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Bismarck secondary battery fire directors

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Expand view Topic review: Bismarck secondary battery fire directors

Re: Bismarck secondary battery fire directors

Post by RF » Mon Oct 11, 2010 12:47 pm

I believe that photo appeared in Ballard's book.

Re: Bismarck secondary battery fire directors

Post by Bernd Willmer » Sun Oct 10, 2010 3:42 pm

Have a close look at this foto:

Image

You see nothing ... right! Rangefinders still not fitted at St.B.II and B.B.II!

Bye!

Re: Bismarck secondary battery fire directors

Post by RF » Tue Sep 28, 2010 8:37 am

Yes.

But this situation does need to be put into context. One destroyer was sunk before it got into a position to fire its torpedoes. The other destroyer launched its torpedoes at long range, thereafter being immediately sunk. Captain Hoffmann in Scharnhorst misjudged the length of time the torpedoes would reach their target and turned his ship away from combing tracks too early, resulting in the one hit.
But for that error there would not have been a hit. ''Lucky hits'' at long range do happen.....

Re: Bismarck secondary battery fire directors

Post by Bgile » Mon Sep 27, 2010 3:55 pm

RF wrote:But the two destroyers were still sunk.


If two battleships couldn't sink a destroyer, that would be pretty pathetic wouldn't it? The fact is they got close enough to lauch effective torpedo attacks.

Re: Bismarck secondary battery fire directors

Post by RF » Mon Sep 27, 2010 9:04 am

But the two destroyers were still sunk.

Re: Bismarck secondary battery fire directors

Post by Bgile » Sat Sep 25, 2010 2:29 pm

Serg wrote:
yellowtail3 wrote:Speaking of Bismarck's secondary directors/battery... did she make any hits on any ships with those 5.9in guns?

Perhaps. In PoW's war damage report (http://www.hmshood.org.uk/reference/off ... 67-111.htm) there is no clarity about shells "F" and "G". As to Rodney damage the some doubt remains about the 6" holes through the petty officers mess.
In other cases the 5.9" guns of German BB's were very accurate. It is unknown how many hits scored on Ardent and Acasta but they definitely were sunk by 5.9" gunfire. DoY was hit once by Sharnhorst's secondary (5.9" shell hit the Admiral's barge and reduced it to 'a keel and a couple of engines' - Winton/The death of the Sharnhorst p119). Probably Renown was hit by 5.9" shell on the top of the forward funnel in the battle against twins. It's possible that the Bismarck scored hits also.


Two battleships failed to prevent two destroyers from pressing home a torpedo attack one at a time.

Re: Bismarck secondary battery fire directors

Post by Serg » Sat Sep 25, 2010 12:07 pm

yellowtail3 wrote:Speaking of Bismarck's secondary directors/battery... did she make any hits on any ships with those 5.9in guns?

Perhaps. In PoW's war damage report (http://www.hmshood.org.uk/reference/off ... 67-111.htm) there is no clarity about shells "F" and "G". As to Rodney damage the some doubt remains about the 6" holes through the petty officers mess.
In other cases the 5.9" guns of German BB's were very accurate. It is unknown how many hits scored on Ardent and Acasta but they definitely were sunk by 5.9" gunfire. DoY was hit once by Sharnhorst's secondary (5.9" shell hit the Admiral's barge and reduced it to 'a keel and a couple of engines' - Winton/The death of the Sharnhorst p119). Probably Renown was hit by 5.9" shell on the top of the forward funnel in the battle against twins. It's possible that the Bismarck scored hits also.

Re: Bismarck secondary battery fire directors

Post by RF » Thu Sep 23, 2010 12:44 pm

tommy303 wrote:To the best of my knowledge, she didn't land any 15cm hits, but she did repeatedly straddle Vian's destroyers during the attacks on the 26/27th.


I believe that was from the main armament 15 inch guns, the shells of which these destroyers picked up on their radar. I don't think that there was a clear evaluation of how the 15 cm performed, given that this sort of shooting was their primary function I would say that it was less than satisfactory from the German viewpoint.

Re: Bismarck secondary battery fire directors

Post by RF » Thu Sep 23, 2010 12:41 pm

The only possible hit that was apparently reported was an alleged hit by a 15 cm shell on one of Rodneys' 16 inch turrets. There was of course no damage and no corroboration.

Re: Bismarck secondary battery fire directors

Post by tommy303 » Wed Sep 22, 2010 7:10 pm

To the best of my knowledge, she didn't land any 15cm hits, but she did repeatedly straddle Vian's destroyers during the attacks on the 26/27th.

Re: Bismarck secondary battery fire directors

Post by yellowtail3 » Wed Sep 22, 2010 6:56 pm

Speaking of Bismarck's secondary directors/battery... did she make any hits on any ships with those 5.9in guns?

Re: Bismarck secondary battery fire directors

Post by RF » Tue Sep 21, 2010 5:34 pm

Thanks for your reply tommy.

Re: Bismarck secondary battery fire directors

Post by tommy303 » Thu Sep 16, 2010 7:29 pm

In German battleships, the low angle directors in all three control positions could be used with either the main or secondary batteries. There was no dedicated 15cm director, although normally the forward conning tower artillery post was the battle station for the secondary battery gunnery officer. The directors there were normally used with the 15cm, but could in fact be used with any low angle battery. When set to control the secondary guns, the gunnery switchboard simply directed input from the director to the secondary battery computers and output in the closed circuit to back to the directors for fine tuning of the solutions.

Bismarck secondary battery fire directors

Post by RF » Thu Sep 16, 2010 5:55 pm

I have been looking for info on the fire control system of Bismarck's 5.9 inch guns for some time, and I had imagined there might be some threads on this subject somewhere on this website, though so far I haven't found any.

T would be grateful if anyone can come up with some references etc

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