# German Battleships and convoy hunting.



## carpenoctem1689 (Dec 15, 2005)

It is my belief that if the germans had waited sending the bismarck and prince eugen out, and waited for tirpitz to be complete, they could have sent those three along with all other battle cruisers available (scharnhorst, Admiral scheer, lutzow, Gneasau and some others) and sent them out to break into the atlantic with escorting cruisers and destroyers and convoy hunt like mad. They could direct U-boats, work to fire on convoys from a distance with the battle ships and cruisers using scout sea-planes from the bigger ships, and use the destroyers and lighter cruisers to move in, in conjunction with U-boats to decimate a convoy. If escort ships showed, lead them to half the battleships, having the other half move fifty miles paralell, thereby leading the pursuers into a crossfire, with the bismarck and tirpitz split between the two groups, so as to rain big shells from a distance and move in the smaller vessels to launch torpedoe attacks and use theyre smaller guns ( 11inch on the battle cruisers and under, down to the 5inch on the destroyers). 
Now i know everyone says "what about carrier escorts" and thats a valid thing, because by then they were there, but my answer would be to have U-boat screens and air patorls, doing theyre best to avoid the carriers. The german surface fleet was pitifully equipped for anti-aircraft defense, as was displayed when swordfish from british carriers launched torpedoe attacks without loss. Beef up the AA with a few 20mm and 3.7mm flak, and you could have your answer to some better AA defense. 

My other thought would have been to persuade the italians in around 1941/42 to use theyre battleships and heavy cruisers for a break out, in conjucntion with the breakout of the german surface vessels (available battleships, battlecruisers and heavy cruisers, few light cruisers and destoroyers and the u-boats already out there) for one hell of atlantic convoy blocker. Granted the italian navy was not the best, but they had some damn good battleships, with good guns, speed and torpedoe protection, and could have been very valuable in convoy hunting, and in conjucntion with german vessels, been able to defend itself against anything the royal navy would throw at it. 

I would have loved to see the results of either of these breakouts, and the ensuing slaughter of ships, just to see how well they could have been used. Please feel free to post what you think about my thoughts, or what you would do.


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## plan_D (Dec 16, 2005)

The Kriegsmarine didn't have the numbers to perform such a task, nor did it have the technology. The U-Boats were the best option for the Kriegsmarine, their surface vessels were open to the Royal Navy and it's massive size. 

If the Kriegsmarine had gone out in full force, the Royal Navy would be looking to drag it into a descisive battle. With what you're saying, the Royal Navy would succeed in doing so and when it did the entire Kriegsmarine surface fleet would have gone to the bottom. The only reason the Royal Navy were struggling during World War II during some periods of the war was because the three Axis naval forces had stretched her out. The Kriegsmarine probably best so by using the U-Boats all over the place. 

Surface raiders are much easier to defend against and destroy than the U-Boats. And a U-Boat screen for the surface raiders would have left them open to any hunting DDs of a Royal Navy fleet that would be hunting them. This wouldn't be raider vs. escort, this would be Royal Navy battle fleets hunting the raiders.


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## hartmann (Dec 16, 2005)

The Regia Marina couldn´t have passed trough the Gibraltar Strait because they would have been facing the Mediterranean Fleet, so this point is not possible if Gibraltar doesn´t fall. In the other part, basically the stated by Plan_D is accurate (I disagree with the lack of technology, the Germans had ships betwen the best in world), but they would have some problems if faced all the Kriegsmarine with the Home fleet in 1941, because the number of two "Bismarcks" is equivallent to 5 old Bttleships, or 3 "KGV" (I exclude of this the "Rodney" couple, which had a lot of punch, but too slow, in this point I don´t know how they compare).
Best regards


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Dec 16, 2005)

Also if they had kept the Bismark in port waiting on the Tirpitz, they just would have been bombed and sunk there at there moors....


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## Glider (Dec 16, 2005)

I admit that I have always wondered why the Germans never took Gibralter. I am sure that with a bit of effort Hitler could have leant on Spain, after all they owed him more than one or two favours. Then the Germans automatically have control of the Med and the oilfields for next to no cost.
Take it a stage further and you have the German fleet and the Italian fleet combining and suddenly the RN has a job on its hands.

It wouldn't have been as easy as that but when you balance the possible benefits compared to the likely cost, I would have given it a go. Its a damn sight less risky than taking on Russia.


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## plan_D (Dec 17, 2005)

I should have been more specific, by refering to the lack of German naval techology I was solely refering to their lack of aircraft carriers and nothing else. The BB was no longer the Queen of the Sea but the Kriegsmarine hadn't yet seen that. 

Spain would have taken more than a bit of leaning. Franco had declared himself seperate in every way of the Axis. He did not want to be part of an alliance with such "unpredictable members" such as Mussolini. It was Italy's attempts on Greece that caused this sudden change of thought by Franco. Yet, Spain was still indebted to Germany and Italy for their aid in the Spanish Civil War - but that would not have been enough for Germany to persuade Spain. After all, the cost for the Germans crossing the border into Spain would have been very high. It would have opened another front on the continent and another enemy against his nation.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Dec 18, 2005)

Germany also did not have the timet o develop there Navy like the British did. True they did not see the value of the Aircraft Carrier until too late however the treaties after WW1 left them not much time to develop what they had and build what they needed.


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## Erich (Dec 18, 2005)

personally and although the S-boot cost a bundle to produce the Waffen should of been built in three times the numbers and then let them go to attack ports of interest. Too few a number. The Battleship/convoy killers again built in too few a number and wasted away with the wrong tactics, also with Hitler in charge whom knew about Zilch of naval tactics and doctrine


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## syscom3 (Dec 18, 2005)

Remember that the building and operating of, a battleship consumes a lot of resources. Germany far better served by U-Boats and not capital ships.

Also remember that up unto Pearl Harbor and the sinking of the Repulse/Prince of Wales, saying the aircraft carrier was the "queen of the sea's" was not a universally held thought. The "gun club" in all of the combatants were alive and well and still a powerfull influence.


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## hartmann (Dec 18, 2005)

Quote: Remember that the building and operating of, a battleship consumes a lot of resources. Germany far better served by U-Boats and not capital ships. 

Yes, completely true. It was far more useful to Germany to build submarines and light surface units as the S-booten and torpedobooten, which were used for the war against trade. And the bombings over the docks started from 1942 would have precluded the build of big ships if Germany would have started them in 1943 to 1945 (a lot of German light ships were destroyed while lying in the slips, or shortly after being launched).
Best regards to all  .


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Dec 18, 2005)

Im with Erich and syscom on this. S-Boots (or E-Boots whichever you wish to call them) in large eneogh numbers could have done a lot of damage. They would have been too fast for the larger ships to target them and they could get the BB's and CV's with there torpedos. Also the U-Boots should have been exploited in larger numbers earlier.


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## hartmann (Dec 18, 2005)

Yes I agree with Erich and Syscom completely, so I don´t see problem. The Germans would have make more making more units of them. In the U boot numbers, It was not a priority build more of them until Raeder fell in the rage of Hitler (1942 more or less I think) and Dönitz was more free to see Hitler and tell him his need of more Ubooten.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Dec 18, 2005)

hartmann said:


> Yes I agree with Erich and Syscom completely, so I don´t see problem.



There was never a problem.


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## hartmann (Dec 18, 2005)

Quote: There was never a problem.
Really sorry abut this.  .


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Dec 18, 2005)

No need to be sorry....


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## plan_D (Dec 18, 2005)

You must remember that the Royal Navy wouldn't lie idle with these developments. While the best approach for Germany was more U-boats, and S-boats, the Royal Navy would be able to counter with an increase in DDs and MGBs. In my opinion, I think the Kriegsmarine had little chance of complete success over the Royal Navy. 

Remember that the vast majority of ships destroyed in World War II were actually merchant vessels rather than military ships. The Kriegsmarine suffered heavily at the hands of the Royal Navy - and it really isn't surprising given the scope and the size of the Royal Navy in the 30s and 40s. The Royal Navy actually surpassed the IJN in CV numbers during the 30s but they were all spread out across the oceans. Imagine the what would have happened had the Kriegsmarine faced the full force of the Royal Navy!


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Dec 18, 2005)

I think they should have developed these U-Boots and S-Boots before the war. Yes they were limited by a treaty however they did everything else secretly so why not.


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## plan_D (Dec 18, 2005)

Remember that Britain, Germany, U.S.A and Japan were all limited by the naval treaty on tonnage of their navy.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Dec 18, 2005)

Yes and that is why they needed to build S-Boots and U-Boots before the war started in large numbers.


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## syscom3 (Dec 18, 2005)

Sending out a convoy of a battleship and several escorts would require tens of thousands of fuel oil. Considering how short the Germans were of that commodity, I dont think they could have sent the fleet to sea for more than a few times before the Luftwaffe and Panzer forces would screech to a halt because of no fuel.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Dec 18, 2005)

And thats another argument for my U-Boots and E/S-Boots.


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## plan_D (Dec 18, 2005)

I think all arguments point towards a considerable U-boat fleet while reducing the surface vessels to a minimum. More importantly no capital ships as the Royal Navy made short work of any of those that sailed, even if each sinking is a massive story these days.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Dec 18, 2005)

Agreed


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## Hunter368 (Dec 18, 2005)

Could E-boats sail the high seas? In the rough Alantic sea? or were they resicted to costal waters more? Everything I have read on them (not a huge amount) they were always in coastal waters in the channel or on the coast of France.


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## plan_D (Dec 18, 2005)

E-boats couldn't sail in the Atlantic, but they did operate in the North Sea. Their main operation centers were the North Sea, English Channel and French coast. They were useful against convoys moving to the Soviet Union but weren't a massive threat to supply from the U.S going to the U.K - that threat came from the U-boats. 

The actual surface vessels of the Kriegsmarine, while famous did not actually cause too much trouble for the Royal Navy. Take, for example, the sinking of HMS Hood. It's a famous story and the hunt was certainly on for the Bismarck but that one 1919 Battlecruiser was hardly a massive blow to the strength of the Royal Navy.


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## Erich (Dec 18, 2005)

we should include the Baltic and the Black Sea as well as the Adriatic for the S-boot arm.

most likely in my opinion besides enlarging the S-boots was to increase knowledge and production of the Walter diesel boots with XXI and beyond boots but of course the protection of the manufacturing/holding factories via Kiel and Hamburg from RAF/US air strikes


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## plan_D (Dec 18, 2005)

The S-boots alone were hardly going to squeeze Britain dry though, and it's not like Britain wasn't countering them. And, as you say, the air was always a threat to any German surface vessel - and by mid-war to any sub-surface vessel too.


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## syscom3 (Dec 18, 2005)

It never happened, but Id like to have seen the Tirpitz one on one aginst one of the US fast battleships. The Tirpitz would have been creamed.


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## plan_D (Dec 19, 2005)

The Kriegsmarine against any of the great naval powers (Japan, Great Britain and U.S.A) in full force would have been soundly defeated. The only reason the Kriegsmarine stood anything near a chance against the Royal Navy was because the Royal Navy was fighting the Japanese and Italian navies at the same time as it was fighting the Kriegsmarine!


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## delcyros (Dec 19, 2005)

A Walter Diesel boat? Never heard of it.
Either a Walter boat (Typ XXVI/VII for example) or a Type XXI and XXIII conventional electric boat (both got operational but the later succeeded in sinking ships).

By 1940 and 41 as well, the surface raiders were very effective because of various reasons:
1.) They were not very easy to detect (Scheer, Lutzow and prinz Eugen remained undetected even with allied forces in high alert) as long as they were operating alone or dually (like Scharnhorst/Gneisenau).
2.) They had a huge range (even in the case of Bismarck, the hunting ships proved to have an invalid endurance for this short task) and once in open waters they can move freely for weeks
3.) If not engaging enemy heavy surface ships (Bismarck was the fist to do so) but concentrating on merchants they sunk a lot of merchant shipping and beeing able to disengage on their own initiative (Bismarck could achieve 30.8 kts at 47.000 tons, this means it would do 30 kts at 50.000 tons or even 31 kts. at 45.000 tons, Scharnhorst is even better. There are no allied ships in this timeframe to keep up with them on equal terms) 
4.) -Most important- The Kriegsmarine had quite a good understanding of the effects of raiders. they are not decisive in a strategical means but as a weapon of beeing, they succesfully binded a large part of the Royal Navy, ships which could be active on other theatres (again the example of the Bismarck: Drawing Force H back from the Mediterranean theatre greatly improved the chances to take Crete. Had Ark Royal and others supported it´s defense (what they originally should) the invasion of Crete would become very critical if not (more probable) impossible.


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## Erich (Dec 19, 2005)

Del, you are very correct, I made my post to hastily and connected all the boots that were on my mind. The XXIC and XXIII and the future XXVI in numbers but of course it was not the case, the U-boots were frittered away. The KM seems to have been on the last of the listings for priorities with available funds and it is really surprising the KM ships - surface lasted as long as they did. The Luftwaffe could not be everywhere at once and had to play the land game so connection with the KM was on a verynlow end except for the useage of Fw 200's and Ju 290's in air recon roles. The surface fleet although did prove itself quite able in 1945 to eliminate any Soviet ground spearhead or consolidated spot if the "heavier ships were involved" -- the Baltic.


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## delcyros (Dec 19, 2005)

Yes, Erich. It´s quite surprising that the KM was in 1945 still able to perform coastal bombardments in the Baltic and such a large scale evacuation as they did.
The type XXI boats -surprisingly- weren´t rushed into combat (unlike most other new stuff) but crews were trained extensively with them. Of the over 100 boats commisioned by the KM only the first two (U-2511 beeing the better known) were at VE-day on active duty in the north atlantic (resp. enruote to partol positions). I always wondered how Dönitz managed that Hitler did not involved that much in his plans.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Dec 19, 2005)

syscom3 said:


> It never happened, but Id like to have seen the Tirpitz one on one aginst one of the US fast battleships. The Tirpitz would have been creamed.



I would not go as far as saying that the Tirpitz would have been creamed. She and her sistership the Bismark were equals to anything on the sea. They were great and magnificant ships. Not until the Iowa class would I say she was outright outmatched.


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## Erich (Dec 19, 2005)

without going way off topic as this is about surface fleets, but the latter marks of U-boot were never caught by the Allies except upon discovery at wars termination as far as I am aware. Seems odd in some ways that the heavier KM surface ships met an unglorious end in port and bombed without a fighting mans death at sea. Of course the Prinz proud to it's end surrenedered in one piece after subjecting the Soviets to some pretty heavy punishment as well as some lighter KM Zerstörers aiding German ground forces in the same areas.


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## delcyros (Dec 19, 2005)

Tirpitz vs. Iowa was a possible encounter in early 1943. Iowa was in patrol position in the north atlantic to counter a possible Tirpitz raid from Norway. By that time I would bet my money on the Tirpitz, later on the Iowa. It´s hard to say that Bismarck was totally outclassed by the Iowas. In early 43 in the north Atlantic....its a very equal encountering.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Dec 19, 2005)

I believe the Prinz Eugen was the most successful German surface ship, was it not.


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## Erich (Dec 19, 2005)

good question. The fact that it made it till wars end without being sunk is important but it remained idle for awhile during the 'barbara' refit - replacement with newer 3.7 and 4.0 cm quick firing AA weapons. the same goes for the Hipper too and several others. 1943 and earlier was definately the hey-day for the surface vessels, thennit was a matter of protecting themselves as surviving the air onslaughts.

An advantage was the S-boots since nearly all 1944-45 activities excluding Baltic evacs were done at night -stealth operations. Plan brought out an intersting point, the S-boot arm could not have shut down the British ports alone. Very true but again had their been three times the umber built and put into operations, mining the ports and sea lanes into and out of the ports, there may well have been a stalemate of sorts. simplifying this, the Kleine Boots und U-boots could not handle the load alone


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Dec 19, 2005)

delcyros said:


> Tirpitz vs. Iowa was a possible encounter in early 1943. Iowa was in patrol position in the north atlantic to counter a possible Tirpitz raid from Norway. By that time I would bet my money on the Tirpitz, later on the Iowa. It´s hard to say that Bismarck was totally outclassed by the Iowas. In early 43 in the north Atlantic....its a very equal encountering.



I agree with you. I just believe that by that time the Bismark/Tirpitz would have met there real equal in the Iowa class.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Dec 19, 2005)

Erich said:


> good question. The fact that it made it till wars end without being sunk is important but it remained idle for awhile during the 'barbara' refit - replacement with newer 3.7 and 4.0 cm quick firing AA weapons. the same goes for the Hipper too and several others. 1943 and earlier was definately the hey-day for the surface vessels, thennit was a matter of protecting themselves as surviving the air onslaughts.
> 
> An advantage was the S-boots since nearly all 1944-45 activities excluding Baltic evacs were done at night -stealth operations. Plan brought out an intersting point, the S-boot arm could not have shut down the British ports alone. Very true but again had their been three times the umber built and put into operations, mining the ports and sea lanes into and out of the ports, there may well have been a stalemate of sorts. simplifying this, the Kleine Boots und U-boots could not handle the load alone



What happened to the Eugen and Hipper after the war?


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## delcyros (Dec 19, 2005)

Indeed.
In 43 both ships would field comparable radar aiming tech, Tirpitz having the better optical rangefinder. The Iowa wouldn´t have the huge 1.3 tons shells, the heavy artillery of the Tirpitz is way better, shooting more frequently (18-22 sec. per salvo), more precisely and with a lower impact angle. The secondary artillery is also better, having a better punch with 5.9 inchers. The excellent protection of the Iowa would probaly secure it from critical hits beyond 11.000yrds but less than half of the waterline is protected, it´s possible to sink the ship without critical hits from any range. Under 11.000 yrds it would blew up after some critical hits. The Tirpirtz armor sheme covers 85% of the waterline and the Iowa wouldn´t even have a chance to get critical hits from point blanc range. It´s only chance would be to stay out of range with it´s better speed (the highest recorded speed was 32.5 kts. at unknown displacement), hoping that nothing hits the unprotected bow (which would reduce the speed so much) and trying to get hits with very high impact angle at distances further than 24.000yrds. Using this tactic (...what they couldn´t know, since the shortcomings of Bismarck/Tirpitz armor system weren´t known prior to years after wars end) the Iowa could get a critical hit and beeing safe. It should be noted that hits from this range are highly unprobable in ww2. The only recorded hits at open water in such a distance are Gneisenau vs. Glorius at 26.000yrds and RN Warspite vs. Reggiae Marinae BB at 25.000ft. Both hit no critical part of the ship.


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## delcyros (Dec 19, 2005)

Eugen was nuked alongside with other ships. After Able and Baker the ship still remained afloat. But without crew for the easiest damage control it took more and more water. It was toyed away but sunk after some days.
Hipper participated in some Baltic actions and eventually returned to Kiel, where it (beeing damaged) was scuttled at May 3rd.


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## Erich (Dec 19, 2005)

Agreed Del ........

The Prinz was handed over to the US navy after many weeks of testing and removeal of her arms and heavy turrets she was taken to the Bikini Atoll and nuked out.

the Hipper was bombed/sunk to the bottom of her port # 5 at Kiel in May of 1945 and then broken up in August of 1947. what a mess..........


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## delcyros (Dec 19, 2005)

Yes. Interesting that they bombed the Hipper two days after it´s decommission and scuttling in Kiel, maybe it still was visible and therfore a target of opportunity.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Dec 19, 2005)

Not knowing much about Naval Warfare (just the basics). I agree del on you thoughts on the Tirpits vs. Iowa.


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## syscom3 (Dec 19, 2005)

Heres an excellent site that compares all the battleships and attempts to numerically rank them.

http://www.combinedfleet.com/baddest.htm

The Iowa and South Dakota class's were clearly better than the Bismark. And I would say the North Carolina class would be better too.


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## delcyros (Dec 20, 2005)

Wrong.

...The one who thrust this page is a fool...

It´s so full of errors, I don´t name them all. but a few, proving that he always underrates the Bismarck, while on the other side overrating the US ships much:
1.) armor: all a question of statistics. He is referring Nathan Okuns comprehensive analysis of the Bismarcks protection system. Okun prooves that unlike all other ships, the Bismarck cannot beeing critical hit from even zero distance. Deck penetration may occur as soon as 27.000yrds (using 15"/52) - call it Luke Skywalker! The critical distance is about 3000.yrds (30.000-27.000yrds, hits from higher distance have no probability), while those of Yamato is 8.000 yrds (0-8000 yrds), South Dakota/Iowa is 10.000 yrds (0-9000 + 30.000 - 29.000 yrds), Richelieu, Litorrio and others far more. What he did not noticed is that you need to pass 3 armor belts to get a critical hit, not only the main belt. The percentage of waterline covered by armor is also not taken into consideration (Bismarck also wins this)
Winner is Bismarck.
2.) underwater protection:
Error: small belt. Agaion he doesn´t take the main 45 mm Wotan w torpedo bulkhead into consideration, it´s going down to the bottom of the ship. Take notice that it has comparable strenght than the 3 19 mm armor plates and the sts plate of Iowa and North Caroliona. Compartimentaion also speaks for the Bismarck: 18 out of 23 compartments are main armor protected, in comparison of only 7 out of 14 (Richelieu) and 16 out of 27 (Yamato). Unprotected compartments will fill with water quite very soon. The Scharnhorst, while beeing a much smaller ship has a comparable protection system and it withstand the same number of torpedo hits than Yamato. POW, Littorio are far less resistant, North Carolina took a good deal of water by a single hit, Analysis of Bismarck wreckage showed that not a single torpedo hit managed to damage the ship beyond it´s torpedo bulkhead. So the winner is?
3.) guns:
What is really amazing here is that the author downgrades the Bismarcks artillery by half of it´s capabilitys in terms of rate of fire. Instead of the prooven 3 salvos per minute he reduces it to 1.8 (compare 1.7 Iowa, what an advantage) in order to uprate the Iowa/Littorio/Yamato compared to Bismarck. With a better main battery output Bismarck must get a 10+. 
4.) fire control:
The optical rangefinders of Bismarck were clearly superior to anything except Yamato. It´s not only a matter of length but also of Zeiss quality.
The radar fire controll was able to do blindfire and it did in case of Scharnhorst/Gneisenau.
It´s also a myth that the german fire controll was unable to make solutions while turning the ship. Bismarck and Prinz Eugen subsequently turned to new heading and continued to fire and hit both, Hood and POW. It should be noted that the fire was splitted into two half salvos, hits are even more rare, underlining the excellent fire controll of Biosmarck. Another mistake is that the author compares the best US radar with an old german one (no temporary). There is no way to say that Iowa is 100% better than Bismarck.
5.) tactical factors:
Speed of Bismarck is rated 30 kts (while recorded 30.8 kts), Iowa is rated 33+ kts (while best recorded was only 32.5 kts)
That were just a very few.


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## syscom3 (Dec 20, 2005)

Sorry Delacros, many people have tried to debunk his figures, but in the end, his figures hold up.

The US fire control was radar controlled which was decisively proven to be superior in the 2nd naval battle for Guadalcanal. The USS Washington was using radar control on all batteries with devestating effect on the IJN. In fact it was so accurate, the first salvo's against the IJN battleship "Kirishima" which were for ranging, actually bracketed the target. As proven in this battle, optical gunsights had become secondary to radar

In the same battle, the USS South Dakota came under intense gunfire from the IJN and the USN concept of heavily armouring the vitals and minimizing the armour for all other area's was proven a sound design. The Bismark tried to protect everything, and ended up protecting nothing.

The speed of the US battleships are listed in many many many independant sources as 33 knots. 

If a "long lance" torpedo had hit the Bismark, it would have taken a lot of damage. Dont compare small aerial torpedo's against the best torpedo's of WW2.

For rate of fire, the Bismark could not sustain 3 rounds per gun per minute. 

Finally, the Bismark was sunk. No US fast battleship was.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 20, 2005)

> Finally, the Bismark was sunk. No US fast battleship was



ok i don't really know enough to get involved in this discussion but i know that that doesn't really count for a huge ammount! the bismark had half the RN chasing it!


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## Glider (Dec 20, 2005)

I am with most of what Delcryos says. The main advantage of radar rangefinding is that it works at night and in bad weather when for obvious reasons the optics don't work.
In daylight however the optics have the advantage. The second battle that you refer to was at night and at close range, around 10km ideal for the Radar control as the USA fired first and the IJN had to aim at the flashes of the USA ships. A worse situation for the IJN its hard to think of.
The South Dakota did take a pounding but wasn't hit by torpedo's and that was the saving grace. 
The Bismark was hit by far more shells and bigger shells than the South Dakota as well as large numbers of torpedos. At the end of this, the Engine room was still dry. There are reputable sources than claim that she finally sank ofter being scuttled. In all probability she would have sunk eventually but the two ships had very different experiences. The USA ships are overated in the combined fleet website. There is a lot of good stuff there but there is an imbalance.

As for the speed of the USA Battleships the Iowa class had a design speed of 33 knots, the South Dakota and North Carolina had a design speed of 28 knots.

Hope this helps


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## delcyros (Dec 21, 2005)

Thanks.
In addition to this:
The North Carolina wasn´t hit by a long lance, since no japanese submarine had long lance torpedos. It was hit by a far inferior 53,3 cm torpedo. The damage done by it is worth more. Had Bismarck been hit, well only a fluke could do harm to her in such a situation(like any other ship also). Comapare also Scharnhorst: It was hit by 11+ (englisch) shipbased torpedos, which had more impactforce than those airborne US torpedos hitting Yamato. 
The reason why South Carolina was so bad in combat isn´t because it is a bad design but own crewmember made failures, reducing it´s abilities by much. Washington saved the day at close distances in the night. 
I also quote the author of combined fleet:
"I gave Bismarck a 5 (in armor protection, which was the lowest figure of all by far) -Why? -Why not?"
The protection of Bismarck is inferior to US at distances where US ships never hit an freely moving enemy target, regardless of size, any closer distance makes Bismarck better, read Nathan Okun.

"I reduced rate of fire in order to come to more comparable numbers, not uprating the fast shooters (Bismarck only) and giving the slow shooters a better profile"
Hey come on...
According to TK of KM (dated 1940) It was asked if it could be possible to increase the rate of fire of 15"/52 to at least 11" rate (2,5 per minute). The answer (Dr. Bergmann): It is already possible, we even estimate that 3 rounds per minute could be in possibilities with additional automotion"
Subsequent tests in the Baltic showed that rate of fire was best at 18 sec. worst at 22 sec. for Bismarck, 20 sec. is the middle(3 per minute).
However, this would only come into play only at very short distances, so 2.5 at usual distances are more probable. 
Just for comparison: Take two salvos per minute for Bismarck (already reduced from 3 or 2.5), that are 160 rounds fired in 10 minutes compared to 140 rounds of Iowa in the same timeframe. With such an advantage, Bismarck would get a 10 and Iowa a 9.... 
Radaraiming not always tops optical solutions. 42-45 Radar had it´s shortcomings with atmosspheric interferences and problems to get a correct distance managment at distances beyond 20.000 yrds. Optical solutions are more precise as long as the circumstances (weather, lightconditions) are good, reagrdless of range. When circumstances are worse, radar is better.
Don´t forget that Bismarck and Tirpitz also had radar controll for firing solutions. Compare contemporary designs. 41 Bismarck vs 41 North Carolina, 43 Iowa vs 43 Tirpitz... It´s not prior to mid 44 that US ships generally had better Radar for firing solutions.
It´s also of limited worth what the books write. Give me records. I can proove that the design speed of Scharnhorst was 32.5 kts but best recorded naval speed (compared to displacement) was 31.8 kts at 38.000 tons. Bismarck had designed 29 kts but achieved 30.8 kts at known displacement (see above) What about Iowa? We don´t know any figures except for a circumstance in wartime where it was forced to hunt down a japanese cruiser with max speed. 32.5 kts was achieved. Not 33 or even more.
If a page is unbalanced than combinedfleet.com


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## delcyros (Dec 21, 2005)

I should further add that both, Okun and the author underline the US protection system as the best (raft body protection -all or nothing). My point is that each nation developed the best protection system for it´s purposes:
The germans were in fear of large fast cruiserfleets attacking their capitalships, so they had to protect much of the ship. That´s why they optimized the zitadellprotection and the compartimentation of their ships.
(Iowa had a poor compartimentation outside it´s main armor zone, few hits could sink her there) Both, face hardened and homogenoius armor were of very good quality. 
The british forces -examining captured german ww1 ships- developed an excellent protection with very high quality (british cementated armor was the best in ww2) and good compartimentation (Vanguard), too.
The US and japanese - soon developing all or nothing- had no fear of small ships. Their concernings were a huge jutland like sea battles between US and japanese ships. So both designed a ship which under no circumstances would blew up like the british ww1 ones but these designs in the same time are vulnarable outside the main armor zone(..and this zone is rather small...) Their cementated armor is of worser quality (mostly thanks to the scaling effects), forcing them to use homogenious armor (US homogenoius undoubtly was the best) in very thick layers for turrets.I stay with my estimation: 43 Iowa vs Tirpitz would be an equal matching, my money would be on Tirpitz (more experienced crew).


