Re: Plunging fire
Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2011 1:23 am
Bgile,
don´t misunderstand me, I´m not revisioning the ricochet strories. Just wondering whether the reference for idea that the main belt of BISMARCK was almost submerged was based on anecdotical evidence or the damage controll flooding report of BSIMARCK which is said to exist and was rescued by one of the survivors. I haven´t seen this document, ever.
But what I´have seen is the belt arrangemet of BSIMARCK. It had a comparably high armoured freeboard (for the standarts of the period) with only VANGUARD having an even higher armoured freeboard in service condition. At construction displacement, this belt extended almost 10ft amidships (3.0m) and 12ft at the extreme turrets (+3.6m) above the design waterline, this may have been lower in service conditions at deep load but not by as much as it was for TIRPITZ, displacing a lot more with all the additions TIRPITZ received in the first place:
I don´t know how much fuel, provision, drinking water and ammo was spend by the time of her final battle but he should have been 5,000 metric tons lighter than before leaving Norway (not topped off with max. fuel), hadn´t she been damaged and torpedoed in the meantime. Neither can I assess the flood damage before the final battle but as I mentioned before, in order to levelise the waterline at the level of the upper/main belt joint, another 15,000 tons of flooding are required in addition to the 5,000ts of water I assume to remain in the ship as a cause of the damage and counterfloodings (a wild guess, I admit).
At TIRPITZ deep combat load, the chances are roughly 60/40 for upper belt / main belt hits (50/50 at the turrets) with regards to area´s exposed. It´s still far from the belt going to be submerged or difficult to hit. But then again, by the time, RODNEY was closing in for the kill, a lot has happened and the exact timetable doesn´t exclude that by then BISMARCK´s sea valves already opened and thus the ship starts to sink slowly taking over water.
don´t misunderstand me, I´m not revisioning the ricochet strories. Just wondering whether the reference for idea that the main belt of BISMARCK was almost submerged was based on anecdotical evidence or the damage controll flooding report of BSIMARCK which is said to exist and was rescued by one of the survivors. I haven´t seen this document, ever.
But what I´have seen is the belt arrangemet of BSIMARCK. It had a comparably high armoured freeboard (for the standarts of the period) with only VANGUARD having an even higher armoured freeboard in service condition. At construction displacement, this belt extended almost 10ft amidships (3.0m) and 12ft at the extreme turrets (+3.6m) above the design waterline, this may have been lower in service conditions at deep load but not by as much as it was for TIRPITZ, displacing a lot more with all the additions TIRPITZ received in the first place:
I don´t know how much fuel, provision, drinking water and ammo was spend by the time of her final battle but he should have been 5,000 metric tons lighter than before leaving Norway (not topped off with max. fuel), hadn´t she been damaged and torpedoed in the meantime. Neither can I assess the flood damage before the final battle but as I mentioned before, in order to levelise the waterline at the level of the upper/main belt joint, another 15,000 tons of flooding are required in addition to the 5,000ts of water I assume to remain in the ship as a cause of the damage and counterfloodings (a wild guess, I admit).
At TIRPITZ deep combat load, the chances are roughly 60/40 for upper belt / main belt hits (50/50 at the turrets) with regards to area´s exposed. It´s still far from the belt going to be submerged or difficult to hit. But then again, by the time, RODNEY was closing in for the kill, a lot has happened and the exact timetable doesn´t exclude that by then BISMARCK´s sea valves already opened and thus the ship starts to sink slowly taking over water.