PoW readiness for active service

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hello everybody,

pgollin wrote: "So you don't know the reasons so will make one up ! [comment redacted WJJ]

So you cannot counter arguments and you don't have answers to my questions (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8523&p=83192#p83192)

[personal commentary redacted WJJ]


Bye, Alberto

[Byron Angel]

It is quite possible that KGV was in fact "rushed out the door", rather than PoW being subject to any unusual unspecified delays not affecting KGV.

Per Naval History website -

01 Oct 40 - KGV at Newcastle on Tyne, commissioned incomplete to carry our trials.
17 Oct 40 - Departs Tyne 0745; arrives Rosyth 1440 for fitting of outer props, completion of armament and RDF outfit.
Nov 40 - work continues at Rosyth.
02 Dec 40 - Departs Rosyth for Scapa Flow to carry out "First of Class" and builder's acceptance trials, test radars, commence working up exercises.
04 Dec 40 - Arrives Scapa Flow 1500 after gun trials carried out en route west of Orkneys reveal various defects in main armament loading mechanisms.
5-9 Dec 40 - Steaming and gunnery trials carried out west of Orkneys.
10 Dec 40 - Full power trials carried out in the Minches
11 Dec 40 - KGV officially joins Home Fleet (!?!). Continuing trials and remedial work on main armament.
mid Dec 40 - KGV informed that it has been assigned to carry out top secret mission - "Operation Parcel".
1-7 Jan 41 - Continuing trials and remedial work on main armament carried out at Scapa Flow
08 Jan 41 - CinC Home Fleet sends results of KGV's first first main armament shoot.
15 Jan - Departs on "Operation Parcel" (carriage of Lord Halifax to the USA).

The working up period of KGV was therefore arguably cut short for the sake of "Operation Parcel".

FWIW.

B

[Bill Jurens]

More redactions required. I would again ask that participants refrain from personal 'sniping' and confine themselves to commentary upon the issues at hand.

Bill Jurens

[Byron Angel]

Question to fellow forumites -

Assuming that we are all of an adult age, is there any chance that we can henceforth conduct our exchanges in a more civil (or at least reserved) tone? It is embarrassingly unseemly in my opinion that Mr Jurens, laboring as a volunteer, is being forced to spend so much valuable time in the role of kindergarten monitor.

Can we at least try?

B

[wadinga]

Fellow Contributors,

Cammell-Laird built the ship, their workers complete the ship, they don't "fine tune" armament, Vickers-Armstrong built the guns, their workers install the guns, there is no evidence they were "fine tuned" at all by Denmark Strait.

During the 1st April the Cammell Laird workers left the ship and 51 Vickers Armstrong workers joined to work on her main armament turrets etc. During the whole of April her crew carried out 4 rounds of fire from A turret,

There are photos of A turret firing in April, the logs say single shots only, there are no photos of any other 14" turrets firing in April, because it would take another month to get them operational.

All the best

wadinga

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hello everybody,

I see that nobody has answered yet to my arguments and questions (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8523&start=180#p83192) and to Byron Angel annotations (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8523&start=195#p83195), showing that KGV got less time than PoW to get "ready for active service" and was rushed into service.

Just to recap facts:
KGV 14" turrets were all installed on board by September 1940 (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8523&start=180#p83157), ship commissioned October 1 largely incomplete, moved to Rosyth on October 17 (without 2 propellers...), formal gunnery trials started in December (3rd ?), ready for service by December 11 (https://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chrono-01BB-KGV.htm)

PoW 14" turrets were all installed by late 1940 (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8523&start=180#p83160), ship commissioned on January 19, 1941 largely incomplete as well, moved to Rosyth on January 30 (without 2 propellers...), formal gunnery trials only in early May (last one on May 15) ready for service only by May 21, 1941. (https://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chron ... _Wales.htm)



Why this delay, from February till April, if not due to her Captain requirement for further adjustments / exercises (especially gunnery exercises described by two different witnesses, 7 weeks working "day and lately night" (Brooke) or "with men working through the night and the following day" (Mr.Wilkinson)) as Leach was evidently reluctant to run the final formal acceptance trials (with Admiralty reps on board) and to declare his ship ready for active service ?
He was aware of the 14" mountings problems from his previous assignment as Ordnance Director, and possibly this influenced his "resistance" until May 21.


