The Plot

[dunmunro]

@Dunmunro
1)

you wrote: "Of course Leach was observing the fall of shot! "

No Duncan he was not. Not when Hood exploded because per his own account to the board of Inquiry he was looking at Hood, not during the turn and counter-turn to avoid Hood remains and he was still in the left Captain sight of the CP at 6:00:50 when the hit passed through the bridge (else he would have been killed by the hit). So for him the guns in action were 9. The output up to salvo 14 was not bad at all except for the only gun out of action in A turret.

you wrote :"I can't find anything where Leach states that 9 guns were in action"

You posted it on the 5,25" thread., but you are right, it's the third message sent by Leach. In the narrative there is even NO mention to any actual problem with the guns and just the plain admission that his decision was taken due to his lack of confidence in the guns and in the gunnery dept.......

"Appendix to "HMS Prince of Wales" NO.001.B. dated 4th June, 1941.
TO : The Commander-in-Chief, Home Fleet
..............At this time (just before 5:55) "Prince of Wales" had 5 (five) 14" guns in action. "Y" turret would not bear.
Fire in "Hood" spread rapidly to the mainmast. A turn of 2 blue at 0555 opened "A" Arcs at "Prince of Wales" ninth salvo ( 4 main guns more from this moment onward 5+4 = 9 )......... "

2)

you wrote: "How does Suffolk manage to get so close when she was about 15nm from Bismarck at 0537? "

This has been discussed in the "Articles of War" thread, where Antonio has demonstrated it (please refer to it). If you want, just measure it on the "plot" posted by Antonio above and you will see it is closer to 10 miles than to 15...... and it was possibly overestimated as Antonio in the other thread told us he has the original Suffolk plot showing a distance at 5:41 that is 10 miles from BS, before Ellis decided to turn to North wasting 13 minutes instead of joining the action.......


3)

you wrote: "....naval war is not a game and the consequences of ignoring the limitations of armour protection can be fatal for the entire ship"

I agree, however to stop or damage BS he was forced to take some risks. Again IMHO he could have open range, not disengage. However he did it, giving up to his orders and to his duty in that very situation.

Bye, Alberto

The idea that the captain of a battleship, in combat with another battleship, would be totally disinterested in the effect of his own gunnery on the enemy is laughable-really completely hilarious! I really can't believe that you could seriously think that... The captain's sight is electrically connected to the DCT and T.S. to allow him to designate targets; so what do you suppose Leach was looking at through the captain's sight?

The GAR details the problems in each turret and it tells us that PoW only fired 55 rnds (18 salvos in DCT controlled fire) when she should have fired 74, so 19 rnds are missing. 8 or 9 of these are from A1 gun so 9 or 10 rounds are missing from the other guns, this means that every salvo (maximum of 3 or 6 rnds) was short at least 1 rnd which is a serious loss of output, when combined with the lack of output from the 5.25in guns, which missed at least 15 salvos or 120 rnds. The net effect was that PoW was only generating about 69% (by weight of metal) of her theoretical firepower when she was engaged in combat with two highly efficient KM ships, both with much better output from their main and secondary armament.

2) I think the range of Suffolk and Norfolk to Bismarck and PE has yet to be determined and I still think that W-W and Ellis were approximately correct when they recorded their range estimates at the time.

3) After Holland died and before W-W took over Leach was free to develop his own orders, and his execution of those orders was considered correct by all his superiors including Churchill.

[Alberto Virtuani]

@Dunmunro :
Hi Duncan, I don't like your ironic tone in the above post. So I will use the same with you.

1) I don't believe you can't understand that until Hood exploded the output was fairly good, so he could notice NOTHING serious !
Sure, the Captain is interested in the gun action under normal conditions, I never said Leach was not. However, when Hood exploded, there were more urgent things for Leach than spotting the fall of shells.
Are you saying that between the Hood explosion and the hit in Compass he was calmly counting the shell splashes ? Are you joking or what ?