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Dec 21, 2005)

syscom3 said:


> Sorry Delacros, many people have tried to debunk his figures, but in the end, his figures hold up.
> 
> The US fire control was radar controlled which was decisively proven to be superior in the 2nd naval battle for Guadalcanal. The USS Washington was using radar control on all batteries with devestating effect on the IJN. In fact it was so accurate, the first salvo's against the IJN battleship "Kirishima" which were for ranging, actually bracketed the target. As proven in this battle, optical gunsights had become secondary to radar
> 
> ...



Read the Book by Robert Ballard and watch the movie about the search for it. They disproved many many things. The Bismark was litterally hit with thousands of rounds in engagement that ultimatly sunk her. Her complete superstructure was destroyed most of the rounds did not penetrate her vital parts including her hull. You can litterally see how the shells deflected off.

This is a story of heated debate. Either theory is up for grabs in my opinion. The surviving crew members of the Bismark state that they scuttled it rather than her being sunk. The movie that I have on DVD which shows footage of the Bismark at her resting spot actually goes with this theory. The major underwater holes that would sunk the Bismark were actually blown out from the inside rather than penetrated from the inside. 

Now which story I actually believe, I dont know.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Dec 21, 2005)

syscom3 said:


> Finally, the Bismark was sunk. No US fast battleship was.



Uh so are you saying that Pearl Harbor never happened? Okay!


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## syscom3 (Dec 21, 2005)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> syscom3 said:
> 
> 
> > Finally, the Bismark was sunk. No US fast battleship was.
> ...



Those were not considered the fast battleships.

The fast BB's were those that were built starting with the USS North Carolina class in 1937.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Dec 21, 2005)

Oh my bad....


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## syscom3 (Dec 21, 2005)

Glider said:


> I am with most of what Delcryos says. The main advantage of radar rangefinding is that it works at night and in bad weather when for obvious reasons the optics don't work.
> In daylight however the optics have the advantage. The second battle that you refer to was at night and at close range, around 10km ideal for the Radar control as the USA fired first and the IJN had to aim at the flashes of the USA ships.



Rare is the battle where all the enviornmental factors work for you. The USN radar not only picked up the IJN at long range but had firing solutions for it. The only problem the US battleships had were seeing the IJN ships stick out positively from Savo island. If this had been in the Atlantic, then there would have been no issue of what they were shooting at. By the time the optical rangefindres come into play, then its too late. Youre already under fire.



Glider said:


> The South Dakota did take a pounding but wasn't hit by torpedo's and that was the saving grace.



True. Just for info though, three US destroyers were sunk by a well aimed salvo of IJN torpedo's. The USS Washington missed the torpedo's by a narrow margin.



Glider said:


> The Bismark was hit by far more shells and bigger shells than the South Dakota as well as large numbers of torpedos. At the end of this, the Engine room was still dry.



Agreed, but then the Bismark wasnt hit by the 16" shells the US BB's were armed with, wich would be coming in at long ranges and higher trajectories.



Glider said:


> The USA ships are overated in the combined fleet website. There is a lot of good stuff there but there is an imbalance.



Thats cause the US BB's are that much better than everyone else.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Dec 21, 2005)

Disagree. While I believe that the US made the best Carriers the BB's were not much better than the Yamato/Musashi and the Bismark/Tirpitz.


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## syscom3 (Dec 21, 2005)

delcyros said:


> The North Carolina wasn´t hit by a long lance, since no japanese submarine had long lance torpedos. It was hit by a far inferior 53,3 cm torpedo.



Technically correct. However it was hit by a type 95 torpedo which was slightly smaller than the type 93. Main difference between the two is the Type 95 had a 1080 lbs warhead and the type 93 had 893 lbs. The type 93's warhead was more than enough to punch a nice big hole in the Bismark, or any other ship for that matter. As matter of indication on how well the US battleships were designed and how well trained the crews were, the ship slowed down only by a small ammount and its battle efficency wasnt really impacted.



delcyros said:


> The reason why South Carolina was so bad in combat isn´t because it is a bad design but own crewmember made failures, reducing it´s abilities by much. Washington saved the day at close distances in the night.



the Washington saved the "night" because of the superior radar controlled fire control allowed the ship to engage multiple targets with excellent accuracy using excellent main and secondary batteries.



delcyros said:


> "I gave Bismarck a 5 (in armor protection, which was the lowest figure of all by far) -Why? -Why not?"
> The protection of Bismarck is inferior to US at distances where US ships never hit an freely moving enemy target, regardless of size, any closer distance makes Bismarck better, read Nathan Okun.



Point taken. I intrpeted it to mean that the superior US radar controlled main batteries were going to lob shells at the far off distant target with enough accuracy, that at least the CEP showed eventually they were going to get a hit. The US could keep the Bismark at arms length. Remember, the Bismarks armour didnt protect it against HA shells coming in.



delcyros said:


> According to TK of KM (dated 1940) It was asked if it could be possible to increase the rate of fire of 15"/52 to at least 11" rate (2,5 per minute). The answer (Dr. Bergmann): It is already possible, we even estimate that 3 rounds per minute could be in possibilities with additional automotion"
> Subsequent tests in the Baltic showed that rate of fire was best at 18 sec. worst at 22 sec. for Bismarck, 20 sec. is the middle(3 per minute).
> However, this would only come into play only at very short distances, so 2.5 at usual distances are more probable.



I stand corrected that it could fire at 2-3 rounds per minute



delcyros said:


> Just for comparison: Take two salvos per minute for Bismarck (already reduced from 3 or 2.5), that are 160 rounds fired in 10 minutes compared to 140 rounds of Iowa in the same timeframe. With such an advantage, Bismarck would get a 10 and Iowa a 9....



The US 16"/50 cal guns had a broadside weight that was five tons better than the Bismarks, plus they could fire them from 3000 yards farther away. The US 16"/45 cal guns had a broadside weight that was five tons better than the Bismarks, but they had a range 1900 yards shorter than the Bismark.

The Iowa class batteries were clearly superior as they could shoot at the Bismark from further away with a heavier throw weight. The SD and NC class guns would probably be a draw. Bismark firing further away (with an inferior fire control) against the US having heavier shells.



delcyros said:


> Radaraiming not always tops optical solutions. 42-45 Radar had it´s shortcomings with atmosspheric interferences and problems to get a correct distance managment at distances beyond 20.000 yrds. Optical solutions are more precise as long as the circumstances (weather, lightconditions) are good, reagrdless of range. When circumstances are worse, radar is better.



The Allies had the radar perfected well enough in 1943 to not have those probelms in the open ocean. In fact, in the many sea battles off of New Georgia island in mid 1943, the radars were good enough to see the IJN ships from well beyond the horizon and against the island backdrops.



delcyros said:


> Don´t forget that Bismarck and Tirpitz also had radar controll for firing solutions. Compare contemporary designs. 41 Bismarck vs 41 North Carolina, 43 Iowa vs 43 Tirpitz... It´s not prior to mid 44 that US ships generally had better Radar for firing solutions.



The USN's radar fire control was superior in late 1942. The admiral (Lee) in command of the Washington task force had a good radar, knew how to use it, and was the first to use in a battle situation, a CIC setup. He stayed in the plotting room watching the battle unfold on the radar, decided what to shoot at and let the skipper handle the battleship. Events proved it was a great idea and well executed.



delcyros said:


> If a page is unbalanced than combinedfleet.com



many people try to debunk it, and many people fail.


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## syscom3 (Dec 21, 2005)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> Disagree. While I believe that the US made the best Carriers the BB's were not much better than the Yamato/Musashi and the Bismark/Tirpitz.



The Iowa class BB's were clearly better than the German and Japanese BB's. The SD and NC class's were probably equal.


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## Glider (Dec 21, 2005)

Where I believe the USA BB's scored was that they were the best in the world, for the conditions that existed in WW2. 
On Firepower they banked eveything on the Main guns dealing with enemy ships, and everything else targeted against aircraft. The USN didn't get sidetracked into designing the secondary guns for a naval battle.
Every other nation designed their secondary guns to be used in a surface battle. The Japenese, French, German, Italian navies all carried 5.9 - 6.1 in guns for use against ships and 4.0 - 5in against aircraft. The British had the 5.25 which although a dual purpose gun was much more effective against ships.
The weight and space that this saved could and was used to good effect by the USN to ephasise those priorities.

Conversely the British had the best modernised old battleships in the Queen Elizabeth which they fitted with 20 modern DP 4.5in guns and disposed of the 6in secondary.

As for maximum ranges this was in many ways a diversion. No naval battle in WW2 took place over about 28000 yards. What mattered was how accurate your ship was up to a range of about 32,000 yards, not if your guns could fire 35,000, 38,000 or 40,000 yards. That only helped in shore bombardment.
For that reason the last BB in the RN the Vanguard was armed with 15in guns built in 1915, the same as in the Warspite. In exercises after the war she regularly outshot the Iowa class BB's.


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## plan_D (Dec 21, 2005)

Even with the extensive protection that the Tirpitz and Bismarck carried, it didn't make them rank up alongside the real greats. Remember, to destroy a ship doesn't mean you have to sink it. 

While I agree the Bismarck and Tirpitz were impressive (as were all German pocket battleships), they were able of destruction. You don't have to be lucky to put any of them out of action. Merely wrecking the guns on them would end their days. 

And lanc, half of the Royal Navy wasn't chasing the Bismarck. Do you know how big the Royal Navy was!? There was some of Force Group H and the Home Fleet chasing the Bismarck - while that is a lot for a ship ...it's not a drop in the size of the Royal Navy which amassed over 400 combat vessels.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 22, 2005)

i realise it wasn't that much i was just saying it to make a point.........


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## delcyros (Dec 22, 2005)

Take it once more on the main guns.
Shell weight is worth nothing as long as ap capabilities are weak or destruction force is insufficient. The author of combinedfleet mentioned this correctly.
The ap capabilities of the original US 16"/45 and 16"/50 AP Mark V
(2270lbs) is far inferior to those of the 1.780 lbs ap 15"/52 of Bismarck (I wonder why many sources rate it as a 15"/47, it indeed is a 52 calibre length barrel with chamber). Take an hour on Okuns penetration formulars on face hardened armor. It was not until the introduction of the much heavier 2.700lbs ap Mark VIII shell that the US 16"/50 was equal in ap capabilietes at point blanc range (both 30.4" against british cementated, which was the best), the US 16"/45 still being slightly inferior to Bismarck 15". Take notice that the german ap-cap was way superior to US designs even with a 900lbs lighter design! 
With enlarging the distance the trajectory is higher and therefor, the heavier weight benefits the US shells. But they are still far away from outclassing the Bismarck. The difference is significant at distances over 20.000yrds. Now we exclude distances of 35.000 yrds and 40.000yrds in the table (no chance to hit anything freely moving at these distances, regardless what fire controll you may have, even 30.000ft show no records in ww2).
Bismarck gets 148.3 and Iowa 157.7 (for comparison: Yamato:167.1, South Dakota 147.6). So Bismarck has the same ap-capabilities than South Dakota, and a comparable to Iowa at distances closer than 15.000yrds, it is outclassed by Yamatos shells, agreed.
Next: Kabooooom force.
I just quote on the author of combined fleet: 
Bismarck 4.55 , Iowa/South Dakota: 4.4 (for comparison: Yamato 4.72) 
The destructive power of a Bismarck shell is slightly superior to those of 900 lbs. heavier US 16" shells. Yamato is still unbeaten.
Next: rate of fire
And violá! Only with the artificial reduction of Bismarcks high firing cycle, the author could rate Bismarck under SD. However, this is wrong. Firing cycle is stated by him with 3 per minute (which is correct) but he reduced it to 1.8. He couldn´t do otherwise, because Bismarck would turn out as the winner:
With 2 per minute (which is alredy reduced by one third of it´s potential) Bismarck would throw 80 shells in five minutes compared to 77 of Iowa/South Dakota(both 1.7 per minute) and 68 of Yamato(1.5 per minute)! Even with one barrel less Bismarck has a considerably higher main battery output (one rason to favour twin turrets, the firing cycle for full salvos is better because you won´t have problems to feed the middle gun).
You may now multiply these factors as the author did and the corrected figures are:
1.) Bismarck 53.981 points
2.) Yamato 53.632 points
3.) Iowa 53.428 points
4.) South Dakota 50.006 points
The first three are going to be in the same weight class. You may say that we should furtherly ignore point blanc ranges (given) but then the differences wouldn´t be striking. And while the author uses original shells for italian and french ships, he don´t use original ones for the US designs but the later introduced and much better 2.700 lbs shells. Using their original shells, the US BB are way inferior to Bismarck and Yamato.
Not included are trajectory and shells flight time, both goes for Bismarck, nor firing arc (the french ship should suffer), nor gun preciseness (US worser than british and german, japanese and italian worser than US).
So the 5 tons additional shell weight per broadside are worth nothing compared to Bismarck. And again, Radar at 30.000 yrds won´t help and did not helped against freely moving targets. It wasn´t until 1987 that an Iowa class BB hit a training pattern of 250 yrds diameter from 34.000 yrds with all modern tech stuff. But let´s discuss firecontroll later.


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## delcyros (Dec 22, 2005)

Once more on the Bismarcks firing rate:
18-22 sec. for Bismarck (resp. 3.2-2.8 rounds per minute) are for elevation 2.5 degrees (the usual loading elevation). The barrels could be elevated at 6 degrees per second, maximum elevation was -5.5 - +30 degrees (35.5 degrees, roughly 10 seconds up and down from loading elevation). The theoretical firing cycle is limited by the practical ammo feed, also. The turrets elevators of Bismarck allow 23-25 shots per minute (for 8 guns), so the best practical sustainable rof is 2.9-3.1/minute.
So the firing cycle is 28-32 sec. with a middle at 30 sec. (2.0 rounds per minute) at 30 degrees elevation (~38.000 yrds). Keep in mind that this is the worst cyclic firing rate of Bismarck. Only Tirpitz ever fired at distances (against ground installations near Spitzbergen) comparable with them. Any closer distance would improve the firing cycle. Of course there may be an additional delay for the first rangefinding salvos in order to notice the flashes and correct the datas.
Iowa had a max elevation of 45 degrees (36.900 yrds with 2.700 lbs ap)and could move the guns with amazing 16 degrees per second (roughly 6 seconds at max elevation up and down) and a optimal firing cycle of 2 per minute (30 sec.). The theor. ammo feed is somehow lower at 18 rounds per minute (for 9 guns) So at comparable distance fired the Iowa would have a worst firing cycle of 36 sec at max elevation (1.7 rounds per minute). Any closer distance would benfit the Bismarck even more compared to Iowa. 
Factoring firing cycle, armor penetration, destructive force and battery layout, the Bismarcks 15"/52 are in my view the best heavy battery, it was inferior to Yamato´s 18.1" in terms of penetration and destructiveness but had a much better firing cycle. Differences between US 16"/50 and german 15"/52 are neglectable, the first having a slightly better penetration at far distances, the later having a better punch and shooting more frequently. The main reason for me is that this was achieved with an 900 lbs lighter ap shell design. However, if you rate plunging fire as more important You would probably shift importance to South Dakotas 16"/45, because it has unmatched deck penetration. But in my view there are no hits probable in these very far distances, where a 16" shell has a flight time of close to 3 minutes. All sea battles in ww2 were fought at much closer distances, where the Bismarcks layout would be excellent for.


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## hartmann (Dec 22, 2005)

I agree 100% with Delcyros.
Other important point in gun´s efficiency is the design of the turrets. While the German turrets had two well spaced guns which could fire at the same time, the most part of triple and quadruple turrets couldn’t properly make it because the blast of other guns disturbed the projectiles and these tended to be less accurate if shoot at same time (and some of these turrets had not same number of projectile elevators to guns, so it reduced a little more the RoF of the guns).
Best regards and merry chrismast to all.


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## delcyros (Dec 26, 2005)

Next step: Armor (I would rather prefer the term "protection")

2.1.: Qualities:
The author of combined fleet is correct here. According to post war analysis of Face hardened armor:
1.00: britisch cementated
0.98: german KC new
0.93: italian face hardened
0.93: US Class "A" face hardened
0.89: japanese Vickers made face hardened
unknown: french face hardened
homogenious is a lot harder to deal with. No overall agreed solution has been found but all agree that US homogenious is the best and japanese the worst. homogenious is a lot weaker than face hardened but it can be made in smaller thickness and it doesn´t have the bad sclaing effects typical for face hardened armor.
2.2.: armor belt
The author gives the Bismarck a 5.5, which is the worst figure of all contenders. Why? Because it is possible to penetrate with 15"/52 at 29.000yrds (compare: Yamato at 17.700 yrds, Iowa at 16.400 yrds) the main belt. 
However, this is technically true but a worthless information. Penetrating the main belt doesn´t mean to damage the vitals as the author might suggest here. Some ships do have additional defenses some, like Littorio, doesn´t have. Bismarck has the best of all.
Behind the main belt is a 45 degrees inclined 100 mm Wotan hard belt. Behind this one is a 45 mm Wotan soft torpedo bulkhead to contain blast effects and fragmentation. A penetration into the Bismarcks vitals via main belt is impossible, even with Yamato´s 18.1"at 0 distance.
All other contenders are vulnarable under 10.000 yrds into their vitals via main belt using Bismarcks 15"/52. So this can only be reflected with Bismarck getting a 10 and the best following getting a 7 or less figure.
2.3. Deck penetration
I agree with the author. Bismarck was designed for flat trajectory combats, not for long engagments in the bad weather of the North Atlcantic. =7.01
(compare Yamato: 10, Richelieu 9.5, Iowa and South Dakota 9)
2.4. Composite figure:
again, something very speculative: The author is telling us that deck penetration is 1.5 times as important than belt penetration. Umm, checking the combat records doesn´t confirm this: (sorry for repetition) Longest Distance hit against freely moving target in ww2: Gneisenau vs. Glorious (A carrier, what a large target size!) at 27.000 yrds. At these distances you would record more often (depending on the gun used) belt than deck penetrations. Hood can be explained with belt penetration, too (although often is referred as deck penetration. Knowing the 15"/52 ballistics this is improbable).
2.5.: Originally not included: protection of superstructures. This, clearly isn´t a benefit of Bismarck but must play a role here, too. Yamato is by far the best(10). Iowa and South Dakota suffer from the use of weaker homogenious armor instaed of face hardened, but this is offsetted by it´s huge thickness on turrets(8.5). KGV suffers from worse conning tower protection (7.5), Richelieu shows no striking weaknesses (8.0), Bismarck is at best mediocre (7.0), Littorio worse at all (6.5) 
2.6: (not included) waterline protection:
the percentage of waterline protected by the armor zone (the shorter the armor zone is, the easier it is to sink the ship without critical hits)
Bismarck 8.4 (84%), Richelieu: 6.0 (60%), Iowa:5.8; South Dakota: 5.2, Yamato: 4.9 
2.7.: Final rating: Bismarck would get a much, much better rating than 6.0.
Indeed it´s perfect protection of their vitals is bringing the ship on top of all, dependand on how important deck penetration is for you.
I would rather multiply all factors:

1.)Yamato: 3185
2.)Bismarck: 3165
3.)Iowa: 3105
This figure is much closer to each other, which makes me "feel" more correct.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Dec 26, 2005)

Im with you delcyros.


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## Glider (Dec 26, 2005)

Delc I doff my hat to you. I know a fair bit about Naval combat it being my main interest over and above aviation, but I wouldn't have come close to this level of detail.

Excellent post


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Dec 26, 2005)

Agreed. It is very interesting to me the way he analyzed it. I am not that big on Naval Warfare. While I enjoy and hightly interested in it, it is not my strong area.


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## syscom3 (Dec 27, 2005)

I reread his (okuns) analysis and I'm sticking with him on it. He pointed out the vulnerabilities in the Bismarks armour design and how the diving projectiles could get into the "vitals".

Untill hes proven wrong using the formula's provided, then his ratings atand.


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## syscom3 (Dec 27, 2005)

hartmann said:


> I agree 100% with Delcyros.
> Other important point in gun´s efficiency is the design of the turrets. While the German turrets had two well spaced guns which could fire at the same time, the most part of triple and quadruple turrets couldn’t properly make it because the blast of other guns disturbed the projectiles and these tended to be less accurate if shoot at same time (and some of these turrets had not same number of projectile elevators to guns, so it reduced a little more the RoF of the guns).
> Best regards and merry chrismast to all.



This was never a problem encountered by any combatant.


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## Glider (Dec 27, 2005)

I am afraid that there were problems with Turret designs. Certainly in the UK the twin 15in had a reputation for being utterly reliable. The Triple in the Nelson was OK during the war but it took a number of years to get right. The Quad 14in was terrible for reliability all through the war. The Twin 14in was as good as the twin 15in.
As for the blast of the shells I doubt that would be a problem as the shell is out of the barrel before the blast and is by definition on its way. What might have caused this story is the standard pracice in the RN to fire half broadsides until the range was achieved. 
This was done to help find the range quickly. If you thought the range was 25,000 yards you could fire a half at 25,000 and then another at 24,500 whilst the first is in the air. You could then walk the shot onto the target allowing for the one in the air.


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## delcyros (Dec 27, 2005)

These differences were considered back in ww1 by TK of High sea fleet. They analyzed the triple gun turrets of the austrian Viribus Unitis (now on the bottom of the Pula harbour in Istria/Croatia) and noticed that gun preciseness wasn´t comparable to twin turrets. The protection factor (higher loss of firepower if one turret was knocked out) was against it, there were problems to feed the middle gun, the weight of three triple turrets was comparable to four twin ones and so on. However, using triple turrets may enshorten the amorzone and therefore spare armor weight if the protection philosophy is going to be a raft body concept.
The Iowa´s triple turrets represent the best ever executed turret design but postwar comparisons with Vanguard underlined the worser gun preciseness of Iowa against the twin turretted british ship.
Syscom, I don´t need to disprove Okun, I actually use his formulas and have to underline that his calculations made a major step forward to understanding of armor piercing processes. However, his conclusions are based on the idea of a comparison of historical Bismarck and "what if" Bismarck designed in the US protection philosophy. The later one is going to be more impressive on the paper, but it is ahistorical.
He himself proved that Bismarck´s vitals cannot be reached even with Yamato´s 18.1" from distance zero: (1.)AP shell penetrates the 320 mm KC main belt and loses windshield, ap-cap, fuze is set off, speed is reduced greatly-
2.) shellbody reaches the 45 degrees inclined 105 mm Wh armor belt and recochet off or (only at direct impact angles at both, longitudinal and azimuthal) reaches Naval limit and penetrates the belt and reducing it´s speed to almost zero (in most cases with broken body) and is finally stopped by the 45 mm Ww torpedo bulkhead)
We all agree that Yamato had the best ap guns ever. The Ww bulkhead also containes the blast effects. If the heaviest fragmentation is also contained I am not sure.
One design flaw, pointed out by Okun is that at distances from (have to reread the details) 15.300-15.700 yrds(?) Bismarck is vulnarable to it´s own 15" guns.
Digging deeper, shows that this is only possible with Bismarcks 15"/52 because of their exceptionally flat trajectory and great ap capabilities. No other gun can do it. The only exception could be the italien 15"/50 but the apshell is of worser quality and cannot therefor pierce the main armor deck. Since armor cannot be qualified simple in ratings, I am going to prepare a graphic for the immune zones of some bb soon. I don´t care by what method (deck or belt penetration) the vitals are reached but it will show that Bismarcks vitals are impossibly hard to reach by belt penetration and reachable by deck penetration from distances were only flukes ever hit a freely moving target (Gneisenau for example).


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## syscom3 (Dec 27, 2005)

Agreed about the armour for flat trajectory shots. However, as okun points out, "flukes" tend to happen in more often that naught because nature sides with the hidden flaw.

I would also like to point out to you that the USS Washington had no problem with accuracy with its triple turret design while slugging it out with the Kirishima.


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## delcyros (Dec 27, 2005)

This fluke, as mentioned by Okun, would never happen. Or are you going to say Bismarck would battle Tirpitz? Tirpitz was the only other ship to carry the guns, which may get such a fluke.
On the last battle of Bismarck, the KGV stayed exactly in this dangerous distance in order to get some hits from plunging fire, while Rodney closed in for point blanc ranges. While KGV innumerously hit the ship in this distance, the Bismarck did not blew up. No fluke. It´s vitals remained untouched. 
Washington had no problems to DEAL with Krishima. An old ww1, later modernized bc, not comparable to this good ship (Wahsington).
Why? 
#1:Well, you don´t need precise guns at ranges under 10.000yrds.
#2: The amount of gaz effects firing the 16"/45 is less worrisome than those of Iowa´s 16"/50, in this view the 16"/45 is somehow more precise.
One remark on the discussion who won over Bismarck:
While it is technically true that her vitals were intact and those 7 torpedo hits did not lead to it´s sinking primarly, I have to poinbt out that there cannot be a doubt that the british forces and the heavy impacts on her superstruktures are responsible:
The decision to scuttle the ship was made under the impressions of the heavy bombardment, so it´s caused directly by Rodney and KGV.
Even if not, with the disruption of her steering controll it no longer was operational and therefor doomed.


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## hartmann (Dec 27, 2005)

> I would also like to point out to you that the USS Washington had no problem with accuracy with its triple turret design while slugging it out with the Kirishima.



The Kirishima was hit and disabled by only 9 hits of 16 inches and some 40 of 5 inches (as pointed by Delcyros, this ship was a battlecruiser of WWI era, very unprotected with only 203 mm of vertical armour) even when the Washington fired some 75 projectiles of 16 inches and 107 of 5 inches at ranges over 9000-7500 yards. This is a poor statistic record giving the short distances of the engagement. In other state, the British ships made half salvos to prevent dispersion problems when they fired multiple guns turrets, so I suppose that they knew very well these problems of muzzle blast and accuracy (and USA battleships tended to make the same thing, so, the problem existed, even not been very important). Best regards


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## syscom3 (Dec 27, 2005)

Thats good accuracy considering both ships were maneuvering radically.


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## hartmann (Dec 27, 2005)

Well, depend on how to see it. The Kirishima was attacked by surprise because it was firing to the S. Dakota, and in the recors dof the combat there is no mention about evasive actions regarding the Kirishima (in fact it seems that it was catched as a sitting duck, and didn´t manoeuvred). You can se it in:
http://www.hazegray.org/danfs/battlesh/bb56.htm
Best regards and happay new year.


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## delcyros (Dec 27, 2005)

I understand gun preciseness as the ability to repeat hits, e.g. the distance the second salvo is landing in comparison to the first one: the less the distance is, the more precise the guns are (under same circumstances).
At 8.000 yrds you may aim subtargets like turrets, conning tower and so on. At very long distances the gun preciseness is becoming even more important.
Vanguard topped Iowa anytime and I suspect that Bismarck wouldn´t do worser.
At Guadacanal we should keep in mind that the low trajectory impacts (almost exclusively belt penetration and superstrukture hits) would leave two possibilities: 
1.) The Krishima blewes up due to hit in magazines or bowlers 
(South Dakota´main belt cannot be pierced by the japanese 14"/45 ap shell unless SD is in less than 6.400 yrds distance)
2.) The Krishima is wrecked in the way the Bismarck was and therefore could rack up high hit scores and still afloat.
(unlike Bismarck, Krishima has no comparable vital protection and will take water as it historically did, so the ship could be sunken from this distance)
So it isn´t surprising that Krishima got so much hits and still afloat. It´s surprising that it did not blew up!
Just think of how Bismarck would have done here! Her radar directed guns could critically hit SD and W at any distance while her own vitals cannot be reached by any of both from any distance!
The only probable encounter between a fast US BB (Washington) and Tirpitz in 1942 did not happened because Washington was ordered to return immideatly in the moment Tirpitz left it´s harbour in Norway...Considering both designs and the contemporary firecontroll tech in 1942 I suspect that´s like a Tiger (Tirpitz) vs Sherman (Washington).


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## Glider (Dec 27, 2005)

Hartman. In my posting I was explaining that it was standard practicve in the RN to fire half broadsides to assist with ranging. I WAS NOT SAYING that it had anything to do with blast and dispertion of shells.
In any firearm be it a 16in gun or a rifle, if properly designed, the shell or bullet is out of the barrel with the blast behind it. So if you are firing two or three shells at the same time, the shells are on the way to the target before the blast will reach the other barrels in the turret.

The only part of your posting that I disagree with are the plunging fire hits at long range being a fluke. It is harder to hit certainly but the Sharnhorst was hit a number of times in bad weather at long range by the British using plunging fire. If it had been a fluke only one or maybe two hits would have been achieved.

