Friday, March 01, 2013

Bismarck: A Comedy of Errors

I love history. The parts of history I especially love are when events did not occur the way they were supposed to. I'm going to have to string together some YouTube videos to make my point, but I hope it will be worth it.

Growing up, my Dad often played that song "We Gotta Sink the Bismarck". I wasn't entirely sure what that meant at the time, but having studied WWII, I know what it is. It was supposed to be a really bad assed battleship, yet it didn't work out the way they wanted it to.

In this video below, Nazi Supership, I learned something I didn't know before. OK, I know the Bismarck set sail and didn't refuel, although how can such a large ship be low on fuel after just 3 days? I could see the destroyer I was on doing that, although we once spent 2 weeks doing 20 knots across the Pacific from Pearl Harbor until the USNS San Jose refueled us near Guam. Then in the Persian Gulf where we were doing only 2 knots, we refueled every other day.

I also knew the Bismarck was pretty much shut down by a lucky hit from a British torpedo bomber that knocked out its rudder.

But I didn't know this:


According to "Nazi Supership", there were even more comedies of errors. Bismarck set sail with an out of date, not quite finished, anti-aircraft system. I worked on an anti-missile/anti-aircraft system in the U.S. Navy. In addition to apparently having a 5 gallon gas tank, the first time the Bismarck fired its main guns, it knocked out its RADAR. Idiots. The Bismark was operating with a heavy cruiser, but they split up to accomplish a mission.

I can't say the RADAR going down with the first gun fire is entirely the engineers' fault though. On the destroyer I was on, occasionally the shock from firing our 5" 54 caliber guns resulted in circuit boards in our Mark 86 Gun Fire Control System shutting down. They had to find the circuit board, reseat it, and continue with the shoot. It didn't happen often. But our ship was designed to survive the shock of its own guns. Bismark apparently wasn't. At least, the sensitive and primitive RADAR wasn't.

The British apparently underestimated the Hood, which was a WWI veteran. Hood was the flagship, but one "lucky" hit by Bismarck sent Hood to the bottom of the ocean faster than you could finish a smoke.

Prince of Wales (the other British ship) scored a "lucky" hit on Bismarck's bow, rupturing a fuel tank, compounding the decision to not refuel earlier in the voyage.The video says Bismarck had to reduce speed, but didn't say why. My guess is, faster speeds equal more fuel burned. Apparently, Bismarck had enough to make France (which the Nazis occupied at the time) at a reduced speed, but not if it went at full speed. That's only my guess at this point.

The final comedy of errors was a single lucky hit by an antiquated British torpedo bomber, right in Bismarck's rudder. Without a rudder, a ship is toast. Remove your steering wheel and see how far your car gets.

I like science fiction, but when I watch shows like Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, etc, and I see the "epic" ship battles, I keep wanting to scream "Just hit them in the engines! Without propulsion, they're toast!" But, even Sci Fi has to take a long walk to get a a faulty plot. Without the "epic" battles, the show or movie would be far shorter. The Battlestar Galactica pilot would have lasted about an hour if the Cylons took out Galactica's engines at first. Nope, hit them with a nuke in the side. Yeah, that should do it. At least we got 4 seasons out of it.

It would have been cool, if, after taking Bismarck out of the game, the British towed it into port. But they decided to finish it off. I have to admire the German engineering. Bismarck took a hell of a pounding. Even after losing the ability to fight back, it still took a lot of abuse before finally sinking. And there's speculation the Germans scuttled the ship, rather than the British sank it on their own.

So, what can we learn from Bismarck?

1) Just take on gas. If you're on a maiden voyage on an untested vessel, just keep the tanks full when you can.
2) Don't get cocky. All it takes is one lucky hit to shut you down.
3) Just keep the ship under construction a few extra weeks until all the fire control is up to par.

But we can be glad the Germans followed precisely none of this advice.

5 comments:

walter homple said...

It's "Bismarck".

Eric S. Mueller said...

Thank you. The correction has been made.

John Rambo said...

Paul Elam, A Voice for Men- the biggest conjob in the MRA and disinfo agent

http://www.crimesagainstfathers.com/australia/Forums/tabid/82/forumid/107/postid/4658/scope/posts/Default.aspx

A short commentary on MRA leaders
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ElZzB4P2D4

The so called "Leaders" of the MRA area are lying to you all. They are telling you that governments make legislation that you HAVE to obey and that they can FORCE you to obey using the police FORCE. This is a lie. They know it is a lie. And they are telling you lies that they know are lies. 

The TRUTH is that legislation is NOT LAW and you do not have to obey ANY legislation. Here are links to videos that go into this in detail. This is not a new idea. Many people KNOW that legislation is not law and have been telling you so for a long time.

The excuse offered is usually "well the guvment can hurt you if you do not obey" is just that. An excuse. The only reason that guvments do hurt men who do not obey is because men have TOLERATED these crimes and not formed new courts to put criminals in guvment on trial. Men only have themselves to blame.

M Schwing said...

Well the Bismarck and its sister ship tirpitz both were rushed into combat because Adolf Hitler wanted results from these pricey behemoths. The maiden voyage had nothing to do with the Reichs marine high command but was due to political pressure.
Adolf Hitler even once said that the mere sight of a sea map made him sick. Now you probably understand the strategic value of this mission. The Bismarck should have demonstrated its worth in comparison to faster battle cruisers like Graf spree.

However at that point battles in the Atlantic and the North Sea were determined by air craft carriers, destroyers and submarines. These dreadnought were already outdated.

Eric S. Mueller said...

Exactly. I saw on another documentary that the Japanese pride-and-joy battleship, Yamato, was kept in a secret harbor for most of WWII. It was only brought out at the end when their Navy had been drastically reduced. And Yamato was sunk by aircraft, not the sea battle it was built for.