Photo Nh 69730 evaluation

[Vic Dale]

Hi to everyone.

This is my first post on this site, so let's put my head in the lion's mouth to start.

There is a detail which we have all missed and I have been looking at this photo for nearly 60 years.

Anton is out of line with the after turrets.

Think I am wrong?

I have checked this photo geometrically and have established the angle of view of the ship as being about 22 to 25 degrees from the starboard bow - established by a line intersecting the corner of the sa tarboard after hangar and the port forward corner of the rudder indicator box on the mainmast. Both these details are in vertical alignment, so it is pretty accurate

The after turrets are trained to a bearing 75 degrees of the port bow.

The longer of the guns of Anton is the right gun - see how the darker image of the shorter gun-muzzle cuts across the lighter image of the longer gun. That is the first clue.

Conclusive proof of what I am saying comes when we draw an arc on a detailed drawing of the ship, to represent the sweep of the muzzles around the turret's centre point, as the guns are trained to various bearings to port. We can draw radius lines to intersect the arc at 75 degrees and 20 degrees - the latter position is where I maintain the guns of anton are trained.

Using the correct line of sight (22 to 25 degrees off the starboard bow) we can draw a line from where the gun muzzles would be and see where it intersects the centreline of the ship.

If Anton is trained to the same bearing as the after turrets, the muzzles would be in line with the anchors, nearly all the way to the bow. In my view (20 degrees to port) the muzzles appear midway between the turret and the bow as can be seen in NH69730.

I have a nice drawing I can send if anyone who would like to see it, but as yet I do not know how to post images to this site. Alternatively they can visit the HMS Hood Website forum where this matter is already under discussion.

Incidentally, the gun muzzles of the heavy flak visible in the foreground are those of the starboard middle flak and the shot has been taken from the doorway slightly forward of the mounting. Prinz Eugen has turned to starboard and Bismarck having turned in response to the torpedo alarms has turned back to have another go at Prince of Wales.

If this view was from Prinz Eugen's port side, her wake would extend clear and unbroken back to the faint detail Antonio has noticed near the horizon.

warmest regards

Vic

[Bgile]

Vic,

What isn't clear to me is what direction you think Anton is pointed at.

If it is pointed differently from the other turrets, then we have to ask ourselves why the German ship would point just one turret on a different bearing than all the others. I could see A and B, but not just A. We know the forward director is used to direct the secondary battery, and that's in action. That leaves me with the idea that A had somehow malfuntioned and was jammed in place for some reason. I suppose that's possible, since we don't have Bismarck's gunnery log.

[Antonio Bonomi]

Ciao Vic, Bgile and all,

@ Vic,

welcome to this forum as well.

YES, I think you are wrong and out of track on this one as well as on the analysis of the British ships taken photos at DS as clearly demonstrated on HMS Hood forum too.

http://www.readybb.com/hmshood/viewtopi ... =2677#2677

I just remind to this forum readers that if they want to see the photos and drawings attached to the post on HMS Hood forum they must be a member and login as such, otherwise they can only read the post but not see the photos and drawings.
You only need to enrol joining the forum, logoff and login as members after, it is free.

It is just enough to take a look at the photo itself having an average knowledge of Bismarck turrets to clearly understand how A-Anton turret is turned.

A good enough quality photo detail will confirm with lots of precise references that A-Anton turret is rotated just like B-Bruno, C-Caesar and D-Dora, so 75 degrees to port and all details matches perfectly with that.

We see clearly Anton and Bruno back turret details aligned and lighted, top and bottom details do provide clearly the same rotation references, the Anton turret seen from side (no front turret details presence of course) and the longer gun being the left if seen from the bow (so the starboard side one) as it must be. Anton turret starboard side front corner profile and the blast bag of the left gun do confirm all this, so no doubts at all.

I have added on Hood forum those references for everybody to see, compare and judge.

But with a lot of imagination one can see everything he wants on every photo, but in this case unfortunately for you Vic, it is not enough the imagination to see what is not there and NOT to see what is clearly there.

Only justification to this is that you do not have at the beginning a good enough photo quality and the fact that this photo could provide at first glance that false impression to persons that do not know Bismarck or Tirpitz turrets well enough.

Lucky me this does not apply on myself as I have both the knowledge and a good enough quality photo, so I have no doubts and all the evidence details of Bismarck turrets on my side and this nails the conclusion down.

