Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "The Drydock - Episode 141" video.

Ah-Hah! In the 16"/50 heavy vs non-heavy shell question, Drac mentions the tactic of firing with a reduced charge to change muzzle velocity and trajectory. He may have seen the question I put in January about how using a reduced charge was SOP in the USN, with the trajectories calculated and included in the published gunnery tables, and whether Bismark could have done the same to score a deck hit on Hood.
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@wierdalien1 I did a long reply, yesterday, to Tim Engineman 2nd in the Q&A thread with the trajectory information I have on full vs reduced charges for USN guns, but the net seems to have eaten it. It really comes down to the ballistics of Bismark's guns and the state of training of Bismark's gunnery officers. If the gunnery officer looks at his full charge table and sees the angle of fall at 19,000 yards is under 20 degrees, which his training tells him will ricochet off of the deck, does he turn to the reduced charge table to see what the angle of fall is? The partial USN tables I have show the angle of fall for a 14"/45 at reduced charge is 20 degrees at 14,500, so longer ranges would result in a steeper angle of fall. Was firing a reduced charge a thing in the German navy, and what was the state of training of Bismark's gunnery officers?
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