That 05:21 turn

[Herr Nilsson]

@all
@Antonio

I have to get back to this post.

Hello everybody,

@ Herr Nilsson,

I see that you start realizing that the HMS Suffolk Strategical Plot by Ltnt Paton made on June 11th, 1941 does contain inaccuracies ( almost 15 sea miles is not acceptable ) and that its small scale do provide room for some easy alterations, ... like the German track.

In any case, since you are the only one currently responding on this matter trying to work on it to find a solution with me, ... please take the chance also to correct on Paton map the German track, ... both for speed as well as for the track they really run.

On the attachment here below you have the correct German run track in RED and the incorrect one traced by Paton in PURPLE.

Please remember and keep in account :

05.21 - Alter course to 170 degrees (PG)

05.32 - Alter course to 220 degrees (PG)

Too easy for me to tell you that once you have made all the corrections needed ... on speed, bearings and course, ... your final result will be really close to my initial provided map, ... but around 5/6 sea miles far away from " The Plot " position of Suffolk at 05.41.

Just the amount of sea miles added by Pinchin on the battlefield enlargement ...

German_tracks_Marc_01_0447_0541.jpg (73.37 KiB) Viewed 2643 times

Bye Antonio

I'm still puzzeling over the discrepancy of the German (0521-0532; 11 minutes) and British (0533-0538; 5 minutes) timing. How is it possible that there is a difference of 6 minutes in total and a delay of 12 minutes for the first turn but just a delay of 4 minutes for the turn back? Why are the German 11 minutes right but not the British 5 minutes?

[dunmunro]

I wonder if the RN timing was just a rough estimate since there are no precise timings given in Suffolk's narrative?

[Herr Nilsson]

I think that‘s unlikely. We have the signals and there is probably a short delay, but IMHO it‘s much more likely that the German 0521 is simply wrong. Everything else makes no sense. And that means Pinchin was always right and and Antonio‘s reconstruction is getting problems .

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hello everybody,

Herr Nilsson wrote: "@Antonio"

I'm immensely sorry because I have contacted yesterday Antonio and he told me he that, in the absence of the intervention of the webmaster in order to restore freedom of expression and fair balance in this forum, he has decided to leave the forum forever.
Knowing Antonio correctness, he will not behave like others (who repeatedly menaced to leave and are still here). I'm sure he will (most unfortunately for us all) keep his word.


The contribution of Antonio in terms of original material and reconstruction has been huge in the last 15 years, with his patient and detailed explanations of his reconstruction, that allowed even someone not having a great skill (like me) to understand exactly the development of the battle.

It is vary sad that he was forced to leave us by the recent developments and by the treatment reserved to him.




Coming to the thread topic,

Herr Nilsson wrote: "Why are the German 11 minutes right but not the British 5 minutes?"

Very simply, because, as we have discussed several times, it would be methodologically incorrect to use British tracks for German ships as well as the German tracks for British ships. (e.g. Mr.Nilsson may then try to use the Hood and PoW track from PG battlemap....or Bismarck "zig-zag" depicted on PoW salvo plot to reconstruct German courses... simple estimations that are "useless and worthless" in a serious historical reconstruction work: see below).

Enemy_Tracks.jpg (27.87 KiB) Viewed 2504 times

The German "S" turn is logged on the PG KTB as starting at 5:21 and ending at 5:32 with 50° turns. The same timing and courses were officially reported in OKM 15543 report.
Suffolk realized the "S" turn with a delay (comprehensibly) and communicated it with further delay (again very comprehensibly), making also wrong "rough estimation" of the turns themselves (30° only), as Mr.Dunmunro correctly pointed out. Sorry for Pinchin's Plot and its very well known "problems" (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6495)....


Bye, Alberto

[dunmunro]

I think that‘s unlikely. We have the signals and there is probably a short delay, but IMHO it‘s much more likely that the German 0521 is simply wrong. Everything else makes no sense. And that means Pinchin was always right and and Antonio‘s reconstruction is getting problems .

