# What was the most powerful CA and CL in a straight duel, December 1941?



## Lucky13 (Feb 25, 2008)

Just thought that we could have the same discussion about the WWII cruisers....

Any crusier that was completed and commissioned when US entered the war in December we'll talk about. So, which of the light and heavy stood above the rest by then?

Who did most for the development of the cruiser USN, RN, IJN, Kriegsmarine or Regia Marina....?


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## Freebird (Feb 25, 2008)

The Italians the French were pushing each other into the development of fast cruisers, with their CA's able to do 34 or 35 knots. The CL's could do up to 36. By contrast the RN KM heavy cruisers were designed for only 32.5 knots. The German "Hipper" CA's were also much heavier, about 14,000 tons standard, as the Germans ignored the treaty {or maybe Hitler was not good at math  } 

The British heavy cruisers were also designed for long distance endurance, as they were expected to operate many 1,000's of miles from home. The US cruisers were good boats too, US doctrine ibefore during WWII didn't build many of the smaller boats that the RN had {RN - 5,600 ton "Dido"s, 7,000 ton "Leander"s} but instead their so-called CL's "Brooklyn" were as heavy {or heavier} than the British county class CA's. The Japanese CA cruisers Takao were very fast, well armed and heavy. They carried 5 x twin 8" guns and could go 35 knots.

I would recommend the site WWII cruisers, it has lots of good information, the photos are some of the best that I have seen.

World War 2 Cruisers


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## Lucky13 (Feb 25, 2008)

Yeah, it's a good site..!


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## timshatz (Feb 25, 2008)

Would go with the Brooklyn class when it came to a CL in 1941. Those things could toss something like 10 rounds per tube, per minute. Given they have 15 6" guns, that's something on the order of 150 rounds down range. 

A veritable deluge of shells.


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## renrich (Feb 25, 2008)

I would go with Wichita,CA45. She was complete in 1939 and based on the Brooklyn class but with 9- 8 inch guns in 3 triple turrets. This was the template for the future US cruisers with good armor, 5 inch side, 3 plus 2 inch decks and 5 - 6 inch turret faces. One of my sources gives speed of 34 knots. She carried 1650 tons of fuel and because she was a US ship with more efficient boilers that gave her a range of 15000 miles at 15 knots. Example: Berwick class CAs- 3400 tons fuel gives range of 10400 miles at 11-14 knots. Source is from Janes, 1945.


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## Glider (Feb 25, 2008)

In a slug fest I would take the Graff Spee. Slow certainly but you cannot argue about the 11in guns and 5.9in secondaries.

Second choice the Myoko, 10 x 8in and if you want to get close, long lance torpedos


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## renrich (Feb 25, 2008)

Graf Spee was formidable but she was not a cruiser so I don't think she is eligible. On paper the Japanese cruisers were formidable also but two of the ten gun IJN CAs fought a 4 hour duel with CA25, good old Salt Lake City, one of my uncles was a CGM on her, and it was essentially a draw as far as hits and the IJN withdrew. It was fought mostly at about 18000 yards.


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## Glider (Feb 25, 2008)

renrich said:


> Graf Spee was formidable but she was not a cruiser so I don't think she is eligible. On paper the Japanese cruisers were formidable also but two of the ten gun IJN CAs fought a 4 hour duel with CA25, good old Salt Lake City, one of my uncles was a CGM on her, and it was essentially a draw as far as hits and the IJN withdrew. It was fought mostly at about 18000 yards.



I would say that there is a case for the Graf Spee being a cruiser. Her size, dimensions and armor were cruiser equivalent, but they traded speed for weapons.
Its similar to a BC trading armour for speed.


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## renrich (Feb 25, 2008)

Glider, I believe that the naval treaties in the 20s and 30s defined light cruisers as ships with no more than 6 inch guns and heavy cruisers as ships with no more than 8 inch guns. In addition, heavy cruisers were not to exceed 10000 tons. That would probably disqualify the Scheers on gun size and tonnage although several countries, Germany and Japan, cheated on tonnage. However, a duel between a well handled CA or even CL in poor visibility could have had a negative outcome for the "pocket battleship" I believe during one of the convoy battles on the Murmansk run the CL Sheffield snuck up on the Scheer in atrocious weather and deluged her with 6 inch bullets causing her to run from the fight. The Scheers had armor much like a cruiser and of course they were 4 to 6 knots slower than cruisers.


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## delcyros (Feb 25, 2008)

Ipersonally like the good old SALT LAKE CITY class most for a gunnery match. Not perfectly balanced but well designed and architectonically beautiful.

Whether or not the Pb´s are cruisers is difficult to say. LÜTZOW as comissioned was 10.000t. std. displacement and thus fullfilled the requirement. Furtherly, Germany by this time was no signatory nation of the Washington treaties and their Versailles treaty did not limit gunsize either. The Pocket battleship thus was a "legal" design originally. It was termed "Panzerschiff" in congruence with the term used in the Versailles treaty but later they were reclassified as heavy cruisers, again this was legal due to the end of the Washington treaty -of course now they cheated with the displacement. They may have been cruisers but definetely no Washington-Treaty-cruisers.

On the other hand, the PB´s had numerous design aspects not common for cruisers, such like extensive torpedo protection and battleship sized firecontroll gears. The latter is indicative for them trying to fullfill capital ship purposes despite their cruiser origin, much like the later Alaska´s. 

In a close range gunnery duel, they are not that impressive and in fact may be overwhelmed by a number of other cruiser designs. Long range engagements against this type of cruiser, however, is deadly. Her better firecontroll and armement is telling.

If someone classifies best for this role, I am tempted to give the title to one of the japanese designs. Their Long Lance torpedoes can ruin Your night...


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## Glider (Feb 25, 2008)

renrich said:


> Glider, I believe that the naval treaties in the 20s and 30s defined light cruisers as ships with no more than 6 inch guns and heavy cruisers as ships with no more than 8 inch guns. In addition, heavy cruisers were not to exceed 10000 tons. That would probably disqualify the Scheers on gun size and tonnage although several countries, Germany and Japan, cheated on tonnage. However, a duel between a well handled CA or even CL in poor visibility could have had a negative outcome for the "pocket battleship" I believe during one of the convoy battles on the Murmansk run the CL Sheffield snuck up on the Scheer in atrocious weather and deluged her with 6 inch bullets causing her to run from the fight. The Scheers had armor much like a cruiser and of course they were 4 to 6 knots slower than cruisers.



Then I take the Mogami (which weighed more than the Graf Spee) as my heavy cruiser. I am sure there is some logic in this somewhere as she was originally built with 15 x 6in so presumably, I can also have her as my best CL as well.

Small point of interest. The treaty also limited the size of destroyers to 1,500 tons apart from an allowance for Flotilla Leaders. So an awful lot of cruisers were built in WW2, like almost everything in the German, American and Japanese navy that we call a destroyer. As I said, there must be some logic somewhere.


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## renrich (Feb 25, 2008)

Del, you make good points, as usual. Your post brings to mind that the Alaskas were called large cruisers by the USN when by any measure they should have been called battle cruisers. The fact that SLC had two turrets aft with 5 guns stood her in good stead with the 2 IJN cruisers since it was mostly a stern chase. Interestingly I don't remember reading that the Japanese employed their torpedoes in that battle. They certainly had plenty given the two CLs and the DDs plus the CAs. The US did mount a "Charge of the Light Brigade" with their four DDs but the torpedoes missed. By the end of the war, the US decision to delete the torpedoes on cruisers was vindicated by the increasingly efficient gunfire from cruisers but that was not true in the early going. However, at no time during the war, in decent visibility, would torpedoes have been that useful in an engagement with only a few ships. Examples: River Plate, Komondorski, the engagements during Murmansk runs.


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## Glider (Feb 25, 2008)

delcyros said:


> In a close range gunnery duel, they are not that impressive and in fact may be overwhelmed by a number of other cruiser designs. Long range engagements against this type of cruiser, however, is deadly. Her better firecontroll and armement is telling.
> 
> ..



Its a fair point but the Graf Spee took on the three smaller cruisers and had she stayed at sea could have easily sunk all three of them. She was in all key aspects, undamaged at the end, they were not.

No, if you let me I will stick with the Graf Spee


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## renrich (Feb 25, 2008)

The Mogamis were not that successful as originally designed. They tended to come apart during use of their guns. They grew to 11200 tons during their conversion to CAs. The Pensacola class with their 10 8 inchers were much more efficient than the Mogamis with the limited arc of fire for the #3 turret, and they were only 9100 tons.


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## Freebird (Feb 25, 2008)

Glider said:


> Its a fair point but the Graf Spee took on the three smaller cruisers and had she stayed at sea could have easily sunk all three of them. She was in all key aspects, undamaged at the end, they were not.
> 
> No, if you let me I will stick with the Graf Spee



   I think most people would take them given the 11" guns. But I don't think they can be compared with the cruisers, they are in a category all on their own. {Battleships under 12,000 tons?  }

Glider imagine if they had been upgunned along with that planned for Scharnhorst, {triple 11" switched for twin 15"} Interesting thought...


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## renrich (Feb 25, 2008)

Graf Spee had less than half her ammo left. She had been holed many times, 3-8 inch hits and 17- 6 inch hits. Her gunnery officer remarked the 8 inch hits had been devestating. She had put Exeter out of action and had hit the CLs several times but they were still full of fight. Her fuel and lube oil filtration had been destroyed and she was already experiencing engine problems. She had shell holes in her forecastle which was not good if going into the North Sea. If she had stayed at sea she would have been shadowed by the CLs until other units had arrived. If she had left harbor she would face the two CLs plus Cumberland a full grown CA with 8-8 inch guns instead of six like Exeter. I would say her survival was more than problematical. Langsdorff made the correct decision.


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## Glider (Feb 25, 2008)

On this we will have to differ. The Exeter was totally out of the fight with no guns. Ajax and Achilles had both received damage the Ajax lost two turrets badly impacting her ability to fight.
The Graf Spee still had all her guns, speed and fire control, the forward Director was damaged in the fight but was I believe repaired. The firing of 50% of her ammunition isn't a suprise after such a fight. Also despite being hit 17 times she most certainly hadn't been swamped by the fire of the smaller vessels. This was the reason for raising the point.

Re the damage she received there is some debate.
::The Battle of the River Plate::
Whether the Graf Spee was so badly damaged is open to question. The ship had been hit by seventeen shells but one gunnery officer recorded that three of these hits had simply bounced off of the armour and that the others had hit the ship "without causing damage". The authorities in Uruguay, on inspecting the Graf Spee when it reached the River Plate, commented that the largest hit was six feet by six feet but was well above the waterline - as was all of the damage to the ship. 

The Graf Spee made for the River Plate - the Plate estuary is a huge bay 120 miles across. The two remaining cruisers, Ajax and Achilles, patrolled the estuary to ensure that the Graf Spee could not slip out back into the Atlantic under the cover of dark. The crews later called this the 'death watch'.

The attached link shows a number of photos of the Graf Spee in harbour. You can see how well she handled the damage 

Battle of the River Plate, December 1939


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## renrich (Feb 26, 2008)

At the end of the fight on Dec. 13, Exeter was out of action, withdrawing to the Falklands. Ajax had two turrets out of action, (two left) and Achilles still had all guns in action. The cruisers had at least a four knot speed advantage and were shadowing the GS in good weather. GS had been hit 17 times with 6 inchers and 3 times with 8 inchers. Well more than half her ammo was expended. She had 36 KIA and 59 WIA. She had shell holes in her forecastle. Her diesel engines were overdue for overhaul, were not reliable to begin with and her fuel and lube oil filtration had been destroyed. Big problems for already problematic diesels. My reference does not mention it but I believe one of her 5.9s had been put out of action. Langsdorff knew that reinforcements were hastening to the scene. He had thousands of miles to go to reach friendly waters and it was winter in the North Atlantic. One option was to trust his engines would continue to operate, hope he could elude his shadowers before reinforcements arrived, hope he could elude the other five hunter groups converging on him and hope he could reach the friendly waters. If those hopes did not materialise, he would be battered into a hulk and most of his crew and captives would die. Another option was to haul into a neutral port to make repairs and off load his captives. The night of Dec. 13-14 he chose the second option. The night of Dec. 14-15, Cumberland arrived. On the night of 17 Dec. GS stopped just outside of territorial waters, as the British cruisers cleared for action, put off her crew and set off scuttling charges. Hitler concurred with the action as he could not stand to see a German ship defeated in action. I don't see any other plausible outcome.


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## delcyros (Feb 26, 2008)

Renrich is right about GS status. The only critical hit on GS (all other damage was superficial) was made by Exeter on the Panzerschiff´s fuel oil filtration system. The Diesels relied on the preprocession system of the low grade oils buncered. The low grade oil was pumped to the filtration system, which was located just above the armoured deck near of the funnel amidships. Filtrated oil was pumped back into a ready tank close to the diesels, where it was warmed up before beeing fed into the MAN Diesels. When GS entered Montevideo, it was estimated that GS had 6 hours fuel left in the preprocession tanks before the Diesels had to be switched to low grade fuels with very probable major machinery breakdowns to follow soon after. The repair of this unit was possible but required a week and some spare parts not on board. 

The ammo status of Ajax and Achilles, however, was pretty low, as a matter of fact they were running shorter on ammo than GS.

A more reasonable scenario for a successful retreat would have been into an argentinian harbour instead. Political relations to Uruguay were poor. But I agree in the decision as it was done. I hardly can see how GS manages to dodge five hunter groups in the south atlantic...


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## Kurfürst (Feb 26, 2008)

I always wonder, if the press-term that stick to the Deutschlands was inappropriate; they were dubbed as 'pocket-battleships', but for all practical purposes, they were pocket-_battlecruisers_.


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## renrich (Feb 26, 2008)

I was incorrect in my earlier post, there were 8 hunting groups including the one headed by Exeter. The hunter groups that GS would have most likely met ( I feel sure Langsdorff did not have this information) were Force Y, off coast of Brazil, Strasbourg(BB) Neptune (CL) or Force K, off Freetown coast, Renown(BC), Ark Royal(CV) Either would have been a disaster for GS, even more disastrous than the position of von Spee in WW1. Rather than meet them he would have been better off to seek a fight with Cumberland, Ajax and Achilles. I wonder if Achilles and Ajax had any torpedoes left? From all accounts Langsdorff was a humane and gentlemenly seaman, a credit to the KM and a good example to all sailors. His end was a tragedy for all concerned.


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## delcyros (Feb 26, 2008)

Kurfürst said:


> I always wonder, if the press-term that stick to the Deutschlands was inappropriate; they were dubbed as 'pocket-battleships', but for all practical purposes, they were pocket-_battlecruisers_.




The Panzerschiffe do have a lot in common with the RN´s late ww1 pocket-battlecruisers: Glorious, Furious and Courageous. All three had a comparable layout as designed but underwent subsequent rebuilds into aircraft carriers...


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## Glider (Feb 26, 2008)

I admit that I didn't know about the fuel and lube oil filtration having been destroyed. Can either of you point me to a book on the topic mine are not as comprehensive as I thought.

However what started this line was the observation that the Graf Spee could be swamped by the fire of another CA or CL. Its my view that this wouldn't happen and the Graf Spee could take on any other cruiser in a straight fight.


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## renrich (Feb 26, 2008)

Glider, my info came from a book, "Cruisers, An Illustrated History 1880-1980" by Anthony Preston. This book calls the Scheers an armoured ship but they also call her an over gunned and rather slow heavy cruiser. Actually they remind of the WW1 armoured cruiser which could overwhelm any light cruiser if they could catch her but were too slow to get out of the way of battle cruisers. Actually a "normal" CL or CA would need to be really backed into a corner to have a sraight up fight with a Scheer. If they did not want to fight the Scheer could not force her to as she was too slow. Guess it boils down to definition of a cruiser or" it depends on what the definition of the word is is" LOL


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## delcyros (Feb 27, 2008)

renrich said:


> Actually they remind of the WW1 armoured cruiser which could overwhelm any light cruiser if they could catch her but were too slow to get out of the way of battle cruisers. Actually a "normal" CL or CA would need to be really backed into a corner to have a sraight up fight with a Scheer. If they did not want to fight the Scheer could not force her to as she was too slow. Guess it boils down to definition of a cruiser or" it depends on what the definition of the word is is" LOL



We have to be very careful with this point of view, my friend. The PBB´s were designed as raiders, not as cruiser killers. The latter wasn´t their intended purpose. So instead of the cruiserlike offensive "to slow to catch anything weaker, to weak to kill anything slower" the intention was raiderlike defensive: "faster than anything stronger and stronger than anything faster". The latter must have to be modified for Hood, which was the only ship worldwide beeing faster stronger better protected before the advent of the fast battleship. Renown Repulse deserve to be mentioned in this capacity, too, altough they are not immune to 28cm shells.
It was a very rational and in fact innovative solution for the limitations imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. It denied Washington Treaty cruisers the ability to engage a PBB on favourable terms while making them in the same spot fast and long legged, able to sweep trading lanes independently and giving them initiative to disengage heavier forces. I have filed somewhere an interesting USN commentary dating to 1935, which praises this assymetric solution. It, however, had only effect as long as the signatarnations do feel relied to the Treaty limitations.


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## renrich (Feb 27, 2008)

It is obvious Del, that the Scheers were not designed as cruiser hunters as they could not catch them. Like trying to hunt coyotes with Bassets. It does seem to me that CAs would serve as well for the guerre de course since the 11 inch guns had limited use against merchant vessels. Was the 10000 mile range of the PBs a radius of action? By the way, I believe Tiger was available when the first PB was launched and the four Kongos could catch and defeat them.


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## Freebird (Feb 28, 2008)

renrich said:


> It is obvious Del, that the Scheers were not designed as cruiser hunters as they could not catch them. Like trying to hunt coyotes with Bassets. It does seem to me that CAs would serve as well for the guerre de course since the 11 inch guns had limited use against merchant vessels. Was the 10000 mile range of the PBs a radius of action? By the way, I believe Tiger was available when the first PB was launched and the four Kongos could catch and defeat them.



The 11" guns worked quite well against merchants, Ad. Scheer did rather well as a raider. 

Also don't forget the French "Dunkerque" class BC's, designed to be able to catch destroy the PB's {Dunkerque - 29.5 knots, 8 x 13.5" guns}


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## delcyros (Feb 28, 2008)

renrich said:


> It is obvious Del, that the Scheers were not designed as cruiser hunters as they could not catch them. Like trying to hunt coyotes with Bassets. It does seem to me that CAs would serve as well for the guerre de course since the 11 inch guns had limited use against merchant vessels. Was the 10000 mile range of the PBs a radius of action? By the way, I believe Tiger was available when the first PB was launched and the four Kongos could catch and defeat them.



I am pretty sure that the normal CA wouldn´t be able to fullfill this role properly. The choice towards an 11" gun had a notable effect in superiority against enemy cruisers. A PB was perfectly able to fight down a Treaty cruiser, which was supposed to escort a convoi. Replacing the PB with a normal CA is not helpful in this role. You trade superiority in arms for speed. A single CA in the escort role (or for that matter even a good CL) will present an obstacle hard to overcome. From a simplified gunnery point of view, I agree in Your observation: 11" are overgunned against merchants and there is little a 11" projectile could do what a 6" couldn´t against this kind of targets. However, replacing this gun will reduce the important superiority the PB has over escort cruisers. An important consideration for the guerre de course.
The 10.000nm range of Deutschland and Scheer (8.900nm for GS) is operational range at At 10-12 Kts it´s actually close to 19.000nm and thus the Diesel driven PB´s were the first warships to have a truly global range. Comparison with steam driven powerplants are difficult. If the boilers are shut down, IOWA, to name a very long legged design, may go 20.000nm at very low cruise speed, too but to reflect the PB´s ability one has to take into account that Diesels can go to full power in very brief timeframes (they do develop this power on the shafts in within a minute or two), while Steam driven plants with caged boilers (to safe fuel) will have to bring the remaining boilers online, lit them up, heat them and develop full power in the first before they can apply the steamflow to the turbines in order to develop shafthorsepowers. The degree of fuel consumption is very dependent on the "ready status" of the boilers not in use by steam driven ships during cruise condition. Using a ready status which reflects this for comparison will likely demonstrate the PB´s superiority in range against any contemporary warship, esspeccially at high cruise speeds.

Note also speed is important but in order to catch a ship, you need a _tactically useful superiority in speed_. How this is defined varies from country to country but both, Royal Navy and US Navy considered 4 Kts speed advantage to be qualifying for this. The top speed of the Pb´s was in between 28.0 and 28.5 Kts, substract 1 Kt for operational concerns (trial speeds hardly reflect this properly) and You get a top speed of 27 Kts min. which made them superior in speed to all ww1 dreadnoughts (the Dunkerque class was designed as a response to the Pb´s and counts towards early fast BB designs). 
Any design able to "deal" with those ships speedwise should achieve a design speed of 31.0 Kts min. Most Treaty cruisers qualify. HMS TIGER was rated 29.0 Kts but by the late 20´s it was actually closer to 27.5 Kts due to faulty bottom and engine wear. It does not qualify. Renown Repulse and Hood qualify. The KONGO-class BC´s as designed (27.5 Kts) do not qualify. Kongos was rebuilded starting in 1935 and finished 1938 to fast BB standarts for 30.0 Kts design speed after the Washington Treaty already was expired. 
For their time, the three PB´s only had to fear HMS HOOD, HMS RENOWN and HMS REPULSE. Quite a good odd evening measure if You compare the vast number of CA´s and CL´s which a normal CA would be confronted with in this role...


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## Freebird (Feb 28, 2008)

delcyros said:


> Any design able to "deal" with Pocket BB's speedwise should achieve a design speed of 31.0 Kts min. Most Treaty cruisers qualify. HMS TIGER was rated 29.0 Kts but by the late 20´s it was actually closer to 27.5 Kts due to faulty bottom and engine wear. It does not qualify. Renown Repulse and Hood qualify. The KONGO-class BC´s as designed (27.5 Kts) do not qualify. Kongos was rebuilded starting in 1935 and finished 1938 to fast BB standarts for 30.0 Kts design speed after the Washington Treaty already was expired.
> For their time, the three PB´s only had to fear HMS HOOD, HMS RENOWN and HMS REPULSE. Quite a good odd evening measure if You compare the vast number of CA´s and CL´s which a normal CA would be confronted with in this role...



Excellent post delcyros, except that by 1940 Repulse was badly overdue for an overhaul, with her old engines she could only do about 28-29 knots, unlike Renown that had her re-fit overhaul completed


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## timshatz (Feb 28, 2008)

Wait a minute, I think we swapped threads.


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## Freebird (Feb 28, 2008)

timshatz said:


> Wait a minute, I think we swapped threads.



Not "We" my friend, that would be *ME* that screwed up....  

But now that I've edited it put the battleship reply in the right place its like IT NEVER HAPPENED.


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## renrich (Feb 29, 2008)

Del, the Pensacola class CAs launched in 1929-30 had a RADIUS of action of 13000 miles at 15 knots with 1500 tons of fuel. That is substantially better than the PBs. Of course you are right that the 11 inch guns of the PBs would be a deterrent to an enemy cruiser. The answer to the PBs was of course what actually happened. Several cruisers. Actually I think two well handled CAs would have had a good chance of defeating a PB. The 11 inch guns were as far I know never used against a merchant ship. The 5.9s were all that was needed.


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## Glider (Feb 29, 2008)

My books give it a range of 10,000nm at 15kts which is similar to the G Spee. 
I do agree that 2 x 8in CA would give a G Spee a run for its money. I dont think 6in guns would have the punch required. All the serious damage seem to have been caused by the 3 x 8in hits.


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## Freebird (Feb 29, 2008)

Glider said:


> My books give it a range of 10,000nm at 15kts which is similar to the G Spee.
> I do agree that 2 x 8in CA would give a G Spee a run for its money. I dont think 6in guns would have the punch required. All the serious damage seem to have been caused by the 3 x 8in hits.



Agreed the 2 CA's could probably do the job, but there is always the risk of a quick bad 11" hit knocking out one CA, leaving only 1 left.

Now if it was "Graf Spee" along with a "Hipper" it makes it more interesting, even 3 "County"s CA's would be hard pressed


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## renrich (Feb 29, 2008)

Glider, my source is Janes 1944-45. They give the Augusta class the same specs. Janes is usually pretty accurate. The difficulty the PBs would have with two CAs would be similar to the real battle with GS. GS concentrated her fire from the 11 inchers on what she at first perceived as the only cruiser(thinking the CLs were DDs) As the action progressed the two CLs only had to contend with four 5.9s(see plan of GS) but the CLs were at too great a range to be effective with their 6 inchers. The CLs were on one beam of GS, the CA was on other beam. CA was facing six 11inchers and four 5.9s and the CA could only reply with six 8 inchers. When Harwood ordered the CLs to close( 11000 yards) the GS had to switch the 11 inch guns to the CLs and let the CA only have to deal with the 5.9s. When the CLs withdrew after it got too hot for them then GS finished putting the CA out of action. If you look at the plan of GS, two CAs with their superior speed could force the PB to confront 12 or more 8 inch guns with only three eleven inch guns all in one turret and a few 5.9s. Of course all ships would be altering course to unmask as much of their main battery as possible. The 11 inch guns had a big range advantage over the 8 inch guns but the action at the Plate began at about 20000 yards which was almost at the limit of visiblity but still well within range of the British 8 inch gun. Of course a lucky hit with an 11 incher could put a CA out of action but a lucky hit with an 8 incher could do the same. If people were not involved and would get killed, it would be a fun contest to witness. If one knew how(I certainly don't) it could be computerised and run just like a real battle. Perhaps Del will do it?


