PoW's gunnery VS BSM's gunnery

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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: PoW's gunnery VS BSM's gunnery

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hello everybody,

the fact that "W&D" will not simply admit that Type 284 was perfectly working on board PoW, speaks volumes.

In addition, unfortunately for them, "memoirs and good memories" help confirming, after geometry and mathematics already proved, that the British official version of facts (that they love so deeply) was simply false and their anger against all what the officers involved wrote later demonstrates their impotence to counter the truth.

Even if a range could not be obtained, only initially, as per McMullen letter, or during the whole engagement, as per Murphy (all the other "evidences" are repetitions of the interpretation of the PoW GAR, thus the accounts are only the previous two, both "old memoirs" not written at the time of facts and whose reliability can be debated forever), means nothing, as Hood had the same initial problem while we know nothing about Germans. Once found the range, the radar adds little value.


Thus "D" should stop claiming that the radar is another factor demonstrating PoW ill-readiness for combat and to justify Leach's disengagement decision: it just shows that the approach was too short to obtain any open fire radar range (after having switched them on few minutes before).



Bye, Alberto
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Re: PoW's gunnery VS BSM's gunnery

Post by wadinga »

Hello Alberto,

I think the Referee should have stepped in on your behalf, and insisted you take the Mandatory Eight count after that knockdown. You're probably still seeing stars or is it tweety-birds flying round your head?
Thanks for finally pointing to a source for Murphy statement (which is the date of this statement ? how was Murphy memory ?
I think you should look in your own supply of material from Cambridge, "READ the all the relevant letters BEFORE you speak" and answer your own question, I'd be really glad to get more detail about it from you. Since you drove Cag off the Forum our alternative source has dried up.

You say you have all the relevant letters, so now you know why Roskill didn't bother McMullen with the trivial issue of whether there was any radar input in the range plot, since he knew direct from the man who produced the plot that there wasn't, and McMullen was just remembering wrong.

In fact I believe I first posted Murphy's quote from Barnett in the old Hood forum and Vic Dale re-presented it here, it's location been bugging me for days, and then I found it. But now we know both you and Antonio have had it all along, but temporarily "forgot" about it. I guess in your fervour to misrepresent Leach and Wake-Walker as cowards, liars and perjurers along with most of the Royal Navy higher echelon, some facts are superfluous and fall out of memory.

I think Occam's Razor applies here, since Murphy was the one expecting to get radar results and clearly says he didn't, and McMullen wasn't in that position we should believe the former, especially since Paddon who was in charge of all radar in PoW says he didn't.

We still don't have Jasper's gunnery report Das Gefecht in der Dänemarkstraße. Artilleriegefechtsbericht "Prinz Eugen" B.Nr. G 2243 vom 12.7.1941. but I am hopeful the ever resourceful Mr Rico will find it. :pray:

All the best

wadinga
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Re: PoW's gunnery VS BSM's gunnery

Post by Bill Jurens »

As mosderator, I must apologize, to at least some, for the recent developments on the tone of the forum, which suggest nothing is being done at all to moderate the issue.

Participants should note thatI have heard from Mr. Rico just now, and we will be incorporating changes to responsibility and authority which will, we hope, work towards re-establishing a greater degree of decorum and propriety to the discussions. These should come into effect within the next few days.

In the interim, I'd again ask participants to at least attempt to maintain a civil discourse, and once again apologize to those who find the tone of the current discussions, though not necessarily their content, a bit offensive and counter-productive. If the proper changes go through, this should get much better fairly quickly.

Bill Jurens.
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Re: PoW's gunnery VS BSM's gunnery

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hello everybody,

disregarding Mr.Wadinga's mocking tone above as per the moderator recommendation, evidently he does not have Murphy's letter and does not know its full content nor when it was written.