More, I have also the sequence of those photos clearly defined with the 3 taken immediately before and the 2 taken immediately after and all matches perfectly with Bismarck course and the 2 German ship wakes, with Bismarck correct turrets alignment showed by this photo as Bismarck was engaging HMS PoW from 06.07 till 06.09, so we are talking a sequence of 6 photos within 3 minutes, or 180 seconds.

You are right only on one thing Vic, this photo was taken from Prinz Eugen starboard side aft 105 mm flak gun platform and we can see her gun barrels.
The Prinz Eugen had turned as you correctly said to starboard, made and ''S'' turn and has just passed on Bismarck bow from right to left on this photo clearing the way for Bismarck to cross her wake visible on the horizon as I have underlined and you correctly see there.
Next photo in the sequence will show you the full connection of Prinz Eugen wake back and Bismarck more distant going to cross the wake within few seconds, less than 100 meters and guess how are Bismarck turrets rotated .

But if you really want to understand what Bismarck turrets were doing on that moment just look and the last salvo photo taken less that 2 minutes after this one and you will see clearly all 4 Bismarck main turrets from the back firing at the beam to HMS PoW with 90 degree rotation to port as it must be as Bismarck was sailing south and PoW east, so the Bismarck main turrets rotation must have changed toward the beam to keep PoW under fire .
On that photo A and B turrets had just fired to HMS PoW, so Bgile the Anton turret was not jammed at all and was correctly shooting and working thru the engagement perfectly managed and rotated with B as it must be due to the centralized fire control direction of forward turrets need ( A do not have own rangefinders ).

Ciao Antonio

[Bgile]

That's what I thought ... was just throwing out reasons why A would be unlikely to be pointed in a different direction.

[Vic Dale]

Vic,

What isn't clear to me is what direction you think Anton is pointed at.

If it is pointed differently from the other turrets, then we have to ask ourselves why the German ship would point just one turret on a different bearing than all the others. I could see A and B, but not just A. We know the forward director is used to direct the secondary battery, and that's in action. That leaves me with the idea that A had somehow malfuntioned and was jammed in place for some reason. I suppose that's possible, since we don't have Bismarck's gunnery log.

Hi to all.

Good question here and let me begin by saying that "Anton" - as calculated from the geometry presented in the photo and transposed to a scale drawing - is trained 20 degrees to port.

So why would just one turret be out of line?

I think it relates to another photo showing both of Bismarck's forward turrets trained to starboard whilst the after turrets are trained to port. In that photo, Bismarck can be seen about to cross someone's wake; Hers? Or Prinz Eugen's?

It cannot be the cruiser's wake, because it is very fresh and it would demand a very recent hard turn for the cruiser to be steaming right to left in the shot whilst Bismarck is steaming left to right. If it belonged to Prinz Eugen there would be a millpond between her and Bismarck - as a ship turns it's bow wave fans out in a curve inside the turn and flattens any wave inside the diameter by interferring with it's frequency and nullifying it's energy, much like radio waves.

When I was at sea and we had a man overboard the first thing the Officer of the Watch would do is turn the ship so as to provide a ready millpond for the seaboat to tbe safely lowered into. The Germans used this method to recover seaplanes.

We can see no mill pond between Bismarck and Prinz Eugen so the wake has to be from Bismarck and she is about to, or has probably already trodden on her own tail.

I think this photo precedes Nh69730 by about 30 seconds. I originally thought it was 14 seconds owing to the fact that I could not see where Bruno was pointing and erroneously assumed it was aligned with Anton. At a training rate of 5 degrees per second, this would work

What I think happened is this;

Bismarck will have responded to the same torpedo threat as Prinz Eugen, but being so much farther back from the cruiser - at least 3,500 yards, will have had to turn farther to allow the threat to pass. We can see that being almost beam-on to the camera when the flagship was so far away form the camera in NH69728, that Bismarck''s forward guns are most certainly wooded.

No gunner will allow his guns loaded and hungry for a target to be trained on dead ground, so I believe it is quite probable that they were trained round to find Suffolk which had come up from fine on the starboard quarter at 29 knots to a range of about 27,000 yards - out of range for her own guns and in position for a fan shot with torpedoes. She coming into battle range for Bismarck's guns to starboard.