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## Glider (Feb 29, 2008)

As I said I agree it would be a close fight, one that could go either way. If it were I, I would concentrate all 11in on one until its basically out of the fight either by damage to the guns or a large reduction in speed. Let the 5.9 guns harrase the other. Then concentrate on the second ship with everything. Its a risk but one worth taking

Re sources I tend to use Conways All the Worlds Fighting Ships 1922-1946 which I commend to anyone and a volume of Navies of the Second World War. These are small books but with a lot of data and I have them for the USA, German, Russian and British (BB's and Carriers) Navies. I also have a number of books on the British, Japanese, Italian and French Navies. So in most cases I have two sources for each navy.


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## renrich (Feb 29, 2008)

The problem for a PB is that if the CAs approach on either beam from astern, if the PB tries to turn one way or another to unmask her forward turret the cruisers can maneuver to stay in her (to use a modern submarine term) baffles and of course she masks all four of the 5.9s on one beam. In every case it looks as if only four 5.9s at a time could bear on both CAs. In the meantime all forward turrets of the CAs are bearing and possibly from time to time the after turrets also. The PB probably has no option but to train all main guns in one turret on one target. I don't know what the rate of fire of the 5.9s but doubt it would be as high as those in a CL where the main guns are in turrets. The PBs 5.9s look like they are in splinter shields.


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## delcyros (Mar 1, 2008)

renrich said:


> Del, the Pensacola class CAs launched in 1929-30 had a RADIUS of action of 13000 miles at 15 knots with 1500 tons of fuel. That is substantially better than the PBs. Of course you are right that the 11 inch guns of the PBs would be a deterrent to an enemy cruiser. The answer to the PBs was of course what actually happened. Several cruisers. Actually I think two well handled CAs would have had a good chance of defeating a PB. The 11 inch guns were as far I know never used against a merchant ship. The 5.9s were all that was needed.



World War 2 Cruisers
The Pensacola class is reported to have a range (not radius!) of 10.000nm at 15 Kts with a max. oil buncerage of 2.116tons. A figure showing a very efficient fuel consumption. A radius of action in this level would imply a more effecient fuel consumption than all post war classes of cruisers well into the late 50´s. Note that this range was with caged boilers!
To put this in prospect with the Panzerschiff Deutschland (the first of it´s class), it had a range of 10.000nm @ 19 Kts with a max. diesel buncerage of 3.300 ton. The corresponding range for 15 Kts was 18.650 nm.
Janes is a credible source but will not provide unquestioned datas, esspeccially from the wartime issues. Glider has named Conways, which is excellent for this purpose.
I agree in the two CA vs PB issue with the limitation that I am not convinced that this belongs to County class CA, due to their terrible turret protection (these are NOT splinterproof vs 11" lateral fragmentation, not to speak of the heavier nose base pieces nor a direct hit).



> The difficulty the PBs would have with two CAs would be similar to the real battle with GS. GS concentrated her fire from the 11 inchers on what she at first perceived as the only cruiser(thinking the CLs were DDs) As the action progressed the two CLs only had to contend with four 5.9s(see plan of GS) but the CLs were at too great a range to be effective with their 6 inchers. The CLs were on one beam of GS, the CA was on other beam. CA was facing six 11inchers and four 5.9s and the CA could only reply with six 8 inchers. When Harwood ordered the CLs to close( 11000 yards) the GS had to switch the 11 inch guns to the CLs and let the CA only have to deal with the 5.9s. When the CLs withdrew after it got too hot for them then GS finished putting the CA out of action. If you look at the plan of GS, two CAs with their superior speed could force the PB to confront 12 or more 8 inch guns with only three eleven inch guns all in one turret and a few 5.9s. Of course all ships would be altering course to unmask as much of their main battery as possible. The 11 inch guns had a big range advantage over the 8 inch guns but the action at the Plate began at about 20000 yards which was almost at the limit of visiblity but still well within range of the British 8 inch gun.



Agreed. From my memory of fighting steel resims, I lost out three of four matches from River Plate if the enemy handled more agressively than historically. On range (GS opened at 210hm = ca. 22.000 yards), the 11" no doubt is better than an 8" could be, due to A) it´s flatter trajectory, which translates into a larger dangerspace behind the target and thus a higher hit probability in the first, B) it´s better salvo consistency due to the heavier projectile, C) the shorter time to range figure and D) the generally more advanced firecontroll gears in use by PB´s (basically on par with what was used on a BB).
At this range 8"ers did not straddled that much but the CA´s are in a position to close the range on their own initiative and thus to get into their optimal firing range as they historically did.
Renrich is also right on the 5.91"ers on GS- they are pedestal mounts behind splinter screens and suffer from a lower rof accuracy.


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## renrich (Mar 1, 2008)

Del, I have another book about WW2 warships. One chapter is about Boise, a 10000 ton CL. The book states that with" 2200 tons of fuel the radius of action at 15 knots was around 14,500 miles." That would tend to validate the SLC's 13000 miles rad. of action with 1500 tons of fuel since the Boise was somewhat larger than SLC. Perhaps some of these sources are confusing maximum range with radius of action but one would not think Janes would make that mistake. However a 14500 mile rad. of action could theoretically give range enough to go around the world on "one tank of gas" Seems optimistic. Same book has a chapter on Ajax and mentions although thinly armored, during the Plate, "there were no fatal penetrations" (obviously) and "other ships of the type proved able to survive heavy punishment." I do know the "County " class CAs were not heavily armored and were referred to as "tin clads" If I was going to engage a PB with two CAs, I would prefer an American cruiser, perhaps Wichita or even the good old Salt Lake City, CA25, with my uncle having charge of the 5 inch secondary battery. This same book has a photograph, taken in Pearl Harbor in 1943, bows on, of SLC, Pensacola and New Orleans. Interesting contrasts.


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## Glider (Mar 1, 2008)

To be honest the armour question is of importance but not massive. An 11in would go through any Cruisers armour but I admit there is a minimum to stop splinter damage.
Some of the County Class were given a decent belt armour which deflected 8in shells from Admiral Hipper. Some of the class took a lot of damage, the prize would I suggest going to the Australia which survived a total of 6 Kamikaze hits.
That said, I would rather be in a US cruiser, the Algerie or a Zara class CA if I had to go against a GS.


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## renrich (Mar 1, 2008)

Janes has a rather lengthy write up on the Kent class and it mentions the fact that increased armor protection was added in 1935-38 and that originally a considerable amount of weight was devoted to structural strength and internal protection. Also states that main guns were given an exceptional elevation ability and because of improved ammunition supply a rate of fire of four rounds per gun per minute can be maintained under director control. Sounds like a pair of Kents would do nicely against a PB. Kents could carry 3400 tons of fuel which gave them a rad. of action of 10400 miles at 11- 14 knots.


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## renrich (Mar 1, 2008)

I still say that if I were designing the Scheers I would give them a twin or if possible a triple 5.9 gunhouse(not turret) superimposed over each 11 inch turret with a third (Q) 5.9 gunhouse somewhere amidships. I know that would add topweight but intuitively it looks like the ship could handle it and she would be much more dangerous in a fight like the Plate.


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## Glider (Mar 1, 2008)

The problem with the County class is the thin (negligable) armour on the turrets and CT which means that a near miss will cause a huge amount of damage.
At least with the vessels mentioned above, the GS would have to actually hit you to cause significant damage.


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## delcyros (Mar 1, 2008)

Renrich, I have forwarded the range question to a friend from the US naval institute but it looks very suspicious to me. The Kent´s didn´t had such a range by many accounts. My preliminary guess is that radius of action is meant as range (e.g. You use a point in the middle of the ocean and draw a circle around it with the max. range of the ship. This is the radius of action, but it doesn´t mean that the ship has enough fuel to return to the starting point).

I have filed down an older discussion we had with Nathan Okun on the subject of the splinter effect of 11" projectiles. Perhaps You will find this interesting:



> The amount of armor a naval gun projectile can penetrate by sideways-blasted fragments from the middle body (not counting the heavy nose pieces or base plug) depends somewhat on the filler (detonating high explosive (HE) filler assumed; not black powder or guncotton) used and a lot on the percentage weight of explosive. For a first approximation, I simply use an "average" HE (circa TNT in power), rather than try to adjust for the individual type of filler (there were many), since for gun projectiles the explosive power usually only ranged from 0.9-1.4 (TNT = 1.0), with only the WWII "RDX" or "Cyclonite" filler mixtures being above 1.1 and they were not used except for US AA guns projectiles very much during WWII and very rarely against ships).
> 
> My MISCELLANEOUS FORMULAE artcle uses roughly 0.08 caliber as the maximum plate thickness of US WWII STS (or equivalent in another metal using its "effective" plate quality against penetration) for the small-fillerAP projectiles blowing up 5 calibers away to the projectiles' sides from the target that any of these sideways-mpoving fragments can penetrate (barring the rare fluke), 0.095 caliber STS for Common/SAP medium-size filler projectiles, and 0.11 caliber STS for large-filler ("Bombardment"/HE/HC/CPC) projectiles. Thus, at 5 calibers to the side, the 11.1" GRAF SPEE shells can penetrate 0.89" STS with its APC shell, 1.05" STS with its base-fuzed HE shell (SAP), and 1.22" STS with its nose-fuzed HE shell.
> 
> ...



It appears that the standart side plating of a County class CA (not it´s belt) is subject to become riddled when straddled by 11"ers even from considerable distance. Theoretically spoken, the very first salvo fired by GS, beeing 300 yards short does fall in the category to potentially impair EXETERs waterplane vy splinterdamage. This may add a lot of flooding in heavier sea!
Furtherly, neither the CT nor the turrets are splinterproof! The rapid loss of turrets ship controll, as experienced by HMS EXETER during River Plate, won´t be the exception but the rule in such an encounter.


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## renrich (Mar 2, 2008)

Janes gives the armor of Kent class in 44-45 as 3-5 inch at WL(side) 4 inch deck over vitals. 2-1 1/2 gunhouses. 3 inch CT, bulges. This additional weight added in 1935-38 was compensated for in Cumberland and Suffolk by the cutting down of one deck aft. The rest of the County class apparently had the same armor arrangement. London was so changed after reconstruction that she was hardly recognizable as a County cruiser. It sound to me that their armor was fairly complete. Am I in error?


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## renrich (Mar 2, 2008)

Del, the SLC was staddled many times by 8 inch shell fire at the Komondorskis. None of her guns were put out of action. Her gunhouses had one and one half inch armor. The action was fought mainly at 18000 yards. Is the 11 incher that much more destructive? I know the projectiles are much heavier, perhaps 700 pounds versus 250-300 pounds but would the shrapnel from a miss be any larger or have any more velocity and thus more energy? I don't have much info on the Cathedral class but I have to believe they carried as much armor as the Kent class, probably better. Am wondering about the damage caused by near misses from GS?


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## delcyros (Mar 3, 2008)

> Janes gives the armor of Kent class in 44-45 as 3-5 inch at WL(side) 4 inch deck over vitals. 2-1 1/2 gunhouses. 3 inch CT, bulges. This additional weight added in 1935-38 was compensated for in Cumberland and Suffolk by the cutting down of one deck aft. The rest of the County class apparently had the same armor arrangement. London was so changed after reconstruction that she was hardly recognizable as a County cruiser. It sound to me that their armor was fairly complete. Am I in error?



You are not in error, the main belt of the Kent-class is indeed partially that strong. But it´s a to narrow belt, at deep combat load its upper edge is barely a ft. above the wl and once the ship engages any speed, the ships own induced wavelength will cover the belt completely except amidships so that the NCA plating in some areas (fore aft) is the only side protection in a number of conditions. The gunhouse has 1-2" faces, 1" sides and roofs. The deck over machinery spaces is 1.375" thick, again not thick enough to stop the heavier fragments of the nose base pieces but it will provide some protection against lateral fragmanetation, except the projectile burst close to or at contact with the deck.


> Del, the SLC was staddled many times by 8 inch shell fire at the Komondorskis. None of her guns were put out of action. Her gunhouses had one and one half inch armor. The action was fought mainly at 18000 yards. Is the 11 incher that much more destructive? I know the projectiles are much heavier, perhaps 700 pounds versus 250-300 pounds but would the shrapnel from a miss be any larger or have any more velocity and thus more energy?


There is a substantial difference in the splinter problem caused by 8" and 11" projectiles (and for that matter real BB rounds, too). According to Nathan Okun, whom I do thrust in this, an 8" HE round will defeat .88" STS if burst 5 cal. away or 1.248" STS if burst directly in contact with the plate with means of lateral fragmentation, only. Thus, 1.5" armour as such installed in the gunhouses of SLC are perfectly capable to make the gunhouses splinterproof vs. 8" AP and -HE rounds. Even an 11" HE round would have it´s problems defeating that much armour with it´s lateral fragmentation, altough it will be able to do so if the burst happens close to the plate (less than 4 cal. or 3.5ft. distance to the plate is required).


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## renrich (Mar 3, 2008)

Watched "Pursuit of the Graf Spee" last night again and was struck again by it's authenticity in spite of using a Baltimore class CA as GS. Interestingly(because of my emotional attachment to the SLC) in one scene Langsdorff is demonstrating to a captured British merchant captain how they are disguising the GS as an American CA by adding a dummy second funnel. He is showing him a picture of the American CA in a Janes and it is the Pensacola class. Easy to identify because of the wide spread between funnels. If I read you properly an 11 inch round exploded 3.5 feet from the gunhouse the fragments would penetrate. Doesn't that mean the round exploded on or in the ship not in the sea?


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## Freebird (Mar 4, 2008)

delcyros said:


> Renrich, I have forwarded the range question to a friend from the US naval institute but it looks very suspicious to me. The Kent´s didn´t had such a range by many accounts. My preliminary guess is that radius of action is meant as range (e.g. You use a point in the middle of the ocean and draw a circle around it with the max. range of the ship. This is the radius of action, but it doesn´t mean that the ship has enough fuel to return to the starting point).
> 
> It appears that the standart side plating of a County class CA (not it´s belt) is subject to become riddled when straddled by 11"ers even from considerable distance. Theoretically spoken, the very first salvo fired by GS, beeing 300 yards short does fall in the category to potentially impair EXETERs waterplane vy splinterdamage. This may add a lot of flooding in heavier sea!
> Furtherly, neither the CT nor the turrets are splinterproof! The rapid loss of turrets ship controll, as experienced by HMS EXETER during River Plate, won´t be the exception but the rule in such an encounter.



The County class were designed with endurance as a major factor. A point to remember is that the County's were 1920's designs, and were at a distict disadvantage vs. the newer Zara's Hipper's {which were heavier too} 

Del, how does the armour protection scheme compare on the newer "Southhampton's" "Fiji's"

I think that the Southamptons were like CA's except that they had to fit 6" guns instead of the 8" because there was no more 8" tonnage available. They could have had the 4 x triple 6" switched for twin 8" guns, just as the plan for the Japanese Mogami's


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## Glider (Mar 4, 2008)

The Southampton Class cruisers were made up of three distinct versions sometimes called the Southamptons, Gloucesters and Edinburgh of which the Edinburgh and her sistership Belfast were clearly different vessels and to be honest I would consider them to be a different class.

Armour improved a little on each version, all had quite a good belt of 4.5 in and unusually for a British Vessel the DCT was well protected. Turret varied considerably with 1in on the first Group increasing to 4in on the Edinburgh.

I have no doubt that Del can add a lot more to this


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## delcyros (Mar 16, 2008)

Sorry, I can hardly add something, Glider. I personally regard the 12 x 6" gunned CL´s highly, they are perhaps the best CL´s to see action and showed an remarkable service log. And they are protected accordingly!



> If I read you properly an 11 inch round exploded 3.5 feet from the gunhouse the fragments would penetrate. Doesn't that mean the round exploded on or in the ship not in the sea?



This is correct. It shows that HE-rounds will be very, very dangerous to Exeter. My primary concern was hull damage by splinters against the NCA hullplating from even considerable distance (not necessarely the thin armour belt, which was difficult to hit) by "shorts" but a single deck hit with an HE-round between the turrets/barbettes may knock out both by lateral splinters and this should be considered as a major concern.


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## parsifal (May 31, 2008)

This is an interesting thread guys. As usual I didnt read all of the posts as carefully as I should have, however I thought I might have my "two cents" worth

From all that I have read, the Pocket Battleships were actually described as Panzerschiff in German, which literally means "armoured ship". They were designed and built in the pre-nazi era, in accordance with the special clauses of the Versailles Treaty which limited the future capital ships of the KM to 10000 tons and a calibre not exceeding 11". In actual fact the ships exceeded the tonnage limits by a wide margin. Deep Load displacement was 16200 t, even standard displacement was 11700 t. By comparison, the british treaty cruisers like the Achilles had a deep load displacement of 9280 t, whilst the Exeter had a deep load of 10490 t. In 1941 (I think), they (the surviving PBs) were re-classified to the standard of CA. 

The PBs were clever designs, but they had their limits. As substitute capital ships that could not compete with proper capital ships they worked on the theory of being able to overpower any ship with the speed to overtake them, and to be able to outrun any ship that could overpower them. By 1939, there were just a handful of ships that could overpower and out run her. The ships that I can think of a the Hood, the Repulse and Renown, and the two French Battlecruisers. They could also not compete with the Japanese Kongos or the Italian rebuilt BBs, but this is kind of academic.

I dont agree with the reasons that have been given for the loss of the Spee. i believe that it was a case of the Spees commander losing his nerve at the critical moment. According to Corelli Barnett (_Engage the Enemy More Closely- the Royal Navy in WWII_ Cox Wyman 1991, 1029 pages, "the german warship had 6 11" and 8 5.9" guns. In weight of shell her armament completely outclassed the british force. Moreover Graf Spees armour scheme protected her from anything except direct hits from the six 8" guns of the Exeter. The 6" guns could only inflict damage to the control positions and upper works of the German ship". 

The course of the battle went something like this. Battle was joined at about 0630. The two British CLs operated as one division, whilst the Exeter operated as the other. The British forces split , so as to split the German fire. Spee concentrated her main guns on the Exeter, whilst the 5.9s engaged and kept at bay the Ajax and the Achilles. Exeter obtained hits on the Spee, but none were vital, whilst Spees reply knocked out the Exeters, fire control, and all but one of turrets, which continued to fire under local control. Exeter gallantly remained in the battle until the last possible moment, but was eventually forced from the battle, limping away at about 10 knots. However, I believe the Germans were shocked to see the two CLs continuing to close, and seek further engagement with the raider. they evidently had not read the British traditions to engage the enemy more closely, wherever, and whenever they presented themselves. However, both CLs began to take damage, as the Spees main armament swung round onto these new adversaries. The end result was that the RN was forced to adopt a shadowing role. 

It is at this point that I believe Langsdorf (the german commander) lost his nerve. Reportedly badly shaken by the dead and wounded and the damage to his ship (Which post war accounts by the German surivors suggests was not nearly as extensive as claimed), Langsdorf apparently shrugged off all pleas by his senior officers to make for open sea, or try to deal with the now shadowing cruisers. I believe this is what he should have done. A retreat to nightfall would in all probability have seen the Spee escape (similar to Bismarcks achievement 18 months later), and beyond that who knows. There was a supply ship, the Altmark, not so far away, and if the British could be shaken, I believe that emergency repairs could have been effected at sea, and the ship returned to Germany.

Instead, Langsdorf ran for Montevideo, where he fell victim to a very clever propaganda war which suggested that the Ark Royal and the renown were waiting for him. The rest is history as they say. 

The point I want to make is that the Spee won the battle, in a technical sense, but allowed that victory to slip though her fingers. The Spee lived up to all her design parameters. 

So why was she ultimately defeated. I believe it was because of the different traditions that existed in the two navies, but more importantly the make up of langsdorf. The British navy tradition was to keep on fighting despite the odds. It was a fighting spirit based on 300 yearsof tradition. Whilst fighting and suffering off Crete, ABC (Cunningham) signalled the fleet...."stick it out, the army expects our help. ....it takes three years to build a destroyer and three hundred years to build a tradition....such traditions helped the british to pull them through the hard bits. The Germans did not have nearly such deep traditions for their navy to call on in the hard times, moreover, the standing orders for all german ships at the time was to avoid combat against equal or superior forces. Faced with a hard bit, Langsdorf chose to run for cover, and to comply with his standing orders. It was the sensible, logical thing to do, but it was still the wrong thing to do. I have often asked myself what might have happened if the Spee was a British ship?


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## delcyros (Jun 3, 2008)

parsifal said:


> From all that I have read, the Pocket Battleships were actually described as Panzerschiff in German, which literally means "armoured ship". They were designed and built in the pre-nazi era, in accordance with the special clauses of the Versailles Treaty which limited the future capital ships of the KM to 10000 tons and a calibre not exceeding 11". In actual fact the ships exceeded the tonnage limits by a wide margin. Deep Load displacement was 16200 t, even standard displacement was 11700 t. By comparison, the british treaty cruisers like the Achilles had a deep load displacement of 9280 t, whilst the Exeter had a deep load of 10490 t. In 1941 (I think), they (the surviving PBs) were re-classified to the standard of CA.



Parsifal, the Panzerschiffe were conforming to their treaty limits within acceptable tolerances. 
standart displacement is what counts. The PB Deutschland had a std. displacement of 10.600t. and a light displacement considerably below 10.000t. The deep load was 14.290t., altough this increased after the Atlantic bow had been refitted (long after the treaty of Versailles and London expired). Follow on ships were a tad bit heavier due to refits and modifications undertaken after war broke out but thats true for all combattants (additional AAA, updated firecontroll...).
Any comparison has to take care of contemporary CA´s. The Exeter was a 6 x 8" CA, basically the smallest possible design with 8" and cruiser abilities.
The comparable Kent-class CA averaged with 10.400t. stdt. and 14.150t. avg. deep load, very much like PB Deutschland / Lützow.
The italian Zara class CA had a displacement of 11.870t. std. and 14.530t. deep.
The french Algerie CA was perfect 10.000t. std. and 13.900t. deep, the only modern CA to fullfill the requirements of the treaty.
The US Cleveland class light cruiser had a standart displacement of 11.800t. and a deep load of 14.183t.

The Panzerschiffe were thus conforming to their displacement limits but this was not without some notable risks in protection.


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## timshatz (Jun 3, 2008)

delcyros said:


> The Panzerschiffe were thus conforming to their displacement limits but this was not without some notable risks in protection.



Delc, can you go further and explain what those risks were? Curious more than anything else?


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## delcyros (Jun 4, 2008)

> Hi Del
> 
> Your figures are slightly lower than those quoted in Conways, Janes and one other reference I have for the KM. But not enough to get excited about.
> 
> Except when you say that Deutschlands Std Disp is below 10000. Conways lists it as 11700, whilst the German Warships of WWII lists it as 11700 also. My Encyclopaedia of ships lists the same displacement. Factsare the Germans exceeded treaty limits, and broke the rules. Oh, and the Treaty of versailles was repudiated by Hitler, it did not "expire". Same with the Anglo-German Naval Treaty



The germans exceeded the treaty limits, as did the british, US, japanese and italian. Virtually all except France. The Panzerschiffe were nothing special in this regard. 

Conway lists the std. Displacement belonging to post refit times. The original displacement (std.) as comissioned was 10.600t. for Deutschland, matching the official "10.000"t. displacement. Light displacement was below 10.000t. (note that "light" does not refer to standart). The std. displacement of Scheer and Graf Spee was slightly larger. And if You carefully read the articles of Versailles, You won´t find a definition of "displacement". Unlike in the Washington Treaty, where the displacement was precisely defined, the Treaty of Versailles leaves this open. Hard to argue that they broke the rules then from a juristical point of view...





> I dont believe that they were conforming. They were 1700 tons over maximum at the very least, and in the case of the Spee, at least 2200 tons over weight. That represents the potential to put a lot more effort into the defensive schemes than the ships she faced in 1939. The CLs were much less well protected, and the Exeter, also could not withstand the 11" guns in anything like a comparable state to the way Spee could withstand her broadsides
> I am not saying the PBs were invulnerable, but the odds against the three British ships on that December morning were heavily weighted in favour of the Spee, at least on a theoretical level



I think You are in error here. Note that almost all modern CA´s commissioned as "Washington Cruiser" were in fact overweight. The PB´s had no substantial advantage in weight which could be devoted to protection compared to the other contenders. They traded speed and protection for firepower, that´s it.
I mean, 50-80mm armour belt is not going to stop a properly capped APC at any realistic fighting range. Some CA had up to 152mm belt armour!
It´s equal whether this is 6" or 8", it will overmatch the belt. The Panzerschiff cannot dictate the range, unlike the faster CL and CA. In the end Graf Spee was rather lucky to find herselfe confronted with british opposition instead of french.
The Royal Navy by then was only using CPBC, soft capped projectiles for the 6"ers and SAP for the 8"ers, both are only dangerous at close to medium distances. All other navies, however, supplied their cruiser guns with a hard capped, true APC projectile, which would make short work out of the belt.
The only true chance a PBB has when facing multiple cruisers (one on one, the PB wins due to it´s greatly enhanced offensive capabilities and battleship scale firecontroll) is to keep distance. The River Plate engagement showed this. Had the british CL force pressed home harder their attack, they could well overwhelm Graf Spee.