There is little doubt though, that had the USN been facing the Bismark and Tirpitz, instead of obsolete WW1 Battle Cruisers, the outcome could easily have been very different.


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## syscom3 (Dec 27, 2005)

No. Carolina class vs Bismark, would be a draw, perhaps slight edge to Bismark, depending on how soon the US ship could begin firing. Close in fight would be advantage Bismark.

South Dakota class vs Bismark would be a slight edge to the S Dakota 

Iowa class vs Bismark would clearly be the Iowa.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Dec 28, 2005)

Heres my question for you syscom. You keep arguing about the Bismark's vitals being reached by shells. It is proven that no shell from the some 5000 shells that hit her penetrated her hull. Thats good protection to me.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Dec 28, 2005)

Here is an interview with a surviving crewmember Bruno Rzonca of the Bismark. All of this is found at the Official website of the Bismark: http://www.kbismarck.com

Bruno Rzonca passed away on 23 July 2004


_*Interviewer:* Were you looking at the Hood at the time she blew up? Did you see the Hood blow up with your own eyes? 

*Bruno:* No, but I did get reports from those who did see the Hood go down with field glasses. 

*Bruno:* Later on the same evening [the 24th] we had a torpedo fly attack. They dropped 19 torpedoes. We zig-zaged them all out except one. One hit us right under the starboard side, on the right side, a little bit below my station. I was sitting on a tool box and from the pressure I got up. Then we checked it out and alarm came from the boiler room; we had to shut it off because the fire came back out. But 10 minutes later we checked it out again and nothing happened, it was just from the air pressure. We had our first casualty. It was in the rank of a sergeant; he was standing there on the railing where the torpedo struck, and from the air pressure he was flung over to the other side on the railing and broke his neck. 

*Interviewer:* How was the armour on the hull of the ship? 

*Bruno:* The biggest part of the armour was 15 inches. No torpedo came through the whole day. 

*Interviewer:* What kind of steel was that? 

*Bruno:* I don’t know. 

*Interviewer:* Nickel-chromium steel? 

*Bruno:* Yeah, something like that. 

*Interviewer:* 15 inches? 

*Bruno:* 15 inches on the thickest part. Over the machinery there were even two [decks?] of them, 8 inches. Not one shell came through the machinery._

*And about the ship was scuttled:*

_Interviewer: What happened during the final battle? 

*Bruno:* During the final battle I stayed at my station to the end. Then I heard the command to abandon ship on the intercom. We knew we had half an hour to get off the ship once that order was given as all internal doors were opened. They opened the bottom valves first in the boiler and turbine room and blew it up so the water came in. 

*Interviewer:* Did you recognize the voice on the intercom? 

*Bruno:* No. 

*Interviewer:* Were you afraid? 

*Bruno:* Very afraid. When the shooting started a big shell came right into me, on the left [port] side. I used to change shifts with my comrade Rudi Römer. I had just talked to him five minutes before and then he disappeared. I thought he died. 

So, the last order came through, abandon ship and leave the doors open. When the skipper [Lindemann] gave the order to abandon the ship, we looked for an exit. I was looking around and saw men sitting on a bench and I asked: “don’t you want to save yourselves?” they said: “There is no ship coming, the water is too cold, the waves too high, we are going down with the ship.” A little bit further there was a wounded guy, he lost his heels I said: “come on I am going to help you out first and then find me an exit” he replied: “leave me alone and don’t step on my feet, I going down with the ship.” I couldn’t believe that. A little later we found a stairway. 

When I came out I couldn’t believe it. The British were still shooting, and we looked for cover behind one of the 6-inch turrets. Bodies were piled around the turrets, they were all dead. The whole deck was full of blood and body parts. There were a couple of guys sitting there and said: “help me to get in the water, we can’t walk anymore” so we help them out into the water. Now the ship started turning over more and more to the left [port] side and I stayed on the starboard side. I took off my heavy leather suit and jumped into the water. I thought this should be the end. I was only 23 years old starting living, I was engaged, and there was no chance to save myself. You just have to jump into the water and swim as long as you can. That’s what I did. It was at least 50 or more feet to jump into the water. I was 100 feet away when the ship started to turn over to the left side all the way, and then a couple of guys that didn’t went over on time, jumped and slided down the hull [starboard] side until they hit the stabilizer [bilge trace] and they never came out again. They drownned. Then, we had to swim for almost an hour, the water was 15º C. and the waves 30 feet high. 

*Interviewer:* You know Bruno, a lot of people think the ship was sunk. Was it scuttled? 

*Bruno:* Otherwise I wouldn’t be alive. I was there to the last moment you know, and even so when I was swimming in the water, I was 100 feet away there was not a hole in the hull from all the torpedoes. They shot 71 torpedoes and 12 hits. Not one came through. Dorsetshire shot the torpedoes during the last part I was on the ship and I didn’t notice these torpedoes. 

*Interviewer:* How many guys were in the water? 

*Bruno:* I would say about 1,000. Half the crew were already dead from the shooting. _

To verify this in the documetaries by Robert Ballard and James Camerson they proved that not a single shot went through the hull of the Bismark.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 28, 2005)

i'll wager that still wont be enough for sys, was very interesting reading though...........


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## Nonskimmer (Dec 28, 2005)

Indeed it was. Good link too.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Dec 28, 2005)

the lancaster kicks ass said:


> i'll wager that still wont be enough for sys, was very interesting reading though...........




Ofcourse not because in a Sim it happened differently.


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## delcyros (Dec 28, 2005)

Sorry Glider, I mentioned Scharnhorst vs Glorious at 27.000 yrds as a fluke, not the battle against DoY.
Syscom, why do you think so? SD was inferior to Bismarck in terms of firepower, armor protection of her vitals, speed, underwater protection and up to 1943 (introduction of SK-2 Radar) also in firecontroll.


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## syscom3 (Dec 28, 2005)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> the lancaster kicks ass said:
> 
> 
> > i'll wager that still wont be enough for sys, was very interesting reading though...........
> ...


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## syscom3 (Dec 28, 2005)

From longer ranges, the shells would be coming in at higher angles, and thats where the weak link in the Bismarks armour is. From closer ranges, the flatter trajectory of the shells would be stopped by the main armour belt.

For the SD, Bismark was superior in speed. The US had the advantage of the longer range and higher angles the guns could fire at. The armour protection was superior at longer range and equal to the Bismark for the middle ranges. Im still reading in detail the armour protection for shorter ranges.

The US fire control was superior to the Bismark.

Attached is an interesting pix taken of the SD at the battle of the Santa Cruz islands. The Japanese plane had already dropped its torpedo (probably at the USS Hornet several miles away) and the SD was in its path on the way "out".


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## Gnomey (Dec 28, 2005)

Good stuff Alder, interesting. I watched the Robert Ballard documentary (at some point) on the Bismark and it to was really interesting to see that no torpedoes had penetrated the hull. It was still disabled by an a biplane though...


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## syscom3 (Dec 28, 2005)

Getting hit in the rudder does tend to ruin a captains day, doesnt it.


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## Glider (Dec 28, 2005)

Interesting point on the Heavy AA fire from the Bismark. People have often wondered why no Swordfish were lost in the attack on the Bismark which had the most modern AA guns available. I read about the following theory a few years ago and thought it a bit wild. However there was pro gramme on the sinking of the Bismark and a rep from the Imperial War Museum repeated it so here it is. 

I am sure you are aware that one tactic with AA fire was to put a wall of shells up in front of the incoming aircraft , the idea being to hit the aircraft as it came through the curtain. In the Bismark the fusing system had three speeds which reduced the range at which the shells exploded, the idea being that the plane would spend longer in the exposed area whilst coming through the curtain of shells.

The slowest of the speed settings on the Bismark AA guns was equal to 100mph. However the Swordfish only went 80mph on an attack run with a torpedo. As a result the Heavy AA fire was retreating at a faster speed than the plane could go and the plane survived.

A case I think, of being too clever by half. 

By the way, people have commented that the SD had better Fire Control. I should hope so seeing as it was sunk before the SD was in service. The big question would be would it be better than Bismark if the Bismark had been given the latest equipment in 1944.


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## Erich (Dec 28, 2005)

of course not being there, glider brings up an interesting what if. had the bismark been able to mount late 1944 "Barbara" Aa fittings of the Prinz Eugen the Swordfish probably would of not been able to pull anything off.

like I said an interesting thought, the Prinz mounting some 18 4cm Bofors, 6 2cm Flakvierlings


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## syscom3 (Dec 28, 2005)

Considering that the Japanese Kamikazi's on occasion penetrated even more dense AA fire from a massed task force, its possible the Swordfish's could get through the Bismarks AA.

Ive also heard the same thing about the Bismarks fire control not being able to handle slow moving airplanes.

To compare FC radars in 1944, then the Allies are still in the lead.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 28, 2005)

and the swordfish were often flying lower than the depression of the AA guns would allow.........


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## Erich (Dec 28, 2005)

again not being there but can tell you that Soviet a/c tried to attack at below deck level agaisnt the Prinz and associated Z's as well as the Admiral Hipper with disasterous results. The 4cm bofors could elevate from flat out to vertical as well as the 2cm twin and four barrel flakveirlings. the Kriegsmarine had learned their lessons early in the war. Again this is all what if


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## trackend (Dec 28, 2005)

My only take on things is that by 1939 the day of the battleship had come and was rapidly going, by 1945 they had all been relegated to the role of shore bombardment platforms.
The Bismark Tirpitz where superb vessels but not very successful their fate was inevitable even before they had left the slipway.
The German surface raider was always going to be on to a looser that's why Donitz concentrated on the U boat. Cheap quick to build compared to the highly technical battleships and as 99% of Germany's raw materials did not go by sea their was no need to defend a huge mechantial fleet (just attack one) The Carrier was and is the most powerful conventionally armed vessel ever to put to sea and its coming of age was during WW2 just as was the demise of the big gun ship.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 28, 2005)

but is there anything that will replace the carrier?


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## Nonskimmer (Dec 28, 2005)

The star destroyer?


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## syscom3 (Dec 28, 2005)

In low intensity conflicts, do we need a carrier battle group?


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## trackend (Dec 28, 2005)

syscom3 said:


> In low intensity conflicts, do we need a carrier battle group?


 I think so SY with a big hammer you only need a gentle tap to crack a walnut (gun boat diplomacy still works even nowadays)


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## Nonskimmer (Dec 28, 2005)

Besides, as the US is the only nation on earth capable of supporting and sustaining multiple carrier battle groups, it pretty much assures USN superiority of the seas. In reality, even one or two such groups would be enough against the majority of rival naval powers to ensure American dominance. That's what it would boil down to in a conflict, wouldn't it? Even many of the world's air forces would be tested against that kind of might.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Dec 29, 2005)

The whole point of the Carrier today is being able to project power anywhere in a relativly short period of time. Lets say that a militant group in Zimbabwe takes over the country and takes all westerners hostages and declares war on the World! (This is just a poke fun at the situation scenerio!) Within 24 hours he can have Carrier jets pounding down on him.


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## syscom3 (Dec 29, 2005)

But we can have long range drones begin to do the work.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Dec 29, 2005)

True but in the end they will never take completely over man piloted aircraft.


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## plan_D (Dec 29, 2005)

Nothing in the near future will be able to replace the aircraft carrier. In my opinion, nothing ever will because it's much easier, and safer, for the crews of the aircraft if their supply base is close. You could have long-range machines but why fly thousands of miles, when you can move the airbase to within a few hundred miles?


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 29, 2005)

i was just wondering because, well, they used to think they could never replace the battleship, look what happened there.........


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## plan_D (Dec 29, 2005)

That was before aircraft came along. As soon as aircraft were seen as combat capable there were people who instantly saw the potential of putting them on ships. 

The only thing that is an improvement over aircraft would be ...teleportation. Then you can teleport your bombs to target...


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Dec 29, 2005)

well that's the thing, there'll proberly be something in the future that we haven't thought of yet, and they'll look back at us and laugh because we thought aircraft carriers were the best think since sliced bread.......


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## plan_D (Dec 29, 2005)

I didn't realise we were laughing at those who thought battleships were the Queens of the Sea... 

It'll take something massive to replace the aircraft carrier. Since all that's happening these days is improvements in aircraft themselves.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Dec 29, 2005)

I agree, until we start sending aircraft carriers into space, there will be no replacement for them.


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## delcyros (Dec 29, 2005)

You are partly wrong, Syscom.

1.) Contemporary Frite controll in 1941/early 42:

Bismarck 1941: 3 DeTeGe (one mounted on each rangefinder),originally 50 cm(1934), later (1939) 80 cm wavelength, range up to 23.000 yrds for fire controll only (my detect flashes of 15" at 20.000 yrds), preciseness: +- 50 yrds

Washington: 1 XCAM (1941, later SC) (sea search only, limited fire controll)
South Dakota: 1 SC (1942) - mounted on the conning tower
wavelength: 40 cm, range 27.000 yrds for fire controll and sea search (may detect 16" splashes up to 23.000 yrds), preciseness: +- 40 yrds 

Compare Friedmann et al. It wasn´t until introduction of SK radar in late 1942 (Washington), that US had a considerable advantage in Radar firecontroll. With SK-2 Radar in 1944 they were superior in this field.
Differance is not that striking, the US model has the better quality but was a singularly one, easily to knock out (Bismarck had three radar plus the firecontroll tech to compare all solutions which will offset the shortcomings of the device´s preciseness)
The optical rangefinders of Bismarck are superior because all are three axes stabilized and tachimetric mounted, which will undoubtly makes them superior to any but the Yamato´s special optical device for firecontroll. The South Dakota and Iowa had two axes stabilized, non tachimetric, which is sufficiant but costs a lot effectiveness at long distances.
South Dakota has not the range of Bismarck´s heavy artillery if using 2.700 lbs Mk 8 ap shells (max 36.800 yrds at 45 degrees elevation while 38.900 yrds at 30 degrees in case of Bismarck). 40.000 yrds are in possibilities if using the inferior 2.300 lbs MK 5 ap shell! You may choose..


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## Erich (Dec 29, 2005)

stick with the submarine, the KM although making advances with the craft were way too slow, along with the RAF bombing the U-boot pens to smitherines.

by the way one of the great KM U-boot aces, Erich Topp passed away on Decmber 26, 2005


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## Nonskimmer (Dec 29, 2005)

Erich said:


> by the way one of the great KM U-boot aces, Erich Topp passed away on Decmber 26, 2005


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## delcyros (Dec 29, 2005)

2.) Armor protection of the vitals (ignoring superstructures, waterline and so on):

Contenders: 
2.1.) Bismarck 
using 15"/52 AP 1780 lbs shell (against US class A armor):
at 0 yrds: 32.7"/0 degrees; at 5000 yrds: 27.9"/1.9 degrees; at 10.000 yrds: 23.9" /5 degrees; at 15.000 yrds: 20.1"/ 9.2 degrees; at 20.000 yrds: 17" /14.4 degrees; at 25.000 yrds: 14.6"(deck:4.6") /20.5 degrees;
at 30.000 yrds: 12.7"(deck:5.9")/ 24.5 degrees; at 35.000 yrds:11.1" (deck: 8.3") /29.2 degrees 
2.2.) South Dakota 
using 16"/45 AP 2.700 lbs shell Mk.8 (against KC new armor)
at 0 yrds: 28.1" / 0 degrees; at 5.000 yrds: 24.3" / 3 degrees; at 10.000 yrds: 20.9" /6.8 degrees; at 15.000 yrds: 18" / 11.8 degrees; at 20.000 yrds: 15.6" (deck: 4.5")/17.8 degrees; at 25.000 yrds: 13.7" (deck: 5.9")/ 25.3 degrees; at 30.000 yrds: 11.9"(deck: 7.8") /34.3 degrees; at 35.000 yrds: 10.1" (deck: 10.6") / 44.3 degrees

note: armor penetration of Bismarcks 15" is always better against belts, while the ap capabilities of South Dakotas 16"/45 AP MK 8 is better in deck penetration and will start sooner compared to the flat trajectory 15" gun. The better KC N armor benefits the Bismarck a little in this comparison.

[0]: penetration is impossible
[1]: penetration may occur but is improbable (only at direct impact angles)
[2]: penetration may occur but not for all vitals (in this case not the magazines, since they are better protected)
[3]: penetration will happen deep into the vitals

distance in yrds:1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 9000 10000
Bismarck.............[0].....[0].....[0].....[0]....[0]....[0]....[0].....[0]...[0].....[0]
South Dakota......[3].....[3].....[3].....[3]....[3]....[3]....[3].....[3]...[3].....[2]

-this shows flat trajectory impacts. Bismarck´s vitals are protected while SD shows significant weaknesses against the 15"/52 in close distances.
This wasn´t the usually intended fighting distance at bb encounters, nethertheless a few (Bismarck vs KGV and Rodney, Guadacanal, latter part of Surigano street) combats are recorded in this distances.

distance in yrds: 11.Kyrds 12.Kyrds 13.Kyrds 14.Kyrds 15.Kyrds 16.Kyrds 17.Kyrds 18.Kyrds 19.Kyrds 20.Kyrds
Bismarck.............[0].............[0]............[0]..........[0]..........[0].........[0]..........[0}.........[0].........[0]........[0]
South Dakota..........[2]...........[2]............[1]..........[0*]............[0*]...........[0]..........[0]..........[0]........[0]......[0]
-This graph shows that only a fluke may get the way through the vitals of South Dakota at 13.000 yrds distance (mainly thanks to two STS plates), Bismarck and South Dakota are quite immune in this range. The majority of battles with bb involvement took place in this distance (including River plate, first Savo, Bismarck vs. Hood and POW, Scharnhorst vs DoY, Jean Bart vs Massachus.)
*) penetration may be possible but is unlikely. (I also took notice of longitudinal impact angles) This is matter of concern at belt penetrations only, and therefor benefits the South Dakota here. 

distance in yrds: 21Kyrds 22Kyrds 23 Kyrds 24 Kyrds 25 Kyrds 26 Kyrds 27 Kyrds* 28 Kyrds* 29 Kyrds* 30 Kyrds*
Bismarck------------[0]--------[1]----------[2]-------[2]-------[3]--------[3]---------[3]-------[3]--------[3]--------[3]
South Dakota-----[0]--------[0]--------[0]-------[0]-------[0]--------[0]--------[0]--------[0]-------[0]----------[0]--------[0]
The long distance comparison shows the weakness of the Bismarck´s armor layout. The South Dakota will be safe. It may (theoretically) reach Bismarcks vitals from 22.000 yrds but more likely from 24.000 yrds. soonest. Take notice that the Iowa 15"/50 has less deck penetration because of the flater trajectory of it´s guns. The Iowa will start reaching the Bismarcks vitals as close as 23.700 yrds but more reasonably at distances further away than 25.000 yrds. 
*)For comparison:
longest distance hit on a BB:
Warspite vs. Caio Duilio at 26.000 yrds
longest distance hit on a freely moving target:
Scharnhorst vs Glorious at 27000 - 26.450 yrds (the latter is more reasonable according to the shells flighttime) 
This clearly underlines that the Bismarck has a wider immune zone compared to South Dakota / resp. Iowa(same armor sheme).
Theoretically you may also include 30-35 Kyrds but this is gaming, only. My point is that South Dakota is -thanks to the unmatched deck penetration of her guns- the most dangerous BB for Bismarck to battle but Bismarck has a better protection of her vitals according to these datas. (adding all hits together up to 30 Kyrds distance: Bismarck: 11 (plus 12 theoretically=23); South Dakota/Iowa: 34 (plus 2 theoretically=36)
Keep in mind that the vitals of Bismarck are also one deck lower positioned and narrower than those of South Dakota, the target size is therefor smaller. WW2 records show us that the US BB never hit a freely moving target with any reliability in the Bismarcks critical distances.
Of course, This reflects only the ability to withstand catastrophic damage due to boiler/magazine hit. Even a non penetrating hit may cause a lot of damage because of sheets of armor destroyed, flooding caused, fragmentation and so on. The effectiveness of non penetrating hits of 15"/ 52 with it´s lower weight and higher speed are worrisome, not to speak of 2.700 lbs heavy 16" rounds! The worse scaling effects of US class A face hardened armor are reducing the safeness of south Dakota: A non penetrating 15"/52AP shell hit from 18.000 yrds distance against the belt will punch out some 1.200 lbs of armor and throw it into SD´s vitals (not containable by 19 mm non armor grade STS plates), while a 16"/50 AP 2.700 lbs belt penetrating, non 105 mm belt penetrating hit against Bismarck (any distance) will punch out some 500-700 lbs of armor (which will be stopped by 45 Ww armor grade torpedo bulkhead.) Now we look for deck penetration: The South Dakota is immune to Bismarck in all distances considered (The flat trajectory 15"ers may penetrated the deck at very far and therefor unprobable distances only), even against non penetrating hits because of the multilayer armor layout.
Non penetrating 16"/45 deck hits on Bismarck are 1) reflected by the heavily armored weather deck (up to 25.000 yrds) or
2) not reflected but delayed and stopped by the main deck. A 2.700 lbs AP Mk 8 shell at 40 degrees impact angle will throw out some worrisome 1.600 lbs of armor and throw it into the Bismarcks vitals (keep in mind that Wh main deck armor is less resistant against AP than KC new but it´s homogenious quality has far less scaling effects than KC also)


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## delcyros (Dec 30, 2005)

In the end as pointed out above, Bismarck was excellent protected against belt penetrations (but the SD´s 16"/45 is a worrisome deck penetrator) while South Dakota is excellent protected against deck penetration (but the Bismarck´s 15"ers are flat trajectory, belt penetrator guns)
 
Armor penetration is one thing, another is fuse quality.
A good number of hits at POW (?6 out of 8 ) went into the ship and did not blew up. The POW was safed by this. 
A 8" AP shell from Prinzu Eugen penetrated the belt and moved into the starboard ammo handling room and did not blew up. It is considered a dud. Another 15" AP shell penetrated the bridge, killing all but the captain and one more. This shell also did not blew up.
I am still reading the details but I have found some interesting stuff. The german fuzes seems to have failed a number of times, exclusively if facing the british cementated armor. 
The US AP shells have the best quality and showing a little number of duds, mostly against japanese face hardened armor. 
I believe, but am not sure in all, that this not exclusively reflect the fuze quality but to a high degree reflects the ability of the armor to resist the projectile, break it´s body and fuze mechanism. Britisch cementated was by far the best face hardened armor it showed extensively bending abilities, japanese was the worst of all and simply cracked or shattered away. I compared test results of 15"/52 against KC armor plates and found out that there were a number of duds (around 12%), which was usual for the time. Post war tests with britisch cementated showed that US AP failed a lot of time to blew up after passing the plates (~20% duds), something what rarely happened against japanese armor.
This has some significance here. At first, it wasn´t the german worse fuze, which safed Prince of Wales in the Denmark Street but the superior quality of british cementated armor.
Second, the reliability of german AP fuzes would increase against US class A armor (which is of worser quality than British cementated) while in the same reverse situation the reliability degree of US AP fuzes would decrease while facing KC new armor (which is of better quality than japanese ones).


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## syscom3 (Dec 30, 2005)

I could imagine in a couple of decades, we will have drones so cheap and capable, they could do many of the roles that are tasked for manned aircraft.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Dec 30, 2005)

Good post up there delcyros. Enjoyed reading them.

syscom3 yes you are right there will be drones capable of doing most things that manned aircraft can do, however in such roles as troop movement, air assault, and so forth.....manned aircraft will not be replaced.


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## syscom3 (Dec 30, 2005)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> Good post up there delcyros. Enjoyed reading them.
> 
> syscom3 yes you are right there will be drones capable of doing most things that manned aircraft can do, however in such roles as troop movement, air assault, and so forth.....manned aircraft will not be replaced.



Im reffering to the attack role.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Dec 30, 2005)

They are already being used in attack roles as we speak. They have used them in Afganistan and Iraq.


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## Erich (Dec 30, 2005)

maybe not completely replaced Adler, but different applications take on different characteristics. I think we will see more computer generated arms in the mid-east shortly


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Dec 30, 2005)

Agreed. Like I said they are already using UAV's that are armed with bombs, rockets and missiles over in Iraq and Afganistan right now.


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## Erich (Dec 30, 2005)

they are perfect for the mountainous terrian especially for recon so guys like us don't have to go crock popping amongst the boulders of the mid-east and east asia for miles and miles.

sorry if I have gotten a little OT here


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Dec 30, 2005)

The whole thing has gone off topic.


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## Erich (Dec 30, 2005)

wonder what may have happened had these Leichte-Schnellbootes bee released in sufficient numbers with two torpedos ? The turret housed a 2cm weapon. A bit oversized for a small vessel


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Dec 31, 2005)

I personally think the E-Boots/S-Boots that the Germans had were of great design and potential. They were made to beat the whole tonnage allowance from the Versaille Treaty, but were fast and well armed. I too think they should have built more of them.


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## syscom3 (Dec 31, 2005)

I dont know how much damage they could have done in the long run. Small boats in open water are nothing but target practise for aircraft.

The Beufighters and Mosquito's would have had a field day aginst them, just like the 5th AF in the PTO had with the IJN patrol craft.


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## Erich (Dec 31, 2005)

there probably would of been tactics developed though sys to combat the rockets. The S-booten were so bloody manueverable, the biggest problem was getting them out to the depths of the ocean and having such shallow bottoms would of been sunk by the carnage of heavy seas. The proof was the sinking of most of them while in dock, as they were such a nuisance to Allied shipping as a potential threat.


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## Glider (Dec 31, 2005)

They were only target practice during the day at night the planes couldn't hurt them. Some of the most vicious fighting in the North Sea/Channel was between the German S and R Boats and our MTB/MGB's It was fast, furious and at times very close range. Collisions whilst not the norm were not uncommon. HMS Kelly was torpedoed by an E boat and nearly sank but captured the German ensign off the E Boat during the battle which wasn't sunk. Gives an indication as to how close, close could be. 

The Germans built large numbers, if I recall over 200 of these boats as did we. Boat for Boat the Germans were better for most of the war, but they tended to be on the defensive as the RN did most of the attacking.

Jap patrol boats were poor by comparison being built in small numbers, they were also poorly armed and tended to be slower.


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## Erich (Dec 31, 2005)

Glider I think the MTB units increased in number while the S-boot Flottilla's deminished in size ............. and MTB units waited for the S-booten to leave port and then catch them if at all possible. As you stated which is so true, some of the nastiest close home enagements were between the two able boots and their crews


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## Glider (Dec 31, 2005)

To be honest I am not sure on that. I know that both sides started with small numbers and built them quite quickly. Its possible that we outproduced Germany as we had countless small shipyards around our coasts who could build this type of boat.
One thing though is that they were very seaworthy. The RN were operating as far afield as Norway from England from around late 1943 onwards. 
I used to have a number of books on this topic but gave them to my brother a few years ago.
As for hiding and waiting, both sides used to do that. One tactic was to wait alongside a buoy or a wreck so you couldn't been seen on radar, creep in, fire and get the heck out of Dodge. Difficult to defend against those tatics.


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## Erich (Dec 31, 2005)

no glider what I meant as to losses there were non KM capabilities to keep up with this as to production, as then it was being overwhelmed during mid 44 to 45 and the real chase began, nearly every opertion by the Schnellbooten arm was at night except for the evac of civilians from the Baltic shores, and even then evac and also waiting for Soviet subs and MTB's to show their faces. The civilians must have literally gotten a thrill from that. Getting into action along with a crew trying to maintain operational accuracy and moving around a small craft covered with too many people..........yee haw


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## Glider (Dec 31, 2005)

Whoops my mistake.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 1, 2006)

From my understanding most were used at night anyhow because of there vulnerability during the day. However large massive numbers at night could have been deadly to the fleets at sea. The problem as Erich put it was getting them to sea.


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## Jabberwocky (Jan 2, 2006)

I read the excellent 'Motor Gunboat 658' late last year. 

At least in the Mediterranean the British seemed to think that their were superior to their German opponents in every capability except for outright speed. This feeling was doubly reinforced when they started operating with US Partol Boats fitted out with better radar (funnily enough, it was British designed), who allowed them to pick up targets well beyond visual range and manoeuver for the kill earlier. The biggest danger to MTBs, MGBs and 'Dog Boats' seems to have been mines rather than enemy surface action.

The MGBs had 1 6 pounder, a twin 20mm, two twin .50s (later replaced by two single 20mms, and then two twin 20mms), a 40mm pom-pom (later replaced by another 6 pounder) and a couple of twin Vickers .303 mounts. With 4 1000 hp Allisons in the back driving 4 screws, they were no slouch in terms of speed either.

