psl_58

Are you sure? I seem to remember reading that they handled the much faster Argy jets without too much difficulty....what was it 20:1 kill ratio? Sea Harrier could dodge just about any missile slung its way , which usually makes an aircraft much harder to shoot down. When they were upgraded they got the AMRAAM which meant they could also participate in the BVR shoot out. While I agree about the fiascos of the F-35; it was the Harriers short legs that doomed it on any future carrier. As long as the mission was Cold war ASW /convoy screening against Soviet SSGN etc and massed bomber attacks - the SH short legs didn't matter much. But in a post cold war world where navy is mostly about bringing airpower to the enemy back door 1/2 way around the world and bombing discretely inland ; you need some medium range stealthy fighter bomber- with ability to launch long and ultra long range missiles. Alternative would be ....Su-33?

Another aspect of luck is the Bismarck hit on PoW. http://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chrono-01BB-HMS_Prince_of_Wales.htm The chance of that rudder hit on Bismarck must have been much much more than 100-1 lucky shot and had the Bismarck been hit with the rudder straight we would not be having this discussion, since she would have out run the RN home to Brest. I read once that the magazine area hit on the HMS Hood was something like 1/10th of the hull length and maybe represented 1/50 ton the warships target aspect. I suspect RN was more lucky with the rudder hit on Bismarck than the Bismarck's hit on Hood. Imagine if Bismarck had sunk Hood and PoW and also manage to limp home.... THat was exactly one of the things the Admiralty feared when the first read about Bismarck in the late 1930s. They really worried what would have happened had Bismarck attacked a convoy. Some times you don't have to do much to hype something.

Maybe but he was a lousy battle commander.

To assess performance of various 15" guns reference to the following site and compare results. http://www.navweaps.com/index_nathan/Penetration_index.htm click on the country of choice and scroll down to locate the particular gun model. Effective pen = most likely result with detonating bursting charge-while straight pen results are just perforation figures....shells often penetrate but do not detonate ,since the penetration event destroys the projectile fusing system. Its not 100% authoritative but its as good as your going to get short of having a mainframe computer plus some mega armor penetration programme to work with. Certainly its good enough to compare expected penetrations effects. People have to understand that their is a huge shot to shot variation in such terminal ballistics which also has a lot to do with the exact angle of attack [horizontal and vertical] on the specific area of armor hit on the target ship.

There is always going to be a political angle to everything, which is why we ignore it. Besides Nazi politics is beyond convoluted. One could also say that most posters would just like to see Langsdorf as a 'good guy', since he was nice to prisoners

Guess I'm looking for more of a simulation/game . Any one know of such a game.

sounds like a simplistic system.

It would be better to get data on actual AAA shots fired Vs targets hit or driven off? But the poor performance of the Bismarck has been noted . I gather that crew complained they had no training with these weapons prior to the original sortie? A general question I'm interested about the game. German doctrine required that all enemy warships be engaged during any firefight with the greatest threat faced first. Thinking back about this I wondered if it had to do with the fact that a ship not taken underfire may be more accurate than one that's recieveing fire at the same time? It would go along way to help explain why PE and BS did well against HMS Hood and HMS PoW + CA but Bismarck by itself did poorly against HMS Rodney & HMS KGV plus HMS Norfolk & HMS Dorsetshire.

Well if the game is not routed in real history its not of much value other than some Xbox game?

As I recall the RAF flew 330 sorties to destroy the Bismarck and Tirpitz while they were being built and not one bomb hit the ships....known target location that's stationary and they could not hit it once. So much for the threat of bombing. An area of armor that has a hole is indeed weakened , but the area is very small .Such a hole will effect full calibre shells only 1-2d around said hole , so the area would be roughly 5m^2 , when the hull surface area of a BB target is around 3500-4000m^2 . Sounds like a ~1 in a 600-700 shot to even find this weakened area and ~ 1 in 2500 to find the exact hole itself. The plate effected , offers about 3/4 of its expected LOS resistance adjacent to the hole and probably 90% of the resistance in the rest of the weakened area. Good luck trying to benefit from such a hole. The persuasive value of the argument is far greater than its actual effects would be. Or its bark is worse than its bite

Oil purification system was never touched in the battle only an auxiliary steam boiler plant used for food prep and crew hygiene. Not sure where that mythology comes from but it has no German sources to back it up. The damage report from the Graf Spee has been found and itemised it says nothing about any damage to oil purification unit. O'Hara reports what Whitney wrote some time ago; that the AGS had 16 days endurance at cruise speed plus 40% of its main battery shells. Langsdorf poor performance can only be explained on the assumption that the wound he suffered had more effect than people imagine. With regards to the cruiser shoot I will find the link to the German poster and we will be all amused when you tell him he's wrong. http://warships1discussionboards.yuku.com/sreply/441837/Deutchsland-joins-Graf-Spee-before-River-Plate-2-scenarios

Well; how many German surface raiders were defeated by anything other than shell fire and torpedoes?

Langsdorf performance at Plate was substandard and its been reported that the Germans considered it the worse cruiser shooting record of the war. Had he made it home he would have been sacked without a doubt. Germany had a glut of peace time leadership that were poor fighters when war came, but that's true of most countries. AGS was OK to return to Germany especially if it could team up with a Dithmarschen tanker and effect minor repairs and clean the hull bottom. If he remain 'out of site' for a month or two. This would allow top speed to be regained in calmer waters and wait for Raeder to arrange a 'diversionary' raid.

