Post
by Cag » Thu Jan 12, 2017 12:36 pm
Hi All
Firstly may I say that when I started this subject I did not set out to call into question Antonios map. It is the most accurate we have had and I do understand the amount of work put into it.
I'm sure that Antonio has spotted the inaccuracy that exists, when I read Paul's paper it began to answer all kinds of questions that had bugged me for a long while, which when added to the forum posts I've read posted by far more reasoned experts than I could ever be, ideas and possible answers to these inaccuracies began to make sense.
I am buried in maps at the moment, battle maps new salvo/Rowell maps etc to try and help resolve the miss matched pieces of evidence (all done by hand I'm afraid so time consuming I apologise). Rowell admits he is quite certain about the open fire time and of others he admits he may be up to 2 minutes out. He states that the flag signal was flown from Hood to turn 20° to port and not executed until 2 minutes later, is there a reason for this?
This man was directly responsible for conning the ship to instructions given by his Captain and his Admiral on Hood. His times may be out, his, and many others, memories may be mistaken, but to be so far out in the sequence of events is hard to understand. To coin a phrase he, and many others on the British side, have put the cart before the horse.
We know that the time on the different groups of ships were not synchronised, so what was 05.55 on Prinz Eugen may have been 05.54 or 05.56 on PoW (remember there was the time coordination between Hood and PoW on the gunnery channel pre battle). We have to factor in shell flight time (about 40 sec for PG at the 202hm range iirc) but a main point was, if the turn was later than 05.55 as Paul suggests and Rowell was inaccurate in his timing here, but not his testimony, which is possible, then it may be also theoretically possible for a small open fire delay on the German side to exist, and for Hood to be hit before the turn as the British have recorded in their evidence. It is hard to ignore that all the British evidence suggests simultaneous open fire by both sides, yet delay on the German side, there must be an answer.
There are many parts of the battle that I struggle with, they do not seem to add up. As a very wise man told me the Rowell map is wrong, yet it is right, and that is true. Paul Cadogans idea that the turn was later also resolved some other problems for me, it resolved the A arcs opening at salvo 9 and explained the lack of possible fire earlier, Hoods explosion being slightly earlier explained the salvo 12 hit, as well as others.
I'm no expert, I regard those who have regularly posted on this forum as being experts. My hope is that a definitive agreed answer may be found.
As always best wishes
Cag.
Generally speaking I came to a very similar conclusion like Paul Cadogan.