Wake-Walker : To engage or not to engage ?

Discussions about the history of the ship, technical details, etc.

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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: Wake-Walker : To engage or not to engage ?

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Dunmunro wrote: "PoW's radar system were OOS, she lost one 14in gun permanently, and all her secondary FC systems were OOS before Leach turned at ~0602. She then lost Y turret for 4 hours"
Hi Duncan,
Bismarck lost her fore radar too.

PoW did NOT loose any gun permanently. Which gun ? I have provided to you this info already.... :negative:

Only one (out of four) secondary HALA directors was put definitely out of action. We are speaking of the re-engagement, not of the disengagement....again mixing everything just to create....a mess.

Y turret was back in action after 10 am. Plenty of time to re-engage.....


Wadinga wrote: "Also chopping things up enables the charge of "off topic" to be raised every time an inconvenient piece of evidence is presented."
No, chopping things allows to discuss, while your only purpose is (sadly) trolling and denying, creating a mixed "fruit salad"..... :negative:

you wrote: "Gun A1 stopped after fifth salvo, gun A3 stopped after 11th salvo. So while all guns may have been nominally "available", their chronic unreliability in the first engagement would be the same in subsequent useage"
as you refer to the second engagement, despite these problems, PoW achieved in this occasion the same output efficiency as Bismarck did during the Denmark Strait battle, 85% :clap:
Source: PoW Gunnery Narrative of Events. :wink:

you wrote to Paul Mercer: "The search tools will enable you to find previous times topics have been covered.
Here you are absolutely right.
And it will be very funny to see how many times recently you have written wrong info, nonsense or, worse, intentionally false statements ..... :negative:


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: Wake-Walker : To engage or not to engage ?

Post by dunmunro »

Alberto Virtuani wrote:
Dunmunro wrote: "PoW's radar system were OOS, she lost one 14in gun permanently, and all her secondary FC systems were OOS before Leach turned at ~0602. She then lost Y turret for 4 hours"
Hi Duncan,
Bismarck lost her fore radar too.

PoW did NOT loose any gun permanently. Which gun ? I have provided to you this info already.... :negative:

Only one (out of four) secondary HALA directors was put definitely out of action. We are speaking of the re-engagement, not of the disengagement....again mixing everything just to create....a mess.

Y turret was back in action after 10 am. Plenty of time to re-engage.....


Wadinga wrote: "Also chopping things up enables the charge of "off topic" to be raised every time an inconvenient piece of evidence is presented."
No, chopping things allows to discuss, while your only purpose is (sadly) trolling and denying, creating a mixed "fruit salad"..... :negative:

you wrote: "Gun A1 stopped after fifth salvo, gun A3 stopped after 11th salvo. So while all guns may have been nominally "available", their chronic unreliability in the first engagement would be the same in subsequent useage"
as you refer to the second engagement, despite these problems, PoW achieved in this occasion the same output efficiency as Bismarck did during the Denmark Strait battle, 85% :clap:
Source: PoW Gunnery Narrative of Events. :wink:

you wrote to Paul Mercer: "The search tools will enable you to find previous times topics have been covered.
Here you are absolutely right.
And it will be very funny to see how many times recently you have written wrong info, nonsense or, worse, intentionally false statements ..... :negative:


Bye, Alberto
Leach had no idea what Bismarck's situation was, other than for her oil leack, and it is irrelevant to this thread. Bismarck's gunnery output is not known and all we can do is speculate.

A1 gun had a damaged loading system, and only fired one rnd in the first engagement; it was only partially repaired and only fired 2 rnds in the 2nd engagement before failing again. The faults in the turret shell rings were chronic and appeared in A turret during the 3rd engagement. PoW also had damage to one boiler room's fans and air intakes which would have reduced her maximum speed and one prop shaft alley was flooded which would have prevented proper maintenance to the shaft bearing in the flooded portion.

PoW also had one 5.25in director out of service
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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: Wake-Walker : To engage or not to engage ?

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Dunmunro wrote: "Bismarck's gunnery output is not known and all we can do is speculate."
Hi Duncan,
sorry, but Antonio's reconstruction (and count of salvos) is based on photos, films and reports.... It's true we don't have the Bismarck gunnery report, but if you prefer we can use Prinz Eugen one, showing the same 85% output efficiency (for a more experienced and trained ship than Bismarck....) :negative:


I see you admit you wrote an incorrect statements:
you had previously written "she lost one 14in gun permanently".
No PoW gun was put permanently out of action. Chronic malfunctions, training issues and design problems are another matter (that usually affects any ship when firing her guns, albeit in different ways). We were discussing battle damages here with Paul.

you wrote: "PoW also had one 5.25in director out of service"
Yes, one out of four..., thanks for admitting you were giving misleading info with your previous sentence ("all her secondary FC systems were OOS before Leach turned at ~0602").

