More on KGV Class main armament problems

Discussions about the history of the ship, technical details, etc.

Moderator: Bill Jurens

paul.mercer
Senior Member
Posts: 1224
Joined: Fri Mar 26, 2010 10:25 pm

Re: More on KGV Class main armament problems

Post by paul.mercer »

Gentlemen,
On the above page which gives the 'Working up' and completion dates it states:
KGV started WU 10/12/40 completed 10/01/40 should this not be 10/01/41?
Also for PoW WU 5/04/41 complete 17/05/41
These dates show approx 1 month working up to completion for KGV and approx 6 weeks for PoW, I always thought that working Up a large ship took several months, so presumably completed working up did not mean ready for battle?
dunmunro
Senior Member
Posts: 4394
Joined: Sat Oct 22, 2005 1:25 am
Location: Langley BC Canada

Re: More on KGV Class main armament problems

Post by dunmunro »

paul.mercer wrote: Sat May 25, 2019 9:36 am Gentlemen,
On the above page which gives the 'Working up' and completion dates it states:
KGV started WU 10/12/40 completed 10/01/40 should this not be 10/01/41?
Also for PoW WU 5/04/41 complete 17/05/41
These dates show approx 1 month working up to completion for KGV and approx 6 weeks for PoW, I always thought that working Up a large ship took several months, so presumably completed working up did not mean ready for battle?

Yes those are typos in the KGV dates. A ship that has completed working up is theoretically ready for battle, but not at 100% efficiency.

KGV's first assignment was essentially a pleasure cruise to the USA to deliver the UK's Ambassador. Doubtless crew training continued during that and subsequent deployments.
User avatar
wadinga
Senior Member
Posts: 2471
Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2005 3:49 pm
Location: Tonbridge England

Re: More on KGV Class main armament problems

Post by wadinga »

Fellow Contributors<

It has been said
after the 7 weeks "day and lately night" exercises
You can't exercise guns which are still in the hands of the manufacturers. We know there were many other elements of PoW's gunnery installation. We have records of exercises with the 5.25s and pom-poms. Also pointing the directors, running the AFCT and shouting "Bang" counts as exercises too.

Only on April 27th were the quad turrets were handed over by Vickers to the RN, and Langley confirms his representative saw the turrets were still subject to the defects which became evident in the action.

Fred Haughton was nominated for his award for "overcoming mechanical difficulties which have been experienced since they were taken over" because they were faulty on delivery.

It has also been said:
Prinz Eugen did not have a great firing efficiency during 1st engagement. Around 150 shots fired out of 180 ordered, or something like that.
So it accepted PG fired three times as many shells to degrade her performance to the level achieved by PoW in only 55 shots despite also having a much higher firing rate, causing more likelihood of "missed shots". This is hardly more persuasive than the imaginary performance figures presented for Bismarck.

The pictures of Lord and Lady Halifax' pleasure cruise to the States are on the IWM site, hardly a test of KGV's guns.

All the best

wadinga
"There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today!"
User avatar
Alberto Virtuani
Senior Member
Posts: 3605
Joined: Mon Jul 08, 2013 8:22 am
Location: Milan (Italy)

Re: More on KGV Class main armament problems

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hello everybody,
Wadinga wrote: "You can't exercise guns which are still in the hands of the manufacturers."
...but they were ALL on board since late 1940. The 4+ months available were used to exercise the guns...(viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8523&start=195#p83200)

In April finally Leach accepted the turrets, run the formal acceptance trials in early May and the ship was declared ready, with 2 months time more than KGV allowed to leach to "prepare" his ship.


Bye, Alberto
"It takes three years to build a ship; it takes three centuries to build a tradition" (Adm.A.B.Cunningham)

"There's always a danger running in the enemy at close range" (Adm.W.F.Wake-Walker)
User avatar
wadinga
Senior Member
Posts: 2471
Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2005 3:49 pm
Location: Tonbridge England

Re: More on KGV Class main armament problems

Post by wadinga »

Fellow Contributors,

There seems to be some confusion here over who owns the vessel until the recipient signs for it and accepts it. This is surprising when expressed by someone who has served as a naval officer and has presumably seen commissioning procedure. Just as ships under the leisurely conditions of peacetime sail their trials as commercial vessels, under the Red Ensign because they are still owned by the builders and are therefore not operated by naval crews, so those parts of PoW not completed by their builders were surely not owned or operated by RN personnel. When accepted by the commissioning captain he signs for the vessel, including its correctly functioning armament, and the suppliers can be paid. If naval personnel, except under the direct instructions of the builders' personnel, were operating the vessel or components before the handover of ownership, and faults developed, the builders might reasonably claim these had been caused by naval personnel, and that full uncontested payment was still due.

