Jasper, Schmalenbach and 6 salvos...

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Thorsten Wahl
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Re: Jasper, Schmalenbach and 6 salvos...

Post by Thorsten Wahl »

I suggest you to carefully look at all the other photos of the German squadron during the battle and at the very famous Schmitz-Westerholt paint of the salvo that sunk the Hood in order to realize how the main guns smoke was leaving the warships behind them,
210 kg RPC 38 nominally produce about 200 m³ of smoke, wich spreads out into shot direction after shooting.
Every single shot causes airturbulences wich interact with the air and other puffs of smoke

during the Einschießen Salvosequence was low, giving you more likeley individual "puffs of smoke"

Wirkungschießen especially when including shooting of the 15 cm guns produce a more continuous stream of smoke instead of individual puffs.
Meine Herren, es kann ein siebenjähriger, es kann ein dreißigjähriger Krieg werden – und wehe dem, der zuerst die Lunte in das Pulverfaß schleudert!
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Antonio Bonomi
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Re: Jasper, Schmalenbach and 6 salvos...

Post by Antonio Bonomi »

Hello everybody,

@ Thorsten Wahl,

thanks for the data on the Prinz Eugen 203 mm powder/guns.

Here an original Prinz Eugen photo I have mirrored, in order to realize what occurred when the aft main turrets were firing.

You can clearly see the smoke generated by the shot, ... and it is fairly easy to imagine now, ... while the Prinz Eugen was advancing at 27 knots that morning, ... this smoke slowly drifting away while falling behind her.

Im my personal opinion this is exactly what we are looking at on the above proposed photo being in the air halfway between the Prinz Eugen aft main turrets and the Bismarck visible on the background.

Prinz_Eugen_aft_turret_firing.jpg
Prinz_Eugen_aft_turret_firing.jpg (59.71 KiB) Viewed 4032 times


The 3 fired cartridges well visible on the main deck do confirm that Prinz Eugen did fire already some seconds before, ... and consequently the smoke had the time to fall behind the fast advancing heavy cruiser and was well visible on the port side of her left wake, behind her.

This is the reason why I agree with Lagemann caption ( F.O. Busch too ) that the Bismarck on the background was firing her first salvo ( Vollsalve ) while the Prinz Eugen had just fired few seconds before Bismarck did it, ... since there is no other smoke behind the Bismarck, ... but just the salvo being fired on that moment when the photo was taken by PK Josef Lagemann which correctly captioned it.

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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Antonio Bonomi
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Re: Jasper, Schmalenbach and 6 salvos...

Post by Antonio Bonomi »

Hello everybody,

this way everybody should be able to realize what I am stating since 15 years.


1) he Prinz Eugen fired to port side with the aft main turrets and the smoke was in the air, see the YELLOW circle :

Prinz_Eugen_aft_turret_firing_07.jpg
Prinz_Eugen_aft_turret_firing_07.jpg (65.42 KiB) Viewed 4016 times

2) Some seconds ( around 10 ) passed and now that smoke has fallen behind the Prinz Eugen aside her wake ( still into the YELLOW circle ), while the fired brass cartridges of the 203 mm ejected from the back bottom of each turret are visible on the Prinz Eugen main deck ( into the RED circle ) :

Bundesarchiv_Bismarck_first_salvo_07.jpg
Bundesarchiv_Bismarck_first_salvo_07.jpg (66.01 KiB) Viewed 4016 times


3) It is on this exact moment that Bismarck fired her first salvo ( Vollsalve ) and the photographer PK Josef Lagemann took the photo and after correctly captioned it for the Bundesarchiv donation.


Now all shoudl be more easy to be realized for everybody, ... and finally clear.


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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Antonio Bonomi
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Re: Jasper, Schmalenbach and 6 salvos...

