KGV and PoW GAR during Op. Rheinubung

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Antonio Bonomi
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Re: KGV and PoW GAR during Op. Rheinubung

Post by Antonio Bonomi »

Hello everybody,

@ Paul Mercer,

it should be clear enough by now that the intentional lies written by Adm Tovey on his dispatches at point 19, I mean mainly the false 06:13 retreat time and the Y turret jamming event occurred before and not after the turn away of 160° to port, ... has been written ( and accepted by the Admiralty being the official version of the facts ), ... with the only intent to save Capt Leach and put him out of troubles in the future ( in case of a Board of Inquiry ), ... and in this way they enabled his recognition too.

As Alberto properly wrote there are 2 main source of information about what really happened on board the HMS Prince of Wales that morning, ... while Colin McMullen was thinking that " the guns were OK", .... an this is an event that into the " loved novel " has been always depicted like the mechanical " teething troubles " situation to be associated to the poor fine tuning of the new weapons, ... while obviously the Vickers Armstrong had a complete different opinion about those events as we can read on their detailed reports.

One point I like you to keep in mind before you read and evaluate all the details and it is related to Capt Leach himself, ... and on his position and duty for the Royal Navy that he had just before accepting the command of the HMS Prince of Wales.

He was the Director of Naval Ordnance and in that role the main responsible for the acceptance for the Royal Navy new weapons as you can read on his book biography from page 51 to page 56, ... so about the KGV and PoW too.

https://www.amazon.com/Highest-Traditio ... 0752459929

In my personal opinion that is key to understand what was on his mind and why he had a lot of pre-conceived opinion about those guns and turrets, having been personally responsible for the acceptance of those weapons for the Royal Navy just before he had to rely on them on the new battleship under his direct responsibility.
The fact that he delayed PoW commissioning and pretended the Vickers Armstrong technicians on board even after is just an additional confirmation of what I am stating.

The 2 last things to be noticed is that first, ... those problems were common to all warships more or less, ... and the second in favor of the honor and dignity of Capt Leach I must underline the fact that despite having done what he did, ... and having tried to justify it with some progressively more precise radio messages, ... he did not write the known intentional lies on his report, ... the ones that today many are keep on publishing on books, ... the 06:13 PoW retreat time and 21 minutes battle of which 14 minutes fighting on alone against the Bismarck ( Kennedy on Pursuit ), ... and the Y turret jamming occurred before the turn away disengaging and not after it and because of it.

Capt Leach NEVER wrote those lies on his radio messages and on his official last battle report, ... it has been Adm Tovey to do it on his dispatches, ... starting the incorrect data publications that we can still read today published by historians and professors on recent years too.

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 )
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Re: KGV and PoW GAR during Op. Rheinubung

Post by wadinga »

Hello Antonio,

Please elaborate on:
The fact that he delayed PoW commissioning and pretended the Vickers Armstrong technicians on board even after is just an additional confirmation of what I am stating.

Once again arrant nonsense is misrepresented as fact. Prince of Wales was commissioned on 19th January 1941 before completion after being bomb-damaged in dock at Birkenhead and sailed to Rosyth, Scotland with two of four propellers lashed on deck. I make due allowance and appreciate your courtesy in conducting your defamatory jihad in English, but what exactly does "pretended" mean? Are you really suggesting there was no need for civilian personnel to be onboard in May 1941 and Leach was deceiving somebody somewhere by pretending the installations were not complete and operational, when you and your co-author have access to the extensive report showing that the systems were not satisfactory, even in late May 1941! You have also been shown numerous times that undue and unresolved problems continued to dog the 14 inch guns and mounts into late 1943.


The decision to cram four guns into turrets and mount them in a hull constrained by Treaty considerations was not Leach's responsibility as Director of Naval Ordnance, he merely had to try and make it work and be available when KG V's hull was ready. Even you cannot be so naïve as to believe he should have vetoed the 14 inch design and seen KG V completed without main armament. * You are well aware of the constructional shortcomings, of both mounts and hull, described in great detail in Tarrant's book, which you choose apparently to ignore, whilst quoting only his parroting of the CMDS myth.