In the specific case of PoW's armament, even with the limited information released by those who hold it, we know the rammer hydraulic pressure was adjusted higher than the builder's recommendation. If PoW's personnel had been allowed to "fiddle with" the quad turrets even before handover, it would be impossible to allocate blame for faults and the matter of payment would be difficult to adjudicate.

Of course the halcyon format of such a schedule was ignored in the case of the KGVs. It would be interesting to know if Vickers' personnel were still completing work in KGV during the US trip. We know from the material I have supplied, KGV had not had the 25 rounds per gun practice scheduled. We do not know the time circumstances under which PoW fired 6 rounds per gun in her "perfect" trials. PoW "commissioned" in January 1941 with both the vessel and armament installation incomplete. Machinery trials could only happen months later. Only when accepted on the 27th April were the quad turrets accessible to naval personnel. Dismissing the clear comments in a secret report by Langley, The Director of the Gunnery and AA Warfare Division as a fabrication, simply because he was British, smacks of desperation.

All the best

wadinga
"There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today!"
HMSVF
Senior Member
Posts: 347
Joined: Sun Jun 17, 2018 10:15 am

Re: More on KGV Class main armament problems

Post by HMSVF »

wadinga wrote: Sun May 26, 2019 9:40 am Fellow Contributors,

There seems to be some confusion here over who owns the vessel until the recipient signs for it and accepts it. This is surprising when expressed by someone who has served as a naval officer and has presumably seen commissioning procedure. Just as ships under the leisurely conditions of peacetime sail their trials as commercial vessels, under the Red Ensign because they are still owned by the builders and are therefore not operated by naval crews, so those parts of PoW not completed by their builders were surely not owned or operated by RN personnel. When accepted by the commissioning captain he signs for the vessel, including its correctly functioning armament, and the suppliers can be paid. If naval personnel, except under the direct instructions of the builders' personnel, were operating the vessel or components before the handover of ownership, and faults developed, the builders might reasonably claim these had been caused by naval personnel, and that full uncontested payment was still due.

In the specific case of PoW's armament, even with the limited information released by those who hold it, we know the rammer hydraulic pressure was adjusted higher than the builder's recommendation. If PoW's personnel had been allowed to "fiddle with" the quad turrets even before handover, it would be impossible to allocate blame for faults and the matter of payment would be difficult to adjudicate.

Of course the halcyon format of such a schedule was ignored in the case of the KGVs. It would be interesting to know if Vickers' personnel were still completing work in KGV during the US trip. We know from the material I have supplied, KGV had not had the 25 rounds per gun practice scheduled. We do not know the time circumstances under which PoW fired 6 rounds per gun in her "perfect" trials. PoW "commissioned" in January 1941 with both the vessel and armament installation incomplete. Machinery trials could only happen months later. Only when accepted on the 27th April were the quad turrets accessible to naval personnel. Dismissing the clear comments in a secret report by Langley, The Director of the Gunnery and AA Warfare Division as a fabrication, simply because he was British, smacks of desperation.

All the best

wadinga
In addition it would be highly unlikely that the assessor for the company would slate his own product.From the snippets released it appears "damned with faint praise".
pgollin
Senior Member
Posts: 382
Joined: Sat Jan 11, 2014 12:01 pm

Re: More on KGV Class main armament problems

Post by pgollin »

wadinga wrote: Fri May 24, 2019 5:19 pm Fellow Contributors, ......


............ I hope this image posting technique does not cause any problems. Enjoy!

All the best

wadinga
1: What is the archive reference ?

2: IF A British archive, strictly speaking you are breaking their conditions in posting the full images.

.
User avatar
wadinga
Senior Member
Posts: 2471
Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2005 3:49 pm
Location: Tonbridge England

Re: More on KGV Class main armament problems

Post by wadinga »

Hello Phil,

From the National Archives website:
There is no need to register or apply to use the OGL. Users simply need to ensure that their use of information complies with OGL terms.
Use of copyright and database right material expressly made available under this licence (the 'Information') indicates your acceptance of the terms and conditions below.
The Licensor grants you a worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive licence to use the Information subject to the conditions below.
copy, publish, distribute and transmit the Information;
adapt the Information;
exploit the Information commercially and non-commercially for example, by combining it with other Information, or by including it in your own product or application.
Under the Open Government Licence we are allowed to reproduce as above. Just as the Hood website includes large quantities of material from the National Archives.

I believe the material comes from the ADM 234/509.

Since the UK Government makes, and applies the Laws on its material it has a free hand. The Cambridge Archives constraints seem to be because they have not received such open handed permission from the many thousands of contributors to their archive.

