KGV and PoW GAR during Op. Rheinubung

[wadinga]

Hello All,

The only motive for discussing Bismarck's output here is the attempt to prove there was nothing wrong with PoW's guns by Alberto who actually earlier in the thread supplied parts of the Vickers report detailing the many problems reducing her output and who refers to Santarini's book without accepting his conclusions where he refers to the numerous problems reducing PoW's rate of fire.

Any attempt to pretend Bismarck's deliberately falsified "average" rate of fire was as low as that of PoW, should be placed on the relevant thread where the idea that Bismarck's maximum rate of fire occurred when her target was turning through 160 degrees and she herself was carrying out maximum rate turns to starboard and port has already been dismissed.


All the best

wadinga

[Byron Angel]

Hi Alberto and Antonio -
Captain Leach's gunnery report indicates that at the moment PoW broke off action, she had five of her ten main battery guns out of service -
(a) gun No 1 of A turret (except for a single discharge) was unserviceable from the very beginning of the fight;
(b) after discharging four Parthian shots in local control after PoW had turned away under smoke, Y turret in its entirety was put out of action by a mechanical defect which was not made good until two and a half hours after the action had been broken off ... (per Leach - ""Y" turrets' shell ring jammed during the turn away and the turret was out of action until 0825.").

So ..... Leach's option was to:
(a) temporarily break off the action and attempt to put his main battery back in some semblance of working order.
(b) or bravely continue the fight with half of his ship's main battery.

From where I sit, the choice would be elementally simple. What course of action would you gentlemen have chosen?

B

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ Byron Angel,

we have written many posts on several threads on this forum about the HMS Prince of Wales gunnery overall situation when she turned away making smoke, and we have deeply analyzed the guns availability status during that series of events.

I will not comment intentionally about the fact that it was the right thing to do or not, as also this subject has been more that enough discussed already.

You wrote :

Captain Leach's gunnery report indicates ...

Please allow me to enlarge your above statement because in that there is the explanation and the solution to this event sequence.

We have Capt Leach report, we have few of his radio messages immediately after the action and before reaching the harbor and we have the PoW gunnery report ( McMullen report ) with the defect analysis, we have Colin McMullen BBC Interview available at the Imperial War Museum about this event and the PoW gunnery status ... last but not least lately we have also found the Vickers Armstrong technical defect analysis on PoW main guns, ...available on the Cambridge archives ( thanking Stephen Roskill ).

The summary of the above documentation is defining a clear enough scenario, ... different than at first declared by Capt Leach himself on his first radio message ( only 3 guns working ), ... improved to 5 only on a second radio message while still at sea, ... and up to 9 on his last official report on June 4th ,1941.

Colin McMullen BBC interview is very clear about it as he sent a boy down to the Captain when he felt the PoW turning away telling him : " The guns are OK ! ".

The PoW gunnery report is defining the whole series of mechanical problems ( later defined teething problems on the bibliography ) that the main turrets were suffering.

Here for you just my current personal opinion based on the above documents analysis, ... surely the gun A1 was out of action, ... surely mechanical problems were occurring on the various turrets, ... the reasons for them to occur is well explained one by one on both the PoW gunnery report as well as into the Vickers Armstrong technical analysis ( a very interesting read ).
The problem was into the perception of the guns reliability that was different between Colin McMullen ( the Gunnery Officer ) and his Captain Leach, ... and for me in there we can find the reason of what happened rather than counting the single gun number availability on a defined moment.
Captain Leach on his report described quite well this concept.

What is for sure is that it was the hard turn away that caused the Y turret shell loading ring to jam and the Y quadruple turret to go out of action ( minus 4 guns and from 9 down to 5 available ), this happened after the order obviously and not before it.

The number of gun availability was later used by Adm Tovey to justify what occurred for the well known reasons, ... and that is why the Y turret jamming event was " moved in " before the retreat order.

Captain Leach never wrote that on his June report as it was a clear incorrect statement, it was Adm Tovey to do it on his dispatches on July 1941.

Hope my explanation is clear enough, ... and now I think that your question becomes a bit more complicated to be responded :

What course of action would you gentlemen have chosen ?

Despite the number of guns working, as I wrote above it was the " reliability perception " the decision making factor.

We can all express our own personal opinion about it.

The problem was on June 1941 that a Board of Inquiry using the Articles of War was going to judge that event very strongly I suspect.

