USS South Dakota at Guadalcanal

[alecsandros]

... I am also sorry, but the idea that Washington obtained ~ 30% main battery hits firing between 7-12km while Rodney obtained ~ 10% while firing most of her ordnace between 3-9km against a non-manouvreing, 7kts target, can not be taken seriously.

Statistically, 20% hits is what one would expect at that range given the trajectory and dispersion of the 16"/45 gun. We don't know how many hits Rodney made on Bismarck because many of them were just re arranging the wrecked superstructure.

We also don;'t know how many shells hit Kirishima, how many were damaging near-misses, how many explosions seen on board were actualy explosions of the ship's own supplies, and how many were interpretations of shocked officers, which were assessing damage in a devastated ship, in the darkness of the night.

For the record, from reconciling eye witness accoutns from KGV, Rodney and Bismarck, authors Skiot and Prusinowska arived at a total number of 34 - 40 heavy hits on the German battleship, with about 50% coming from the Rodney. That's 20 hits out of 380 fired, or 5.26%

Older analysis tend to go higher, at about 60 or 70 total heavy hits, but even so (and disregarding their work and analysis), the % of hits would only go to about 8-10%.

[alecsandros]

..... Alecsandros, not to put too fine a point upon things, but are you not basing your position (nine 16in hits) upon observations made from four to six sea miles distant at night in the midst of a pitched battle by parties who, at one point, ceased fire because they thought Kirishima had sunk?

Byron, were is the evidence ?

I don't contest the possibility, but I contest the reality of this happening then and there. Kirishima was making 25kts when Washington opened fire, and the "statistical" number of hits is meaningless, because it assumes perfect allignement between 16" guns and target, and perfect rotation of the turrets to match the target's constantly updated position. It's also rather absurd to accept 27% hits against such a fast ship, and in the middle of the night, when Rodney barely managed 10% (at best!) against the 7kts non-manoevreing Bismarck (albeit in rougher seas).

Hiei's inflated account, as many many others, were reviewed upon one of the USN post-war inspections and analysis of IJN tactics and equipment. One of the key features they found was incredibly poor training (with some loaders not being able to distinguish between HE and APC shells), and a consistent need to justify everything in front of their superiors. The loss of Hiei was a very nasty business, that they cite as example for the usual "cover ups" and "inflated imagination" of the IJN officers, both when delivering , and when suffering damage. I'll try to look it up, I have several pdf's with the USN techincal mission to Japan, and each is quite large.

[Byron Angel]

..... Alecsandros, not to put too fine a point upon things, but are you not basing your position (nine 16in hits) upon observations made from four to six sea miles distant at night in the midst of a pitched battle by parties who, at one point, ceased fire because they thought Kirishima had sunk?

Byron, were is the evidence ?

I don't contest the possibility, but I contest the reality of this happening then and there. Kirishima was making 25kts when Washington opened fire, and the "statistical" number of hits is meaningless, because it assumes perfect allignement between 16" guns and target, and perfect rotation of the turrets to match the target's constantly updated position. It's also rather absurd to accept 27% hits against such a fast ship, and in the middle of the night, when Rodney barely managed 10% (at best!) against the 7kts non-manoevreing Bismarck (albeit in rougher seas).

Hiei's inflated account, as many many others, were reviewed upon one of the USN post-war inspections and analysis of IJN tactics and equipment. One of the key features they found was incredibly poor training (with some loaders not being able to distinguish between HE and APC shells), and a consistent need to justify everything in front of their superiors. The loss of Hiei was a very nasty business, that they cite as example for the usual "cover ups" and "inflated imagination" of the IJN officers, both when delivering , and when suffering damage. I'll try to look it up, I have several pdf's with the USN techincal mission to Japan, and each is quite large.

The evidence is here -

"The most important piece of new evidence was supplied by Lt.Cdr. Shiro Hayashi who was Kirishima’s Chief Damage Control Officer and before the ship sank he sketched a drawing of the hit locations suffered by his ship. Lt.Cdr. Tsurukichi Ikeda was his good friend and when they were about to abandon ship Ikeda copied these hit locations meticulously and published it post war in a small Japanese book Shikikan-tachi no Taiheiyô Sensô [Pacific War as Described by the Senior Officers]. What was reported was vastly different then Horishi’s account. Ikeda shows 20 major caliber hits and seventeen smaller caliber hits."

- It was compiled by the damage control officer of Kirishima and provides a much better fit statistically than Horishi's claims. Do you really believe Horishi's assertion that Washington's 5in/38 battery scored 40 hits out of 107 rounds fired (37 pct) while her 16in/45 battery managed only 9 hits out of 75 rounds fired (12 pct).

Kirishima's speed was irrelevant to the accuracy of Washington's fire control solution so long as she maintained a straight course, which, according to her track chart, she indeed did for the majority of the engagement time.

I notice no comment about Iron Duke's performance at Jutland? Do you question that performance as well?

Rodney's performance versus Bismarck was, as I recall, considered a dismal piece of shooting at the time. We can look into that later as a separate issue.