MGB 658 was credited with the sinking of 1 Escort Corvette, 3 E-boats as well as 9 other ships. It was also credited, remarkably, with 3 Fw-190s (2 in one action) 2 Ju-88s and a Do-217. 1 of the Fw-190s, the Do-217 and 1 of the Ju-88s were all destroyed on lone long-range patrols by the crew, so the boats certainly weren't defenseless against fighter and bomber attacks.


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## Glider (Jan 3, 2006)

658 was a Fairmile D known as a Dog Boat in the RN, they were the largest and most heavily armed boats of their type in the world. They were slower than the traditional S Boat and RN MTB/MGB's but in normal sea conditions, compared to the 'Flat Calm' headline speeds, the difference wasn't that great.


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## Erich (Jan 3, 2006)

Ich bin überlegen !


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## syscom3 (Jan 3, 2006)

How did the Scharnhorst (spelling?) compare? I know it was a pocket battleship, but overall, how did it perform? Weak points? Strong points?


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## Glider (Jan 3, 2006)

The Scharnhorst wasn't a pocket battleship they had a main armament of 6 x 11in and were a lot smaller. She was a Battle Cruiser with 9 x 11in and that was one of her disadvantages although her sistership Gneisenau was being rearmed with 6 x 15in to replace the 11in guns. A change that was never finished.
They were fast, seaworthy, well armoured, matching a number of Battleships in that area. 
Her secondary guns wasted a lot of weight in that she carried 12 x 5.9in (4x2, 4x1), as well as 14 x 4.1 AA. The single 5.9 in particular were an extravagent waste of armour and weight.
The Germans didn't have a 5in DP gun but she would probably have been better off carrying more 4.1 and light AA guns plus extra deck armour. It was already quite thick but extra protection against air attack never hurt in WW2.
As in a number of areas there was little wrong with the German vessels, it was the lack of leadership that caused difficulties.

Small change to my last posting. The RN had a small number of Steam Gun Boats (which were basically big MTB's) that were larger than the Dog boats but as I said were small in number.


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## Udet (Jan 4, 2006)

Very interesting material from Delcyros.

While naval matters are not my specialty, and knowing the allies are full of shit, it ain´t surprising _Bismarck_ eventually became another one of their post-war targets in another attempt to have her minimized as much as possible.


A question for you navy buffs:

What are your thoughts on the outcome of an engagement between _Bismarck_ and the french _Jean Bart_?

I like the design of the _Richelieu_ class battleships very much; what do you think about those large cuadruple turrets?

Was it wise to have the main guns located all in the forward section of the vessel (bow)?


If I recall correctly, the only combats _Jean Bart_ ever had during the entire war happened while being tied to her dock -with only one of the cuadruple turrets installed- in Casablanca against ships of the US Navy.

Comments?


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## syscom3 (Jan 4, 2006)

French ships are famous for their sailing speed in reverse.


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## Glider (Jan 4, 2006)

My money would be on the Bismark. The French tried to seperate the two turrets as much as possible to ensure that a hit on one wouldn't damage the other but for myself it feels to much like putting all your eggs in one basket.
When the Bismark was attacked by the Rodney, the first 16in hit knocked out both her forward turrets. Had that been the Richleau (completed sister ship to Jean Bart) it would have been game over.
That said it must be admitted that having the Richleau layout does give you more tactical options.
Its a close call, I went with the Bismark as I feel that its a better balanced design but at the end of the day its down to the training of the men and dumb luck as to what part of the ship is hit.
A lot of words are typed about penetration, MV, design of shells but luck comes into it, as in a Naval battle of any distance you try to hit the ship, where you hit it is in the lap of the gods. In the Battle of River Plate a practice 6in fired by mistake in the heat of the moment, ended up in the Graff Spree forward 11in Magazine. 
You can make your own mind up if it was the British were lucky that it got so far, or the Germans that it wasn't a real shell.


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## delcyros (Jan 4, 2006)

According to what I know about the Scharnhorst´s they were the most succesful single Kriegsmarine vessels. (Both ships destroyed 1 Carrier, 4 Destroyer, 16 merchants and three escorts) While classified as a BC they indeed represented a "anti Battlecruiser" in Fischer´s original conception (speed and firepower for protection). They had a 11 inch armement, which was excellent for it´s gunsize (range 42.000 yrds +, very high muzzle velocity, good deck penetration, good preciseness, cyclic rate of fire: 3.5), but inferior to contemporary gunsizes (except maybe Dunkerque-class) of any BB/BC.
Indeed, while most BB have a small immune zone against 15 inchers they have a very wide against the 11 inchers, and this is a disadvantage battling a BB.
Her protection was better than any other BC ever made (including Hood). Subdivision was excellent. Some says this qualifies it as a battleship. Her belt protection was a little better than those of the Bismarcks (350 mm KC vertical + 105 mm Wh at 45 degrees + 45 mm ww inclined) but without stronger upper belt (only 45 mm), her deck armor was inferior to that of Bismarck. This makes the ship even more immune to point blanc ranges of any thinkable gunsize (up to 20.1") but vulnarable at plunging fire even at medium ranges (vitals could be reached by british 15"/42 as soon as 17.000yrds but more reasonably at 19.000 yrds, what is in within the usual fighting distance). The extensive armor layout contributed a lot to the heavy displacement of the ship. While designed for 32.5 kts both ships recorded less top speed than estimated (Gneisenau 31.8 kts, Scharnhorst 31.6 kts at standart displacement), thanks to it´s higher executed displacement (Attention! The main belt begun at full displacement only 1.5 m above the waterline).
All I know underlines that both ships were very "wet" at heavy seas up to the "A" turret. A plus for the design is their large range, At 30 kts usual speed they could achieve ~4.300 nautic miles without refuel. This should play a role in the Atlantic while facing the slower short legged but more powerful RN hunters. Actually, while not Fisher like, these BC were the only ones, which acted like a BC: They used their superior speed to engage inferior enemies (Glorious, Rawalpindi), dictate the range or disengage BB (Renown, Nelson) any time and strictly stayed out of the battle line (Scharnhorst also tried to disengae DoY but two full torpedo salvos from chasing DD forced her to slow down her speed). However, it´s design was a little flawed: Their protection was optimized for close ranges but they were no close range fighter´s like Bismarck but BC depending on speed and range so a better deck protection (even better than Bismarck) would be more reasonable for these ships, I think. 
The Gneisenau refit begun in 1943 could have given the design a better performance at all: refit 9 11 incher by 6 15 inchers would give a better punch, replacing the secondary and tertiary artillery by a single dual purpose 128mm calibre (twin tureet C-42 design) would be better, too. The refit with Würzburg Riese Radar could give the ships a better air search capability and the elongation of the bow contributes a lot to additional lift and a better length-beam relation, thus making the ship more seaworthy and considerably faster with the same powerplant (32.5 kts would be achievable surely at standart displacement) or allowing a better main deck protection at 32 kts.


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## delcyros (Jan 4, 2006)

While I agree that combined fleet is somehow imbalanced in the points given, possibly motivated by national pride, I have to admit that it is still reasonably sourced and from what I already read, the best. 
I cannot agree that the "allies" generally downrate the Bismarck because it is an axis ship. That´s wrong. Have a look at Kbsimarck.com.
Actually it was to a high degree Nathan Okun and his comprehensive armor penetration analysis what lead to underestimate the Bismarck´s abilities to take punishment. His estimations are not reflected in the wreckages hull damages at all because it suffered from medium and close range hits. 
The author of combined fleet just weights the strength´s of US ships more and reduces the strength´s of Bismarck (and to some degree KGV as well) a lot. 

3.) underwater protection:

The point of compartimentation has two main sides:
1.) [included by the author] the defensive torpedo compartimentation in the armor zone
2.) [not included] the relation of protected to unprotected compartiments plus the total degree of subdivision (this is what makes a ship staying afloat while heavily beeing hitten) -of course this couldn´t be noticed by the author because it would led to a considerably reduce of the US ships points as we will see.

3.1.) system breadth:
I can agree with the exception that the breadth of the TDS of US ships is only 12% of the waterline that large. all other parts, namely at the magazines are much less wide (at turret "B" only 12 feet!)
3.2.) compartimentation:
error: Bismarck has not one void plus one liquid but three (!) orientated threedimansionally: void(from botom to 2/3) -liquid (from sloped 105 mm to 1/3 of bottom) - void (from bottom to 2/3). This clearly plays a role:
a torpedo impact would have no effect, since the gaz effects can be taken by the whole wideness of 18.04 feet (No-1 plus No-3, under No-2), this would allow explosive sizes up to 800 Kg to be contained without effect. 
Richelieu: The inability to counterflood the ship because the void space is filled with water exhasutive material is a severe design flaw, as prooved by the few hits of Massachusetts against Jean Bart, this makes counterflooding of the vitals (!) necessary in case of a penetrating hit! 
Yamato: The author dinged the Yamato for not using liquid loaded tanks outboard. Why should designers do so? A torpedo blast against a liquid filled tank would not be containable. The liquid is far less compressable than air (void) and thus would simply transfer the impact force more inboardly unreduced. Liquids contain fragmentation to a very high degree but not blast effects. It´s more wise to place the void tanks outboard (like Yamato and Bismarck, Richelieu as well as KGV and unlike Iowa, South Dakota, Littorio) to contain the blast effects or reduce them considerably and contain the following fragmentation by the liquid filled tanks more inboardly
3.3.) Armor belt:
Generally: The percentage of the waterline covered by the main belt or any substantial armor protection is neglected by the author. This is a clear mistake and benefits the US and japanese ships for their very small amount of total percentage covered by their AON armor sheme. As we know, Bismarck covered most of the waterline.
Iowa/SD: The main belt goes down to the bottom but is tapered from 2/3 down to the bottom 19mm and made of class "A" armor. This armor has very worse scaling effects and is inable to contain any larger blast or fragmentation but may even add further fragmentation with it´s own material. One result of Okun is that a single thick plate has much more resistence than three or four thinner plates (with a comparable or even higher added thickness), so this belt surely wouldn´t stop a diving shell nor would it stop the fragmentation of a torpedo blast. The 3-4 STS plates are more reasonable but the wideness of the compartements are restricted. At the magazines the TDS is not able to contain the blast effects of usual japanese or german torpedos nor those of the dangerous long lance.
Bismarck: Main armor is replaced by a inner mounted soft 45 mm Ww armor, which goes down to the bottom of the ship. This armor succesfully prevented diving projectiles (14inch from PoW) from penetrating as well as torpedo blast from reaching the vitals (according to wreckage analysis). The damages inflicted by the 14" hit were all of non penetrating nature. (author dinged Bismarck for a shallow belt)
3.4.) Total compartimentation[not included]:
This includes subdivision in watertight compartments total.
Yamato: 24/1400 total
Bismarck: 22/ 900 total
KGV: 22/820 total
Littorio: 21/ 745 total
Iowa: 20/ 780 total
South Dakota: 18/630 total
Richelieu: 16/530 total
3.5.) relation protected compartments to unprotected compartments[not included]: Protection is defined by 3.1.-3.3. 
Yamato: 13/24
Bismarck: 17/22
KGV: 15/22
Littorio: 16/21
Iowa: 13/20
South Dakota: 11/18
Richelieu: 9/16

3.6.) Displacement: While not a "hard" factor, it is clear that larger ships can take more water than smaller ones and therefor should benfit.
1.) Yamato -72.000 t.
2.) Iowa -57.000 t.
3.) Bismarck - 51.000 t.
4.) Richelieu -48.000 t.
6.) Littorio-46.000 t.
5.) KGV- 42.000 t.
7.) South Dakota - 38.000 t.


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## Udet (Jan 4, 2006)

More interesting stuff mr. Delcyros.

It is not daring to affirm *Bismarck* was the best overall battleship of Europe during the entire WWII.

The outcome of her first engagement: getting great pyrotecnics out of the pride (and flagship) of the Royal Navy, and heavily pounding and damaging another, tells of what _*Bismarck*_ was made of, and speaks pretty much for itself.

Replace the RN flagship and the other vessel of that engagement with any other British battleship and you will see the outcome can be pretty much the same, if not worst for them Brits.

Who would you like to put instead of the two toys that enganged Bismarck?

Pick two of the following from the vintage battleship menu of the Royal Navy: 

_Valiant_, _Ramillies_, _Malaya_, _Queen Elizabeth_, _Warspite_...all very old toys, inferior to *Bismarck*. There could only be two who could be somewhat more troublesome: _*Nelson*_ and *Rodney*, with their three triple 16in. turrets, not as old as those first mentioned, but quite older when compared to _*Bismarck*_, and more importantly: significantly slower than the German machine. There is another one, the twin of the pounded _Prince of Wales_, the _Duke of York_, why would she be better than her twin was against Lütjenz battleship?

*Bismarck* would outmanouver and outspeed the *Rodney-Nelson *couple in the same engagement, and the outcome could be somewhat similar. Or at least, both British battleships end the battle heavily damaged with lots of dead and wounded inside.

Or I would put it in an hypothetical scenario for you:

What would have happened to *ANY* of the British battleships in May 1941, if it had been caught *ALONE* *CRIPPLED* in the opean seas, against _Bismarck_, _Scharnhorst _and _Gneisenau_?

Let me tell you what would have happened: she would have lasted 80% less time than Bismarck effectively did when it got pounded, with perhaps a fireball similar to that of the _Hood_, when the heavy shells of _Bismarck_ reached her intestines.

Of course the allies move ahead with their stuff: "yeah...but also critical weaknesses of the German vessel rose to the surface during her first engagement..."

A famous _Prince of Wales´_shell whose effect I do not recall in due accuracy; it was either the shell isolated a critical amount of fuel or caused leakings, therefore a same outcome: inability to use all the fuel.

If I recall correctly none of the mighty British battleships was ever going to catch up with Bismarck, for the simple reason they were all slower. It was not until getting crippled by the Swordfish torpedo hit, she was doomed. So the effect of that very famous British shell was overinflated?


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 4, 2006)

I would not go as far as to say the Bismark was the best Battleship of the war. I would say she was one of the best all around Battleships. She was great in just about all areas. I will go however to say that just because she did that to the Hood on one day, does not mean that any other British Vessel would not do the same. 

I will however go as far as saying that she did outclass a good size of the Royal Navy's Battlehsips do to the fact that many of her Battleships were still WW1 era or 1920's technology.

In the end though, due to Aircraft the Bismarck was doomed anyhow.


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## Udet (Jan 4, 2006)

DerAdler:

If you read my posting again, you will notice I said "best overall battleship of Europe during the entire WWII". (Second line of the posting)

Of europe, and not of the entire war, although it is one of the greatest of the entire war for sure.


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## delcyros (Jan 4, 2006)

Bismarck got 3 14 inch hits from PoW. All three hit areas for the ships later yourney important:
*1: A main belt penetrating dud hit the bow region just outside the citadell (where the main belt was reduced to 50 mm Wh) and holed the hull slightly over water (but inside the bowwavezone). It destroyed some four fuel cells and the flooding caused by the shell prevented reaching some 1000 t of fuel in the bow. Furtherly, the bow list by taking water reduced the top speed a little (to around 29 kts).
*2: Another hit stroke the catapult but wasn´t detected prior to the attempts to bring back the war diary of the ship. It prevented the use of airplanes.
*3: The most often cited diving shell hit the ship under its main belt. The shell (losing windscreen and AP-cap) went throught liquid cell2 and void cell3 and was finally stopped by the 45 mm torpedo bulkhead. Nethertheless the fragmentation of this non penetrating hit caused some flooding in the electric turbine room behind which led to it´s controlled closing until minor repairs could be executed. The other turbine room provided still more than enough power for all devices of Bismarck.

In it´s time it was maybe the best BB (May 1941), but there are lot´s of contenders: The RN had the excellent "Jonny come late" Vanguard class. The french Richelieu would be a dangerous foe. And as pointed out above by Glider, luck plays a role. A single hit may cause catastrophic damage on any ship. Had the Hood not suffered conflagration that soon, I expect the outcome of the battle would have been different. The odds were hard against the KM. The RN should have made better use of Norfolk and Suffolk


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## Glider (Jan 4, 2006)

Udet
I agree that the Bismark was probably the best all round BB in Europe, but not by that much. 
The rest of your posting is more than a little off the mark. The Prince of Wales was sent straight out into action before she had shaken down and she even had some builders on board when she sailed to try to sort out some of the inevitable problems you get on any new ship of that size and complexity. The main problem with the POW was her quad 14in Turrets that were very unreliable. For a good portion of the battle she was only firing 6 gun broadsides and at times only 2. With this in mind, she did well to do what she needed to do, which was to stop the Bismark being able to continue with her mission. Her hit did contaminate a lot of the Bismarks oil forcing a return but the Bismark was also flooded in the bow which slowed her to a small extent. 

Taking up your challenge I would suggest that any two of the following Nelson, Rodney, any worked up KGV class BB, Warspite, Queen Elizabeth, Valient would have been able to take on the Bismark. A lot of your argument is based on the ability of the Bismark to out manouver the British ships but that only really helps if you are trying to run away. If you want to fight then that evens things up. What matters then, is can they hit you when you can hit them. I chose the above ships as they are all modernised with Modern fire control and more importantly had the elevation of their guns increased to 30 degrees giving them a range in excess of 30,000 yards. 
The Bismark may have a theoretical range of 40,000 ish yards but you would never hit anything. I think I am right in saying that the longest range hit by any BB of any side in any battle in the war was 27,000 yards, so a 30,000yd range would be plenty. In case your interested, the hit was made by the Warspite. In addition, you should remember that the first 16in hit on the Bismark in the final battle knocked out both her forward turrets Don't underestimate the older battleships.

One to one the Bismark would have a number of advantages but two to one, I don't think so. 

Finally, off Norway both the Schornhorst and the Gneisenau met the Renown in the open sea with no aircraft around. The action took place in fog at short range and the result was no damage to the Renown, hits on both the German ships and I believe the Gneisenau suffered serious damage to her rear turret, that I would need to check.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 4, 2006)

Udet said:


> DerAdler:
> 
> If you read my posting again, you will notice I said "best overall battleship of Europe during the entire WWII". (Second line of the posting)
> 
> Of europe, and not of the entire war, although it is one of the greatest of the entire war for sure.



I was making a General statement, not directed at your post directly.


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## Glider (Jan 4, 2006)

Our postings crossed but I would support Delcs comments.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 4, 2006)

As I have been, he seems to be very knowledgeable about it.


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## Udet (Jan 4, 2006)

Mr. Glider:

Thank you very much for your comments.

As I said three postings ago within this particular thread, naval matters are not my specialty, so I am not going to heat up here.

I find all this interesting and I want to learn a bit more naval stuff.

Regarding the engagement between_ Renown_ vs _Scharnhorst-Gneisenau_ the outcome was more the consequence of Germany´s obssession about not having another one of the large vessels perhaps crippled or badly damaged in action, and not because the German twins could not punish _Renown_.


Glider, you touched a very sensitive point in your posting though: the famous British account of HMS _Prince of Wales_ not being 100% battle-ready, and that some civilian workers from the builder were still on board...

jesus...do you detect how scandalous this can be Glider?

The Admiralty should have concealed that piece of information for it could lead many to think the guys of the Royal Navy could be very incompetent about directing the naval affairs of the empire.

So perhaps WWII marked the beginning of the end of a once proud, skilled, professional navy that used to be the most powerful fleet on the planet for such a long time? I do not have the elements to respond this, but I assume you do.

Instead of a futile justification to attempt explaining the fact *HMS Prince of Wales* got her ass badly kicked by _Bismarck_, these facts should be a scandal.

So Glider, if I am going to have a kick boxing fight, and have several fighters in my team, am I going to send one who is still recovering from a broken leg? 

Am I going to have the doctor and therapist by the side of the ring yelling questions as to how is the broken leg feeling as the process of getting the living crap kicked out of him happens?

If I do, and when the guy returns from combat with his ass duly kicked, will that mean his enemy was not that good? Let me answer it for you: YOU WILL NEVE KNOW. He dealt with what he got sent against him. 

Bismarck dealt with what the Royal Navy first sent against her, didn´t her?


I do agree with you once the combat is accepted anything can happen; Bismarck did not try to evade the combat against the two British battleships though; did the guys on board Bismarck know HMS Prince of Wales cuadruple turrest were crap?

So in the hypthetical scenario I suggested, although anything could happen, I believe Bismarck emerges as a winner, or at leat, in the most favorable of the conditions.

My comments, although irrelevant in the end for she was doomed, regarding the Bismarck capability to take brutal punishment during her final combat, without sinking or exploding, tells of the soundness of her construction.

I have not claimed her to be perfect for there were no perfect vessels. 


Delcyros:

Thank you for you response. But still, the heavy units of the Royal Navy were not going to catch up with Bismarck, is that correct?


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## Glider (Jan 4, 2006)

Udet. If I upset you then there was no intention to do so. There is no doubt that the Bismark and Prinz Eugen won the first battle, it would be stupid to pretend otherwise.
Also I wasn't trying to quote make a futile justification that the POW got her ass kicked' 
There is no doubt that the POW broke off the engagement and she did this as to stay would have put her at grave risk. When she turned away the POW was down to one working Turret and her Bridge had received a direct hit wiping out almost everyone on it. She was in no condition to continue the action. She had been hit by three 15in shells and four 8in shells. 
Its interesting that the POW and the Bismark hit each other three times.

However, there is also no doubt that the POW did have dockworkers on board and that her quad 14in Turrets were very unreliable. A problem that impacted most of the class for nearly the entire war. There is also no doubt, that she inflicted enough damage on the Bismark to force her to abandon her mission. 
The Germans wouldn't have known about the gun problems there is no reason why she should have done and we wouldn't have been keen to tell the world about the problem.

As for the Renown vs Scharnhorst + Gneisenau. 
The reason the Germans retreated wasn't because of the fear of damage. It was officially because they were carrying German soldiers for the invasion of Norway and the delivery of those soldiers was the primary objective. 
The view in the RN was that if the roles had been reversed and the Renown been German we would have turned to fight. 

Would we have done in real life? who knows, but the fact remains that you asked what would happen if ships met in open waters and there was an example. 

I should remind you that I actually agreed with the important part of your first posting, that the Bismark was the best european BB around.

I also would like to repeat that there was and is, no intention to cause discord.


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## Udet (Jan 4, 2006)

Mr. Glider:

Thank you very much for your comments again.

Please do not misunderstand the "flavor" of my comments. I am not upset, at all. Sorry, but sometimes I am just too lazy to type emoticons...

Quite the contrary, I enjoy reading your comments, for as I said, I am no expert when it comes to naval aspects of WWII. My knowledge on the matter could be qualified as barely above basic.

I agree HMS _Prince of Wales_ caused damage enough to change the German plans for _Bismarck_ as well. As you correctly said, when the battle begins between large surface vessels anything can happen.

Really Glider, I do think the British official story should have concealed the fact *HMS Prince of Wales* was not 100% ready for combat. Would you agree it was a very stupid thing to do?

I have heard some people talking about it, did the guys on board the _Prince of Wales_ they were going to have a field day facing Bismarck?

Or were they overwhelmingly confident about some British naval superiority, that even with civilians workers on board trying to gear her up, and with cuadruple main turrets that were crap, they were going to defeat the German enemy?

It was an unconceivable fact to acknowledge from an armed branch deemed as "professional".

Although a fine opponent, I do believe HMS _Prince of Wales_ was lucky to survive the engagement.


Glider, another question regarding the french _Jean Bart_:

Do you know if the french experienced any trouble with those cuadruple turrets?

If I recall correctly, when the _Jean Bart _entered combat against US Navy forces off Casablanca -tied to her dock-, she had only one turret installed.

Was that all the combat the _Jean Bart_ had during the entire WWII? 

Also if I recall correctly, the_ Richelieu _never entered combat against naval forces during the war, is that about correct?


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## Hunter368 (Jan 4, 2006)

I just wanted to thank you all in this thread for all your comments. While I have made no comments of my own (not qualified to, lol) I find this thread very interesting. While I did know Bismark was a very good ship, I did not know it was arguably better than anyone else's in Europe during the entire war. Again thank you for this very interesting thread and arguments from both side of the coin.


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## Glider (Jan 5, 2006)

Udet. The Jean Bart was never completed during the war. She was being built in St Nazaire but was moved to Casablanca before the Germans arrived. At this time she was far from complete but one turret was installed although she had no fire control equipment of any description. All the French could do was set up a manual system that took bearings from three different places and do the calculations to arrive at a firing solution.
When the US forces attacked she was moored at a quay and fought back as long as she could under what can only be described as impossible conditions. French sources admit that she was hit eight times by the USS Massachusetts and at least one torpedo from aircraft before fires forced her to cease firing.
In her incomplete state she was also missing most of her sophisticated damage control equipment and had to rely an the physical efforts of what damage control teams she had. As you may expect she didn't have a full crew which also didn't help.

You asked if the French had problems with their Quad 15in Turrets. I don't know the anwser to this but I suspect not. I say this as the French had already built two Battlecruisers the Dunkerque and the Stratsbourg with Quad 13in. With this experience behind them, I would have thought that they would have learnt some lessons as to what works and what doesn't. 
I do believe that she had some problems with the Guns themselves not the Turrets

The Richleau was refitted in the USA in 1943 with modern AA weapons and to have three 15in guns replaced with ones taken from the Jean Bart. All I know is that these needed replacing for 'technical reasons' hence my previous comment re problems with the guns.

As for her war record. In July 1944, the Richleau joined the British Eastern Fleet taking part in bombardments and actions before returning to France before the end of 1944 before returning to the Pacific to take part in the campaign from April 1945 until the end.

Hope this helps

Hunter
I am sure that Udet as well as myself appreciate your comments. This is an aviation site and we have gone a little off track down the Naval route. Personally I was concerned that we may have lost the thread I thank you all for your indulgance


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## delcyros (Jan 5, 2006)

I am going with you, Glider.
PoW, while beeing commisioned, did not completed her seatrials (alike Bismarck), when it left it´s harbour. The problems with it´s quadruple turret are partly engineering based (KGV also suffered over it´s whole service time from that) but mostly due to a lack of training and securing systems.
Nethertheless the ship did a good job.
Bismarck and Prinz Eugen did not break because they believed that CA were closing, not BB/BC.
The turret design of Richelieu is biased. There is a heavy armor plate dividing it into two twin fun units (in case of Strassbourg it indeed worked well, when it was hit, so only one half turret was knocked out). Another plus is it was the only heavy gun to be loaded at any angle (so it is equal in rate of fire at long ranges even to Bismarcks reputated 15"), and it´s ballistic performances are even better. I don´t know about original french shells, but it is clear that later in ww2 Richelieu benefitted from US made shells (rarely duds, very resistent against impact damage). Some aspects of it´s turret design are questionable: Why are the electric and hydraulic cables mounted on the back of the armor plates? Every non penetrating impact of any shell bigger than 8 inch would knock the complete turret out, no matter how thick the armor is or how long the distance, in case this plate is hitten. I personally find it also difficult that all main guns are orientated forward and all secondary rearward. (the third ship of this class: Gascogne, should be executed with one forward and one backward firing turret but France surrendered prior to this)
Beside of this it indeed is a reasonable contender and a very handsome ship. More fuel capacity, improved underwater protection (much better subdivision, void instead of filled cells) and a Gascogne- like layout would make the ship better than Bismarck, no doubt.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 5, 2006)

Hunter368 said:


> I just wanted to thank you all in this thread for all your comments. While I have made no comments of my own (not qualified to, lol) I find this thread very interesting. While I did know Bismark was a very good ship, I did not know it was arguably better than anyone else's in Europe during the entire war. Again thank you for this very interesting thread and arguments from both side of the coin.



Im with you on this also. I am not all that knowledgable in navy matters. I really do like to read up and study on the Bismarck though, I was always fascinated with her Titanic type fate.


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## Erich (Jan 5, 2006)

interesting I must say, all the hype on the Bismark and a ship that really was not able to prove itself. without starting a flame war it apepars through KM documentation that it's smaller sister the Prinz Eugen was able to deliver the killing blow on the Hood. Even though a grand ship with smaller large caliber weapons they were enough to do the damage and also be quite felt by the Soviets in and around the Baltic in 44 till wars end along with the smaller Z-ships


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## Udet (Jan 5, 2006)

Mr. Delcyros:

When you say the internal design of the french main cuadruple turret worked well in the _Strasbourg_ -saying that when it got hit only half the turret got knocked out- to what combat you be referring to?

The action against the British in Mers-el-Kebir?

_Strasbourg_, was the only large vessel anchored there that managed to escape -it was, with not doubt, a test of seamanship and guts: manouvering in the chaos of the small harbor, with the enemy fleet firing from the distance speaks a lot for itself- and if i recall correctly, the British scored no hits on her. Her twin, _Dunkerque_ was heavily damaged and got beached.

So when was it that the design proved its worth? Just a question, I might be unaware of another combat where she got involved.

While theoretically interesting as a design, I have my doubts as to how it would actually work once put to test in real combat. 