Now back to a more respectful discussion among us:
I agree that the PoW output was not excellent but not so bad to force him to retreat. Even per your own calculation (averaged with the problems occurred at salvo 14 and 15) , around 8 guns in average were always in action: enough to fight, don't you think ? In addition, until salvo 14, all guns except 1 were in action and that is ALL Capt. Leach could be aware of, before being completely absorbed by Hood explosion, turn and counter-turn and the hit in Compass. (Y2 and Y3 lost 5 rounds ONLY after salvo 14, so 9 (or 10) - 5 = 4 (or 5) lost rounds ONLY, that is absolutely normal for any battleship).
Even after salvo 14, for McMullen everything was ok. The problem is that Capt. Leach was not confident in his weapon (his ship).

2) For me, after the thread "Articles of War" the only realistic battle map for the DS is Antonio's new one. If you are able to do so, please produce a better one, but please don't copy the "Plot" because it is for sure intentionally wrong......

3) Only for (well due) war time propaganda reasons, as already discussed, but here I can accept your different opinion. I have my idea of what is a navy officer's duty, having been one myself.

Bye, Alberto

[wadinga]

Hi Antonio,

Thanks again for the reminder

I suggest you to do it again

What McMullen says to the boy messenger is "Go down and tell the Captain everything's going fine!" ..... "What I didn't know was that when the Captain went hard a port...." Clearly the boy messenger is sent down after the 20th salvo when fire has checked. McMullen then says that despite his message "he hadn't realised..." Yes, he was in error with his message because at the time he sent it 5 guns were indeed out of action, precisely as Brooke (remind me again how he get things wrong and is unreliable) describes.

I know you will say that Leach initiated a withdrawal before this time, but McMullen says "the Captain, realising the state of our turrets, quite rightly, went hard a port". So McMullen despite his frustration at the time of the start of the turn to port, actually agreed with Leach's manouevre, and this is before the shell ring was disabled.

"One was quite unaware of the damage to the Bridge, just below us, except I can remember, for some white smoke coming up". Here he he corroborates white tank insulation flying around from the HA/DCT hit. This is the only part of Gaynor's recollection that seems accurate, everything else is incorrect.

The uneven spacing of the salvoes on the Gunnery plot shows the gunlayer was having to delay firing loaded guns whilst ratings and contractors men struggled with crowbars and sledge hammers to get some barrels loaded at all. A gun which failed to achieve its optimum loading cycle and delayed a salvo is not recorded, only those that missed it completely.

How about that unequivocal assurance on the "Bloodied Plot" ? You've pulled a rabbit from the hat to frustrate me before.

All the best

wadinga

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

Hello everybody,

@ Dunmunro,

if you like to do it, ... to have it in perfect inches scale ... I have no problems with it.

I do not care to have it in inches scale, ... as I have it also on a bigger scale in centimeters / metric scale.

For this purpose it is enough to have it in sea miles.

What count is the content of it, ... since it demonstrate with no doubts what has been done, ... despite having the correct references.

With the use of this incorrect document, ... they changed the distances declared and moved Norfolk and Suffolk away from Hood and from the enemy.

Bye Antonio

Antonio, there is also a longitude scale on the map 31w -> 32w which is equal to 27.257nm. The latitude and longitude scales must give the same scale (1in = 5nm) or the map cannot be used to measure distance or plot bearings.

I know that very well, ... and that measure between meridian 31 and 32 W refers to parallel 63 N, ... same meridians distance at the parallel 64 N above will be 26,30 sea miles.

It has been Pinchin decision to make it 26 sea miles average, ... and it is like that on ALL the Royal Navy official tracks I have evaluated on that area.

Despite those measure tolerances, ... unfortunately to be taken in account on any cylindrical map projection, ...

... what you are not getting apparently is the 30 % error factor introduced by Pinchin to Norfolk and Suffolk distances from Hood and the enemy.

What is you opinion now ? ... Another " innocent error " ? ... a " typo " ? ... a " cut and paste " error ? ... What was Pinchin problem this time ?

You want another " proof of evidence " of the intentional alterations realizing that map ?

Look at Norfolk at 05.50 and than look at Hood track ... away from the PoW one ... ... were only the reference of 05.50 is made on Hood approaching clearly incorrect track ... and now ask yourself : why they made it like that ?