Flooding was much more severe for Bismarck, no boiler room had to be abandoned in PoW at any time.



The legend of PoW severely damaged and anyway too new to fire her guns in a decent way is clearly part of the "embellishment" of the story, or "cover-up":
Paul Mercer wrote: "As for what was written at a later date, there may well have been some covering of the a---s by some"
you are simply unwilling to accept this simple and logical fact.


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)
dunmunro
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Re: Wake-Walker : To engage or not to engage ?

Post by dunmunro »

PE's gunnery output is irrelevant in terms of understanding Bismarck's output. You cannot take considered speculation and then accept it as a hard fact, and also you cannot put information into W-W and Leach's minds that they could not know. Leach and W-W could only form an opinion as to PoW's probable gunnery output based upon her past performance and the current state of her guns (it is a bit of a miracle that A1 was able to fire at all during the 2nd engagement) - ditto for what they knew of Bismarck's output.
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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: Wake-Walker : To engage or not to engage ?

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Dunmunro wrote: "PE's gunnery output is irrelevant in terms of understanding Bismarck's output"
Hi Duncan,
of course it is, but it is a FACT and it is the same as PoW gunnery output during the second engagement.

Re. Bismarck output, if you have a better theory than Antonio's reconstruction, we will be very interested in looking at it.... :wink:


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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wadinga
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Re: Wake-Walker : To engage or not to engage ?

Post by wadinga »

Hello All,

Additional NEW OFFICIAL 1941 information contradicting modern attempts to pretend there was nothing wrong with PoW's main armament.

McMullen may have said his guns were "fine" but in an RN internal report dated 26.08.1941 recently seen at the National Archives Kew, signed by Captain Gerald M B Langley Director of Gunnery and Anti-Aircraft Warfare Division says:
When Prince of Wales engaged Bismarck on 24th May 1941 she was far from being a fully efficient fighting unit. Serious defects arose in her main armament turrets, her R.D.F was inoperative and her spreads excessive. A representative of D.G.D was on board her a few days before this action and received impressions which were fully confirmed by her experiences in action.
This is not some ignorant statistical analysis which does not take account the inability of guns to fire even when given a minute and a half to reload, but the opinion of the RN Director of Gunnery. there is no higher authority. It confirms Leach's opinion and Wake-Walker's assessment that PoW was not up to taking on Bismarck.

It confirms that Leach was not "pretending" to have problems requiring civilian workmen on board, as was alleged some time ago.

All the best

wadinga
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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: Wake-Walker : To engage or not to engage ?

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hi Sean,
thanks for posting this "redacted" piece of info, "hiding" the rest of the page (to return your nice words). :wink:

I just wonder whether Capt.Langley also says anything about the gunnery performance of KGV on May 27, after KGV showed similar problems....

you wrote: "This is not some ignorant statistical analysis"
I hope your kind comment above is referred to my poor excel comparison file (see below) and not to Adm Santarini book ("Bismarck and Hood"), in which (see pag.50 to 54) he judged that PoW's RoF was "excellent", that her precision accuracy was not much inferior to Bismarck's and her performance in adjusting fire was quite remarkable, better than Bismarck's one, having expended only 20 shots to find her target for the first time. :negative:
Nobody of course says that PoW gunnery output loss was very good. It was 26% against 14% of both German ships, but her rate of fire (combined with her 10 guns) allowed her to deliver more shells on Bismarck than the latter was delivering on PoW.
PoW_BS_PG_Output_Comparison_McMullen.jpg
PoW_BS_PG_Output_Comparison_McMullen.jpg (61.57 KiB) Viewed 7714 times
I understand that you are by now allergic to statistic and to figures (as well as to geometry and maps...), because the "exact sciences" have the annoying tendency to dismantle the "fairy tale" of the poor PoW gunnery performance (as opposed to the "killer" at the peak of her efficiency, the Bismarck) .
Facts are here to be judged, as well as opinions are here to be discussed regarding the opportunity of a possible re-engagement.


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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wadinga
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Re: Wake-Walker : To engage or not to engage ?

Post by wadinga »

Hello Alberto,

Are either you or Mr Santarini as familiar with the intricacies of the 14" systems of P o W as:
signed by Captain Gerald M B Langley Director of Gunnery and Anti-Aircraft Warfare Division
?

Hmmm, I thought not. Here's a clue: The bit with a little round door is the safe end. :lol:

Item 29 in his lengthy report says

The loss of output in the Prince of Wales' case might, in fact, have much greater had it not been for the energetic efforts to remedy defects, before, during and between the different engagements.

When my IT expert returns, I will reproduce several pages of Captain Langley's report, but if you are as dismissive of the rest as you are of his conclusions there seems little point.