Putting an armor plate dividing the big turret into two sections... it seems highly unlikely that in the event of a heavy shell hitting the turret on any side only half turret would get knocked out.

A smaller shell hitting it, well, even without the internal armor plate fitted, any major turret would have no problem in resisting the impact and continue in operation.

Or say, that depending on the exact place and angle of the oncoming shell, at least the rotating mechanism of the turret would get thrashed.


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## delcyros (Jan 5, 2006)

My mistake. It was Richelieu, not Strassbourg, which suffered main turret damage. It was hit by a 15 inch shell either from HMS Barham or HMS Resolution at Dakar which knocked her main gun #2 and #1 out of action. #3 and #4 remained intact (minor damages by shock effects, some injured crew members as well), so the subdivision of the quadruple turret is battle proofed. 
It´s all a question at what impact angle the shell hits and what striking force it has (weight, speed, design of AP-cap). A 15" hit is anyway a heavy hit.
However, since the Richelieu has face hardened armor on it´s turret face (and sides), the effect is different:
A slow moving, heavy shell with soft cap will ricochet off(at high obliquities), break (at the holing limit) or make it´s way through (at direct impact angles). A faster, lighter AP shell (let´s take 8 inch) won´t make it through at most but close distances but it will plug out a lot of armor, which in most cases will knock the turret out of action (repairable), since the face hardened armor is more resistant but more brittle also than homogenoius.
Designs differ to counter these effects. 
One of the reasons why Bismarck had so little turret armor is that design crews found out that a turret cannot be safed even by heavy armor at almost all distances (thanks to shock effects and damage caused by armor punched out) from 14" and heavier projectiles.
Take Bismarcks 15" for example: It will reach partly penetration (upper body at low obliquity) even at distances of 18000 yrds against 22 inch of face hardened armor! The non penetrating damage caused by this projectile weighting 3/4 of a ton, travelling at speeds between Mach 1.5 and Mach 4 will knock out a 22 inch covered turret even at 30000 yrds...
Realizing this they decided to protect against smaller, high velocity shells, like 8 inch even at 0 distance. However, in order to provide sufficient protection against heavier projectiles a second, very ductile layer of approx. 45-50 mm armor (US-"B" or Ww) would be neccessary behind a more thicker face hardened armor (around 20 inch and more). This was partly executed only in the Yamato turret design. It should be noted that such a turret would weight almost a destroyers full weight!
The US replaced face hardened with homogenoius armor on their turret mainly because of the worrisome scaling effects of their class"A" face ardened armor. This is very reasonable. The resistence of "B" is little less compared to face hardened but the good elongation qualities more than offsets this. The problem was to make homogenoius in such a thickness (20 inch +) without making it brittle (thus reducing the elongation advantage). I don´t believe that they succeeded in this, but there are no confirmations avaiable. Even with this in mind, The turret is only partly protected against heavy shells (against Richelieus 15"/50 at distances further away than 17.000yrds) and not protected against non penetrating hits (at any distance). With this in mind, the subdivision of the Dunkerque/Richelieu-class turrets should be considered as advanced.


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## delcyros (Jan 5, 2006)

Just theoretically, the Prinz Eugen might have done the fatal hit on Hood. But this is very theoritcally.
Let´s assume it is a deck penetrating hit (as most scholars believe), the abilities to penetrate the deck (calculated with british homogenious armor) are the following at 16.000 yrds distance (around the distance where Hood suffered conflagration):

Bismarck:
15"/52: 2.2 inch at 1816 ft/sec.
5.9"/55: 1.3 inch at 1019 ft/sec.
4.1"/65: neglectable, the angle of fall would indicate no deck penetration

Prinz Eugen:
8"/60: 1.2 inch at 1551 ft/sec.
4.1"/65: neglectable, the angle of fall would indicate no deck penetration (deflected)

-surprise! The deck penetrating abilities of Bismarcks main and secondary guns are better than the CA´s main artillery (thanks to a very flat trajectory) The deck armor of Hood over aft magazine are 67mm + 51 mm weather deck + splinter deck (may have been hit also) 17mm. 
With this in mind, there is no justification for the claim that Prinz Eugen did the fatal blow directly. A indirect may be caused by a fire set up by a 8 inch hit (which could in theory set off the secondary ammo stored there), which in the end led to the main ammo burning (unprobable because of the armor subdivision there, it must have been "open" in some kind).
However, let´s think it was a 15" hit - the deck armor penetration makes it improbable:
Penetarting the weatherdeck (projectile is losing windscreen and AP-cap, no nose damage, speed reduced to 1345 ft/sec., deflection down by 5.4 degrees), the projectile is getting weaker and would be rendered "ineffective" by reaching the armor deck (nose shattered, partly penetration). Could the non penetrating damage set off the powder?
Hard on the explainable limit, if you ask me.

Now let´s assume it was a belt penetrating hit (against british cementated, which is a little better than that used on Hood:

Bismarck (penetration must be "effective" with intact shellbody):
15"/52: 17.6 inch
5.9"/55: 2.2 inch
4.1"/65: 1.6 inch

Prinz Eugen:
8"/60: 7.5 inch
4.1"/65: 1.6 inch

The armor layout of Hood there is 305 mm main belt(slightly inclined) + 54mm (sloped 45 degrees)+ 19 mm, so the 15" of Bismarck is the only gun to place a projectile in this distance into Hoods vitals via belt (without any problems).
Lets assume a last possibility: The ship was doing a turn left , there is some probability that the ship rolls a bit in the sea.
I have a diving shell in mind (right side of Hood is briefly lifted due to rolling sea), the armor here is 76m plus 19mm, so under this circumstance, both, Bismarcks 15" and Prinz Eugen´s 8" could make it´s through. Anyway, a belt penetrating hit is more reasonable for the destruction of Hood than any thinkable deck penetration.


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## Glider (Jan 5, 2006)

Whilst I agree with Delc that it is certain to have been a 15in that sank the Hood. I think everyone will recognise that the Prinz Eugen did remarkably well hitting the Hood hard as well as scoring damaging hits on the POW. It certainly shows up the performance of our CA's in the battle


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## Erich (Jan 5, 2006)

Gentlemen though providing for a rather nice disortation nothing has been proven with regard of the P.E. destroying the Hood or not. Since we have no living eye witnesses to say a Bismarck big boy shell or one of smaller caliber hit the Hood to cause the fatal damage nothing can be said except conjecture. The P.E. remarked in their log-books, sadly nothing can be said for the Bismarks ill fated crew as to witness, they ahving their own problems during the battle obviously. We of course in this day and age could not admit the pride of the Royal Navy being sunk by a lesser craft so it would of had to been the Hood.


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## Udet (Jan 5, 2006)

Mr. Delcyros:

Thanks for the info again.

Now, if a heavy shell of either _Barham_ and _Resolution_ knocked out 2 of the 4 guns in one of the turrets of _Richelieu_, it is kind of natural to assume -in accordance with the info on _Bismarck_´s 15in. shells you provided here- that an impact in the same point of the cuadruple turret fired from the German battleship would have knocked out the complete turret.

The guns of Bismarck, as well as the shells, were better and more powerful than those fitted to the vintage battleships of the Royal Navy.

I think we can agree on this can´t we?


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## delcyros (Jan 6, 2006)

Not neccessarely. The hit was a turretroof hit. It must be considered as a horizontal "deck" penetration. Obviously the british 15"/42 has more deck penetrating capabilities than the high velocity, flat trajectory 15"/52 of Bismarck. In this very case, I would suspect that the probability to ricochet off or deflect the projectile would be higher for a Bismarck´s shell. 
Nethertheless non penetrating damage would be worrisome and knock out half a turret. In the end Richelieu would suffer less damage (because repairable in most cases).
Even a direct hit would knock out one half turret completely, but fragmentation and blast effects are contained by the additional dividing heavy armor plate, so I suspect that only non penetrating damage occurs in the second turret half at all but very close distances (when the shell penetrates both plates intactly). This doesn´t mean that the intact half turret can continue to fire (I already mentioned the problems to mount vital cables at the armor plate, this probably would silence the whole turret), but it would be repairable. 
The german AP shells in general were superior in armor penetration but more a subject to projectile damage than contemporary US or british shells. The british shells in particular have a more pointed AP-cap design, increasing the amount of non penetrating damage (armor punched out, called "discs" by the RN).


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## delcyros (Jan 6, 2006)

According to the post battle report of PoW and (more important) Norfolk, the Hood blew up just at the time when it was staggled by 15" impacts. It might be reasonable to think there is a causal relation. However, this doesn´t exclude the PE, as you pointed out correctly, Erich.
What seems more interesting to me is that at these distances deck penetration is a very rarely thing to happen, whatever gun is involved. Belt penetration could be a (better?) explenation. The wreckage analysis showed that the ship indeed turned (in order to bring all main guns into firing position) port prior to impact (while all three survivers state that the ship did not executed the turn). If we factor longitudinal impact angles properly, we can assume that this turn sealed the ship´s fate, showing the belt and making belt penetration possible (without there would be deck penetration only, no chance to hit the belt from these angles). Of course, failed armor plates might make deck penetration possible, also. The wreckage gives some valid informations that two conflagrations happened, the first to seperate the stern from amidship and the second (not noticed before) seperating the bow. I could imagine that the latter is caused later, even may have little to do with the battle.


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## Erich (Jan 6, 2006)

Del I would be curious if there is a ship to ship map showing the angle of the 3 ships in reference to one another during teh final engagement with the Hood. I have about 3-4 books on the Eugen so will look if something is there. Still with the choas and the smoke, clarity was not at a premium. Still many unsolved questions


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## delcyros (Jan 6, 2006)

...many of them cannot be answered in detail, agreed. 
The position can be extrapolated if you plot the headings for each ship in correspondence with the time, speed and the distance to each other. Not all details are known but here are some:

Hood/PoW heading:

until 05:37: 240, 28 kts
05:37: Bismarck and PE spotted
05:37-05:49: 280
05:49-05:55: 300
05:52: Hood opens fire, distance is ~25.000 yrds
05:53: PoW opens fire
05:55-06:00: 280
06:00-06:01: 260 
06:01: Hood sinks, distance is ~16.000 yrds 
06:01-06:02: 160 (PoW only)
06:02-06:05: 210 (PoW only)
06:05-06:23: turn left to 110 (PoW only)

Bismarck heading:
until 06:03: 220, 30 kts
05:55: Bismarck opens fire, distance is ~23.000 yrds
06:03: toprpedo evasive action (turn right, then left, Bismarck overtakes PE)
06:09: Bismarck fires last half salvo, distance to PoW: ~18.000 yrds 
06:09: turn to new heading 270 (PE accelerates to 32.5 kts and overtakes Bismarck)

So with a little math and added informations from Suffolk and Norfolk (Norfolk stayed out of the battle, Suffolk joined later PoW) as well as those provided by Bismarcks artillery director Müllenheim-Rechenberg (checked for the british CA), there is good chance to reconstruct each ships position +- 200 yrds. That sounds pretty much but it is sufficiant to check the longitudinal impact angles from Bismarck and Hood. I am pretty sure somewhere in the web are more detailed informations avaiable.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 8, 2006)

Erich said:


> Del I would be curious if there is a ship to ship map showing the angle of the 3 ships in reference to one another during teh final engagement with the Hood. I have about 3-4 books on the Eugen so will look if something is there. Still with the choas and the smoke, clarity was not at a premium. Still many unsolved questions



If you watch the video "The Discovery of the Bismark" it has some nice computer simulations showing the angles and where the shells hit.


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## delcyros (Jan 8, 2006)

At the reported distance the angle of fall for Bismarck´s vaunted 15" AP shell is indicated with only 14 degrees. A deflection at this very high obliquity (on horinzontal armor) is very probable. 
In order to get back with the topic I will post some aspects with advantages for KM using heavy surface forces in the Atlantic:

1.) While beeing totally outnumbered, the Atlantic is a large field to operate in. As long as the KM ships posses the speed advantage, they may dictate the terms of engagement (as Scharnhorst%Gneisenau did)

2.) The use of carrier based air forces in the Atlantic is less effective than in the Pacific due to bad weather conditions (KM usually preferred bad weather conditions for their raids)

3.) The existence of Raiders would press the RN in the uncomfortable situation to protect their convois against both, submarines and raiders. And while the older BB would perfectly fit into the escort´s role, they would be more exposed to submarine attacks also

4.) KM ships usually had the advantage of a better range, while the RN did not need an effective higher range because of their innumerous bases, the chase for the Bismarck proved that their range was insufficiant even at this short journey (all involved ships were in the end very low on fuel)

5.) Raiders proved to be effective against merchants if properly deployed (evading battles)

6.) The binding of RN forces in the Atlantic theatre would benefit the other theatres, esspecially the axis in the Mediterannean, later less BB could support the allies in the coastal bombardments neccessary for amphibous/invasion campaigns in northern Africa, Sicily, Italy and France.

7.) it could be argued (not sure), that the heavy ships would attract more concentration than the submarines, thus making each other´s task easier.

It should be noted that extensive battles of heavy forces would always benefit the RN.


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## syscom3 (Jan 8, 2006)

> 1.) While beeing totally outnumbered, the Atlantic is a large field to operate in. As long as the KM ships posses the speed advantage, they may dictate the terms of engagement (as Scharnhorst%Gneisenau did)



Are you reffering just to the North Atlantic or the whole Atlantic ocean?



> 2.) The use of carrier based air forces in the Atlantic is less effective than in the Pacific due to bad weather conditions (KM usually preferred bad weather conditions for their raids)



Land based airpower is available from Iceland and Scotland. The German raiders would not be able to operate past the mid Atlantic as the US had a zone of exclusion for the German navy.



> 3.) The existence of Raiders would press the RN in the uncomfortable situation to protect their convois against both, submarines and raiders. And while the older BB would perfectly fit into the escort´s role, they would be more exposed to submarine attacks also



The raiders would also be exposed to the RN submarines. In fact, the anti submarine zig zagging the German raiders would have to perform as a normal course of defense would mean far higher fuel consumption.



> 4.) KM ships usually had the advantage of a better range, while the RN did not need an effective higher range because of their innumerous bases, the chase for the Bismarck proved that their range was insufficiant even at this short journey (all involved ships were in the end very low on fuel)



Agreed



> 5.) Raiders proved to be effective against merchants if properly deployed (evading battles)



Agreed, but what happens when all of the merchant ships are in convoys? You will have to do battle then.



> 6.) The binding of RN forces in the Atlantic theatre would benefit the other theatres, esspecially the axis in the Mediterannean, later less BB could support the allies in the coastal bombardments neccessary for amphibous/invasion campaigns in northern Africa, Sicily, Italy and France.



By the time the invasions of North Africa occured, the USN had been in the war for 10 months. The RN was not going to operate alone. Beginning in 1943, the first bunches of cruisers and battleships ordered under the 1940/1941 ship building programs were beginning to join the fleet, so in just sheer numbers the German navy was going to be overwhelmed. Plus Pearl Harbor and the Repulse/POW debacle off of Malaya proved that the operation of surface ships in the threat of air power was a recipie for disaster.



> 7.) it could be argued (not sure), that the heavy ships would attract more concentration than the submarines, thus making each other´s task easier.



Clarify that for me. I dont understand.



> It should be noted that extensive battles of heavy forces would always benefit the RN.



The allies would win a battle of attrition.

One other thing to remember is the operation of large fleets requires extensive logistics. Battleships alone use up oil by the kiloton. I'm not sure that Germany could afford to operate more than a couple of raiders at one time without impacting other area's of its war economy.


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## delcyros (Jan 8, 2006)

Fine You´re back again, Syscom.

While I am not qualified enough to give proper answers to all I may have some points (starting with the latter ones):
According to the operations conducted by the KM 1945 in the Baltic, the KM never was short on fuel nor had logistical problems of any kind. This isn´t much surprising since both, the number of their ships as the use and deployment was very limited. Fuel shortness became critical in late 44 for all units which depended on HIGH GRADE FUEL (bombers for example), the KM only depended on low grade fuel (e-boats), Diesel or simple oil. 
(of course from mid march 45 on general technical and logistical problems were overwhelming)


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## plan_D (Jan 8, 2006)

The Kriegsmarine had never been used in extensive operations though, and the actions in the Baltic were extremely close to home ports. This wouldn't use up many resources. Using surface raiders across the Atlantic couldn't be further from the Baltic actions of 1944-1945. 

Surface raiders in ones or pairs would be able to attack singular or small convoys, but they would not be able to choke Britain. The major convoys from the Americas to Britain would be defended by the BBs and BCs of the Royal Navy - this would force the Kriegsmarine into a desicive conflict which they would be best to avoid. 

On top of that, the long operation times and distances covered would be a drain on Germany's resource. Capital ships would be all around the Atlantic continually if they wanted any chance of starving Britain out and this would cost a lot in oil.


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## delcyros (Jan 8, 2006)

Air strike in ETO at freely moving big ships actually did not that well. Tirpitz was attacked by torpedo bombers and could evade untouched, Bismarck was attacked also and only a fluke hit doomed her (one of three hits, the others showed nothing), Ark Royal was attacked by Luftwaffe and could evade succesfully. As far as I remember only the Roma was destroyed by level bombing with the help of guided X-1 bombs (which also severely damaged the BB Italia and Warspite). Air attacks were very succesful against ships in their harbour (Tarento, Tirpitz, Gneisenau, Casablanca, Sevastopol). 
It is very questionable if land air forces could do much more than screening and patrol dutys against lonely Raiders.
Some thought´s about submarines. The UK and SU subs regularly patroled in norwegian waters which was efficient, since they stayed there but without any succes. Zigzagging would (and did) only take effect in proximity to the harbours and coasts (where these ships have been screened by DD´s also), while in the open Atlantic the ships high cruising speed (28-30 Kts) would make it very difficult for submarines to get a shot.


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## delcyros (Jan 8, 2006)

The KM never was in the position to choke Britain with it´s capitolships but staying in the Atlantic would make the whole convoijob a lot nastier for the allies.
I remember that PQ-17 was dispersed (and therefor doomed) just after they got the info that Tirptz left it´s anchorage despite the heavy screening with Washington and Duke of Yorck.


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## plan_D (Jan 8, 2006)

It's agreed then, the surface raiders couldn't choke the British Isles. What then, would be the point in them? The U-boats with more resources and bigger numbers would have a much bigger strategic impact on the war than the surface vessels.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 8, 2006)

Syscom this zone of exclusion that the US had did not cover the whole Atlantic. It was just the immediate coast lines surrounding the US and its interests. The Germans were free to go past the mid atlantic all they wanted and did so throughout the war before the US entered. The KM operated from the N. Atlantic to the S. Atlantic to within a couple hundred miles of the US, which we know the Germans broke once the US started escorting convoy even before they entered the war.


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## plan_D (Jan 8, 2006)

German U-boats generally operated in U.S coastal waters too. The U.S had no effective coastal defence until 1942.


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## syscom3 (Jan 8, 2006)

I should have made my statement clearer, that prior to the entry into the war, the US would not have tolerated German raiders operating past that mid ocean demarcation line.

Of course there was nothing we could have done about the subs. But then, a sub is hardly ever seen.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 8, 2006)

No German raiders operated frequently past the mid atlantic point.


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## delcyros (Jan 9, 2006)

And so did the Prinz Eugen. It´s journey also showed that it was very difficult to detect a single ship in the Atlantic. With the means of 1941, even with those of 1943 it proved to be very difficult. 
I am just thinking of the degree of advantage the allies gained with the destruction of the Bismarck, since for political reasons raiders could not enter the Atlantic afterwards.
Some say now the raiders were more safe operating in norwegian waters, some say they could have supported the Med. theatre with their deployment in the Atlantic. I personally have not concluded an opinion so I would like to hear your thoughts.


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## syscom3 (Jan 9, 2006)

Any raiders operating in the med would have fodder for allied aircraft.

The raiders were far safer operating in the North Atlantic where they could have some modicum of success in hiding.


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## Glider (Jan 9, 2006)

I suspect the end of the raider in the N Atlantic had a lot to do with the development of the escort carrier. They wouldn't have the means to sink a large raider but they would have had the means to spot them at long ranges and to follow them.
Depending on the situation there would also be the possibility of one or more escort carriers from different convoy's joining up and being a real danger. Remember that the carrier didn't have to sink the raider, damage was just as likely to send the raider home which would be the first priority.


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## syscom3 (Jan 9, 2006)

British aerial torpedo's were more than capable of sinking any raider. You might need a whole lot of them, but in the end, the raider would be sunk.


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## Glider (Jan 9, 2006)

Escort carriers escorting convoys didn't carry torpedo's. If they did, they still wouldn't have enough torpedo carring aircraft on board, to quote 'drop a whole load of them'.
What they did carry were A/S aircraft with A/S radar, ideal for tailing and tracking the raider.


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## syscom3 (Jan 9, 2006)

If German raiders were a threat, then the escort carriers would carry them torpedo's as a standard munitons load. The Avengers could carry depth bombs or torpedo's.


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## delcyros (Jan 10, 2006)

I am not sure in that. Even first line torpedo bombers had a lot of problems with the raider. Bismarck was doing 26 kts, full power was denied due to fuel problems (because of hit #1) hits were rare (3 in two waves). Tirpitz was attacked by two waves torpedo bombers of the carrier Victorious but it proved to be able to defend herself pretty well (...with her Ar float planes doing a little CAP). No torpedo hit´s occurred. (However, Tirpitz was able to perform full power)
And I personally disagree that airborne torpedo´s alone could ensure to sink a raider (except CA and pocket battleships). The TDS of Bismarck and Scharnhorst were excellent, the best executed in ww2 (with the possible exception of HMS Vanguard). Keep in mind that Scharnhorst was hit by 11+ ship based torps plus 14+ 14 inch hits by DoY, nethertheless it´s powerplant #2 and #3 were dry when it went down. Repeated hit´s may ensure to sink such a raider, but this is more a matter of luck (a torp finds the way through the hole of a sooner impact or so) than anything else. A combination of cruisers/ BB and air power alway is the best solution as demonstrated in Rheinübung.
Escort carrier flight ops were harder to sustain in bad weather, this might reduce the effect, also. 
I do think the allies would track the raiders with airforces (whether land or sea based is equal), as suggested by Glider, and use task forces to hunt them down. Richelieu, Iowa, Washington, Duke of Yorck and King George V were suitable for this task. Not to denie that damages alone could be inflicted by planes, which may force the raiders to return.


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## syscom3 (Jan 10, 2006)

Torpedo hits would slow it down. Enough torpedo hits would stop it completely. Even a lucky hit could rupture any number of internal bulkheads and cause flooding.

The slowed down ship would then be an easier target to hit with bombs.

No ship built was ever unsinkable.


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## delcyros (Jan 10, 2006)

Agreed. No ship was unsinkable. 
Make Your idea clearer: Where exactly has a torp hit the chance to sink the ship? A fluke hit like that of Bismarck may jam the steering controll (as in any other warship). The ship may be slowed down, esspeccially by bow hits, but there is no point in the ship where a single hit may cause flooding and rupture some bulkheads, never. Not with the torpedo warheads avaiable for the allies in 39-45.
Keep in mind that the two other aerial dropped hits of Bismarck caused no drop in her speed. after examination of the wreckage none of the 7 torpedo hits (including those of Dorsetshire) did any damage to the main torpedo bulkhead of Bismarck (vitals were dry). 
Or are You going to relie on fluke hit´s?


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## syscom3 (Jan 10, 2006)

I base it on how many torpedo's it took to sink the Musashi and Yamato.

Considering that the Bismark and Tirpitz were far better protected, it would take quite a few.

I would consider any torpedo hit as causing the loss of fuel oil, plus shock damage to the ship, that becomes cumulative. Eventually all those voids are also going to fill with water which means extra tonnage of water that weighs down the ship.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 11, 2006)

Yes but no torpedos penetrated the Bismarck, they just jammed the rudder and basically doomed her.


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## syscom3 (Jan 11, 2006)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> Yes but no torpedos penetrated the Bismarck, they just jammed the rudder and basically doomed her.



If enough torpedo's struck her, then she would have lost a lot of her fuel, undoubtably would have been slowed down, and become an easier ship to sink.


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## delcyros (Jan 11, 2006)

I share Your opinion. Repeated hits cannot be contained by any TDS.
If a torp hits the belly of the ship one void cell will be filles with water and the secondary torpedo bulkhead may fail (in case the explosive ordenance is high enough), making the ship loose oil from cell 2. A later torpedo hit in the same region (subdivision limits it to +-6 m) will send the blast effect right through the now filled cell 1 and 2 and -taken into account that liquid filled cells only shift the blast- rupture the secondary torpedo belt or what is left from it (20 mmWh) as well as cell 3 (void), if not already made by hit #1. The main torpedo bulkhead may fail if there is no void cell in front of it to contain the blast effects, depending on the warhead used. At least the third torpedo hitting the same region will set the room behind the main bulkhead under water, sure. If you continue this procedure for at least 10 compartements you will sink the ship. The TDS in the very bow region is not that extensive as well as the stern region (the shafts of the screws may be deformed by an impact, so water could theoreticly bypass the TDS in compartment XIX). However, more than 80% of the substructure are covered by it´s TDS and this gives pretty much protection.


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## delcyros (Jan 11, 2006)

From what is visible on the wreckage, the belt was penetrated by 16" and 14" hits (all deflected, so there were no vitals hit), and at least one torpedo hit the catapult deck


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 12, 2006)

Yes I agree syscom but it did not happen that way...


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## syscom3 (Jan 12, 2006)

This was for a hypothetical encounter of the Bismark and torpedo bombers from an escort carrier.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 12, 2006)

Okay agreed then.


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## delcyros (Jan 12, 2006)

Even if you place the torpedo hit´s exactly, at least 14 hit´s are needed to sink a Bismarck class BB (minimum according to compartimentation (including all weaks) and floating reserve), around 20 would be more reasonable. That´s really a lot. If we take into account that around 80 (out of 300+planes total) torpedo bomber got 12 hits on bigger sized Yamato´s and Musashis (bigger ok, but they were more maneuverable than the Bismarck´s also) you will need around 100-120 torpedo bombers to sink a Bismarck class ship with CVE-means only. How many torpedo bombers carried a single CVE? Usually 0. How many planes would carry in case they had torpedo´s? Between 6 (Audacity) and 30 (Sangamon) planes total, that are around 3-12 torpedo planes per CVE, so you would need to accompany some 10 Sangamon class escort carriers for a decisive blow (just mathematicly, but this is nonsense, I know). That´s more than was avaiable for a single convoi (or even five), it´s almost it´s own fleet, or isn´t it?
And three-ten planes performing their run alone would be good food for AA (in case they are fast enough to be tracked by firecontroll), if a CVE decides to atack wave by wave.
No, I don´t think it is a reasonable scenario. CVE would be good to report a raider, but they are too slow (rarely made 15 kts.) to track them for a prolonged period and they hadn´t the logistic background to do concentrated attacks on their own.


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## syscom3 (Jan 12, 2006)

Look at it this way, suppose using the numbers from the Yamato were applied to the Bismark from a single CVE carrying 12 torpedo bombers.

One out of every three torpedo's launched could be expected to hit. Just for this scenario, say only two would hit. Now consider that after attack the planes return back to the CVE for another reload and go back. It wont take time at all for a quite a few torpedo's to have hit it. The same situation happened between the USN and IJN fleet action in the battle of the San Bernardino Straight (in the PI, 1944).

One thing that was proven in the PTO was AAA from the fleets couldnt stop all of the attackers. More than enough got through. Considering that the Bismark would not be operating in a large sized task force with its massed number of guns, I would say not many attackers would be shot down.

Plus, once the Bismark was under torpedo attack, it would have to go into evasive maneuvers which meant it would not be getting closer to the convoy it was hunting. Every hour it was under attack and maneuvering meant other RN and USN forces (air, sea and air) would be getting closer to it.


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## delcyros (Jan 12, 2006)

I got your argument.

WW2 records show that the hit percentage compared to started planes was well below 5% as long as the ship is maneuvering. And with 12 torpedo bombers You could expect something between 0.6 and 1.2 hits, that´s not much (esspeccially since the raiders are quite immune) but it might effects the ships range or (to a lower degree) speed. Keep in mind that between 10 and 30% of the air relaised torpedos will fail to detonate properly. Twelve bombers are a good number to deal with by AA fire. I don´t expect that a number of them will be shot down (since US and british planes can sustain much more battledamage than their japanese counterparts) but it will be hard to get a clean shot anyhow. Those twenty torpedo bombers attacking Tirpitz got not a single hit, while none of them was shot down (5 severly damaged), post battle reports showed that AA fire was very effective, so they had to release the torps from longer distance or unfavourable angles. Unless the bravery of the pilots is extraordinary or the will to do suicide (the closer they get on the BB the better the chances to hit and the more effective is AA), which would result in both, more hits and higher loss rates, I see no sense in this tactic from the RN/US point of view (which generally was careful). 
A first line Carrier (just like those to attack Musashi&Yamato) would have a better chance to perform effective torpedo runs due to the higher number of planes involved (fighters going to starfe the BB´s AA, Bombers attacking the ship from above while in the same time torpedo planes perform attacks from the sides).
Another concern with CVE is their very limited worth at Beufort 5 or higher. At stage 6 only rarely sortieswere flown. And since the raider always seek bad weather circumstances (ok-planes do have a longer range) and factoring the north Atlantic weather there would be a narrow window for any CVE operations. And those CVE would be very exposed to the raiders once they get contact (which would happen in case they are ordered to stay in convoi formation sooner or later).
However delaying the ship, knowing it´s position and a good deal of teamwork between task forces and CVE will hunt the raiders effectively, hands down.