In a naval battle it is quite common for the captain's intentions to be misjudged and for the wrong target to be selected - it happened at Jutland and some suggest that it happened in Hood. Captain Lindemann having realised his forward guns were wooded and possibly too, seeing that PoW had now turned away, made an aggressive turn to port to come round and have another go at her. The forward guns having been caught on the hop are training round as fast as they can go - 5 deg. per second - but have still some way to go.

To me there is a logical progression from that photo to NH69730.

As to the question of why Anton has not caught up with Bruno, it may be down to a defect temporary or otherwise, though I would expect something of the sort to have been reported to SKL in the radio reports.

Another possibility is a hydraulic priority protocol built into the system, wherby an emergency situation determined that Bruno the superimposed turret with the rangefinder, would be able to train that bit faster and get into action with despatch whilst Anton struggled round with what she could get. That to me is the most likely explanation at present, though I am not in possession of any evidence that this was at all possible in Bismarck.

Regards Vic

[Bgile]

A very small OT nit here. You always turn to the same side as the man overboard. A well trained crew will report the side, as in "man overboard, port side". You then turn hard to port to move the screws away from the swimmer, so he doesn't get all chopped up.

[Vic Dale]

A very small OT nit here. You always turn to the same side as the man overboard. A well trained crew will report the side, as in "man overboard, port side". You then turn hard to port to move the screws away from the swimmer, so he doesn't get all chopped up.

Good thought, but by the time a big ship gets to make the turn, the man-over-board has either passed or failed the ordeal of the screws. LOL.

A white wake or a red wake, shows the state of his account.

Vic

[Bgile]

A very small OT nit here. You always turn to the same side as the man overboard. A well trained crew will report the side, as in "man overboard, port side". You then turn hard to port to move the screws away from the swimmer, so he doesn't get all chopped up.

Good thought, but by the time a big ship gets to make the turn, the man-over-board has either passed or failed the ordeal of the screws. LOL.

A white wake or a red wake, shows the state of his account.

Vic

I only know first hand about submarines but I stood bridge lookout watches at one time and this is what we were told. In fact, the ship drilled this very thing. You turn hard toward the man overboard and then when safely past you reverse rudder to describe a fishhook pattern to come straight back down your previous course to try to find and recover him. Of course, a very large ship wouldn't react quickly enough and would rely on a helo or escort for recovery.

[Vic Dale]

Hi to all.

Firstly this photo of Bismarck with her guns mis-aligned is NOT from the after port heavy flak, but the starboard middle flak. Look at the guard rails beside the mounting. They are of the wire type, whereas the rails around the raised sponsons fore and aft are fixed rigid rails. The odd configuration of these rails shows them to be mounted on the outer edge of the hinged sponson extension.

Look at the wash to the side of the ship. If you have been to sea, you will, know immediately in which direction Priz Eugen is steaming - right to left - if you have little or no experience, watch the Schmalenbach video. Then you'll see it for sure. The only possible alternative to this assertion would have Prinz Eugen going astern

I have recently provided evidence both photographic and geometric, on The HMS Hood website, to show that turret Anton in NH69730 is mis-aligned and bears a resemblance to the position of turret Anton in the photo discussed above. When I learn how to post photos on this website, I 'll be happy to post them here too.

I believe that Bismarck did make a turn and that turn is shown through the video footage showing Bismarck out on Prinz Eugen's starboard quarter, turning in response to the same torpedo the threats which caused Brinkmann to turn away from his original line of advance.

We can detect places in the video where freeze frames reveal how some of the NH photos were come by as the flagship turned so as to reveal the bow at; 30 degrees (NH69727), 50 degrees (NH69726) and 70 degrees NH69728. That Bismarck - at least 3500 yards distant on the starboard quarter - is nearly beam on (70 deg. port) to Prinz Eugen, it must mean that Bismarck's forward guns were most certainly wooded at this time. The flagship's gunners will not have kept their guns trained on dead ground when there was a cruiser - HMS Suffolk - coming up to starboard and at a range of about 27.000 yards.

If the guns took Suffolk as their new target and the ship suddenly turned hard around to port to re-engage PoW, the guns will probably not have been able to get around to their target fast enough to make the first salvo. Hence the mis-alignment photo and the mis-alignment in NH69730.