Surely nobody was going to reveal that the KGV class battleships had a reliability negative perception problem on June 1941.

Now you can start realizing why it went in the way we all know today.

Bye Antonio

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hello everybody,

Dunmunro wrote: "yet can find no evidence of loss of output"

simply because nobody can make the difference between 3 or 4 guns firing from turrets close one to another (A+B or C+D) looking at a 1941 film.


Based on the above posted spreadsheets, I hope Mr.Dunmunro has finally realized that his unsupported theories about a minimum loss of output (just 96 ordered shots in 14 minutes) will ONLY worsen the Bismarck RoF compared to PoW during the critical phases of the battle , while his crazy speculation about Bismarck open fire at 5:53 is simply a "boomerang" for his supposed efficiency of Bismarck firing rate.

So said, based on the well known milestones (Bismarck open fire at 5:55 as per PG KTB and gunnery reports + Hood exploding at 6:00 as per majority of both side reports), the most probable distribution of shots is:
1) 5:55 - 6:00 = 40 ordered shots (as per the Baron), 2(-3) hits (average to good precision)
2) 6:00 - 6:03 = 24 ordered shots , 3 hits (the last one, underwater, at around 6:02, very good precision due to acquired range, minimal corrections and stable course, PoW evading maneuver affecting it after 6:02)
3) 6:03 - 6:09 (quick firing intervals for regaining precision, short "pauses" during her own turns) = 44 shots (as per photos/film), no hit (lost precision due mainly to her own turns + (marginally) to PoW evading maneuver)

These are quite uniform distributions (as obvious and accounted by all witnesses, nobody of which outlined any firing irregularity for Bismarck).

The other options presented by Mr.Dunmunro as "possible" are all giving a ridiculously slow RoF for Bismarck, worse than PoW, especially if he still tries to move her open fire time at 5:53...

The reality is that Bismarck was firing almost at the same RoF as PoW, with a better output loss, but delivering less shells per minute against her opponent. Any figure radically different from 108 ordered shots will worsen one of those parameters in a way that is not supported by technical specifications and witnesses accounts.

PoW_BS_PG_Output_Comparison_McMullen.jpg (70.88 KiB) Viewed 1022 times

Anyone else wants to try a different ordered shots figure, after Mr.Dunmunro 's 96 has been proven unrealistically low ?

Of course, I'm ready to post again the possible detailed "salvo sequence" for Bismarck, matching almost all accounts + film/photos + PG reports and BS total number of shells fired, if anyone has still any doubt about it.



Bye, Alberto

[paul.mercer]

Gentlemen,
In the above chart there seems to be quite a discrepancy on the number of 'Shells ordered to fire' and the actual number of shells fired on all three ships and the same seems to have occured with KGV and Rodney during the final battle, while we know PoW had problems, was this 'failure to fire' common amongst all WW 2 ships of any nation?

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hi Paul,
yes it was, especially when ships fire at a relatively high RoF, underlining any minimum problem that can be fixed in case of a slow RoF.

Vittorio Veneto at Gaudo battle fired 29 salvos, delivering 94 381mm shells vs 105 ordered shots (output loss around 10%) and this is comparable to Bismarck figures (albeit VV was firing quite slowly due to higher distance and bad visibility). 6 out of 11 lost shots were due to the left gun of turret 1. The performance in terms of output was considered fully satisfactory by Adm.Iachino.

KGV may have fired with less output loss on May 27 during the first minutes of battle, but again her RoF was extremely slower than at DS, facilitating the achievement of a higher RoF.

I think that output losses between 10% and 15% are absolutely normal for WWII battleships firing in anger at high RoF and with ship motion/turns.



Bye, Alberto

[dunmunro]

Gentlemen,
In the above chart there seems to be quite a discrepancy on the number of 'Shells ordered to fire' and the actual number of shells fired on all three ships and the same seems to have occured with KGV and Rodney during the final battle, while we know PoW had problems, was this 'failure to fire' common amongst all WW 2 ships of any nation?

Most battleships had a very high % output initially with a falling output as time progresses:

KGV = 90%+ for the first 30 mins and ~60% overall
Rodney = " " and ~75% overall (IIRC)
DoY = 80% " " and ~65% overall
Washington = ~90% for 5 mins
Massachusetts = ~90%+ for 30mins and ~70% over overall (several hours) (all the above from memory)

Unfortunately many Axis Battleships that had a high volume of output over a prolonged time were ultimately lost and so we cannot analyse their output.