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## trackend (Jan 12, 2006)

The Bismark was undoubtedly a tough nut to crack and the Homogeneous Armour steel was very robust however it is forgotten that many torpedoes not only used contact exploders but as in the case of the 18inch British Mks carried by the String bags they used the duplex pistol which enabled either contact or proximity detonation this enabled deep setting and there by attacking the weaker parts of vessels namely the keel plates that where much thinner than the well protected sides.
This type of detonation was attempted to be countered by the fitting of degaussing equipment (Magnetischer Eigenschutz) but was limited in effect by the torpedoes only passing within a few feet of the ship as opposed to the considerable distance that magnetic mines operated from sitting on the sea bed as they did.
The best defence that the Bismark had against this type of explosion was as with most navel vessels , multi compartmentation this meant that it would take numerous hits in various areas in order to flood sufficient compartments to cause the ship to founder. I believe the Bismark had in the order of 200 compartments in each of her 4 decks. So even that method of attack was not easy but as was the case in reality although the ship remained afloat, as a fighting unit it had no ability to continue to fight after everything from stem to stern had been raked by enemy shell fire and the gunnery control systems had been destroyed.


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## delcyros (Jan 12, 2006)

Yes.
I don´t know how well either magnetic pistols or MES were working, but I suspect that both had disappointing reliabilty prior to 1943 (referring to the replace of magnetic pistols from Victorious and Ark Royal in 1941 as well as the three mine hits at Gneisenau and Schanrhorst during their channel operation[I suspect this were magnetic ones but I don´t know]).
The degree of total compartimentation of Bismarcks hull (including the hulls decks above the normal waterline) is stated with 800, but this figure only tells us how many "spacial units" were there. A torpedo hit usually will cause several "units" to be flooded, so it´s better to take on the main compartimentation (divided by each other with armor grade plates of at least 45 mm thickness), so they are really tough nuts to crack). We do have 23 of those, called Abteilungen, in case of Bismarck (of course each is divided into watertight rooms and sometimes even those are watertight subdivided, too). 
The only warship to carry effective bottomprotection was the Yamato-class with it´s 50-80 mm armored hull bottom (which also had enough void cells to contain blast effects). However it wasn´t fully protected, the protection leaves the engine and turbine room blanc, only the main magazines are protected (rarely 20% of the hittable hullsize). While the ship had the highest subdivision known (1174 watertight spacial units, ignoring the void and fuel cells) for any warship, it´s protection was very biased:
The main armor zone covered most of its units (1005) leaving some very large spacial units without any protection in the bow and stern, this is even more worrisome if we factor that almost 35% of the substructure is unprotected by any substantial TDS.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 13, 2006)

trackend said:


> The Bismark was undoubtedly a tough nut to crack and the Homogeneous Armour steel



You can go to Kiel, Germany and see one of the Steel Plates from the Bismarck that was just left sitting on the docks after not being used on the ship.


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## trackend (Jan 13, 2006)

Thanks for the post Del I noted that you said the bow and stern where not as robust as the the rest of the Bismark I'm sure this must have been the reason for the stern breaking off when it hit the sea bed as described by Dr Bob Ballard when he located the wreak-site.

I would be interested to visit Kiel Adler Ive only been to Germany twice once on business too Koblenz and once to see the Rhine in flames festival. 
I took this shot of a piece of Tirpitz'es belt Armour at Duxford museum last year.


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## delcyros (Jan 13, 2006)

Yes, I saw it once (am sure it was KCnew). But we don´t know why it is there. Most certainly because the plate was rejected for use on Bismarck (it carries testmarkings).
This is a problem for so many heavy armor plates: One example; For Littorio we extrapolate it´s armor strength from a very single armor plate specimen (which may be rejected for use as well). According to the understanding of armor in Italy (which was the best in prewar times) it is kind of a surprise that this armor has only slightly better quality than japanese ones. But again, it may be wrong to extrapolate from a single plate of unknown source...


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## delcyros (Jan 13, 2006)

It really looks like the stern structure was cut of when it hit the sea bed (at around 27-31 kts), agreed. Bow and stern were more fragile but still very tough if we compare them (Iowa, Yamato, North Carolina, South Dakota, the britisch BC and all french BB had no armor enforcement there, Bismarck and Scharnhorsts had 50- mm Wh, but this is still insufficiant to protect from shells or torpedos. The Gneisenau refit should get 80 mm Wh thick bowbelt (which may protect from 6" at long to medium distances). The structure in the bow was much enforced but the stern was weak (Ballard correctly quotes on the stern cut of Prinz Eugen when it was torpedoed there), particularly if we compare this with contemporary designs (the flask like shape of US and Yamato BB turns the stern into a structural very strong but unprotected unit).


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 14, 2006)

Wow nice pic of there from the Tirpitz, preetty amazing actually!


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## delcyros (Feb 1, 2006)

I just have finished some conceptional studys on Hipper class CA. I always found it strange that they decided to produce 6 of them (Hipper, Blucher, Prinz Eugen, Seydlitz, Lutzow (the later two not finished) instead of some more pocket battleships (Spee, Scheer, Lutzow).
The Hipper class is a lot larger than a pocket battleship but still inferior to ALL major aspects except for max speed:
displacement:

Graf Spee: 16.000 t
Prinz Eugen: 18.400 t.

speed:

Graf Spee: 28,5 kts
Prinz Eugen: 33,5 kts

endurance:

Graf Spee: 17.460 nautic miles / 17 kts (13.500 sm at 20 kts)
Prinz Eugen: 7.200 nautic miles / 20 kts (~ 9.800 sm at 17 kts)

main artillery:
Graf Spee:6 x 11"/52 
Prinz Eugen:8 x 8"/60 

secondary artillery:
Graf Spee: 8 x 5.9"/55
Prinz Eugen: none

dual purpose:
Graf Spee: 6 x 4.1"/65
Prinz Eugen: 12 x 4.1"/65

torpedos:
Graf Spee: 6 x G7a
Prinz Eugen:12 x G7a

float planes: 
Graf Spee: 2 Ar 196
Prinz Eugen: 3 Ar 196

TDS(main torpedo bulkhead):
Graf Spee: 45 mm 
Prinz Eugen: 20 mm Ww

belt armor:
Graf Spee: 80 mm (inclined)
Prinz Eugen: 70 mm Wh (80 mm at the magazines)

deck armor:
Graf Spee: 25 mm (45 mm over the magazines)
Prinz Eugen: 12 mm Wh (50 mm over the magazines)

front turret armor:
Graf Spee: 140 mm KC/NC (non cementated)
Prinz Eugen: 105 mm Wh

conning tower:
Graf Spee: 150 mm
Prinz Eugen: 70-105 mm Wh

So at all the ten years older Graf Spee is lighter, better protected, has a longer range and more punch than the new Prinz for a speed loss of 5 kts.
Eventually the Hipper class CA were intended to be CL with 12 5.9" (four triple turrets). The armor scheme fits better with a CL than a CA (esspeccially for its size) if you ask me. With the advantages avaiable in 1938 they should have spared the ressources for the Hipper class in order to lay down four more pocket battleships. At the same displacement (18.400 t.), the ship could still carry six 11" /55 (C34 instead of C28 design, higher elevation and therefor a decent range (42.000 yrds) and punch+ very high cyclic firing rate (17,3 sec. for each gun but usually 19-21 sec. due to triple gun turret design), the removal of 5.9" would allow weight to install 14-18 4.1"/60 dual purpose. Improvements in the engine dep. would make it possible to (nearly) double the poweroutput of the Diesels, so at least 80.000-100.000 SHP are possible (this amount of power is still distributable to the two screw design). An 18.400 t. ship could still make 31 kts and keep its superior range. There are even 800 t. for additional deck armor left (thus approx. 50 mm or 35 mm + 80 mm over magazines)! What do you think?


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## Glider (Feb 1, 2006)

I certainly agree about swapping the 5.9 for additional 4.1 and 37mm, as I have never been a fan of 6in secondary weapons. Personally have yet to find an example of them hitting anything. 
I am less confident about increasing the engine output. These were amongst the first large diesels used at sea and to double the output on what was already a highly advanced design could be asking for trouble on the reliability front. They had their fair share of teething problems as it was. 
Extra deck protection is never wasted but I think that is as far as I would have taken it.


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## delcyros (Feb 2, 2006)

I do personnaly dislike 5.9" as well but I can understand those who say they have their own advantage: better range, more punch (a lot more AP-capabilities).
While the RN was advantageous in introducing 5.25" dual purpose (to be fair it must be said that this gun is of very doubtful use against aircrafts if any), the KM stayed with specialised guns, the more powerful 5.9"/55 against ships (which also was used against low level flying torpedo bombers by Bismarck, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau) and the high velocity, rapid firing 4.1"/65 against aircrafts (which regulerly was used against unarmored sea targets).
I do know of some succesful 5.9" uses against Exeter, Jervis Bay, Achates, Acasta, Glowworm and some transports as well.
Rodneys 6" secondarys did well against Bismarck as did Warspites secondarys against the (harboured) german destroyers in Narvik.
However, the focus on 5.9" even for destroyers is a clear disadvantage in the german design philosophy, no doubt. The 4.1" had only a slightly inferior range, almost the same AP-capabilities at close and very long ranges, a better ballistics and a 50% increased cyclic firing rate beside of the advantage of dual purpose service.
Diesel wasn´t really new, the High sea fleet had designed and build some large Diesels for Sachsen, Großer Kurfürst and Markgraf beside of their use in submarines. Next to the Deutschland class, the Bismarck should originally get Diesels as well and the uncompleted Hindenburgs also had Diesel engines. The H-class Diesel powerplant design was closed in 38, each unit made 14.500 SHP (instead of 6.000 SHP in case of Graf Spee), so there is a lot of power redundance for a power output doubling. The O-class BC had a unit of similar poweroutput but lighter and shorter as well as broader than the "H" -class ones.
It is questionable, if these designs would have been avaiable for these "P" class designs of 1937/38. These designs were much heavier ships (22.000 t.) with a proposed speed of 35 kts (I expect to encompany thecarriers?) and 3 or 4 screw design with 15.000 miles range.


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## Glider (Feb 2, 2006)

Thanks for this. I knew that the Bismark was originally due to get diesel engines and admit I put the fact they were not fitted down to problems with the engine. A case I am afraid of putting two and two together and coming up with five.

I knew the High Seas Fleet had some but considering the fact that they were dropped would indicat that there were some problems with them. These days of course its hard to find a large merchant tanker/ ore ship whatever without one. 

Thanks again


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## syscom3 (Feb 2, 2006)

Didnt those diesel engines emit huge clouds of smoke when they went to full throttle? Makes them easier to find I would imagine.

Just curious though, if they're running diesels, wouldnt they need diesel fuel, which is far more flammable than bunker oil.


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## delcyros (Feb 2, 2006)

In opposition to what you might expect, the Diesels have some benfits:
Smoke. Under full power, the Deisel engine can operate completely smoke free (unlike steam), this was demonstrated by Scheer a few times in the indic ocean, when the ship prevented beeing spotted by full power smoke free cruise. The Panzerschiffe had a special device to prevent smoking by heating the exhaust gazes (and therefore burn parzicles), similar but more effective than those used on submarines.
Another advantage is the high efficiancy and economics of those powerplants (Lutzow was the ship with greates operational range: 20.000 nautic miles / 13 kts.).
Diesel fuel is a bit more flammable than oil but not by that much, indeed a temperature is needed, which at all would inflame oil as well. The burning is not that intensive compared to gazoline, avgas and so on.
The spacial dimensions of Diesel engines are also smaller than boiler and turbines, but nethertheless they are heavier (compared to the amount of HP created by them).
The full run from zero is possible in within a minute, unlike turbines which require some 5-13 minutes to do so, fuel is not needed if the powerplant is brought to zero.
The complement can also be reduced, since operating Diesels require far less personal than operating turbines.
Not the least, the ship is more immune, since the great danger of boiler hits (which usually were critical, since they had the potential to rip the ship ) is banned. If a engine room is hit, than ok-you loose power, but the ship cannot blew up (or take further damage due to steam bursts).
Of course there are negative aspects as well:
The Diesels were heavy units compared for their poweroutput,
While beeing much shorter and narrower they require more height than turbines (this was the very reason to skip them from the Bismarck design, because they would need to place the armor deck a level higher (reduced stability, reduced immunity from very close distances, no two deck deep zitadell = much thicker armor thicknesses needed) as they did in case of Lutzwo, Scheer and Graf Spee.
Unlike turbines, the Diesels cannot be overrewed (enforced power) that much (Iowa had 20% design overrew!).
The vibrations and sounds caused by those units were uncomfortable. 
The Battleships of the High Sea fleet indeed had some problems with the tech, only two of them eventually had mixed propulsion (Diesel for the middle screw, turbines for the two others), some other already produced units were used in large submarines, but statisfyingly. Concernes were that there were no records how the engine would work under battle circumstances (impacts).


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## delcyros (Feb 3, 2006)

Sidestep:
I also digged some more on Okun. His major armor penetration formula is based generally on empirical US tests. The only exception are german armor, for them he refused US results (which were better) and instead used german datas known to him (which had lower figures). The comparability of these results is matter of discussion:

Using Scharnhorsts 11"/55 gun on four armor types I can show the difference (hypothetical impact at 30.000yrds distance)-all datas from Okun´s database on AP-capabilitys of KM armor:

1.) on US class"B" deck armor: 3.1"
2.) on german Wh deck armor: 3.8"

This result would imply a superiority of 22.6% in impact resistance for the US class "B" homogenious armor. Indeed if we check his datas, both armor have the same quality (1.00), the US "B" a better elongation but less Brinell hardeness. Now we take italian, japanese and british armor 
into consideration:

3.)on italian homogenious: 3.4"
4.) on japanese homogen.: 3.3"

Concluding these datas, the Wh has the worst resistance of all involved homogenious armor. Datas from Okun imply that italian has a quality factor of 1.0, while the japanese one is somehow less resistant with 0.95. Now if we take US tests into consideration at no time there was a significant advantage of US"B" over german KC new. Under the same circumstances they were rated at about equal in resistance, just giving the US "B" an advantage in less fragmentation. This fits with all I read. And a difference in 20% would imply an advantage comparable to those pre ww1 armors to some late ww2 armors! Hell, this datas are wrong.
Had he used the comparable US results 3.1" would be the estimation in AP-capabilities for this gun and this range on Wh, this fits.
Why is that important? Because if using Bismarcks 15"/52 on Wh deck armor the distance at which penetration may occur shifts further into the 30 Kyrds region....


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Feb 4, 2006)

delcyros said:


> In opposition to what you might expect, the Diesels have some benfits:
> Smoke. Under full power, the Deisel engine can operate completely smoke free (unlike steam), this was demonstrated by Scheer a few times in the indic ocean, when the ship prevented beeing spotted by full power smoke free cruise. The Panzerschiffe had a special device to prevent smoking by heating the exhaust gazes (and therefore burn parzicles)



Cool, that I did not know. I thought the same as sys up there on that. Pretty cool, learn something new every day.


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## syscom3 (Feb 4, 2006)

I thought the Scharnhorst was found due to the bellowing diesel exhaust when it went to full throttle.


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## delcyros (Feb 4, 2006)

Scharnhost did not had Diesel powerplants. So it could be discovered by her smoke. Her powerplant was the high pressure steam turbine powerplant used on many contemporary warships (including Iowa, North Carolina, South Dakota, Yamato, KGV and Richelieu). This powerplant has a more benefitable hp to weight relation and quite a good efficiancy, so it was choosed for the Scharnhorsts (as well as Bismarcks). Unfortunately the tech was somehow new in case of Scharnhorst, so both ships had quite a lot of problems to deal with their engines up to 1940. If we compare the teething problems of Diesel and HPT powerplants I would choose Diesels, anyway. The HPT tech reached eventually maturity in the Bismarck design stage, so we donot have reported problems by Tirpitz or Bismarck considering their powerplants.
All in all Diesels would be a wiser choice esspeccially for the US BB designs, which also depended on a good range but I doubt that this tech was avaiable for them in the necessary development stage.


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## syscom3 (Feb 4, 2006)

The US capital ships built in the late 30's and in the 40's were using (the then revolutionary and advanced) super heated steam turbines which gave them a very good power to weight ratio. The use of diesels would have been a step backwards.


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## delcyros (Feb 4, 2006)

Super heated steam turbine = high pressure steam turbine (HPT)
Agreed, by its arrival this tech was revolutionary compared to the old low pressure trubine.
But Diesel by far isn´t a step back. Esspeccially for US purposes:
As we know, the US soon went to the all or nothing raft body armor sheme after ww1. Diesel engines really fit more to this specification than would HPT.
The only real disadvantage is that they were heavy.
I will calculate an example with roughly some estimations based on the original 1939 North Carolina BB design(sorry for using metrics):
The NC´s were the first true US BB to be builded after ww1 (Lexington BC turned into CVA and South Dakota fell victim to the Washington treaty), let´s compare the design with a proposed Diesel design:

displacement: 42.000 t. (actually 46.770 deeply loaden)
length(waterline): 214,6m 
beam: 33 m
length/beam relation: 6.5
speed (trial):28,5 kts @ 125.000 hp (enforced) and 43.500 t.
armor weight: 13.976 t.
main armor length: 111,3m
propulsion: HPT, 4 shafts, 8 Babcock boilers, 121.000 hp (at 100%)
propulsion length (biolers + turbines): 59, 5m
engine weight: 1.881 t. (+ 845 t. auxilary and systems)
fuel complement: 6.592 t.
range: ? according to the datas from Iowa, which had a comparable hull shape, but beeing larger and having more powerful and efficient engines (as well as more fuel complement) I estimate around 10.000 miles /12 kts. It should be noted that the ship benefits a lot by the low weight HPT engine, which spared some weight. 
Now I replace the HPT with a german Diesel engine (Graf Spee), and since Graf Spee had 8 engines and 2 srews and NC has four I (just for gaming) calculate with the exact doubling (which would result in 108.000 hp), by arranging the 16 engines in the same way (4 on each shaft):
What would change?
engine weight: 3.302 tons (+ 650 auxilary and systems)
propulsion length (gears and Diesels 54 m
fuel complement: 2.814t.
range: approx. 18.000 nm at 12 kts.
= if we calculate engine weight with fuel complement together, the Diesel driven NC propulsion weights 6.772 t (compare, the executed design is 9.318 t., that are 2.5 Ktons safed in the end for a nearly doubled range, not bad is you ask me). Now what happens with the speed?
at 41.500 tons (reduced trial) 108.000 hp could still drive the ship to 28,3 kts, no significant speed drop. (Variant A)
But it even goes further: Lets assume the 5 m shorter engine dep. would led to a shorter ship design, which probably would happen. Then another 2 (at least) Ktons could be safed due to the shorter vital armor box as well! Less deck armor zone, less main armor belt in spacial dimensions (important for the AON sheme), but all has the same thickness. In the end such a modified NC would only weight around 43.000 tons (deeply loaded), be a bit shorter, having a reduced beam-length relation (~6.3 instead of 6.5) and therefor a reduced speed (27.7 kts deeply loaden). In their appearenc ethis ship would look like a modified South Dakota(Variant B)
Another possibility is to keep the weight and take a reduced speed (26.8 kts) for 3.000 tons of additional armor. Less probable. (Variant C)
A last one (my favourite) could use the space for additional Diesels, one on each screw and a larger internally protected fuel bunker. This variant (D) would have little larger spacial dimensions like the original one due to 4 m increased length and therefor beeing 2 Ktons heavier (larger armor dimensions):
Displacement: ~48.000 t. deeply loaden
length:~ 218 m (waterline)
beam: 33m
length-beam relation: 6.6
engine weight: 4.127 tons (+~ 850 t. auxiliarys)
fuel complement: 4.221 tons
range: approx. 26.000 nm/12 kts
Engine power: 135.000 SHP 
estimated peed: 29,02 kts at 135.000SHP and 45.600 tons
Compared to the original design this variant would more than double the range and a slightly increased speed as well as slightly less engine weight (9.200 t. instead of 9.318 t.)
Concluded some positives:
A shorter construction time due to reduced displacement (except Varian D)
A better TDS because of more void cells instead of oil filled cells
A much longer range
A reduced crew complement
Better Seakeeping because of higher freeboard
Some tactical advantages (smoke free) 
And a reduced vulnarability because of impossibility of boiler hits.
The disadvantages would be as following:
uncomfortable vibrations, high degree of produced sound
higher engine height (neglectable, since the US BB design already placed the main armor deck one level higher, so the engines fit into the spacial subdivision)
Keep in mind that we calculated with old 1927/28 designed Diesel systems! Now explain me why it would be kind of step back?


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## delcyros (Feb 10, 2006)

No comment?
Well, I agree that this was gaming, only. The Diesel tech of this sizeclass simply weren´t avaiable in the North Carolina design stage in the US. And I also have to underline that the HPT-tech advanced even further (take the South Dakotas and it simply doesn´t work anymore with Graf Spees Diesel, agreed).
Now I am close to finishing my critics on combinedfleet.com, jumping to tactical factors. I still have not all Datas for the Iowas but I can show mistakes for the South Dakotas and Bismarcks regarding the range figures:
The authow gives South Dakota and Iowa a 10 compared to the 8 for Bismarck. The superior range of Iowa/SD never was matter of discussion but I have reasons to question this. The author´s numbers would imply a 20% range advantage of South Dakota compared to the Bismarck class (at 12 kts). That´s partly wrong.
Why? 
At first the fuel complement of Bismarck and Tirpitz differs:
Bismarck: 7.775 tons
Tirpitz: 8.641 tons
So in particular comparison with Bismarck it is both, true (ragarding the lower fuel complemet of Bismarck) and false (the bunker volume of Bismarck and Tirpitz are nearly identical, Bismarck simply wasn´t that deeply loaded, but it could have...), regarding Tirpitz it truly is false.
But lets discuss South Dakota first:
Fuel complement: 6.950 t. (also Massachusetts, but Indiana and Alabama: 7.340 t.)
At 12 kts the range of SD indeed is 16% superior to that of Bismarck (not Tirpitz!), but is 12 kts really a serious cruise speed? In a ship vs ship comparison (which is the intended purpose of the website) not necessarely. If Bismarck comes into play it would rarely cruise under 25 kts, this would force SD to this speed as well: range at 25 kts: 6.650 nm; Bismarck: 5.850 nm ( Tirpitz: 6.720 nm). Normal cruise speed for Bismarck in it´s historical first part (prior to damagings) of "Rheinübung" was 28 kts (range: 4.528 nm), while those of SD would be extrapolated to 4.400 nm (at 138.000 SHP enforced). Result:
With increased cruise speed the range gap between SD and Bismarck closes, while Tirpitz HAS MORE OPERATIONAL RANGE than South Dakota or Alabama. Keep in mind that the author prefers the most favourable cruise speed for his comparison.
I am not intending to reduce the excellent range performance of SD/Alabama nor the high economy efficiancy of their powerplants, just outlining one more point where statistics are bended in favour to the US ships. I would like to see some statistics for Iowa also but I suspect that the 7.073 t. fuel complement of Iowa (resp. 7.251 t. of BB62-BB65) serve them as well.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Feb 10, 2006)

I did not having anything to comment about, my knowledge on WW2 Naval Warfare is not extensie eneogh, I just mostly read and learn.


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## Gnomey (Feb 11, 2006)

So do I. On the topic of the German surface fleet the Graf Spee's Eagle has been raised from the bottom of the River Plate almost intact.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4702832.stm


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## delcyros (Feb 11, 2006)

Its quite interesting how many tools they will recover from GS. Wether or not all ship remains will be lifted remains unclear, I suspect they have not enough financial background to do so. Inteesting on Graf Spee in particular is that the ship was the first to be equipped with radar for limited fire controll (alike Washington in Guadacanal with their MK 3 FC radar) und also the first to use fc radar during surface engagements.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Feb 11, 2006)

I know they will not, but I wish they would return the stuff to Germany and let it be put on display here.


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## delcyros (Feb 12, 2006)

I would like to see the ship in Montevideo as a museum.
Now to secondary armement (combined fleet):
The author splits it in two points:
1.) against ships
2.) against airplanes
This is a very reasonable splitting.
He takes the following points into consideration:
Rate of fire, number of guns, shell weight, throw weight
(as you can see, only weight effective and output effective parameters.)
What he don´t take into consiederation:
1.) range (important against ships)
2.) elevation (important as AA)
3.) muzzle velocity/ballistics (important as AA)
4.) ceiling (important as AA)
5.) ordenance (important against ships)
And since we know shell weight is worth nothing without AP and/or ordenance (look how tiny the ordenance of the AA 5" round with funny fuze is!), I take AP and ordenance as well (based on Naval tech. Board and Okun´s Gun AP comparison)
Now lets compare SD with Bismarck resp. Tirpitz (1943)....
----against ships:----
factor --------------Bismarck------------Iowa/South Dakota

guns----------------12*5.9"/55+--------20*5"/38
---------------------16* 4.1"/65

ROF-----------------10*, 15**-----------12-15 (1943)

Range--------------25.150 yrds,--------17.400 yrds
---------------------19.370 yrds

AA ceiling----------41.010 ft(4.1")------37.200 ft

AP weight----------99,87lbs,------------54 lbs
---------------------34,8 lbs 

AP(HE)-------------1,95 (8,6) lbs-------2 (7,2)lbs
ordenance---------0,6 (6,2) lbs 

muzzle velocity:---2.871fps (5.9")-----2.500-2.600 fps
---------------------2.962 fps (4.1")

[email protected]"-------------------5.1" (vert. against british cementated, EEF, deck against US"B", EEF)
@vert(@deck)----5.4"
[email protected]"---------------------2.9"
--------------------2.6"
[email protected]"+(0.52")----------2.1"+(0.6")
--------------------1.8"
[email protected]"+(1.15")----------1.5"+(1.4")
--------------------1.2"(+0.7")
[email protected]"+(1.8")-----------n (out of range) 
--------------------0.8"+(1.4")
[email protected]"+(2.6")----------n (out of range)
--------------------n (out of range)
APpoints total:---29.15------------------13.6
--------------------13.9
battery output:---120 5.9"rounds+----240-300 5" rounds
(theoretical)------240 4.1"rounds 
The upper Bismarck AP figure is for her 5.9"/55, the lower for 4.1"/65. 
With these figures there is absolutely no justification to give Iowa or South Dakota a 10 against ships. Really: The AP capability of the US 5"/38 is only slightly better than the german 4.1"/65 and much inferior to the german 5.9"ers. The range of the US gun is 6.500 yrds less than the 5.9" and even 1.900 yrds less than the smaller 4.1"! Even if we take the battery output into consideration also, the US 5" don´t come close to the german output (120-150 rounds broadside in minute vs 180 rounds broadside in a minute) but it has worser ballistics, worser range, worser AP capabilities and ordenance as well...
However the US 5" gun was improved several times and in 1945 it reached a very high ROF (around 20), which may raise the overall performance against ships to about equal compared to Bismarck
Result: Bismarck 10, Iowa/South Dakota 8.5 against ships (1943) and
both 10 at 1945 (Bismarck class did not participated in improvements, except for Tirpitz all 4.1"/65 C 33 gunmounts, H class and Gneisenau refit with C37 gunmounts)

* ROF 6-8 for single mounts (pocket battleships, Scharnhorst, Gneisenau),
10 for semi automatic twin mounts (Scharnhorst, Bismarck, according to S. Beyer). 
** ROF 14-15 in gunmount C 31, ROF 16-17 for gunmount C 33


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Feb 12, 2006)

Why wuold you like to see it in Montevideo? I understand that is where she was scuttled, but just what are your reasons.


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## Gnomey (Feb 12, 2006)

If she was to be displayed anywhere it should be in Germany, however I don't see it happening because a) it will cost a lot of money to salvage her and b) it would be even more expensive to transport her back to Germany. So if she was to be raised she would probably end up being displayed in Montevideo for cost reasons. I still believe that she should be in Germany but don't see it as a feasible option if she is raised because of the costs involved.