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## parsifal (Jun 4, 2008)

*I mean, 50-80mm armour belt is not going to stop a properly capped APC at any realistic fighting range. Some CA had up to 152mm belt armour!
It´s equal whether this is 6" or 8", it will overmatch the belt. The Panzerschiff cannot dictate the range, unlike the faster CL and CA. In the end Graf Spee was rather lucky to find herselfe confronted with british opposition instead of french*.


The 6 in BL Mk XXIII had armour penetration characteristics as follows:

At 22000 yds it could penetrate 2in say 45 mm, whilst at 12500 yds it was 3 in, say 68 mm. This is using the CPBC ammunition that you mentioned. My source says that at 22000 yds the majority of hits will be deck penetrations, whilst at 12500 it will be mostly belt impacts

By comparison the SKC 28 cm has penetrations of between 291mm and 335 mm at ranges 16000-19000 yds, for side armour penetrations. According to Wiki the deck penetrations at those ranges are between 41 and 48 mm (but I strongly suspect that figure to be too low).

Conways lists the belt armour for the Panzerschiff as between 2.25 and 3 in. I havent checked the distribution of this armouring scheme. The deck armouring was 1.5 inches (about 35 mm), but there was additional protecive bulkheads below deck that would largely contain the effects of any deck penetrations. 

You may be right, in a general sense about the panzerschiff not being able to dictate the range, but at River Plate, it certainly looks like they did, the German ship managed to keep the ranges at between 16 and 19000 yds from memory, by various means (constant changes of course and smoke mostly), which was the optimum range for her main armament to pentrate the RN cruisers defences, whilst at the same time maximising her own protection. At the engagement ranges mentioned (16000-19000 yds) the majority of British fire is going to be hitting the belt, and not the deck. Depending on how extensive the belt protection is of course. 

I want to make something very clear. I agree that the armour protection scheme of the Panzerschiff was far from fullproof in its protection, however it SUBSTANTIALLY protected them from damage from the Light cruisers on that day, due to the ranges of the engagement, the characteristics of the British 6in guns and the protective scheme of the german ship itself 


*The Royal Navy by then was only using CPBC, soft capped projectiles for the 6"ers and SAP for the 8"ers, both are only dangerous at close to medium distances. All other navies, however, supplied their cruiser guns with a hard capped, true APC projectile, which would make short work out of the belt.*


I think i agree with this, although the 6in ammunition worked well enough against the Italians and even the Germans later in the war, using the same ammunition


*The only true chance a PBB has when facing multiple cruisers (one on one, the PB wins due to it´s greatly enhanced offensive capabilities and battleship scale firecontroll) is to keep distance. The River Plate engagement showed this. Had the british CL force pressed home harder their attack, they could well overwhelm Graf Spee*.

But I dont think that they could, thats the point. They tried repeatedly to close the range during the battle, but each time the Spee managed to evade them (as evidenced by the range being maintained). The speed difference that you keep mentioning did not seem to provide the British the required advantage on this occasion. Even by closing the range, as you say, far more damage would be inflicted on the brit ships (probable loss in fact) in comparison to the german ship, whose protection, whilst far from perfect, was far superior to that of the British ships.


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## delcyros (Jun 5, 2008)

parsifal said:


> The 6 in BL Mk XXIII had armour penetration characteristics as follows:
> 
> At 22000 yds it could penetrate 2in say 45 mm, whilst at 12500 yds it was 3 in, say 68 mm. This is using the CPBC ammunition that you mentioned. My source says that at 22000 yds the majority of hits will be deck penetrations, whilst at 12500 it will be mostly belt impacts
> 
> By comparison the SKC 28 cm has penetrations of between 291mm and 335 mm at ranges 16000-19000 yds, for side armour penetrations. According to Wiki the deck penetrations at those ranges are between 41 and 48 mm (but I strongly suspect that figure to be too low).



We have a basic agreement that any comparison of armour piercing abilities will be in decisive advantage for the 28cm gun, using APC or Common:

Nathan Okun wrote with regard to the 11.1"/52 SAP of the Panzerschiffe:
_" (...) These guns also had a very blunt-nosed SAP-type Common projectile (Spgr.m.Bdz) with only light AP penetration ability, though the blunt nose shape gave it good thin-deck (British and French 'Treaty' cruisers) penetration at long range, which was probably what it was for."

The british 6" BL was an extraordinary poor armour piercer in comparison. The principal reason was the CPBC round supplied. You might argue that the Panzerschiffe were protected according to their prime adversary but the Panzerschiffe, however, were not designed to counter british CL but instead were meant as a naval measure against France, primarely.

The 6" gun of Emile Bertin, La Galissonnière and De Grasse-class french CL are a much more severe test to Deutschlands armour scheme. Supplied with an SAP and true armour piercing projectiles, the 152mm/55 is estimated to achieve a penetration of 122mm KC at 10.900 yards. This shows what the british 6"/55 could achieve if it had only been supplied with a proper AP-projectile. Basically an improvement in order of 40 to 45% over the RN 6"BL! The US 6"/47 and 6"/50, if supplied with an AP, projectile was only little short of french performances. The 155mm / 152mm and 150mm of japanese, italian and german guns repectively were markedly superior to these performances.





Conways lists the belt armour for the Panzerschiff as between 2.25 and 3 in. I havent checked the distribution of this armouring scheme. The deck armouring was 1.5 inches (about 35 mm), but there was additional protecive bulkheads below deck that would largely contain the effects of any deck penetrations.

Click to expand...

Breyer (the new 1993 one, not the 70´s old one) is probably the best source for the Panzerschiffe. The belt armour was made of 80mm above the waterline and 50-60mm below (Graf Spee and to a lesser degree Scheer had wider distribution of the 80mm belt in respect to protected height covered) and inclined 15 degrees, the deck armour was a single deck (no slopes or protected decks!) of 40mm thickness, which in Graf Spee only was covering the whole distance between both belts. On Scheer and Lützow -at least theoretically- a projectile may strike over the belt and on the 40mm longitudinal torpedo bulkhead (the bulwark ways were not protected by a deck here- a serious gap in their protection). This even a 6" CPBC may achieve from considerable distance. The pocket battleships were protected in a manner known better as "all-or-nothing".




I want to make something very clear. I agree that the armour protection scheme of the Panzerschiff was far from fullproof in its protection, however it SUBSTANTIALLY protected them from damage from the Light cruisers on that day, due to the ranges of the engagement, the characteristics of the British 6in guns and the protective scheme of the german ship itself

Click to expand...

The results of River Plate proof that You have a reasonable position. I only want to add that british 6" CL showed little effect at the conditions of River Plate, but these are not to compare with french CL´s of the period or with what they could achieve at closer distance.




They tried repeatedly to close the range during the battle, but each time the Spee managed to evade them (as evidenced by the range being maintained). The speed difference that you keep mentioning did not seem to provide the British the required advantage on this occasion. Even by closing the range, as you say, far more damage would be inflicted on the brit ships (probable loss in fact) in comparison to the german ship, whose protection, whilst far from perfect, was far superior to that of the British ships.

Click to expand...


Agreed. One of the big miracles of this battle. Perhaps the 5.91"ers secondary guns of Graf Spee kept them on distance (a secondary gun don´t needs to hit in order to be successful here) or skillful helm or multiple aspects. Graf Spee could hardly exceed 24-25 Kts with the state of that date (engine problems and fouled bottom) while the british cruisers matched 30 Kts.
At closer distance, the CLs would hit more often and harder, the CL´s could also easily overwhelm Graf Spee with pure volume of fire. 

best regards,_


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## renrich (Jun 5, 2008)

Another factor in this engagement to consider is that in the early part the GS used her two eleven inch turrets to engage the more dangerous adversary, Exeter, which left the CLs confronted only by 4-5.9s behind nothing more than splinter shields. When Harwood closed the range with the CLs , the Britich 6-inchers did do some damage.


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## parsifal (Jun 5, 2008)

*We have a basic agreement that any comparison of armour piercing abilities will be in decisive advantage for the 28cm gun, using APC or Common:

Nathan Okun wrote with regard to the 11.1"/52 SAP of the Panzerschiffe:
" (...) These guns also had a very blunt-nosed SAP-type Common projectile (Spgr.m.Bdz) with only light AP penetration ability, though the blunt nose shape gave it good thin-deck (British and French 'Treaty' cruisers) penetration at long range, which was probably what it was for."

The british 6" BL was an extraordinary poor armour piercer in comparison. The principal reason was the CPBC round supplied. You might argue that the Panzerschiffe were protected according to their prime adversary but the Panzerschiffe, however, were not designed to counter british CL but instead were meant as a naval measure against France, primarely.*_

The biggest single problem with the french cruisers were the limited endurance that they possessed. They were unable to mount the sustained patrols far from home that the British cruisers were able to do.


*The 6" gun of Emile Bertin, La Galissonnière and De Grasse-class french CL are a much more severe test to Deutschlands armour scheme. Supplied with an SAP and true armour piercing projectiles, the 152mm/55 is estimated to achieve a penetration of 122mm KC at 10.900 yards. This shows what the british 6"/55 could achieve if it had only been supplied with a proper AP-projectile. Basically an improvement in order of 40 to 45% over the RN 6"BL! The US 6"/47 and 6"/50, if supplied with an AP, projectile was only little short of french performances. The 155mm / 152mm and 150mm of japanese, italian and german guns repectively were markedly superior to these performances.*

British 6" guns were undoubtedly hampered by the ammunition they used, however, IMO you are overstating the advantages of SAP rounds. British CPBC were very effective at damaging upper works, and disabling other parts of the enemy ship, without necessarily penetrating the belt. SAP ammunition often had the unfortunate habit of passing right through the target. Italian SAP ammunition also seems to have suffered from poor metallurgical treatment. Certainly on a number of occasions when it struck British armour rather than penetrating, it simply shattered. Many Italian guns also suffered from poor accuracy because of closeness of the two barrels. I have also read that the Italian turrets often were insufficiently strong, and/or the guns too closely spaced together, to permit proper salvo fire. In any event, trying to put aside the operational limits that the Italians were forced to work under, I still think that ship for ship, the British even with their inferior guns achieved better success, and inflicted more damage, even before the full impact of radar. A good example is perhaps Cape Spada

There ar very few instances of german 5.9" engaging British 5.9s. at least in cruisers. The German Narviks used them, and there is the Koromoran vs Sydney (and a couple of othe raiders as well. Without having looked at all the examples all that carefully, I dont know that it can be said that the British were all that badly disadvantaged.

The reason I think is because the disabling of a ship is not so much linked to the penetration of the belt, as the destruction of the control positions and the like. This was certainly how the Bismarck was silenced so quickly, and was the general pattern of events in many engagements, particulalry the Pacific 

*Breyer (the new 1993 one, not the 70´s old one) is probably the best source for the Panzerschiffe. The belt armour was made of 80mm above the waterline and 50-60mm below (Graf Spee and to a lesser degree Scheer had wider distribution of the 80mm belt in respect to protected height covered) and inclined 15 degrees, the deck armour was a single deck (no slopes or protected decks!) of 40mm thickness, which in Graf Spee only was covering the whole distance between both belts. On Scheer and Lützow -at least theoretically- a projectile may strike over the belt and on the 40mm longitudinal torpedo bulkhead (the bulwark ways were not protected by a deck here- a serious gap in their protection). This even a 6" CPBC may achieve from considerable distance. The pocket battleships were protected in a manner known better as "all-or-nothing".*


Thanks

I will look him up 


*The results of River Plate proof that You have a reasonable position. I only want to add that british 6" CL showed little effect at the conditions of River Plate, but these are not to compare with french CL´s of the period or with what they could achieve at closer distance.*

I agree that the French CLs would have had a better chance of penetrating the GS belt and deck, with their SAP ammunition, although I hesitate when you describe it as "easy". The superficial damage inflicted by the Brit cruisers was not insignificant, but I am not convinced that it was lethal either, despite certain reports that I have read to the contrary (you mention them yourself, but i sense you are a bit doubtful as well, perhaps i am mistaken)


*Agreed. One of the big miracles of this battle. Perhaps the 5.91"ers secondary guns of Graf Spee kept them on distance (a secondary gun don´t needs to hit in order to be successful here) or skillful helm or multiple aspects. Graf Spee could hardly exceed 24-25 Kts with the state of that date (engine problems and fouled bottom) while the british cruisers matched 30 Kts.*

I have read that GS during the battle managed to reach just short of 26 knots during the battle. Does that not correlate to our understanding??? Also, you over-estimate slightly the speed of the British cruisers. They too, were all in need of refit, and could not exeed 28.5 knots maximum sea speed

My earlier post about the ranges was in error. Without checking I had thought the battle was fought at ranges 16-19000 yds. This is not actually the case, now that I have checked. Sometime after 0643 (ie, after the Exeter had retired), , I believe about 0646, the British cruisers had managed to reduce the ranges to 13800 yds. Battle had commenced at 0619, at 19200 yds. This means that in 27 minutes, the British had closed the range 5400 yds, which is an average closure rate of 6 knots. This tends to support, very precisely your contention that there was a 6 knot difference in their effective sea speeds 

There are, of course many variables at play that might wreck thi otherwise simple comparison


*At closer distance, the CLs would hit more often and harder, the CL´s could also easily overwhelm Graf Spee with pure volume of fire.*

How then do you explain the british reluctance to close in the stern chase that followed the battle. It was not confirmed until 1915 that the raider was definately making for port, yet the British made several attempts at closing the range, each time they broke off and resumed shadowing range. Harwood knew that help was still a long distance from the scene at that time_


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## renrich (Jun 6, 2008)

The closing of the range during the battle was, I believe, not a result of difference in the ability of the ships to make speed or not. Rather, it was the choice of Harwood to close the range in order to be more effective with his 6 inchers. He closed the range until it got too hot and then reopened it. The reason he did not close again and "overwhelm" the GS was that his heaviest ship, Exeter, was out of action, he had two turrets on one of his CLs out of action, he probably was short of ammo and shadowing the GS until help arrived seemed a more prudent option for the time being. If the situation changed, he could always change his tactics.


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## delcyros (Jun 9, 2008)

> The biggest single problem with the french cruisers were the limited endurance that they possessed. They were unable to mount the sustained patrols far from home that the British cruisers were able to do.



I tend to interprete it another way. The biggest problem with french CL´s were that there were not many enough to cover a larger area. 



> British 6" guns were undoubtedly hampered by the ammunition they used, however, IMO you are overstating the advantages of SAP rounds. British CPBC were very effective at damaging upper works, and disabling other parts of the enemy ship, without necessarily penetrating the belt. SAP ammunition often had the unfortunate habit of passing right through the target. Italian SAP ammunition also seems to have suffered from poor metallurgical treatment. Certainly on a number of occasions when it struck British armour rather than penetrating, it simply shattered. Many Italian guns also suffered from poor accuracy because of closeness of the two barrels. I have also read that the Italian turrets often were insufficiently strong, and/or the guns too closely spaced together, to permit proper salvo fire. In any event, trying to put aside the operational limits that the Italians were forced to work under, I still think that ship for ship, the British even with their inferior guns achieved better success, and inflicted more damage, even before the full impact of radar. A good example is perhaps Cape Spada


The Royal Navy showed a great expertise to use their ships with the greatest possible tactical effect. Tactics compensated technical deficiancies and are a testimony for great individual skill and leadership. Still, they cannot be used to relativate the technical inferiority in the first place.



> There ar very few instances of german 5.9" engaging British 5.9s. at least in cruisers. The German Narviks used them, and there is the Koromoran vs Sydney (and a couple of othe raiders as well. Without having looked at all the examples all that carefully, I dont know that it can be said that the British were all that badly disadvantaged.


A 5.91" gun is not a 5.91" gun in the german Navy (and for sure the same is true for the Royal Navy). The Komoran was an auxilary cruiser, an old merchant equipped with 5.91"cal 45 guns of the 1906 model. The Narvik cruisers used a 55 cal. twin mounted gun of a much newer model, altough I am sure that the Narvik class itself cannot be considered a successful design.
The CL´s finally had a very potent 5.91" 60 cal length model of this gun, in biaxially stabilized fully enclosed turrets on barbettes giving them high accurateness, a comparably long range, flat trajectory and corresponding high muzzle velocity for low dispersion patterns. The Nürnberg triple turrets are in my view the best CL weapon of ww2, mostly due to their supply with true APC, SAP and HE ammunition and the extraordinary semiautomatic shell handling arrangements. That does not say that the british were at an disadvantage tactically, they always enjoied numerical superiority and n^2 rule usually overtakes technical superiority. Quantity has a quality of it´s own.



> The reason I think is because the disabling of a ship is not so much linked to the penetration of the belt, as the destruction of the control positions and the like. This was certainly how the Bismarck was silenced so quickly, and was the general pattern of events in many engagements, particulalry the Pacific


But Bismarck was not silenced by NON PENETRATING hits. Bismarck was silenced by close range PENETRATING hits through CT, upper works, barbettes and turrets. _"8" and 6" hits did not contributed other than rearranging debris of prior impacts"_ (Bill Jurens). This statement does not give credit to an 8" hit destroying the secondary rangefinder (which only had splinter protection) but 8" SAP and 6"CPBC could hardly inflict this kind of damage against the more heavily armoured structures like main or upper belt, secondary main turrets, CT and barbettes.
Guadacanal does not support Your point of view here either.
Against an armoured ship, You needed penetrating hits to disable it altough non penetrating hits could still jamm a turret or cause light leakages behind the belt due to armour plates driven in, fastings beeing torn up and fractures. It is important for ships with long endurance missions.

I have looked up Koop / Schmolke again, which appears to be the most comprehensive source for the Panzerschiffe. The details of protection for all three ships are very different but Graf Spee´s side protection does consist of a 13 degrees inclined, 100mm KNC belt (not 50-80mm as in Deutschland and Scheer), augmented with an equally inclined 40mm Ww armoured torpedo bulkhead behind running the full depth from bottom to 40mm Wh main armour deck, which is placed on top of the belt. Above the main armour deck there are two 20mm longitudinal splinter bulkheads going up to the weatherdeck in the area of the funnelbase.



> I agree that the French CLs would have had a better chance of penetrating the GS belt and deck, with their SAP ammunition, although I hesitate when you describe it as "easy". The superficial damage inflicted by the Brit cruisers was not insignificant, but I am not convinced that it was lethal either, despite certain reports that I have read to the contrary (you mention them yourself, but i sense you are a bit doubtful as well, perhaps i am mistaken)



I don´t want to be misunderstood when I prefer french cruisers. The reason lies solely in the ammunition and I am convinced that the rather simple measure of manufacturing a proper shell would make the british force an even more dangerous opponent for Graf Spee. It´s not that I share the opinion that Graf Spee was at decisive advantage. Tactically spoken, the Royal Navy should be expected to win this engagement in 5 to 7 out of 10 engagements. The damage inflicted by 6" CPBC ammunition was insignificant to the best of my knowledge. 8" SAP and 8" practice ammunition was able to inflict some sort of significant damage, related to the destruction of the Diesel fuel oil pre processioning plant, altough equal damage could have been inflicted by 6" common ammunition as this plant was not protected by armour thicker than splinter protection (20mm longitudinal bulkheads). 
Again, at closer distances, or with a proper APC projectile, the british cruiser force should be much more dangerous to Graf Spee.




> There are, of course many variables at play that might wreck thi otherwise simple comparison


Very true indeed!



> How then do you explain the british reluctance to close in the stern chase that followed the battle.


I rate it as a poor tactical decision. Harwood shouldn´t leave initiative and desired fighting range to Langsdorffs best whishes as long as he had the instruments to choose on his own.


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## parsifal (Jun 9, 2008)

*I tend to interprete it another way. The biggest problem with french CL´s were that there were not many enough to cover a larger area. *

They suffered from both problems. there were not enough of them, AND they had a poor turn of range. The French AND the Italians got into something of a speed race in the twenties and thirties, which led to many design faults in the ships from both countries, particularly the DDs and cruiser designs

*The Royal Navy showed a great expertise to use their ships with the greatest possible tactical effect. Tactics compensated technical deficiancies and are a testimony for great individual skill and leadership. Still, they cannot be used to relativate the technical inferiority in the first place*.

Cannot agree with the general thrust being put forward here. I interpret what you are saying, as a rather sophisticated permutation of "we lost the war because we were outnumbered" theories. Sorry, but that just is not true. The Royal Navy was excellently led, and its crews were okay. However its ships in most cases were also superior to nearly all their opposite numbers. The exception MIGHT be Bismarck, but even here I am unconvinced, and unimpressed. I will also concede the superiority of the German CAs and the CSs (Pocket battleships), and even the theoretical superiority of some of the Italians CAs. However, for the DDs, and CLs, the British, in my opinion had the general lead over both their Axis opponents, for any number of reasons, including superior ship design. I am afraid we have a major difference of opinion here. I just do not share your seemingly unshakeable belief in the superiority of SAP over CPBC ammunition, which in any case is a VERY minor point in determining the superiority of an overall design for a light ship. You have not looked at such things as radar, AA fitouts, gunnery control, the strength of the mountings, the reliability of the machinery, the layout and compartmentalisation of the internal spaces, the seaworthiness, the ability of the type to complete the intended mission profile for that type etc. I fail to see how a Nurnberg, or a Koln, or even an Abruzzi class, can be seen as superior to a Sheffield, or Fiji or a Blake, when all of the factors are considered. If for example a Sheffield was ranged against a Koln, in 1939-40, my money is firmly on the Sheffield, for a number of reasons. 

*A 5.91" gun is not a 5.91" gun in the german Navy (and for sure the same is true for the Royal Navy). The Komoran was an auxilary cruiser, an old merchant equipped with 5.91"cal 45 guns of the 1906 model. The Narvik cruisers used a 55 cal. twin mounted gun of a much newer model, altough I am sure that the Narvik class itself cannot be considered a successful design.
The CL´s finally had a very potent 5.91" 60 cal length model of this gun, in biaxially stabilized fully enclosed turrets on barbettes giving them high accurateness, a comparably long range, flat trajectory and corresponding high muzzle velocity for low dispersion patterns. The Nürnberg triple turrets are in my view the best CL weapon of ww2, mostly due to their supply with true APC, SAP and HE ammunition and the extraordinary semiautomatic shell handling arrangements. That does not say that the british were at an disadvantage tactically, they always enjoied numerical superiority and n^2 rule usually overtakes technical superiority. Quantity has a quality of it´s own.*

I will leave my reply about the turrets in the Nurnbergs until after I get hold of my cruiser book. Even if the turret can be shown to be a good design), the overall design of the Nurnmbergs was in my opinion extremely ordinary. They certainly could not complete their designed mission of guerre de course, and were extremely lightly built. OKM evidently did not consider them worthwhile the fuel oil expenditure on any of their Post 1941 forays into the arctic (when there was just one even close to operational). They never fully repaired one of the ships in this general class, and the remaining three were lost very easily. Neither their operational deployment, nor their design critique stands up to any sort of claim that they were superior ships.

A 5.9" is a 5.9" is a 5.9" as far as I am concerned. I know there were huge differences in individual performances, but we were not being so choosy in our initial discussions, but now all of a sudden we are zeroing in on one kind of 5.9". I could do the same and start bringing into the discussion spurious arguments about the myriad of gun sub-types available in a given calibre on the British side if you like, which will essentially stall the debate. This is a generalized discussion as i understnd, about the superiority of different classes of warship

*But Bismarck was not silenced by NON PENETRATING hits. Bismarck was silenced by close range PENETRATING hits through CT, upper works, barbettes and turrets. "8" and 6" hits did not contributed other than rearranging debris of prior impacts" (Bill Jurens). This statement does not give credit to an 8" hit destroying the secondary rangefinder (which only had splinter protection) but 8" SAP and 6"CPBC could hardly inflict this kind of damage against the more heavily armoured structures like main or upper belt, secondary main turrets, CT and barbettes.
Guadacanal does not support Your point of view here either.
Against an armoured ship, You needed penetrating hits to disable it altough non penetrating hits could still jamm a turret or cause light leakages behind the belt due to armour plates driven in, fastings beeing torn up and fractures. It is important for ships with long endurance missions.*

I never said that they were. please re-read my post. And my sources do NOT support the claim that Bismarck was penetrated by close range main armament hits. Barnett describes that at 0854 Rodney landed two hits on the Bismarck, at over 15000 yards, one hitting the forecastle area, and the second hitting the supestructure amidships. By definition these cannot be belt penetrations. At 0902 Rodney again hit the Bismarck with a 16" shell, this time at the base of the A Turret. This may have been a belt penetration, and did have the effect of knocking out both foreward turrets (I do not know the reason why B-Turret was knocked out by a hit to A-turret, but it was observed to cease fire after that point). My point is that with respect to the Bismarck, it appears that her guns were silenced very quickly (last salvo was 0931, but she fired less than 6 rounds from 0904 until 0931).This appears to be more the result of the heavy damage to her upper works and control positions, and not to any critical belt pentrations. She may have stopped firing some of her guns due to a single belt penetration, but this did not leave her sinking. At 1025, Tovey signalled Somerville, "she is still afloat" Try as they might, the British could not penetrate her vitals. This was confirmed by a further signal three minutes later "I cannot sink her by gunfire" . 

