. That being said, insofar as rehashing old evidence at this point probably represents a futile and frustrating endeavor, I would, as before, ask participants to refrain from additional posting (less, of course, their closing arguments mentioned above) unless and until commentary can be directed towards some new and particularly relevant documentary evidence. This essentially would follow the process, once delayed, that was originally intended to be put in place a little while ago.

Bill Jurens

Ok,closing statement.


In regards to POW's issues...


You have crew statements, you have ordnance officers and the admiralty (indeed Dudley Pound himself)all saying that she had serious problems. They all appear to state that the only reason that they managed as well as they did was due to bloody hard graft and the initiative,engineering nous and Vickers workmen fixing the problems before another issue arrived.


We have seen various Admiralty documents stating the issues. On the other side we have had a brief snippet of a document put together man who worked for the very people that assembled the weaponry system who seemingly wasn't as critical or concerned...

Companies and company employees aren't going to be over critical of their product - even if there are problems. We have seen that with a recent high profile example involving an aircraft manufacturer. The documents may back up the alternative thesis proposed, it may not on further examination. We will never know as it's been withheld. Which in itself is odd as, if it was damning as proposed, why not produce the evidence and end any speculation?
It could have been one of the "silver bullets" in the chamber which we were all promised but never heard fired.

For that reason and the lack of clarity (as we haven't been allowed to read the entire document used as evidence) means that again the proposed alternative thesis is (at best) unproven.

In regards to POW's supposedly excellent fire...

Excellent why? Excellent because the crew pulled off miracles trying to get the damned system to work? Excellent because the system was known to faulty, that they hadn't had anywhere near enough time to sort them out properly? Or excellent because whilst not being fired at they managed to mission kill (without knowing it) a ship that was larger, faster and better run in before their flagship ended up in 3 large pieces and a thousands of very small ones?
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Re: More on KGV Class main armament problems

Post by Francis Marliere »

alecsandros wrote: Fri Jun 28, 2019 10:37 am enemy target (PoW) was completely shrouded in chemical smoke
Gents, as far as I know, but I understand that I can be mistaken, smoke generators uncommon on large ships (they were fitted on destroyers and sometimes cruisers). Hence, POW probably emitted funnel smoke. Can someone confirm whether it was chemical or funnel smoke ?

Thanks
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Re: More on KGV Class main armament problems

Post by pgollin »

.

For a well run engineering department the normal funnel smake should vary between a light haze to dispersed light grey smoke. If a ship is hard worked (e.g. working up speed quickly) or has poorly balanced air supply then the smoke would be black and seem more voluminous.

Any oil fired ship could create additional smoke (a "smokescreen") by deliberately injecting additional oil - this would be black. In addition, SOMETIMES when firing guns funnel soot and the disturbance of the air/oil supple MIGHT lead to a "puff" of black smoke (this is more commonly seen with small craft and exploding depth charges).

At least for the RN any chemical smokescreen would be white. The KGV's weren't (AFAIK) equipped with smoke generators, but would probably have smoke floats.

Almost any additional smoke would have been caused by the guns firing.

.
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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: More on KGV Class main armament problems

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hello everybody,

first of all, I see that someone (who?) has totally removed a provoking post, insinuating low motivations behind my reasons for being here.
However, despite my gratitude for having saved my time in answering to the "poster", I must say that this way of cancelling a whole post, without leaving any trace, without a signature of who has done it, without the explanation of the reasons and without the communication of the subsequent decided sanctions, is not an example of transparency, IMHO...

Can we all know who has done that in this way and why, please ?




Having been very busy at work, I will answer to some previous posts and then I will provide the conclusions re. the topic:
"When you have one side disclosing sources and the other withholding them it's a pretty pointless exercise...Again, the case for prosecution is "unproven""
When one side has made an historical research, producing and presenting here so many, never published evidences from Official Documents, Archives, ship's plans, maps etc. while the other side has produced only a few "self-goals" (e.g. the May 31 Tovey's letter to Pound...) and few more, or has even tried to hide the crystal clear content of ADM 205/10 papers, it's a pretty useless exercise.
Again, the only line of defense of the "adamant deniers" side is "insufficient evidences", "indeterminateness", "fog of war" and "innocent errors", because they prefer to still trust the old official story accounted by British to the world for so many years about this battle, instead of working to an analysis of the gunnery based on the available evidences.

