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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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


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


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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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


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


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

parsifal said:

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

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

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

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Obvious is that you have a selective perception.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ADM 234/509 -Toveys despatch:

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

83. The range was now 20.000 yards and decreasing rapidly, the general trend of the enemy's course being directly towards us. Shortly after our turn to the southward, the Bismarck shifted her fire to the King George V. By 0905 both the King George V and the Rodney had their secondary armaments in action. At this stage the effect of our gunfire was difficult to assess, as hits by armour-piercing shell are not easily seen; but after half an hour of action the Bismarck was on fire in several places and virtually out of control. Only one of her turrets remained in action and the fire of this and her secondary armament was wild and erratic. But she was still steaming.

84. Some interference from our own funnel and cordite smoke had been experienced, and at 0917 the course of the battlefleet was altered towards the enemy and right round to north, the Rodney again anticipating the signal. When the turn had been completed, the lines of fire of the King George V and Rodney were approximately at right angles; a heavy volume of fire could be produced without interference in spotting between the two ships. The Dorsetshire had been firing intermittently since 0902 from the other side of the enemy, as had the Norfolk from her flank marking position.

85. In order to increase the rate of hitting, the battleships continued to close, the range eventually coming down to 3,300 yards. By 1015 the Bismarck was a wreck, without a gun firing, on fire fore and aft and wallowing more heavily every moment. Men could be seen jumping overboard, preferring death by drowning in the stormy sea to the appalling effects of our fire. I was confident that the Bismarck, could never get back to harbour and that it was only a matter of hours before she would sink.

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

Del;

Obvious that we are getting nowhere fast.

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

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

Just my .02 on this thing.

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

Just my .02 on this thing


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

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

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

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

parsifal said:

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

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

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

You wrote exactly in your response:

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Regards
Kruska

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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An improved statement, which I am happy to see.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


An improved statement, which I am happy to see.

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



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


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


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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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