Something like 2000 shells of 5.25 " calibre and above were expended in that final action, so Bismarcks upper works were a total shambles by that stage...

* Graf Spee´s side protection does consist of a 13 degrees inclined, 100mm KNC belt (not 50-80mm as in Deutschland and Scheer), augmented with an equally inclined 40mm Ww armoured torpedo bulkhead behind running the full depth from bottom to 40mm Wh main armour deck, which is placed on top of the belt. Above the main armour deck there are two 20mm longitudinal splinter bulkheads going up to the weatherdeck in the area of the funnelbase*.

Surely you agree that this level of armour protection was greatly superior to anything in the RNs cruisers, but in particular those that fought on the day

*Tactically spoken, the Royal Navy should be expected to win this engagement in 5 to 7 out of 10 engagements. The damage inflicted by 6" CPBC ammunition was insignificant to the best of my knowledge. 8" SAP and 8" practice ammunition was able to inflict some sort of significant damage, related to the destruction of the Diesel fuel oil pre processioning plant, altough equal damage could have been inflicted by 6" common ammunition as this plant was not protected by armour thicker than splinter protection (20mm longitudinal bulkheads). *

I cannot see how you think the RN could have the advantage in this battle. They were outgunned, out-armoured (to the extent that it DID make a difference) and german gunnery was superior which was excacerbated by the ammunition issue. 

*Again, at closer distances, or with a proper APC projectile, the british cruiser force should be much more dangerous to Graf Spee.*

I think that closing to point blank range (effectively) would have been disastrous for the British ships involved, with or without SAP ammunition. But for the moment we have to deal with the historical. the Brit ships did not possess SAP loads, so it is a mute point

*I rate it as a poor tactical decision. Harwood shouldn´t leave initiative and desired fighting range to Langsdorffs best whishes as long as he had the instruments to choose on his own*

I disagree, I believe that Harwood fought a near textbook perfect cruiser action. I believe that in terms of weight of shell, accuracy, and protection, all of the cards were held by Langsdorf. I also believe that Langsdorf had actually won the battle at the conclusion of the shooting part of the action, but he could not see it. I believe the senior officers reports aftger the war, over this claim made much late about the fuel feeds, ie, that the extent of damage was not nearly so severe as langsdorf believed. I believe the crucial failure was in Langsdorf himself. he msread the situation badly, and lost a major unit of the KM as a result


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## Glider (Jun 10, 2008)

Re how effective the British designed cruisers were compared to the Italian, this may be of interest.

In the Battle of Cape Spada in the Greek Islands in July 1940 HMAS Sydney with a British destroyer squadron in company, engaged the high-speed Italian light cruisers Bartolomeo Colleoni and Giovanni dalle Bande Nere. In the running battle which followed, Bartolomeo Colleoni was wrecked and later sunk by torpedoes from the destroyers, while the high speed of Giovanni dalle Bande Nere enabled her to escape a similar fate. During this battle, Sydney received the only damage of her Mediterranean campaign, when a shell penetrated one of her funnels


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## parsifal (Jun 10, 2008)

Hi glider

I am betting that the argument to be presented will be along the lines of the operational constraints that supermarina were operating under at the time (Mussolini was wanting to preserve his fleet a much as possible...it was basically a gigantic show pony). However, this is a load of bollocks for the battle mentioned. Captain Maugeri was one of the freest thinking officers in the Supermarina, and attacked aggressively until the arrival of Sydney more than an hour after battle had been joined. Sydney almost single handedly bested both Italian cruisers in short order. whilst I am the first to point out the generally superior captaincy on the part of the Australian cruiser, it can only answer in part the outcome of that day. The Italian gunnery was attrocious for a start, which was in part a function of their turret design. Their armour protection for these ships was found to be badly wanting, despite these claims about the inadequacy of the CPBC ammunition, and the amount of damage to the upper works vastly more serious than anything suffered by the Sydney (in addition to the single shell hit, she also suffered splinter damage from shell hits that simply shattered on her armour belts). But you can rest assured that these people will have some half baked excuse as to why the RAN had the upper hand, despite being outnumbered 2:1


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## Glider (Jun 10, 2008)

Parsifal
We will see how the debate progresses but there is one aspect of the Italian LC which doesn't seem to have been mentioned, is the very poor and in some cases almost zero protection they had. The later ones were very good and as good as most but the majority were well below standard.

Having the guns close to each other wouldn't help accuracy for certain but lack of training and poor fire control probably had a bigger impact.


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## delcyros (Jun 10, 2008)

Glider said:


> Re how effective the British designed cruisers were compared to the Italian, this may be of interest.
> 
> In the Battle of Cape Spada in the Greek Islands in July 1940 HMAS Sydney with a British destroyer squadron in company, engaged the high-speed Italian light cruisers Bartolomeo Colleoni and Giovanni dalle Bande Nere. In the running battle which followed, Bartolomeo Colleoni was wrecked and later sunk by torpedoes from the destroyers, while the high speed of Giovanni dalle Bande Nere enabled her to escape a similar fate. During this battle, Sydney received the only damage of her Mediterranean campaign, when a shell penetrated one of her funnels



This action is an example for the problems confronted within the italian heavy cruiser design: errorneous weight saving measures, spacing the barrels to closely together (resulting in excessive dispersion patterns), inconsistant shell quality. The operational constraints and the fact that HMAS Sydney also was handled excellently.
Parsifal fails to mention that HMAS Sysdney was using SAP and HE ammunition as 8" CPBC was never operationally issued by the Royal Navy and therefore cannot be used to determine CPBC qualities.


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## Glider (Jun 10, 2008)

Delc
The Sydney had 6in with CPBC not 8in with SAP.


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## delcyros (Jun 10, 2008)

I stand corrected. Sydney used 6" CPBC ammo. mea culpa.


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## parsifal (Jun 10, 2008)

This action is an example for the problems confronted within the italian heavy cruiser design: errorneous weight saving measures, spacing the barrels to closely together (resulting in excessive dispersion patterns), inconsistant shell quality. The operational constraints and the fact that HMAS Sydney also was handled excellently.
Parsifal fails to mention that HMAS Sysdney was using SAP and HE ammunition as 8" CPBC was never operationally issued by the Royal Navy and therefore cannot be used to determine CPBC qualities

Del, 

Are you aware that Sydney was a Leander class CL, with Mark XXIII 6" main armament, which have previously advised were never SAP equipped? This is a position confirmed by Campbell, and others, so I am at a loss as to where all of a sudden they became SAP capable. 

Now i am lost a well...are you saying that the 6in guns of the Leanders are capable of firing SAP or not???


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## parsifal (Jun 10, 2008)

I see the issue already is corrected....so now we can move forward with the debate hopefully


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## delcyros (Jun 10, 2008)

L


parsifal said:


> there were not enough of them, AND they had a poor turn of range.



I am particularely interested in how You quantify the latter. Define range. UK and US long range figures were regularely achieved with caged boilers and the most economic setting while the (continental european) range estimation were done with a higher degree of readiness, resulting in more lit up boilers and a substantial higher fuel consumption at low speeds. 
Only few british CL-classes had a notably higher range, altough such cases exist and can be named. The generalization expressed by Yourselfe, however, has to be rejected.



> The Royal Navy was excellently led, and its crews were okay. However its ships in most cases were also superior to nearly all their opposite numbers. The exception MIGHT be Bismarck, but even here I am unconvinced, and unimpressed. I will also concede the superiority of the German CAs and the CSs (Pocket battleships), and even the theoretical superiority of some of the Italians CAs. However, for the DDs, and CLs, the British, in my opinion had the general lead over both their Axis opponents, for any number of reasons, including superior ship design. I am afraid we have a major difference of opinion here.



I do not think we are decisively different here. There is little disagreement from my side. The RN had some excellent CL and DD classes altough there still were numerous ships beeing suboptimal in design (were Exeter or the Dido´s dreadful?). My original point remains unchanged, esspeccially towards the fitting with suboptimal ordenance. 



> I just do not share your seemingly unshakeable belief in the superiority of SAP over CPBC ammunition, which in any case is a VERY minor point in determining the superiority of an overall design for a light ship.


As long as You are engaging any unarmoured ship, the difference is negliable (altough even here a true HE projectile would be better than a common type), but against armoured ships, like Graf Spee and most opposition in the North Atlantic theatre You need to pierce armour -not necessarely the belt- to inflict substantial damage. If your projectile is not able to do this, as was the case with 6"CPBC against Graf Spee at their distances, I rate it as a disadvantage.
It´s not that it would be overly difficult to supply a proper HE and APC projectile nor can it be said that Britain was lacking expertise to do so. It´s a questionable decision made by the directors of ordenance which is not followed by non commonwealth nations for reasons.



> You have not looked at such things as radar, AA fitouts, gunnery control, the strength of the mountings, the reliability of the machinery, the layout and compartmentalisation of the internal spaces, the seaworthiness, the ability of the type to complete the intended mission profile for that type etc.


Indeed. Here You is Your opportunity to compare them. But to what degree of agreement can we come if You relativate differing shell abilities, differing gun-design and n^2 issues in the first place?



> A 5.9" is a 5.9" is a 5.9" as far as I am concerned.


Both are guns, at least. The 5.91"L45 of Komoran fired HE base and HE nose fused projectiles only at a muzzle velocity of 2.740 fps. 
NÜRNBERGS 5.91"L60 fired HE nose and base fused + true APC at a muzzle velocity of 3.150 fps.



> And my sources do NOT support the claim that Bismarck was penetrated by close range main armament hits.


Bismarcks armour was penetrated in barbettes (2), main belt (2+ 1 burst in holing), CT (4+) and turrets (2) by main armement hits. Please read Bill Jurens article on this. This damage silenced Bismarck, not the superficial damage on the upper works.



> At 0902 Rodney again hit the Bismarck with a 16" shell, this time at the base of the A Turret. This may have been a belt penetration, and did have the effect of knocking out both foreward turrets (I do not know the reason why B-Turret was knocked out by a hit to A-turret, but it was observed to cease fire after that point).


One or more shells from this salvo straddled the foreship around turret A. Turret A was knocket out, turret B was temporarely out of action as a result of this hit.
Note that belt penetrations were not necessary here. one or two barbette hits could do the same. But it was necessary to engage heavy armour here.



> My point is that with respect to the Bismarck, it appears that her guns were silenced very quickly (last salvo was 0931, but she fired less than 6 rounds from 0904 until 0931).This appears to be more the result of the heavy damage to her upper works and control positions, and not to any critical belt pentrations.



Bismarck was indeed silenced but not very quickly. Rodney opened 08:47 and D- turret was silenced 09:31, a good 44 minutes later. The statement of Rodneys ammunition expandeture between 09:04 and 09:31 is showing substantial incorrectness. 
The critical hits were: 0859 1 - 16 inch, 0900 1 - 16 inch, 0902 1 - 16 inch, 0910 5 - 14 inch and 1 - 16 inch for a total of 5 14 inch and 4 16 inch hits - nine shells in all. In addition there were two critical 8 inch hits in this period, taking out the main RF equipment. Successive hits took out A and B turrets, the primary director, the secondary director, wrecked the CT. C and D turrets were operational until later in the action.
The ammunition expandeture figures for Rodney and KGV show that their outfit of APC projectiles was depleted in the course of the action. 
You are right that little of the damage is relative to belt penetrations (altough as many as 18 impacts on the main belt are recorded) but they are nevertheless *penetrations* of the exposed vitals under heavy armour which lead to the silencing of the ship, not secondary gun hits or common hits with wrecking effect. A task which would be difficult to perform without proper APC projectiles.



> She may have stopped firing some of her guns due to a single belt penetration, but this did not leave her sinking. At 1025, Tovey signalled Somerville, "she is still afloat" Try as they might, the British could not penetrate her vitals. This was confirmed by a further signal three minutes later "I cannot sink her by gunfire" .


There is every reason that the belt-slope combination of Bismarck worked as intended and not only kept her afloat but also successfully protected her embedded vitals (magazines, machinery and ship controll). This is a significant difference to other BB constructions. 



> Something like 2000 shells of 5.25 " calibre and above were expended in that final action, so Bismarcks upper works were a total shambles by that stage...



The effect of these hits were largely irrelevant compared to the aforementioned heavy hits. They did not affected any of the key aspects (ship controll, main batteries, firecontroll, floatation, stability) of the already doomed ship and their contribution is linked with starting fires and rearranging debris.



> I cannot see how you think the RN could have the advantage in this battle. They were outgunned, out-armoured (to the extent that it DID make a difference) and german gunnery was superior which was excacerbated by the ammunition issue.


Who was outgunned? In case Graf Spee disengages straight, she can bring to bear only her aft triple turret. Against what? 4 8" guns and 8 6" guns respectively? Even in a broadside condition, where Graf Spee could not even attempt to dictate the range, Graf spee will find herselfe badly outgunned. in a theoretical period of 10 minutes rapid firing with 50% max. output, Graf Spee fires 75 11" rounds and 140 5.91" rounds against 120 8" and 360 6" rounds of the british force. The weight of shell in a given period is in significant favour for the british force. This can be compensated by the higher accuracy of the Panzerschiffs FC but only at medium to long range where such issues make a difference and her armour protection provides a reasonable margin of protection. The Panzerschiff, however, was not in a position to dictate the range and had to split her battery to three individual targets. 

Harwood made the poorest of all choices. He could shadow her or engage her agressively but instead he choosed to stay at the for his force most ineffective range. Langsdorff was little better, he risked his ship disobeying standing orders not to attack any warships. These orders were issued to prevent german lightly armoured PBB´s (merchant raiders) to engage enemy cruisers owing to their incomplete protection against 6" and 8" guns (they hardly could know that the RN was never issuing a proper APC projectile as did the french). And even light damage at remote places would effectively risk the ship as demonstrated.


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## parsifal (Jun 10, 2008)

I* am particularely interested in how You quantify the latter. Define range. UK and US long range figures were regularely achieved with caged boilers and the most economic setting while the (continental european) range estimation were done with a higher degree of readiness, resulting in more lit up boilers and a substantial higher fuel consumption at low speeds. 
Only few british CL-classes had a notably higher range, altough such cases exist and can be named. The generalization expressed by Yourselfe, however, has to be rejected.*

The Cruiser book by Whitney gives excellent breakdowns of ranges with various loads and speeds, however for now I only have acces to Janes and Conways, but these i am sure are adequate for this discussion

French cruisers have the following fuel loads and ranges at economic speed, which is universally accepted as carrying a deep load displacement, and with full fuel, with a surface speed of around 14 knots. 

Sampling the french cruisers

Georges Leygues: 9120 full load, 1569 t oil, 7000/6800/5500/1650 nm @ 12/14/18/32 kts 
Emile Bertin : 8480 full load 1360 t oil: 3600/1100 nm @ 14/30 kts 
Jeanne De Arc: 8950 t full load 1400 t oil, Radius @ 11 kts 5200 nm, att full power 3200 nm (but max sea speed was only 22 kts)l 
Duquay Trouin : 9350 t 1500 t oil, 4500/3000/900 @ 15/20/33 kts
Tourville : 12200 t, 1820 t oil, 4500/1900 @ 15/30 kts
Suffren : 12780 t 1800 t oil (plus 600 t coal in two), 5300 (coal ships only)/4600/3200 @ 10/15/20 kts
Algerie : 13900 t 3186 oil, 8700 nm @ 15 kts 

Note the additional fuel load of the Algerie, which approaches that carried by the british CAs. Her range is approaching that of the british cruisers, suggesting that the method used by Conways to determine range is a fair one, when comparing the ranges of the brit ships with those of the french

Now for the brits

Kent: 13540 t, 3400 t oil: (Janes, 10400 @ 11-14 kts, estimated at 14 kts to be 9200 nm)
London : 13315 t, 3210 t oil range unknown at this stage, but similar to Kents
Norfolk : 13425 t 3210 t oil, range similar to Kent 
York : 10350t 1900 oil, unknown but less than the larger CAs
Exeter : 10490 t, 1900 t oil, range similar to Yorks
Perth : 9150 t, 1840 t oil, 10300/7000/6200 nm @ 10/14/20 kts (World War 2 Cruisers)
Sheffield : 11350 t , 2070 t, 12100 @ 12 kts (source as above)
Edinburgh :13175 t, 2250 oil, [email protected] 12 kts

I could continue, but its getting late. The point is that the modern 9ie post 1920) RN cruisers all had substantially higher fuel loads than their continental cousins, not just a few, as you suggest

I consider Conways Janes and the WWII cruiser site (World War 2 Cruisers) to be secondary when compared to Whitneys cruiser book. I should be able to retrive it from my friends place by Thursday. However this authoritative work on cruisers is only going to reinforce my position 

The message should be loud and clear, British cruisers built post WWII were built with trade protection as their primary mission, whereas the french cruisers were principally built as auxiliaries to the gunline. French cruisers were more lightly built (often, the exception being the Leygues and the Algerie clases), but all of them were far shorter ranged than their equvalent RN opposite numbers, even allowing for "creative accounting" 

*As long as You are engaging any unarmoured ship, the difference is negliable (altough even here a true HE projectile would be better than a common type), but against armoured ships, like Graf Spee and most opposition in the North Atlantic theatre You need to pierce armour -not necessarely the belt- to inflict substantial damage. If your projectile is not able to do this, as was the case with 6"CPBC against Graf Spee at their distances, I rate it as a disadvantage.
It´s not that it would be overly difficult to supply a proper HE and APC projectile nor can it be said that Britain was lacking expertise to do so. It´s a questionable decision made by the directors of ordenance which is not followed by non commonwealth nations for reasons.*

I dont disagree that the british would have been better served if they had adopted a proper SAP round. however, I do disagree that it was a major factor. The proof of this are in the actions that the RN found itself against germany and Italy. In both cases, there are numerous examples of the RN taking on numerically superior forces, and either defeating them, or at least holding their own. The facts just simply dont support your assertions. Do i need to go further?


*Indeed. Here You is Your opportunity to compare them. But to what degree of agreement can we come if You relativate differing shell abilities, differing gun-design and n^2 issues in the first place*?
\

Im comparing results, not theory. The results speak for themselves.....

*Both are guns, at least. The 5.91"L45 of Komoran fired HE base and HE nose fused projectiles only at a muzzle velocity of 2.740 fps. 
NÜRNBERGS 5.91"L60 fired HE nose and base fused + true APC at a muzzle velocity of 3.150 fps.*

And your point is?????

*Bismarcks armour was penetrated in barbettes (2), main belt (2+ 1 burst in holing), CT (4+) and turrets (2) by main armement hits. Please read Bill Jurens article on this. This damage silenced Bismarck, not the superficial damage on the upper works.

One or more shells from this salvo straddled the foreship around turret A. Turret A was knocket out, turret B was temporarely out of action as a result of this hit.
Note that belt penetrations were not necessary here. one or two barbette hits could do the same. But it was necessary to engage heavy armour here.

Bismarck was indeed silenced but not very quickly. Rodney opened 08:47 and D- turret was silenced 09:31, a good 44 minutes later. The statement of Rodneys ammunition expandeture between 09:04 and 09:31 is showing substantial incorrectness. *

I was referring to Bismarcks fire, not Rodneys. From 0904 until 0931 BISMARCK fired hardly at all (my accounts conflict, some say two rounds, some day 6, but it was just a few, compared to roughly 100 by Rodney in that same time frame).

Bismarck was substantially silenced by 0904. From 0904 until 0931 she shot off just 6 rounds of her main armament (at maximum, according to the RN report). In that regard she was despatched in record time, just 13 minutes. Her ability to resist from 0904 was extremely slight, and according to Barnett and the RN report was the result of just one hit from a heavy shell (which is at odds with your source, we will both need to dig further to get to the truth of that one) 

*The critical hits were: 0859 1 - 16 inch, 0900 1 - 16 inch, 0902 1 - 16 inch, 0910 5 - 14 inch and 1 - 16 inch for a total of 5 14 inch and 4 16 inch hits - nine shells in all. In addition there were two critical 8 inch hits in this period, taking out the main RF equipment. Successive hits took out A and B turrets, the primary director, the secondary director, wrecked the CT. C and D turrets were operational until later in the action*.

Apart from the disparity in reported hits prior to 0904, this substantially correlates to my sources. I am not going to die in a ditch over whether it took one or two hits to silence the bismarcks heavy guns (substantially) but the point is this, despite all those hits, NOT ONE penetrated the main belt. Perhaps our definition of critical hits is differeent. Whilst i agree that the hits suffered were more than enough to silence the great ship, they were not enough to start the ship sinking, as evidenced by toveys signals Bismarck was NOT defeated by hits that penetrated to her vitals. i know that you know that, but for some reason you wont concede the point. What defeated her were the hits that may have penetrated, but not to areas traditionally identified as "vitals". I am actually giving credit to the main belt armouring scheme of the ship (but remain critical of her overall scheme), so in a way you should be happy. I am having to concede a point you made in some of our earlier discussions.... 

*The ammunition expandeture figures for Rodney and KGV show that their outfit of APC projectiles was depleted in the course of the action. 
You are right that little of the damage is relative to belt penetrations (altough as many as 18 impacts on the main belt are recorded) but they are nevertheless penetrations of the exposed vitals under heavy armour which lead to the silencing of the ship, not secondary gun hits or common hits with wrecking effect. A task which would be difficult to perform without proper APC projectiles*.

I never said that the secondaries were responsible for silencing the ship, but you are drawing a very long bow in your definition of what is a vital. The hits that caused the silencing of the ship, were of heavy calibre but did not penetrate the main belt. it would be a strange design that places vital areas outside the main belt protection. So i maintain my point that the silencing of the ship was due to hits that did not penetrate the main belt. 

*There is every reason that the belt-slope combination of Bismarck worked as intended and not only kept her afloat but also successfully protected her embedded vitals (magazines, machinery and ship controll). This is a significant difference to other BB constructions*. 


I agree the bismarck was exceptionally well protected in these areas. But the scheme was not able to succeed in keeping her armament firing, which was silenced quickly


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## parsifal (Jun 10, 2008)

*The effect of these hits were largely irrelevant compared to the aforementioned heavy hits. They did not affected any of the key aspects (ship controll, main batteries, firecontroll, floatation, stability) of the already doomed ship and their contribution is linked with starting fires and rearranging debris.*
Quite probable. My whole point about raising the bismarck issue was that she was neutralized by non-lethal hits, not tha calibre of the guns that did it

*Who was outgunned? In case Graf Spee disengages straight, she can bring to bear only her aft triple turret. Against what? 4 8" guns and 8 6" guns respectively? Even in a broadside condition, where Graf Spee could not even attempt to dictate the range, Graf spee will find herselfe badly outgunned. in a theoretical period of 10 minutes rapid firing with 50% max. output, Graf Spee fires 75 11" rounds and 140 5.91" rounds against 120 8" and 360 6" rounds of the british force. The weight of shell in a given period is in significant favour for the british force. This can be compensated by the higher accuracy of the Panzerschiffs FC but only at medium to long range where such issues make a difference and her armour protection provides a reasonable margin of protection. The Panzerschiff, however, was not in a position to dictate the range and had to split her battery to three individual targets. *

It is not valid to compare the Spees broadside in a stern chase situation, although i admit thats what happened. at any time the Spee could heave to, and present her full broadside, if she had wanted to fight it out. The British ships almost certainly would have had to answer by also heaving into line, to also present a full broadside (if they dont, and charge in the style of a latter day Nelson they will be at an even greater disadvantage. 

The SKC /28 fires a 661.4 lb projectile, with a firing cycle of 3.0 rounds per minute per gun. With six barrels she can theoretically deliver 12000 lbs of projectiles per minute. The 4 x 5.9 MPLC/28 can deliver a further 32 rounds of 100.3 lbs of projectile each minute, for a subtotal of 3209 pounds. The total main and secondary broadside of the Spee was therefore theoretically 15210 lbs per minute
Statistically 100% of the rounds fired are capable of penetrationof any target. therefore the Spees broadside must be considered 100% efficient (at ranges of 13000 yds (assuming all projectiles hit) 

By comparison, the full broadside of the RN force was as follows.

(6" mk XXIII turrets) 16 x 112 x 8 (rounds per min) = 14336 lbs per minute
Unfortunately at 12500 yds or more, these guns were unlikely to penetrate the Spees armour belt, and therefore unlikley to sink her, before being sunk themselves. A Deck penetration at that range was about 16% likely, and able to penetrate about 45 mm. this was still insufficient to penetrate the the Spees armour belt, except at point blank range. Lets assume that the cruisers close to 5000 yds. in that time they will be subjected to at least three minutes of continous full barrage fire from the Spee, with little opportunity for return fire. More than enough time for the Spee to sink one or both her attackers.

The 8 in round does have the ability to penetrate the armour belt, as it did, but the extent of damage is going to be limited, on average, by the inner protection provided for the Spee. By comparison, the heavy guns of the Spee are able to inflict very heavy damage on the Exeter for each hit. Whilst the Spee is firing more slowly, she is more accurate. I dont see the problem with my asserion that the Spee had anheavier effective broadside over her opponents. 

*Harwood made the poorest of all choices. He could shadow her or engage her agressively but instead he choosed to stay at the for his force most ineffective range. Langsdorff was little better, he risked his ship disobeying standing orders not to attack any warships. These orders were issued to prevent german lightly armoured PBB´s (merchant raiders) to engage enemy cruisers owing to their incomplete protection against 6" and 8" guns (they hardly could know that the RN was never issuing a proper APC projectile as did the french). And even light damage at remote places would effectively risk the ship as demonstrated*.

