May 24 1941 - Tirpitz v Prince of Wales

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Steve Crandell
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Re: May 24 1941 - Tirpitz v Prince of Wales

Post by Steve Crandell »

Thorsten Wahl wrote:The german loading cycle requires two separate ramming processes also.
1 projectile
2 fore and main charge

ist a matter of required length behind the breech
Thank you for the clarification. :)
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RF
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Re: May 24 1941 - Tirpitz v Prince of Wales

Post by RF »

paul.mercer wrote:
alecsandros wrote:TIrpitz rate of fire was substantialy higher then Prince of WAles.
Thank you again for your reply, but why would the rate of fire from Tirpitz (or Bismarck) be substantially faster with fully worked up crew on PoW?
As I have explained to alecsandros above, the thread was started on the premise that POW was NOT fully worked up.

We can of course take additional assumptions that ''what if POW was fully worked up'' but the basis of discussion that was intended when the thread was launched was a combat based on the two ships capabilities as at 24 May 1941 in reality.
That of course means that Tirpitz is very far from being worked up and consequently the rate of fire argument does become somewhat conjectural, along with the ''sloppy shooting'' reputation that Tirpitz seemed to have early in its career.
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Re: May 24 1941 - Tirpitz v Prince of Wales

Post by Thorsten Wahl »

RF wrote: along with the ''sloppy shooting'' reputation that Tirpitz seemed to have early in its career.
tirpitz has completed their training with a excercise shooting in the Baltic against the target ship Hessen wich is mentioned as "excellent" from SKL side according
DENKSCHRIFT über das Ergebnis der mit Frontvertretern durchgeführten Untersuchung über die Kriegsbarauchbarkeit der Seeziel und Flakartillerie auf Schlachtschiffen und Kreuzern ... B.Nr Skl. Qu A I 2983/41 Gkdos
During this excercise Tirpitz landed 9 hits or so on Hessen at 25 km distance. Derivable scatter within two impact salvos was about 70 meters according target photography.
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Re: May 24 1941 - Tirpitz v Prince of Wales

Post by alecsandros »

Yes, but the topic was about Tirpitz as of May 1941.....
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Dave Saxton
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Re: May 24 1941 - Tirpitz v Prince of Wales

Post by Dave Saxton »

Yes, but the term: " early in its career" implies an ambiguous period of time beyond May 1941. The fact is Tirpitz only exhibited sloppy shooting during the first initial shoots in June, before its career had really begun, and when its fire control equipment was only incompletely fitted. It went back to the yard to complete fitting out, and when it emerged from the yard, began its career, and completed gunnery trials during Sept. it exhibited "excellent" shooting.
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Re: May 24 1941 - Tirpitz v Prince of Wales

Post by alecsandros »

It would be so nice to know more about Tirpitz's 1941 year...
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Re: May 24 1941 - Tirpitz v Prince of Wales

Post by Saltheart »

POW would win as in May Tirpiz gunnery is just too bad. POW in spite of mechanical problems would still land far more hits. Luck plays a role as well as a hit might just blast off an anchor chain while another might disable a turret. Both are direct hits and maybe from 15,000 metres but 20 yards to the right and you destroy a turret, 20 to the left and you hit a chain. That kind of luck is massively important. But to have a chance of good luck you must still get hits in the first place and POW would get more.
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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: May 24 1941 - Tirpitz v Prince of Wales

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Saltheart wrote: "But to have a chance of good luck you must still get hits in the first place and POW would get more."
Hi,
you are right, as per May 24,1941, PoW was almost worked up and combat ready while Tirpitz was still incomplete and totally untrained. Shooting of PoW was not bad at all on May 24, while I guess Tirpitz shooting would have been quite bad, especially at long range. Therefore more hits on Tirpitz should be expected.

However, Tirpitz, thanks to her armor scheme, could sustain far more hits than PoW at short/medium range without being stopped or dramatically slowed down due to machinery direct penetration, not speaking of her turret jamming problem.....

Therefore, I guess, in this scenario "lady luck" could have decided whether an incomplete Tirpitz could slip away from PoW.

Bye, Alberto
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Re: May 24 1941 - Tirpitz v Prince of Wales

Post by Paul L »

Best option was to postpone Rheinubung until the fall of 1941, which should give both BB to work to perfection both gunnery and flak.
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Alberto Virtuani
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Re: May 24 1941 - Tirpitz v Prince of Wales

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hi Paul,
do you know whether the German oil supply vessel were still present in Atlantic by 1941 fall, in order to support such a delayed operation ?

Bye, Alberto
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Dave Saxton
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Re: May 24 1941 - Tirpitz v Prince of Wales

Post by Dave Saxton »

A delay certainly makes both German battleships more efficient and and more deadly*, but other things change too.

During the period from mid June to Oct, Ultra had the current Enigma keys from capturing the weather ships which allowed the rounding up of the tankers. Not until October did the German change the keys, if I recall correctly. During Fall of 41 the British had a good period of time in terms of signal Intel.

By the fall of 41 the Royal Navy is beginning to deploy Type 273 radar on major warships as well. The KGV's type 273 was able to track the Renown to plus 30 km. Luetjen's mistaken report in May that the British had radar effective to 35 km becomes a fact by the fall of 41.

The geopolitical outlook is also less favorable for a successful Atlantic operation with greater American involvement and the new war in the east.

* The AVKS report makes it clear that Bismarck remained deficient in several technical and training categories at the time of the historical operation. Not the least of which was the crew's lack of training for how to better use Bismarck's radar capabilities. If the crew doesn't train to use a capability they will not probably use it unless they have no better option. For example, against Vian's destroyers they had to use it, but previously it seemed to be of secondary utility.
Entering a night sea battle is an awesome business.The enveloping darkness, hiding the enemy's.. seems a living thing, malignant and oppressive.Swishing water at the bow and stern mark an inexorable advance toward an unknown destiny.
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Re: May 24 1941 - Tirpitz v Prince of Wales

Post by Paul L »

Alberto Virtuani wrote:Hi Paul,
do you know whether the German oil supply vessel were still present in Atlantic by 1941 fall, in order to support such a delayed operation ?

Bye, Alberto
Delcyros mentioned on WS-1 that supply ships were sent out weeks ahead of each sortie/operation and in-fact Admiral Raeder had planned to send out more tankers in the fall 41 ahead of a planned sortie, but Hitler overruled him.

If Rheinubung is postponed until late 1941, then I would expect RN sweeps in the summer of 1941 to come up short and plenty of tankers to be deployed. As I recalled in 1942 the tanker numbers increased to over 40 in spite of the loss of a dozen or so after Rheinubung in mid 1941.
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RF
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Re: May 24 1941 - Tirpitz v Prince of Wales

Post by RF »

Further to the above, RN roundup of supply ships for U-boats remained effective not just in summer 1941 but continued into late autumn/winter, as evidenced with the fate of the hilfskruezer Atlantis and the rescue ship Python.

Note that these operations were effective against known supply ships. They were less effective in chance encounters with supply ships, where the presence of enemy ships was unknown/unexpected, with the disastrous result in the same month when Sydney encountered Kormoran.
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