Since it is clear that Anton IS out of alignment with the after guns in NH69730, it is probable that the other photo was taken perhaps half a minute before NH69730. The lack of definition in both photos seems consitent with this view and speaks of a considerable distance between Bismarck and the camera.

BTW, is there any official designation for this photo? A photo about which there is so much to be said needs a title other than "The Other Photo." Makes it sound like a "Kept woman."

Incidentally there is a further photo showing Bismarck firing her secondary battery and which matches part of the video - between 0605 and 0608. This is a still and seemingly uncropped photo and shows Bismarck to be even farther away from Prinz Eugen than she can be seen in NH69722, which I believe is also un-cropped. That latter Photo has been accurately analysed to show the distance to be 3000 metres, which matches Brinkmann's statement in his war diary where he speaks of the separation at the commencement of fire to have been 3000m.

Regards Vic

[Bgile]

I disagree with the idea that A&B turrets would engage Suffolk at 27,000 yds if they were temporarily wooded, especially since it was a temporary turn away on the part of Bismarck. Furthermore, the Baron would have mentioned it in his book since he was tasked with observing the British cruisers and he would have been tasked with engaging one of them from his position.

[Vic Dale]

I disagree with the idea that A&B turrets would engage Suffolk at 27,000 yds if they were temporarily wooded, especially since it was a temporary turn away on the part of Bismarck. Furthermore, the Baron would have mentioned it in his book since he was tasked with observing the British cruisers and he would have been tasked with engaging one of them from his position.

Hi to all.

Bismarck's turrets are only seen as temporarily wooded, because of events which occurred subsequently, however a battle is fought and dispositions laid according to a rapid turn of events which occur on the time line, that changes dramatically by minutes and seconds.

Who was to say that PoW would turn away and who was to say that Bismarck would not steer right round to port instead of coming around back to starboard once the torpedo threat had passed? Who could say how long the torpedo threat would be alive astern of the ship. Although a warship's guns are centrally directed they are not watched from the command position. The Captain has far too much on his plate inside the central control position to worry where his guns are trained. His team has been trained and although he has tactical command of the ship, his gunners and others use initiative to maximise the fighting effectiveness of their ship and will try and correctly anticipate the intentions of their leader. Here it seems they may have got it momentarily wrong.

Mullenheim Rechberg was tasked to watch Suffolk to see that she didn't sneak up and launch a surprise torpedo attack, so she was considered a very live threat. We should also remember that Bisamrck had already been surprised by 2 "cruisers" which turned out to be battleships.

Bismarck was under attack from 4 British ships. Lutjens would have no way of knowing that they were not being directed centrally from "KGV" The Germans were convinced that they were fighting Hood and KGV - the latter being Tovey's flagship. Where too were Holland's destroyers? They might easily appear on the scene of battle to add to Lutjens' difficulties. such a battle would be fought by dealing with each emergency as it presented itself and just at that time lashing out at Suffolk may have been the right thing to do. The initiative will have passed rapidly from one to the other and back again between the protagonists as the battle progressed.

Mullenheim Rechberg would most certainly have reported Suffolk as closing the range - even though he himself makes no mention of it - and given that the German squadron had been forced to alter course to avoid a suspected fan shot from the direction of Hood, they could have been forgiven for thinking that Suffolk was coming in to box the Flagship with her own fan shot. That would be a very dangerous situation and even though Bismarck's main target was PoW, it would be tactically correct to permit the forward guns wooded and out of the fight for the time being, to train to starboard and fire a spoiling salvo in the event that Suffolk turned to fire.

Although Bismarck emerged the victor from the Denmark Strait battle, we should never forget that her situation was desperate. She had destroyed the Hood, but she still had the British Fleet Flagship to contend with plus two cruisers which could be directed to launch an attack at any time. It would have been very difficult for Lindemann to fight a heavy gun duel with the best ship in the British fleet AND deal with attacking cruisers.

Langsdorf at The Plate was forced to fight his ship from an open position, so as to be able to handle the attacking cruisers. That is how he got wounded. Cruisers if handled well, although they lack firepower in terms of guns, possess torpedoes, a strike from one of which could be disasterous. So HMS suffolk now coming into range and presumably with the intention of launching torpedoes would have been a legitimate target for Bismarck's wooded forward guns.