The answer is into the Norfolk war diary entry at 05.50, ... when somebody wrote that Hood was at 14 sea miles, ... so they wanted to keep that distance ... and they realize it on that way ... separating Hood from PoW track ... and " moving " Hood closer to Norfolk at 05.50, ... compensating the " battlefield expansion factor " intentionally introduced on that map ... and this is really incredible to be accepted by anybody ...

... especially having the Rowell map aside as Exhibit B on the same board ... ... this one :

http://www.hmshood.org.uk/reference/off ... encIVb.gif

... no way ! ... ... a real shame ...

Bye Antonio

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ Wadinga,

Sean, ... you know that Capt Leach retreated while in panic mode at 06.01 and 30 seconds after having received 1 hit on the bridge killing 2 midshipman, he was merely shaken ... he did not even know the 6+5 dead on the open bridge and on the 285 radar room when he ordered the retreat from his compass platform.

Probably his decision was taken even before, when he saw Hood exploding ( his own admission on his narrative ).

On that moment he had 9 guns working out of which 2 with loading problems ( Y2 and Y3 ), ... so 7 firing, ... only A1 out of action.

But he wrote at 08.00 the same morning he had only 3 guns left and Y turret unable to bear.

After, on his narrative he only wrote about concerns about the guns reliability and his gunners training.

He was " saved " by the 06.13 declaration, ... of course incorrect ... thanking RearAdm Wake-Walker and Adm Tovey incorrect reports.

No more words are necessary.

Here in we are evaluating " The Plot " ... another shameful part of this battle, ... the one used to save Wake-Walker and Ellis.

Bye Antonio

[dunmunro]

@Dunmunro :
Hi Duncan, I don't like your ironic tone in the above post. So I will use the same with you.

1) I don't believe you can't understand that until Hood exploded the output was fairly good, so he could notice NOTHING serious !
Sure, the Captain is interested in the gun action under normal conditions, I never said Leach was not. However, when Hood exploded, there were more urgent things for Leach than spotting the fall of shells.
Are you saying that between the Hood explosion and the hit in Compass he was calmly counting the shell splashes ? Are you joking or what ?

Now back to a more respectful discussion among us:
I agree that the PoW output was not excellent but not so bad to force him to retreat. Even per your own calculation (averaged with the problems occurred at salvo 14 and 15) , around 8 guns in average were always in action: enough to fight, don't you think ? In addition, until salvo 14, all guns except 1 were in action and that is ALL Capt. Leach could be aware of, before being completely absorbed by Hood explosion, turn and counter-turn and the hit in Compass. (Y2 and Y3 lost 5 rounds ONLY after salvo 14, so 9 (or 10) - 5 = 4 (or 5) lost rounds ONLY, that is absolutely normal for any battleship).
Even after salvo 14, for McMullen everything was ok. The problem is that Capt. Leach was not confident in his weapon (his ship).

2) For me, after the thread "Articles of War" the only realistic battle map for the DS is Antonio's new one. If you are able to do so, please produce a better one, but please don't copy the "Plot" because it is for sure intentionally wrong......

3) Only for (well due) war time propaganda reasons, as already discussed, but here I can accept your different opinion. I have my idea of what is a navy officer's duty, having been one myself.

Bye, Alberto

Leach wasn't absorbed with Hood until she blew up between salvo 13 and 14.

Gun = salvos missed = total shells missed

19 rounds were missed

Y3= 15 17 = 2
Y2= 14 16 18 = 3 (total 5)

A1= 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 = 8 ( 6 from salvos 3-13)

so 6 additional guns failed to fire from salvo 1-13.

guns ordered to fire up to salvo 13 = Salvo number
24 = s1-8
25 = s9-13
49 ordered versus 37 fired = 75.5%

output from salvo 1 to 13 = 75.5% or 24.5% loss of output which would be quite noticeable and Leach was certainly aware that a loss of output was likely and he would have been watching to see how well the guns actually did. Additionally, the 5.25in guns ceased fire altogether after 3 salvos, so they had a severe loss of output amounting to at least 15 salvos, so that the actual loss of output in terms of weight of metal was about 68% and with this low output PoW was supposed to take on two efficient enemy ships, including a battleship and a very large heavy cruiser single handedly? Not surprisingly Leach opened the range ASAP.