We have therefore only one original report, the PoW GAR written by McMullen (not by Murphy) stating that, before the engagement, the 284 was not providing the ranges. Then we have then 2 different versions of the facts:
1) McMullen, stating in a letter (http://www.hmshood.com/history/denmarks ... letter.htm) to Kennedy when he was writing "Pursuit" (I have only the copy McMullen sent to Roskill some years later in 1979 and the correspondence between the two of them) that the ranges started to come from the 284 when distance was below 20000 yards
2) Murphy, stating in a letter mentioned in Correlli-Barnett's book that ranges did not come to the T.S. at any stage of the battle.



I very simply don't know who is right and I doubt we can ever know (despite Mr.Wadinga desperate certitudes) but I can't care less: the point is that the 284 was not defective at all: it was working on board the PoW and surely provided the opening ranges in the evening engagement.
The "excuse" of a defective radar is dead as well as the one of an "inexperienced crew" (because Hood had the same problem in the morning engagement and she was not a green ship). Just the radar technology was green and the sets were switched on too late to correctly warm-up.



Whether we should trust McMullen or Murphy regarding the radar ranges during the first engagement, what is sure is that McMullen letter is precise, it explains several things regarding the engagement and was discussed between himself and Roskill in 1979. Roskill, who had embraced Murphy view in "War at Sea", was not surprised to read the contrary from the PoW G.O. letter and "reacted" only underlining that the "difference between them" was only the scale of the 284 screen... :shock: Why ?

Roskill_McMullen_284radar.jpg
Roskill_McMullen_284radar.jpg (22.39 KiB) Viewed 1541 times

I don't have Murphy's letter (Roskill files are huge, very expensive to be ordered from remote location, and I concentrated on his correspondence with known people like Kennedy, Tovey, Dalrymple-Hamilton, McMullen, etc. only, at the time I did not know who was Murphy...), despite Mr.Wadinga assertion of the contrary and I don't know whether Antonio has a copy of it.
Therefore, I cannot check its date and content, but, if Mr.Wadinga is really fairly interested, he can go to Cambridge (after all he is a British taxpayer, as he arrogantly said once...) and try to find it: if it will be more credible and detailed than McMullen's one, I will be happy to admit that no ranges came from the 284.


Bye, Alberto
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Re: PoW's gunnery VS BSM's gunnery

Post by Herr Nilsson »

Alberto Virtuani wrote: Sat Feb 23, 2019 10:12 pm Hello everybody,
4. No results were obtained from either Type 281 or 284 R.D.F.; it is understood that Signal School Officers are now of the opinion that Type 281 suffered interference and Type 284 was defective, although it appeared at the time that 284 was also suffering from interference.

5. Fire was opened at 0553, half a minute after Hood.... "
Posting in large characters will not change the FACT that the GAR speaks about a time BEFORE fire was opened.

In his letter to Kennedy, McMullen explains very well that the 284 radar failed to provide the range until distance was down to 20000 yards, confirming the GAR, but he added that it provided a "good range plot" after that: http://www.hmshood.com/history/denmarks ... letter.htm


McMullen_PoW_Radar_Ranges.jpg


Sorry for Mr.Dunmunro and his low insinuations about memories, but I see very well how the McMullen letter above annoys his side-taken approach...


Bye, Alberto
I'm wondering why a simple "before opening fire" (or "at the early stages") can't be found in regard of the radar, while it is explicitly mentioned in regard of the rangefinders:
3. The rangefinders failed to develop a satisfactory range plot before opening fire; the fore D.C.T. 15-ft rangefinder was the only rangefinder which had a reasonable chance; the closing rate was very high and "A" and "B" rangefinders were able to see the enemy's superstructure for a short time only before "table turning." Conditions for ranging on the enemy's masts were not easy. As a result it required two down ladders to find the target.
Regards

Marc

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Re: PoW's gunnery VS BSM's gunnery

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hello everybody,

I'm wondering why a simple "at any stage during the action" (or a simple "ever") can't be found in regard of the radar ranges:

McMullen_GAR_radars.jpg
McMullen_GAR_radars.jpg (49.19 KiB) Viewed 1484 times

The addition of "before opening fire" related to radars (point 4) would have been an unnecessary repetition of what was clearly referred to the initial range acquisition and open fire sequence (points 3,4 and 5).