This thread is exclusively about gunnery performance and your bizarre obsession with defining what precise course and therefore which instant in time constitutes a "retreat" in an action when the opponent continued to deliberately avoid combat, belongs elsewhere.


* I mean it would be ridiculous to complete a warship without her principal weapon being ready - HMS Queen Elizabeth 2018 :whistle:


All the best

wadinga
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Re: KGV and PoW GAR during Op. Rheinubung

Post by HMSVF »

Its wort pointing out that both classes of British battleships and designed after Jutland suffered from turret issues due to over complicated interlocks (Not including Vanguard as the turrets, though reworked, were nonetheless based on a pre Jutland design

Nelson and Rodney had some real issues with their main armament for years which were never truly ironed out but certainly lessened. And this was in the peacetime years of the late 20's and early 30's. The KGV's were born in the war years and were needed urgently. No normal work ups, no prolonged shake down cruise to iron out the snags.

And Wadinga rightly points out that POW had the added complication of receiving damage in Birkenhead that had to be patched up before sending her to Rosyth for completion (and its interesting to speculate if it ever was properly repaired given her failure off Kuantan.

POW had a troubled birth and if you read the accounts from those who actually served on her, she never had a satisfactory work up at all. The fact that Vickers were still snagging her tells you all you need to know.



Best wishes HMSVF
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Re: KGV and PoW GAR during Op. Rheinubung

Post by Antonio Bonomi »

Hello everybody,

well, ... we have just learned that the KG V class battleships have never been really completed, ... not having had in their service life the quadruple turrets and relative gun loading mechanisms working at an acceptable reliability level, ... :shock:

Anyway ... to make a long story short, ... that was the state of the art for the PoW guns, ... as KGV demonstrated on the May 27th Bismarck last engagement as well, ... and it was hardly reached after 7 weeks of intensive training night and day about her gunnery, ... and Colin McMullen knew it very well.

The same did Capt Leach and has stated in fact he just mentioned their possible reliability problem being the cause of his disengagement, ... it is enough to read his report to realize it.

The guns performance were OK, ... and on the occurred problems we can read the Royal Navy PoW gunners opinion about their defects, ... as well as the Vickers Armstrong technicians report about them, ... and it is a very interesting read indeed.
I intentionally do not want or like to judge who was right and who was wrong, ... but reading them one can surely realize a lot about what was going on into those turrets on that moment.

Going back to the real PoW performances she fired 55 shells ( out of 74 ordered ) between 05:53 and 06:02 ( on 8 minutes and 58 seconds precisely as reported ) with 18 salvoes fired in central control, ... and after she fired 4 rounds with additional 3 salvoes in local control between 06:03 and 06:04 while having retreated already disengaging.

Here the data on her report and the bottom maps to verify :

http://www.hmshood.org.uk/reference/off ... 09guns.htm

As I wrote, it is very easy to verify now what I have stated above about Capt Leach :
... he did not write the known intentional lies on his report, ... the ones that today many are keep on publishing on books, ... the 06:13 PoW retreat time and 21 minutes battle of which 14 minutes fighting on alone against the Bismarck ( Kennedy on Pursuit ), ... and the Y turret jamming occurred before the turn away disengaging and not after it and because of it.

Capt Leach NEVER wrote those lies on his radio messages and on his official last battle report, ... it has been Adm Tovey to do it on his dispatches, ... starting the incorrect data publications that we can still read today published by historians and professors on recent years too.
It is enough to read his report here in to verify it :

http://www.hmshood.org.uk/reference/off ... #P391Leach

Consequently there were no PoW gun performances at all between the battle time 06:04 until 06:13, ... and who wrote those statements on his books was just repeating the intentional lies that Adm Tovey invented to delay the PoW disengagement real event by at least 11 more minutes and provide a more solid justification of the retreat occurrence, ... adding also the Y turret jamming event to reinforce the justification, because it was reducing 4 more guns having become unusable due to the shell ring jamming.