Lightly armoured...you gotta be kidding me. She was far better protected than her opponents. Incomplete, I will grant you that, but the evidence from the battle if anything suggest that she was more than capable of looking after herself. Her own officers have gone on record as saying that the daage she suffered was far less than suggested by Langsdorf, and the notion she suffered some sort of damage to her fuel feeds was an add on added to the revisionist histories many years after the event....for what purpose? I agree that there was a risk of damage to her, and that her standing orders were to avoid conflict, but langfsdorf apparently (I say apparently because I have not seen this in his log), was not concerned about engaging enemy ships, of lesser size, as he was on his way home anyway. And as far as i know, the germans were likely to know the characteristics of the British Mk XXIII although again i dont claim to actually be sure of this.


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## delcyros (Jun 10, 2008)

You have not adressed my critique, my firend. The issue noted by myselfe is properly adressed in _Jean Lassaque (2004) Le croiseur Emile Bertin 1933-1959, Marines éditions, ISBN 2-915379-05-X_
Speed, displacement and load are defined but the status of the boilers is not. 

I do also think You are a bit unfair to french ships saying that they were unable to mount sustained patrols. Evidence from historic records of the french Force de Raid showed clearly that french cruisers participated in partols in the Nort Atlantic theatre from outbreak of the hostilities. 




> The point is that the modern 9ie post 1920) RN cruisers all had substantially higher fuel loads than their continental cousins, not just a few, as you suggest



Let´s look into the facts and keep a more comprehensive view of the cruisers avaiable 1940:

Caledon class: unknown
Cairo-class: unknown
Ceres class: unknown
Cavendish-class: 2.150t.
Dauntless-class: unknown
E-class: 1746t., range unknown
Kent-class: 3.400t.
London/Dorsetshire class: 3.290t.
York-class: 1.900t.
Arethusa-class: 1.325 t.
Leander-class: 1.800t.
Sydney-class: 1.800t.
Southhampton-class: 2.050t.
Gloucester-class: 2.075t.
Edinburgh-class: 2.250t.
Dido-class: 1.100t.
Fiji-class: 1.700t.
Ceylon-class: 1.700t.

Correct me if I am wrong but it looks for me that Kent and London-classes CA were the exception rather than the rule.



> I dont disagree that the british would have been better served if they had adopted a proper SAP round. however, I do disagree that it was a major factor. The proof of this are in the actions that the RN found itself against germany and Italy. In both cases, there are numerous examples of the RN taking on numerically superior forces, and either defeating them, or at least holding their own.


it is a factor of comparison. There are multiple examples for these and other engagements. But we should be very careful with selective perceptions of historical engagements. Cause and interpretation do not always coincide.



> And your point is?????


We compared cruisers, didn´t we? The only cruiser gun in the german Navy was the 5.91"/60 which was way more powerful than what you considered. There were no 5.91"/45 or 5.91"/55 in german CL´s (safe the training CL Emden, which had 5.91"/45) or CA´s (safe the PBB´s 5.91"/55 in deck mounts with shields). A 15% difference in muzzle velocity is a very serious issue, which cannot be ignored. to put this into comparison: Use of supercharges in british warships offered an increase of 7 to 8% in muzzle velocity for the same projectile. 



> NOT ONE penetrated the main belt. Perhaps our definition of critical hits is differeent. Whilst i agree that the hits suffered were more than enough to silence the great ship, they were not enough to start the ship sinking, as evidenced by toveys signals Bismarck was NOT defeated by hits that penetrated to her vitals. i know that you know that, but for some reason you wont concede the point. What defeated her were the hits that may have penetrated, but not to areas traditionally identified as "vitals".



I think differing definitions of vitals are a serious point of departure in our opinions.
I used to define vitals as the following:
1.) *embedded vitals:*
"hull vitals"- that are the main and secondary magazines, main and secondary ship controll room and firecontroll center + turbines, boilers and auxilary machinery as well as steering gear (all these are under the Main armour deck and protected by deck + belt)
2.) *exposed vitals:*
"upper structures" which are necessary for communication (armoured comm tubes, radio station, bridge) controll (firecontroll room with rangefinder and electronic equipment) and gunnery (main secondary guns + their barbettes). Exposed vitals are usually screened by very thick armour (except in the british KGV-class) to keep them operational. 

The former helps to keep the mobility, floatation and stability of the ship while the latter is linked to it´s offensive abilities and was what suffered from close range penetrating hits. It´s not necessary to defeat the belt in the first place to achieve critical hits on the vitals summarized under 2.)



> I agree the bismarck was exceptionally well protected in these areas. But the scheme was not able to succeed in keeping her armament firing, which was silenced quickly


Agreed. The exposed vitals, unlike the embedded ones, were not protected to repel close range major impacts. I wonder which ship had such a level of protection for the exposed vitals? Yamatos turret faces are impenetrable but her barbettes and CT, the comm tubes and sec. batteries would suffer equally here.
South Dakota at Guadacanal was heavily engaged in medium to close range from mostly 8" (a very few 14"ers, too) and prooved to be soundly protected for her exposed vitals in the course of the action but the test was much less severe than that of Bismarck.



> My whole point about raising the bismarck issue was that she was neutralized by non-lethal hits, not tha calibre of the guns that did it


I have a differing opinion. Hits on the exposed vitals, even if they do not interfere with the waterplane or hull are potentially lethal. Invincible, Queen Mary and Indefatigable were not sunk by hits on the embedded vitals but by those of the exposed. HMS Hood is another candidate for this kind of damage. But to achieve this, you need to pierce the armour of the exposed vitals first (well, or you have luck and the target CT / barbettes / turret is not or insufficiant armoured either...).



> The SKC /28 fires a 661.4 lb projectile, with a firing cycle of 3.0 rounds per minute per gun. With six barrels she can theoretically deliver 12000 lbs of projectiles per minute.


The cyclic rate of fire according to Krupps own documentation (as well as Schmolke, Breyer, Campbell and navweaps) is only 2.5 rpm for the Panzerschiffes 11.1"/52 and 3.5 rpm for the Scharnhorsts 11.1"/54. The principal reason for the differences are improved shell handling arrangements and hoist limits. Graf Spee couldn´t fire 3.0 rpm. Her theoretical output in weight of ordenance thus needs to be reduced to 9.921 lbs per minute instead of 12.000 for the main battery. The single pedestal 5.91" mounts without hoists could deliver 6-8 99.87lbs projectiles per minute only as long as the eight ready shells were not used up. Cyclic rate of fire then drops to 4-6 rounds per minute (taking 6 as average). the theoretical netto broadside output of Graf spee stands corrected to only 12.318lbs instead of 15.210 lbs.



> Statistically 100% of the rounds fired are capable of penetrationof any target. therefore the Spees broadside must be considered 100% efficient (at ranges of 13000 yds (assuming all projectiles hit)


Only the 11.1"ers will be 100% effective. The same is not true for the 5.91"/55 when firing nose or base fused HE-shells.



> (6" mk XXIII turrets) 16 x 112 x 8 (rounds per min) = 14.336 lbs per minute


That are Ajax and Achilles only. Feel free to add Exeters main battery output to Harwoods cruiser force. Maximum sustained rof for the 8"/50 was 4 rpm:
6 x 256lbs x 4 = 6.144 lbs.
------------------theoretical netto output:
*Langsdorff:* 12.318lbs
*Harwood:* 20.480lbs
------------------------------------------
As you see, Harwoods cruiser force outguns Graf Spee by a significant margin in terms of broadside weight in a given period. You could add Graf spees 4.1" DP guns to this but it wouldn´t change much, if anything to his advantage and Harwood does have secondary guns at his disposal, too.



> A Deck penetration at that range was about 16% likely, and able to penetrate about 45 mm. this was still insufficient to penetrate the the Spees armour belt, except at point blank range.


At the distance in question (13.000yards, IIRC), deck penetration is unlikely to happen. The angle of fall (13 deg.) is to small and any projectile would be deflected away by the 40mm deck at such large impact obliquities. The 6"ers will not defeat the belt but they can defeat the upper hull, the side blisters, the ship ends, the secondary guns and take out RF equipment. At closer range (6.000 yards or less), they should be sufficiantly powerful to defeat the main belt, even with CPBC. 



> Lightly armoured...you gotta be kidding me. She was far better protected than her opponents.


Granted, Graf spee was. But it also was the best protected of the three PBB´s in service and not invulnarable to damage.



> Her own officers have gone on record as saying that the daage she suffered was far less than suggested by Langsdorf, and the notion she suffered some sort of damage to her fuel feeds was an add on added to the revisionist histories many years after the event....for what purpose?


I would be very careful with such an accusation, Parsifal. At least without having read the relevant sources (account of chief engeneer Klepp) first hand.


> And as far as i know, the germans were likely to know the characteristics of the British Mk XXIII although again i dont claim to actually be sure of this.


The relevant source for this is "Bestimmungen zur Festlegung der Hauptkampfentfernung", issued march 1938. In this paper, the germans expected 8" and 6" APC and HE with less loss in velocity for range than used historically by the Royal Navy (they expected more streamlined projectiles).


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## Juha (Jun 10, 2008)

Range of British cruisers, source IMHO the best secondary source on subject ie Raven's and Roberts' British Cruisers of WWII (p. 208 )
all at 12 kts, figures in nautical mls

Kents 13300
Londons 12700
Norfolks 12500
Leanders 10300
Mod. Leanders 10700
Arethusas 8200
Southamptons 12100
Belfasts 12200
Didos 7400
Fijis 10200

Juha


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## parsifal (Jun 10, 2008)

*You have not adressed my critique, my firend. The issue noted by myselfe is properly adressed in Jean Lassaque (2004) Le croiseur Emile Bertin 1933-1959, Marines éditions, ISBN 2-915379-05-X
Speed, displacement and load are defined but the status of the boilers is not.* 

The accepted norm for endurance is not to delve as deeply as you are suggesting. For the record, I have addressed your issue, by quoting the generally accepted texts, and not going out on some exotic limb which may or may not have some validity. I could mount counter-arguments along the lines that the french endurance trials were generally carried out in much calmer waters, or we could even get into the prevailing currents where the trials were undertaken if you like. But these, like your arguments are essentially spurious, or peripheral. In my opinion the best way to takle endurance is the way that Conways, and nearly every other accepted text deals with the issue. Thats because the endurance figures are, at best, approximations. 

For the record, the accepted way to address endurance properly is to assume full load displacement, and economic cruising sppeed, usually of around 14 knots, and then work out the radius of action. If you want to hare off into some weird, obscure, and unrecognized method of determining endurance, be my guest, but I wont follow youo.

So, in my opinion I HAVE addressed your issue, by pointing out your methodology is not the accepted norm in determining endurance. 

*I do also think You are a bit unfair to french ships saying that they were unable to mount sustained patrols. Evidence from historic records of the french Force de Raid showed clearly that french cruisers participated in partols in the Nort Atlantic theatre from outbreak of the hostilities*. 

I NEVER SAID THAT. PLEASE DO NOT MISQUOTE ME. What I did say was that French cruisers were short ranged, which they are. Patrols into the near waters of the North Atlantic can in no way be compared to the type of tireless long range patrolling that the RN carried out day in day out. 

*Let´s look into the facts and keep a more comprehensive view of the cruisers avaiable 1940:

Caledon class: unknown
Cairo-class: unknown
Ceres class: unknown
Cavendish-class: 2.150t.
Dauntless-class: unknown
E-class: 1746t., range unknown
Kent-class: 3.400t.
London/Dorsetshire class: 3.290t.
York-class: 1.900t.
Arethusa-class: 1.325 t.
Leander-class: 1.800t.
Sydney-class: 1.800t.
Southhampton-class: 2.050t.
Gloucester-class: 2.075t.
Edinburgh-class: 2.250t.
Dido-class: 1.100t.
Fiji-class: 1.700t.
Ceylon-class: 1.700t.

Correct me if I am wrong but it looks for me that Kent and London-classes CA were the exception rather than the rule.*

I will correct you, and you are wrong. The C-class carried 950 tons of fuel oil, but I will not be able to advise on their ranges until Thursday. Whilst you are correct to say that only the big cruisers carred 3400 tons of oil, the advantage held by the lighter cruisers is not to be scoffedd at. The Leanders, for example, with a similar displacement to the Leygues (before fuel) carried 1800tons of oil, to 1569 tons. The range of the Leygues was 5500 miles @ 14 Knots, to the leanders 7000 @ 12 knots. If you were to give the leygues the same amount of fuel as the Leanders, the estimated endurance of the ship would increase to 6300 miles @ 14 knots, which is very close to that of the Leanders.

If I were to select the more modern cruisers, the fuel capacity would go up, as well as the endurance difference. Keep in mind that the leygues was about as good as the french get, range wise, whereas the Leanders are just average. l 


*We compared cruisers, didn´t we? The only cruiser gun in the german Navy was the 5.91"/60 which was way more powerful than what you considered. There were no 5.91"/45 or 5.91"/55 in german CL´s (safe the training CL Emden, which had 5.91"/45) or CA´s (safe the PBB´s 5.91"/55 in deck mounts with shields). A 15% difference in muzzle velocity is a very serious issue, which cannot be ignored. to put this into comparison: Use of supercharges in british warships offered an increase of 7 to 8% in muzzle velocity for the same projectile*. 

Ah no, my original post regarding this strand was about the instances that British cruisers engaged 5.9 armed cruisers, not that the Kormoran was representative. AFAIK there are no instances of british 6 in cruisers engaging proper 5.9 in German cruisers


I think differing definitions of vitals are a serious point of departure in our opinions.
I used to define vitals as the following:
1*.) embedded vitals:
"hull vitals"- that are the main and secondary magazines, main and secondary ship controll room and firecontroll center + turbines, boilers and auxilary machinery as well as steering gear (all these are under the Main armour deck and protected by deck + belt)*

I agree, because penetrations to these parts of the ship will generally lead to the loss of the ship. 

*2.) exposed vitals:
"upper structures" which are necessary for communication (armoured comm tubes, radio station, bridge) controll (firecontroll room with rangefinder and electronic equipment) and gunnery (main secondary guns + their barbettes). Exposed vitals are usually screened by very thick armour (except in the british KGV-class) to keep them operational*. 


Never heard of these parts of the ship being referred to as vitals. In naval circles these are generally referred to as upper works or superstructure (more loosely). But in my experience they are seldonm referred to as vitals. because a hit against these parts are not generally going to cause the rapid loss of the ship. I am not saying that this always happened, sometimes things just went wrong, but it is the generalized approach adopted in most naval circles. 


*The former helps to keep the mobility, floatation and stability of the ship while the latter is linked to it´s offensive abilities and was what suffered from close range penetrating hits. It´s not necessary to defeat the belt in the first place to achieve critical hits on the vitals summarized under 2.)*


Only if accept the armour around the upper works as vitals, which i, and every other naval officer i have ever talked to would disagree with you on

*Agreed. The exposed vitals, unlike the embedded ones, were not protected to repel close range major impacts. I wonder which ship had such a level of protection for the exposed vitals? Yamatos turret faces are impenetrable but her barbettes and CT, the comm tubes and sec. batteries would suffer equally here.
South Dakota at Guadacanal was heavily engaged in medium to close range from mostly 8" (a very few 14"ers, too) and prooved to be soundly protected for her exposed vitals in the course of the action but the test was much less severe than that of Bismarck.*
Bismarcks protection of her upper works was not great, as evidenced by the rapid demise of her main armement in her final engagement. one/two hits to virtually knock out the main armament is not a ringing endorsement of her upper works protection scheme. 

*the theoretical netto broadside output of Graf spee stands corrected to only 12.318lbs instead of 15.210 lbs.


Only the 11.1"ers will be 100% effective. The same is not true for the 5.91"/55 when firing nose or base fused HE-shells.


That are Ajax and Achilles only. Feel free to add Exeters main battery output to Harwoods cruiser force. Maximum sustained rof for the 8"/50 was 4 rpm:
6 x 256lbs x 4 = 6.144 lbs.
------------------theoretical netto output:
Langsdorff: 12.318lbs
Harwood: 20.480lbs
------------------------------------------
As you see, Harwoods cruiser force outguns Graf Spee by a significant margin in terms of broadside weight in a given period. You could add Graf spees 4.1" DP guns to this but it wouldn´t change much, if anything to his advantage and Harwood does have secondary guns at his disposal, too.*

Only if you accept that every hit by the RN ships are going penetrate and cause a degree of lethal damage. We both know that they cannot. Putting aside the 8 in rounds, perhaps 20% of the british 6" rounds can be expected to penetrate something. Reduce the effective broadside of the 6in component to 20% (or some other reasonable estimate), and then you have a true picture of the fpf factors ast work here. The penduluim swings firmly infavour of the Spee if you do. 


*At the distance in question (13.000yards, IIRC), deck penetration is unlikely to happen. The angle of fall (13 deg.) is to small and any projectile would be deflected away by the 40mm deck at such large impact obliquities. The 6"ers will not defeat the belt but they can defeat the upper hull, the side blisters, the ship ends, the secondary guns and take out RF equipment. At closer range (6.000 yards or less), they should be sufficiantly powerful to defeat the main belt, even with CPBC*. 

The problem is getting to that range. Even going full tilt, it will take 3 minuts at least to close the range. In reality the time is going to be two to three times that. More than enough time for the Spee to sink one or both of them


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## parsifal (Jun 10, 2008)

Juha said:


> Range of British cruisers, source IMHO the best secondary source on subject ie Raven's and Roberts' British Cruisers of WWII (p. 208 )
> all at 12 kts, figures in nautical mls
> 
> Kents 13300
> ...



The problem Juha is that Del is disputing these figures, saying essentially that they are "cooked". Its the old chestnut again...everything the allies say that dont fit the intended outcomes are lies, everything that do is gospel truth. In case you havent noticed, we've see this before.....


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## Kurfürst (Jun 11, 2008)

parsifal said:


> The problem Juha is that Del is disputing these figures, saying essentially that they are "cooked". Its the old chestnut again...everything the allies say that dont fit the intended outcomes are lies, everything that do is gospel truth. In case you havent noticed, we've see this before.....



... and here my friend, you are entering the realm of rhetorics and demagoghy and leave the realm of reasoned arguements behind.


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## delcyros (Jun 11, 2008)

> For the record, the accepted way to address endurance properly is to assume full load displacement, and economic cruising sppeed, usually of around 14 knots, and then work out the radius of action.



Parsifal, this statement is testimony of a poor understanding of range and endurance issues. 
The best cruise speed depends on ship design and is also linked with a number of optimal wavelengths and the ready status of the boilers and not only with load, specific fuel consumption and buncerage as You suggest. 
I pointed to grave, and I mean REALLY GRAVE differences in those definitions between navies and often even between classes of ships which are not reflected in Your source. 



> I do also think You are a bit unfair to french ships saying that they were unable to mount sustained patrols. Evidence from historic records of the french Force de Raid showed clearly that french cruisers participated in partols in the Nort Atlantic theatre from outbreak of the hostilities.
> 
> I NEVER SAID THAT. PLEASE DO NOT MISQUOTE ME.



Actually, Parsifal, You exactly said this in post 59, I will compensate Your losses in short time memory:


> The biggest single problem with the french cruisers were the limited endurance that they possessed. They were unable to mount the sustained patrols far from home that the British cruisers were able to do.


 
Perhaps my poor english can be blamed for this but this sentence appears to be in strong contradiction to what You wrote above. It isn´t even a comparison. 



> Whilst you are correct to say that only the big cruisers carred 3400 tons of oil, the advantage held by the lighter cruisers is not to be scoffedd at. The Leanders, for example, with a similar displacement to the Leygues (before fuel) carried 1800tons of oil, to 1569 tons. The range of the Leygues was 5500 miles @ 14 Knots, to the leanders 7000 @ 12 knots. If you were to give the leygues the same amount of fuel as the Leanders, the estimated endurance of the ship would increase to 6300 miles @ 14 knots, which is very close to that of the Leanders.


Without having access to specific fuel consumption figures and the ships cruise profile, I would be very careful with such statements. Bottomline is that you don´t know the range of Leander at 14 Kts cruise speed, You ASSUME it to be 7.000. It can be 6.000nm or 5.000nm or something else. Certainly, Leanders range will be LESS than 7000nm at 14 Kts because it takes an unknown amount of SHP to add two knots cruise speed. Additional power requires additional fuel consumption. Depending on the specific fuel consumtpion graph for the machinery, the total fuel consumtion or both, the total and specific fuel consumption will raise. It´s an engeneering question.
The key question is: Does these number accurately confirm Your postulated unability of french cruisers to mount sustained patrols? I am firm to give opposition here.



> AFAIK there are no instances of british 6 in cruisers engaging proper 5.9 in German cruisers


Exact.



> to 1.) embedded vitals: I agree, because penetrations to these parts of the ship will *generally* lead to the loss of the ship.


You agreed but Your explenation for this is the worst sort of nonsense. Ever heard of redundancy as a concept in warship design? Try to proof that the loss of a ship will follow any penetration into these vitals GENERALLY! I have filed down enough examples to disproove your explenation on a statistically meaningful base. Penetrations into the vitals are serious issues but not generally linked with the destruction of the ship (compare HIPPER for a boiler hit and USS BOISE for a magazine hit).



> Never heard of these parts of the ship being referred to as vitals. In naval circles these are generally referred to as upper works or superstructure (more loosely). But in my experience they are seldonm referred to as vitals. because a hit against these parts are not generally going to cause the rapid loss of the ship.


Superstructures and upper works are not precise and may refer to multiple unarmoured parts like masts, funnels, bridge, hangars and other spaces above the weather deck, which are not related to the exposed vitals. 
You will find a detailed discussion about these parts of the ship to be considered as "vitals" and put under at least comparable degree of armour protection in the design history of the Nevada-class well documented in english. I can cite german and french articles for further readings in case You are familar with these languages.



> Bismarcks protection of her upper works was not great, as evidenced by the rapid demise of her main armement in her final engagement. one/two hits to virtually knock out the main armament is not a ringing endorsement of her upper works protection scheme.


Your account is inaccurate: 1-2 hits knocket out turret B and temporarely turret A, not the whole main armement of Bismarck, whether virtually or not.
However, I do firmly second that the exposed vitals of Bismarck had only an average degree of protection (on the level of Washington-class). By pure means of comparison they must be described as poor. The only modern BB-classes suffering from an even worser protection in this respect are Dunkerque and KGV.
Even a non penetrating impact on the barbettes f.e. may jamm the turret (compare South Dakota at Guadacanal) temporarely but a penetration of the barbettes in a condition fir to burst has the potential to destroy the entire ship. It doesn´t need to happen generally, by standarts of ww2 with improved anti flash protection compared to those of ww1, but such cases exist.



> Only if you accept that every hit by the RN ships are going penetrate and cause a degree of lethal damage.


They don´t need to penetrate in order to degrade Graf Spees fighting ability with hits on the aforementioned but unarmoured parts of the ship. They may not deal out lethal damage but they can degrade her combat and mobility related abilities by a substantial degree. You have failed to acknowledge that Your maths are on the level of speculation and failed to include HMS Exter in the first place. Harwood choosed to accept the engagement and he was certainly not thinking he was outgunned. 



> The problem is getting to that range. Even going full tilt, it will take 3 minuts at least to close the range. In reality the time is going to be two to three times that. More than enough time for the Spee to sink one or both of them


I seriously think You are exaggerating Graf Spees abilities. With Glowworm vs. Hipper and Scharnhorst+Gneisenau vs Acasta Achates in mind, Your estimation does appear to be grossly overexaggerated. Or- in case they are not, You underestimate the ability of british cruisers to take damage beyond any reason.
Graf Spee has two main turrets. Her 5.91" single pedestal mounts achieved how many hits at River plate? Yes, the number is negliable.
Point is You have three approaching cruisers. If Graf Spee engages one of those each with a single turret (it cannot split her battery to all three targets, so one cruiser will be always unengaged), her hitting rate will drop over proportionally. In order to achieve a high hit rate Graf Spee needs to concentrate her main battery on ONE target. Leaving two cruisers unengaged. Target change always ruines FC solutions at first. Graf Spee is badly handicapped. She finds herselfe on a remote place, outgunned, outnumbered and unable to disengage. She is well protected at long to medium ranges but the initiative to choose the range is not up to her. 
Her advances are firecontroll, radar, ability to deliver critical hits at very long range and certainly some level of high crew training as well. 

I personally have no intention to overexaggerate Graf Spees abilities, nor those of any other warship. I do not even see how this can be justified. Differences exist and can be identifed. It is normal and welcome when those differences are subject to differing interpretations.


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## Aussie1001 (Jun 11, 2008)

Well i thought this was a forum not a novel writing contest, they would be nearly the biggest post i have ever seen.....


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## parsifal (Jun 11, 2008)

Quote: 
_For the record, the accepted way to address endurance properly is to assume full load displacement, and economic cruising sppeed, usually of around 14 knots, and then work out the radius of action. _
*Parsifal, this statement is testimony of a poor understanding of range and endurance issues. 
The best cruise speed depends on ship design and is also linked with a number of optimal wavelengths and the ready status of the boilers and not only with load, specific fuel consumption and buncerage as You suggest. 
I pointed to grave, and I mean REALLY GRAVE differences in those definitions between navies and often even between classes of ships which are not reflected in Your source*. 