Again,
disregarding whether radar ranges came at a later stage (McMullen) or not (Murphy), the key point is that the 284 set was not defective at all: it was switched on and working on board the PoW and surely provided the opening ranges in the evening engagement.
The "excuse" (justifying Capt.Leach decision to disengage) of a defective radar is over as well as the one of an "inexperienced crew" (because Hood had the same problem in the morning engagement according to McMullen and she was not a green ship).

Just the radar technology was green in those days, the interference of the PoW "enemy in sight" message (transmitted full power) affected the 2 radar sets (or at least the 281, as confirmed by McMullen in a letter dated 1950 to Roskill) and both sets were switched on too late to correctly warm-up (as McMullen confirmed to Roskill in a letter dated 1979, when the latter was not surprised at all reading of the radar range obtained during the first engagement...).



Regarding Germans radars, we know nothing about their contribution to find an initial range: Jasper does not account for any radar range and no info from Bismarck, despite the British accounts point to a good range found by Germans at early stage of battle.
However, statistically, Prinz Eugen hit Hood on the boat deck after 2 - 2,5 minutes after open fire (around 05:57:30), Prince of Wales probably hit Bismarck at 6th semi-salvo (05:56:15), 3 minutes after open fire, Bismarck hit Hood (possible spotting top hit) probably 3 to 3 and half minutes after her open fire (around 05:88:30 - 05:59:00) for the first time.
Therefore, a possible radar range obtained at open fire seems anyway to have helped initial gunnery precision in a very limited way.


Bye, Alberto
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Re: PoW's gunnery VS BSM's gunnery

Post by Dave Saxton »

Regarding the German radars and Jasper not mentioning them. The German radars were data linked directly to the fire control computers. Jasper would not monitor the radar data stream.

Regarding If Type 284 was working or not. There are a few things to consider. The NT99 Micro Pup transmitting triodes (vacuum tubes) were anode modulated. This type of operation requires a long warm up time. Up to 45 minutes. The NT99 was a brand new tube and was not even in production yet. Production did not start until July 1941. Some prototypes tubes were custom made in April 1941, which I assume were used on the handful of sets rushed to sea in time for the Bismarck operation. The provisional set tested on KGV in Dec 1940 used a previous design.

The reports of "interference" and Holland's concerns about the radars interfering with each other are very interesting. Receivers have several stages and are usually a super het type. These stages include the local oscillator, mixers, signal amplifiers. Operation at 53 cm presented some challenges concerning the signal to noise ratios. It was found that diode vacuum tubes worked well as mixers up to 200 mhz, but became increasingly noisy to the point that at 600 mhz (50 cm) the noise over powered the signal. Therefore, according to Callick, some early 600 mhz provisional sets used crystal mixers. By 1942 a vacuum tube was developed that gave acceptable performance at 50 cm but no lower. However, crystal devices are very vulnerable to damage and interference from spurious radio waves, even those of a different wave length and different pulse repetition rates. The specific conditions and the constant use of powerful radios may have degraded performance of the 284s at Denmark St.
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Re: PoW's gunnery VS BSM's gunnery

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Dave Saxton wrote: "This type of operation requires a long warm up time. Up to 45 minutes"
Hi Dave, thanks as usual for all the info above.
Therefore, even assuming that the Type 284 set was switched on exactly at 05:37 (PoW "enemy in sight") and that 20 minutes are an "average" sufficient time to warm up the set, it's reasonable that the PoW gunnery radar had simply no time to warm up correctly to provide an open fire range, as McMullen suggested to Roskill in his 1979 letter, but it could not exclude that ranges were obtained at a later stage of the engagement.

Had the Type 281 a similar warm up delay ?



