the Kormoran
Posted on 01/12/2009 5:07:27 AM PST by naturalman1975
COMPUTER reconstructions of HMAS Sydney's wartime encounter with the German merchant raider Kormoran show the Australian warship was hit by a torpedo and peppered with close-range gunfire that would have trapped most of its crew.
The light cruiser was lost with all 645 crew on November 19, 1941, following a battle with the disguised Kormoran off the West Australian coast.
Observations from the wreck site and accounts from Kormoran survivors have enabled a team of defence scientists and naval architects to create computer graphics of the battle.
The stark images were shown today at the resumption of public hearings in Sydney of a military inquiry into the sinking.
The graphics, shown from the Kormoran's view, show Sydney's port side being sprayed with shellfire and then her port bow being hit by a large torpedo, before the ship turns and is bombarded with more shellfire on its starboard side.
Another graphic then shows the doomed warship rolling on to its side and starting to sink as black smoke billows out into the sky.
“HMAS Sydney was severely damaged,” Commodore Jack Rush QC told the inquiry.
“She had a large number of casualties, several major fires and many small fires burned out of control, smoke filled the lower decks and obscured the upper deck, her bow was flooding, and much of the ship was without electrical power.
“Eventually, HMAS Sydney is likely to have rolled to an angle beyond which she could have been recovered. She would then have quickly lost buoyancy, and sank rapidly.”
Cmdr Rush said the fires and blockages of escape passages, caused by the gunfire, would have trapped at least 70 per cent of the ship's crew.
(Excerpt) Read more at theaustralian.news.com.au ...
Got a link to the simulation or graphics?
A post about pictures with no pictures---cool.
The Sydney was taken completely by surprise by the Kormoran (an Auxilary Cruiser)which was disguised as a Dutch Freighter.
She seems to have been completely surprised when the Germans opened up on her. While there were no survivors on the Sydney, most of the Kormoran’s crew survived after her captain scuttled her.
the Kormoran
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