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## delcyros (Feb 12, 2006)

I like the Montevideo harbour. A lot of tourists would be attracted there as well. But just my very personal view. Costs are also a heavy concern to bring GS to Germany. 

The second part can be made shorter: Usage against airplanes.
The primary AA gun for US ships was its DP 5"/38. The primary AA gun for Bismarck was their 4.1"/65 with C31 and C33 gunmounts (four C31 forwardly, four C 33 gunmounts rearly), Tirpitz got all C33 mounts.
It should be noted that the 5.9"/55 of Bismarck also was used against airplanes but with little success (Gneisenau got one plane shot down during channel dash with her 5.9"ers), due to the low rate of train and elevation. (Unlike the author we know that Shell weight alone is worth nothing so I leave the 5.9"ers out here)
What is important for AA use?
At first the elevation (the higher they can be elevated, the better it is)
Than the effectivity of AA firecontroll,
the HE ordenance (the larger the scrapnels fly the better)
Next will be the battery output (the more shells you fire, the better it is),
Then comes the max. ceiling of the rounds (one third total ceiling for effective AA)
And of course the range (one third total range for effective AA)
Next should be the stability of the gunplatform
And last but not least the fuze:
factor-------------Bismarck---------Iowa/South Dakota
guns--------------16 * 4.1"/65-----20* 5"/38
elevation:-------+80/-10---------+85/-15 degrees
rate elev/train---12/20------------15/25 desgrees / sec.
muzzle velocity--2962fps----------2.500 fps(average), 2.600fps (new gun)
ceiling:-----------41.010 ft---------37.200 ft
effective ceiling:-13.670ft---------12.333 ft
ROF:--------------15-18*-----------16* 
effective range:--6.500 yrds------5.800 yrds
RPC:-------------limited FC(EZ38)--full FC (MK 38)
HE ordenance:---6.2 lbs-----------3.1 lbs (with proximity fuze)
fuze type:--------time fuze--------proximity fuze=VT
stability:--------fully tachimetric--dependend on ship
battery output:--240-288---------320

*firing AA rounds, the C33 mounted gun was designed for 20 rpm but the figure given reflect the numbers normally achieved by trained crews
**design figure firing AA rounds, 1945 and later in integral base ring mounts improved to 15-22, otherwise 12-15 

Now lets estimate the worth of the proximity fuze introduced in late 42/43. Against Kamikaze it is highly effective(from John Campbell oct.44-jan.45):
shell type----------------------------planes shot down----------shells/hit
Fired 5"/38 AA common:-----------19---------------------------1162
fired 5"/38 AA proximity fuze:-----24.5-------------------------310
So late in the war it was a benefitial factor of around 3.74 in favour of the proximity fuze (not 5 as stated by the author) against Kamikaze. Keep in mind that the range settings were decreasing quickly, this is the best working environment of the proximity fuze (time fuzes sufferes most)
Now look for the Non Kamikaze actions(same source):
fired 5"/38 AA common:-----------33.5-------------------------960
fired 5"/38 AA proximity fuze:----20---------------------------624
With non Kamikazes (flight path not that extrapolatable) the advantage for proximty fuzes is only 1.48:1! Not 3, 5, or 6. 1 and but 1/1/2 to 1.
I expect that the author used Baldwins book as basic but it grossly overestimats the effectiveness of fuzes. Baldwin states 1 to 6 but he assumed that 70% of the VT fuzes work (Navy lower acceptance limit was 50%), while that truly is false. 1 to 4 is more reasonable but it doesn´t include the other AA common rounds. If we factor them properly, the average comes down to 1 to 3 in favour of the proximity fuze, not one to five as the author states (the historically achieved figures are lower, except for Kamikazes, see above), Keep also in mind that mechanical fuzes work for 95%-98% instead of the 50% for VT (variable timed=proximity..)fuzes.
So what are the advantages of 4.1"?
1.) higher effective range and ceiling
2.) slightly higher ROF (but worser battery output)
3.) more high explosive ordenance
4.) higher fuze reliability (twice compared to VT)
5.) fully three dimensionally stabilized tachimetric mounting, ship roll rate or list therfore can be neglected
6.) Firecontroll also three dimensionally stabilized, excellent optics
7.) high velocity ballistics (good flightpath)
8.) Only for Tirpitz: Radar for AA search and firecontroll
What are the advantages of the US system?
1.) MK 38 firecontroll as a system exceptionally good 
2.) VT fuzes makes the heavy AA deadly effective (tripled compared to time fuzed but doubling the duds as well)
3.) Radar RPC
So what to conclude? I do personally would prefer the more modern 4.1"/65 AA gun (stabilized, good ballistics), but I admit that the VT-fuze of the US combined with their better battery output and excellent firecontroll overcomes the shortcomings of the 5"/38 poorer ballistics. It should be noted that at close distances the better train and elevation rates of the US MK28 mounts (used on Iowa and SD-class) benefits them while at longer distances the german system is clearly superior (more range and effective ceiling, more HE ordenance). In the end both are capable AA systems but the more the war progresses, the better the US system as a whole is: Iowa South Dakota 10, Bismarck 7-8?


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## syscom3 (Feb 12, 2006)

I think the Iowa also could engage more aircraft targets under controlled fire than the Bismark.

Dont forget the 40mm AAA was also quite deadly for the planes that managed on occasion to penetrate the 5" fire


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## delcyros (Feb 12, 2006)

The question belongs to how many MK38 FC operators and Radar was avaiable. I doubt that the Iowa in 1943 could engage more aircrafts independently. Bismarck has 3 AA main directors but each gunmount also can switch to independent fire. I think it was Tirpitz with it´s Würzburg Riese radar which was the better AA platform (not Bismarck).
By 1945 the Iowas had more AA tools to controll and therefore could do as you suggest, agreed (in the end even their Bofors was RPC and radar controlled!).
I also agree that the 40 mm Bofors was an excellent AA weapon for the Iowas(better than Bismarcks 37mm, no doubt). Light AA goes to the US ships as well.
I compared the secondary armement and I found out that gun by gun, the US 5" gun isn´t that powerful against ships as well as against planes. It seems that the KM preferred more specialized guns for these tasks. The introduction of the VT fuze turns the comparison of heavy AA in favour for the Iowas/SD, but this shouldn´t be the reason to blame the Bismarcks designers or am I wrong?


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## Glider (Feb 12, 2006)

It should always be remembered that the Bismark was designed and built before the Iowa and of course had been sunk. Had the Bismark been afloat in 1945 their is little doubt that the LAA guns would have been strengthened. The 40mm was a better weapon (in fact the best in its class) than the 37 but that doesn't mean that the 37 was a bad weapon. The Iowa would have been better bt I am sure the Bismark would have handled itself well.

That said to compare the Iowa with the Bismark is like comparing apples and pears. The Bismark was a Pre war design and the Iowa was able to include all the lessons of the war.

What I find interesting is a comparison of the Bismark when built and the North Carolina as built. They were fairly close in timescale and a comaprison of this nature shows the importance and strength given to the AA defence by the Navies involved before they had experienced war conditions. Its not perfect but probably the best comparison you are going to get as they were both very late Pre War designs

North Carolina 20 x 5/38 16 x 30mm (4 x 4) 12 x HMG
Bismark 16 x 4.1 16 x 37 (8 x 2) 36 x 20 (4 x 4, 6 x 2, 8 x 1) 

From this you can see that the USN who are normally credited with placing great emphasis on the LAA fire of their ships originally designed them to be almost defenceless. The Bismark wins this comparison by a country mile. Thee is no doubt that pre war, Germany took the threat from the air far more seriously than the USN


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## delcyros (Feb 12, 2006)

Observations from this point are interesting. To be fair it must be said that the Tirpitz later in the war got additional LAA:
10 20mm C 32 single barreled guns
72 20mm/ 65 in C38 (Flak 35) in quadrupel barelled mounts
16 37mm/ 83 in C30 in 8 twin gun mounts 

That are 98 LAA guns. That´s for the standarts of 1944 mediocre at best (esspeccially compared to the US ships).
One of the real adavabtages beside of the proximity fuze was the fleet factor of the US guns. Even destroyers carried a wide array of LAA and AA.
A comparison of North Carolina vs Bismarck is a very one sided thing. I cannot even see one point (1941), maybe except for the superior AP deck penetration of NC main battery, where the US ship has the advantage (And even here it belongs to the shells: the super heavy 2.700 lbs AP wasn´t introduced in 1941). Protection, main and secondary artillery, firecontroll, speed, all Bismarck. I do not have range figures for NC, maybe anyone can help out?


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## syscom3 (Feb 12, 2006)

I would like to point out that AAA was increased and changed periodically. The AAA of ANY ship in 1937 was far different from what was shipped in 1941, 1942 and 1943.


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## delcyros (Feb 13, 2006)

True. 
And I want to point out that no battleship has a chance to intercept incoming planes if it stands alone:
I will take Iowas highly reputated AA armement with the qualified sources of jan. 1945:

20 5"/38, RoF: 160 rounds per broadside and minute
80 40mm Bofors, RoF: 6.400 rounds per broadside and minute
49 20mm , RoF: 11.250 rounds per broadside and minute

Its all a numbers game?
Now lets attack it with a flight of 12 Fw-190 F from one side:
against easier targets (A6m5, Ki-61) Iowas and SD had following performance in 1945 with all modern tech there:
5"/38 (with proximity fuze): 624 rounds per kill
40 mm: 3.361 rounds per kill
20 mm: 7.125 rounds per kill

I will grant the Fw-190 some advantages (more robust and armored, smaller target, faster): against 5"/38: 5% (some scrapnels wouldn´t affect the plane, otherwise a 5" hit is really bad)
against 40 mm: 20% (rugged design)
against 20 mm: 40% (the lower the gunsize, the better the Fw190 is)

On a fast aproach, the Fw190 flight will travel 7000 yrds in a minute at low level (420 Km/h/261 mp/h fully loaden with on PC500 each). This means Iowa has around 50 sec. for their 5"ers, 35 sec. for the Bofors and 20 sec. for its 20mm rounds of effective firing range BEFORE the Fw-190 flight is over Iowa (reduce additional 3 sec. for Fw-190 bomb dropping range).
adjusted ROF:
5": 134 rounds for full broadside 
Bofors: 3733 rounds full broadside 
20 mm: 3750 rounds full broadside 
In this numbers game, Iowa has a 20,4% chance to kill ONE FW190 with her 5"/38 (21,4% chance to kill 1 A6M);
It´s Bofors have a 92,6% chance to kill ONE Fw190 (111% to kill a A6M)
and its 20 mm have a 37,6% chance to kill ONE Fw190 (52,6% to kill a A6M).
All in all, Iowa gets one Fw190 down for sure (and another maybe) before at least 10, maybe 11 out of 12 will find their way to drop the bombs on Iowa! No protection, sorry. 
This numbers game cannot been won by Iowa alone, regardless of their AA suite. Only task forces may deal with such attacks. This may explain the worse AA performance of Yamato and Bismarck as well, both ships had to handle the intruders on their own.


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## syscom3 (Feb 13, 2006)

A single 40mm hit on any single engined plane is enough to bring it down.

20mm was really useless and the USN quickly replaced it after the war.

The 5" proximity fused shells would take out a lot more of the attacking planes though. That plus the massed 40mm guns would make it costly for the attacker. You wouldnt get all of them, but quite a few.


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## delcyros (Feb 13, 2006)

A 40mm hit MAY destroy a single engined fighter, agreed, but it doesnt ENSURE. 20% Fw-advantage is not that much. Believe me Syscom, I reread the combat records: It took quite a few hits to disable a Zeke in most cases.
Anyway, my simplified gaming underlines that the Bofors battery was far more effective than the 5"ers and 20mm together  
And I am pretty sure the VT-fuzed 5"ers wouldn´t take down more Focke Wulf. Why do You think they would do better against Focke Wulf than against Zekes and Dinahs historically achieved?
I am open to change my mind if You bring arguments forward to support Your claim.
Compare john Campbells book or Ed Jennings article at the technical Naval Board, he tooks the statistics from oct. 44-jan. 1945, this implys including power remote controlled, Radar directed 40 mm and 20 mm AA and a higher reliability of VT fuzes already! Advantages not avaiable in 1943. 
It is a somehow disappointing result, however. 
If the allies could bring up the reliability of the VT fuze to around 90% AND increase the sustainable ROF of their 5"ers to 22rpm then Iowa has a 55% chance to kill one Fw-190 instead of 20%. The probability to hit reduces greatly with a higher Beaufort number becuase of the non stabilised base ring mountings of both, AA guns and AA directors.
Your argument of multiple hits is valid. I can include it here:
5"/38: 0 kills: 80%; 1 kill: 20%; 2 kills: 4%; 3 kills: 0.06%
Bofors: 2 kills: 34%; 3 kills: 6.2%; 4 kills: 0.8%
20mm: 2 kills: 9%; 3 kills: 0.15%
I see that at least the Bofors has a reasonable chance for multiple hits but I cannot see how Iowa could down more than (at best) 2-3 Focke Wulf before they reach bomb dropping distance. There are 9-10 planes left...


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## syscom3 (Feb 13, 2006)

A 5" gun is in effect, a 127mm gun. Thats heavy flak. It wouldnt matter if the aircraft that it detonated against (or near) was an FW190, a Zero or a Hellcat. Its going to do a lot of damage. The proximity fused projectile had a smaller charge, but made up for it in increasing the probability of damage or kill.

I suggest to you that the 5" will begin the attrition on the attackers at longer ranges, the 40mm will put up a wall of fire at the middle ranges with the 5" still managing to hit something with the proximity fuses, and then the 20mm managing to ruin the aim of those that get through the 5" and 40mm.

And one thing to remember about a plane thats coming into attack a ship..... its coming in head on. Any hit is going to be on the engine, windshield or the leading edges of the wing. A hit on any of those area's would cause major or catastophic damage.


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## Glider (Feb 13, 2006)

I think its also worth remembering that a hit from a 40mm MAY bring a plane down, but unless its a suicide plane, it WILL cause the plane to turn away.
As the idea of a defensive gun is to stop the ship being hit that is sufficient


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## delcyros (Feb 13, 2006)

A direct 5" hit, even a proximity fuze related near hit will endure destruction, agreed. But the distance at which this will happen is much closer than the german smaller 4.1"ers due to the smaller bursting charge. However the scrapnels flying around, that´s my concern here. A Hellcat, Corsair, Fw190 are more resistant against catastrophic damage due to those scrapnels compared to the easyburning Zekes. 
Those tactics You decribe are corresponding to what I read, it was effective, no doubt.
But really Sycom, we are comparing Zekes with Fw190 F (armored cockpit, leading edges and more engine plating), I do believe that a Fw190F is harder to take down than a Zeke, it will take a measurable statistic difference, esspeccially since Zekes are reputated for catching fire that easily.
No, what would make a difference here is the fleet factor. The KM was the only nation to conduct single ship sorties. The US were specialised in task forces, this made them so effective AA. Having two more Atlanta class CL with a lot of AA and some destroyers around greatly improves the AA performance (it is always easier to aim at a plane with extrapolatable flightpath (like torpedoing the carrier right beside your ship)-this is only true -for some obstruse reasons (psychology?)- if the targetet ship isn´t the firing one). I can underline this with Operation Sportpalast march 13th/14th 1942:
KM Tirpitz and DD Friedrich Ihn
against 12 Abacore torpedo bombers and 4 shadowing Albacore, all from Victorious
That´s only one more DD with AA but for some effect:
Albacores lost: 3
torpedo hits: 0
ammunition spended:
15": 16 (! it´s true, barrier firing, but more a spectacular view than anything effective)
5.9": 12 (no hits achieved)
4.1": 345 ( 2 Albacores shot down by Tirpitz during torpedo relaese)
20mm and 37mm: 4269 rounds (DD shots down 1 Albacore)
Tirpitz was radically maneuvering, Ihn backed up with light AA.
As a footnote it should be said that two Ar-196 floatplanes from Tirpitz engaged unsuccesfully the shadowing Albacores, 4H damaged SK (sub lieutnant G. Dunworth RNVR injured) 
Unlike the Swordfishs the Albacore were fast enough to be tracked by Tirpitz AA directors. Proper tactics would have safed more Albacores, they stood too long in effective firing range.
I am not intending to say that the average of 4.1" shell/hit relation was better than the US as the numbers may suggest here, it´s just a single sortie, not a statistical reasonable background behind.


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## Henk (Feb 13, 2006)

Wow, now you guys like the topic of the Bismarck. I love the Bismarck and I do believe that the German fleet could have crashed the Royal navy by air and navy forces working together and thus won the battle for the Atlantic. 

Fuel was not a problem when the Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen broke into the Atlantic, the Prinz Eugen did not have a great range but she went around UK and also got home after the Bismarck was sunk. Through tankers that supplied them with fuel they could have done what was earlier mentioned. 

The German Navy was not crap it was one of the best of the time and to say that they could not have done it on that grounds is not true. The Bismarck was the best gun platform you could ever wish for ( except for the US navy) and thus could have wont the battle for the Atlantic with the complement of the Graff Zeppelin and thus sink more ships and also put up a great fight against the Raoul navy.

The thing that still is stupid to me is that Hitler should have waited for the German Navy to be finished and build up properly to be able to fight a Popper navel battle. HE was very stupid to start the war so early, but actually it was a good thing.

So yes I think it could have been done if the German Navy was ready for such a mission.

The Germans was also famous, because they were such good shots when it came to their navy and the Royal Navy knew that and feared it.

Henk


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## delcyros (Feb 13, 2006)

I don´t like to say so but I disagree, Henk.
The german Navy never was in position to keep up with the RN (or any other Washington treaty Navy), the only thing they could hope to do was merchant raiding (which usually is a cruisers or a submarines task) as long as the Radar isn´t widely introduced and the US are not participated (1939-mid 1942).
The problem with the Bismarck is that there always will be die hard fans of her (and HOOD of course!) even if all eyewitnesses long have faded away. This is the reason to either deflate or inflate her overall performance.
I am not free from it, too. 
The discussed website (combinedflee.com) isn´t free either and I put some good numbers of mistakes and statistical "bendings" forward to show that the datas given their are not balanced as one might wish. Sadly because this site truly had the potential to be the best.


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## Henk (Feb 13, 2006)

Ys, the thing is that the German navy should have prepaired better and cept bombing airfields and docks of UK and thus finnished the Graff Zepplin to be able to crush the Royal Navy. Yes by the beginnig of WW2 the navy was ill prepaired, but the forces they had could have been used better and thus prove that they have small numbers but can still prove thy can give a hard punch.

I am not a die hard fan of the Bismark but she was still one of the best and could have done great dammage if she was used propperly. 

If I take the royal navy she also had crappy ships like the Nelson and Rodney. If you read the battle report after the battle with the Bismarck you will see why I say the Rodney was crap.

Henk


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## syscom3 (Feb 13, 2006)

The KM was never in a position to defeat the Brits at sea. The resources that would have had to be commited would have meant the other branches would have to cut back somewhere.

The logistics of supporting a large enough task force is daunting and the KM never had the fleet train nor doctrine to do it.

And youre making some awfully big asumptions about the KM not taking any damage or sinkings.

Plus, go read the many threads we have here on just how poor the GZ would have performed in battle.


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## syscom3 (Feb 13, 2006)

Delcyros, attached is an unusual pix of a heavy flak burst close to the water. Notice the fragment pattern, let alone the shock wave.

This is what the 5" AA guns would be putting up. 

The 40mm's pattern would be 1/3 as small, but just as deadly. A direct hit on, or quite close to a single engined aircraft would be fatal. 

Remember, the attacking plane is coming straight on towards the ship, so a 5" or 40mm hit directly on the plane is going to hit anywhere in front and destroy it.

It doesnt matter how much armour any single engine plane has, because it isnt going to be enough to protect it. It would need armour as thick as an AFV!


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## delcyros (Feb 14, 2006)

Nice picture, Syscom.
The scrapnel pattern isn´t distributed in a round pattern nor in an oval one. This means it will have a rather short destruction zone depending from where this AA shell comes:
if it is a longitudinal pattern than it is very easy to miss the target right or left, if it is a horizontal pattern (like a shield, more plausible) it will be very easy to miss the target in distance since the "dead zone" is rather short: Here around 30-40 ft. A Fw-190 will be exposed for 0.1 sec. (at 260 mp/h) to these scrapnels (but only if the VT fuze works and deploys the scrapnel shield properly in front of the plane), the shell is travelling with Mach 1.5 (worst) so it has a timeframe of 0.0016 sec. against a 260 mp/h flying Fw190 to deploy the scrapnel shield. That´s short! All under the estimation that the AAgun was aimed perfectly what rarely was the case. This is the reason why so many shells were necessary to get a single kill.
Nevertheless the VT shell was a clear improvement over the time fuzed shell.
I am not going to say a Fw190F would be immune to 5" near hits, no. But I am pretty sure that the plane can take a few more single scrapnels at longer distance than 30-40ft compared to a Zeke (where the impact force of a scrapnel isn´t that strong). it happened often: The Catalina which made contact with Bismarck was under 4.1" fire. A lot of scrapnels went right through the plane without destroying it. This will mathematically led to a measurable difference in shell / kill ratio. I suggested around 5%. This isn´t really much (21 Zekes destroyed, 20 Fw destroyed for the same amount of spended ammo). The author of combined fleet has the same argument for uprating the Iowas (because US planes are much stronger build than japanese ones, which means they can take some more AA), and we are not talking about direct or near hits but about hits in a semi dangerous distance where lighter build planes suffer more than stronger build ones. 
Keep also in mind that most scrapnels are not hitting the leading edges and parts but the surfaces according to this picture!


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## syscom3 (Feb 14, 2006)

All it takes is a single sliver of flak to slice through the flesh of the pilot and hes either dead or soon to be dead. The deadly zone of a flak burst is quite wide.

Now about your Catalina? Theres a large difference between a large aircraft and a small single engined aircraft. The Catalina just by being so big would be able to take quite a lot of flak "holing" before falling apart. Assuming the shell doesnt hit the plane itself, of course.

Any single engined aircraft would be far more vulnerable to damage as its vitals are closely spaced. I would say that the data that Erich has on the number of (ME-262) 30mm hits on a B17 to bring it down could be easily extrapolated downwards for a smaller plane.

And although your time or exposure data is interesting, it doesnt deal with the fragments flying at supersonic speeds, nor the shock front of the explosions traveling at mach 1. Quite simply, if a 5" shell goes off near a plane, theres going to be damage.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Feb 14, 2006)

The Kriegsmarine could not have defeated the Royal Navy. They did not have eneogh Battleships, they had poor tactics when compared to the Royal Navy and they lacked the single most important ship of WW2 and that being the Aircraft Carrier.


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## delcyros (Feb 14, 2006)

The "dead zone" of an 5" burst is wide (in x- and y-axes), but it is narrow, too (in the z-axe).
If a single scrapnel went through the body the game will be over (in case of the Cataline some scrapnels went through the pilots seat fortunately without injuring anybody), agreed.
Maybe I expressed myself wrong. I will try a last time:
1.) A direct hit: Game Over
2.) A near hit (inside the death zone, heavy blast effects and supersonic scrapnels): Game Over
3.) A hit outside the death zone (assuming the distance is large enough to ignore blast effects to some degree, scrapnels strictly subsonic and widely distributed): Well, this depends: A Catalina has- as you suggest- a far better chance than a Corsair (Attention: Only if it stays in good range because it is a larger target, too, this will cause more hits at effective range), a Corsair may have a better chance than a Fw-190 and a Fw 190 may have a tiny (5%?) advantage over a Zeke. Better?
In the last case damage will happen. In some case this damage will cause the plane to get down, in others not.
It would be beyond all probabilities that this wouldn´t be statistically reflected in some way. The 5% I suggested are pure speculation basing on the estimation that larger shells (like the 5"ers) will cause massively more damage beyond the ability to sustain than lighter (Bofors and 20mm). 
However, If You strictly deny this You are free to use the shell / kill (remember, not shell / hit...) ratio of the Zeke´s instead. Then Iowa´s reputated AA will have a 21% chance to kill a Fw-190 with 5"ers instead of 20%, given. In the end there will be no decisive difference because of the small number of planes: 1 Fw190 down for sure, 1 further with high and another one with low proabaility. At least 9, more probable 10 Fw190 (or Zekes) come to bomb dropping distance. Just statistically spoken. This doesn´t secure that more or less planes would be lost before they drop their bombs on Iowa, but there is no serious probability that Iowa can defend on her own against 12 intruders (a usual flight). This means that the most reputated AA floating platform of ww2 will be exposed to even small size air raids as long as it stands alone. With these statistics I would even go further and say that if you replace Bismarck with Iowa and downgrade her tech to 1941 she wouldn´t do better against Swordfishs as well...


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## Henk (Feb 14, 2006)

syscom3 said:


> And youre making some awfully big asumptions about the KM not taking any damage or sinkings.



No you did not understand mate. I tried to say that if Germany prepared better before the war to build up their Navy to have the right equipment to be able to fight the Royal Navy and with better tactics they could have done something.

It is just a what if, but when WW2 started they were not equipped to take on the Royal Navy when it comes to their fleet. If the Luftwaffe worked together with the Kriegsmarine they could have done great damage to the Royal Navy. Remember that if the Luftwaffe destroyed all airfields in the UK and then bomb the Navy the Royal Navy would have been in trouble.

The Bismarck was doomed when they send her out the way she did. If Germany used the French Battleships they could have had a better fleet, but, like we all know some were destroyed by the Royal Navy and others kept in the UK and those that remained was scuttled.

Nice info and pictures guys.

Henk


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## delcyros (Feb 14, 2006)

Henk, I believe it was beyond german industrial capabilities to prepare better for the war. Especcially for the fleet. To finish the Bismarck and Tirpitz they had to cut off a lot of submarine building capacitys, The CA Lutzow and Seydlitz haven´t been completed, yet even the already finished Graf Zeppelin wasn´t commisioned.
The tactics and particularly the Kriegsmarine training was excellent in the timeframe up to 1941. (and became awful later...)
Why do you think Bismarck was doomed?


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## Henk (Feb 14, 2006)

Yes, mate are right, but I mean they could have waited and build on their own pace building up their navy slowly.

I am not saying that the Bismarck design was weak nor that she was a bad ship, I mean they send her out with the Prinz Eugen that is like sending one fighter against 10 enemy fighters. It was crazy un backfired into Hitlers face.

I will send you a PM.

Henk


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## syscom3 (Feb 14, 2006)

Once the USN began to deploy in 1943 the modern ships of the 1939 and 1940 ship building program, then there is not one single thing the KM could have done.

The ships:
Essex class carriers
SD and Iowa class battleships
Cleveland class light cruisers
Baltimore class heavy cruisers
numerous destroyers, destroyer escorts, submarines and the all important cargo and tankers for the fleet train.


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## Glider (Feb 14, 2006)

No you did not understand mate. I tried to say that if Germany prepared better before the war to build up their Navy to have the right equipment to be able to fight the Royal Navy and with better tactics they could have done something.


Henk[/quote]

The British also had modification plans well in hand. Had Germany been given the extra couple of years to complete their building programme then the British would have had time to complete theirs.

The Highlights were

Royal Soverign class to be scrapped 
Queen Elizabeth Class modified to Queen Elizabeth Standard
Repulse modified to Renown standards
Hood Modernised to Renown Standards
Lion Class built (similar to KGV but with 9 x 16in)

So the Germans were always going to be behind the RN.


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## delcyros (Feb 15, 2006)

My estimation, too. The RN would always come out on top(The Lions would have been interesting). I might even think that the Z-Plan of a balanced fleet brought the KM in a desperate situation with it´s fleet torso in 1940. The will to build a battlefleet (with Bismarck and Tirpitz as it´s first units) also was only partly productive. For a raider they were kind of an overkill. The only real useful thing of these two units was the heavy "fleet in beeing" effect of Tirpitz in Norway and Bismarck in the Atlantic (which contributed a lot to the capture of crete). The Panzerschiffe would have been the better solution (cancel B&T and the twins and you may deploy 10 pocket battleships) in combination with a good submarine building program. But it is always easier with the knowledge of the past...
Syscom, would You like to fight Tirpitz in 1943 with South-Dakota or Iowa?
It wasn´t until 44 that US ships got firecontroll advantage with introduction of MK 8 FC. However, You pointed a very valid point: The US shipbuilding program produced the necessary transporting capabilities which the KM never had, beside of it´s large scale warship production program.


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## syscom3 (Feb 15, 2006)

Of course Id take the Iowa class as first choice.

But I'd still fight it out with the SD.


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## delcyros (Feb 15, 2006)

And I suspect You would be a brave seamen to do so.


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## syscom3 (Feb 15, 2006)

It would be the German sailors who would be brave.......knowing they were sailing to their doom.


