I will respect Mr.Jurens request and I will therefore avoid to say what I have in mind about Mr.Wadinga, who is evidently not respecting Mr.Jurens request in his above post. The Rowell's statement is simply totally wrong as:Wadinga posted Rowell: "Bismarck opened fire half a minute after the Prince of Wales, before doing so turning to open her "A" arcs. "
1) Bismarck opened fire 2 to 3 minutes after PoW as per official German documents and accounts (this has been debated at length)
2) I respectfully point out to Mr.Wadinga that changing course from 220° to 270° (as per PG film) means (slightly) to close the arcs, not to open them.... On 220° the bearing of PoW is 20° forward of the beam, on 270° it is 30° aft of the beam. Is this opening arcs ? I would say NO.
Re. photo NH69729, I simply sat that it is impossible to determine the exact Bismarck course from the image alone: it depends on: PG course (hasn't Mr.Wadinga noticed that PG is not on 270° after 6:07 ?) and on the position of PG in her track when the photo was taken (therefore, it depends on the exact timing of the photo).
IMHO, the most probable course, looking at the photo alone, at the railings of PG, at the Bismarck silhouette, is 200° and the photo has been taken just after PG crossed BS future course, but it can be 180° or 220° as well: only the analysis of ALL the other photos + the tracks and the speeds of the ships will hopefully provide an answer. 220° course looks the most logical, as the mean course of Germans after avoiding maneuvers was ALWAYS 220°. Of course any different determined course will be an interesting step forward, but will affect in a very limited way the overall battle reconstruction...
As a matter of fact, the purpose of this thread is to determine exactly the course of Bismarck after 6:06, after her course before 6:03 has now been fixed for everybody, except for Mr.Wadinga (who based his speculation on no evidence): from 5:52 till 6:03 she was on 220°, as per the irrefutable PoW salvo plot and her rnage closure rate vs PG) while during the PG film (6:03:50 till 6:05:50 as per Antonio's last proposal) she was perfectly parallel to PG until the last seconds of the film (see Antonio demonstration that nobody was able/willing to question: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8335#p81065), therefore she was on 270°.
Bye, Alberto