McMullen wrote to Roskill in 1950 that he was convinced that the Type 281 had been "jammed" by the PoW own "enemy in sight" radio message repetitions at full power. However he was less sure that the same interference could affect the Type 284:
McMullen to Roskill: "...I can well understand this High Power interfering with the 281 but am not sure whether the same effect was felt in the 284..."
Do you agree with his opinion or, in your view, were both sets prone to suffer radio interference ?


Bye, Alberto
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"There's always a danger running in the enemy at close range" (Adm.W.F.Wake-Walker)
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Re: PoW's gunnery VS BSM's gunnery

Post by dunmunro »

Bill Jurens wrote: Wed Feb 27, 2019 6:40 pm As mosderator, I must apologize, to at least some, for the recent developments on the tone of the forum, which suggest nothing is being done at all to moderate the issue.

Participants should note thatI have heard from Mr. Rico just now, and we will be incorporating changes to responsibility and authority which will, we hope, work towards re-establishing a greater degree of decorum and propriety to the discussions. These should come into effect within the next few days.

In the interim, I'd again ask participants to at least attempt to maintain a civil discourse, and once again apologize to those who find the tone of the current discussions, though not necessarily their content, a bit offensive and counter-productive. If the proper changes go through, this should get much better fairly quickly.

Bill Jurens.
We have numerous, plain, clear, and unambiguous statements from various sources that no radar ranges were obtained during the first engagement.

How can any serious researcher respond to the denial of this information in favour of an old man's obviously incorrect recollection of the events in an interview decades after the fact?

It is plain that, at best, McMullen confused the 1st engagement with the 3rd engagement were the GAR states that a salvo was fired at 20K yds using a Type 284 range.
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Re: PoW's gunnery VS BSM's gunnery

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hello everybody,
can please Mr.Dunmunro explain what has Mr.Jurens' recommendation (quoted above) to do with his post ?

Dunmunro wrote: "We have numerous, plain, clear, and unambiguous statements from various sources that no radar ranges were obtained during the first engagement."
No, we don't. We have only Murphy saying "plainly" that. All the others "interpreted" the PoW GAR written by the same McMullen, who in a letter (precise, unambiguous, not confused, full of details, despite his age) to Kennedy said the contrary of this interpretation.

Paddon refers to 281 only, Roskill discussed McMullen letter without countering his declaration and Tovey wrote his report based only on McMullen GAR, that in itself is at least ambiguous, despite the certitudes of Mr.Dunmunro.

Nothing is "plain" here, I'm open to accept Murphy version if the guy was lucid and reliable when writing his statement, but I'm surprised to see that these forum members are still so determined in preserving the "orthodoxy" of the official British version of the story, already well proven false in so many key aspects.



Anyway, whoever is right between Murphy and McMullen, the fact is that the Type 284 set was not defective at all: it was working on board the Prince of Wales. It surely provided the opening ranges during the evening engagement.
The "excuse" (justifying Capt.Leach decision to disengage) of a defective radar is over as well as the one of an "inexperienced crew" (because Hood had the same problem in the morning engagement according to McMullen and she was not a green ship).



Bye, Alberto
Last edited by Alberto Virtuani on Thu Feb 28, 2019 9:30 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: PoW's gunnery VS BSM's gunnery

Post by Dave Saxton »

Alberto Virtuani wrote: Thu Feb 28, 2019 5:57 pm
Dave Saxton wrote: "This type of operation requires a long warm up time. Up to 45 minutes"
Hi Dave, thanks as usual for all the info above.
Therefore, even assuming that the Type 284 set was switched on exactly at 05:37 (PoW "enemy in sight") and that 20 minutes are an "average" sufficient time to warm up the set, it's reasonable that the PoW gunnery radar had simply no time to warm up correctly to provide an open fire range, as McMullen suggested to Roskill in his 1979 letter, but it could not exclude that ranges were obtained at a later stage of the engagement.