Post by Antonio Bonomi »

Hello everybody,


closing the demostration :

Bismarck_single_vs_multiple_salvo_fired.jpg
Bismarck_single_vs_multiple_salvo_fired.jpg (45.21 KiB) Viewed 4016 times


Above you can easily see the difference in the smoke background of the Bismarck having fired her first and only salvo ( LEFT ) or having fired before other salvoes ( RIGHT ).

This should remove any doubt about it now.

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: Jasper, Schmalenbach and 6 salvos...

Post by wadinga »

Hello Thorsten,

This technique of retro-deriving times makes some fairly optimistic assumptions on the accuracy and consistency performance of (even wunderbar) German optical rangefinders at c.30 kms distance. Plus or minus 1000m makes a lot of difference.
If we have 30 km Rangefinder distance for PG at 0550 then we should have about 22,8km or ~25050 yards rangefinder distance at 05.55
therfore calculated gunrange in 05.55
22,8 km - 1,15 km ~ 21,65 km for 20,3 cm guns
and ~22,9 km - 1,0 km ~ 21,9 km for 38 cm gun (additional rangefinder dist slightly larger than PGs)
Jasper says his open fire range is 20,200m at 05:55 on p 39 of the KTB. He surely might have made a reliable record of this. This 1 km lower than your estimate.

I got 5:55:20 for PG open fire time and 05:55:27 for Bismarck.

What- less than 7 seconds for the claw mechanism to withdraw the cartridge cases, manually transfer them to the back of the turret, drop them down the chutes and then they neatly roll to the scupper?

As I pointed out over a year ago it would be extremely unusual for the junior ship to fire first. Jasper, in his account, is clearly unhappy that he does not have any fire distribution instructions before he opens fire. He has to make his own guess about who to shoot at and what ammunition to use.

He also says of his first salvo:
The observable impacts could not be ascribed with certainty as belonging to our own...………..


Who else could they belong to but Bismarck? Given the different shell flight times even if they fired the first salvo simultaneously, the shells would land at different times and the fall of shot could be differentiated. He does not say Bismarck opened fire first, but he also doesn't say she didn't. Or how long before PG's first salvo.

Pages from a copy of the original KTB have been reproduced here. Do any of them show those of Brinkmann's annotations on the gunnery report more clearly than those in the copy deemed unreadable by the excellent Ulrich Rudolsky?


Dunmunro, excellent collection of references to show our friends how confirmation works: completely separate sources of evidence corroborating each other's information, not the same person saying the same thing- more than once.

All the best

wadinga
"There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today!"
Thorsten Wahl
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Re: Jasper, Schmalenbach and 6 salvos...

Post by Thorsten Wahl »

I see what you are saying and meaning.

Whether report for the time says north westerly winds - force 4 (means 5-7,9 m/s)
this is almost right angle to the course of the ship

once a puff of smoke is released and lost ist initial propagation velocity, hes driving with the wind
10 seconds after shoting the ship had moved 142 m Forward and the puff had moved about 50 m sideways to port and stays ~142 m back

the visible cutout of ocean behind PG is about 7 Bismarck ship widths wide(~150 m) measured from Bismarck to the turret of PG.

if Bismarck is 1,5 km distant the 7 shipswidhts are equivalent to 15 m lateral deviation at 150 m distance(rule of three). But Bismarck is also staggered apart to starboard.

It seems unlikely to me that smoke from PGs guns could be visible from this position.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But i said that it appears possible to me from my reconstruction that PG had fired in the order of 15 seconds earlier than Bismarck.


As tree cartridges lay in one position this may also mean that one turret has fired two times or tree times.



-----
Meine Herren, es kann ein siebenjähriger, es kann ein dreißigjähriger Krieg werden – und wehe dem, der zuerst die Lunte in das Pulverfaß schleudert!
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Antonio Bonomi
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Re: Jasper, Schmalenbach and 6 salvos...

Post by Antonio Bonomi »

Hello everybody,

@ Thorsten Wahl,

I see what you mean and I am in agreement with your analysis, you must consider the wake curve and the smoke position in relation to her.


