Bismarck at DS after the second turn

Discussions about the history of the ship, technical details, etc.

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Re: Bismarck at DS after the second turn

Post by Bill Jurens »

@ Antonio:

I certainly can identify with your reluctance to in effect re-do all that you have been done before, using what I suspect is somewhat different -- and probably much more tedious methodology. Using this approach, however, should quickly begin to reveal -- in any particular case, and provided the item under discussion is sufficiently well-defined -- exactly where disagreements occur and enable us to at least determine where (and if) irreconcilable differences begin.

I might suggest, as a stepping off point that the re-construction of the track chart would require successive agreements upon the relative position, speed and course for each ship in the action at successive times. Thus, given any time 't', we would have, for each ship of interest, a value of course 'c', a value of speed 's', and values of relative bearing "rb" and distance 'd' for at least three other vessels. If we assign letters to the ship names, e.g. B, E,H,W,N,and S, which should be evident to anyone even fairly familiar with the action itself, then we could generate a table which, for any time 't' would, for six ships, yield -- if my math is correct -- 2 + 10 = 12 values, i.e. course and speed for the ship in question, plus twin values of relative bearings and distances for the other five ships in the equation. If there are six ships, then we would need to generate a total of six sets for each time 't', a total -- again if my math is correct -- something like 6 x 12 = 72 values for each time. The problem is complicated by the necessity -- or at least desirability -- of defining exactly what time 't' is, i.e. to account for the fact that two times listed identically might actually be anything up to one full minute out of synchronization.

This represents a very daunting task indeed. But it would reveal both the strengths and weaknesses of any proposed track chart reconstruction, whilst at the same time enabling very specific discussions regarding the precise derivations of any particular sets of values at any particular time. I am not sure, given the data available, that it is actually possible to do this, but your (Antonio's) reconstruction, if converted into this form, even for a few critical times, should enable comparison with alternative reconstructions, particularly if they are presented in a similar format.

Perhaps, as a jumping off point, we could attempt do this commencing at a time 't' of 0555. Your (Antonio's)value set could then be compared with a similar set produced for instance by Wadinga, who could either produce an alternative set of numbers or demonstrate why even this particular step in the sequence is impossible.

We could, then, in an ideal situation, and if agreement can be achieved at any time 't', successively step down the track chart for the entire action at agreed upon intervals.

A BIG job, but perhaps the only one which will result in something resembling a consensus.

Bill Jurens
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Antonio Bonomi
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Re: Bismarck at DS after the second turn

Post by Antonio Bonomi »

Hello everybody,

@ Bill Jurens,

I see what you mean and maybe you will be surprised about it, but that is exactly what I did on 2005 in a reduced scale details.

This is what I have done after on the last 13 years in a much bigger scale including the Norfolk and the Suffolk ( incorrectly not considered so important on my 2005 work ) while enlarging the scope of my work back until the first interception on the 23rd evening, in order to understand exactly what the Suffolk and the Norfolk did, and the reasons of what happened during that night and in the early morning, immediately before the battle started.

Lately we have analyzed also the 6 Royal Navy destroyers, but lets forget about the 23rd night and the destroyers for this exercise.

So I am very familiar with the methodology and how that translate into a big and very detailed map, where all the data you mentioned above are precisely positioned minute after minute one after the other and associated with all the available information from all the different sources, so you can verify all the inputs too for all the 6 warships involved.

The computer graphic big scale support I am using, does exactly what you described above with your " 6 x 12 = 72 values ", allowing you to control in real time the course, speed and relative bearing positioning one versus the other of all the 6 warships involved minute by minute, completely.

Bottom line I am ready and I have no problems on doing it once again with you, and supporting your " new " methodology, because I know exactly upfront where everything is going to end up being.

For me it will be just a double check and an additional verification, so lets do it.

My problem, ... our problem, ... is to have the acceptance and the agreement on what the data and evidence will demonstrate from the persons that do not like the reality and the historical truth to surface changing what they have been reading and understanding from superficial and largely incorrect one side mainly driven battle accounts on the last 77 years.

In this regard, having your support about it added to my re-construction work once double checked and additionally validated with your methodology will hopefully remove the strong reluctance to accept the reality as it shows that we all can read here in way too often.

I am ready anytime, ... just tell me how you like to proceed on this effort.

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 )
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Re: Bismarck at DS after the second turn

Post by northcape »

Alberto Virtuani wrote: Fri Nov 09, 2018 9:04 pm
For the time being, despite all the "philosophic" considerations about methodology, NOBODY has been able to propose a better (=more precise and respectful of the evidences) battle reconstruction that Antonio's one: "in essence, in one sentence: The theory can not be" COUNTERED and this is a FACT, looking at the last posts.