All the best

wadinga
"There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today!"
User avatar
Alberto Virtuani
Senior Member
Posts: 3605
Joined: Mon Jul 08, 2013 8:22 am
Location: Milan (Italy)

Re: More on KGV Class main armament problems

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hello everybody,
"This is surprising when expressed by someone who has served as a naval officer and has presumably seen commissioning procedure" (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8556&start=15#p83763)
...but these confused statements are not surprising at all, from someone who never served in his life.

I do hope the moderator will redact these low insinuations from a member who has been left free until now to provoke again and again in the forum, due to his personal anger and inability to counter arguments, without provoking.





Nobody says that PoW ever run formal gunnery trials firing her guns before April 27. However she was already "enjoying" a 7 weeks "day and, lately, night" period of intense gunnery exercises as per Brooke (and Wilkinson). Wasn't Brooke a member of naval personnel ? I guess the above member can answer why he was allowed to be involved in the 7 weeks trials...

Full gunnery trials were run in early May with all guns firing their "allotted number of rounds" (see Wilkinson and the gunnery acceptance report sent to Admiralty) with "satisfactory" results.

Then the May 15 "dawn and night sheet" with 6 rounds per gun with a perfect result(http://www.sfu.ca/~dmunro/images/Barben.pdf).

At that point in time, clearly Leach had no choice than declaring the ship ready for active service....

In total, PoW had 2 months more than KGV (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8523&start=195#p83200) from the time the turrets were erected on board till she entered active service: the above forum member can be annoyed by this fact but he cannot change it... sorry.


Bye, Alberto
"It takes three years to build a ship; it takes three centuries to build a tradition" (Adm.A.B.Cunningham)

"There's always a danger running in the enemy at close range" (Adm.W.F.Wake-Walker)
User avatar
wadinga
Senior Member
Posts: 2471
Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2005 3:49 pm
Location: Tonbridge England

Re: More on KGV Class main armament problems

Post by wadinga »

Fellow Contributors,

I would like to assure readers that having served as Survey Party Chief of MVs Oil Hunter, Northern Horizon, Seaway Labrador and Pacific Horizon I have a great deal of experience of seeing new systems (and indeed whole vessels) being commissioned for marine operations and particularly the enthusiasm of those who have inflicted half-developed installations full of bugs and other shortcomings to get off the ship and return to hearth and home as fast as possible before the systems are properly tried out.
This is surprising when expressed by someone who has served as a naval officer and has presumably seen commissioning procedure.
There is no low insinuation in this sentence, merely genuine surprise.

Just because the ironmongery is delivered in roughly the right places aboard a ship does not make it satisfactory enough in operation to be paid for. This happened only on the 27th April for PoW's quad turrets, and even then they were clearly not right.

It is no surprise that Messrs Wilkinson and Barben sent reports of success and that the former was keen to leave the scenic delights of Scapa as soon as possible, before even the 6 rounds per gun shoot was tried. The junior man is left aboard and he too reports "perfect results" (details unknown) but is retained despite this, along with the rest of the presumably invaluable (at Barrow Works) Vickers personnel for another two weeks. Our amateur psychologists have already alleged this was due to a character failing in Leach, but we know the ship's Ordnance Artificers led by Fred, were struggling to make the systems work and this finally resulted in the need for Mr Barben and team to go on a little involuntary North Atlantic cruise.

The 1960 movie does indeed give some insight here:
First Workman: They can't do this to me, I'm in a reserved occupation!
Civilian Worker on Prince of Wales: Fancy me fighting Germans on the high seas!
All the best

wadinga
"There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today!"
User avatar
Alberto Virtuani
Senior Member
Posts: 3605
Joined: Mon Jul 08, 2013 8:22 am
Location: Milan (Italy)

Re: More on KGV Class main armament problems

Post by Alberto Virtuani »

Hello everybody,
"There is no low insinuation in this sentence, merely genuine surprise."
yes, there is but no surprise reading the above from someone who never served in the Navy...

"Just because the ironmongery is delivered in roughly the right places aboard a ship does not make it satisfactory enough in operation to be paid for. This happened only on the 27th April"
No,the turrets were in place by late 1940. In April 27 the last turret was formally accepted by Leach, after a long delay (and, apparently, his long resistance...). The delay vs KGV (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8523&start=195#p83200) is evident and totally unexplained by the ones who deny simple facts.

"It is no surprise that Messrs Wilkinson and Barben sent reports of success "
Unfortunately for someone, the same success (or at least "satisfactory" results) were reported to the Admiralty. This obviously forced the reluctant Leach to declare the ship ready for fleet service.


Instead of looking at movies, someone should try to finally look at what is obvious and written in official documents....


