Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "Oceanliner Designs" channel.

  1. I hold that Captain Leach's eye witness account is correct. In the inquiry, Captain Leach said he had been looking directly at Hood when the inbound salvo of four shells landed. He said two landed short, and one long, or vice versa, he did not recall which, and he had an "impression" something hit near the mainmast. He kept looking at that spot for a few moments to see if something would happen, then the column of fire erupted from just about the same place he thought something had hit. I say Captain Leach is correct, it was a deck hit. Legions of armchair Admirals say the angle of fall at that range was too shallow to penetrate Hood's deck. However, firing with a reduced charge was SOP in the USN. USN gunnery tables published in the 30s give trajectory data for both full charge and reduced charge firing. Firing with a reduced charge, reduces the muzzle velocity. With reduced velocity, the shell needs to be fired at a higher angle to reach the target range, which results in a steeper angle of fall. All Bismark's gunners needed to do was know their business: at that range, they had to fire with reduced charge to punch through Hood's deck, so leave out the fore charge and only fire with the main, brass-cased, charge. Why would Bismark be going for a deck hit, ignoring the armchair Admiral's protests about "danger space"? RN fighting instructions said to close as rapidly as possible, only turning to bring the aft turrets to bear after closing to within 16,000 yards. All Bismark had to shoot at, with a relatively flat trajectory, is the front of Hood's superstructure. If they aimed for a deck hit, they had all of Hood's deck area as target.
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  2.  @buzzardbeurling  The penetration curve for Bismark's guns shows an angle of fall of 20 degrees or more, is needed to penetrate 80mm of armor. As an analog to Bismark's guns, use the USN 14"/50. 1935 USN gunnery tables show, with a full charge, and a muzzle velocity of 2600fps, the angle of elevation of 8 degrees, 38.9 minutes reaches 14,500 yards, with a resulting angle of fall of 12 degrees, 5 minutes, too shallow to penetrate. The same gun, and the same shell, using a reduced charge, with a muzzle velocity of 2000fps, uses an elevation of 15 degrees 14.4 minutes to reach 14,500, with a resulting angle of fall of 20 degrees, 53 minutes. At 14,500 yards, or more, the angle of fall is steep enough to penetrate, rather than ricochet off, of Hood's deck, when using a reduced charge. What facts support your argument?
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  3.  @buzzardbeurling  they knew they could not penetrate Hood's deck with a full charge, because of the resulting angle of fall. With Hood coming nearly straight at them, per RN fighting instructions, they could not penetrate the hull because of the angle, and they would not get a kill shot by shooting at Hood's superstructure. Bismark's gunner's experience tells them these facts, and they adjust the drill to suit the situation. Shooting with a reduced charge was SOP, otherwise the trajectory data would not be in the gunnery table.
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  4.  @buzzardbeurling  those are good questions. I have heard them before. How credible is it that the USN, alone, used the tactic of reduced charge to enable plunging fire at closer ranges? Maybe the Bismark's gunners did not mention it, because it was SOP, and deemed not worth mentioning?
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  5.  @buzzardbeurling  I certainly have read about testing, as you describe, using a reduced charge to simulate a 20,000 yard hit at 5,000 or so. Didn't the Brits do that in their post-war testing of Baden? The USN tables show reduced charge trajectories at all the same range increments as the full charge trajectories. There were no computers then. All those trajectories had to be calculated by hand. Seems a large undertaking for something that would only be used for a few tests. It is probably safe to assume that everyone involved in setting gunnery policy in the 30s is dead now, so all we have are things that are handed down, and possibly distorted in the process. I don't know if you are familiar with the plant Ford Motor built at Willow Run to build B-24s. A lot of nonsense has crept into the narrative about that plant over the years. I heard an absolute howler, from a supposed "expert" a week ago. According to him, Wayne County was going to tax Ford for every plane that came off the assembly line. Utter nonsense. The government owned the plant, everything in it, and everything that came out of it, and, at that time, the Federal government did not pay local tax, so it would be impossible for Wayne County to tax those B-24s. I know the government had title to the planes, because I read the provisions of the original contract, in the Federal Register, not in an article someone wrote decades later. If I find myself in the hereafter some day, there are some people I want to find and talk with. Jackie Fisher is one. Sergio Marchionne is another. Until then, there are some questions I will not have a definite answer for.
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