Bye, Alberto
Again so much misunderstanding in just two sentences here:

1) A clear discrimination between assumptions, theories, interpretaions, and facts are not "philosophic considerations", but should be butter and bread for anyone who is interested (or at least pretends to do so) in approaching the truth. I know that we live in post-factual times, but I guess I'm just old-fashioned when it comes to facts and the scientific method.

2) "(=more precise)": What should that silly statement mean? A&A never specified an estimate of precision, how do you quantify the accuracy in that reconstruction? You could do it by the law of error propagation, which however would require (1) a mathematical model of the entire reconstruction and (2) estimates of the errors in the input data. But I have never seen any of them. Of course, a very good precision estimator would be the check against independent information, but also, this independent information does not exist.

3) "Respectful of evidence": Now the only relevant thing would be "verified against check points". "Evidence" can be anything, e.g. A&A also use propaganda oil paintings as hard information. "Respectful" is very vague and thus also meaningless.

4) "The Theory can not be countered". Of course, it is all the time. Examples again? Use of paintings as hard information. Use of untimed photos, Use of untimed film with unknown frame rate. Taking hand-drawings (=estimates) of ship tracks for granted. Etc. etc. In short, confusing a broad range of subjective interpretations with hard and error-free objective data. Now this closes the circle to point (1) above.
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Re: Bismarck at DS after the second turn

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Q.E.D.

Just philosophical and methodological vague considerations (as we were here demonstrating a mathematical theorem, instead of building an historical reconstruction).

No alternative, no proposal for a different interpretation of facts, no alternative method to be used, no proof presented to counter the evidences (PoW salvo plot and PG battlemap, in primis + all cross-bearings available between the ships that nail their position at a certain time + analysis of film and photos correlating them to the battlemap), just the unfounded claim that we use paintings as evidence (while the boss of these people uses "captions" :lol: ): the painting is used just as further confirmation of what has already been geometrically calculated :kaput: .

Denial is a very bad habit, difficult to die: I would suggest again to these guys to follow Mr.Jurens advise and WORK (if able) to produce something instead of simply hysterically repeat: "No, your reconstruction is wrong" (while it respects all available evidences and the battle actually happened on May 24, with 6 ships involved. positioned in a precise place, at a precise distance one from the others), being totally unable to build a different one and to counter the foundations of Antonio's battlemap (very inconvenient for their beloved, long time dead, Kennedy's fairy-tale :lol: ).


Bye, Alberto
Last edited by Alberto Virtuani on Sun Nov 11, 2018 9:40 am, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: Bismarck at DS after the second turn

Post by Antonio Bonomi »

Hello everybody,

@ Bill Jurens,

I think we can start with some key points on the verification.

What about : 05:30 ; 05:41 ; 05:55 ; 06:00 as a starting positions to be verified ?

NOTE : I have started all my work based on the exact position of the Hood wreck, so my large map is also geographically perfectly positioned as far as geographical longitude and latitude references. I did it in order to be able to verify the Suffolk and Norfolk radio communication position errors and how those errors were increasing progressively thru the 23rd night.


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 )
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Re: Bismarck at DS after the second turn

Post by Bill Jurens »

Hello gentlemen.

I did want to hold back any ideas I had, in order to see how various other commentaries went.

It is good to experience a period -- which I hope might continue -- of relatively civil and respectful discussion.

My perspective now is that we seem to have essentially two viewpoints, viz.

a) The existing documentation is sufficient, given careful analysis, to permit a reconstruction that is, in reality quite accurate and precise, e.g. capable of locating ships within a hundred meters or so of their actual positions throughout at least the most significant portions of the actions.

b) The existing documentation is so sparse and unreliable as to render anything other than a very approximate reconstruction -- one might even say 'generalization' -- possible.

While it would be unreasonable to claim -- although I don't think anyone has actually attempted to do that -- that Mr. Bonomi's reconstruction is absolutely perfect in every way, it would also be unreasonable to claim that there is no way to improve and bring existing data into better congruence at all. My own feeling, for what it is worth, is that options 'a' and 'b' above actually represent the extremes of a spectrum with the truth probably lying somewhere in between. My perception has been that the insertion of inflammatory comments, instead of working towards the construction of a reasonable consensus, have instead driven various participants into two highly polarized groups, with more effort being put into proving the other side wrong than proving one's own side right. And that's not, I think, really the best way to go.