The further Suffolk was from Bismarck, the more likely there would be a delay in reporting. I don't doubt there are errors in Pinchin's map but Antonio's reconstruction places Norfolk and Suffolk too close to one another for his map to be correct. Another factor is that we don't know the precise formation of the KM force and thus Suffolk's bearing reports may be an approximation and/or Bismarck and PE's courses differed. Also the timing of the turns in unknown and they may have been very gradual in one direction and abrupt in another.

[Herr Nilsson]

@Duncan
I agree. There would be a delay, but I don‘t believe that the first turn would be unnoticed for several minutes.

@Alberto
The problem is that the 0521 isn‘t originally part of the KTB. It was scribbeled by Skl 1/Ib. The same handwriting revises Kr 15543 which was actually just a draft. Therefore it’s no wonder that we can find this time in Kr 15543 as well. The question is where it has its origin? I suspect 0521 is taken from one of PG‘s map and „21“ is Skl1/Ib‘s misreading of „27“ in 0527.

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hello everybody,

In any case a German official statement, scribbled after or not (Mr.Nilsson has presented NO evidence of what he says....) to the KTB and confirmed in the official report (Kr 15543) of the operation, must be taken into much more consideration than the "rough estimation" from an enemy ship, not even logged, but just deducted from... the time of origin of transmitted messages (that were wrong even about the turn amplitude: 30° instead of 50°)...

We can all suspect many, many things about what really happened that day, but, in order to reconstruct the battlefield, we have to use what we have at hand (not imagining "typos" to support one's own point of view...): for sure whoever might have possibly added the annotations to the KTB was far more knowledgeable about the real PG turns and timings than someone sailing in a ship 15 to 10 miles away and trying to "read" the enemy movements.

Pinchin's Plot has already been proven incorrect because Pinchin himself was unable to present SF and NF tracks on the same map (keeping both ships 15+ sm from enemy to support the "out of range" excuse) and he was therefore forced to leave his bearing "open" in the sea.


Bye, Alberto

[Herr Nilsson]

... (Mr.Nilsson has presented NO evidence of what he says....) ...

@Alberto
The problem is that the 0521 isn‘t originally part of the KTB. It was scribbeled by Skl 1/Ib.

0521.jpg (35.38 KiB) Viewed 2357 times

The same handwriting revises Kr 15543 which was actually just a draft. Therefore it’s no wonder that we can find this time in Kr 15543 as well.

Ib.jpg (36.7 KiB) Viewed 2357 times

The question is where it has its origin? I suspect 0521 is taken from one of PG‘s map and „21“ is Skl1/Ib‘s misreading of „27“ in 0527.

map1.jpg (56.58 KiB) Viewed 2357 times

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hello everybody,

PG_map.jpg (24.76 KiB) Viewed 2345 times

As everyone can see the (bad) writer was writing 7 with a line cutting the leg of 7: the time of the start of the "S" is therefore 5:21 in the map, as confirmed by the PG KTB (stating a turn on course 170°) and by the OKM 15543 document.


This is also clearly proven by the length of the segment from 5:21 to 5:32, more around 12-14 minutes than to 5 in comparison with the following 28 minutes segment from 5:32 till 6:00.

No need to speculate about typos reading the map and "additions" in the PG KTB, in the vain intent to "justify" the incorrect Pinchin's Plot.


Bye, Alberto

[Herr Nilsson]

That's not quite true...what about 0722?


...and one can notice that the distance between 0722 and 0724 is not very much shorter than the distance between 0630 and 0722.

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hello everybody,

...as well as it's not quite true that 1 is always written in the same way in the whole map (as the scale of the other battlemap being 1:50000 and not 7:50000 shows).... In any case, no way to demonstrate that 5:21 should be read as 5:27....