Now I invite everybody to read Russell Grenfell, Sir Kennedy and Corelli-Barnett accounts description of those events on their books, ... all originated by the intentionally incorrectly written Adm Tovey dispatches at point 19 for this particular case, .... and to compare them with the PoW gunnery data and Capt Leach official report here above, ... and finally realize the truth on your own, ... :wink:

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 )
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wadinga
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Re: KGV and PoW GAR during Op. Rheinubung

Post by wadinga »

Hello Antonio,


I asked you to explain what you meant by:

and pretended the Vickers Armstrong technicians on board even after

But you have obviously decided that since the first part of the same sentence was completely inaccurate, the second half was probably an indefensible misrepresentation as well, and haven't bothered.
we have just learned that the KG V class battleships have never been really completed, ... not having had in their service life the quadruple turrets and relative gun loading mechanisms working at an acceptable reliability level,

Obviously what you have "just learned" has come from an interesting source. Your intuition perhaps? You have Tarrant's book- what does he say?

The guns performance were OK, ... and on the occurred problems we can read the Royal Navy PoW gunners opinion about their defects, ... as well as the Vickers Armstrong technicians report about them, ... and it is a very interesting read indeed.

This "sentence" or series of truncated phrases is particularly unclear. Who says "the guns's performance were OK"? Is that your opinion, or McMullen's perched in the DCT completely cut-off from what happened in the turrets and barbettes? Or his actual report after he had collated all the problems his people reported to him? Or the conclusion of the lengthy report compiled after Armstrong Vickers' evaluation?

but reading them one can surely realize a lot about what was going on into those turrets on that moment.
Going back to the real PoW performances

Alberto is a big fan of using the word insinuation (normally incorrectly) but here you have provided an example of excellent usage whilst not actually giving us any useful information. The first phrase suggests some sort of hidden information which you have identified via your intuition, and suggests the report is not reliable, and this is reinforced by further suggesting it is at odds with PoW's real life performance.
Consequently there were no PoW gun performances at all between the battle time 06:04

Good we agree on something, since this thread concerns PoW's gun performance to 06:04 let's concentrate on that and leave your jihad out of it. If you want to post something and have time on your hands why not explain how in your imagination Aylwin managed to nearly hit Prinz Eugen with his 20th salvo, when he did not even know where the 19th landed? (McMullen's report)


Hello HMSVF, It is worth noting that the particular problems with both the 16" and 8" mounts emanated in major part from design requirements for very high elevation angles. 45 degrees for the former, 80 degrees for the latter. There was nothing endemically wrong with British design, they were just trying to push things too far.


All the best

wadinga
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Re: KGV and PoW GAR during Op. Rheinubung

Post by Byron Angel »

Peter Hodges is yet another conniving conspirator spreading lies about the KGV Class 14in Mk III quadruple turret in order to keep Leach's and Tovey's ugly Denmark Strait secret. But the most outrageous event of all in this huge cover-up scandal has to have been the outfitting of Vanguard with those four antique twin 15in turrets instead of the magnificent Mk III 14in quads, just to keep the Denmark Strait scandal well buried. My God, what lengths those devious English will go to.

If Benny Hill were alive to read this thread, he would have featured it as an exclusive on his show. Cowardice in the face of the enemy! It would have been mind-blowing; the government would have fallen.

Can't wait for the book to come out.

B
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Re: KGV and PoW GAR during Op. Rheinubung

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hello everybody,
Wadinga wrote: "why not explain how in your imagination Aylwin managed to nearly hit Prinz Eugen with his 20th salvo, when he did not even know where the 19th landed?"
Irrelevant question. We have a photo NH69731 (perfectly timed at around 6:03:20 as PG is still on course 220° while POW is already running away under smoke after having sailed around Hood remains) showing salvo 19 falling very short, we have the PG film (perfectly timed as well, as NO other PG turn happened before 6:03:40 as per her battlemap) showing both salvo 20 and 21 falling much closer to Bismarck (already on course 270°), short and long respectively.

The evident fact that Alwin good shooting deeply annoys the defenders of Leach decision :wink: , doesn't allow Mr.Wadinga to imagine in his mind (not being able to draw and present it) a fantasy battlemap (he just said the 1990 "Baron" map was "good enough for him" :shock: , but then he said Bismarck was not really on course 270° from 5:55 to 6:00.... :kaput: ), based on nothing. :negative:

FACTS please Mr.Wadinga, not speculations about Alwin impossibility to correct his shooting, or repeated mention of wrong captions.


