Hello everybody,
@ Her Nilsson,
first we all hope that your temporary absence from here is NOT due to anything serious Marc, we are all close to you in any case.
Now let’s go into the fun of this, our researches on this battle.
It is not my map that is missing the 05.50 correct bearing, the one you are referring to Marc, it is “ The Plot “ being corrected at least for the majority of the known bearings and the overall battlefield dimensions, but still with Pinchin tracks on it and we all should have realized, as Alberto properly highlighted above, that we should not take them for granted at this point, given what we have realized so far about them.
In fact, as you can read, written by me on top of them, the work still needs all the tracks to be revisited and corrected. Including of course the Norfolk one at 05.50, … and much, much more than that.
I left the analysis at 05.41 with the Norfolk to Suffolk ( 319° ) and Bismarck ( 276° from Norfolk ) track correlation at that point.
I have read above you wrote you are taking assumptions, tolerance, and compromise ( not bad one’s ).
Well I think you are on the right path now, since we cannot pretend perfection at 100 yards or meters from this work, and as you properly wrote we have to accept the less/minor evident error when we need to define which one of 2 possibilities we have is the correct one.
Talking about Norfolk track and position, once we have accepted her position at 05.41, we do not only need to respect the 05.50 ( or 05.48 according to Cag good point above about it ) distance of 14 sea miles from Hood on bearing 220° from her.
But we need to keep into account her Gunnery data from Ltnt Johnston, I mean the 30.400 yards at open fire ( 05.52 and 30 secs ) with BS on 275° bearing and PG on 272° bearing, and 16 minutes after 27.200 yards at cease fire ( 06.09 ).
Plus in the middle the fact that she was having the enemy on bearing 270° at 06.00 following Pinchin 05.55 until 06.00 track.
In conclusion of the battle, at 06.12 when PG ceased also the A/A fire, the Norfolk was having again the enemy on bearing 272°. Of course we need to keep into account all the first board declaration too about the distances at 06.00 between Norfolk and Hood, and the Diagram B of the Hood First board distance.
Regarding Suffolk we are left at 05.41 with the enemy at around 10 sea miles, reached after my almost perfect evaluation of her course and track from 04.47 until 05.22.
While Pinchin shows the circle north at 05.42, Capt Ellis autobiography is telling us he kept that distance until the open fire ( 05.52 and 30 seconds ??? ), and consequently we should realize from his words that he did it after that point, just as it seems to be confirmed also by Suffolk war diary entry which is telling us that the enemy appeared to be turning back at 05.47, so that turn occurred surely after that point in time on Suffolk, confirming Capt Ellis event second “ autobiography “ version rather than Capt Ellis report first “ official “ version and Pinchin track.
As we can see, a lot of work still to be done and the assumptions, tolerances and compromise needed will be many for sure.
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 )