5:21 was accepted by the Germans as being the correct timing for the turn start and they are the only ones who can say when the turn started.

S turn_PG-KTB.jpg (7.44 KiB) Viewed 2310 times

Trying to speculate about calligraphy on a map instead of accepting what is written in all German official documents seems to me just a vain attempt to deny at any cost the fact that Pinchin's Plot is an incorrect document...


Bye, Alberto

[Herr Nilsson]

Hello everybody,

...as well as it's not quite true that 1 is always written in the same way in the whole map (as the scale 1:50000 and not 7:50000 shows).... In any case, no way to demonstrate that 5:21 should be 5:27....

Trying to speculate about calligraphy on a map instead of accepting what is written in all German documents seems to me just a vain attempt to deny at any cost the fact that Pinchin's Plot is an incorrect document...


Bye, Alberto

For the record: That means a German map with 0527 is not a German document and "vain attempt to deny at any cost" is socially acceptable again.

For your convienience a better copy.

map2.jpg (42.96 KiB) Viewed 2310 times

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hello everybody,

thanks to Mr.Nilsson, the "better" copy (that shows at least the correct "S" and not the wrong one posted previously, where the 170° course was a 120°...) shows clearly that 5:21 cannot be 5:27.
The timing of the turn start has its final figure clearly different from all the following 7's, missing one or two lines.

map2.jpg (32.02 KiB) Viewed 2297 times

In any way, when Mr Nilsson will present his battlemap, following thie above speculation, we will see whether he will be able to match Antonio's reconstruction.
For the time being we stay to what is visible in the map, is written in the accepted official version of the KTB (05:21) and in the km15543 operation report (05:21).


Bye, Alberto

[Byron Angel]

Hi Marc,
FWIW, I find your transcription error theory quite plausible. To my admittedly untrained eye (are there any professionally trained handwriting analysts participating on this forum?), the hand-written number in question (0521 versus 0527) far more resembles the other notated 7's than it does the single 1 which appears on the chart - the top bar is quite horizontal whereas the hand-written 1 in the 0142 time notation features a very distinct downward slope as would be expected. I also see evidence that suggests a slight "hitch" at the left extremity of the top bar which further suggests a hand-written 7

Unfortunately, the lack of clarity in the reproduced document image available for view in this thread hinder a really satisfactory inspection of the penmanship. I cannot detect whether or not the expected horizontal slash across the vertical leg of what I believe to be a 7 is present. On the other hand, of course, no horizontal slash appears to be present on the 0722 notation.

Historical study can be such a frustratingly fascinating exercise .....

B

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hello everybody,

we can debate forever whether it is 1 or 7 as there are no other 7 resembling this one on the whole map than the 7:22 one (that has anyway a small slash before the horizontal part of the 7, while the 5:21 has not). All the others have the horizontal slash across the leg (very poorly evident in my low definition copy of the PG map, but, unfortunately for us all, Antonio will not be here anymore to provide the original high definition map scans which are in his possession...).

map2.jpg (34.33 KiB) Viewed 2239 times

However, Germans agreed to consider the start of the turn to be 5:21, not only the "unknown (...) writer" but also the whole Kriegsmarine. We have it repeated in both the PG KTB and the operation report (km15543) and this was accepted by everybody (including obviously Brinkmann).



Therefore I don't see any reason why we should speculate about a "typo" here only to try to "resurrect" the long time dead Pinchin's Plot as a reliable document. Anyway, the reconstruction of Antonio matches all available bearings for Suffolk, using a 11 minutes 170° course.
If someone wants to build a battlemap using 5 minutes, he should be able to match ALL those bearings as well. In any case, this work will not change the "diamond of death" or "polygon of perfidy" (as an emphatic forum member called the simple geometrical exercises proposed by Antonio) that both nails Suffolk at 9 to 10 sm from Bismarck at around 05:35 - 05:40 (anyway after the "S" turn) !


Bye, Alberto