Had the Type 281 a similar warm up delay ?



McMullen wrote to Roskill in 1950 that he was convinced that the Type 281 had been "jammed" by the PoW own "enemy in sight" radio message repetitions at full power. However he was less sure that the same interference could affect the Type 284:
McMullen to Roskill: "...I can well understand this High Power interfering with the 281 but am not sure whether the same effect was felt in the 284..."
Do you agree with his opinion or, in your view, were both sets prone to suffer radio interference ?


Bye, Alberto
If the mk1 284 used crystal devices in the receiver then it may have been more vulnerable to interference than type 281. I don’t know if it did for certain, but I think it likely, because a suitable vacuum tube alternative at 600 mhz was not available until in 1942.

At first thought I would have said that the 281 would have very little warm up delay, because it was grid modulated. However, on further research it appears that the transmitting tubes were directly heated. This means that the cathode spiral doubled as the heater. This could have caused a delay of warm up, but probably not as long as anode or cathode modulation.

I don’t know exactly how long it took for 284 to warm up. It may have been longer than 20 minutes. If it did become warmed up during the engagement, I’m not sure the ship’s command would become aware of this fact; being preoccupied with fighting a battle and dealing with damage and injuries inflicted upon them.

Some thoughts on the effectiveness of the 281 and it tracking three targets instead of two. The bearing resolution of 281 was on the order of 20 degrees. Resolution for range was 300 meters in high power, or 2250 meters in low power (this is kind of confusing because the illumination energy was greater in low power) It likely had the Bismarck and PG pips merged. So why the three pips? One possibility are side lobes. Another is the vertical lobes structure and the aircraft.
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Re: PoW's gunnery VS BSM's gunnery

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hi Dave,
thanks a lot.

Regarding the command of the ship being unaware of a possible radar range at a later stage of the engagement, I do agree with you but I don't think the command of the ship had been aware of the lack of an open fire radar range either, as Capt.Leach never mentioned the radar "failures" while getting the range in his report.


Bye, Alberto
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Re: PoW's gunnery VS BSM's gunnery

Post by dunmunro »

4. No results were obtained from either Type 281 or 284 R.D.F.
is a statement pertaining to the entire 1st engagement from enemy to sight to cease fire. This has been confirmed by other sources, but no confirmation is necessary because of the title of section B: "B - Events during First Action"; the title is inclusive of the period before open fire up to disengaging. Sub section 3 discusses events before and after open fire because some optical ranges were obtained during the battle and the reasons for the failure of optical ranging was something that was well understood by the ship's gunnery department.

This appendage to the above sentence summarizes the fact that the radar failures were closely investigated by the RN Signal School.
; it is understood that Signal School Officers are now of the opinion that Type 281 suffered interference and Type 284 was defective, although it appeared at the time that 284 was also suffering from interference.
If the sets failed because they had inadequate warm-up that information would have been invaluable and would have been promulgated throughout the fleet to prevent further such failures.

KGV's GAR contains lots of information about radar because it was highly sought after information which could be used to improve radar performance. However if KGV's radars had failed to provide any ranges, then her GAR would have said the same thing: "No results were obtained from either Type 279 or 284 R.D.F", or words to that effect, because there would be nothing else to state, except a short summary of any investigation made into the failures, as per POW's GAR. If PoW's radars had provided ranges at some point during the 1st action then that information would have been included to aid the Admiralty, other RN ships and the Signal Branch in understanding the limitations and effectiveness of radar.
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Re: PoW's gunnery VS BSM's gunnery

Post by wadinga »

Hello All,
Anyway, whoever is right between Murphy and McMullen, the fact is that the Type 284 set was not defective at all
Murphy had the radar contacted by phone. It was defective, clear and simple, it provided no range. Once again an attempt to hide the truth in order to promulgate an unjustified campaign of character assassination.