I see that you are beginning to include derogatory statements about knowledge and credibility. I am going to assume that I can do the same

It is obvious that you have an agenda here, which does not include finding the truth. I certainly agree that determining the “true endurance ratings is a complex issue, of which you are raising just one. Unless we are going to spend six months studying the individual characteristics of each ship, and the conditions under which their published endurances are arrived at, I suggest that we simply rely on the published figures. The boiler state certainly is an issue, but so too is the sea state, the salinity of the water, the numbers of speed changes made etc etc. The true endurance figures are NOT just limited by the selective grazing that you are wanting to engage in, and I am not that interested to go through a full six month detailed study to do the job properly. The result for me is to look at as many different sources, and make an educated judgement from there.

I would suggest that the sources (there are more than one, incidentally) are reasonably accurate, but that they are saying things that are not to your liking. Your reply has been therefore to engage in a selective grazing exercise, and not taking a holistic look at the whole issue. If you want to challenge the references like Conways, Janes, and the cruiser site (and soon the definitive work on cruisers by Whitney) then go ahead, produce the thesis standard rebuttal that you are going to need. Don’t try to get me to do the work for you, because I don’t have a problem with the internationally accepted figures, you do.


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## parsifal (Jun 11, 2008)

Quote: 
*I do also think You are a bit unfair to french ships saying that they were unable to mount sustained patrols. Evidence from historic records of the french Force de Raid showed clearly that french cruisers participated in partols in the Nort Atlantic theatre from outbreak of the hostilities*.

_I NEVER SAID THAT. PLEASE DO NOT MISQUOTE ME._ 
*Actually, Parsifal, You exactly said this in post 59, I will compensate Your losses in short time memory*.

Read the whole freaking post before you try to pull a stunt like that. I suggest that you study your english classes a little more first before attempting stunts like this :
Quote: 
_The biggest single problem with the french cruisers were the limited endurance that they possessed. They were unable to mount the sustained patrols far from home that the British cruisers were able to do_. 

*Perhaps my poor english can be blamed for this but this sentence appears to be in strong contradiction to what You wrote above. It isn´t even a comparison.* 

Yep your english is bad, read the post properly. Mounting patrols into the north Atlantic, from ports in the north Atlantic, is not mounting a patrol in distant waters. In order to do that they would need to mount patrols into oceans that are not adjacent to their bases. This the british did, on a regular basis, the French did not


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## parsifal (Jun 11, 2008)

_Whilst you are correct to say that only the big cruisers carred 3400 tons of oil, the advantage held by the lighter cruisers is not to be scoffedd at. The Leanders, for example, with a similar displacement to the Leygues (before fuel) carried 1800tons of oil, to 1569 tons. The range of the Leygues was 5500 miles @ 14 Knots, to the leanders 7000 @ 12 knots. If you were to give the leygues the same amount of fuel as the Leanders, the estimated endurance of the ship would increase to 6300 miles @ 14 knots, which is very close to that of the Leanders. _

*Without having access to specific fuel consumption figures and the ships cruise profile, I would be very careful with such statements. Bottomline is that you don´t know the range of Leander at 14 Kts cruise speed, You ASSUME it to be 7.000. It can be 6.000nm or 5.000nm or something else. Certainly, Leanders range will be LESS than 7000nm at 14 Kts because it takes an unknown amount of SHP to add two knots cruise speed. Additional power requires additional fuel consumption. Depending on the specific fuel consumtpion graph for the machinery, the total fuel consumtion or both, the total and specific fuel consumption will raise. It´s an engeneering question.
The key question is: Does these number accurately confirm Your postulated unability of french cruisers to mount sustained patrols? I am firm to give opposition here.*


Bottom line is that I can. Why?, because the British were able to mount didtant patrols, and the French were not. There are some sources, incidentally, that give the leanders an endurance of 12300 nm @ 12 knots. So I am being ultra conservative. 

The evidence of sustained patrols far from home for the british is already there. You are the challenger here. Produce the evidence that the french could do the same. Patrols into the North Atlantic for a few days or weeks do not qulaify. If you can produce the evidence of the patrols, fine, we will discuss the issue, if you cant, and you cant produce the edurance comparisons, and wont accept the published figures, than the current state of play and observed results must win, ie, the british could undertake distant patrols, and the French could not.


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## parsifal (Jun 11, 2008)

Quote: 
_to 1.) embedded vitals: I agree, because penetrations to these parts of the ship will generally lead to the loss of the ship._ 


*You agreed but Your explenation for this is the worst sort of nonsense. Ever heard of redundancy as a concept in warship design? Try to proof that the loss of a ship will follow any penetration into these vitals GENERALLY! I have filed down enough examples to disproove your explenation on a statistically meaningful base. Penetrations into the vitals are serious issues but not generally linked with the destruction of the ship (compare HIPPER for a boiler hit and USS BOISE for a magazine hit).*


You are really adept at taking statements out of context I can see,, and expert at working an agenda. The context of this whole conversation, as i recall, was what constute vitals. The accepted definition of this are those parts of the ship that are protected by the main belt. Those parts of the ship outside the the protective belt are not considered within the "vitals" by naval architects. Unless the designers of that ship are really stupid. That is not to say that a ship cannot be sunk by hits to areas outside the "vitals" And you are right that hits even to the vital areas are not necessarily going to lead to the automatic loss of the ship. I never emphatically stated either case. In the case of the Bismarck, her upper works were not within her "vitals", because they were not protected by the belt. Moreover, the british could not penetrate the belt, and could not reduce her to sinking condition as a result of that. This is evidence that the protection of vital areas in the bismarck was sound, and strong.

However the protection of non-vitals (ie areas outside the belt) was fairly poor, as evidenced by the relatively rap[id silencing of the main armament of the ship.


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## parsifal (Jun 11, 2008)

Quote: 
_Bismarcks protection of her upper works was not great, as evidenced by the rapid demise of her main armement in her final engagement. one/two hits to virtually knock out the main armament is not a ringing endorsement of her upper works protection scheme_. 
*Your account is inaccurate: 1-2 hits knocket out turret B and temporarely turret A, not the whole main armement of Bismarck, whether virtually or not.
However, I do firmly second that the exposed vitals of Bismarck had only an average degree of protection (on the level of Washington-class). By pure means of comparison they must be described as poor. The only modern BB-classes suffering from an even worser protection in this respect are Dunkerque and KGV.
Even a non penetrating impact on the barbettes f.e. may jamm the turret (compare South Dakota at Guadacanal) temporarely but a penetration of the barbettes in a condition fir to burst has the potential to destroy the entire ship. It doesn´t need to happen generally, by standarts of ww2 with improved anti flash protection compared to those of ww1, but such cases exist.*

The only issue is the accuracy issue really. I am basing my account on the final report to the Admiralty by Tovey, which is good enough for me. You will have to start calling Tovey a liar , which i suspect will be easy for someone like yourself, but i am not prepared to do that


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## parsifal (Jun 11, 2008)

Quote: 
_Only if you accept that every hit by the RN ships are going penetrate and cause a degree of lethal damage_. 
T*hey don´t need to penetrate in order to degrade Graf Spees fighting ability with hits on the aforementioned but unarmoured parts of the ship. They may not deal out lethal damage but they can degrade her combat and mobility related abilities by a substantial degree. You have failed to acknowledge that Your maths are on the level of speculation and failed to include HMS Exter in the first place. Harwood choosed to accept the engagement and he was certainly not thinking he was outgunned*


A non-penetrating hit is most unlikely to have any appreciable affect on the target. It can happen, but the odds are against this.

On the two occasions that the two British cruisers did try and close, they were pretty severely damaged. After that, they settled back to a shadowing role, in accordance with classic cruiser doctrine in the RN. They gave the impression that help was close handy, which it was not of couse. If they had been sunk, or forced to withdraw, they would not have fulfilled their primary mission. Charging headlong into the teeth of Spees heavy guns was about the worst thing they could have done


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## parsifal (Jun 11, 2008)

Quote: 
_The problem is getting to that range. Even going full tilt, it will take 3 minuts at least to close the range. In reality the time is going to be two to three times that. More than enough time for the Spee to sink one or both of them _
*I seriously think You are exaggerating Graf Spees abilities. With Glowworm vs. Hipper and Scharnhorst+Gneisenau vs Acasta Achates in mind, Your estimation does appear to be grossly overexaggerated. Or- in case they are not, You underestimate the ability of british cruisers to take damage beyond any reason.*

The battles you are referring to bear no resemblance to River Plate, because of any number of factors. The gloworm incident was in limited visibility, and extremely rough weather. The ardent and acasta were undertaken at extreme range, and in destroyers, which are a much harder target to hit than the a cruiser. Most of the ardent/acasta action was also at long range, with the DDs sacrificing themselves in order to get their torps away, after which the DD was blown to pieces. I fail to see the correlation


*Graf Spee has two main turrets. Her 5.91" single pedestal mounts achieved how many hits at River plate? Yes, the number is negliable.
Point is You have three approaching cruisers*. 

Not sure of the numbers of 5.9 hits, but will check.

No, you would have two cruisers, it would need to be assumed that the Exeter was out of ther batttle before the Spee hove to. Anyway, the British were busily getting into position, and closing the range from 19000 yards down to 16000 yards in the 15 minutes that it took Spee to deal with the Exeter

*If Graf Spee engages one of those each with a single turret (it cannot split her battery to all three targets, so one cruiser will be always unengaged), her hitting rate will drop over proportionally. In order to achieve a high hit rate Graf Spee needs to concentrate her main battery on ONE target. *

Which is precisely what she did, her secondaries despite your criticisms, were manifestly able to keep the two CLs engaged enogh to prevent them risking a headlong charge that you seem to be suggesting. It is obvious that you have never had to wargame this sort of battle problem out incidentally. 


*Leaving two cruisers unengaged. Target change always ruines FC solutions at first. Graf Spee is badly handicapped. She finds herselfe on a remote place, outgunned, outnumbered and unable to disengage. She is well protected at long to medium ranges but the initiative to choose the range is not up to her. *


The dispatch of the Exeter occurs in the ranges of 1900-16000 as happened historically, leaving just the two CLs. Assuming that it takes a similar time period to reduce to 13000 as it did from 19-16k yds, the two CLs are going to be subjected to a long period of sustained heavy fire for a long period of time. I dont need to prove anything. What i am describing is basically what happened. The British were trying to reduce the range the whole time, and were having a very hard time of it. To reduce the range down to 5000 yds or less, is just adding to their problems grately, and not nearly so much to the problems faced by the Spee. Its a silly strategy, and one that demonstrates a profound lack of undderstanding of the battle problem, and the appropriate solution


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## delcyros (Jun 12, 2008)

parsifal said:


> I see that you are beginning to include derogatory statements about knowledge and credibility. I am going to assume that I can do the same


...well, it has never stopped You before...



> It is obvious that you have an agenda here, which does not include finding the truth.


Obvious is that you have a selective perception.



> Unless we are going to spend six months studying the individual characteristics of each ship, and the conditions under which their published endurances are arrived at, I suggest that we simply rely on the published figures. The boiler state certainly is an issue, but so too is the sea state, the salinity of the water, the numbers of speed changes made etc etc. The true endurance figures are NOT just limited by the selective grazing that you are wanting to engage in, and I am not that interested to go through a full six month detailed study to do the job properly.
> (...)
> I would suggest that the sources (there are more than one, incidentally) are reasonably accurate, but that they are saying things that are not to your liking.


You are free to do this. But to take the sources without critisizing well known differences in definitions is not going to give Your points more weight. I have not the knowledge for all the ships in question for these details, but I do have the knowlegde for some of them and I certainly know of how different things are if You compare these issues properly. I have also presented You literature to fill the gaps in Your knowledge. If there is one thing I don´t like than it´s your selective perception on this, not the sources.



> Yep your english is bad, read the post properly. Mounting patrols into the north Atlantic, from ports in the north Atlantic, is not mounting a patrol in distant waters. n order to do that they would need to mount patrols into oceans that are not adjacent to their bases.


Of course, the north Atlantic nowadays can be described as little marine littoral waters....
Your attempt of definition comes a little late. And for the record: The ability to mount patrols in non adjacent oceans does not proove that french cruisers had inadeaquate endurance but instead a testimony for a superior british network of logistics . 




> Produce the evidence that the french could do the same. Patrols into the North Atlantic for a few days or weeks do not qulaify. If you can produce the evidence of the patrols, fine, we will discuss the issue, if you cant, and you cant produce the edurance comparisons, and wont accept the published figures, than the current state of play and observed results must win, ie, the british could undertake distant patrols, and *the French could not.*



No. YOU SAID THAT THE FRENCH CRUISERS WERE UNABLE TO MOUNT DISTANT PATROLS, NOT ME. NOR ANY OTHER COMPREHENSIVE WORK I EVER READ ON THIS TOPIC. IT`S YOUR TASK TO PROVIDE THE SOURCES FOR THIS! I have never read such a challenging statement before. Historical record and technical ability are two things which have to be analysed in context of each other. Methodologically, You can´t take the absence in one aspect to proove the existence of something in the other, esspeccially in case of France which was in war for less than a year. 
And I strongly suggest to read more before posting such nonsense. The most dangerous hunting group on Graf Spee was composed of french forces, not british. 



> The context of this whole conversation, as i recall, was what constute vitals. The accepted definition of this are those parts of the ship that are protected by the main belt.


Inaccurate. Not the armour belt, the spaces are important! The correct statement would differentiate between exposed and embedded vitals in the first place and in the second (embedded vitals) would define vitals as spaces necessary to keep ship controll, mobility, stability and floatation. The main belt does not define the vitals!!! As a matter of fact, the main belt may or may not be limited in coverage to the spacial extensions of the vitals (waterline armour to differing degrees), *depending on the choosen armour scheme*. Only very few all-or-nothing armour schemes show a direct connection between embedded vitals and main belt.


> Those parts of the ship outside the the protective belt are not considered within the "vitals" by naval architects.


Wrong. Vitals which are placed outside the thick armour protection are described as _unprotected vitals_. Check the various discussion about the different designs for the later Lexington-class BC for this, where a number of boilers were placed outside the main belt. The armour protection has little to do with what vitals are. Spaces necessary for ship controll, stability, mobility and floatation do not BECOME VITAL just because a belt is placed around them! There are dozens of cruisers which were virtually unprotected by belt armour, nevertheless they all had their vitals.


> And you are right that hits even to the vital areas are not necessarily going to lead to the automatic loss of the ship. I never emphatically stated either case.


You did to a challanging degree. You postulated that hits on -what I called- "exposed vitals" will not be linked to the destruction of the ship, while hits on the -what I called- "embedded vitals" are generally linked to their destruction. I oppose such a view. The linkage for both cases is a loose one for any meaningful comparison. Embedded and exposed vitals have different purposes, but both are necessary to keep a warship operational and when naval architects decided to protect both by heavy armour, it was in order to keep their abilities as long as possible under fire, not in order to define their vitals. 



> In the case of the Bismarck, her upper works were not within her "vitals", because they were not protected by the belt. Moreover, the british could not penetrate the belt, and could not reduce her to sinking condition as a result of that.


 
Three false statements here, I will leave the first in order to avoid getting reptitive.
The second false statement is that the british were unable to penetrate the belt. Wreckage analysis made by Dr. Ballard, Dr. Jurens and Cameron showed that two 16" shells pierced the main belt with a third burst in holing.
The third false statement refers to the causal relationship between sinking condition and belt penetration at the choosen armour scheme. Rodney and KGV could not reduce her to sinking condition because even belt penetration *did not affected the embedded vitals*. The vitals were furtherly protected by slope, armour deck and torpedo bulhead and thus mostly inaccessable even at point blanc range.



> I am basing my account on the final report to the Admiralty by Tovey, which is good enough for me. You will have to start calling Tovey a liar , which i suspect will be easy for someone like yourself, but i am not prepared to do that


I wouldn´t call Tovey a liar but what is seriously in doubt is Your credibility. The relevant sources are ADM 234/321 and ADM 234/509 for the british side and Müllenheim Rechenberg account as the surviving AO for the german side. Just in case You really want to know...
Now let´s look where Tovey wrote that Bismarck was able to deliver just 6 single rounds between 9:04 to 9:32:

ADM 234/509 -Toveys despatch:

H.M.S. Hood Association-Battle Cruiser Hood: H.M.S. Hood Reference Materials - ADM 234/509: Sinking of the 'Bismarck', 27 May 1941: Official Despatches



> 83. The range was now 20.000 yards and decreasing rapidly, the general trend of the enemy's course being directly towards us. Shortly after our turn to the southward, the Bismarck shifted her fire to the King George V. By 0905 both the King George V and the Rodney had their secondary armaments in action. At this stage the effect of our gunfire was difficult to assess, as hits by armour-piercing shell are not easily seen; but after half an hour of action the Bismarck was on fire in several places and virtually out of control. Only one of her turrets remained in action and the fire of this and her secondary armament was wild and erratic. But she was still steaming.
> 
> 84. Some interference from our own funnel and cordite smoke had been experienced, and at 0917 the course of the battlefleet was altered towards the enemy and right round to north, the Rodney again anticipating the signal. When the turn had been completed, the lines of fire of the King George V and Rodney were approximately at right angles; a heavy volume of fire could be produced without interference in spotting between the two ships. The Dorsetshire had been firing intermittently since 0902 from the other side of the enemy, as had the Norfolk from her flank marking position.
> 
> 85. In order to increase the rate of hitting, the battleships continued to close, the range eventually coming down to 3,300 yards. By 1015 the Bismarck was a wreck, without a gun firing, on fire fore and aft and wallowing more heavily every moment. Men could be seen jumping overboard, preferring death by drowning in the stormy sea to the appalling effects of our fire. I was confident that the Bismarck, could never get back to harbour and that it was only a matter of hours before she would sink.


*He does never say that bismarck was only able to fire off 6 rounds with her main battery. *


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## parsifal (Jun 12, 2008)

Del;

Obvious that we are getting nowhere fast.

I dont accept much of what you say. I had heard great things about your knowledge, and depth of perception on these sorts of issues. I am sorry to say that i am dissapointed. I am not going to respond to your posts, most of which are just plain lies and at best half truths. It is obvious that you have considerable knowledge, also plain that you use that knowledge to twist the truth rather than reveal it.


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## timshatz (Jun 12, 2008)

Not to get in the middle of you guys in this but I think the Bismark fired more than 6 rounds during her last battle. I think she had a cycle rate of something like 20 seconds for her main armament, even a minimum number of 6 salvos (48 rounds) would be stretching belief. 

Just my .02 on this thing.


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## parsifal (Jun 12, 2008)

Not to get in the middle of you guys in this but I think the Bismark fired more than 6 rounds during her last battle. I think she had a cycle rate of something like 20 seconds for her main armament, even a minimum number of 6 salvos (48 rounds) would be stretching belief. 

Just my .02 on this thing


hi Tim
the argument was multi faceted, but with regard to this isue, it was how many rounds were fired a by the Bismarck after her A B turrets were knocked out.

I said that tovey sent two signals at around 1024 to Somerville advising that he could not sink the bismarck with gunfire alone. Del then twisted that to say that I had claimed that the British in their signal had advised on the number of shells fired by the bismarck. I never said that, what I did say was that another source (Barnett) advised that after 0904 the Bismarck only shot off 6 more rounds from her main armament. At 0931 this source then says that the Bismarcks batteries fell completely silent.

Another source that I have says that just two rounds were fired by the Bismarck at the british after 0904, but that four further rounds were fired, essentially in the air.

I got a very violent reaction to that, because it challenges the myths that surround the bismarck. All of a sudden the tone changed in the exchange. i was at once a liar, didnt know what I was talking about, etc etc, I strongly suspect because I had dared attack the invincibility of the sacred cow


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## delcyros (Jun 13, 2008)

parsifal said:


> I said that tovey sent two signals at around 1024 to Somerville advising that he could not sink the bismarck with gunfire alone. Del then twisted that to say that I had claimed that the British in their signal had advised on the number of shells fired by the bismarck. I never said that, what I did say was that another source (Barnett) advised that after 0904 the Bismarck only shot off 6 more rounds from her main armament. At 0931 this source then says that the Bismarcks batteries fell completely silent.
> 
> Another source that I have says that just two rounds were fired by the Bismarck at the british after 0904, but that four further rounds were fired, essentially in the air.



Parsifal, face the consequences of what You wrote before. You referred to *Tovey as an authority* in a direct answer to this post:
*Your account is inaccurate: 1-2 hits knocket out turret B and temporarely turret A, not the whole main armement of Bismarck, whether virtually or not.*

You wrote exactly in your response:


> I am basing my account on the *final report to the Admiralty by Tovey*, which is good enough for me. You will have to start calling Tovey a liar



It is possible that you have made a mistake in putting Tovey as an authority instead of Barnett and everybody can make a mistakes in good faith. I have certainly made a mistake in not detecting Your mistake. However, It is appearent that You don´t differ between books (Corelli Barnett: Engage the enemy more closely: The Royal Navy in the second world War, London 1991) and sources (Toveys dispatch, interrogations, various ADM-files) and I have the impression that You have never attempted to study sources, otherwise You would know what Tovey wrote in his dispatch which was clearly contradicting Your opinion and therefore cannot be used to justify Your position. Putting aside the questionable 6 round issues, Tovey did not wrote that Bismarck was substantially silenced after 09:04, rather contrary, he wrote that the fire of Bismarck in this period was wild and erratic, which is in substantial disagreement to a ship in silenced condition but in general agreement with a ship deprived from her main firecontroll as a result of previous hits.
In order to make an assesment of what happened, You would also NEED TO STUDY Müllenheim-Rechenbergs account, who is the prime&only source for what happened on Bismarcks aft artillery station in this action. Müllenheim Rechenberg ordered and controlled three half salvos (which may be up to 12 rounds, depending on how many rounds matched the salvo) after 09:04, when main secondary firecontroll was knocket out with turret C+D and before his aft firecontroll was disabled by an 8" hit destroying his rangefinder. He achieved one short, one straddle (both KGV) and another long (RODNEY) after target change. From this point onwards, firecontroll was shifted to local, under which the turrets fired an unknown number of further rounds with turret A joining temporarely before beeing silenced finally. At least according to his account. His account has source charackter, even when considering the narrative style is not without intentions but was writing on events where he participated as an eyewitness, unlike Barnett*. I have never seen an author other than you claiming his description of the final battle beeing in error or in general disagreement with british reports of the battle. If there are such and in case they are based on identifyable, contemporary sources, we have a base to discuss both accounts. Should it appear that Müllenheim - Rechenbergs account is showing a picture not only not corresponding to these sources but also beeing in valid error, I am open to change my mind.


*) each source may be questioned for the degree of authencity, the accurateness and their comprehensiveness if written long after the event, but this is even more true for books, which selected and interpreted sources to come to "their" conclusions. Note that I am not blaming Corelli Barnett on this. I have not read his book but some of the reviews and everything there suggest his insight and sound understanding but without having seen the exact context of what exactly he wrote, esspeccially the reference to sources to support this claim I remain sceptical. I already know that You have shown a habit of selecting things out of their context, referring to authorities without knowing what they wrote, misunderstanding of general and detailed relationships and ignorance of sources, which I cannot leave without critic here. You are free to have Your own opinion as long as You show it as Your own, but Your methodology is highly questionable, ranging from superficial reading / posting mistakes to deliberately self serving posts. 



> I got a very violent reaction to that, because it challenges the myths that surround the bismarck. All of a sudden the tone changed in the exchange. i was at once a liar, didnt know what I was talking about, etc etc, I strongly suspect because I had dared attack the invincibility of the sacred cow



Sorry, if You find the tone changed than it´s not because of Bismarck (actually, I did comprehensively showed that Bismarck received substantial damage by this action, didn´t I?) but because of Your habit of blaming me and my sources for beeing revisionist in previous posts, which I have no problems to identify as a personal attack. You would receive the same amount of Flak from me if it were to another topic when posting such things as You did in post #62, #64 which -beside others- are dating back long before Bismarck was engaged in this discussion.
Btw, I never claimed that You are a liar, which my education prevents to do. I claimed that your credibility is in question. You might find the difference negliable but I am sensible to differences related to both. As far as I am aware of, it didn´t stopped You to claim that my post are lies and half baked truths...


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## parsifal (Jun 13, 2008)

*Parsifal, face the consequences of what You wrote before. You referred to Tovey as an authority in a direct answer to this post:
Your account is inaccurate: 1-2 hits knocket out turret B and temporarely turret A, not the whole main armement of Bismarck, whether virtually or not

I never said that they were. please re-read my post. And my sources do NOT support the claim that Bismarck was penetrated by close range main armament hits. Barnett describes that at 0854 Rodney landed two hits on the Bismarck, at over 15000 yards, one hitting the forecastle area, and the second hitting the supestructure amidships. By definition these cannot be belt penetrations. At 0902 Rodney again hit the Bismarck with a 16" shell, this time at the base of the A Turret. This may have been a belt penetration, and did have the effect of knocking out both foreward turrets (I do not know the reason why B-Turret was knocked out by a hit to A-turret, but it was observed to cease fire after that point). My point is that with respect to the Bismarck, it appears that her guns were silenced very quickly (last salvo was 0931, but she fired less than 6 rounds from 0904 until 0931).This appears to be more the result of the heavy damage to her upper works and control positions, and not to any critical belt pentrations. She may have stopped firing some of her guns due to a single belt penetration, but this did not leave her sinking. At 1025, Tovey signalled Somerville, "she is still afloat" Try as they might, the British could not penetrate her vitals. This was confirmed by a further signal three minutes later "I cannot sink her by gunfire" . 

