Hello everybody,
only Prinz Eugen fired only the aft Group C+D at the end of the engagement, due to her course and the PoW relative position, since she could not bear the fwd Group A+B, ... reference KptLtnt Paulus Jasper gunnery report.
Bismarck could always fire both A+B and C+D turrets, so both fwd and aft groups all the way thru the battle as far as we can see from film and photos.
We do know Bismarck fired 93 shells on that engagement and YES, ... 104 guns ordered to fire was my estimate/evaluation, ... it could have been 108 or 112, ... or even more, ... we will never know for sure unfortunately.
Thanking the Baron we do know that Hood was targeted with 40 shells ( guns ordered to fire ) before the explosion, ... other shells may have fallen on her sinking wreck ... after Bismarck shifted fire to Prince of Wales.
We can count semi-salvoes of 4 guns ( 26 x 4 = 104 ) of either the fwd or aft group, ... or the full salvo ( broadside ) of 8 guns ( 13 x 8 = 104 ).
Capt Leach was describing a group of 4 shells landing on Hood when she exploded, ... so I assume 4 shells at each time being fired to the enemy, ... but he also stated it was the Bismarck 5th salvo, ... so I assume he was calculating 8 guns for each full salvo ( broadside ), ... in order to reach the total of 40 shells mentioned by the Baron.
I was asking help above on evaluating how Bismarck fired, and I think here following we can see the first 20 guns ordered to fire toward the Hood, so 5 semi-salvoes of 4 guns ... after we had surely other 5 semi-salvo on rapid fire, ... up to 40 as said.
- BS_Salvoes_05.jpg (84.32 KiB) Viewed 2727 times
We can assume other 1 or 2 semi-salvoes ( 4 or 8 guns ) of Bismarck still being directed to Hood before Bismarck shifted fire to PoW.
At this point we are at 44 or 48 guns being ordered to fire on around 6 minutes of the battle out of 14 total minutes.
Most likely for other 2 minutes Bismarck making only a small correction fired other 4 semi-salvoes ( 16 guns ordered to fire ) to PoW, scoring 3 hits on her.
We are at this point at around 06.03 and 60 or 64 guns have been ordered to fire on the first 9 minutes battle time out of 14.
The Prinz Eugen torpedo ALARM reached Capt Lindemann, ... and Bismarck turned 50 degrees to starboard, ... around 30 seconds time, ... loosing the target PoW ...
Did Bismarck restart firing with same initial target acquisition methodology : Vollsalve + 4 hectometers Gabelgruppe ?
Is this what we are looking at on the PG film sequence ?
If this was the case as I think, ... since also Jasper did this from Prinz Eugen when he changed target reference his report, ... here the 5 semi-salvoes used to try to get the range again on PoW leaving the battlefield, so other 20 guns ordered to fire.
- BS_Salvoes_05.jpg (84.32 KiB) Viewed 2727 times
At this point after other 2 minutes Bismarck turned again 50 degrees to port ( other 30 seconds ) loosing again the target having ordered to fire 80 or 84 guns and we are at 06.06 battle time.
On the last 2/3 minutes battle time before she ceased fire at 06.09 Bismarck ordered to fire other 20/24 guns on 5 or 6 semi-salvoes we can see on several existing photos of her taken from Prinz Eugen.
So a total of 104 guns ordered to fire on 14 minutes battle time, ... 93 shells really fired.
As usual, ... opinions are welcome ...
Bye Antonio