Bismarck at DS after the second turn

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northcape
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Re: Bismarck at DS after the second turn

Post by northcape »

Alberto Virtuani wrote: Sat Dec 15, 2018 11:03 pm Hi Mr.Jurens,
you wrote: " One does not need to know what's true to establish what is probably, or at least possibly, false....."
I (respectfully) totally disagree.
Disagreeing with such a simple and fundamental statement, and calling it philosophical, compares with disagreeing to the fact that the earth is round and not a disc.

Those who are more conservative and cautious with their reconstruction of the events come to the conclusion that it is not possible to reconstruct a map within a certain margin of accuracy, given the sparse set of original data. This does of course not imply that the prediction of others, who are less cautious, remains unchallenged.
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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: Bismarck at DS after the second turn

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hello everybody,

no, calling the "scientific theory" method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory (based on the theory that better explains observation that can be only countered by a better theory, not by pure agnosticism), is just like stating there are not enough evidences to say that the earth is not a disc.

"The strength of a scientific theory is related to the diversity of phenomena it can explain and its simplicity. As additional scientific evidence is gathered, a scientific theory may be modified and ultimately rejected if it cannot be made to fit the new findings; in such circumstances, a more accurate theory is then required"

Antonio reconstruction is linear, based on solid evidences, explains almost all observations but to counter it a better one is needed.



I was thinking we were finally trying to reconstruct the battle, not to say that it is impossible, back to the old excuse of the "fog of war", last hope for the ones who just cannot accept a modest military performance since years now.
There is nothing undetermined in OS1 as proposed by Antonio (I remind to everybody that PoW salvo plot confirm PoW had a "gun range" of 15000 metres on BS at 06:00 on bearing 330° (reciprocal of 150°) and that these 7° difference with OS1 (143°) are just perfect to give a distance of 1900 meters between BS and PG, as visible in photo/film sequence).

As a matter of facts, nobody has been able to propose a different "observation set" and this should be a clear sign for everybody, by now.


Anyone is free to think that there are no elements to reconstruct the battle within the agreed tolerances. This position is legitimate (even if incorrect IMO), and we can all leave in peace, with Antonio's reconstruction on one side (complete, respecting all solid evidences and explaining even the few "inconsistencies") and with the agnostic "fog of war" of the ones who say there is no certainty at all on the other side.


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: Bismarck at DS after the second turn

Post by Antonio Bonomi »

Hello everybody,

@ Bill Jurens,

the distance between Prinz Eugen and the PoW on the Gefecthskizze at 06:00 is around 20.000 meters ( so I assume Brinkmann wanted to reproduce the 19.700 meters he declared ) and it is of course totally wrong by more than 4.000 meters at least, ... but we know this very well already, ... just like VizeAdm Schmundt immediately realized and wrote on his report back to Brinkmann, ... this thanking the Ltnt P. Jasper more precise gunnery report declared distances. It is a very easy concept to realize and accept, because it has been written in clear words on 1941.
The correct distance at that point ( 06:00 ) between the Prinz Eugen and the PoW was in the range of 15.000 meters as we discussed already on several post on this thread.

At this point what we need to achieve is a good scale reproduction of the OS1 situation I have proposed, to be shared among everybody, evaluated and agreed after the verification of the 4 official bearings I have proposed A, B, C and D.
Immediately after we can have the final confirmation of the frame we have realized been correct thru the 20.800 meters between the Bismarck and the Hood position at open fire.

It is just a geometrical exercise now to be done in a good enough very large scale map using the agreed tolerances.
I can anticipate you all the final result, ... and it will be an almost perfect match with all the above listed parameters.

This will realize a solid and agreed battle map base to start and proceed further more.

@ Alberto Virtuani,

you wrote :
I was thinking we were trying to reconstruct the battle, not to say that it is impossible, back to the old excuse of the "fog of war", last hope for the ones who cannot accept a modest military performance.

In this regard, the above post is correct: anyone is free to think that there are no elements to reconstruct the battle within the agreed tolerances. This position is legitimate (even if incorrect IMO), and we can all leave in peace, with Antonio's reconstruction on one side (complete, respecting all solid evidences and explaining even the "inconsistencies") and with the agnostic "fog of war" of the ones who say there is no certainty at all on the other side.
I have to correct you.