Byron Angel wrote:; "Can't wait for the book to come out"
It will be a book based on facts ONLY, putting together the deep study of the battlemap done by Antonio since 2004 and the new recent discoveries (including the "regrettable aftermath" of the Bismarck operation) as available in the British archives.
Even if you don't agree now on the proposed historical reconstruction, from what you have fairly posted here (http://www.kbismarck.org/forum/viewtopi ... 007#p80007 :clap: , while the other "deniers at any cost" were provoking or quibbling over captions etc. to avoid to admit their defeat :oops: ), I'm confident that you will be finally able to recognize the truth.



Bye, Alberto
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Re: KGV and PoW GAR during Op. Rheinubung

Post by paul.mercer »

Gentlemen,
Please forgive my interruption to your debate, but perhaps you could clear up a couple of points for me.
First of all, are some people saying that Y turret did not jam at all? If so, how could anyone in the RN get away with saying they did when there were so many witnesses on the ship, not least the gun crew?
Second, problems with the 'Nelsons' triple turrets, did Germany suffer the same problems with the Deutschland and Scharnhorst class and did the Italians, the Japanese and USA also have problems with their triple gunned turrets? I believe the French also had a problem with their quad turret, if so, it seems surprising that between six different countries none could get it right on multi gunned turrets.
Finally, if KGV's guns also misbehaved during the final battle, then her crew must have said 'Thank God for good old Rodney'!
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Re: KGV and PoW GAR during Op. Rheinubung

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Paul Mercer wrote: "are some people saying that Y turret did not jam at all?"
Hi Paul,
I don't think anyone has said Y turret did not jam at all. The point is that both McMullen in his GAR (salvo 20) and Leach in his narrative (during the turn) make clear that the jamming happened after the turn away and was caused by the turn itself, while Adm Tovey (without re-entering the polemics re. the reasons why he did so) provided a different version of facts, putting the Y turret jam together with the battle damages sustained by PoW, while explaining the disengagement decision.

you wrote: "did Germany suffer the same problems.... and did the Italians...? "
Re.Italian triple turrets, already adopted during WWI, I'm not aware of any major problem with their mechanisms. Problems of Italian gunnery for triple 381 mm turrets was excessive dispersion, due to bad quality and controls of ammunition. Even worse problems were experienced with double turrets (heavy cruisers) due to the guns being fired too close one to the other.


Bye, Alberto
"It takes three years to build a ship; it takes three centuries to build a tradition" (Adm.A.B.Cunningham)

"There's always a danger running in the enemy at close range" (Adm.W.F.Wake-Walker)
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Re: KGV and PoW GAR during Op. Rheinubung

Post by Antonio Bonomi »

Hello everybody,

@ Paul Marcer,

you asked :
Paul Mercer wrote: " are some people saying that Y turret did not jam at all ?"
I agree with Alberto Virtuani, here in on our side nobody ever stated anything like that.

More, ... in that event there is one of the 2 irrefutable lies that Adm Tovey declared on his dispatches point 19, ... when compared with Capt Leach Official battle report, ... and with the truth.

The HMS Prince of Wales quadruple Y turret did jam that morning, ... it happened during the turn away of 160° to port ordered by Capt Leach disengaging from the enemy.

But as said, ... during the turn and because of the hard turn itself, ... occurred surely after the order of Capt Leach to turn away 160° to port, ... and not before that order as Adm Tovey intentionally incorrectly stated on his dispatches at point 19, ... in order to justify that order being issued.

It should be very easy for everybody to realize the huge difference that Adm Tovey intentional alteration of the truth was making, ... since it was providing an addittional false justification of that order, one complete quadrupe turret ( the Y turret with her 4 guns ) having become unusable when Capt Leach decided to retreat and issued the consequent order to do it by turning to port 160°.

It was false, wrong and intentionally incorrectly declared by Adm Tovey, because Capt Leach on his available report never declared that, and just declared correctly the opposite, ... I mean that the Y turret jammed during the turn away after his order, ... and not before, ... just as I am underlying to everybody here in.

