Sink The Bismark!

[palef]

It was HMS Rodney that wrecked the Gunnery Control for the Bismark.

HMS Nelson was in port being repaired after being struck by torpedo bombers.

I wouldn't call the Nelson "little". 9 16" guns are nothing to be sneered at.

The following link is an interesting history: http://www.homestead.com/nelson1/HISTORY1.html

My Grandfather served on the Nelson and during the refit after hitting a magnetic mine in 1939, he was conscripted into the only British Naval Commando unit of WWII, to participate in the attempted British landings in Norway to help Norway against the German invasion. They called them "Royal Marines" in Operation Primrose (http://hem.fyristorg.com/robertm/norge/allied_reference.html) , but in actual fact they were "idle" sailors thrown into the front line in Norway while the Nelson was refitted. He landed at Andalsnes on the 17th of April 1940 as part of a diversionary force and of the Nelson "volunteers" only two made it back to the UK that he could trace. The rest were killed or interned in Sweden, though only a small number made it to Sweden (no official figures). Hitler regarded them as Churchill's "pets" and so gave the order to take no Naval Commandos prisoner. The Germans used local "wireless" station's to broadcast this news. I can't begin to imagine how this must have felt, particularly after they were also told that they had to make their way 50 miles in two days in order to be picked up by British destroyers through some very rugged fjord terrain.

The 2 survivors were picked up by the Tribal class destroyer HMS Maori

He then went on to serve on the Malta convoys (was onboard when the Nelson was torpedoed) before being transferred to HMS Ceylon in 1943 and heading to, strangely enough, Ceylon 'til 1946.


palef

PS Drifted off topic there, but you can all relax - the drugs have worn off again. Nurse!!!......

[palef]

Originally posted by davidpt40
I realize war is brutal and harsh, but some of the stuff the british sailors did to the Bismark survivors was downright mean.  Quite a few Bismark sailors, within a few meters of British ships, drowned because no life lines were lowered.  Finally some survivors were picked up.  One german sailor, who had both arms blown off, grabbed onto a rope with only his teeth (I swear I'm not making this up), he was pulled half-way up the ship then he fell off and drowned.

One thing to bear in mind is that the North Sea and the Northern Atlantic can be brutal at that time of year, particularly in bad weather. You can last about 10 minutes in those water temperatures, and in a similar situation to triage in an ER room during a disaster you can only really help those who can help themselves a little bit. If you were swept overboard in rough seas, and many were, and you weren't located in 5 minutes they gave up as policy. It's not "mean", it's pointless to rescue dead people.

The "teeth" story sounds a bit apocryphal, but if true the chap may well have lapsed into unconciousness or died from shock or hypothermia.

There is no way that British sailors would have been permitted to lower boats or enter the water to help because they would have been putting themselves at extreme risk to do so. I believe many would have wanted to.

And remember that these same British sailors had seen HMS Hood literally explode. There were, as mentioned above, only 3 survivors. Most died in the blast and those that made it into the water died quickly from hypothermia. But British still tried to help the Bismark survivors.

palef

[-tronski-]

I've heard the teeth story from a National Geo video  (from when Ballard found her)and infact a British sailor jumped in and saved him...and was court martialled afterwards for disobeying orders (not for saving the german, but for jumping off the ship).

British ships moved on from saving german sailors because of reports of a U-boat in the area.

 Tronsky

[davidpt40]

Happy to hear that tronski.  Its been years since I heard that story (probably around 8 yrs).  This whole time I thought the armless guy drowned.

[milnko]

Just finished watching it.

Truely incredible. The computer animations were fantastic, especially the slope slide the Bismark did upon impact with the bottom.

Looks like the germans did in fact scuttle her.
Camron found no significant damage below the waterline or though the armor torpedoe belt that would have sunk her.

The damage to the rudder done by the Swordfish torpedoe jammed the rudder into one of the Bismark's props, there was no way the germans could have effected repairs that would have allowed them to steer the ship straight, thus the battlewagon was doomed from that point on.

Amazingly she still looks fairly intact except for her missing stern, which seperated on her 3 mile dive to the bottom.

A must see for any Battle of Briton history buff.

[cajun]

Originally posted by rod367th
Watch the show you will see ack from ships was not good or even close to being good. AH has lazer ack at cv's, Bismark couldn't shoot down ww1 planes that took out its controls. BISMARK fired every round of ack it had not one plane was shoot down and only 3 were even hit. AND these were ww1 planes lol

Actuelly, the Fairy SwordFish was NOT a ww1 plane, in fact it was used untill the 1950's!! And the reason they couldnt shoot it down was the wood/fabric material, the explosive rounds just left a lil 40mm hole in the wing which effected nothing cuz it didnt explode since the surface was not hard enough, had they been more advanced planes with armour plating they'd have been dead.
Man I missed it by 1 hour !!!