You wrote :
As tree cartridges lay in one position this may also mean that one turret has fired two times or tree times.
No, due to the main turrets rotation ahead, all the fired cartridges from C+D turrets must be on the main deck, so a total of 4 for the first salvo fired from the aft turret group ( C+D ).

The fact that they are only 3, … means only that one is not visible … or a gun did not fire and consequently did not automatically eject the used cartridge from the back bottom of the main turret.

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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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: Jasper, Schmalenbach and 6 salvos...

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hello everybody,

Mr.Wadinga mixes everything in his above post, as usual, when he is unable to stick to the actual (very interesting and knowledgeable) discussion because he feels his denier position is by now untenable.... :negative:

Wadinga wrote: "What- less than 7 seconds for the claw mechanism to withdraw the cartridge cases, manually transfer them to the back of the turret, drop them down the chutes and then they neatly roll to the scupper? "
The PG guns had a theoretical rate of fire of 4-5 shots per gun per minute.... Therefore a total cycle of less than 12-15 seconds has to be imagined anyway (as another shell, the secondary charge and the main cartridge must be rammed when the previous one has already gone, I guess much less time is needed before the cartridge is expelled). :think:
I kindly ask to someone more expert whether any "manual intervention" :?: was needed to discharge the cartridges (I guess no, due to the temperature of the cartridge itself after firing). As I'm not an expert, I try to avoid to expose myself as Mr.Wadinga does since long time on this forum.

I would have no problem moving my timeline by 5 seconds anyway.... :lol: :lol: :lol:


Wadinga wrote: "...to show our friends how confirmation works: completely separate sources of evidence corroborating each other's information"
In the case of the proposed list of observations re. German open fire, I would say a bunch of confused sources contradicting each other.... :negative:

e.g. from Brooke (as you yourself summarized "Bismarck fires shortly after PoW's first salvo and before her fall of shot"
from Leach at second board "The "Hood" opened fire first and in between the time she opened fire and the time it was due for me to open fire the German ships opened fire"... both PG and BS ! :lol:

I have already shown how Schmitz-Westerholtz and Ellis contradict among themselves here (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=7736&start=435#p78568)
I could go on with all these "independent sources"....
They are possibly a bit too much "independent", contradicting themselves...... :lol:

The German side open fire data is perfectly in synch between the 3 GO's and Brinkmann KTB, there is no doubt about who we have to pick up to seriously reconstruct the battle..... :stop:



Sorry for having diverted the discussion, following the provocation of a "professional troll" but I'm unable to accept certain statements. My limit.



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: Jasper, Schmalenbach and 6 salvos...

Post by dunmunro »

wadinga wrote: Thu Jun 28, 2018 3:40 pm Hello Thorsten,

This technique of retro-deriving times makes some fairly optimistic assumptions on the accuracy and consistency performance of (even wunderbar) German optical rangefinders at c.30 kms distance. Plus or minus 1000m makes a lot of difference.
If we have 30 km Rangefinder distance for PG at 0550 then we should have about 22,8km or ~25050 yards rangefinder distance at 05.55
therfore calculated gunrange in 05.55
22,8 km - 1,15 km ~ 21,65 km for 20,3 cm guns
and ~22,9 km - 1,0 km ~ 21,9 km for 38 cm gun (additional rangefinder dist slightly larger than PGs)
Jasper says his open fire range is 20,200m at 05:55 on p 39 of the KTB. He surely might have made a reliable record of this. This 1 km lower than your estimate.

I got 5:55:20 for PG open fire time and 05:55:27 for Bismarck.

What- less than 7 seconds for the claw mechanism to withdraw the cartridge cases, manually transfer them to the back of the turret, drop them down the chutes and then they neatly roll to the scupper?

As I pointed out over a year ago it would be extremely unusual for the junior ship to fire first. Jasper, in his account, is clearly unhappy that he does not have any fire distribution instructions before he opens fire. He has to make his own guess about who to shoot at and what ammunition to use.