The crude temporal averaging "exact sciences" in your spreadsheet is hardly a substitute for the opinion of a contemporary gunnery expert.

What I was trying to find was the latest version of Duncan's P o W salvo by salvo analysis with timing.

All the best

wadinga
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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: Wake-Walker : To engage or not to engage ?

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Wadinga wrote: "if you are as dismissive of the rest as you are of his conclusions there seems little point."
Hi Sean,
I'm not dismissive at all (and anyway much less dismissive with your evidence than you have been with my ones recently... :negative: ).
I accept what Capt.Langley says and I would never say PoW gunnery was perfectly worked up. I'm just curious to see what he says about KGV, having his output reduced at times by 80% (see Tarrant) on May 27 (after having been perfectly trained), a fact that should have been far more intriguing for someone in his position.... :think:

In any case, accepting Langley judgement and looking at actual data, PoW fired comparably to Bismarck and this is a FACT, demonstrated by statistic (btw, the first row of the table above is taken from the PoW gunnery report, so I guess you should accept it...).
Whether PoW performances were considered anyway below expectations by Capt.Langley, this cannot change the facts that her gunnery was not far worse than Bismarck's.


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: Wake-Walker : To engage or not to engage ?

Post by dunmunro »

wadinga wrote:Hello Alberto,

Are either you or Mr Santarini as familiar with the intricacies of the 14" systems of P o W as:
signed by Captain Gerald M B Langley Director of Gunnery and Anti-Aircraft Warfare Division
?

Hmmm, I thought not. Here's a clue: The bit with a little round door is the safe end. :lol:

Item 29 in his lengthy report says

The loss of output in the Prince of Wales' case might, in fact, have much greater had it not been for the energetic efforts to remedy defects, before, during and between the different engagements.

When my IT expert returns, I will reproduce several pages of Captain Langley's report, but if you are as dismissive of the rest as you are of his conclusions there seems little point.

The crude temporal averaging "exact sciences" in your spreadsheet is hardly a substitute for the opinion of a contemporary gunnery expert.

What I was trying to find was the latest version of Duncan's P o W salvo by salvo analysis with timing.

All the best

wadinga
I would certainly appreciate seeing more of Langley's report

This is my salvo analysis:

Image

We all have to remember that while my chart, above, was produced with access to PoW's GAR, any analysis of Bismarck's output, other than number of rounds fired is purely speculative, since no one has access to her GAR.

I think that with a few more weeks of training and tinkering that PoW would have had a ~90% + output (as per KGV) at least for 20-30 minutes, but the design faults in 14in ammo feed system were always lurking, and this problem was not largely rectified until PoW received an extensive refit of the 14in turrets, in the summer of 1941.
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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: Wake-Walker : To engage or not to engage ?

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hi all,
Dunmunro wrote: "....any analysis of Bismarck's output, other than number of rounds fired is purely speculative...."
A VERY MISLEADING STATEMENT. Re. Bismarck's output ONLY columns "salvos/minute", "effective salvos/minute" and "output loss" in my below spreadsheet are impacted by the alleged "speculation". The OTHER COLUMNS ARE PROVEN, being basically independent from the salvos ordered.... :negative:

Prinz Eugen output summary data, as per my below spreadsheet, is as sure as PoW one, being based on Jasper gunnery report..... :negative:

In any case, based on photos, film and accounts, the salvos ordered by Bismarck may vary from 104 to 112, changing almost nothing to the calculations. Any other figure is simply unrealistic.... :negative:
PoW_BS_PG_Output_Comparison_McMullen.jpg
PoW_BS_PG_Output_Comparison_McMullen.jpg (61.57 KiB) Viewed 7656 times
Bottom line: PoW delivered more shells per minute than Bismarck during the whole engagement, with almost the same weight of iron and more explosive charge per minute.



Dunmunro wrote: "This is my salvo analysis"
This valuable salvo analysis (that includes anyway speculations and assumptions) was based only on Mcmullen report and it did not take into account Mr Barben report to Mr Wilkinson (both from Vickers-Armstrong, Barben was the foreman in charge on board PoW, during the action).
We now know, thanks again to S.Roskill, who kept these papers, that B turret lost 3 shots, while A4 gun was the best one, loosing no shot at all and delivering 9 shells.

I suggest everybody to go to this thread for the analysis of PoW firing: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6834&start=45.


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: Wake-Walker : To engage or not to engage ?

Post by wadinga »

Hello Alberto,

You produced a much better work when you recreated an estimated salvo by salvo analysis for PG in the Jasper thread. I heartily commend your excellent efforts to analyse complex data. It suffered from the same problem as here however, in that you have had to average rate of fire over the whole duration period, because we do not have a salvo map like Rowell's for PG or BS. You calculated time of flight and landing times etc but from estimated firing times.