Something like 2000 shells of 5.25 " calibre and above were expended in that final action, so Bismarcks upper works were a total shambles by that stage...

This was the state of play when the argument about the bismarck began. I believe i made clear references to the source (Barnett) at that time. the references to Tovey came later, and were not really relating to the number of hits at all



It is possible that you have made a mistake in putting Tovey as an authority instead of Barnett and everybody can make a mistakes in good faith. I have certainly made a mistake in not detecting Your mistake. 

I cant find my direct references to Tovey. But in the post that I did find, I am very clear about whom I am relying on. I didnt make a mistake in that post. Why are you not acknowlwwdging that I very clearly identified my source in this post???


However, It is appearent that You don´t differ between books (Corelli Barnett: Engage the enemy more closely: The Royal Navy in the second world War, London 1991) and sources (Toveys dispatch, interrogations, various ADM-files) and I have the impression that You have never attempted to study sources, otherwise You would know what Tovey wrote in his dispatch which was clearly contradicting Your opinion. Tovey did not wrote that Bismarck was substantially silenced after 09:04, 


And i never said that he (Tovey) did say that Bismarck fired 6 rounds after 0904. (based on what I could find in my previous posts. If i have said that, it is clearly corrected in the post that I have found, which identifies my main source as barnett). 


rather contrary, he wrote that the fire of Bismarck in this period was wild and erratic, which is in substantial disagreement to a ship in silenced condition but in general agreement with a ship deprived from her main firecontroll as a result of previous hits.
In order to make an assesment of what happened, You would also NEED TO STUDY Müllenheim-Rechenbergs account, who is the prime&only source for what happened on Bismarcks aft artillery station in this action*. Müllenheim Rechenberg ordered and controlled three half salvos (which may be up to 12 rounds, depending on how many rounds matched the salvo) after 09:04, when main secondary firecontroll was knocket out with turret C+D and before his aft firecontroll was disabled by an 8" hit destroying his rangefinder. He achieved one short, one straddle (both KGV) and another long (RODNEY) after target change. From this point onwards, firecontroll was shifted to local, under which the turrets fired an unknown number of further rounds with turret A joining temporarely before beeing silenced finally. At least according to his account. I have never seen an author other than you claiming his description of the final battle beeing in error or in general disagreement with british reports of the battle. If there are such and in case they are based on identifyable, contemporary sources, we have a base to discuss both accounts. Should it appear that Müllenheim - Rechenbergs account is showing a picture not only not corresponding to these sources but also beeing in valid error, I am open to change my mind.

Not that interested sorry, If you want to claim that bismarck was still firing at a high rate (although you have not nominated a figure), fine. If you want to reject that she was firing erratically after 0904, I think we have a problem. I dont care if yoou can or cant accept other sources, but we should at least be able to agree that her fire after 0904 was erratic. I also dont think it any sort of stretch to say her fire after 0904 was weak. I believe it was weak and erratic, to the extent that she only fired off an additional 6 rounds from 0904 onwards, and that some of these were basically fired into the air. Maybe it was more, dont know, not as sure as I was awhile ago. But I do remain certain that Bismarck had been reduced to basic impotence by the 0904 timeslot, which is a very short space of time, and by your account after only two hits by heavy guns. ,


accurateness and their comprehensiveness if written long after the event, but this is even more true for books, which selected and interpreted sources to come to "their" conclusions. Note that I am not blaming Corelli Barnett on this. I have not read his book but some of the reviews and it showed his insight but without having seen the exact context of what exactly he wrote, esspeccially the reference to sources to support this claim I remain sceptical. I already know that You have shown a habit of selecting things out of their context, referring to authorities without knowing what they wrote, misunderstanding of general and detailed relationships and ignorance of sources, which I cannot leave without critic here. You are free to have Your own opinion as long as You show it as Your own, but Your methodology is highly questionable, ranging from superficial reading / posting mistakes to deliberately self serving posts. 

I suggest you read him then

Sorry, if You find the tone changed than it´s not because of Bismarck (actually, I did comprehensively showed that Bismarck received substantial damage by this action, didn´t I?) but because of Your habit of blaming me and my sources for beeing revisionist in previous posts. You would receive the same amount of Flak from me if it were to another topic when posting such things as You did in post #62, #64 which -beside others- are dating back long before Bismarck was engaged in this discussion.


No need to make apologies that are insincere. I dont lay claim to being an expert in this field. You have far greater detailed knowledge that I. unfortunately, i do know my history and tactics very well, and what you are engaging in, perhaps without realizing it, is classic revisionism. You take a bucket of white paint, and add a teaspoon of black paint, you still have white paint. Add a hundred teaspoons of black paint, and all of a sudden you have at least dark grey paint. This is what you are engaging in. You want history to read a certain way, so you add a bit of detailed knowledge here and there, and all of a sudden you can show that the historical truth isnt trrue anymore...its wonderful isnt it!!!

You have said to me on a number of occasions that you are not a bismarck apologist. After this little demonstration i am afraid i dont believe you. Nor do i believe you are all that interested in reaching the true truth. I believe you are a very sophisticated revisionist, but a revisionist just the same*


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## Kruska (Jun 13, 2008)

Now who cares about still firing at a high rate, or she was firing erratically after 0904 and referring to *sophisticated revisionists *let us rather read the truth.

After having got her guns warm the Bismarck set course and blew up the Hood, without the Hood even realizing what had hit her. The remaining British ships panicked fled with full speed and a smoke curtain trailing behind, (historic reports confirm this) and the Bismarck then went on to Plan XB “ultra secret – just recently discovered” to lure the British home fleet into a massive U-Boot trap. (Dozens of U-Boots were awaiting the Home fleet). Otherwise why should a single German battleship have carried on?

The Bismarck was attacked by swordfish a/c and pretended to be hit (historic reports confirm this) in order to change the direction towards the U-Boots.

Upon noticing that Rodney and Co. had lost contact to her, Bismarck kept circling and radio transmitting for 45 minutes (historic reports confirm this) until finally the British fleet caught up with her again. Due to the constant circling the rudder was jammed and the crew tried to fix it.

It is a shame but to stick to the “ultra secret” report the U-Boots suddenly realized that they were at the wrong coordinates (about 70 miles to the east) IIRC. A German navy officer (Jewish descendents) had deliberately misinformed the U-Boots. The still circling Bismarck, repairs almost finished (Historic reports confirm this) was then fired upon by the British.

Due to the strict order not to radio the U-boots, both Bismarck and the U-Boots were not aware about this mishap. 

Bismarck wasn’t hit at all but upon recognizing the betrayal decided to sink herself in order not to fall into British hands. Prefixed explosive charges were detonated to simulate British hits (In order to give the crew enough time to sink her) which incidentally accounted for German losses who indeed believed to have been hit by the enemy. (Historic reports confirm this) Upon sinking some British torpedoes by pure chance hit the Bismarck which accounts for the damage viewed later by underwater cameras, which also proved 100% that not a single penetrating hit was landed on the Bismarck. (Proves again that she wasn’t hit)

Regards
Kruska


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## parsifal (Jun 13, 2008)

Very good kruska, and timely. I actually think the bismarck was a submarine and that she just dived after being engaged


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## delcyros (Jun 13, 2008)

> unfortunately, i do know my history and tactics very well, and what you are engaging in, perhaps without realizing it, is classic revisionism. You take a bucket of white paint, and add a teaspoon of black paint, you still have white paint. Add a hundred teaspoons of black paint, and all of a sudden you have at least dark grey paint. This is what you are engaging in. You want history to read a certain way, so you add a bit of detailed knowledge here and there, and all of a sudden you can show that the historical truth isnt trrue anymore...its wonderful isnt it!!!
> (...)
> Nor do i believe you are all that interested in reaching the true truth. I believe you are a very sophisticated revisionist, but a revisionist just the same



Parcifal, you obviously are one of very few persons who either are not sensible to the holocaust or don´t understand what the theory of revisionism actually is. When I said that I TAKE YOUR ACCUSATION AS A PERSONAL ATTACK, I SAID THIS FOR A REASON. 
In within Germany, this is will be considered _as a crime_ and I take this seriously, no joke. There are a number of cases put to courtyard for such offenses Be careful, this was my last warning.



> I believe i made clear references to the source (Barnett) at that time. the references to Tovey came later, and were not really relating to the number of hits at all
> (...)
> I cant find my direct references to Tovey.


At first, Barnett is no source, his work the charackter of a scholarely work. Neither was he an eyewitness nor did his work compiled and published source material
Second, check your post in #85. You are correct that this doesn´t refer to the number of rounds fired but it is a reply to the inaccuracy of Your account, which I pointed out. The linkage lies in the direct relation You established with the words: _"I am basing my account on the final report to the Admiralty by Tovey" _. -furtherly enhanced with _"You will have to start calling Tovey a liar , which i suspect will be easy for someone like yourself"
_. Appearently, You failed to understand what Tovey wrote in his dispatch. I hope You have read it now.



> but we should at least be able to agree that her fire after 0904 was erratic. I also dont think it any sort of stretch to say her fire after 0904 was weak. I believe it was weak and erratic, to the extent that she only fired off an additional 6 rounds from 0904 onwards, and that some of these were basically fired into the air. Maybe it was more, dont know, not as sure as I was awhile ago. But I do remain certain that Bismarck had been reduced to basic impotence by the 0904 timeslot, which is a very short space of time, and by your account after only two hits by heavy guns.


You never cease to surprise me! Bismarck was firing erratic, uncoordinated and with significantly reduced effectivity after 1904. But not two hit´s were responsible for this. The two aforementioned hits (it could be only one or even three, we don´t know for sure) just disabled B-turret and temporarely A as well. This was not the lone cause for her degraded ability after 1904. You failed to mention hits on the main and secondary firecontroll as well as on the CT, all of which contributed to the decreased performance. The disabling of the main rangefinder position were probably more critical in this regard than the disabling of the fore turrets.
The case remains the same, the armour protection given to the exposed vitals in the Bismarck design was of insufficiant thickness to deal with major calibre impacts from close to medium distance.


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## parsifal (Jun 13, 2008)

*Parcifal, you obviously are one of very few persons who either are not sensible to the holocaust or don´t understand what the theory of revisionism actually is. When I said that I TAKE YOUR ACCUSATION AS A PERSONAL ATTACK, I SAID THIS FOR A REASON. 
In within Germany, this is will be considered as a crime and I take this seriously, no joke. There are a number of cases put to courtyard for such offenses Be careful, this was my last warning*.

Is this a joke? At what point did i start to accuse you of Holocaust revisionism. For the record, Revisionism is defined as (from the free online dictionary) as:

1. _Advocacy of the revision of an accepted, usually long-standing view, theory, or doctrine, especially a revision of historical events and movements.
2. A recurrent tendency within the Communist movement to revise Marxist theory in such a way as to provide justification for a retreat from the revolutionary to the reformist position_.

I am accusing you of the former, just to be clear (I also have accused you of poor grasp of English, which you evidently dont object to. For the record, your grasp of English is better than my understanding of german). If that is a crime in Germany I will be very surprised. It is certainly not a crime in Australia.

Maybe you are suggesting that you are going to take the "law" into your own hands, and hunt me down and silence me by illegal means. Might be effective, but only would serve to confirm what you are now trying to deny.

Maybe you will have some special relationship with one or more of the Moderators, and wheel them in to silence me. Even this is still an abuse of justice, and just confirms your bias.

Maybe you will just report this to a Moderator, and rely on legitimate means of adjudication. Apart from me thinking you are a sook as well as a revisionist, the likely outcome will be that we will both be told to "cool it". I would be all for that, but this is hardly any sort of "win" for yourself. I still would believe that you have a revisionist agenda, and no doubt the issue would flare up again at some point further down the track.

So I am going to treat your threat as the joke that it is. 

We can get into some childish argument about who started what first, but here you are, still spewing forth abuse at me, and then expecting me to "back off". In effect, you are continuing to prosecute a "war of aggression” (albeit a war of words, thankfully) and expecting me to come out with my hands up. Get Lost!!! The way for you to win this "debate" is to review what I have said, look at the historical outcome and then apply your considerable technical skills to explain why that outcome was achieved. Do this, rather than try to manufacture some alternative outcome or reasoning that bears no relationship to the mainstream reasons for the event/outcome. If you started to do that, rather than to trying to silence your opposition, then perhaps we could both learn something. 

In my country, being labelled a revisionist has nothing to do with a persons politics, or the holocaust (necessarily) or anything else. I believe you are a revisionist to the extent that you want to re-write naval history, nothing more. To which you attempt to bully me into silence. Now that IS a crime, common to both countries I believe, its called assault

*At first, Barnett is no source, his work the charackter of a scholarely work. Neither was he an eyewitness nor did his work compiled and published source material*

So now you are saying that secondary sources are not to be consulted, and are not proper sources. I am the first to acknowledge that a primary source is better than a secondary source, but this is the first time I have ever heard anyone say (in this case without even having read that source) that a secondary source is "no source". I would say its revisionism hard at work again....

*Second, check your post in #85. You are correct that this doesn´t refer to the number of rounds fired but it is a reply to the inaccuracy of Your account, which I pointed out. The linkage lies in the direct relation You established with the words: "I am basing my account on the final report to the Admiralty by Tovey" . -furtherly enhanced with "You will have to start calling Tovey a liar , which i suspect will be easy for someone like yourself" Appearently, You failed to understand what Tovey wrote in his dispatch. I hope You have read it now.*_


My Post 85 never even mentioned the number of rounds fired. And though I was relying on Barnetts interpretation of Tovey on this occasion, I have read his dispatches thankyou. And I still believe you are attempting to hide the truth, and replace it with your own. 

*You never cease to surprise me! Bismarck was firing erratic, uncoordinated and with significantly reduced effectivity after 1904*. 

Actually, Bismarck was at the bottom of the ocean by 1904. If you are referring to 0904, Bismarck was firing erratically and at a low rate of fire after 0904. I believe she got off only 6 rounds between 0904 and 0931, but I concede that the precise number of hits may be wrong (as I had pointed out from the very start my own sources seemed to be conflicting themselves, to the extent that one source suggested only two rounds, the other six. This does little to alter the fact that her return of fire was low, erratic, and innaccurate). 

*But not two hit´s were responsible for this. The two aforementioned hits (it could be only one or even three, we don´t know for sure) just disabled B-turret and temporarely A as well*

Revisionism at work again!!! Are you suggesting that either one of these turrets recommenced effective fire after 0904.? And by your own account, the number of hits sustained before 0904 was about three from memory, which accords to barnetts account. However, of these three hits, two could not account for the sudden silencing of the forward turrets, with one hit being forward of the guns, and one in the midships area (according to barnett, whom you now say I cannot rely on…yeah right)

. *This was not the lone cause for her degraded ability after 1904. You failed to mention hits on the main and secondary firecontroll as well as on the CT, all of which contributed to the decreased performance*. 

The context of the discussion was whether the hits were main belt penetrations. Are you now trying to suggest that the Fire control positions, or the CT were behind the Main Belt???? The discussion was never meant to be a detailed blow by blow account of every hit on the ship. 

*The disabling of the main rangefinder position were probably more critical in this regard than the disabling of the fore turrets.*

I agree, but the fact remains that after 0904 the bismarck could not recover, for whatever reason, and that unfortunate chain of events seems to have started with just one or two hits. I have no doubts that if the pressure on the Bismarck had been stopped or reduced, the bismarck might have staged some sort of recovery. But this is revisionism at work again. The facts are that Bismarcks fall to oblivion started at 0904, with no real recovery and that hit(s) at 0904 were responsible for the lions share of damage that silenced the Bismarck. You yourself have hinted at that, but of course that does not any longer fit with the revised version of history that you are now so ardently pursuing. 

*The case remains the same, the armour protection given to the exposed vitals in the Bismarck design was of insufficiant thickness to deal with major calibre impacts from close to medium distance.*

Agreed, which is one of the reasons that I consider the bismarck to be a generally poor design. Reason, because in her second big fight there was a rapid failure of systems that led directly to her demise_


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## delcyros (Jun 14, 2008)

Revisionist history and the theory of revision in the tone You selected can be connected with doubting the holocaust. Peoples saying that others are revisionistic are typically claiming that they hide the truth which in ww2 contextes is always connected with a political bias towards nazism and doubting the holocaust in the final form. I am german and hence I am confronted with this assault. You expect I waqnt to silence You but what I INTENDED WAS THAT YOU LEAVE THE LEVEL OF PERSONAL ATTACKS. YOU ALREADY KNOW THAT I TAKE IT SERIOUSLY! You have been the person who left the level of argumentation in order to establish a level of personal attacks, including claiming that my positions are plain lies without discussing them. My warning is a sensible self reflection: I am not going to waste my energy here, my option will be to retire from this forum as a direct consequence of beeing confronted with Your repeated attacks. Congratulation. 



> So now you are saying that secondary sources are not to be consulted, and are not proper sources. I am the first to acknowledge that a primary source is better than a secondary source, but this is the first time I have ever heard anyone say (in this case without even having read that source) that a secondary source is "no source". I would say its revisionism hard at work again....


I understand the difference between primary and secondary sources is not defined in english the same way it is in german. I apologize, You couldn´t know it without having at least a BA in contemporary history.



> And I still believe you are attempting to hide the truth, and replace it with your own.



Firts of all, I am very sceptical about the term "truth", esspeccially towards historical truth. That´s because the theory discussion in history is very sensible to perspectives towards history and generally negates the existence of a truth, a term which always get´s abused as record show. Second of all, why do You think I am hiding something when Barnett´s interpretation of Toveys dispatch doesn´t match Toveys account in the first place? To hide something means to know it in the first place in order to select it intentionally not to come out. Third of all, I do not replace history. I add my perspective on the discussion. A sensible person understands the difference.



> I believe she got off only 6 rounds between 0904 and 0931, but I concede that the precise number of hits may be wrong (as I had pointed out from the very start my own sources seemed to be conflicting themselves, to the extent that one source suggested only two rounds, the other six.


An improved statement, which I am happy to see. 



> Revisionism at work again!!!Are you suggesting that either one of these turrets recommenced effective fire after 0904.? And by your own account, the number of hits sustained before 0904 was about three from memory, which accords to barnetts account.


I don´t suggest, I understand that one of these turrets recommenced fire after 09:04. This fire cannot be described as effective because the turret was by then under local controll. How this can be considered as revisionism in Your definition is interesting to know because this is known for long and is based on Müllenheim-Rechenbergs and Statz account. Primary sources which You have been ignorant towards.



> The context of the discussion was whether the hits were main belt penetrations. Are you now trying to suggest that the Fire control positions, or the CT were behind the Main Belt???? The discussion was never meant to be a detailed blow by blow account of every hit on the ship.


Without having a detailed understanding of the action, You are prone to draw uncorrelated conclusions. BTW, it was You who said that Bismarck was silenced with destructions on the upper works rather than "penetrations". This was inaccurate at best, as hits on the exposed vitals -while not behind belt armour- were still shielded by thick armour protection (generally thicker than the belt armour), requiring a sort of penetration. Short range penetrating hits on the exposed vitals are responsible for the loss of offensive abilities on Bismarck. 



> (according to barnett, whom you now say I cannot rely on…yeah right)


Never said that. Your interpretation, not mine. Rather contrary, it´s better to know what You know and I do not know Barnett. You pointed to the Barnett - Tovey relationship, which I recognize don´t match the (primary) sources. Whether ot not this is correct depends on the context in barnett and Your interpretation / selection of it.




> I agree, but the fact remains that after 0904 the bismarck could not recover, for whatever reason, and that unfortunate chain of events seems to have started with just one or two hits. I have no doubts that if the pressure on the Bismarck had been stopped or reduced, the bismarck might have staged some sort of recovery. But this is revisionism at work again. The facts are that Bismarcks fall to oblivion started at 0904, with no real recovery and that hit(s) at 0904 were responsible for the lions share of damage that silenced the Bismarck. You yourself have hinted at that, but of course that does not any longer fit with the revised version of history that you are now so ardently pursuing.


What kind of revised history did I ever produced here on this board? I know that the sequence of events leading to the final action doesn´t start or end with hits at 09:04. It starts with a critical 14" hit at Denmark street, depriving a good deal of her fuel reserves, continued with successful shadowing (to differing degrees) and was completed with a torpedo hit in the steering gear, immobilizing Bismarck effectively. The DD night attacks and the seastate prevented that the damage could be repaired (Bismarck couldn´t afford to stop for repairs) and what happened on the final fight is a good reflection for a demoralized and exhousted crew on Bismarck facing overwhelming odds. Of course, it also is testimony for how british forces were able to use their superior forces (n^2) to the greatest tactical effect, an issue which unjustifyedly gets little credit.




> which is one of the reasons that I consider the bismarck to be a generally poor design. Reason, because in her second big fight there was a rapid failure of systems that led directly to her demise


This interpretation and the consequences drawn from it are testimony for a poor methodology. In your words, this is revisionism at best! The relationship You established here is a loose one. Not the failure of systems were responsible for her demise but the condition she was put into before commencing the fight. You think -that is the consequence- that without these hits Bismarck would not suffer demise, which I and every author disagrees in. Bismarck was unable to steer, short on fuel, the crew exhousted and demoralized with Lütjens speech. There were other british forces in the area as well. No way that Bismarck could make port.
In the other extreme, had Bismarck been able to steer, she _theoretically_ could have made port with nothing between her an France than british air power (nevertheless a thread to consider). The relationship between mobility and her fate is therefore a strong one.
Beside of this You have ultimately shown to have a selective understanding of ship design and a questionable methodology to relate historic events with technical issues. Not even Yamato-scale protection of the exposed vitals would have helped Bismarck in this action when put into the same condition. But You failed to understand this.


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## parsifal (Jun 14, 2008)

*Revisionist history and the theory of revision in the tone You selected can be connected with doubting the holocaust. Peoples saying that others are revisionistic are typically claiming that they hide the truth which in ww2 contextes is always connected with a political bias towards nazism and doubting the holocaust in the final form. I am german and hence I am confronted with this assault. You expect I waqnt to silence You but what I INTENDED WAS THAT YOU LEAVE THE LEVEL OF PERSONAL ATTACKS. YOU ALREADY KNOW THAT I TAKE IT SERIOUSLY! You have been the person who left the level of argumentation in order to establish a level of personal attacks, including claiming that my positions are plain lies without discussing them. My warning is a sensible self reflection: I am not going to waste my energy here, my option will be to retire from this forum as a direct consequence of beeing confronted with Your repeated attacks. Congratulation. *

Del, You are putting too much into the definition of Revisionism. Revisionism has a much broader definition that thet which you are attaching to it. What you are describing is "Holocaust Revisionism". I never accused you of that. Neither did i suggest any political overtone. I am accusing you of revisionist Naval history. if you love naval history as much as i that will be bad enough, but there is no suggestion in any of my posts that you are some sort of crazed neo-nazi. 

You accuse me of starting all of this, i disagree, but neither do i want to get into some purile argument about who started what. Where we need to go right now is to be able to debate from differing points of view the various aspects of naval warfare. It should be possible to have opposing viewpoints, even diametrically opposed positions, and deliver those viewpoints without resorting to calling each other idiots, or biased. This does the neither any good, and really pushes the other members of this forum away from the thread.

So, I am prepreed to allow a resumption of the debate, with no strings attached, except one. Neither side resorts to any personal attacks. For me, that means you stop talking down at me like you are some sort of supreme being, and that you cease implying that i am an idiot. I will keep my opinions on what I consider to be bias, to myself. Where we reach a point of impasse, both of us are just going to have to live with that.

You can take that offer, or leave it, its up to you. 

*I understand the difference between primary and secondary sources is not defined in english the same way it is in german. I apologize, You couldn´t know it without having at least a BA in contemporary history*.

For the record Del, I have an Arts Degree (majoring) in Modern History, a Degree in Strategic Studies, a degree in in Environmental Studies, and a post graduate qualification in Environmental law. I have a commision in the RAN, and have published several simulations on WWII subjects. I think I can say I understand the difference between primary and secondary sources

*Firts of all, I am very sceptical about the term "truth", esspeccially towards historical truth. That´s because the theory discussion in history is very sensible to perspectives towards history and generally negates the existence of a truth, a term which always get´s abused as record show. Second of all, why do You think I am hiding something when Barnett´s interpretation of Toveys dispatch doesn´t match Toveys account in the first place? To hide something means to know it in the first place in order to select it intentionally not to come out. Third of all, I do not replace history. I add my perspective on the discussion. A sensible person understands the difference.


An improved statement, which I am happy to see*. 

Before you can answer this, you need to step back and say to yourself "what is the broad outcome of a particular event?" Then you can use the detailed knowledge that is obviously at your disposal to either reinforce that broad historical truth, or to find out whay it isnt true. But to apply the minutae of the detail to a broad historical fact, to the point that you can give that historical fact a contrary meaning, is to apply a revisionist approach to that circumstance. You are basically applying the detail in an apparently legitimate way, to arrive at an illegitimate conclusion. This is a common failing in forums of this nature. The cautionary note I want to make is that one must always be careful to keep the fundamental truth of a situation firmly in sight, otherwise the detail can lead one off the correct path. The analogy is, dont lose sight of the forest by examoining too closely the trees. 