I don’t know exactly how long it took for 284 to warm up. It may have been longer than 20 minutes. If it did become warmed up during the engagement, I’m not sure the ship’s command would become aware of this fact; being preoccupied with fighting a battle and dealing with damage and injuries inflicted upon them.
According to the fantasy version of this engagement, PoW had been aware of Norfolk's presence since 05:15 (NB there is no contemporary evidence of this) therefore every need to have the radar switched on then. Whatever the opinion of various people today, Paddon, who was responsible for all radars (all 17 radar systems aboard including the Type 284) in PoW never suggests there was inadequate time to warm up radars. He is the expert.
It likely had the Bismarck and PG pips merged
Precisely. 281 was air warning radar pressed into service. Scuttlebutt provided the story of the third ship, also mentioned earlier, and shows how tactically isolated radar staff were. It does not overturn the experts opinion that no radar data was received.
McMullen to Roskill: "...I can well understand this High Power interfering with the 281 but am not sure whether the same effect was felt in the 284..."
This appears to be redacted from a letter not made available in its entirety. Another example of evidence being withheld by Alberto against the principles of this forum. Now we have McMullen claiming expertise on radar, giving his opinions to someone who was an expert, and had seen the Signal School's investigation and knew no ranges were received and said so.
but I'm surprised to see that these forum members are still so determined in preserving the "orthodoxy" of the official British version of the story, already well proven false in so many key aspects.
These Forum members are not attempting to promulgate a Conspiracy Theory for personal aggrandisement (and maybe a fiscally beneficial book deal), based on trashing the memory of honourable men who served their country well, with an imaginary alternate history based entirely on false evidence. These Forum members are those who prefer not to see the historical record distorted for personal gain, with an endless parade of false allegations and who have not decided to withdraw under a tirade of personal insults, but to stand up for truth and accuracy.

All the best

wadinga
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Re: PoW's gunnery VS BSM's gunnery

Post by Bill Jurens »

I'd again ask participants to if at all possible refrain from personal attacks and editorializing. There is no need, once a point has been made, to go out of one's way to antagonize those who disagree with you. This sort of behavior tends to quickly escalate, and before we know it we have once again descended into rather pointless and -- frankly often somewhat offensive -- yelling matches. Criticism is, of course, fair, but it must be respectful criticism. Think of the rules of most parliaments, where members often argue at length and with considerable passion, but must always address the opposition respectfully. Actually, in most cases they are required by protocol to address their comments to the speaker of the house, so that they are, in effect, not speaking directly to the opponent at all. Perhaps we should begin doing something like that here...

So far as the radar issue is concerned, I am not sure that the details are of much relevance so far as the tactical issues are concerned. Regardless of circumstance, British shooting at the beginning of the action was really quite bad, with excessive down-laddering, which in my opinion at least reflects a common error known as 'nibbling at the spot'. That being said, I've seen plenty of target practices where for a variety of reasons one ship took considerably longer to attain a first straddle that any of her consorts did. Sometimes that's due to bad spotting, sometimes just due to bad luck. The sample size at the Denmark Strait is so small as to make -- again in my opinion -- it impossible to draw any firm conclusions. Except that the initial shooting from Prince of Wales seems to have been bad.

The connection, if any, between this relatively poor shooting at the beginning of the action and the tactical decisions made thereafter seems, at least to me, problematical at best. In reality what decided the action was not so much the shooting as the hitting, and in that regard and at least in that instance, Prince of Wales and Hood certainly seem to have got the worst of it. Had the British and Germans had a chance to try a 'do-over', it's likely that the results of the second attempt at an engagement would have been quite a bit different.

In that regard, I feel it's important not to argue from the specific to the general, e.g. just because I see a fellow wearing sun glasses driving badly in traffic, it would be unwise and unfair to conclude that people wearing sun glasses can be expected to be bad drivers in general.

I am happy to report that Mr. Rico and myself are now in the process of introducing new procedures which will make it easier to control potentially aggressive and offensive commentary. More should be following on that soon.

Bill Jurens
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