KGV Class Battleships

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paul.mercer
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Re: KGV Class Battleships

Post by paul.mercer »

A what if question!
Any ideas about KGV being deployed instead of PoW and pehaps being lead ship?
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RF
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Re: KGV Class Battleships

Post by RF »

Well, if Tovey commands he would win as the Bismarck would target KGV as the British command ship. Even if KGV can't get its shots in accurately because it is a punchbag the Germans can't quickly knock out, the Hood has free target practice on Bismarck - and lands the critical blows before the Germans switch fire on to her. Basically Hood would perform the same role that Rodney did in the actual final battle.

One further point - with KGV as lead ship I would imagine that Tovey would order Captain Patterson to fire his 5.25 inch guns at Prinz Eugen. This may seem a secondary or sideshow matter to the main battle, but the risk to Brinckmann is that his ship suffers slight damage, possibly underwater, that slows the Eugen down so that it can ultimately be caught up by Norfolk and Suffolk......

It is unlikely that the two British capital ships would sink Bismarck - but all they need do is knock out the Bismarck's gun turrets, reduce her speed substantially, so Tovey can then deploy his six escort destroyers for torpedo attack.... while the rest of his force in conjunction with Wake-Walker hunt down and finish off Prinz Eugen....
''Give me a Ping and one Ping only'' - Sean Connery.
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Re: KGV Class Battleships

Post by lwd »

As KGV was fully worked up at that point I'd expect her to shoot a fair bit better as well. I don't see Eugen successfully disengageing unless Lutgen orders it pretty early in the action.
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Re: KGV Class Battleships

Post by alecsandros »

lwd wrote:As KGV was fully worked up at that point I'd expect her to shoot a fair bit better as well. I don't see Eugen successfully disengageing unless Lutgen orders it pretty early in the action.
KGV experienced more gun malfuncitons than PoW in the final action. Average output was ~ 65% for all guns [compared to 73% for PoW, albeit in a shorter engagement, and on calmer seas.]
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Re: KGV Class Battleships

Post by lwd »

alecsandros wrote:
lwd wrote:As KGV was fully worked up at that point I'd expect her to shoot a fair bit better as well. I don't see Eugen successfully disengageing unless Lutgen orders it pretty early in the action.
KGV experienced more gun malfuncitons than PoW in the final action. Average output was ~ 65% for all guns [compared to 73% for PoW, albeit in a shorter engagement, and on calmer seas.]
Looking at http://www.hmshood.org.uk/reference/off ... 09guns.htm I get 74% for PoW however that's by divideing the number of guns able to fire by the number of rounds fired. Furthermore it's not counting the final 3 salvo's from Y turrent that included only 4 rounds at which point that turret ring jammed and the entire turret was out of action for some time. Rather looks to me like PoW had more problems with her guns than KGV.
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Re: KGV Class Battleships

Post by alecsandros »

lwd wrote: Rather looks to me like PoW had more problems with her guns than KGV.
How so ?
KGV against Bismarck:
""Initially she did well achieving 1.7 salvoes per minute while employing radar control but she began to suffer severe problems from 0920 onward [Note: KGV had opened fire at 0850 - TD]. 'A' turret was completely out of action for 30 minutes, after firing about 23 rounds per gun, due to a jam between the fixed and revolving structure in the shell room and Y turret was out of action for 7 minutes due to drill errors. . . Both guns in B turret, guns 2 and 4 in A turret and gun 2 in Y turret were put out of action by jams and remained so until after the action - 5 guns out of 10! There were a multitude of other problems with mechanical failures and drill errors that caused delays and missed salvoes. There were also some misfires - one gun (3 of A turret) misfired twice and was out of action for 30 minutes before it was considered safe to open the breech." "

Also, you should consider that PoW engaged Bismarck 3 times.
The first time, it fired 53 shells, the second time 41, and the third time 10 or 12.

During the second engagement, at 27km or more, PoW had ~ 85% output.

What is to be considered though is that KGV stayed in battle far longer than all 3 PoW engagements combined, so crew fatigue and high roll of the ship (because of the storm) naturaly made things more complicated....
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Re: KGV Class Battleships

Post by lwd »

PoW also had time to clear the jam and get some of the other guns back into action for the second and third engagements. My understanding was that PoW at one point was down to less than 5 guns as well during the first action.
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Re: KGV Class Battleships

Post by alecsandros »

lwd wrote:PoW also had time to clear the jam and get some of the other guns back into action for the second and third engagements. My understanding was that PoW at one point was down to less than 5 guns as well during the first action.
No; it had 5 guns left. Duncan made a good analysis some time ago.
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Re: KGV Class Battleships

Post by lwd »

alecsandros wrote:.. No; it had 5 guns left. Duncan made a good analysis some time ago.
Do you have a link for it?
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Re: KGV Class Battleships

Post by alecsandros »

lwd wrote:
alecsandros wrote:.. No; it had 5 guns left. Duncan made a good analysis some time ago.
Do you have a link for it?
It's definetely here on the forum, must be one of the several topics about "KGV flaws" / "KGV class turret problems" or something like that...
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