Bye, Alberto
"It takes three years to build a ship; it takes three centuries to build a tradition" (Adm.A.B.Cunningham)

"There's always a danger running in the enemy at close range" (Adm.W.F.Wake-Walker)
pgollin
Senior Member
Posts: 382
Joined: Sat Jan 11, 2014 12:01 pm

Re: More on KGV Class main armament problems

Post by pgollin »

wadinga wrote: Sun May 26, 2019 1:17 pm
........ Under the Open Government Licence we are allowed to reproduce as above. Just as the Hood website includes large quantities of material from the National Archives. .......


.

Unfortunately not correct ;

http://nationalarchives.gov.uk/legal/co ... roduction/

You/ we / I can transcribe, but NOT reproduce the image of the document.

.
Bill Jurens
Moderator
Posts: 878
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 4:21 am
Location: USA

Re: More on KGV Class main armament problems

Post by Bill Jurens »

I'm not a lawyer, but...

Regarding copyright, I would consider that in this particular situation, the posting of small excerpts such as these would fall under a category usually termed 'fair use', which allows the reproduction of small segments of nominally copyrighted material without restriction if the usage is scholastic and non-commercial in nature and the source is clearly identified. Although there must certainly be some 'grey' areas in the middle, in the vast majority of cases it is reasonably apparent what does, and does not, constitute 'fair use'.

In this case, the documents have been reproduced in their original format and without annotation, an action which assists in establishing their pedigree and nominal reliability. This would seem reasonable. Further, it would appear that most of the material being reproduced is fairly relevant to the the discussion(s) at hand.

What we do want to avoid is the posting of heavily-annotated very small snippets (e.g. one or two lines) from commercially printed secondary sources, where a transcription would be easy, or the posting of entire pages of commercially printed secondary source material, where perhaps one or two lines on the entire page is actually being used to make a point of some sort. In those situations, too, a simple rekeyboarding with identification of source, e.g.

"Garzke/Dulin Allied Battleships p.203 states "... the most significant casualty after the first torpedo attack was the loss of electrical power." [emphasis mine WJJ]" would seem to be more than adequate to get the point across.

Bill Jurens
pgollin
Senior Member
Posts: 382
Joined: Sat Jan 11, 2014 12:01 pm

Re: More on KGV Class main armament problems

Post by pgollin »

.

Unfortunately "fair usage" is an American legal term/idea, even though there is VERY LIMITED ability to use it in the UK - one should be aware that US law does not apply abroad. The Crown Copyright is very strict. (Academic institutions have slightly more freedom on copying and usage - but NOT on publishing on the internet.)

This was why the Hood website went for so much transcription, as Crown Copyright is so prescriptive.

The Government has stated its willingness to "open" the archives, however, it would seem that they use the income from images/reproductions as a way of financing the archive. The date for "openness" keeps going back (much like the declassification of the Foreign Office archive, which even well established, and published, researchers and authors find it difficult (i.e. near-enough impossible) to access.

One possibility is to use the Australian archives. IF WHAT I HAVE BEEN TOLD IS CORRECT (?????) they are more open in their allowing publication, and they have a large amount of the UK records - but that would require checking.

.
User avatar
wadinga
Senior Member
Posts: 2471
Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2005 3:49 pm
Location: Tonbridge England

Re: More on KGV Class main armament problems

Post by wadinga »

Fellow Contributors<

I believe Phil may correct about Government created images, but my images were created by me with a phone camera and there are no restrictions over the use of phone cameras at Kew. For high quality rostrum camera images created by the staff there a charge is made to cover their work.

This clause on the restrictions page on the Open Government Licence:

Home > Information management > Re-using public-sector information > UK Government Licensing Framework > Open Government Licence > Exceptions to OGL
departmental logos, crests, military insignia and the Royal Arms, except where they form an integral part of a document or dataset – separate arrangements are in place, see for example the licensing arrangements for insignia used by the Ministry of Defence
makes it clear that the OGL agreement realises and expects that user-generated photos of documents will be used but does not want its logos used in new "fake" documents. However if I have contravened regulations I will take my punishment, although there may be a spare room at the Ecuadorian Embassy I could use.

Returning to the matter in hand,
Unfortunately for someone, the same success (or at least "satisfactory" results) were reported to the Admiralty
Is this in a withheld document? What we do have is the Director of the Gunnery and AA Division saying that the misgivings his representative had were borne out by the failures and defects in action. What we have is a reward for Fred's tireless zeal and energy working on the mounts since their acceptance, (on the 27th April).
someone should try to finally look at what is obvious and written in official documents....
Indeed. RBAY

Today is the anniversary of KGV's action against Bismarck...…..

All the best

wadinga
"There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today!"
Post Reply