For PoW we do not have this problem because the salvo map tells us when, to the estimated second, all of her salvoes were actually fired. We can see that gun groups which should have been reloaded in 30 secs very often did not actually fire again for one minute ten, one minute fifteen or one minute twenty seconds. PoW was not undertaking the violent manoeuvres like those after 06:03 that slew the averaging in the mismodelled Bismarck and PG figures that you and Antonio like to use. The German ships must have had RoF which varied hugely over time, as identified from the film. There has been extensive discussion on this but resolution is impossible because there is no salvo map for the German ships. Even PoW managed to pop off some salvoes at 40-45 sec intervals, but only once for each gun group.

If you produced a similar analysis for PoW as you did for PG that would be interesting. Especially if there was a column for time between salvoes for each group. You have produced POW firing Wilkinson_Barben which is very good, but it is not as comprehensive as your PG effort which is based only on estimated firing times.

The "reload time" for Gun A1 was several hours. Does that mean it was at all efficient or "out of action"? The reload times for all the other guns varied in terms of seconds, but sometimes that period was two or three or more times as long as the nominal.

In PoW's DCT the gunlayer waited anxiously for the gun ready lights to come on to tell him he could fire his next salvo. 30 Seconds passed , then a minute and eventually the salvo had to be fired, whether all the hoped-for guns were ready or not. Only when the salvo was eventually fired, were some guns designated "did not fire". If every salvo had been executed at say 40 seconds after the previous shot, how many guns would actually have been ready?

It has been suggested PoW artificially slowed her RoF to accommodate timeshare with Hood. There is no evidence this happened as the fire control synchronisation signals were not received. Also McMullen was well aware no Hood shots were landing near Bismarck, so there could be no confusion.

This is the kind of information Captain Langley had access to. His representative had seen the gunnery exercises and knew Prince of Wales was not really ready. Captain Leach took the brave, possibly foolhardy, step to fight with an extremely imperfect weapon. You have tried to use flawed statistics to disprove this, but Captain Langley's expert opinion cannot be disproved by them.

All the best

wadinga
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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: Wake-Walker : To engage or not to engage ?

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Wadinga wrote: "you have had to average rate of fire over the whole duration period, because we do not have a salvo map like Rowell's for PG or BS. "
:negative:
Hi Sean,
of course trying to reconstruct a Bismarck salvo plot implies quite a number of assumptions on her firing methodology but what you say is not correct because the reconstructed salvo map is based on evidences.

In any case, after 6:03 (when, as you say, Bismarck was maneuvering) we have something even better than PoW gunnery map.
We have the film and the photos that demonstrate how Bismarck fired at least 12 (or even 13) semi-salvos after 6:03, thus it is very easy to see that you are just WRONG saying that Bismarck had a lower RoF after 6:03, it's exactly the opposite (and this is something really puzzling me, but it is a FACT).
Please show us your estimated salvo map for Bismarck, if you are able, but unfortunately for you, there is no way to say that Bismarck was capable to fire much faster than she actually did after 6:03......

I have assumed 27 semi-salvos fired by Bismarck in 14 minutes, therefore, as 12 (or 13) were certainly fired after 6:03, ONLY 14 (or 15) could have been fired between 5:55 and 6:03, when she was on a stable course and able to deploy her faster RoF and this is another FACT.


PoW may have fired at a slower rate than her nominal one, but also Bismarck (and PG) did exactly the same (we just don't have any account of the problems arisen to her guns during th engagement).
All your long description of the PoW "problems" while reloading is totally irrelevant faced to a steady RoF during the whole engagement, (at the price of loosing some guns), being able in this way to deliver a punch that was comparable to Bismarck, as the statistical table demonstrates, even if you don't like it.
KGV had an even lower RoF on May 27.....did she have worse problem reloading her guns ? :negative:

I understand that you would prefer not to accept these statistics and these facts, but in no way you will be able to say that Bismarck, in the initial stages of the battle, fired with a better RoF, at least if you don't want to admit that her guns were even less reliable than PoW ones.... :negative:
It's very simple, because it's mathematically proven, the faster RoF you try to attribute to Bismarck, the worse will be her output efficiency....


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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Antonio Bonomi
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Re: Wake-Walker : To engage or not to engage ?

Post by Antonio Bonomi »

Hello everybody,

well Alberto, ... unfortunately it is not a big discovery.

After Geometry, ... we seem to have problems also in Mathematic, ... on timing, ... on signatures, ... on basic document statement readings, ... on geographical maps, ... and I can go on and on, ...

... the reality is only that : there is no worse deaf than those who do not want to hear and worse blind than those who do not want to see.

Bye Antonio :D
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: Wake-Walker : To engage or not to engage ?

Post by pgollin »

.

The POW's gunnery report shows what the problems were. The main one was excessive play in the safety interlinks.
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