imaginary encounter

[Bill theodore]

Among the possible encounters between. US. battleships and KM Bismarck, one of the more likely and interesting would have been with Idaho and Mississippi, both of which were assigned to the neutrality patrol and were based in Iceland, although their arrival would have to be moved up several months. Any encounter would have been. accidental, as the US was still neutral, and of course Bismarck, much faster, could easily have avoid action. Could one of them have been. mistaken for a queen Elizabeth class ship in the northern murk? though neither Idaho nor Mississippi seem to have had radar at the time, they were heavily armed, and well-protected. Both. had received at least 2 inches of additional deck armor from the cancelled Lexington-class ships to supplement the original 3.5 inch deck.

[Thorsten Wahl]

Side protection of the american ships could be pierced to distances >25 km.

The reverse appears as not possible.

Its therfor likely that these american ships are inferior based on the weapons and protection.


Dispersion of the german gun as well as ROF appears as superior.

Bismarck could choose battledistance at will and dictate conditions of engagement.

[Thorsten Wahl]

Doublr

[hans zurbriggen]

Hello,
I agree with all Mr. Wahl statements.
I would add that even at extreme ranges (just over 25km), Bismarck guns were able to penetrate US battelships deck: 2" added over 3.5" are not providing 5.5" protection but just (using square root rule) a mere 4".
I strongly doubt (I don't have any precise AoF data for 14"/L50 gun ) that US BB's shells could penetrate Bismarck decapping and main deck under 28-30 km (they would even burst before impacting main armor deck, after having been started by weather armor deck).

Thanks to her better optical and radar systems, Bismarck could have theoretically avoided any such encounter.

hans

[Thorsten Wahl]

(I don't have any precise AoF data for 14"/L50 gun )
hans

Use google and look for

OP1188_Abridged_Range_Tables_1944.pdf

[Steve Crandell]

Interesting that 14"/50 is considered of no consequence against Bismarck, and yet PoW seems to have done damage of consequence with fewer, less powerful guns.

[Thorsten Wahl]

Interesting that 14"/50 is considered of no consequence against Bismarck, and yet PoW seems to have done damage of consequence with fewer, less powerful guns.

There is no question; any BB gun can damage any BB at all reasonable battledistances.

The 14" /50 was weaker (penetrationwise) at any distance compared to the 38 cm gun and carried a explosive charge of about 1/2 of the german charge.
The sustained firing interval was >>1 min for the US gun. For the german gun near 0,5 -0,6 min at ~20 km.

[marcelo_malara]

Interesting that 14"/50 is considered of no consequence against Bismarck, and yet PoW seems to have done damage of consequence with fewer, less powerful guns.

Wasn´t the impact of PoW on Bismarck in an unprotected area?

Regards

[paul.mercer]

Interesting that 14"/50 is considered of no consequence against Bismarck, and yet PoW seems to have done damage of consequence with fewer, less powerful guns.

Wasn´t the impact of PoW on Bismarck in an unprotected area?

Regards

Hi Marcelo,
I think it would be difficult to tell exactly what impact a 14" shell had on Bismarck bearing in mind she was under a deluge of fire from both 14" and 16" shells. I know we have had many discussions on the shell v armour penetration before, but I would have thought that any heavy shell from 14" and up are going to cause serious damage somewhere even if it is only taking out the radar or range finders, even a hit on the armoured parts are likely to make a bit of a mess even if they do not actually penetrate.

[Thorsten Wahl]

Fluke hits happened and will be.

Even the "worst" ship can sink a "nominally superior" ship.

[marcelo_malara]

Interesting that 14"/50 is considered of no consequence against Bismarck, and yet PoW seems to have done damage of consequence with fewer, less powerful guns.

Wasn´t the impact of PoW on Bismarck in an unprotected area?

Regards

Hi Marcelo,
I think it would be difficult to tell exactly what impact a 14" shell had on Bismarck bearing in mind she was under a deluge of fire from both 14" and 16" shells. I know we have had many discussions on the shell v armour penetration before, but I would have thought that any heavy shell from 14" and up are going to cause serious damage somewhere even if it is only taking out the radar or range finders, even a hit on the armoured parts are likely to make a bit of a mess even if they do not actually penetrate.

Oh, I was just thinking about Denmark Strait, when Bismarck receive a 14" hit in the fuel tanks near the bow.