Well that will be difficult since the Germans historically torpedoed each British Destroyer....except the torpedoes all ran too low and passed underneath each warship. How will the game simulate that?

http://navypedia.org/ships/russia/ru_bb.htm You should be checking this site for most warships you are building if nothing else but to get the other sides view.

This was a rather moot distinction, since Germany could build no Aircraft Carriers in 1942. Perhaps convert some of the Hipper class cruiser along the lines of the "Weser" conversion. But the Sedlitz-Weser was never even finished due to lack of resources....or to put it another way, the resources were being consumed in the Uboat fleet and coastal defense fleet.. The former needs no explanation but the latter is an eye opener since it consumed something like 2/3 of the German naval construction tonnage in the second half of the war.

I don`t see how the Graf Zeppelin could be classified as a failure due to its gun arrangement, when it was never operational and thus never proved success or failure. German Zerstroers could manage 39-40knots dash speed so they could out run most Allied destroyers. That was the idea, to run away from what you can`t defeat. But having said that the concept was a failure as these were treated as mini cruisers and could not hope to fill such void. Better had the resources been channeled into 1 half as many SPAH scout cruisers...or twice as many Torpedoboot 1939.

It seems most ships have to leave most of their volume unprotected as is dictated by the all or nothing armor schemes. However they are allies and are not expected to sortie for weeks or months on end and repeatedly attack convoys without any support. That's what the surface raiders were expected to do. Having most of your crew volume protected against 4-5" Destroyer fire is good for morale, if you plan to attack a lot of convoys. Its better if many areas are also protected against 6" Cruiser fire, since these are the main weapons protecting convoys.

By forcing projectile to cut through the Zitadel armor plus armored longitudinal bulkheads ; meant the projectile would be as damaged as if it tried to cut through the upper 50mm weather deck before they hit the main armored deck at increasing yaw and damage. This way the hull is divided into "the main Belt armor" and "deck armor". Quite clever, unless you forget with the Zitadel armor on the Scharnhorst, which is clearly too thin. Biggest mistake the Germans made was to deploy main belt armors that were too thick. That armor could have been better invested in deeper belts or more balanced Zitadel armor....or not leave the main battery fronts and Conning tower sooo far behind in protection. Fiddling around with Spring Sharp armor distribution model, its not hard to raise front turret and CT to 400-500mm without stealing too much from main belt armor. Unofficially I calculate the main belt armor areas of the Bismarck to be in the region of 20-25" armor.

Scaling the gun turret to the over all hull length it looks in the same region as the Hipper class., maybe not so wide since it would not need a torpedo defense bulge ?

Looks like a stretched version of the Leipzig with same stack, but the guns look different -perhaps the 5.9" C28. In 1928 the Defense ministered ordered naval plan 1928 which featured... An HMS Courageous styled Aircraft Carrier plus 6 improved PBS and 6 more cruisers. I wonder if this was one of the possible designs for the cruisers. Historically the improved PBS design evolved from 18,000 tons with 3 triple 11" C28 guns into the Twins with 38,000 tons and 3 triple 11" C34 guns. Along the way their were 19 different designs considered -several of which had fully drawn up plans made.

I thought I read some where that the SATCOM position on the Type 42 DD was a compromise due to lack of space and it was known that this would render the ship vulnerable. I seem to remember that Friedman notes that the larger Type 82 CG [HMS Bristol] didn't have this conflict of systems. Can any of the RN personnel confirm that the Type 82 didn't have that same problem as the Type 42?

How good is this game as a simulation? Can you set up scenarios so the computer can play against its self?

To deploy any fleet effectively you need an "Ocean Surveillance system" or else you are stabbing blindly in the dark. Today we have satellites and all kind of ELINT platforms to get a decent 'Network Surveillance' view of the oceans. It would be difficult to hide a high valued platform today...small stuff OK but not big high valued. Back in WW-II that was not the case . Most of the time we and our enemies knew nothing of the other sides movement unless he used radio too much and gave him self away. For the Germans this was worse since the Allies also knew their operational plans etc through Ultra. Baring that; it was the grunt work that allowed enemies to be located and attacked effectively. Air power directed by RF/DF from Tattletales like shadowing Cruisers made air attacks work either from shore based patrol bombers or nearby carrier planes. Without that fast Battle Groups could always escape attack. Cruiser was the most important tool in this arsenal.

Well Groners volume 1 pp 66-67 ; mention this and there even is a scale drawing on page 67 [date 1936]. Looking at Tzoli copy of the Triple 8" turret , the turret ring looks quite small ranging from 8.4 external to 8 meter internal diameter. Given the similar dimensions of the width of both the Hipper and AGS; it does look like the Triple 11" C-28 gun turret could have been shoehorned in place of each group of two twin 8" turrets . Those C28 turret ring/barbette were about 10m diameter . That suggests; the triple 8" should have fit as well although the bow and stern would have to be lengthened to keep the speed and sea keeping up.. That would have given the Hipper class a firepower , more equal to their displacement.