He also says of his first salvo:
The observable impacts could not be ascribed with certainty as belonging to our own...………..


Who else could they belong to but Bismarck? Given the different shell flight times even if they fired the first salvo simultaneously, the shells would land at different times and the fall of shot could be differentiated. He does not say Bismarck opened fire first, but he also doesn't say she didn't. Or how long before PG's first salvo.

Pages from a copy of the original KTB have been reproduced here. Do any of them show those of Brinkmann's annotations on the gunnery report more clearly than those in the copy deemed unreadable by the excellent Ulrich Rudolsky?


Dunmunro, excellent collection of references to show our friends how confirmation works: completely separate sources of evidence corroborating each other's information, not the same person saying the same thing- more than once.

All the best

wadinga

When we work with ranges it is best to start with the most accurate - that is the closest ranges, and work backwards. However, the minimum ranges on the PG battle map and those stated by Lutjens ( 20.8km -> 18km) are just not possible based upon the PoW salvo chart. The KM data is hopeless in it's inaccuracy and woefully sparse.


OTOH, the PoW recorded ranges and timing data and the data provided by multiple eyewitnesses meshes very smoothly and it all points to Bismarck opening fire at ~0553:20 with Hood receiving her fatal hit at ~0558, using the PoW salvo chart as a time reference.
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Re: Jasper, Schmalenbach and 6 salvos...

Post by dunmunro »

Alberto Virtuani wrote: Thu Jun 28, 2018 4:43 pm
e.g. from Brooke (as you yourself summarized "Bismarck fires shortly after PoW's first salvo and before her fall of shot"
from Leach at second board "The "Hood" opened fire first and in between the time she opened fire and the time it was due for me to open fire the German ships opened fire"... both PG and BS ! :lol:

The timing difference between Brooke and Leach (BofI), above, is on the order of 15-20 seconds.

We are supposed to swallow the nonsensical notion that PoW and Hood both fired 5 or 6 salvos, with all the RN observers plainly stating that Bismarck replied within one minute of Hood's open fire, but in reality there was no reply from the KM ships...it's truly mind boggling that anyone could accept that. It would have been the source of endless comment on the RN side, that they were firing salvo after salvo with no reply from the KM ships...it just cannot have happened.
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Re: Jasper, Schmalenbach and 6 salvos...

Post by dunmunro »

Antonio Bonomi wrote: Thu Jun 28, 2018 3:38 pm Hello everybody,


closing the demostration :


Bismarck_single_vs_multiple_salvo_fired.jpg



Above you can easily see the difference in the smoke background of the Bismarck having fired her first and only salvo ( LEFT ) or having fired before other salvoes ( RIGHT ).

This should remove any doubt about it now.

Bye Antonio
The elevation of the 38cm guns appears to be lower in the first photo than in the 2nd. I suspect this may have been Bismarck firing earlier at the RN cruisers, or maybe even during training.
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Re: Jasper, Schmalenbach and 6 salvos...

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hello everybody,

a pity that another fantasist is jumping here to present his crazy theories.....

Dunmunro wrote: "When we work with ranges it is best to start with the most accurate - that is the closest ranges, and work backwards. However, the minimum ranges on the PG battle map and those stated by Lutjens ( 20.8km -> 18km) are just not possible based upon the PoW salvo chart. The KM data is hopeless in it's inaccuracy and woefully sparse."
A pity for Mr.Dunmunro that the German ranges allowed both PG and BS to hit the enemy quite precisely. :lol:

More seriously, of course the open fire range of 208 hm is NOT compatible with his speculation about Bismarck firing at 5:53. However, at 5:55:30 (salvo 5 of PoW, according to McMullen salvo plot) the ranges are almost perfectly in synch (22700 vs 22100 yards with 500 meters difference, but Lutjens was speaking about Hood, that was closer to BS than PoW).....