[dunmunro]

Hello everybody,

@ Wadinga,

1)Sean, ... you know that Capt Leach retreated while in panic mode at 06.01 and 30 seconds after having received 1 hit on the bridge killing 2 midshipman, he was merely shaken ... he did not even know the 6+5 dead on the open bridge and on the 285 radar room when he ordered the retreat from his compass platform.

2)On that moment he had 9 guns working out of which 2 with loading problems ( Y2 and Y3 ), ... so 7 firing, ... only A1 out of action.

3)But he wrote at 08.00 the same morning he had only 3 guns left and Y turret unable to bear.



Bye Antonio

1) Leach was actually badly wounded by the shockwave of the passing 38cm shell - you know that very well. Leach knew that PoW had been hit aft before the CP hit, again this is in his narrative and is supported by the AFCT recording. Holland had already ordered a turn to 260d so Leach had already been ordered to open the range. I doubt that Leach panicked but he very wisely decided to open the range ASAP after the loss of Hood.

2) I discussed this above. It was obvious to everyone that mattered that PoW was suffering a serious loss of output from her main armament prior to salvo 14.

3) You know that was a coded radio transmission transcription error and it referred to the period from salvo 1 -8 and should have read:

"Prince of Wales" opening salvo was observed over, 6th was seen to straddle. At this time "Prince of Wales" had five 14" guns in action. "Y" turret would not bear...

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ Dunmunro,

you know we have and probably always have a different opinion about how it went and that is ok, it is useless to repeat on and on again the same concepts.

What I like from you side is the very good and clear explanation about the main guns of PoW performances .

That should have been the only reason used to try to partially justify Capt Leach decision to retreat, ... but that was exactly what the Admiralty did not want to talk about, ... the real reliability of the KG V class battleship quadruple turrets loading mechanism.

Back we are on the base reference of this whole " cover up " ... in one hand there was something to hide and cover ... in the other hand there was a positive war propaganda to sustain after Bismarck being sunk.

Churchill decision has been wise from a leadership stand point, ... and if I was on his shoes that day, ... very likely I was going to do the same.

Taking that as a given, ... here we are talking about the details of this battle from a pure naval military stand point, ... and what really happened is clear enough now.

Bye Antonio

[Alberto Virtuani]

Dunmunro wrote: "output from salvo 1 to 13 = 75.5% or 24.5% loss of output "

Hi Duncan, thanks for your precise calculations, I was wrong by almost 5%.
Still the output of any battleship is never 100%. At DS Prinz Eugen (very well worked up cruiser) could only fire 157 rounds out of 184 ordered to fire, that is an output of 85%. B1 gun was firing 6 rounds out of 20, so it can be compared to PoW A turret gun). Even if the count of salvos for BS is unknown, I remember on this same forum that it was said that BS probably fired in total some 14 salvos for a total of 112 ordered to fire and 93 effectively fired, therefore an output of 83%, and her output was considered exceptionally good for a battleship.
So, PoW output was not so bad compared to the other ships involved.

Again, Leach until salvo 14 was aware of a not exceptional output (as expected) but IMHO he had no reason to decide a disengagement without any certainty of having damaged BS. The only reasons were his lack of confidence and the hit in CP.....

Bye, Alberto

[Alberto Virtuani]

@Antonio: coming back to the topic of this thread, I think it's difficult now to consider "the Plot" as the result of serious but innocent errors. The red and blue bearing positioning make it easy to see .Too many evidences that it was intentionally built with the only purpose to enlarge the battlefield and support WW position as incorrectly declared at the second Hood board of Inquiry: the position of Norfolk and Suffolk both moved away from Hood and from BS, the track of Hood, far from PoW as you already stated and finally, in my opinion, the worse one that was however left on the plot: the dotted track of "Bismarck estimated" that in reality was the BS effective course, moved away to East and to North to allow the enlargement. BTW the dotted line, if prolonged, of course passes through "Bismarck1" position that is the correct one as per your analysis......