"One faction has studied the evidence and produced what they ardently believe and assert to be the definitively accurate account of the event. Others, myself included, view the evidence as being in many respects far too inconsistent and contradictory to make such a claim."
Q.E.D. (see above)
Thanks for admitting that we have at least "studied", while others have just criticized someone else work.

"You have rightfully drawn a comparison to the disagreement between the parties of science (which is my translation of agnostics) and religion/ideology."
Agnosticism = Science ? Mathematical and logical demonstrations = Ideology ? Very curious statement above: I suggest to try to counter the arguments with facts instead of speaking philosophy....

"...We have seen various Admiralty documents stating the issues...."
.. and nobody says here that there was no issue with the guns/mountings, as well as we are sure there were issues with PG guns (see her KTB) and probably with Bismarck guns as well. I'm more than happy to accept that (as any new gun/mounting) there were needs for fixing problems, before getting to fully reliable weapons. We have to thank Mr.Wadinga for having posted Mr.Bevir very interesting document that details the ameliorations put in place to avoid the repetition of the major problems (of which one only happened to PoW, after the decision to disengage and is therefore irrelevant for the judgment of her gunnery performance).
Regarding the Vickers report, I have been the first one to say that they were very interested parties, and that they must be taken with suspicion.
That's why we should look for the official reports, like the one mentioned in the Vickers report with which the results of the formal acceptance gunnery trials were sent to the Admiralty by a "commission composed of PoW officers, Admiralty reps and Vickers reps": it concluded that the above "trials were satisfactory"...





As closing statements re the topic:

We have already provided on this forum all the data and figures needed to prove that PoW guns, with all their problems, were fired in an "excellent" way by a "superb" G.O., even in line with the performances of Schneider with Bismarck (download/file.php?id=3463).
KGV did not do much better on May 27, confirming that PoW fired in a very good way despite the readiness status of the 14" turrets in general.

I'm afraid that the judgement on PoW actual gunnery performance on May 24 cannot be based on the "convenient story" accounted in almost all reports/accounts, but it has to be based on data and figures (shots, shells, RoF and effective values), their analysis and their comparison.
The only author who has partially done such a work up to now is M.Santarini and his conclusion is the reference re. PoW gunnery (download/file.php?id=3420), vindicating both PoW's and McMullen's performance. If you knows someone else, please let me know.
A better analysis might surely be done (and I hope it will be done when our book will be published or, possibly, even before if someone else will be interested in writing a serious analysis of the DS gunnery aspects).
As a plus compared to Santarini's one, our analysis will be based on a more detailed and precise reconstruction of the battle, compared to the one used by Santarini (timing and distances).

In any case, the false story of the ship that was unable to fire in a decent way during the battle, forcing the engagement to be broken off (invented only in order to easily justify the debatable decision of her Captain), it's over by now. No denial can change this fact.
All this forum members should be much grateful to Antonio Bonomi for having provided in the last years so many anticipations re. his work, with so many disclosures, also regarding gunnery aspects.





So said, I hope now some "posters" will at least answer the constructive question of Mr.Rico here (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8576#p84207).... I must say I'm astonished by the ability of some "posters" to write long posts on almost any topic and by their reluctance to provide a simple, clear answer (yes or no, without any way out...)
Let's see if they will decide to hide once again behind the "indeterminateness" excuse, instead of telling us at what time PG opened fire according to their understanding of the battle.




Bye, Alberto
"It takes three years to build a ship; it takes three centuries to build a tradition" (Adm.A.B.Cunningham)

"There's always a danger running in the enemy at close range" (Adm.W.F.Wake-Walker)
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José M. Rico
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Re: More on KGV Class main armament problems

Post by José M. Rico »

Alberto Virtuani wrote: Mon Jul 01, 2019 9:14 pm first of all, I see that someone (who?) has totally removed a provoking post, insinuating low motivations behind my reasons for being here.
However, despite my gratitude for having saved my time in answering to the "poster", I must say that this way of cancelling a whole post, without leaving any trace, without a signature of who has done it, without the explanation of the reasons and without the communication of the subsequent decided sanctions, is not an example of transparency, IMHO...
From now on inflamatory postings will be deleted entirely. We simply don't have the time to edit every post anymore.
Users are welcome to post their deleted messages again without the inflamatory comments.
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