B

[alecsandros]

The evidence is here -

"The most important piece of new evidence was supplied by Lt.Cdr. Shiro Hayashi who was Kirishima’s Chief Damage Control Officer and before the ship sank he sketched a drawing of the hit locations suffered by his ship. Lt.Cdr. Tsurukichi Ikeda was his good friend and when they were about to abandon ship Ikeda copied these hit locations meticulously and published it post war in a small Japanese book Shikikan-tachi no Taiheiyô Sensô [Pacific War as Described by the Senior Officers]. What was reported was vastly different then Horishi’s account. Ikeda shows 20 major caliber hits and seventeen smaller caliber hits."

- It was compiled by the damage control officer of Kirishima and provides a much better fit statistically than Horishi's claims. Do you really believe Horishi's assertion that Washington's 5in/38 battery scored 40 hits out of 107 rounds fired (37 pct) while her 16in/45 battery managed only 9 hits out of 75 rounds fired (12 pct).

Kirishima's speed was irrelevant to the accuracy of Washington's fire control solution so long as she maintained a straight course, which, according to her track chart, she indeed did for the majority of the engagement time.

... And it is good enough for anybody that believes it. To each his own...
I consider Washington's action report more accurate, for all the reasons I mentioned above, that you somehow disregard alltogether.

I notice no comment about Iron Duke's performance at Jutland? Do you question that performance as well?

As I said , I don't deny the possibility, but the reality of Kirishima being hit by 22 heavy shells.

[Byron Angel]

Alecsandros -
I'm not "disregarding" Washington's action report in the sense that it has no value, I am simply saying that it is not completely accurate. That is not an insult to the observers, only a recognition of the difficult conditions under which they were working: it was dark, they were 4-6 sea miles away and in the midst of a battle in which their ship on average was firing a round (16in + 5in) every two seconds without benefit of flashless powder. Even in daylight battle, it is well known that AP hits are difficult to detect; under the conditions prevailing on that night, it is impossible to expect any sort of precision in reporting. These same observers aboard Washington also believed that they had seen three large cruisers and a destroyer sink during the action. If you read the original documents - Washington's action report, Lee's report, Horishi's interrogation - they all use the word "about" and similar when discussing damage inflicted upon Kirishima; no one attempted to make any sort of categorical statement. Washington's action report barely even touches upon the number of hits they believed to have been made; it basically was not even discussed. Hayashi, as the damage control officer of Kirishima, was the only participant to have actually toured the ship and physically inspected the damage.


B

[alecsandros]

Dear Byron,

I don't want to turn this into one of those deaf-mans dialogues :)

We can not know what happened there that night. Washington's account, as every attacker's account, has the advantage of seeing the attack from a certain distance. That way, by simply counting the splashes around the Kirishima, the sailors could form an impression over the number of hits obtained.

That some underwater hits could not be observed is possible, but given the parameters of contemprorary US 2700 pds shells, underwater trajectories were pretty unlikely. Studies by N. Okun and Bil Jurens showed that an underwater trajectory can be attained if the shells impact angle with the waterplane is 15* or more, and even then the consistency of the trajectory is highly debatable.
At the given ranges, the 16" shells would fall at 5.4 - 6.5*, not nearly enough to allow such a trajectory.

The possibility of "shell skipping the water" and then hiting the target has been dismissed several years ago, when discussion pointed out that the fuze would not funciton at all if the shell would hit the waterplane at such a small angle.

Even admiting some anomalies for a given shell, accepting 5,6 or perhaps 7 u-v hits begins to look more like wishfull thinking.

What's more likely (and, curiously, the drawings inside the article also point out) is that a good number of shells entered the water near Kirishima's hull, and caused shock and splinter damage by near-missing (the reports of Suffolk and Sheffield, both suffering shock damage beneath the waterline from Bismarck's near misses come to mind right now). Serious flooding occured immediately, as well as the rudder jam.

===
Again, the damage reported by the article, with shells "ripping off 30ft of the upper decks" is not consistent with AP shells behavior. Kirishima was a small ship, and about 50% of the hits drawn in the article would be expected to exit on the other side. Many "hits" are grouped so close together that it is remarkable that anybody could tell the damage done by either shell.

[Steve Crandell]

I don't understand why Rodney's hit count was so low. I served for a time on Tanks in my state's National Guard. I could have hit Bismark with a tank gun just about every time at that range. Probably about 90% or better. I didn't have to deal with the movement of the Ocean, but my target was comparatively tiny. It just seems terribly small when you consider salvo spread of about 100m or less with a straddle (pretty much every time) and nine shells in that pattern.

[alecsandros]

I don't know, but what I do know is that KGV's hit percentage was similar to that of the Rodney (or perhaps marginally better). Firing range was probably between 7-12km for the most part of the battle, so pretty much the same as at Guadalcanal.
The better crew training and equipment on board KGV could not compensate for the point-blank range at which Rodney was firing.

