Naval History Forums

Season's Greetings everyone :)

I see that Robert J. "Bob" Winklareth, a former prolific contributor to this site, has an article entitled "The Not-So-Mighty Bismarck" in the above publication.

Has anyone else seen it and what do people think of his thesis that "The German battleship Bismarck mounted
eight 15-inch guns, but the relatively light weight of her armor-piercing projectiles meant that contemporaneous battleships outgunned her".

All the best,

Paddy

You might post this at forum.axis.history.com. I would search the forums for an existing thread.

I'm a USNI member and I have read the article and the author's book. I am not impressed by either.

OpanaPointer wrote:You might post this at forum.axis.history.com. I would search the forums for an existing thread.

Fair enough, but KBismarck.com is (one of?) the premier sites for Bismarck and I've been a member here for years - even if I've been quiet in recent times [/

Patrick McWilliams wrote:...what do people think of his thesis that "The German battleship Bismarck mounted
eight 15-inch guns, but the relatively light weight of her armor-piercing projectiles meant that contemporaneous battleships outgunned her".

100% of the contemporaneous battleships that were hit by Bismarck's 15" shells would disagree with Winklareth's thesis.

Welcome back and Happy New Year!

Patrick McWilliams wrote:

OpanaPointer wrote:You might post this at forum.axis.history.com. I would search the forums for an existing thread.

Fair enough, but KBismarck.com is (one of?) the premier sites for Bismarck and I've been a member here for years - even if I've been quiet in recent times [/

True, but Axis History gets a wee bit more traffic. I've been here for years, I like what I read here, for the most part. I'm always chary of single sourced information.

Patrick McWilliams wrote:Season's Greetings everyone :)

I see that Robert J. "Bob" Winklareth, a former prolific contributor to this site, has an article entitled "The Not-So-Mighty Bismarck" in the above publication.

Has anyone else seen it and what do people think of his thesis that "The German battleship Bismarck mounted
eight 15-inch guns, but the relatively light weight of her armor-piercing projectiles meant that contemporaneous battleships outgunned her".

All the best,

Paddy

This statement by Winklareth is based on the faulty assumption that the important metric of an armour piercing shell's potency is its weight. It is related to the common assumption that weight of broadside is a good indicator of firepower. What other things about Bismarck did he express assumptions about?

Speaking of that issue, was anyone else ... disturbed by the Imperial chrysanthemum on a certain warship drawing?

Mr. Winklareth is the author of a variety of rather bizarre and off-the-wall 'theories', of which this is just the latest. I'm surprised (and somewhat disappointed) that Naval History even printed this article. This sort of editorial blunder is one reason I stopped subscribing to Naval History five or ten years ago.

Bill Jurens

Bill,
Thank you for your post. As far as I am concerned it says all there needs to be said about this author.