[Alberto Virtuani]

...and this shows, once more, that both PoW and Bismarck were still quite "green" ships at DS, with a loss of output of 26% and 14% (estimated, but most probably between 11% and 17%) respectively.

However, at Denmark Strait, the RoF was much higher than on May 27 (KGV and Rodney) or at Gaudo, allowing both ships to deliver a number of shells per minute that was quite high (and comparable between the ships involved).

I don't know the RoF of the other mentioned ships (DoY, Washington, Massachusetts) when achieving a very good 90% output efficiency....
Can anyone provide further details about these actions and/or other ones for comparison ?

Vittorio Veneto fired a bit "slowly" at Gaudo ("only" 29 salvos of one or more turrets in 22 minutes, albeit with some pauses in the fire action (due to poor visibility and to the British cruisers smoke screen, with 2 changes of target during the action) achieving around 90% output efficiency).
Cmdr Erminio Bagnasco explains that the most common problem (at least aboard Italian battleships) was the "misfire" that prevented the triggered ignition of the charge. To fix this problem the "solution" was one (or very few more) further attempts to trigger again the charge at next salvo, and, if not fixed yet, the percussion of the gun breach with a...hammer...to "manually" try to ignite the "reluctant" charge......
Of course the opening of the breech when the charge was still inside unexploded had to be carefully avoided during a fire action....


Bye, Alberto

[pgollin]

.

Lots of silly posts here.

"Excellent" fire from the PoW would be 20 rounds per minute (or 2 rounds per minute for each gun bearing). RN 14- and 15-inch guns had times between rounds of around 24 to 28 seconds. Salvos were normally fired when the "guns ready" sign showed half were ready. (When a gun was delayed the turret captain spoke to the fire control officer.) 16-inch varied between 35 and 45 seconds and were fired as either broadsides or doubles.

There is another misunderstanding of English and Royal Navy procedure above - " The guns are OK ! " merely means that there is no reason why the available guns cannot fire. It does NOT say how many are available, or when more guns will be available - the previous reports to the bridge are still extant.

Although the USN often claimed 100% output in practice firings this was due to their oddities in procedure (usually not firing at maximum rate, waiting for casualties to be cleared, etc....) The RN thought mid 90-percents was good for (their more realistic) practice firings. IN REAL LIFE, the RN expected something like mid 80's percent for output at maximum rate and manoeuvring.

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hello everybody,

as obvious for any normal person (except the hooligan who define "silly" the arguments expressed by other people, without providing any added value to the discussion and being unable to counter the figures/facts presented , clearly revealing their intent to set off a fight at any cost , despite the praiseworthy attempts to get back to a civilized discussion) we are speaking of actual (real-life) RoF for WWII battleships when in action at sea, and not about the theoretical reload time of the gun. Hope this concept is not too difficult to be understood even by him.....

Had Bismarck fired according to her theoretical reload time (20 seconds), she would have ordered to fire 336 shots in 14 minutes against the British ships (not "only" the actual 104-112) but she did not.....had PoW fired at her theoretical reload time (let's take 26 seconds) she would have ordered 165 shots (counting only the guns that were bearing to the enemy) in 8,5 minutes (not "only" the actual 74)


On May 24, PoW fired at a RoF HIGHER than KGV on May 27 and this is a FACT. PoW delivered more shells against Bismarck per minute than vice-versa (another FACT), PoW was hitting the enemy for the first time at least as fast as Bismarck if not faster (6th salvo), another FACT, she had only 1 main gun permanently out of action out of 10 at the end of her "centrally directed" action (last FACT).
She lost more shots than "normal" due to mechanical/training problems, still her gunnery was surely surprisingly good (when compared to Bismarck's one and especially when compared to Hood's one, that was awfully lacking precision despite being a very well trained ship).

Any additional example of output loss and actual RoF vs theoretical will be welcome to allow a comparison with PoW available discussed data.


If anybody disagrees with Adm.Santarini judgement about PoW gunnery and RoF (both "excellent" as per his book), he can address the complaints directly to him: I'm sure he will be glad to teach him the basics of gunnery (his specialty).

The reason why the British needed (at the time of the facts) to believe that PoW gunnery was "poor" compared to Bismarck's one is clearly explained at pag.54 of Adm.Santarini's book: someone here should really re-think about his attitude in this regard even today.....