Dunmunro wrote: "The elevation of the 38cm guns appears to be lower in the first photo than in the 2nd. I suspect this may have been Bismarck firing earlier at the RN cruisers, or maybe even during training."
Instead of "suspecting" his science-fiction scenarios..., does Mr.Dunmunro know that all guns oscillates in elevation due to the recoil after having been fired and that the Bismarck ones had anyway to be loaded at 2,5° loading angle, changing elevation between one shot and another ? No conclusion can be derived by a single photogram.... :lol: :lol:


Dunmunro wrote: "The timing difference between Brooke and Leach (BofI), above, is on the order of 15-20 seconds."
No, the difference is 2 and half minutes, because Leach says that PG opened fire together with Bismarck ("German ships").... :lol: :lol: :lol:

Simply and logically, we cannot trust British observation re. German fire against the German GO's, as we can't trust blindly German observation of British fire against McMullen (e.g. Hood firing against Bismack).



Possibly, if Mr.Dunmunro insists in his unproven crazy speculations, he should ask the webmaster to move this thread to the "Hypothetical Naval Scenarios" section.



Bye, Alberto
Last edited by Alberto Virtuani on Thu Jun 28, 2018 8:33 pm, edited 2 times in total.
"It takes three years to build a ship; it takes three centuries to build a tradition" (Adm.A.B.Cunningham)

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Re: Jasper, Schmalenbach and 6 salvos...

Post by dunmunro »

Brooke's sources:
Introduction
This is not the story of a famous sailor, even a successful one, so it may be wondered how I have anything to say. In defence I would quote Admiral Sir William James, and a young female acquaintance who exclaimed, after my recounting a somewhat bizarre brush with the police, 'Why is it that such odd things are always happening tojyow?'
Strange things have happened to me, and this remark, coupled with Admiral James' dictum that every Naval officer has a good story to tell so long as he does not pontificate, started me off. An Irish weakness for a tale has helped but the going—entirely in my spare time—has proved harder than expected.
I am sure to have made mistakes, but have also been lucky. Quite unexpectedly my mother produced most of my letters written home during the period covered (1938-1945) and having always been a magpie I do have a store of contemporary papers. Some of these sources are quoted verbatim (the letters are all to my parents, except where otherwise stated) as they give the atmosphere of the moment better than any subsequent reflection. I must admit that some of them have also proved salutary; it is disconcerting to have dined out on a good story for years only to find that it did not happen quite like that!
The spelling of Indonesian place names may offend some, but I have found them to vary as much as my memories of that fascinating area.
It happens that battleships, carriers, cruisers and destroyers all figure intimately herein, laced with a lot of seasickness, a little sport and a happy home life. Therefore I hope it is not too presumptious to claim that, viewed though it is from a low 'height of eye', this very personal account—though with enough background to set the scene—presents a fair view of the Royal Navy during the traumatic years covered. That is before it was decimated by a feckless country unwilling to read either history or the writing on the wall.
There goes one pontification, but there won't be too many more!
G.A.G. BROOKE
Beech House, Bakombe, Sussex May 1982
So despite having been written 40 years after the fact Brooke was working from contemporary materials. However, I do not unequivocally accept anything Brooke states unless I can confirm it from another separate source.
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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: Jasper, Schmalenbach and 6 salvos...

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Dunmunro wrote: "I do not unequivocally accept anything Brooke states"
Better for Mr.Dunmunro not to do so....
"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: Jasper, Schmalenbach and 6 salvos...

Post by dunmunro »

Antonio Bonomi wrote: Thu Jun 28, 2018 3:22 pm Hello everybody,

Bundesarchiv_Bismarck_first_salvo_07.jpg



3) It is on this exact moment that Bismarck fired her first salvo ( Vollsalve ) and the photographer PK Josef Lagemann took the photo and after correctly captioned it for the Bundesarchiv donation.


Now all shoudl be more easy to be realized for everybody, ... and finally clear.


Bye Antonio
This is from the Bundesarchiv:

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