Detailed methodology of subsequent work being left aside for now, I think three initial steps are in order before the opposing sides can even begin to close upon a reasonable solution. These are:

a) An absolute ban, by any participant, in ad-hominems, and various and sundry other derogatory comments. Let's fight the facts rather than fighting ourselves. Our axiom might be 'Honest and intelligent men can disagree".

b) Agreement, if possible, as to exactly what documents might fairly be included as relevant to the disucssion, and agreement, if possible, as to exactly how the validity of various sources might be rated. In what order, for example, might we arrange the reliability of the various track charts already published in primary and secondary sources, and what relative weight might we best assign 'testus unis' testimony.

c) Agreement, if possible, on some sort of initial jumping-off point upon which we can all agree. If we are to proceed chronologically, might we best begin at one end of the track chart and proceed sequentially through to the other, or might it be possible to begin at several intermediate points, proceeding forward and back from those, thereafter attempting to make intermediate intersections agree. Mr. Bonomi has, I believe, suggested something similar to this in an immediately previous memo, but others might legitimately disagree.

The key is to find some common ground, if any exists, from which we can slowly expand our radius of analysis. Seeing how far we can, as a group, proceed afterwards, will probably pretty quickly reveal whether or not any overall consensus on the overall action is possible. In that regard, it's important to realize that

a) how one subsequently handles any facts at hand is at least as important as obtaining the various facts in the first place, and

b) that it is very important to decide how to best discriminate between fact and supposition as early as possible.

This process is, I think, much more easily achieved by trained and experienced historians and it is important, I think, to realize that none of the participants here, to my knowledge, is either of those. This means that we will probably have to spend much more time arguing over issues which trained historians might have long ago dismissed as routine. (It might be said that that is essentially what we have been doing up to now...) It's also important to remember that often trained historians end up disagreeing, often fundamentally, on exactly what conclusions might be considered appropriate after examination of any given database 'x'.

It's a jigsaw puzzle often with an ill-defined 'target picture', and many pieces missing.

I am not sure at this point whether or not there are sufficient participants to even begin to move this process forward. It may indeed be true, as some have already proposed, that the existing database is so sparse as to render any very detailed and definitive construction impossible. Be that the case, and should that case remain, then -- without ascribing malice to either side -- it may indeed be the case that no meaningful consensus is possible. Be that the case, then about the best we can do is to conclude that, as before, honest and intelligent men can disagree.
Honest and intelligent men can also subsequently decide as to which version(s) of the Denmark Strait track chart are indeed the most historically useful one(s).

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Re: Bismarck at DS after the second turn

Post by Antonio Bonomi »

Hello everybody,

@ Bill Jurens,

I see your opinion and I am ok in both cases, either you like to do this verification here in or not.

My first work is out since 2005, reviewed by Erminio Bagnasco and published on the Storia Militare magazine.

As said, that was the early work I did just to demonstrate R. Winklareth being incorrect with his theory and to properly publish the available photos in the correct sequence associated to a good enough battle map.

That first early 2005 version alone is more than sufficient to counter and eliminate forever very soon what in this forum somebody is trying to sustain without even proposing anything to be evaluated as an alternative map, simply because it will immediately become evident that it will be an impossible theory, like the Winklareth and Vic Dale ones.

As I wrote you above what you like to do now here in is already in my hands and on my new large scale map since years, very precisely and it will be published with all the related supporting reference documentation in few years anyhow.
It will not be so different from the 2005 work, only much more precise and supported by more official evidence.

Many years ago, on 2003, Dr. George Elder was writing in this forum and was commenting my early challenge to R. Winklareth published book theory and suggested me that the only way to counter somebody else work, published and supported by reference documentation was to produce a better and more detailed and supported work able to achieve that goal. That is exactly what I did with my 2005 work.

I do not see yet any work done by anybody able to challenge what I wrote and published supported by the referenced documents and reviewed by a very well known senior historian like Erminio Bagnasco is since many years.

Anyway, waiting to see what you will like to do , ... I will continue my analysis here in of the photos taken after 06:06 battle time in order to improve my works.

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 )
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Re: Bismarck at DS after the second turn

Post by wadinga »

Hello Bill Jurens,

Thank you for this most reasonable suggestion.


It seems likely "honest and intelligent men" might very well come to different conclusions even were they given equal access to identical information. Here the difficulty lies in situations like:
Well, I have read the secret document that Jasper wrote to Raeder after the mission, have you ?

If you have something to say, please find the courage in yourself, be a man once in your life and tell us what you have in your little brain.

Since this gentleman apparently specializes in invective and not individual research, it would seem he and his co-author share the latter's investigative work and then privately decide whether "Victory" for their argument and the crushing of any other opinions will best be served by sharing, redacting or completely withholding information. In this particular instance it would appear the Red Rage engendered by spewing forth insults led to a temporary loss of memory over the status of something that was meant to remain hidden.

There has been from the very beginning showing redacted maps, significant and consistent withholding of information, in this as well as the notorious "Silver Bullet" case, where the desire to "rubbish" and defeat by any means possible, fair or foul, any other "loosing" opinions leads to the use of morally-blind intelligence and the diminution even of the pretence of honesty.