Please facts (material missing on both ships) and dates (trials, installations, etc.) only (to allow comparison between the two ships), not colorful and rhetorical explanations or generical claim that workers were on board (to do what exactly ?). Thanks.


Bye, Alberto

[Herr Nilsson]

I've lost track. Aside from arguing for the sake of arguing what's the purpose of this discussion at all?

[paul.mercer]

Hi Paul,

I would say that the data posted up to now point to KGV to have been rushed into active service, while PoW had a bit more time to get prepared. Of course in wartime all ships are rushed into service, but PoW (except the fact that she had to face a battle few days after she had been declared "ready") seems not to have been treated worse than all other ships of the class, the contrary instead.

Whether this was due to Captain Leach's reluctance to accept weapons that he knew (as former Ordnance Director) had inherent design problems, this is just my suspect, fully explaining the delay (vs KGV).


Bye, Alberto

Thanks Alberto.
I still wonder if because of the imminent threat of Bismarck 'getting out' he was under pressure to accept the ship, despite knowing her lack of battle readiness and as I posted before, the RN had so much confidence in Hood that they thought she could deal with Bismarck on her own but PoW could provide a backup and give the ship and her crew some useful battle experience?

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hi Paul,

when a ship is declared "ready for Fleet service", even knowing she is not yet at the peak of her efficiency, it should be considered able to take over any mission, as it was the case for KGV, when declared ready.

PoW was "unlucky" to have to deal with Bismarck just few days after she joined the fleet, loosing the Hood so early in the action, but the time she spent preparing for it (twice the time KGV had to test guns etc.) doesn't allow to say that she was particularly "rushed out of the door", exactly the contrary.


Bye, Alberto

[pgollin]

.

For a battleship still to have workmen working on her main armament at the time of a major engagement rather shows up your "argument".

Re. comparative working up times, this depends on lots of things [commentary redacted WJJ] . I would suggest some more research.

.

[Alberto Virtuani]

[commentary redacted WJJ]

Please [commentary redacted WJJ} answer

(viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8523&p=83206#p83200)

point by point [commentary redacted WJJ]

[Extensive commentary, including attack on moderator, redacted WJJ]

Bye, Alberto

[wadinga]

Fellow Contributors,

Only when Cammell-Laird's personnel had worked throughout March and the ship's propulsion and power installation was able to carry out full power trials on the 31st, were these men allowed off the ship. Evidently since there was plenty of opportunity to run trials on the transit from Rosyth the systems needed further work before even this was possible, and just moving up to Scapa was a gamble, since if such trials had identified defects requiring docking this would have meant a return to Rosyth. Far from dragging their feet Leach and his team were pulling out all the stops and ignoring normal prudent procedures to get the ship into service as quickly as possible.

Aerial photos of PoW in Raven and Roberts British Battleships confirm a short deployment outside Scapa on 8th May. No mention of gunnery practice.

All the best

wadinga

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hello everybody,

Wadinga wrote: "Only when Cammell-Laird's personnel had worked throughout March and the ship's propulsion and power installation was able to carry out full power trials on the 31st, were these men allowed off the ship...."

Could Mr.Wadinga please post the source of this date (March 31) for full power trails of PoW ? This info would be extremely interesting but it is very different here (https://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chron ... _Wales.htm), pointing to May 8, 1941 for the full power trials.

KGV run full power trails on December 10th, 1940 one day before being declared "ready" (please see https://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chrono-01BB-KGV.htm).


Bye, Alberto

[Bill Jurens]

Herr Nilsson wrote:

"I've lost track. Aside from arguing for the sake of arguing what's the purpose of this discussion at all?"

Amen!

Bill Jurens.

[Byron Angel]

I see that nobody has answered yet to my arguments and questions (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8523&start=180#p83192) and to Byron Angel annotations (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8523&start=195#p83195), showing that KGV got less time than PoW to get "ready for active service" and was rushed into service.

Not to put too fine a point on things, but my comment about KGV possibly having been "rushed out the door" in order to be available for Operation Parcel", is a theory on my part and should not be interpreted in any way as "fact", however plausible it might appear to be.

B