Why, in your opinion, has this dotted line been left on the plot ? Was it already present in the original Norfolk plot from which this "the Plot" has been created ?

Bye, Alberto

[dunmunro]

Dunmunro wrote: "output from salvo 1 to 13 = 75.5% or 24.5% loss of output "

Hi Duncan, thanks for your precise calculations, I was wrong by almost 5%.
Still the output of any battleship is never 100%. At DS Prinz Eugen (very well worked up cruiser) could only fire 157 rounds out of 184 ordered to fire, that is an output of 85%. B1 gun was firing 6 rounds out of 20, so it can be compared to PoW A turret gun). Even if the count of salvos for BS is unknown, I remember on this same forum that it was said that BS probably fired in total some 14 salvos for a total of 112 ordered to fire and 93 effectively fired, therefore an output of 83%, and her output was considered exceptionally good for a battleship.
So, PoW output was not so bad compared to the other ships involved.

Again, Leach until salvo 14 was aware of a not exceptional output (as expected) but IMHO he had no reason to decide a disengagement without any certainty of having damaged BS. The only reasons were his lack of confidence and the hit in CP.....

Bye, Alberto

The most common calculation I've seen for Bismarck is that 104 rounds were ordered fired and 93 actually fired for a 89.4% output, but regardless both Bismarck and PE's secondary armament appeared to have been fully functional during the action, whereas PoW's only fired 3 salvos.

Since Leach did not know that Bismarck was damaged, he could only assume that she and PE were still fully efficient, yet he also knew that PoW was suffering a serious loss of 14in output and that he no longer had a functioning secondary armament. The odds were that PoW would suffer crippling, if not fatal damage without being able to inflict similar damage in return since she was also outside her immune zone. Therefore a turn to open the range, to bring PoW outside the effective range of the KM secondary guns and to a range where PE's 20.3cm guns were not so accurate, was called for.

[dunmunro]

Hello everybody,

Hello everybody,

@ Dunmunro,

if you like to do it, ... to have it in perfect inches scale ... I have no problems with it.

I do not care to have it in inches scale, ... as I have it also on a bigger scale in centimeters / metric scale.

For this purpose it is enough to have it in sea miles.

What count is the content of it, ... since it demonstrate with no doubts what has been done, ... despite having the correct references.

With the use of this incorrect document, ... they changed the distances declared and moved Norfolk and Suffolk away from Hood and from the enemy.

Bye Antonio

Antonio, there is also a longitude scale on the map 31w -> 32w which is equal to 27.257nm. The latitude and longitude scales must give the same scale (1in = 5nm) or the map cannot be used to measure distance or plot bearings.

I know that very well, ... and that measure between meridian 31 and 32 W refers to parallel 63 N, ... same meridians distance at the parallel 64 N above will be 26,30 sea miles.

It has been Pinchin decision to make it 26 sea miles average, ... and it is like that on ALL the Royal Navy official tracks I have evaluated on that area.

Despite those measure tolerances, ... unfortunately to be taken in account on any cylindrical map projection, ...

... what you are not getting apparently is the 30 % error factor introduced by Pinchin to Norfolk and Suffolk distances from Hood and the enemy.

What is you opinion now ? ... Another " innocent error " ? ... a " typo " ? ... a " cut and paste " error ? ... What was Pinchin problem this time ?

You want another " proof of evidence " of the intentional alterations realizing that map ?

Look at Norfolk at 05.50 and than look at Hood track ... away from the PoW one ... ... were only the reference of 05.50 is made on Hood approaching clearly incorrect track ... and now ask yourself : why they made it like that ?

The answer is into the Norfolk war diary entry at 05.50, ... when somebody wrote that Hood was at 14 sea miles, ... so they wanted to keep that distance ... and they realize it on that way ... separating Hood from PoW track ... and " moving " Hood closer to Norfolk at 05.50, ... compensating the " battlefield expansion factor " intentionally introduced on that map ... and this is really incredible to be accepted by anybody ...

... especially having the Rowell map aside as Exhibit B on the same board ... ... this one :

http://www.hmshood.org.uk/reference/off ... encIVb.gif

... no way ! ... ... a real shame ...

