Bismarck against BB-57 South Dakota

[Dave Saxton]

What I was referring to mainly was the first skirmish which occured with Hashimoto's group east of Savo Island some 30 to 40 minutes before its short range enccounter with the Kirishima group west of Savo. The battle range for SD was around 15k there. The reason I brought this up was because of the confusion of correctly trying to determine exactly what happened in the darkness despite radar. Indeed much of the mistaken evaluation of the shooting and the results was probably caused by misinterputing the radar returns.

[alecsandros]

In this day and age it astonishes me why anyone would still resort to secondary sources, i.e. books like Tully's[...]

Are there any primary sources from the Japanese perspective available online... ?

[Karl Heidenreich]

Dave:

What I was referring to mainly was the first skirmish which occured with Hashimoto's group east of Savo Island some 30 to 40 minutes before its short range enccounter with the Kirishima group west of Savo. The battle range for SD was around 15k there. The reason I brought this up was because of the confusion of correctly trying to determine exactly what happened in the darkness despite radar. Indeed much of the mistaken evaluation of the shooting and the results was probably caused by misinterputing the radar returns.

Ok. The 8 K yard engagement is the one I was refering, because it was at relative short range and the hunted finally got the hound.

[Bgile]

This document, available from Stinet, should tell you everything you might ever want to know about the Surigao Strait action, which is, basically, all that it deals with. Enormous as it is, it's only one of a five or six volume series...

Title: The Battle for Leyte Gulf. October 1944. Strategical and Tactical Anal...
Personal Author: Bates, Richard W
Corporate Author: NAVAL WAR COLL NEWPORT RI
Source Code: 252900
Page Count: 1089 page(s)
AD Number: ADA003030
Report Date: 01 JAN 1958
Distribution Code: 01 - APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE
Report Classification: U - Unclassified
Collection: Technical Reports

Bill Jurens

I have tried several times to access this document over the last two days. It runs something called "GetTRDoc" for a while and then fails, saying the file is damaged it it was unable to repair it.

[Byron Angel]

This document, available from Stinet, should tell you everything you might ever want to know about the Surigao Strait action, which is, basically, all that it deals with. Enormous as it is, it's only one of a five or six volume series...

Title: The Battle for Leyte Gulf. October 1944. Strategical and Tactical Anal...
Personal Author: Bates, Richard W
Corporate Author: NAVAL WAR COLL NEWPORT RI
Source Code: 252900
Page Count: 1089 page(s)
AD Number: ADA003030
Report Date: 01 JAN 1958
Distribution Code: 01 - APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE
Report Classification: U - Unclassified
Collection: Technical Reports

Bill Jurens

I have tried several times to access this document over the last two days. It runs something called "GetTRDoc" for a while and then fails, saying the file is damaged it it was unable to repair it.

.... For what it's worth, I was able to d/l it last night on my basically doo-dah AMD dual-processor Windows XP system.


Byron

[Bgile]

Something with my system I guess, but I haven't any idea what. I've tried several different files and get the same error.

[dunmunro]

Something with my system I guess, but I haven't any idea what. I've tried several different files and get the same error.

Try this link:

http://www.dtic.mil/srch/search?templat ... &c=m0&c=w0

then right click on the urls and select "save link as" and then give it a name and save it to your HDD. The files you want are by Bates and they are pdf files.

[Bgile]

Something with my system I guess, but I haven't any idea what. I've tried several different files and get the same error.

Try this link:

http://www.dtic.mil/srch/search?templat ... &c=m0&c=w0

then right click on the urls and select "save link as" and then give it a name and save it to your HDD. The files you want are by Bates and they are pdf files.

Thank you so much! I was trying to open the doc directly and your method worked for me.

[Djoser]

Just re-read Battleship at War, Ivan Musicant, which is a history of the USS Washington, relying heavily on eyewitness accounts. Almost as interesting the second time around.

Apparently a 14" shell from the Kirishima, hitting the rear barbette of South Dakota, jammed the turret in train. So Bismarck's 15" guns were entirely able to cripple the SD first, given the kind of shooting at DS.

And the South Dakota fled the battle scene, according to Musicant's eyewitness accounts.

Then SD's captain Gatch shortly afterward claimed to have singlehandedly won the battle despite Washington fleeing the scene! Very bad blood between the 2 BB crews afterward. For a while they had to schedule shore liberty on different days, there were so many brawls.

Maybe this thread should be about an hypothetical duel between Washington and Bismarck! Certainly Bismarck would have made short work of SD as she was handled at 2nd Guadalcanal, even if the story in the book was a bit biased (which is not at all clear).

This is also the book I mentioned before, wherein a gun captain claims to have reduced the 30 second rate of fire to 15 seconds. But this was obviously under ideal conditions, and not to be taken as gospel by any means.

[Karl Heidenreich]

Djoser:

Apparently a 14" shell from the Kirishima, hitting the rear barbette of South Dakota, jammed the turret in train. So Bismarck's 15" guns were entirely able to cripple the SD first, given the kind of shooting at DS.

The training jamming of SD at IIG is very clear since early in these discussions. Your point is correct.

And the South Dakota fled the battle scene, according to Musicant's eyewitness accounts.

Historical fact.

Then SD's captain Gatch shortly afterward claimed to have singlehandedly won the battle despite Washington fleeing the scene! Very bad blood between the 2 BB crews afterward. For a while they had to schedule shore liberty on different days, there were so many brawls.

This point is mentioned in several accounts. Also Historical fact.

Maybe this thread should be about an hypothetical duel between Washington and Bismarck! Certainly Bismarck would have made short work of SD as she was handled at 2nd Guadalcanal, even if the story in the book was a bit biased (which is not at all clear).

To that you must add that it was SD, not Bismarck, the one with exposed cabling and main systems outside it´s defensive armor, a problem clearly mentioned by Friedman in his book about US battleships.

Regards,

[lwd]

Steve:

In any case, it doesn't seem to have been unusual for these ships to obtain straddles with their first salvo.

In which combat do this characteristic first salvo/straddle happened, aside from the isolated Nowaki incident in which there were two battleships (18 x 16") firing at a single destroyer?

The fact that there were two battleships firing is rather irrelevant. One consideration however is that although Iowa straddled with her first salvo vs Nowaki her guns were already warm I believe. Yamato on the other hand seems to have straddled with her first and not again. Given her limited amount of test firing this could be indicative of her balistics data being based on "cold" guns.

[lwd]

...
To that you must add that it was SD, not Bismarck, the one with exposed cabling and main systems outside it´s defensive armor, a problem clearly mentioned by Friedman in his book about US battleships....,

Your saying Bismarck didn't have exposed cabling and main systems outside significant armor? Indeed 50mm may be worse than nothing when dealing with BB or even cruiser level AP rounds.

[Thorsten Wahl]

the main cabeling was below the armored deck
cabeling for firecontrol equipment was within the 22cm armored pipes

[steffen19k]

Just too lazy to read all the posts here. Did anyone cover the fact that SoDak sailed into battle with her breakers "Tied down" (whatever that means)? That's what I understood led to her loss of FC and Radar.

[alecsandros]

Just too lazy to read all the posts here. Did anyone cover the fact that SoDak sailed into battle with her breakers "Tied down" (whatever that means)? That's what I understood led to her loss of FC and Radar.

The circuits had been repaired slightly before the battle.
During the shelling however, the ship suffered electrical failures again.

Accuracy of main battery fire is also a problem - it appears that the ship didn't hit anthing.