[hans zurbriggen]

Hello Mr. Malara,
hit you are referring to is (according to a debatable sequence) hit n.1. It hit in compartments XX and XXI (almost extreme bows), out of protected 'citadel'. It had consequences on BS mission but it was not 'very serious' in itself, because at extreme bow BS had no vital equipment (however fuel was very vital for her mission).
Hit n.2 (affecting comp. XIII and XIV) was IMHO much more dangerous: it hit in correspondence to vitals, penetrating under armor belt and decks , traversing ASW system and exploding against torpedo bulkhead. It caused ruptures in bulkhead, submerging E plant n.4 and causing water leakages also in forward left boiler room. Leakage forced to abandon this boiler room sometime after battle. It also ruptured other fuel tanks, contributing to fuel shortage.
To pass under belt (BS had a not particularly deep belt), shell could have travelled shortly underwater or could have found a way (bow wave along waterline at high speed may create areas where belt is dangerously exposed), however this kind of hit cannot be fully countered and even PoW, with her very deep belt, received a 38 cm sheel under belt, that luckily did not explode.

Hit n.2 could potentially have had more severe consequences, therefore, to answer Mr. Mercer, yes, even 14" shells could potentially seriously damage a superior ship, but we are speaking 'lucky hits' and not design immunity (that gives BS all advantages in such imaginary encounter) nor statistical odds.

hans

[marcelo_malara]

Hello Mr. Malara,
hit you are referring to is (according to a debatable sequence) hit n.1. It hit in compartments XX and XXI (almost extreme bows), out of protected 'citadel'. It had consequences on BS mission but it was not 'very serious' in itself, because at extreme bow BS had no vital equipment (however fuel was very vital for her mission).
Hit n.2 (affecting comp. XIII and XIV) was IMHO much more dangerous: it hit in correspondence to vitals, penetrating under armor belt and decks , traversing ASW system and exploding against torpedo bulkhead. It caused ruptures in bulkhead, submerging E plant n.4 and causing water leakages also in forward left boiler room. Leakage forced to abandon this boiler room sometime after battle. It also ruptured other fuel tanks, contributing to fuel shortage.
To pass under belt (BS had a not particularly deep belt), shell could have travelled shortly underwater or could have found a way (bow wave along waterline at high speed may create areas where belt is dangerously exposed), however this kind of hit cannot be fully countered and even PoW, with her very deep belt, received a 38 cm sheel under belt, that luckily did not explode.

Hit n.2 could potentially have had more severe consequences, therefore, to answer Mr. Mercer, yes, even 14" shells could potentially seriously damage a superior ship, but we are speaking 'lucky hits' and not design immunity (that gives BS all advantages in such imaginary encounter) nor statistical odds.

hans

Thanks Hans, didn´t remember the second one.

[Bill theodore]

Thank you for the comments. I have a question about the calculation of the effective thickness of armor layers, which Hans Zurbriggen suggests would only be 4 inches. However, Nathan Okun gives several formula, including simple addition for closely opposed plates (assuming no quality differences), and Tspaced = (Te1exp1.4 + Te2exp1.4 + ... + TeN1.4)exp0.71429 for more widely spaced ones. He suggests splitting the difference between the calculations, ( ~ 4.5 and ~ 5.5 in this case) giving something like 5 inches.

[paul.mercer]

Hello Mr. Malara,
hit you are referring to is (according to a debatable sequence) hit n.1. It hit in compartments XX and XXI (almost extreme bows), out of protected 'citadel'. It had consequences on BS mission but it was not 'very serious' in itself, because at extreme bow BS had no vital equipment (however fuel was very vital for her mission).
Hit n.2 (affecting comp. XIII and XIV) was IMHO much more dangerous: it hit in correspondence to vitals, penetrating under armor belt and decks , traversing ASW system and exploding against torpedo bulkhead. It caused ruptures in bulkhead, submerging E plant n.4 and causing water leakages also in forward left boiler room. Leakage forced to abandon this boiler room sometime after battle. It also ruptured other fuel tanks, contributing to fuel shortage.
To pass under belt (BS had a not particularly deep belt), shell could have travelled shortly underwater or could have found a way (bow wave along waterline at high speed may create areas where belt is dangerously exposed), however this kind of hit cannot be fully countered and even PoW, with her very deep belt, received a 38 cm sheel under belt, that luckily did not explode.

Hit n.2 could potentially have had more severe consequences, therefore, to answer Mr. Mercer, yes, even 14" shells could potentially seriously damage a superior ship, but we are speaking 'lucky hits' and not design immunity (that gives BS all advantages in such imaginary encounter) nor statistical odds.

hans

Hi Hans,
Thanks for the info, but didn't the hit on the bow go straight through without exploding, if it had exploded, then surely the consequences would have been far more serious?