*I don´t suggest, I understand that one of these turrets recommenced fire after 09:04. This fire cannot be described as effective because the turret was by then under local controll. How this can be considered as revisionism in Your definition is interesting to know because this is known for long and is based on Müllenheim-Rechenbergs and Statz account. Primary sources which You have been ignorant towards.*


At this ppoint you are not excercising a revisionist approach. But it appeared at the time of the heated discussion that you were suggesting that Bismarck was fighting efficiently rigtht up until 0931. That is no more true than my statement that she did not fight at all. For the record, I believe that Bismarck started to lose efficiency from 0904, to the point that she fell silent by 0931. What haoppened between these two points should be a matter of civilzed debate, no more. Views can be strongly held, but there is no need to start the name calling over this 30 minute period in history


*Without having a detailed understanding of the action, You are prone to draw uncorrelated conclusions. BTW, it was You who said that Bismarck was silenced with destructions on the upper works rather than "penetrations". This was inaccurate at best, as hits on the exposed vitals -while not behind belt armour- were still shielded by thick armour protection (generally thicker than the belt armour), requiring a sort of penetration. Short range penetrating hits on the exposed vitals are responsible for the loss of offensive abilities on Bismarck*. 

Suffice it to say that I dont agree with several parts of this. At the time of the critical hits at or about 0904, the reange was still over 10000 yds (at least. The range was not reduced to ppoint blank until after bismarck had ceased return fire. The british may or may not have penetrated the Main Belt ( but were certainly unable to inflict eneough damage on her to reduce her to sinking condition, desp[ite expending nearly all their ammunition 
However, the weakness of the bismarcks design was that despite not being able to be sunk (effectively), her guns were more or less silenced with relative ease. Something is wrong somewhere. 

*Never said that. Your interpretation, not mine. Rather contrary, it´s better to know what You know and I do not know Barnett. You pointed to the Barnett - Tovey relationship, which I recognize don´t match the (primary) sources. Whether ot not this is correct depends on the context in barnett and Your interpretation / selection of it*.

Barnetts references to tovey relate mainly to his signals to Somerville at 1020 and 1024, which confirm he could not sink her. also the positioning and damage to Bismarck at various points is dealt with in some detail. 

*What kind of revised history did I ever produced here on this board? I know that the sequence of events leading to the final action doesn´t start or end with hits at 09:04. It starts with a critical 14" hit at Denmark street, depriving a good deal of her fuel reserves, continued with successful shadowing (to differing degrees) and was completed with a torpedo hit in the steering gear, immobilizing Bismarck effectively. The DD night attacks and the seastate prevented that the damage could be repaired (Bismarck couldn´t afford to stop for repairs) and what happened on the final fight is a good reflection for a demoralized and exhousted crew on Bismarck facing overwhelming odds. Of course, it also is testimony for how british forces were able to use their superior forces (n^2) to the greatest tactical effect, an issue which unjustifyedly gets little credit.*

I cannot disagree with the above summation. This is not what your previous threads were suggesting to me however. 



In your last para, you seem to be saying the loss of bismarck was a combination of factors. Would not disagre with that. You also seem to be saying that she had limits regarding standard of protection. Couldnt disagree with that either. Dont knowabout the technical issues argument, never presented myself as a technical expert, must rely on that which i have read.


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## renrich (Jun 14, 2008)

Nice discussion, keep up the good work. I still, given all the circumstances, believe that Harwood made good decisions. I believe that Langsdorf originally took the British CLs as DDs.


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## parsifal (Jun 14, 2008)

Hi Richard

Its gotten a bit rough Richard, but I am hopeful it can return to some sort of normality soon


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## Kruska (Jun 14, 2008)

Hello parsifal,

Actually I did follow up on this thread, but somehow I am loosing it. What is it about in the meantime?
No party has forwarded that the Bismarck was unsinkable. Maybe I am mistaken, but I did have the impression that you were trying to prove your statement about the Bismarck being a ship without possessing the profound technology and capability as it was forwarded by others.

IMO no ship whatsoever could have survived the onslaught as in the final stages of the Bismarck pursuit – as such I would not see any relevance or prove in the sinking of the Bismarck as a indication towards not being a sound design or as capable as a Rodney. 

Regards
Kruska


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## parsifal (Jun 14, 2008)

Hi Kruska

The whole issue concerning the Bismarck if you want to go right back to the beginng was a comparison as to what happened to her, and the destructive power of CPBC ammunition.

My point was basically this with respect to the original issue

CPBC ammunition (a round used by the British with non-optimal AP capabilities) was still quite lethal because of the damage it does to the upper works of its opponents. I then said that damage to upper works was the usual way that enemy ships were overcome, rather than reducing them to sinking condition by gunfire alone, and pointe to what I believe are the facts concerning the Bismarck, namely that she was destroyed mostly by damage to her upper works.

This then led to a very bruising argument with Del, who points out that armour penetrations of some sort occurred on the Bismarck in order to destroy her. Which I agree with, but the penetrations of the main belt did not occur until the very end after it didnt matter, and if at all.

The argument then diverged as to how quickly the Bismarcks gunnery was overcome. My position was that her guns were silenced quite quickly, and that this appeared to me to be due to design faults in her design. This position caused a pretty strong reaction because it challenges the long held mythology that surrounds this ship. She was very tough, but not invincible.

Having said that the british were unable on the day to reduce the Bismarck to sinking condition by gunfire alone. Bismarck was either scuttled, or she was sunk by torpedoes. We never got into this part of the debate thankfully.

It was a bruising debate that got completely out of hand,


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## Kruska (Jun 15, 2008)

Okay, thanks I am back on track again  

I am not very knowledgeable about naval issues. The interesting part to me is, that the Germans learned their lesson – no ship could survive without the necessary air cover. IMO despite the Bismarck incident the British did not seem to have studied it thoroughly. The loss of the HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales in Malaya was actually due to the British Admiralty staging their own Bismarck debacle.

Regards
Kruska


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jun 15, 2008)

Well I have been out for a little while, so I can not keep track of all that has been said here.

Lets just keep this to a civil debate okay...


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## parsifal (Jun 15, 2008)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> Well I have been out for a little while, so I can not keep track of all that has been said here.
> 
> Lets just keep this to a civil debate okay...



The debate has gotten a little rough, but it may be under control now. Certainly not on the scale of ferocity that I have seen in some of the threads. I am hopeful we may be able to reach some level of understanding and then move forward, soon


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## delcyros (Jun 16, 2008)

parsifal said:


> The whole issue concerning the Bismarck if you want to go right back to the beginng was a comparison as to what happened to her, and the destructive power of CPBC ammunition.



Let me expain why CPBC-ammo (CommonPiercingBallisticCapped) had a number of shortages: The most important beeing the soft AP-cap attached to them. Soft AP-caps usually are there in order to destroy the hard, thin, cementated layer of the face hardened armour before this ultra hard part begins to work against the projectile itselfe, shattering nose and possibly body. Shatter does have two effects:
1) Shatter destroys the nose of the projectile, leaving a blunt shaped frontal projectile area. After shattering, the projectile has a much harder way to engage the armour because the pointed nose is destroyed. The armour now can only be engaged by punching, not by boring. And since the work of punching is more difficult to perform, a shatter will always result in an ca. 30% increase in effective thickness of the armour in terms of stopping power.
2) Shatter, in case it reaches the lower body of the projectile will render the fuse useless. The number of duds and prematures (burst in holing) is drastically increased. Esspeccially if only thin projectile walls are used (high capacity rounds and to differing degrees CPBC)

Unfortunately, soft capped projectiles have capricious abilities in this regard. They usually work at obliquities under 15 degrees and generally don´t work at obliquities over 20 degrees. In the area in between results are inconclusive.

The more modern type of face hardened armour in general use by ww2 (introduced at first by the austrian manufacturer Witkowitz in 1909, by british face hardened armour from 1911 onwards) was able to shatter soft capped projectiles (except Midwale unbreakable soft capped APC, which only US Betlehem thick chilled and austrian Witkowitz fh armour was able to destroy by then before in the 30´s virtually all armour could do the same) as if there was no cap attached to them. 

In within ww1 this issue was already known and lead to hard capped APC´s after Jutland (GREENBOY APC projectiles). Why the british still kept soft capped CPBC ammo in use by ww2, when all enemys had armour effectively able to handle soft capped projectiles equal to uncapped ones is hard to understand.. Why they knowingly never issued hard AP-caps to their CPBC ammo? Hard caps -unlike soft ones- always work in destroying the cementated face of face hardened armour.



> CPBC ammunition (a round used by the British with non-optimal AP capabilities) was still quite lethal because of the damage it does to the upper works of its opponents. I then said that damage to upper works was the usual way that enemy ships were overcome, rather than reducing them to sinking condition by gunfire alone, and pointe to what I believe are the facts concerning the Bismarck, namely that she was destroyed mostly by damage to her upper works.




Indeed Bismarck was mostly silenced by hits on the upper works (exposed vitals in my definition). However, these hits were not CPBC but APC and SAP and thus could be expected to achieve this kind of damage. CPBC is at a distinctive disadvantage achieving this kind of damage when the exposed vitals are shielded by face hardened armour, which usually was the case for most -admittently not all- of their opposition (PBB´s, Hippers, K´s, Leipzig Nürnberg, Zaras, others).


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## parsifal (Jun 16, 2008)

Hi Del

I agree that the CPBC ammunition was a disadvantage to the british, for the reasons you have outlined. I confess your explanation is a very good one.

Nevertheless, the armour piercing capabilities of CPBC ammunition is okay, within its limits.

I was snooping around The Nathan Okun Naval Gun/Armor Data Resource webpage, and came across a ready reckoner for armour piercing capabilities. This is essentially a tabular presentation of the programmable calculations that Okun presents. I am fairly sure that you would be familiar with them, but wasnt sure....

I wanted to see just how bad the CPBC ammo was in comparison to the 5.91' AP rounds you were talking about. I was particulalry interested in the relative performances at the 10-12-14000 yds ranges

This is what i found

A= Brit 6"/50 cal CPBC
B= 5.9/55 
C = 5.9/60

Range Side Penetration (Br PP Armour)/(Deck Penetration (Brit steel))

10000: 
A 4.0/ (0.58 )
B: 3.8/ (0.52)
C: 4.6/(0.52)

12000
A 3.5/ (0.70)
B: 3.0/ (0.63)
C: 3.8/(0.63)

14000
A 3.0/ (0.82)
B: 2.5/ (0.73
C: 3.2/(0.73)

Ther is no doubt just from this rather simple extract, that the british gun is at a disadvantage as far as AP capabilities are concerned. however, i dont thhink it is all doom and gloom either. Firstly, the AP advantage for the 5.9/60 is falling more rapidly as the range increases. I am not sure why this might be so (perhaps you could explain?). The difference at 10000 is 0.6", whereas by the time it gets to 14000, the difference is just 0.2". 

From your discussion, I get the understanding that the AP capabilities of the british round were not good at oblique angles, because there was a tendency for the British round to "bounce off". I am not able to either agree or disagree with that, because I just dont know. But what is apparent from the above analysis from Okun, is that the british round did enjoy superior deck penetrating capability (provided it could actually penetrate, and not "bounce off").

The British round was a projectile with a weight of 112 lbs. Being CPBC, I am almost certain that it carried a greater proportion of explosive than metal, hence its lesser AP qualities (exacerbated by the ballistic shape of the round, i will concede). By comparison, the 5.9"/60 had a 100.3 lb projectile, which, as an AP round, was less explosive than the CPBC round of the british CLs. The British advantage in explosive capability was poor substitute for its relatively poor AP performance, but when you consider that the difference was small, particularly at the "typical"ranges of 14000 yds+ that most cruiser actions occurred, then the German advantage starts to dwindle. its still there, but I think it is a relatively small advantage.

Finally, the british gun designers never aimed for extreme performance. They always kept a weather eye on barrel life, and this was achieved mostly by not overstressing the barrels with super high muzzle velocities. Whereas the british guns had a barrel life of 1100 EFC (equivalent full charges) the German gun was less than half that, at 500 EFC.

Finally ther is the mandatory historical check of all this. We will need to look much more deeply at the history I am sure, but British 6" CPBC armed CLs seem to have done quite well for themselves. One of the best examples I can think of is the serious damage inflicted by them at barents Sea, on a ship that should have been immune to their fire (Hipper) . here the british cruisers, with their 6" CPBC were still able to inflict serious damage on the hipper


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## delcyros (Jun 17, 2008)

parsifal said:


> Nevertheless, the armour piercing capabilities of CPBC ammunition is okay, within its limits.
> 
> I was snooping around The Nathan Okun Naval Gun/Armor Data Resource webpage, and came across a ready reckoner for armour piercing capabilities. This is essentially a tabular presentation of the programmable calculations that Okun presents. I am fairly sure that you would be familiar with them, but wasnt sure....
> 
> I wanted to see just how bad the CPBC ammo was in comparison to the 5.91' AP rounds you were talking about. I was particulalry interested in the relative performances at the 10-12-14000 yds ranges



Hi Parsifal,

the ww2guntables are indeed based on Nathan Okuns M79APCLC (for deck armour) and facehad (for face hardened armour). It also used wiggle matched McTraj ballistic estimations of the projectiles in question. In my view this is a reasonable approach altough there are multiple, unfixed issues worth to keep in mind:

1) Lundgren didn´t actualized on the more recent versions of Nathans facehd, his use of an older facehd version is therefore problematic

2) M79APCLC does not sim CPBC. Nathan Okun is pretty clear on this. The program (used for deck penetrations) is based on the US 3" M79 AP-shot ammo (without cap and with inert filler, a thick bodied armour piercer) and it´s respective performances against ductile, homogenious armour. It is reasonably accurate for all other, decapped AP-rounds (error is negliable) but if You use it for CPBC (or HE for that matter) it will always sim as if they were true AP´s (but decapped) with resulting greater penetrative ability. Unlike Nathans Facehd, where You may choose between projectiles, You can only enter weight, size, striking velocity and obliquity of the projectile into M79APCLC...

Another problem encountered in our specific comparison, just from a first impression are the inconsistent ballistic performances (plotted #1 vs #2 with curvefinder). A comparison with NaAB gives these ballistic performances: 

------6"/50BL MK 13-------------15cmL60C28-------
range----velocity----fallangle---velocity----fallangle
2500y----2347fps----1.79------2636fps----0.54----
5000y----1976fps----2.51------2195fps----2.16----
6000y----1839fps----3.47------2022fps----3.43----
7500y----1649fps----5.31------1798fps----4.29----
10000----1384fps----9.32------1466fps----8.28---
15000----1099fps----22.51-----1097fps----20.34--
16000----1077fps----25.31-----1069fps----23.45--
17500----1061fps----30.86-----1046fps----28.3---
20000----1062fps----38.23-----1040fps----36.51--
25000----1132fps----55.9------1094fps----52.38--
26000----out of range----------1110fps-----55.45-
28000----out of range----------1159fps-----63.5--
30000----out of range----------out of range-------

Two things are notable:

A) NaAB and ww2 guntables are both based on exterior ballistic computation, not on primary sources. As a result, both approaches show differing results, reflecting the different programs in use. 

B) The 112lbs 6" round starts with less muzzle velocity but is able to keep the energy much better than the lighter 5.91"/60. The 5.91"/60 uses 8.5 crh windscreens but the bottomline is that the higher sectional density -an advantage inherent for the 6" round- greatly enhances it´s energy retention. There is a trade effect for this: Higher angles of fall. Higher angles of fall are welcome against deck armour but here again M79APCLC clearly overstates CPBC performances in this regard so we have to be very careful with the deck penetration figures suggested by ww2 guntables and NAaB (the latter program does share the same methodological approach, using Nathan Okuns M79APCLC for all deck related computaions).



> From your discussion, I get the understanding that the AP capabilities of the british round were not good at oblique angles, because there was a tendency for the British round to "bounce off".


That is an interesting side aspect worth to be mentioned. The Royal Navy had by ww2 the best sloution for a virtually indestructable delay fuse. The specifications called for a fuse able to work even if the projectile bounces off (every condition other than base first, which would be asking perhaps to much), beeing rejected by armour, incredible.
But what I wanted to mention with the soft AP-caps is that by ww2 standarts and in case the projectile engages face hardened armour (rare on cruiser belts but quite often used for CT, barbettes and turret faces), soft capped projectiles don´t work anymore, regardless of obliquity. Against KC-type armour of pre ww1 standart, they work, given a low obliquity. Against 1930 period face hardened armour, soft caps will always be shattered before they can accomplish destroying the facelayer of the plate. A shattered projectile will still be able to hole the armour and considerable parts of the projectile up to the forward burrolet may pass the plate but the effect of the burst is always outside or mostly so, unlike a true APC, which may achieve full penetration in a condition fit to burst (effective penetration in Nathans definition).
However, they do always work againt homogenious armour (all deck armour and most cruiser belt armour other than US cruisers and PBB´s) in cases for obliquities lower than 20 deg and they also help improving the "normalization" of the projectile.




> Finally, the british gun designers never aimed for extreme performance. They always kept a weather eye on barrel life, and this was achieved mostly by not overstressing the barrels with super high muzzle velocities. Whereas the british guns had a barrel life of 1100 EFC (equivalent full charges) the German gun was less than half that, at 500 EFC.


Worth to consider. Agreed.

The Barent Sea is an example of 6"CPBC inflicting serious damage to Hipper. But 6" CPBC didn´t engaged armour in this event. Hipper was on flank speed and the depression of the self induced wave exposed the amidship region. During it´s turn she heeled over and these two events made it possible that a 6" CPBC could strike below the main belt. The projectile entered the hull and exploded in a liquid outboard wingtank. Splinters defeated the 20mm torpedo bulkhead and serious flooding to one boiler room commenced. Another boiler room was flooded progressively via drainage and bilges later as a consequence of this hit. The other 6" rounds hit the hangar and the foreship, starting a fire each.

best regards,


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## parsifal (Jun 17, 2008)

*The Barent Sea is an example of 6"CPBC inflicting serious damage to Hipper. But 6" CPBC didn´t engaged armour in this event. Hipper was on flank speed and the depression of the self induced wave exposed the amidship region. During it´s turn she heeled over and these two events made it possible that a 6" CPBC could strike below the main belt. The projectile entered the hull and exploded in a liquid outboard wingtank. Splinters defeated the 20mm torpedo bulkhead and serious flooding to one boiler room commenced. Another boiler room was flooded progressively via drainage and bilges later as a consequence of this hit. The other 6" rounds hit the hangar and the foreship, starting a fire each.*


An extremely unusual way of getting around the main belt dont you agree . I diddnt know this, so thankyou for that informatiuon


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## delcyros (Jun 20, 2008)

Would have been interesting to see how this scenario would evolve with HIPPER beeing mauled by SHEFFIELD and JAMAICA. I regard those british CL´s highly in every respect.

Does Your offer with revisiting the ranges still stands? I have checked some sources for relevant material and found something very useful for this context.

best regards,


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## parsifal (Jun 20, 2008)

yes of course. Hopefully we can come up with a reasonably accurate set of figures for cruiser ranges 


My source for this list is MJ Whitley "Cruisers of WWII - An International Encyclopedia", Brookhampton press, 1995

The figures are listed, range (ie there and back) in nm and most economic cruising speed. At this stage I did not want to get into the specifics of the differing methods of undertaking range trials, but Whitney implies in the text that his figures for different nationalities are comparable
Argentina
De Mayo (Argentina): 8030/14
La Argentina: 10000/12
Australia
County Class: 9500/12
Sydney Class: 7180/12
Brazil
Bahia Class: 6600/10
Chile
Blanco Class 3550/9.5
General OHiggins 4580/8
Chacabuco 7200/12
France
Duguay Trouin Class 3000/15
Duquesne Class: 4500/15
Suffren Class: 4500/15
Jeanne De Arc 5200/11
Algerie Class: 8700/15
Emile Berin : 3600/15
La Galissonniere Class: 7000/12
Germany
Emden: 5300/18
Konigsberg; 3100/13
Leipzig: 3800/15
Nurnberg: 2400/13
Hipper/Blucher (?): 6500/17
Eugen: 5050/15
M Class: 8000/19 (design)
SpahKreuzer: 7000/19 (design)
Gt Britain
Caledon Class: 5900/10
Ceres Class: 5900/10, 3250/12 (AA Conversions)
Carlisle Class: 5900/10
D Class 6700/10
Hawkins Class: 5400/14
E Class: 8000/15
Kent Class: 9350/12
London Class: 9120/12
Norfolk Class: 12500/12
York Class: 10000/14
Leander Class: 5730/13
Arethusa Class: 5300/13
Southampton Class: 7700/13 (1st gp), 7850/13 (Manchester), 
7320/13 (Gloucester)
Edinburgh Class: 8000/14
Dido Class: 4850/11
Mod Dido Class: 7400/12
Fiji/Uganda/Minotaur: 6520/13


Italy
Barbiano: 3800/18
Cadorna: 2930/16
Montecuccolli Class: 4122/18 4411/18 (attendolo)
Aosta Class 3900/14
Abruzzi Class: 4125/121.7
Romani Class: 3000/25
Trento Class: 4160/16
Zara Class: 5434/16
Bolzano Class: 4432/16
Bari: 4500/10
Taranto Class 5000/12 

will continue kisting in next posts


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## parsifal (Jun 20, 2008)

Cruiser ranges part II

Japan

Tenryu Class: 6000/10
Kuma Class: 9000/10
Nagara Class: 9000/10
Sendai Class: 7800/10
Yubari Class: 5500/10
Kako Class: 6000/14
Aoba Class: 6000/14
Myoku Class: 8000/14
Takao Class: 8000/14
Mogami Class: 8150/14
Tone Class: 9000/18
Agano Class: 6300/18
Oyodo: 10600/18
Ibuki: 8150/18

Netherlands
Java Class: 3600/12
De Ruyter : 6800/12
Tromp: 6000/12

Peru
Bolognesi: 3700/10

USSR
Komintern Class: 2000/10
Kavkaz: 3500/15
Chervona: 3700/14
Krim: 3350/14
Kirov Class: 3750/18
Chapayev Class: 7000/20

Spain
Navarra 4500/15
Nunez: 5000/13
Galicia Class: 5000/15
Canarias: 8700/15

Sweden
Fylgia: 5770/10
Gotland: 4000/12

United States
Omaha Class: 8460/10
Pensacola Class 10000/15
Northampton Class: 10000/15
Portland Class: 10000/15
New orleans: 10000/15
Brooklyn Class: 10000/15
Wichita: 10000/15
Atlanta Class: 8500/15
Cleveland Class: 11000/15
Baltimore Class: 10000/15
Des moines Class: 10500/15
Alaska Class: 12000/15
Worcester Class: 8000/15


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## Airfix (Jun 23, 2008)

Hmmm...
In my opinion discussions as this miss a lot of important points.
Weather, crew training, surprise, mission goals, ammunition quality and so on.
What will a straight duel be?
Are the ships allowed to move?
What is the best CA/CL in a straight duel is an intellectual exercise and a fruitless one.
A thread like this is an amusing read but nothing more. 
Otherwise you could calculate the next Super Bowl winner or the outcome of the next car race.

P.S.
Every time i read "Nathan Okun" and "armour penetration calculator" i roll my eyes.
Sorry.


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## parsifal (Jun 23, 2008)

*Hmmm...
In my opinion discussions as this miss a lot of important points.
Weather, crew training, surprise, mission goals, ammunition quality and so on.*
They can do, and ours is no exception, however, the aim is to pool knowledge and reach a collective opinion that is superior to each individual part. 

*What will a straight duel be?
Are the ships allowed to move?
What is the best CA/CL in a straight duel is an intellectual exercise and a fruitless one.*

Agreed, it is an intellectual excercise, but there are quite a few that have a deep interest in the capabilities of ships. Incidentally, this sort of exercise, but to a much more technical degree is routinely undertaken by design bureas across the world. 

*A thread like this is an amusing read but nothing more. 
Otherwise you could calculate the next Super Bowl winner or the outcome of the next car race.*


I am sure there are forums that do try to predict the next superbowl winner, or the next F1 winner. We look at ships, and try to work out which one, overall, is the better


*P.S.

Every time i read "Nathan Okun" and "armour penetration calculator" i roll my eyes.*
Why do think the armour penetration calculator is no good. From all that i have seen, Nathan Okun is considered one of the foremost naval gunnery/armour experts that there is on the planet. 

PPS

You need to back up your comments if you want to make statements like that


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## Airfix (Jun 23, 2008)

@parsifal
I´m checking with my information.
I have two aquaintances, former workmates. One works with the marine department of his company for the german navy and the other "designs" tanks and armoured vehicles. Maybe they can enlight me about the art of calculating armour penetration. With sources of course.
Maybe i`m wrong and i will apologize.

Yes, you are right i was a little bit harsh in my post.
Sorry for that.


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## Big Rock (Jul 5, 2008)

Hey folks, new poster and avid WW2 naval fan here. Hope I'm not rocking the boat but I woudl suggest Japan had by far the best curisers as of late 1941. They would retain "curiser superiority" briefly until the US started releasing the Baltimores, Brooklyns and Clevelands. Just my opinion, of course. Cheers.


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