[MikeBrough]

I don't understand why Rodney's hit count was so low. I served for a time on Tanks in my state's National Guard. I could have hit Bismark with a tank gun just about every time at that range. Probably about 90% or better. I didn't have to deal with the movement of the Ocean, but my target was comparatively tiny. It just seems terribly small when you consider salvo spread of about 100m or less with a straddle (pretty much every time) and nine shells in that pattern.

At 3-9000 yards? With a 105 or 120 mm tank gun? I thought 3000 m was about the maximum range for a tank gun?

[Steve Crandell]

I don't understand why Rodney's hit count was so low. I served for a time on Tanks in my state's National Guard. I could have hit Bismark with a tank gun just about every time at that range. Probably about 90% or better. I didn't have to deal with the movement of the Ocean, but my target was comparatively tiny. It just seems terribly small when you consider salvo spread of about 100m or less with a straddle (pretty much every time) and nine shells in that pattern.

At 3-9000 yards? With a 105 or 120 mm tank gun? I thought 3000 m was about the maximum range for a tank gun?

I don't want to sidetrack this thread, but I will reply to this post.

1. I was referring to 3,000 yds range, which is where Rodney was at the end of the battle.
2. I think there were kills by Israeli tanks out to about 6,000 yds during the '73 war. I personally haven't engaged a target beyond about 3,000 yds, but with a modern gun/computer you can get hits most of the time at that range against another tank, let alone a battleship. The ballistic range is of course many miles, but in practice it's line of sight.

[Byron Angel]

Alecsandros,

I will leave you to your own impressions. There is little more I can say that I imagine will sway you at this point.

B

[Byron Angel]

Here is a synopsis of Rodney's gunnery report after her action versus Bismarck (Progress in Naval Gunnery 1942) -

POINTS ARISING FROM " RODNEY'S " REPORT

396. Fire was opened at an estimated range of 23,500 yards.
Only the 15-ft. rangefinders in the D.C.T. were able to range at first ;
they had a large spread and their ranges were not used, although
one of them was ranging well. The first hits were not obtained
until salvos 19 to 24, at a range of about 20,000 yards. At this
time the gun range, owing to spotting corrections, was for the first
time in this mean of the turret rangefinders, which had recently
started ranging. The range ultimately closed to about 3,000 yards.
It should be noted that Rodney was not fitted with a gunnery
ranging R.D.F. set at the time.

397. Various failures which occurred are attributed to lack of
opportunities of carrying out practices (only one 16-in. firing having
been carried out during the previous year), but it is considered that
deficiencies in control drill could have been obviated by more
throw-off firings, range and inclination exercises and control drills,
even though facilities for target firings were not available. It is
evident that the rangetakers, in particular, would have benefited
from more practice in heavy weather. They admittedly had a
difficult task, since Bismarck was difficult to range on with coincidence
rangefinders due to her " broken " silhouette, and because
the director (and consequently the turrets) could not keep permanently
on the target due to the motion of the ship, and smoke.

398. As a result of the action Rodney has introduced a drill
by which the T.S. will tell the Spotting Officer the number of guns
fired in each salvo just before it falls, since neither the Control or
Spotting Officers found it possible to watch the gun-ready lamps
to see how many splashes were to be expected.

399. Flank marking reports made by Norfolk could not be
used as it was difficult to decide which fall of shot any particular
report referred to in the absence of the distinguishing letter of the
firing ship in the majority of the reports.

(Byron note - Rodney was shooting in concentration with KGV.)

400. The application of the spotting rules was apparently carried
out in the D.C.T. and not, as is the usual practice, in the T.S., and
the liaison between the T.S. and D.C.T. was not as good as it should
have been.

401. The report emphasises the importance of having an experienced
Rate Officer aloft.

402. The overall rate of fire from the main armament during the
action was 1.6 salvos/minute, with an output of 77 per cent. for
the first 30 minutes the output was 90 per cent, at 1.3 salvos/minute.
The output of the secondary armament was nearly 100 per cent.
at an overall rate of fire of 5 salvos/minute.

403. Considerable difficulty was experienced in opening Type C.E.
16-in. cordite cases as some of them had been badly stowed.


That pretty clearly explains the difference between Rodney's performance and that of Washington.

B

[alecsandros]

... Bismarck was doing 7kts and was on a preset course. That should have helped a little don't you think ?

And how abot KGV obtaining a similar performance?

And let me remind youcthat Morrison mentions the testimony of a japanese survicor from kirishima , that said she was scuttled after receivingv8 or 9 heavy hits.
Imagine them going back to japan d saying they scuttled another battleship adter receiving 8 or 9 shells.

[Steve Crandell]

I think we all know that no US battleship could possibly shoot that well, and certainly not better than a British battleship.

[alecsandros]

:)

Bill Jurens has an extensive article concerning US battleships gunnery. You can see there typical scatter patterns and calculate for yourself hit % of US battleships...

http://www.navweaps.com/index_inro/INRO ... ery_p1.htm