Can I just ask if- PoW's gun A1 was disabled by its first shot in the morning, and it was able to fire in the evening, was it therefore "a working gun" ignoring the reload time of several hours?
The definition of a "non-working gun" is a gun which is unable to fire when you might reasonably want it to, or which you suspect will not work when you want it to. If a gun will not fire because its next shell has not made it into the barrel even though it was supposed to have been installed with propellant and the breech locked 30 seconds ago, it is a non-working gun. Leach may have considered quite a few of his guns were "non-working".
Since guns in all three of PoW's turrets missed ordered shots when the time between requested shots for any individual gun were in the region of a minute, and when those weapons were supposed to be loaded and ready to fire in only 30 seconds, Mr McMullen's opinion that everything was "fine" is, shall we say, a little optimistic.
Surprisingly, since virtually every other British officer has been accused of lying and/or covering up his or his department's deficiencies, Colin McMullen's statement is apparently sacrosanct. Since the time of flight, plus a few seconds for spotting corrections is applied, is the standard interval between salvoes and the former came down rapidly during the engagement, there is, astonishingly, considering McMullen's assurance, no improvement detectable in PoW's rate of firing. Only at one point only, the 06:00 minute, does one group of her guns get the reload and ready time down to about 45 seconds. Taking half as long again as it is supposed to, and resulting in guns in the group missing the salvo, because they are not ready, like the others.
This brief (single salvo) peak of British firing, strangely enough, is not matched at the same time by the Bismarck, which supposedly puts off her maximum effort, which is recorded but not time-stamped on film, until both she and her target are carrying out maximum rate turns. As a result of which her fire control predictions are rendered completely worthless, and accurate spotting is made more difficult by PoW's smoke screen and her own heeling and turning. A fine time to blaze away at maximum rate, if wasting ammunition were your goal.
This anomaly is because there is no actual record of Bismarck's firing in this action, as there is for PoW, and an imagined gunnery record has been substituted. Lutjens sent his total shells expended figure to Head Office for logistic purposes, and the other parameter comes from a bitter and disappointed Baron, who had been fished out of the sea after seeing his beloved super ship battered to shreds without causing any harm to her tormentors, and thousands of crewmates killed. He stated it had only cost forty shells to sink the Mighty Hood. His statement is apparently sacrosanct. Some British observers estimated the number of salvoes necessary to sink Hood, but since they are all liars we can safely discount their estimates.
All the other gunnery performance details for Bismarck included in this thread and others, are estimates or guesses and even those who put them forward admit the "two salvoes per minute, every minute" regularity, is contradicted by the film. Their illogical response is to say the only alternative is for Bismarck to have shot at her maximum rate all the time. Clearly an exaggeration for effect. Clearly Bismarck's rate varied widely over time. Angle of entry aboard PoW shows Bismarck and PG were firing and hitting as PoW turned away. Geoffrey Brooke records one "splosh" and two salvoes he didn't even see land after PoW put the enemy astern. Long before 06:09. Averaging rate of fire over 14 minutes is only done to make Bismarck's figure look artificially bad and similar to PoW's.
All the best
wadinga
, ... on his July 1941 dispatches at point 19, ... and only in this way Capt Leach conduct while in action was accepted by the Admiralty on September 1941 ( ref. Sir Barnes letter ).