This refusal to share information to allow truly co-operative working continues even up to the present time:
and the only one of us who has apparently been to the Bundesarchiv and handled the actual photographic material refuses point blank to reveal what is written on or with the photographs. He chooses not to say at all what it is, rather than show it and then explain why in his opinion, the witness is wrong and he is right.

Antonio wishes to discuss certain "milestones" and I have asked him whether he stands by what he considered earlier:
But the credit to have resolved this ' enigma ' goes to Wadinga that clearly addressed the issue

Now I think we all can say with a very high confidence level that Nh 69729 was surely taken midship as I said , between the catapult and the crane.

It shows Bismarck coming 90 degrees to Prinz Eugen beam on starboard side.

but is contradicted by his own maps reproduced above, which do not show the ship's courses at right angles. An easy matter (surely) for the creator of a scenario of:
with 6 ships involved. positioned in a precise place, at a precise distance one from the others
to resolve.

All the best

wadinga
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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: Bismarck at DS after the second turn

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hello everybody,
Wadinga wrote: "Since this gentleman apparently specializes in invective and not individual research"
Again ? Cornered by all the evidences already presented (there is NO need of any further info to reconstruct the battlemap), unable to present his own tracks (as requested several times), this guy (specialized in denial and not in individual research) is back with quibbling over minor (possible, in his own opinion) discrepancies and low accusations, instead of starting to work at his own battlemap ( :shock: ).

Does Mr.Wadinga want to start back insults ? Can Mr.Jurens please STOP him immediately before I feel compelled to answer in the only way he deserves ? Thanks in advance.


Bye, Alberto
Last edited by Alberto Virtuani on Tue Nov 13, 2018 3:21 pm, edited 6 times in total.
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Re: Bismarck at DS after the second turn

Post by Antonio Bonomi »

Hello everybody,

@ Alberto Virtuani,

Bravo ! … :clap:

As said my 2005 battle reconstruction is out there available.

Who likes to challenge it with a similar or even better work is kindly required to produce his own version of the facts to be compared, ... apple to apple, ... battle track map to battle track map, ... with the related accounts and the reference documentation.

Useless words are not helping here now, ... just the opposite.


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 )
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Re: Bismarck at DS after the second turn

Post by Bill Jurens »

Mr. Virtuani wrote:

"Can Mr.Jurens please STOP him immediately before I feel compelled to answer in the only way he deserves ? Thanks in advance."

As I am not a moderator, I have no capability to stop or otherwise control anything that might be posted on this board. That being said, I do do what I can, unofficially, to encourage meaningful, i.e. relatively invective-free, discussion(s). The maintenance of a civil tone in correspondence would seem to me essential; I cannot really recall any cases where a militant or aggressive posting by anyone on either side of an argument has led to progress in resolving a disagreement.

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Re: Bismarck at DS after the second turn

Post by Byron Angel »

Best of luck in returning this forum to the ranks of the collegial. One modest proposal ..... eliminate the use of emojis.

B
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Re: Bismarck at DS after the second turn

Post by wadinga »

Hello Alberto,

Again? Really? Oh OK.
Well, I have read the secret document that Jasper wrote to Raeder after the mission, have you ?

What's in it?
Who found it, you or Antonio?
Why are you hiding it?


All the best

wadinga
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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: Bismarck at DS after the second turn

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Why is this guy still speaking to me, provoking after the tones here are finally ameliorating ? Because he wants a fight, having lost a discussion !
Was I speaking to him posting the above ? NO. I suggest to read back and TRY to understand (if able).

Why is this guy not yet working (as suggested by everybody) to present his "theory" (if we can call it this way), instead of pitiably begging what he will NEVER have anyway ? Because he is simply unable to do it (I can tell him that he needs NO additional secret info to do his homework).


Bye, Alberto
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Re: Bismarck at DS after the second turn

Post by wadinga »

Hello Alberto,
Cornered by all the evidences already presented (there is NO need of any further info to reconstruct the battlemap)

As has been the case since the beginning you and Antonio attempt to distort and control other people's independent assessments by withholding material in your possession that might damage your scenario, and insisting others have "all they need to know".


I can tell him that he needs NO additional secret info to do his homework
All they need to know in order to come to your conclusion.

pitiably begging what he will NEVER have anyway

The basis of this forum is free and fair exchange of information. If historical records are used as evidence they should be presented for all to evaluate.
Well, I have read the secret document that Jasper wrote to Raeder after the mission, have you ?

What's in it?
Who found it, you or Antonio?
Why are you hiding it?


All the best

wadinga
"There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today!"
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