[milnko]

Originally posted by cajun

Man I missed it by 1 hour !!!

It's reruns at 9;00pm PST on Discovery

[cajun]

Originally posted by milnko
It's reruns at 9;00pm PST on Discovery

Thanks!

[Tarmac]

Anybody else find cameron's analogy about the bridge being split open like "some sort of cheese product" kind of strange?

As bad as it is, I couldn't help but laugh.

[Shiva]

Originally posted by Angus
Ballard's examination of the wreck did not reveal why the Bismarck went down, but as he put it: it did not really matter, it would only have been a matter of time, ot rather, not IF, but WHEN.

Except that, where the outer hull was missing in the areas where the torpedoes were supposed to have struck allowed them to see that the anti-torpedo armor behind the outer tanks wasn't penetrated; while it doesn't prove that the Bismarck sank from the scuttling charges, it seems fairly conclusive that the torpedoes did not cause the ship to sink, although the flooding from the strikes is likely to have caused the flooding on the port side that gave the Bismarck its roll when it did sink.

[milnko]

Originally posted by Tarmac
Anybody else find cameron's analogy about the bridge being split open like "some sort of cheese product" kind of strange?

As bad as it is, I couldn't help but laugh.

It didn't seem as strange to me as an earlier part of the documentary where they show a Nazi rally taking place with Sturmtruppen (SS) marching past Hitler in review and a "Judas Priest" like sound track dubbed over it.

I even mentioned it to the wife, she said "must be a young guy doing the editing."  

One item I found interesting concerning the sinking of the Bismark is that because the British had closed the range to 3000 yards and lowered thier guns to almost level, thier rounds where penetrating perpendicular to the armor belt above the waterline.

Had they stood further off thier rounds would had more "drop" and damaged more of the interior of the hull instead of passing through above the waterline.

One has to stand in silent awe and remorsefulness at the loss of life on both the Hood and Bismark.

Thousands of brave men went down on both ships fighting for thier countries.

[Tarmac]

Originally posted by milnko
It didn't seem as strange to me as an earlier part of the documentary where they show a Nazi rally taking place with Sturmtruppen (SS) marching past Hitler in review and a "Judas Priest" like sound track dubbed over it.

I even mentioned it to the wife, she said "must be a young guy doing the editing."  

Yeah, the nazi rock music was pretty weird too.  Forgot about that part.  

And you'd think an admiral would be able to figure out that a  shell on a ballistic trajectory would be more effective than a flat-trajectory shell (at least if you're trying to sink the ship, not just blow the superstructure off).  Especially with the Hood catastrophe so fresh in everyone's memory.

[Shiva]

Originally posted by milnko
One item I found interesting concerning the sinking of the Bismark is that because the British had closed the range to 3000 yards and lowered thier guns to almost level, thier rounds where penetrating perpendicular to the armor belt above the waterline.

Had they stood further off thier rounds would had more "drop" and damaged more of the interior of the hull instead of passing through above the waterline.

Actually, that doesn't work, Milnko; the British ships would have had to pull back much farther than you think. For any pair of warships, there is an 'immunity zone' for each ship that depends on the firing ship's guns and the target ship's armor. The way it works is that, at close range, direct fire can penetrate the ship's armor belt, and at long range, plunging fire can penetrate the ship's armored deck. At intermediate ranges, though, the shells' arc can be such that the impact angle with the deck armor won't penetrate the deck, and shots against the armor belt won't penetrate the belt. This range is different for each pair of ships, and besides the obvious maneuver tactic of 'crossing the T', a warship commander wanted to place his ship in the immunity zone for his enemy's guns while keeping his enemy out of the immunity zone for his guns.

[Otto]

The Bismark was a good ship but not a “Great” ship.  It had many shortcomings that brought about it’s demise.

·   Basic WW I design

·   ‘All or nothing armor’  (rudders unprotected)

·   Lack of protection for Comm and Data systems

·   Lack of ‘Dual purpose’ secondary armament which added weight.


(the above from ‘Battleships’ by Tony Gibbons

The loss of the Hood was nothing more than ‘tragic bad luck’ plus a design flaw effecting British capital ship going back to the Battle of Jutland.   The were never able to protect their magazines from flash explosions.