Posted on 02/16/2009 7:29:44 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
hope they don’t run into each other
Most of the information here concerns the financing for the new ship-building. The reporter estimates that the building program will cost in excess of £1,500,000,000. Heck, that wouldnt even pay for the 2010 census.
KG V class?
Just wondering how you get info for the “+ 70 years” stories?
And Germany launched BISMARCK 70 years on February 14th.
Believe so.
The Royal Navy, still the largest in the world in September 1939, included: 15 Battleships & battlecruisers, of which only two were post-World War 1. Five 'King George V' class battleships were building.
http://www.naval-history.net/WW2CampaignRoyalNavy.htm
Then they’re probably DUKE OF YORK and PRINCE OF WALES.
From the perspective of newspaper readers of 1939 now is +70 years. I just added the -70 for those who don't buy that.
Bismarck
Country Germany
Ship Class Bismarck-class Battleship
Commissioned 24 August 1940
Sunk 27 May 1941
Displacement 49406 tons standard
Length 820 feet
Beam 118 feet
Draft 30 feet
Speed 28 knots
Contributor: C. Peter Chen
Bismarck was Germany's first "real" post-World War I battleship, with guns and protection of similar scale to those of the best foreign combat ships. Built to a relatively conservative design, she featured a main battery of eight 38 centimeter (15-inch) guns in four twin turrets, two forward and two aft. Her secondary battery of twelve 15 cm (5.9-inch) guns, mounted six on each side in twin turrets, was optimized for use against enemy surface ships, especially destroyers. Her anti-aircraft battery, including sixteen 10.5 cm (4.1-inch) guns in eight twin mounts and several 37mm and 20mm machine guns, reflected the prevailing pre-World War II underestimation of the threat from the air, a failing common to all the World's navies.
The two ships of this class, Bismarck and her "sister" Tirpitz, were quite fast, at just over thirty knots maximum speed. Their steam turbine powerplants, producing some 150,000 horsepower, consumed a great deal of fuel oil, limiting their oceanic "reach" to a degree that was especially critical to a nation with Germany's geography. Future German battleship designs, which World War II aborted, featured diesel engines, intended to produce far greater endurance on the high seas.
Bismarck was very heavily protected against the gunfire of other battleships. With a standard displacement of well over 41,000 tons (about 50,000 tons fully loaded), she was also quite a bit larger than her European and American contemporaries. As shown by the photographs below, originally collected by the U.S. Navy's Office of Naval Intelligence, this ship's construction greatly interested foreign navies.
Built at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg, Bismarck's keel was laid at the beginning of July 1936. She was launched with considerable ceremony, including the attendance of Adolf Hitler, on 14 February 1939. Her outfitting, which included the addition of a new "clipper" bow (which the Germans called an "Atlantic" bow), lasted nearly two years. She was commissioned in August 1940, ran trials during the following months, and was not fully ready for service until late in 1940.
She was commissioned in August 1940 and spent the rest of that year running trials and continuing her outfitting. The first months of 1941 were largely devoted to training operations in the Baltic sea. Bismarck left the Baltic on 19 May 1941, en route to the Atlantic, accompanied by the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen. On the morning of 24 May, while west of Iceland, the German vessels encountered the British battlecruiser Hood and battleship Prince of Wales. In the ensuing Battle of the Denmark Strait, Hood blew up and sank. The seriously damaged Prince of Wales was forced to break off contact. Bismarck also received shell hits that degraded her seakeeping and contaminated some of her fuel.
Later on 24 May, Prinz Eugen was detached, while Bismarck began a voyage toward France, where she could be repaired. She was intermittantly attacked by carrier planes and surface ships, ultimately sustaining a torpedo hit in the stern that rendered her unable to steer effectively. British battleships and heavy cruisers intercepted the crippled ship on the morning of 27 May. After less than two hours of battle, shells and torpedoes had reduced Bismarck to a wreck. She capsized and sank, with the loss of all but 110 of her crew of some 2300 men.
Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler's reaction to Bismarck's loss produced a very cautious approach to future German surface ship operations against Britain's vital Atlantic sea lanes. In June 1989, just over forty-eight years after she sank, the German battleship's battered hulk was located and photographed where she lies upright on a mountainside, nearly 16,000 feet below the ocean surface.
Source: WW2DB
France to Recognise Gen Franco - Feb 15
France to recognise Gen Franco - Feb 15, 1939
The French Cabinet yesterday, after a meeting lasting four hours, decided to accord recognition to Gen Francos Government. The date for the step was not decided.
M.Bonnet, the Foreign Minister, urged that action should be taken speedily as a means of counteracting Italian and German influences.
It is understood that there is a consensus of opinion in British Government circles in favour of Britain taking similar action without further delay.
Gen Franco is massing large forces for a drive against Madrid, and yesterday long columns were seen moving southward out of Catalonia.
The Daily Telegraph learns that Count Ciano, in his meeting with the Earl of Perth, the British Ambassador, confirmed that Italy has concentrated an army of 60,000 in Libya. He declared that it might be increased.
Count Ciano refused to give any assurance that the Press campaign against France would be discontinued or lessened.
Ouch!
The article mentions the Duke of York and Prince of Wales as already laid down (towards the end) so that's not them. Makes me wonder which ships these are now.
I was going to say that Britain would do the same on the 27th. But my source for that - www.worldwar-2.net - also has the following under Jan. 27.
Neville Chamberlain is criticized by many members of the British Parliament for his recognition of the Franco government in Spain.
Could one of those be an error?
Churchill might have vetoed them when he took over the Admiralty in September. He wanted to concentrate on anti-submarine vessels and felt the resources demanded by battleship construction could be better used in that capacity.
27th of February that is.
That may be the case. Probably would take some digging to find out for sure.
At this point, it was already too late for the funding described in this article to do any good - Germany would invade Poland on September 1st [eight and a half months after this article was written], and the USSR would follow Germany into Poland two weeks later.
For the record, these are the Wikipedia dates for Wales & York:
HMS Prince of WalesNote that even with what must have been the furious & frenetic activity at the beginning of the war, it still took about five years to complete both York & Wales [and even then, it looks as though Wales was rushed into service about six weeks early].
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Prince_of_Wales_(53)
Ordered: 29 July 1936
Laid down: 1 January 1937
Launched: 3 May 1939
Commissioned: 19 January 1941 (completed 31 March)HMS Duke of York
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Duke_of_York_(17)
Ordered: 16 November 1936
Laid down: 5 May 1937
Launched: 28 February 1940
Commissioned: 4 November 1941
As for the ships imagined in this article - if their hulls had even been laid by the beginning of the war, it seems doubtful that those hulls would have escaped at least some Luftwaffe bombardment.
Point of this being that ol' Don Rumsfeld was right: You go to the war with the Navy you have, not the Navy you wished you had...
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