The reconstruction of this battle has been already done long time ago ( 2005 ) in a good enough level of precision by me.

A new version with more details is going to be published in few years no matter what.

We can do this exercise in this forum as a team, ... if everybody will cooperate, ... and I am happy about it of course, ... no problems.

There is no room anymore either for the " old novel " account of for the " fog of war " supporters, simply because way too many documents has been found and a very detailed work with them has been already done, and the whole aspects of this battle are now clear on many parameters.

It is enough to put them one after the other and work with some logic on a piece of paper ( or a computer graphic map ), with the obvious tolerances, and the work is not that difficult to be done after my 2005 published work.

There is no way back now, ... only to go ahead and improve it, ... because nobody will be able to delete what has been published already.

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: Bismarck at DS after the second turn

Post by Herr Nilsson »

To be honest your last post isn‘t very encouraging to participate any further. :(
Regards

Marc

"Thank God we blow up and sink more easily." (unknown officer from HMS Norfolk)
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Re: Bismarck at DS after the second turn

Post by Antonio Bonomi »

Hello everybody,

@ Herr Nillson,

I am sorry that you are reading negatively my last post, ... because that was not its intent, ... just the opposite.

But, I like to make clear to everybody, that I will defend my published work and 15 years of personal study about this battle re-construction against anybody trying to minimize or reduce all my hard work to a simple personal opinion with no supporting base, ... as sometimes I am reading here in.

Anybody is entitled to keep his own opinion and like what they want to, ... I have no problems about it.

Similarly, I hope nobody will have anything to say about the fact that I am defending the hard work I made and I trust being correct so far, as I can demonstrate with the many available evidence.

If somebody likes to counter my work and my statements here in this public forum, he is better come here in prepared with his version of the facts and all the supporting evidence of what he is stating and trying to demonstrate.

Just stating nothing can be done or demonstrated is not sufficient anymore because I have already demonstrated everything, it only can be done a bit better and more precisely now.

Just as I did years ago with R. Winklareth, demolishing his incorrect work, if a new work will be better, more researched and supported by new and more reliable evidence, ... I have no problems to congratulate this guy and accept his work being the best work available about this battle re-construction.

So far, ... from 2005 I have seen nothing been done and published of a better level and quality of my published one, ... and I have only seen many persons copying my work and map on their publications.

In fact I wrote :
There is no way back now, ... only to go ahead and improve it, ... because nobody will be able to delete what has been published already.
Do you have any problem going ahead and improve it here in as a team ?

Where is your problem Marc, ... I just do not understand you, ... sorry, ... please explain it to me.

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: Bismarck at DS after the second turn

Post by Herr Nilsson »

Well, my understanding was that the discussion should have an open outcome. But you‘re saying that you will not tolerate anything else, but minor improvements to your already existing map.
Terms like „old novel“ and „fog of war supporters“ are not helpful but discouraging in any case.
Regards

Marc

"Thank God we blow up and sink more easily." (unknown officer from HMS Norfolk)
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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: Bismarck at DS after the second turn

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hello everybody,
I would say that the total absence of any alternative to OS1 is very discouraging and speaks for itself about the possibility of any open outcome...

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: Bismarck at DS after the second turn

Post by Antonio Bonomi »

Hello everybody,

@ Herr Nillson,

your understanding is absolutely correct, because I cannot pretend to have my 2005 work being already 100 % perfect.

That was done just to eliminate the " reversed photo theory " of Mr. R. Winklareth and the goal has been accomplished.

As I wrote above anything that will surface being demonstrated with evidence, ... small or big change it does not matter, ... even if is going to change and prove incorrect a good part of my 2005 work, ... will be applauded by me and I will have no problems to accept it and congratulate who will do it improving this battle map re-construction work.

What I meant with those statements : " old novel “ and " fog of war " with no offenses intended ; ... is that a good level of this battle re-construction work has been already done and cannot be put under discussion by simply stating that we do not have enough precise data to do it and what has been already done should be only kept in the vague personal opinion area.