Bye Antonio

Antonio, one thing that you haven't considered is that of time. There is no guarantee that the clocks of each ship were recording the same time and, in fact, the different timing of the same events on each ship leads one to conclude that they were not; therefore it was quite likely that the bearings recorded at 0537 from PoW were not taken at 0537 Norfolk time and an error of 1 or 2 minutes would cause a very large error in the plot.

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ Dunmunro,

I see you are trying in any possible way to find one possibility to justify what has been done.

It is a waste of time Duncan, ... the 8 am message of Capt Leach was sent correctly on May 24th, 1941, ... the clock's were OK as we have discovered on another thread already, ... the 15 sea miles on " The Plot " just like the 06.13 on the reports was a shame done for the reasons we have long discussed.

@ Alberto Virtuani,

many of the references used to make " The Plot " have been taken from the original tracks, ... including that " Bismarck estimated " track, ... and as I have said above to Duncan, ... that confirms even more that who did it had the possibility to refer to the correct documentation that have been altered intentionally.

But now ALL is in my hands, ... ... and very soon ... it will be made available to everybody ...

Bye Antonio

[Alberto Virtuani]

Dunmunro wrote: "......regardless both Bismarck and PE's secondary armament appeared to have been fully functional during the action,......."

The effect of the secondary armament from both sides was absolutely negligible anyway and in the dedicated thread you know that the PoW secondary armament exact number of shells fired is another "mistery" of this battle.......

The important fact is that the output of PoW main guns was less good but absolutely comparable with German's one. (75,5% vs 85% and 83% (or 89%)).

Dunmunro wrote: "Therefore a turn to open the range, to bring PoW outside the effective range of the KM secondary guns and to a range where PE's 20.3cm guns were not so accurate, was called for"

Absolutely acceptable as a possible tactic, nobody would have criticized him for slightly opening the range ! We are debating his behaviour because instead of opening the range HE SIMPLY RETREATED HIS SHIP FROM THE FIGHT (his own admission) UNDER SMOKE !. Please don't say he intended to re-engage because this is just your own speculation, no evidence supporting this theory.

Dunmunro wrote: "There is no guarantee that the clocks of each ship were recording the same time "

I thought this point was closed forever after the precious info from our friend Culverin:

Culverin wrote: "Marine Chronometer.....Probably the most accurate time device outside of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. The accuracy of which should not exceed .1 of a second per day.....Hood and Prince Of Wales would not have had to synchronise theirs. They would be almost identical to less than .5 second. You do not synchronise from another ship. You synchronise within the ship."

and your own statement:

Dunmunro wrote:" Theoretically, any two ship's chronometers should agree within few seconds or so. However, there will always be variations in time between ships because of the errors inherent in manual record keeping and analog communications."

however I think that we are endlessly repeating the same things to avoid to discuss about....."the Plot" and the reasons why it was produced.....

Bye, Alberto

[dunmunro]

Hello everybody,

@ Dunmunro,

I see you are trying in any possible way to find one possibility to justify what has been done.

It is a waste of time Duncan, ... the 8 am message of Capt Leach was sent correctly on May 24th, 1941, ... the clock's were OK as we have discovered on another thread already, ... the 15 sea miles on " The Plot " just like the 06.13 on the reports was a shame done for the reasons we have long discussed.

@ Alberto Virtuani,

many of the references used to make " The Plot " have been taken from the original tracks, ... including that " Bismarck estimated " track, ... and as I have said above to Duncan, ... that confirms even more that who did it had the possibility to refer to the correct documentation that have been altered intentionally.

But now ALL is in my hands, ... ... and very soon ... it will be made available to everybody ...

Bye Antonio

Alberto quoted me:

Dunmunro wrote:" Theoretically, any two ship's chronometers should agree within few seconds or so. However, there will always be variations in time between ships because of the errors inherent in manual record keeping and analog communications."

Each ship's bearings will have inherent errors and each ships timings will have inherent errors and if we allow an error of one minute in timing and one degree in bearing, it can add up to a considerable error.