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## delcyros (Feb 15, 2006)

1943 - I wouldn´t be that sure:
Iowa: sea-trials and training in the North Atlantic (as opposition to a possible Tirpitz breakout): untrained crew (which regularly overshoot it´s targets and had some technical breakdowns as well) in Iowa against trained and experienced crew of Tirpitz, comparable Radar and FC, bad weather in the Nort Atlantic (and Iowa was a way worser seaboat than Tirpitz), the unknown Tirpitz armor sheme (yep, it´s easy to stay out of range and get plunging fire if You would only have known Okun´s work...). There is not much the Iowa has in advance: Not the range (Iowa and Tirpitz identical) but the speed (as long as the unprotected bow get´s no hit). And the heavy KM ships were reputated for early hits.
Iowa went afterwards in the mediterranean but only to be returned in fear of Fritz X attacks (just my personal view). In 1943 both ships are technically equal but if you factor the crew, too....
The South Dakota at least has some worthy battle experience and much more gunnery training.


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## syscom3 (Feb 15, 2006)

The Iowa class BB's were needed in the Pacific for a variety of reasons.

There was really no use for them in the med.

How do you know the Iowa had bad sea keeping? The typhoons in the pacific had no effect on its sea keeping.


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## Henk (Feb 15, 2006)

I do not like to say this but it is true.

The Iowa was a great sea ship and had better range finders and had greater range because of her 16 inch guns and she had 9 of them. She also had more sicondary guns. Well I must say that with a well oiled engine you can do anything. The German crew were indeed well trained and fought bravely, if you do not have well trained men or brave men you may have the best battleship she will not fight right.

Henk


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## delcyros (Feb 15, 2006)

Dear Henk, switch to page 4-7, there is a lot discussed. 16" alone has nothing in favour...there are good guns and there are bad ones. The US 16"/45 and /50 are considered very good ones but so are the 15"/52 of Bismarck. There is only little difference between both guns and while it is true that Bismarck has one gun less, it still has more battery output due to a higher RoF.
The range finders of Iowa (the optical ones) are by far not as good as Bismarcks. I often read people saying so but if you reed the post ww2 comments on german optical rangefinders You will feel very disappointed if You think Iowa was state of the art.
And Iowa wasn´t a sea ship like Bismarck.
There is a way to find out wy: Metacentric height. You have two metacentric heights: one for transverse and longitudinal (compare the attached picture). 
Here are some metacentric heights (GM) for BB:
Richelieu: 9.28 ft
Iowa: 9.26 ft
Yamato: 9.81 ft
Vittorio Veneto: 5.84 ft (ok-only in the calm mediterranean, neglectable)
Howe: 7.32 ft.
Vanguard: 11.12 ft.
Bismarck: 13.48 ft.
The design of german capital ships since pre ww1 were all with great empahsis on a high degree of design stability, as was the Bismarck. In most cases the centre of Bouyoncy is below the centre of weight the height is measured in ft over keel (CoG-CoD=metacentric height). The rule is:
The higher the metacentric height= the stronger the righting arm = more stability. I quote one occasion where two BB of different GM were in the same storm: during Nato maneuvres in the North Atlantic Iowa and Vanguard had same speed and direction, Vanguard suffered 15 degrees worsest list while Iowa suffered 25 degrees. Bismarck had even far more GM and therefor far more stability, in theory it could still prevent capsizing at 61 degrees when all other BB long went submerged! The longitudinal GM of Bismarck was better than Iowa as well. The fine bow of Iowa was a problem at heavy seas:"This shows why the Iowa's were so wet forward; because they had very fine lines, the mass of water displaced by the bows was not great so digging the bows (...in the waters...) in did not displace the center of buoyancy much so little righting arm existed."(compare article of Stuart Blade at the NTB) This is even more important if battledamage caused some flooding because this will always reduce the ships acceptable metacentric height (Counterflooding also will always reduce the GM). This may be a reason why Seydlitz managed to return with 5.500 tons of water during Jutland as it would directly contribut to the survivability of the Bismarcks.
A negaive side effect of this is that the rolling periods will be shorter at heavy seas, this will negatively influence weapon platform. A reason why german designers preferred the three axes stabilized mountings for all but the main artillery gunmounts.


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## Henk (Feb 15, 2006)

Oh yes I agree wiht you that the Bismarck was a better sea ship than the Iowa and on the guns becuase the German gunners was better, lol. The only problems wiht the Bismarck was hes stern design and the stearing wiht the propellers and the AA. That is all, other wise she was great.

My friend bought himself a Bismarck model but he f****ed it up becuase he did not follow the instructions but it gafe me time to study the design of the ship and then I also got the famous book THE DESCOVERY OF THE BISMARCK by Dr Robert Ballard and I learned a lot there. Great book.

I also design ships just for fun by hand, the 3D thing is just still a problem.

Henk


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## delcyros (Feb 15, 2006)

The stern design may be weak, agreed. Another possibility is that the welding failed at the very structure, which was already weakened by the torpedo blast. The bow structure of US cruisers wasn´t that good either. There are no recorded problems with the bow structure of US fast battleships, but they haven´t been tested. The stearing with one centreline prop was unstatisfying, agreed. The AA tracked the slow Swordfish too hard, otherwise the Tirpitz AA proved to be a capable AA suite at least for a battleship.
By the way Ballards book was my first on Bismarck, too.


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## Henk (Feb 15, 2006)

The Prinz Eugen also had a weak stern and was forced to be in dry dock for a wile. They improved her bow and never had a problem since.

Yes the Tirpitz had great AA and was a brave ship, the only thing was that it was just sitting around.

Henk


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## delcyros (Feb 16, 2006)

Fleet in beeing, this was Tirpitz purpose in Norway.
And yes, Prinz Eugen had to be docked after it suffered a torpedo hit in the stern. I believe Lutzow and Hipper also had some problems with the stern.
Could be that this is a general design weakness of german capital ships.


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## Henk (Feb 17, 2006)

Yes, it was a small fault in the design, but a big one in battle.

Still I love German Designs of Battleships WW1 and WW2.

Henk


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## delcyros (Feb 18, 2006)

Haven´t seen any battle related difficulties with the stern. Bismarck´s broke either while sinking or while hitting the ocean surface, Prinz Eugens broke after torpedo impact (but the ship still was able to maneure and keep some own speed), as did Lutzows stern suffered damaged after torpedo impact. That are two CA and RN CA are reputated for sinking after one or two hits. Compared with this it is pretty little damage.
I do personally like german high sea fleet ships. Aesthetically nothing beats Lutzow in ww1. In ww2 my vote would be either Yamato or Richeleieu with a close Washington beeing second (resp. third).


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## syscom3 (Feb 18, 2006)

delcyros said:


> ......re two CA and RN CA are reputated for sinking after one or two hits. .......



What allied cruisers sank after one hit (excluding the USS Jeauneu which had a torpedo hit right in the magazine)


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## delcyros (Feb 18, 2006)

There are some, but I will have to check the books. The USS Jeauneu should not been considered as 1 hit. The torpedo exactly hit the same spot where another Long lance weakened the hull in the previous night.
Compare with the british Dido´s (except Argonaut which survived two impacts at the extreme bow and stern), Arethusa and Amphions cruisers. One, sometimes two hits and rapidly capsizing.
The Indianapolis also did not well against two SS torpedo hits in the bow (which isn´t as critical as amidships hits).


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## syscom3 (Feb 18, 2006)

Youre correct. Two torpedo hits sunk her.

Delc - check out the following weblink. It is a USN interrogation summary of the skipper of the IJN sub. Theres quite some USN interest in the torpedo exploders and whether they were of German design.

http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq30-8.htm


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## delcyros (Feb 18, 2006)

Interesting question.
At leastone german Submarine surrendered while enreoute to Japan. Beside of other material also fuzes (contact, approximation, time, acustic, magnetic) should be delivered to Japan. Whether or not german magnetic pistols were delivered earlier I don´know, but I too, wouldn´t exclude this possibility. Thanks for the hint!


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## Henk (Feb 18, 2006)

Yes, the stern of the Bismarck broke when she were still on the surface. The German gunners were great and well trained and there ships were ready for action. The Prince of Wales malfunctioned during the battle with the Bismarck when the Hood sunk. The royal navy send her in not even making sure she were in working order.

The captain of the Bismarck was very mad because the admiral did not want to go after the crippled battleship and said they do not have time for naval games.

Henk


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## delcyros (Feb 19, 2006)

I wouldn´t be too sure that the stern broke when the ship still was on the surface. At first, all eyewitnesses stated that the ships hull was intact when she capsized (one of them was a leading damage controllofficer of Bismarck, we should credit his statements). Next if we check the Bismarcks debris field the stern remains are too close to the main wreckage to be explained by an early seperation. Indeed it is located at the one end of the earth distortion field caused by the impact of the ship on the seabed. Actually right there, where we expect the ship to hit the ground. We will never know for sure.
Right, PoW was not battle ready but I am convinced she also would suffer turret failures if she had more trial time. The reports from KGV are not much better, at first the radar failed, then sukzessively the quadrupel turrets. A horrible main battery reliability. Most of these problems have been fixed by late 1942/early1943 but the quadrupel mount still made problems and tended to fail under heavy use.


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## Henk (Feb 19, 2006)

Oh, I was so stupid not mentioning it before. When Discovery Channel went back to the Bismarck they found out that the stern did not brake off it just bend downwards. Also they finally found out that she were scuttled by the damage on the hull and not a torpedo's like the Royal Navy said. 

I do not know if it is true that the stern just bend downwards, it sure as hell does not look like it.

The men of Bismarck did fight very bravely in the last battle. Lets take how the ship looked when the order came to abandon ship, she had great damage.

The other thing that also caught my attention was that the bridge was not heavily damaged, just the firring control station on top of it was destroyed in the battle, but they did find both and still looks quite good.

The turrets lies upside down, but the armament are still on the ship and can still be seen pointing her guns at the enemy still looking dangerous.

The sad thing is that they scrapped the Tirpitz and not raise her to find out how she works.

Henk


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## delcyros (Feb 19, 2006)

Yes, Henk.
However, the Bismarck was badly worked up during her final battle. The bridge is a wreckage, I doubt that anyone there survived the first hour. One of the turrets (Bruno) suffered a magazine or ammo explosion, knocking out the whole unit permanently. Turret A suffered impacts to temporarly knocking out the turret (as did C and D) Only Dora and Anton resumed some fire afterwards. Despite it´s small turret face armor, no shell penetrated a turret face (but some penetrated the turret sides of disabled turrets). There were multiple fires in the secondary and tertiary guns. One 4.1 " magazine below the main armor deck also suffered magazine fire. The whole forward superstructure, except for the unarmored admirals bridge, was repeatedly penetrated and almost each square inch suffered impact, blast or fragmentation damage. The armored weather deck and the upper zitadell armor belt were several times penetrated. The main belt armor was at least four times penetrated. No penetrations of the main armor deck, the sloped belt and the torpedo bulkhead have been recorded so far. According to the surviving damage controll officer the ship suffered some list by local flooding (in order to prevent magazine explosions), extensive fire in the suerstructures and nearly total losses of communication to the vitals above the main armor deck. Below the main armor deck the ships still worked properly. Engines were running, turbines provided electricity, communication and order of work were fine. All survivors were overwhelmed when they left the platform decks and recognized the heavy destructions above the main armor deck.


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## delcyros (Feb 20, 2006)

I just once more compared the secondarys of Bismarck and Iowa/South Dakota. It should be noted that Iowas secondarys are completely useless against the Bismarck´s armor scheme. At 18.000 yrds range they would have a very little chance to penetrate the Bismarck´s weather deck (NBL: 1022 fps, striking velocity: 1030 fps at 27.6 degrees obliquity), but the range is limited to 17.850 yrds. No complete penetration of the weather deck is possible. The main armor belt of Bismarck cannot be penetrated by any distance, nor could the turret or Barbette armor suffer penetration (even non penetrating damage seems unreasonable for me, the striking velocity is too slow as is the projectiles weight.). The upper zitadell armor (145 mm) cannot been pierced by any distance over 2.150 yrds, at any distance under 2.150 yrds the shell wouldn´t be effective (Only partly penetration or Navy Ballistic limit, never effective ballistic limit, due to face hardened) in most cases. Not the bridge nor the rangefinders cannot been penetrated by the 5" of Iowa and South Dakota. The inclined 50mm Wh armor at the bow can be penetrated at all distances under 8000 yrds, the stern armor (80 mm) at all distances under 5.700 yrds. No diving shell (including duds) has any chance to penetrate the secondary 20mm torpedo bulkhead. The turrets of the secondary artillery will be safe at distances between 6.000 yrds and 16.800 yrds, the tertiary at distances between 9.000 yrds and 14.000 yrds. On the other side, Bismarcks secondarys have a better range and AP-capabilities and will hurt Iowa and South Dakota much more. In this particulary comparison the US ships secondarys are close to useless against Bismarck.


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## Henk (Feb 20, 2006)

I wish I had the pictures to show you the dammage on the bridge of the Bismarck when they found it in 2000. I think it is on the Hood sociaty's website. One of the survivers said he saw the capitan on the bridge when they abanded ship. He was surprised that it was in such good condition and that the capitan was still alive.

Oh, I wish they would make a modern movie about the Bismarck's story.

Henk


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## delcyros (Feb 20, 2006)

The Bismarcks bridge shows extremely heavy signs of destructions. But this is only the armored ("Gefechtsbrücke") main bridge. There is a secondary bridge and the admirals bridge.The later wasn´t armored and is much less destroyed (the shells just went right through the structure without setting the base fuze of the projectile). At the very short distances of the last battle, no armor can provide immunity (we already discussed the serious matter of non penetrating damage as well) from AP shells.
Compare the attached picture, it is taken from an article of the Naval technical board about the Bismarcks last battle by Thomas G. Webb and shows the recorded impacts on the armored main bridge.


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## Henk (Feb 20, 2006)

Yes, mate the open bridge was heavely damaged but the bridge I am talking about is the Admiral's bridge. ( my misstake )

It is strange that the Admiral's bridge broke off like it did.

Henk


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## delcyros (Feb 20, 2006)

From what I read, the admirals bridge didn´t suffered that much visibly. But it should be noted that AP rounds simply penetrate the bridge, making a hole, that´s it. There isn´t enough resisting force (armor) to set the fuze and blew the projectile up. On the other side the upper bridge superstructures (admirals bridge) delivers a huge hydrodynamical resistance during capsizing . If the structure is already weakned by impacts and holes it seems very reasonable that the upper works will break off. This is even more plausible since there is no armor reinforcement there.


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## Henk (Feb 20, 2006)

Wow, mate you sure as hell knows a lot about ships hey. Now tell me why does the turret fall out when the ship capsizes?

I realy want to get the new expidition that National Geogravic did in 2001 I think because they show real great footage in that documentary. I have the first National Geogravic video of the Discovery of the Bismarck when Robert D Ballard did his expedition.

Are their any museums on the Bismarck in Germany?

Henk


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## syscom3 (Feb 20, 2006)

The turrets are held in place by gravity. Ship rolls over, turret falls off.


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## Henk (Feb 20, 2006)

Yes, I know that but why did they not fix it to the ship?

Henk


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## syscom3 (Feb 20, 2006)

Why waste thousands of tons of steel to hold the turrets in place if the ship is upside down?

If the ship has roled to the point the turrets drop off, then theres far more important things to worry about.


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## lesofprimus (Feb 20, 2006)

> If the ship has roled to the point the turrets drop off, then theres far more important things to worry about.


LMMFAO...


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## Henk (Feb 20, 2006)

lesofprimus said:


> > If the ship has roled to the point the turrets drop off, then theres far more important things to worry about.
> 
> 
> LMMFAO...



    

If you take, why I ask is that the turret can jump out of its Barbette and jam it in that way and can cost you in battle. If the turret get hit in battle and move because it was not fixed to its Barbette.

Henk


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## delcyros (Feb 21, 2006)

Syscom delivered a good explenation. You cannot fix the turret rollers either. If hit, the turret in some (not all) cases will jam then you have a problem. Technically You may have tow possibilities to overcome this problem:
Either You use a dual barbette layout aka Yamato (this also has the benefit to prevent any non penetrating damage from hurting the turrets interior) or you refuse the turret rollers and therefor install ball bearings (correct word?=Kugellager) aka Scharnhorst or even both aka Bismarck( altough the second barbette layer is only to stop large fragmentation). The ball bearings will save a lot of weight for nearly the same benfit (1937 armor tests of a turret scale builded section proved this) but isn´t that effective at close distances where the impactforce (=weight*speed/impact area) is quite high. Otherwise it will do it´s job because the rollers cannot jump out of their track. 
In the end the Bismarck´s turret A and B were jammed early in it´s last battle (turret A later came back to service in the battle) by some 16" hits.
Many say this was a single hit disabling both turrets but british eyewitnesses from KGV have seen multiple 16" penetrations through the upper belt between turret A and B. The barbette armor below the armored weather deck is only 220 mm (8.6"), a 16" hit will, depending on the longitudinal impact angle, most probably penetrate at such close distances.


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## Henk (Feb 21, 2006)

You see why I ask is because I design battleships for fun and I would like to learn more about this to improve my designs. 

delcyros why do you know so much about this technical things? You can PM me.

Henk


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## syscom3 (Feb 21, 2006)

henk, just design your hypothetical battleships to the Iowa class and you will be fine, hehehehhehe


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## syscom3 (Feb 21, 2006)

Delc, have you heard of this planned battleship?

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/usnshtp/bb/bb67.htm

And the Alaska class battlecruisers?

http://www.hazegray.org/navhist/battleships/us_bc.htm#ala-cl
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/usnshtp/cru/cb1cl.htm


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## Henk (Feb 21, 2006)

syscom3 I di use the great things of the New Jersey and of the Bismarck and they go great together.

I wish I could show you but it is on paper not on the PC.

Mate your first link does not work.

Henk


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## delcyros (Feb 21, 2006)

8) Yes, the Iowa did came very close to an all around excellent battleship and will always remain as the ones to be measured with.

I do not like some minor points on them:
-completely unprotected bow and (except steering room) stern:
this means bow hits will not only reduce Iowas great speed but also bring the ship to a dangerous situation in bad weather (longitudinal weakness in metacentric height)
-unarmored outer hullskin:
Minor flooding can be caused by even 20mmAP rounds! They also can cause numerous oil leaks because some of the tanks were outboards
-waetherdeck: 38mm are too less to prevent medium calibre AP rounds penetrating. Even General purpose bombs have a good chance to penetrate the weather deck. On the other side a smaller weatherdeck contributes to the excellent main armor deck protection executed in the Iowas
-questionable torpedo defense system. Not really battle tested. One SS torpedo hitting the Washington had the potential to blew up the ship (the forward main magazine rooms fortunately have been flooded, the flashes caused by the torpedo otherwise would ignite the cordite storaged there. In this case the TDS simply failed in a vital region)
-Vulnarability in close distances: The vitals can be penetrated by almost all heavy calibre´s guns (except 11"?) from close range. "Close" range means 16.400 yrds in case of Bismarck´s 15"ers and even 20.800 yrds in case of Yamato´s 18.1"ers. This is usual fighting distance.
-weak secondary anti ship gunlayout (useless against Bismarck, Nagato, Rodney, Littorio and Yamato)
- my personal #1 troublemaker: Cartridges in silk bags! They are prone for igniting and causing catastrophic conflagrations (ever heard of a german capital ship to blew up? They had semi fixed metal cartidges)

I do not up- or downrate her for her All or Nothing armor scheme. As I told before, Every nation in ww2 developed the best armor protection system for their special purposes. So was AoN for the US. And it saved a lot of soldiers on South Dakota as well. You may argue that with the advent of Grand Slam- and Fritz X-bombs this scheme became obsolete, but this was beyond expectations in their design stage.
No. They are wonderful ships, milestones in naval capital ship design, don´t take my minor critics to hard.


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## syscom3 (Feb 21, 2006)

The link works for me.


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## delcyros (Feb 21, 2006)

Both nice designs. But I am not sure which role the Alaskas can perform in the USN. The Montanas, however, they would have been worth their money. What a ship. It would have been so interesting to compare them with the Yamatos.


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## syscom3 (Feb 21, 2006)

The Alaska class designs were an evolutionary dead end by 1942.

However, if they had been built in the late 30's, it would have been an interesting hypothetical matchup for the German pocket battleships and these ships.

I wonder how they would have performed as an AA cruiser. It had plenty of space and capability to have the 12" turrets removed and multiple dual 5" mounts installed.


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## delcyros (Feb 21, 2006)

Since the Alaska were more stable, they could have been formidable in the AA role, no doubt.
Against pocket battleships I would bet my money on them, too. They are superior in every single aspect except for range.
But against the Scharnhorsts, I don´t know. Both are looking similar in appearence and key specifications, some advantages for Scharnhorst, some for Alaska.


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## delcyros (Feb 25, 2006)

I just had an annoying discussion on another board regarding Iowas armor scheme. There is a wide distribution of a totally wrong Iowa armor scheme based on a drawing in S. Beyers book. (you may find it in the internet also).
factoring:
outer armor
no inclination
no decapping plate
(the thicknesses are the same)

I do use the armor scheme of South Dakota for Iowa (factoring inclined inbound armor belt with enforced hullskin. The decapping effect is existent but was unknown to the US designers in ww2. Only italian designers knew about the benefits of a decapping plate)
Syscom, can you help me out with a verification? They put forward the argument that inclined is only at the tuerrets and the centre may be uninclined but I do not believe. Sadly I don´t have a proper drawing for different transverse cuts for Iowa´s armor scheme.
Any help welcome.


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## syscom3 (Feb 25, 2006)

I remember leafing through the following book, and it had some great pictures of the US battleships under construction and you can see the armour design. Plus it had some good drawing of the "frame by frame" armour layout.

Theres also a companion book about US cruisers of the post WW1 to end of WW2 era.

"U.S. Battleships: An Illustrated Design History"
By Norman Friedman
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0870217151/?tag=dcglabs-20


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## delcyros (Feb 25, 2006)

Thanks for the hint. I am looking forward for the "frame by frame" armor scheme drawings of these books (I think we have it here in the library).


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## delcyros (Feb 26, 2006)

Got it. 
And I also found a verification for the latent weakness of the torpedo defense system of US fast battleships:
The failure of Washingtons TDS between turret A and B led to the idea to improve the TDS of the Iowa by adding some extensive blisters between turret A and B (and some more forward). This could have fixed the TDS weaknes there but for some uncomfortable costs:
Most concerning is the negative effect in hull drag coefficient, reducing the top speed by between 1.2 and 1.8 kts.
But even more worrisome is that by doing this the pressure curve of the longitudinal CoB would have been shifted more aft. In the end this would have considerably decreased the seakeeping abilities of all Iowas in heavy seas by increasing the downward pull of the bow! Gurgle, gurgle.
Ahh. Some more very interesting informations provided by Nathan Okun shows that the decapping plate on Iowa and South Dakota WILL NOT DECAP a german 14.96" AP PzSprGr. 38.
Originally he simply assumed that 0.0805 calibre thicknesses of STS or comparable homogenious steel will always decap an AP projectile
(in case of Bismarcks guns: 1.205" would decap the AP. Soth Dakota has a plating of 1.25" and Iowa 1.5") Deeper investigations by Nathan Okun proved that this only belongs to soft capped AP(type 1), not hardened AP-caps.
With his corrections it would need between 0.12 and 0.14 calibre thicknesses to have a 50% chance to decap (1.8") type 2= hardened AP(compare attached image). This means the decapping plate of Iowa/South Dakota WILL ALWAYS FAIL to decap the 15" AP.
This would also effect the calculations of combinedfleet.com. The 15" AP of Bismarck will effectively penetrate Iowa and South Dakota at even longer ranges!!! It means the 15"ers will penetrate in effective conditions (EEF, formerly not possible due to decapping effect) the belt. This offsets one of the most striking advantages of South Dakota/Iowa. I have to recalculate belt penetrations


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## delcyros (Feb 26, 2006)

Ok-here it goes:

South Dakota vs 14.96"/52 AP 1764 lbs (1552 lbs body weight).

1.1.) armor layout (compare attached picture):
outer hull: unarmored (0.3" STS)
decapping plate: 1.25" STS
main belt: 12.2" US class"A" face hardened, 19.9 degrees inclined
(lower) main belt: tapered down gradually from 11" to 0.7" at the bottom
weather deck: 1.5" US class "B" homogenious
main deck: 5.3" US class "B" homogenious
splinter deck: 0.625" STS
splinter belt/decks: 0.3" STS

Now we assume that deck penetration isn´t possible in our ranges (I exclude all ranges beyond 30.000 yrds because of obvious reasons). Belt penetrations are therfor the only possibility to reach Iowa´s / South Dakotas vitals:

lets check 10.000 yrds: the striking velocity is 2160 fps at AoF 5.8 degrees. The shell will went through the outer hullskin and loose its windscreen(no significant loss in striking velocity and AoF), leaving a hole. In case this hole is in the waterline or in the pressurewave, it will cause flooding and contamining oilreserves with seawater.
Next is the decapping plate. According to Okun the decapping plate FAILS to decap the 15" AP (as it would fail to decap 11"ers and even 8"ers AP-caps). The shell will reamin intact AP-cap and 2151 fps. It´s base fuze will be set by defeating the decapping plate, AoF still the same.
Now it can defeat the 12.2", 19 degrees inclined face hardened class"A" belt with ease. Obliquity is 25.3 degrees, remaining striking velocity will be around 741 fps, so the shell may travel betwen 15 and 22 ft behind the armor plate before detonating at normal fuze delay.
AT which distance will the belt prevent penetration?
The holing limit will be reached at 19.400 yrds. The Navy Ballistic limit with full penetration may occur at 16.400 yrds (nose shattered), so if we take longitudinal impact angles also into consideration the South Dakota will be hurt at all distances under 15.000 yrds for sure, Iowa at all under 14.800 yrds. This makes for a pretty large immune gap from 0-15.000 yrds, where Iowa´s and South Dakotas vitals are totally exposed to Bismarck´s 15" guns! In order to ensure decaping the 15"ers they would need a 2.54" STS decapping plate instead of the 1.25" or 1.5" plates. In opposition to this Iowa would have been better protected in case they removed completely the 1.5" STS plate for beefing up the main belt to 13.3" class "A"(this would close the immune gap to 0-13000 yrds). But I suspect this wasn´t possible due to concernings regarding longitudinal hull stiffness (which is -for my knowledge- the originally intendet reason for the 1.5" plate).


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## Henk (Feb 26, 2006)

Very interesting mate, but some of it is a bit to technical for my brain, it still very nice and a great help.

Henk


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## delcyros (Feb 27, 2006)

My fault. I like to dig into technical details. Originally wanted to point out that the highly reputated decapping plate wouldn´t positively effect belt protection, it was too thin to do so. The Littorio class BB was the only BB to use (and it´s designers proofed to understand) the benfits of a decapping plate. They used a 70 mm homogenious armor grade plate instead of 32mm (South Dakota) and 38 mm (Iowa) of STS. They would succesfully remove the AP-caps of all allied guns. Only Yamato´s 18.1"ers will have a 40% chance to remain it´s AP-cap. And without AP-cap, the armor penetration abilities of the main projectile is 1.) greatly reduced (we are talking about a maximum loss of around 35% at direct and gradually lowering to 8% at high obliquities) and 2.) the shell is very likely to shatter (which may render the cavity charge useless but doesn´t prevent from penetrating).


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## Henk (Feb 27, 2006)

How did they decap the plates? Great info mate, this will help me quite a lot.

Henk


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## delcyros (Feb 27, 2006)

The shell don´t decap the plate. The plate decaps the shell!
This has to do with shell design. Shortly before WW1 the german high sea fleet introduced the armor peircing cap to it´s shells. The contemporary british shells had a simple, homogenious shell body. The benefits of armor piercing caps have to do with the usual armor type of those times: The face hardened armor (call for Krupp). It´s outer layer (face) was hardened to over 600 Brinell, sometimes even 700 and more (which is close to crystaline or cementated). This ultra hard face will damage a hitting projectile and usually break it´s nose (and sometimes renders its cavity useless). The AP cap attached to the nose of the shell will hit the ultra hard face earlier and destroy the thin cementated layer, allowing the main projectile body to penetrate in intact condition and to penetrate deeper (the backing layers were gradually tapered down to around 260-300 Brinell causing less resistance). 
The first to develop a AP-counter armor layout (and the only in ww2) were the italian with their special high tensile 70 mm decapping plate placed 1.4-2.2 m in front of the main belt. This plate has enough resistance (compare the necessary plate thickness with Okuns table above) to strip off the AP-cap of any gunsize under 18" before it will reach the main belt. Such an uncapped projectile will now again suffer nose shatter and all the disadvantages common for shell without AP-cap against the face hardened armor.


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## Henk (Mar 1, 2006)

Thanks for the info mate. 

Henk


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