Like it or not we have enough data and someone ( me ) has already done a good enough level of work about it on the last 15 years.

Again I do not pretend to have been 100% right already with my 2005 initial work, but surely the work is precise enough to eliminate what was written on the " old novels " we know about, ... and to eliminate the vague uncertainty of the ones that ike to reduce everything to just some imprecise data due to the " fog of war " and consequently ... nothing acceptable can be done, ... or has been done by anybody yet.

Something more than acceptable has been already done on 2005 by me, ... now we are looking to improve it in any possible way, ... with minor or major changes, ... it only depends of what evidence we are going to find.

In this regard the result is more than open according to me.

But what I have found so far discouraging is that no one yet in this forum, ... unless Alberto Virtuani, ... has stated anything about the OS1 map and data I have proposed to be verified in order to establish the battlefield base area, ... and it should have been in my opinion a fairly easy work to do and an easy agreement to be reached among who, ... in this forum, ... likes to positively cooperate on this battle map improvement effort.

In fact all the data on that OS1 map are official inputs that should be well known by everybody already since many years, ... and to do that verification work ( A, B, C and D bearings plus the 20.800 meters distance verification at open fire BS to Hood ) is a fairly easy job given the example I have already provided on a small scale map.

But we are still here holding on, ... and waiting, ... I do not know waiting for what in reality.

If someone disagree, ... fine, .. just tell me about what and why there is a disagreement on that example map.

If someone has checked them and found them all OK and inside the obviosu tolerances, ... as I expect it should be, ... why simply do not write it here that the OS1 map base is OK, ... so we can move forward.

Am I wrong on my logic reasoning ?

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: Bismarck at DS after the second turn

Post by Herr Nilsson »

To be honest I have the problem that the times on the tracks of the German ships are unreadable on your map.
Regards

Marc

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Re: Bismarck at DS after the second turn

Post by Antonio Bonomi »

Hello everybody,

@ Herr Nillson,

I see, and I think it can be easily resolved, ... and goes just in the direction of the teamwork improvement we can all make here in.

You can use my higher format map availale in colors on the hmshood website, here in :

http://www.hmshood.com/history/denmarks ... trait2.htm

On the page 2 there is a bigger map compared to the one I have posted that everybody can use for check purposes.

I suggest everybody to print it in the highest format ( scale ) one can print it, so it can be used to make the checks and corrections.

It is not yet 100 % perfect ( also graphic printing and software limits made it that way ), but everyone can use it and start checking the initial reference at 06:00 between PG and PoW ( 143° True and 15.000 meters ) and after the bearings A, B, C and D I have suggested.

Finally one can check the 20.800 meters between Bismarck and the Hood at 05:55, the German open fire.

In this way everybody can start having a fairly good idea of what we are talking about and what needs to be adjusted in order to agree about a base reference battlefield area based on those OS1 set of data we are talking about.

@ Bill Jurens,

is it your intention to start drawing a 1:50.000 map with some sort of computer software in order to follow the forum base map evolution ?

I see you have a fairly good software already and good competences on doing it.

For me it is ok if you do it and I highly suggest it, so we can start put some agreed milestones on 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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Re: Bismarck at DS after the second turn

Post by Bill Jurens »

This is just a very quick response, for which I must somewhat apologize. Daughter's birthday...

To Antonio: Yes, I have already redrawn the German Track chart via computer, which enables me to extract information on bearings and distances with great accuracy. The problem, which I alluded to earlier, is that although I have the chart, I don't have the scale, i.e. I don't know how big to make it to ensure that it's compatible with the 1:50000 scale given on the map itself. Few of the annotated distances agree with one another at ANY scale, making accurate calibration impossible. If I knew the precise distances of items on the original paper copy, one could perhaps find which ones were correct, i.e. where the annotated distances match the 1:50000 stated scale and which do not. So before we can interpret the original document correctly -- knowing for certain that it contains internal inconsistencies -- we really do have to determine exactly what the original document says. That takes us back to fundamentals insofar if the original interpretation of the document is incorrect, everything springing from that interpretation is likely incorrect as well.