It is enough to read Capt Leach report and Adm Tovey dispatches point 19 to realize the different declarations and the truth.

Nothing invented by anybody recently, ... everything written on 1941, ... it is enough to read it, ... understand and accept, ... and acknowledge that it does correspond to the historical truth, ... in fairness here in.

Bye Antonio
Last edited by Antonio Bonomi on Sun Sep 16, 2018 1:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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 )
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Re: KGV and PoW GAR during Op. Rheinubung

Post by wadinga »

Hello Paul Mercer,

FACT


Mr Wadinga completely and irrefutably LIED when he said the Nelson's guns elevated to 45 degrees, it was only 40!


OK I didn't consult Campbell first.


However it was this factor that made the mounting unreliable throughout most of the 20s and 30s, not its tripleness. The German 11inch guns had a slightly lower maximum elevation 38.2 degrees but then their shells were much lighter and the handling gear would be much more complicated for a much greater weight. The immediate pre-war American 16 inch for South Dakota and Washington classes got 39 degree elevation but they were designed 15 years later than the British. .

On the subject of facts
We have a photo NH69731 (perfectly timed at around 6:03:20 as PG is still on course 220°
We have no idea what course PG is on and it also says nothing about Bismarck's course and the only thing which might provide timing is if the white splash is in fact salvo 19.
showing both salvo 20 and 21 falling much closer to Bismarck (already on course 270°), short and long respectively.
There is no evidence these are PoW's shots, the witness says they are from Hood, and both are closer to PG than Bismarck. Neither are "long" on Bismarck. they are long on PG.
The HMS Prince of Wales quadruple Y turret did jam that morning

Incorrect statement otherwise Claude Aylwin would not have been able to traverse the turret to fire the shots he did fire, even though he had no idea where they landed. The loading ring jammed, cutting off the supply of ammunition. Antonio, when you are stating supposed facts please get them right, or your credibility will shrink even further. (If that is possible).


Alberto said:

Irrelevant question.

In a thread about PoW's gunnery??? :shock: What he meant was unanswerable question. Since there is no evidence Aylwin's 20th and 21st salvoes landed anywhere near the German ships, as nobody, British or German ever saw them land,


There is no evidence Bismarck ever carried out a "torpedo avoidance manoeuvre" at 06:03 or at any other time. However a map approved by gunnery officers aboard both German ships shows she turned away well before 06:00 and this fits well with the film and Lagemann's identification of Hood's shots.

There is photograph showing PG travelling directly away from Bismarck's target, whilst the latter is still shooting on her port beam, which is probably the reason why the Gefechtskizze was identified by senior German officers as "useless and worthless". The submitted map shows PG manoevring in a far less extreme manner, only circa 50 degree turn, than she actually did, which is what her gunnery officers describe. Moving about like a Flying Bedstead" The Gefechtskizze transposes this extreme turn directly away from PoW to a much later time c. 06:14. At what times and by how degrees of course change PG evaded the imaginary torpedoes from an impossibly far away source is unclear and Brinkmann's report is deliberately vague.


All the best

wadinga
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Re: KGV and PoW GAR during Op. Rheinubung

Post by paul.mercer »

Gentlemen,
As always, many thanks for taking time to answer my questions, as for the rest of the debate, I'm not sure we are going to get any firm conclusions on this one either! But thanks again for your replies.
Paul
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Re: KGV and PoW GAR during Op. Rheinubung

Post by dunmunro »

Antonio Bonomi wrote: Sat Sep 15, 2018 12:53 pm Hello everybody,

well, ... we have just learned that the KG V class battleships have never been really completed, ... not having had in their service life the quadruple turrets and relative gun loading mechanisms working at an acceptable reliability level, ... :shock:

Neither KGV nor PoW had a chance to do large scale firing trials and after the experience gained in action against Bismarck KGV and PoW had extensive modifications to their turret loading systems immediately after returning to the UK.
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Re: KGV and PoW GAR during Op. Rheinubung

Post by dunmunro »

paul.mercer wrote: Sun Sep 16, 2018 9:52 am Gentlemen,
Please forgive my interruption to your debate, but perhaps you could clear up a couple of points for me.
First of all, are some people saying that Y turret did not jam at all? If so, how could anyone in the RN get away with saying they did when there were so many witnesses on the ship, not least the gun crew?
Second, problems with the 'Nelsons' triple turrets, did Germany suffer the same problems with the Deutschland and Scharnhorst class and did the Italians, the Japanese and USA also have problems with their triple gunned turrets? I believe the French also had a problem with their quad turret, if so, it seems surprising that between six different countries none could get it right on multi gunned turrets.
Finally, if KGV's guns also misbehaved during the final battle, then her crew must have said 'Thank God for good old Rodney'!
The Loading Ring.