It is only with hindsight that we know that Bismarck faced not the fleet flagship, but a relatively untried make-weight in the form of PoW. PoW gave a very good account of herself, but even so, the British had lost their most senoir officer in that area, the structure of command which he had developed had been broken and the squadron had lost it's best gunney ship. PoW was now a lone ship whose only course, having been forced out of the battle, was to form up on Wake-Walker's Cruisers. Until that became clear, some time later, Lutjens had been trapped by the Admiral of the Fleet in Britain's newest battleship, at the head of a composite and powerful battle squadron.

Warmest regards

Vic

[Bgile]

Vic,

You still haven't dealt with the fact that MR never took control of A&B turrets to fire on Suffolk. That would have been necessary. The forward position was controlling the secondary armament and the foretop was shooting at PoW, so MR's position would have to take control of whatever guns were to shoot at Suffolk. This would have been a big deal for him and I think he would have mentioned it.

Another point is that Suffolk is 27,000 yds away and probably too far for him to effectively spot fall of shot from his much lower vantage point compared to the foretop.

[Vic Dale]

Vic,

You still haven't dealt with the fact that MR never took control of A&B turrets to fire on Suffolk. That would have been necessary. The forward position was controlling the secondary armament and the foretop was shooting at PoW, so MR's position would have to take control of whatever guns were to shoot at Suffolk. This would have been a big deal for him and I think he would have mentioned it.

Another point is that Suffolk is 27,000 yds away and probably too far for him to effectively spot fall of shot from his much lower vantage point compared to the foretop.

Hi to all.

Mulleheim Rechberg was observing Suffolk using a director sight. He was not using the main rangefinder. That had PoW as it's primary target and was tasked to keep her held.

The forward rangefinder will not have been able to hold the target on a bearing much abaft the beam and being a much smaller instrument anyway, could have been released from it's task to range on Suffolk. More probably the large rangefinder in Bruno turret would have been used to supply the computing station with target information.

27,000 yards is not a great distance so fall of shot would not be a problem in regard to range. The optics used in naval gunnery make it possible to place a spot at the base of the target's funnel, in the case of the steroscopic instruments, or match the masts of a split inverted image when using the incidence rangefinder, so a shell splash 60 feet across and 200 feet high would be readily visible whatever height the position was. Spotting problems are caused by battle smoke, poor visibility and poor light.

regards Vic

[Bgile]

Hi to all.

Mulleheim Rechberg was observing Suffolk using a director sight. He was not using the main rangefinder. That had PoW as it's primary target and was tasked to keep her held.

The forward rangefinder will not have been able to hold the target on a bearing much abaft the beam and being a much smaller instrument anyway, could have been released from it's task to range on Suffolk. More probably the large rangefinder in Bruno turret would have been used to supply the computing station with target information.

27,000 yards is not a great distance so fall of shot would not be a problem in regard to range. The optics used in naval gunnery make it possible to place a spot at the base of the target's funnel, in the case of the steroscopic instruments, or match the masts of a split inverted image when using the incidence rangefinder, so a shell splash 60 feet across and 200 feet high would be readily visible whatever height the position was. Spotting problems are caused by battle smoke, poor visibility and poor light.

regards Vic

I doubt MR could see the base of the funnel on Suffolk. He could probably see the bridge top director and nothing below that.

The rangefinder in B turret could not be used to correct the fall of shot. That required a director. C turret had a rangefinder, but when MR lost his director sights in the final engagement he was no longer able to provide correction data to the FC computer for C and D turrets and had to order them to fire in local control. If B turret could do that, then so could C turret and that obviously wasn't the case.

So again, your hypothesis lacks a director for firing at Suffolk, so they wouldn't have been able to do that.

[Vic Dale]

Hi Bgile

You have completely missed my point.

I said the optics used in naval gunnery could put a spot on the base of the funnel or align masts vertically to show that the fall of shot could be observed as a comparison to the huge white shrouds 200 feet high mark where shot has fallen..

The forward armoured gunnery control position alone had 11 separate director and observation periscopes in it's roof. This is quite apart from other positions outside the armour and in the rotating range finder and radar cupola above.

It does not require a rangefinder to spot fall of shot. All that is required is to see splashes 200 feet high and 60 feet wide. You count those which fall over and those which fall under to gauge how the salvo fell.

Obviously Bismarck could not put a spot on the base of Suffolk's funnels, she was coming about bow-on. That wouldn't save her from getting hit though.

Regards Vic