In order to attack the problem, I think it is important to set aside all previous reconstructions, and in effect 'start from scratch', stepping through the analysis process step by step from the beginning. If done properly, this should not take long. The first step would seem to be to establish our primary sources of documentation, and plant two or three solid fundamental benchmarks in the ground, which all -- or at least most -- consider to be the most reliable and useful to begin with. With that in mind, we seem to have chosen OS1 as the first example. This observation set appears to contain internal inconsistencies right off the bat, as the scaled distances on the chart do not appear to match the written annotations shown along the sight lines. (as noted earlier, insofar as we don't actually seem to know how big the chart actually is yet, this may be in error, too.) In that regard, I would consider OS1 to remain, at least in the interim, problematical. It's a starting point, but not yet 'solid'.

In that regard, I suggested that we temporarily move OS1 on to the back burner, and divert the discussion to another potential candidate for a solid benchmark set of observations, the exact set as yet undetermined, to which we might assign the annotation OS2. We don't seem to be making much progress with that.

I think Herr Nilsson is making some good points, and encourage him to continue posting, insofar as the more good brains we can link together in this effort the better. In that regard, I hope we will soon hear from some other correspondents as well.

Glad to see that we can continue to discuss things constructively. The pace may be slow, but slow is better than no pace at all.

Best from Winnipeg...

Bill Jurens
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Antonio Bonomi
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Re: Bismarck at DS after the second turn

Post by Antonio Bonomi »

Hello everybody,

@ Bill Jurens,

of course your daughter birthday is your primary duty today, ... and by the way tell her happy birthday from Italy, ... :D

I thick we can go a bit back and start really from scratch.

What about this one :
Starting_milestones_01.jpg
(78.47 KiB) Not downloaded yet

Point 1 is the PoW at 05:37.
Point 2 is the Prinz Eugen at 05:37.
Point 3 is Prinz Eugen at 06:00 after 23 minutes run at 27 knots, equal to 833,40 meters x 23 minutes = 19.168 meters
Point 4 is the PoW at 06:00 after 23 minutes run at avg 28 knots with 3 turns slowing her down, equal to 862, 39 meters avg x 23 min = 19.834 meters

@ Herr Nillson,

I think now it should be more easy for you to check what I am stating and evaluate it.

Note : Hood position and average speed, and the distance covered between 05:43 until 06:00 is according to Commander Warrand Hood exact position at 05:43 and David Mearns found Hood wreck exact position today.
D. Mearns found Hood wreck based on the Comm Warrand precise Hood position and the distance/course covered by the Hood on those 17 minutes.
Consequently it should be considered very precise, and of course PoW follows closely those precise data and parameters.

Opinions welcome, ... 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: Bismarck at DS after the second turn

Post by Antonio Bonomi »

Hello everybody,

here you have the same map divided in 2 pieces, so everybody with a ruler in millimeters can check the distances on the tracks very easily.

Starting_milestones_1cm_1000_meters_Prinz_Eugen.jpg
(103.46 KiB) Not downloaded yet

Starting_milestones_1cm_1000_meters_PoW.jpg
(64.25 KiB) Not downloaded yet

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: Bismarck at DS after the second turn

Post by Bill Jurens »

Thank you, Antonio.

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wadinga
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Re: Bismarck at DS after the second turn

Post by wadinga »

Hello Antonio,

Thank you for reproducing your map at a larger scale.

Points at issue are:

The 05:37 sighting report intersects the german track at PG's position at that time, not Bismarck's. An eye witness with top quality optical equipment eg Brooke, makes it clear that Bismarck became visible first, because of her size and projection above the horizon. This sighting line should align to Bismarck's location at that time, not PG's. This may shift the tracks as much as 3,000m, relative to one another


The British track shows both British ships making the 20 degree turnaway at or slightly before 05:55, as depicted on the exhibit B and salvo map drawn months after the event, but is unclear whether the signal occurred at 05:55 or sometime earlier. We might expect a delay of some sort in the acknowledge, and then the execute. In point of fact Rowell's Iceland letter suggests it was this first turn which never received the Execute from the flagship. We might speculate this happened because of casualties to the signalling team as described by Briggs.

All the best

wadinga
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