Bye, Alberto

[Bill Jurens]

For what it is worth, having studied this particular subject for years, I have always felt that POW's gunnery during Denmark Strait was indeed rather poor. In the USN, anybody who fired as many ranging salvos without crossing the target would have been heavily criticized. After getting on for line, crossing the target early was essential to efficient shooting.

This inability to cross the target, known as 'nibbling at the spot' tended to be indicative of a gunnery control officer who was either too experienced (over-confident) or not experienced enough. Alternatively, the problem may have lain in poor communication within the fire-control team.

Bill Jurens

[Byron Angel]

Alberto & Antonio - As much as it pains me to say this, your comical attempts to slather the lipstick on PoW's gunnery performance at Denmark Strait = total crap.

I have lost all respect for you both.

B

[Herr Nilsson]

Had Bismarck fired according to her theoretical reload time (20 seconds),....

Just for the record: the shortest possible firing interval of Bismarck is 26 seconds.

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ Byron Angel,

since you asked me, I have tried in a very educated way to explain to you the real events supported by the existing documents and interviews.

You can believe on what you like and desire, that is not my problem, it is only your problem to correlate your opinion with the existing evidences.

But please do not carefully listen to Colin McMullen BBC interview at the Imperial War Museum, ... because you run really the risk to ask yourself too many questions you will not able to respond without realizing the truth, ... reading the documents, ... and to open your eyes, ... keep them well closed, ... your life will be better in this way.

Do not listen to Colin Mc Mullen voice here below, otherwise you will loose respect on him too :

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80010751

I hope they will be no one declaring Colin McMullen being one of the " Conspirators " ...

Keep on believing that PoW disengaged with only 3 guns working ( even if Capt Leach ultimately declared 9 on his report on June 1941 ) and that it was at 06:13 after 21 minutes battle ( ) and fighting on alone against the Bismarck for 13 minutes after Hood sunk at 06:00, ... just as Sir Kennedy wrote on his novel PURSUIT, ... despite the Royal Navy Admiralty correcting this incorrect timing ( intentionally falsely declared by Adm Tovey on his dispatches ) back to the more reasonable 06:03 ( LtntCdr RN Pitcairn-Jones - Historical Section - on 1948 into the Battle Summary Nr. 5 document and based on the PoW gunnery map ).

As far as I am concerned the lost of respect is reciprocal and with this I add you to my personal black list here in.
Do not worry, you have good company and you can share your ridiculous thoughts among many others of your same current very low competence level.


Bye Antonio

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hello everybody,

as you see from the above posts (e.g. the childish "I have lost all respect for you both" ), being totally UNABLE to counter FACTS with any fact, the deniers are starting again with personal attacks , only revealing their impotence, anger and immaturity, despite the praiseworthy attempt of Paul Mercer to get back to a polite discussion.....

I intentionally avoid to comment on the value of "respect". Back once again to FACTS:

PoW hit the enemy at her 6th semi-salvo (FACT), therefore together or even BEFORE Bismarck did the same (and Bismarck gunnery was always considered excellent at DS, in view of the extraordinary fast closing rate, complicating the firing solution...).

PoW RoF was close to Bismarck (or better if we want to accept the output loss close to 0% as per an unsupported theory): FACT.

PoW # of shells delivered per minute were higher than Bismarck's (WHATEVER theory we want to accept about her ordered number of shots): FACT.

PoW had only 1 main gun permanently out of action at the time Leach decided to break off the engagement: FACT.

Output Loss was quite worse, but not dramatically (26% vs 14%) in view of the fact that PoW had 2 guns more. FACT.

Precision was worse than Bismarck's (once acquired the target), with 3 hits for PoW vs. 5 (or 6) hits for Bismarck, but it was surely much better than Hood's one (0 hits): FACT.



I'm sorry if incontrovertible FACTS annoy anyone, but they cannot be changed by the desperate "need" of the deniers to believe the fairy tale about PoW poor gunnery compared to Bismarck (intentionally sold to the world for 75 years with massive usage of "lipstick", greasepaint and botox ), as lucidly and mercilessly explained by a naval and gunnery expert like Adm.Santarini.

Santarini_pag.54_Bismarck_Performance.jpg (45.83 KiB) Viewed 891 times

Bye, Alberto