Someone pointed me at this really cool video today. I’m particularly curious about the conveyor mechanisms used for loading the artillery shells, but the I have a feeling there are lots of little details present that I missed.
I’m putting this in FQ because I’m looking for information about its accuracy or lack thereof. Some of it is obvious of course - I suspect the battle lasted slightly longer than 6 minutes 37 seconds. I figure they ran out of Lego.
Due to the British imposed blockade, Germany did not have access to Lego bricks during the war and the Bismarck was actually constructed using COBI bricks.
Ah, but Lego is a Danish company and Denmark was Nazi-occupied during the war.
Fun video.
I have seen footage of that sort of shell/powder conveyor used on US ships in the same period, would expect that the Bismark had something similar for the main guns. They did show it being used during the Swordfish torpedo bomber attack, the anti-aircraft guns are much smaller (per wikipedia, 10.5cm and 3.7cm guns). Those guns use integral ammunition, not separate powder charges. They did show what looked like the 3.7cm guns in use.
While picking nits, they did show the control surfaces on the aircraft moving incorrectly with differential elevator for roll and aileron moving upward to start the dive. That would be very unusual for the period and I’ve never heard of the Swordfish having that find of controls.
I meant to ask in my OP: what about the tactic of shooting the water to create geysers? Was that common? Was it effective?
More a nitpick than anything substantial, but the Swordfish are diving much too steeply and under anti-aircraft fire while doing so while going down to the deck to begin their torpedo runs. The ‘dive’ would be much shallower, and they’d already be on the deck when they came into range of AA fire, but it looks more dramatic the way its presented; Hollywood would do the same.
I can’t say offhand with any real certainty if using the main battery as AA to create water geysers was actually done by the Bismark, but I can say that it wasn’t an effective tactic. The Japanese actually did develop AA shells for battleship and heavy cruiser main batteries, including the 18.1" guns of the Yamato class, the Type 3 shell. It was intended to create a barrage of flame through the use of incendiaries to destroy or dissuade aircraft, but in practice it was useless as an actual AA weapon. The wiki article on the Type 3 does mention that Bismark’s sister Tirpitz was modified in a similar fashion post mid-1944, but doesn’t give any details:
During repairs after Operation Tungsten, the 38 cm SK C/34 naval guns of the Bismarck-class battleship Tirpitz were modified to allow their use against aircraft, being supplied with specially-fuzed 38 cm shells for barrage antiaircraft fire.
It does seem to be based on the USN design:
(Relevant parts start about 3:20 for powder, 4:45 for the projectile and 5:30 for the load process. As a side note, a sailor who served on one of the battleships said they could do it in less than half the time shown.)
Whether that’s the system used on the Bismark is another matter. I do recall footage which suggested the Royal Navy raised the projectile horizontally, so the USN design was by no means universal.
Generally speaking, they were using optical rangefinders at the time, so the procedure was to estimate the range using the optics (battleships typically used huge coincidence rangefinders), and then fire a shot to see where that actually was in relation to the target, since there was enough ambiguity to where it wasn’t likely to be on target.
Spotters would identify where the shells fell (sometimes they had colored dye in them too to mark their ship), and call out short/long and by how much. Then they’d fire a second salvo deliberately long, and a third salvo deliberately short. By doing this, they could figure out the actual range on target, and they’d call that out via the gun director and fire all guns at that range.
So the geysers were probably ranging shots as part of that bracketing process.
Yes, the Bismarck fired main battery shells to knock down aircraft. It didn’t work, but most planes missed.
I think two torpedoes hit on the last attack run, but I’m not sure.
I think the Japanese would fire shells at approaching planes, but I thought that was more to let their craft know where planes had been spotted.
I think the query was about waterspouting aircraft.
The breech mechanism on German guns was a Krupp horizontal sliding breech, essentially a wedge plug that slid across the breech opening. The US Navy used an interrupted (stepped) screw breech plug that swung down beneath the gun after it came out of the breech. The video has a Lego version of a screw breech plug, so not so accurate.
The guns that Bismarck used had a similar spanning tray to US guns, where the projectile came up the hoist into the tray, was dropped down on the tray, then rammed into the breech. The powder was a two-component load: a brass cartridge and a silk bag. The silk bag was towards the breech block to help seal the breech. Both are rammed together. The video showed that accurately.
American battleships used six bags of powder (90 pounds each in the 16/45 guns on the North Carolinas and South Dakotas, 110 pounds each in the 16/50s on the Iowas), rammed in two flights of three bags each.
Overall, pretty well done from there.
Regarding using 15 inch shell splashes for anti aircraft, Müllenheim-Rechberg’s book (the highest ranking survivor of Bismarck) talks about trying that tactic during the Swordfish attack. Also well done in the video.
Seems to me I’ve read about American ships’ trying that in the Pacific.