Posted on 01/17/2020 10:52:34 AM PST by ProtectOurFreedom
In May 1941, the new German battleship Bismarck was a huge, state-of-the-art warship, equipped with the latest long-range heavy cannon, new stereoscopic range-finders that promised unprecedented accuracy, new ship-based radar, and an intricate system of armor-plating and honey-combed water-tight compartments that rendered her virtually unsinkable. If Bismarck broke out into the vast, indefensible shipping lanes of the North Atlantic, it could wreak catastrophic havoc with the war-sustaining convoys coming across the ocean [from the U.S.]
In 1941 England, it was believed that this single weapon might determine the very course of the war in Europe. Where the entire Luftwaffe had been unable to cripple Britain’s warfighting capability with its aerial assault in the summer of 1940 and bring her to the negotiating table, now—in the spring of 1941—a single warship was threatening to do that very thing.
As the Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen headed towards the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean through the Denmark Strait, they were intercepted by the British battleships Hood and Prince of Wales. Those two ships were all that stood between Britain’s invaluable but vulnerable shipping lanes and what they thought was national survival. In the next few minutes, perhaps the most famous and consequential surface engagement of all time occurred. The big ships fired on each other, their 14- and 15-inch guns booming.
Hood — the pride of the British navy — was struck by a perfectly-aimed salvo from Bismarck and exploded violently, breaking in two and sinking with just three survivors out of a crew of more than 1,400. After 10 minutes of fighting, "The Mighty Hood" was gone. Prince of Wales, despite suffering significant damage herself from Bismarck’s guns, scored some telling blows of her own, such that Bismarck was forced to disengage and head to home for repair.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearhistory.com ...
Yep. A single Tiger could outgun any three Sherman’s.
Now the problem the Germans had was if only a single Tiger could find JUST three Sherman’s....
Wouldn't that be true of any warship?
Our torpedo technology would have worked much sooner in the war if the Naval bureaucrats/admirals at the war department had listened, sooner, to one our most famous & beautiful Hollywood movie stars...
However, because she was a woman and because she was the #1 pinup-girl used by our servicemen, they chose to ignore her repeated proposals for over a year...
Once the new electronic concepts that she and a friend had developed were finally used, our torpedoes were extremely deadly...
In fact, she had unknowingly laid the groundwork for much of the advanced communications that we use today...
The Big Bertha (Dicke Bertha) was a World War I weapon and was instrumental in destroying Belgium fortifications at the opening of the war.
The Soviets supposedly were selling him gas right up until the war.
But Stalin would have started something before England fell.
It wasn’t a question of if a rat bastard broke the peace between Germany and the USSR but which rat bastard did it first.
Heaven & Hell
HEAVEN is where:
The police are British
The chefs Italian
The mechanics are German
The lovers are French
... and it’s all organised by the Swiss
HELL is where:
The police are German
The chefs are British
The mechanics are French
The lovers are Swiss
... and it’s all organised by the Italians!!
Well, the invasion of the Soviet Union began on June 22, 1941, and the surrender at Stalingrad was in January (or February) 1943, so I don’t think that the diversion of German formations to Greece and Yugoslavia in April, 1941, had a direct impact on Stalingrad.
The diversion has been cited as delaying the initial invasion (Operation Barbarossa) although I have read that the Spring of 1941 was so wet that the invasion couldn’t have kicked off any sooner. I don’t know whether this argument is correct.
Ask the residents of Alderon about that.
The Fairey Swordfish ... one of my all-time favorite military airplanes.
I’m quoting from memory now, but I believe it was the great British naval test pilot, Capt. Eric Brown, who described the Swordfish as “antiquated but unbelievably effective.”
Read Capt. Brown’s bio on Wikipedia. He was sort of the British Chuck Yeager, although I don’t believe Brig. Gen. Yeager was ever carrier qualified. Capt. Brown set records for deck landings and take-offs that I believe still stand.
Best of all, Capt. Brown lived an incredibly full life of 97 years. BG Yeager has one more birthday to tie him.
You know what they say: “There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots.”
I don’t think that’s true. It’s been quite a while since I read von Mellenthin’s Panzer Battles, but one of my take-aways from it was that you wanted to control the field after a tank battle so that you could repair your damaged (out-of-commission) tanks.
The Brits were itching for a fight and the Bismark made that even worse. So a devastating war was started that Wilson disastrously got the USA involved with.
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I agree because complexity is hard to manage. Introducing more of it (i.e., complexity on top of complexity) can give rise to a dysfunctional nightmare and reliability concerns. Unfortunately, we seem to be infatuated with increasing sophistication, which is OK to a point, but there's always a risk of over reliance on highly sophisticated weapons. I wonder if that dependence will be found to be misplaced in a hostile electronic warfare environment?
The Bizmarck story provides an instructive lesson:
"Wobbling unsteadily towards the Bismarck at barely 100 MPH, the Swordfish flew so slowly that the Bismarck’s modern, sophisticated anti-aircraft weapons could not track their motion slowly enough to get an accurate bead on them and shoot them down.
The Hood sinking( blown to pieces ) was stunning even to the Krauts. 3 survivors....
I don’t know about that. Moscow is a rail hub. If it is captured, the Soviet logistics fall to pieces. I don’t claim much expertise in this matter, but that’s how I read the maps.
Indeed. The Sherman was highly reliable. Not only that, Shermans which were knocked out in battle could be recovered and rebuilt, then put back into service.
Tigers were feared by the Allies, almost mythical in the prowess, but were notoriously unreliable. Many, many Tigers were lost due to mechanical failure.
It could, but actual instances of Tigers taking out Shermans were relatively rare. A Sherman was far more likely to be taken out by a tank-killer vehicle or artillery.
Actually they were called “String Bags” because, like the traditional British shopping bag, they could carry anything. Torpedoes, bombs, depth charges, searchlights, ASV radar, tactical nukes. Well maybe not the nukes, but you get the idea. They were supposed to be replaced by the Fairey Albacore. In the event, the Albacore so monumentally bad that it was eventually taken out of service, and replaced by the . . . . Swordfish.
The Tirpitz and Bismarck were built pretty much concurrently. There is a school of thought that Bismarck should have waited for Tirpitz to complete and work up, then gone to sea as an actual fleet. Had they then met up with Salmon and Gluckstine out of Brest, it would have been quite impressive. Utterly useless, but impressive.
That may be, but could they get at least a little credit for all their efforts?
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