Turrets revolve to match the bearing and deflection required to hit the target.

Magazines and shell rooms are fixed. So how does the ammunition move from a fixed shell room and magazine stowage to a revolving turret?

The solution is to use a revolving loading ring, that can rotate independently from the turret, and can be used to transfer ammunition from stowage to the turret. Basically the shell and powder bags were brought by hoist to trays. The trays were equipped with hydraulic rammers. The revolving loading ring was then rotated to line up with the trays and the rammers pushed the shells onto the loading ring - and here is where the troubles began. The 14in, 1600lb shells, had to move easily when rammed but not move due to motion of the ship but the shell arrestors were not strong enough to prevent the shells from slipping under some circumstances of heavy roll combined with rapid loading tray movement, both when the shells were on the fixed trays or when the shells were on the trays on the revolving shell ring. So the shell could surge forward (or back when on the ring) and foul the revolving ring against the fixed structure of the ship. As the revolving shell ring has to move quickly, it could do considerable damage to the loading trays if a shell fouled against the fixed structure.

Additionally it was discovered that the hull structure of the ship had sufficient flexure that occasionally the revolving loading ring could make contact with the fixed structure of the ship and foul a shell, with the result that the loading tray would be distorted.

When the revolving loading ring shell trays were damaged it was necessary to lock the ring long enough to repair the trays, which then interrupts the ammo supply to the entire turret. If a loading tray on the fixed structure is damaged, then it would interrupt the ammo supply to one particular gun, until the tray coud be repaired.
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Re: KGV and PoW GAR during Op. Rheinubung

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hello everybody,
Paul Mercer wrote: " not sure we are going to get any firm conclusions on this one either"
Hi Paul,
I disagree with your conclusion, this may be true ONLY for people refusing to admit what the incontrovertible EVIDENCES show us:

Wadinga wrote: " We have no idea what course PG is on......There is no evidence these are PoW's shots "
ONLY a denier has no idea, any sane (and decently competent) person can check the photo and the film.
1) Please look at the railing of PG in NH69731 and see it is almost parallel to the horizon, thus, as PoW was on bearing around 140° at that point of the battle seen from PG, PG was surely still on 220° and NOT on 270°. Mathematics and geometry are back to rubbish Mr.Wadinga funny lies....
2) The film starts surely at 6:03:30 (PG turned to starboard only at 6:03:40 as per her railings, moving backwards in the camera field when pointed at Bismarck after few seconds of the film). PG battlemap (the only reliable source of info for German tracks for any sane person) gives us the precise timing of the turn (not only of this turn as we see other ones in the film).
Again an intentional lie, just because Mr.Wadinga is unwilling to accept the photographic evidences and is UNABLE to propose an alternative credible form a geometry point of view. :kaput:


I wouldn't even need to answer re. it was the loading ring and not the turret to jam... :lol:
I have just used the same definition as Adm.Tovey in his despatches at point 19 ("one four-gunned turret had jammed" he intentionally incorrectly wrote), therefore if I was "incorrect" I'm in very good company (possibly, I got misled by Tovey , as Kennedy was, when writing his fairy-tale about PoW facing Bismarck alone for 12 minutes)... :lol: :lol: :lol:

Anybody can easily appreciate from such risible quibble over definitions the TOTAL IMPOTENCE of this guy to counter any solid argument.... :kaput:



Bye, Alberto
"It takes three years to build a ship; it takes three centuries to build a tradition" (Adm.A.B.Cunningham)

"There's always a danger running in the enemy at close range" (Adm.W.F.Wake-Walker)
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