German Battleships and convoy hunting.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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!

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!

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.

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.

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...

syscom3 said:

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

Click to expand...

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

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?

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

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.

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.

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.

Of course Id take the Iowa class as first choice.

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

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

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

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.