Warship Appreciation Thread

Spartan303

In Captain America we Trust!
Administrator
Staff Member
Founder
Osaul
1920px-USS_Yorktown_%28CVS-10%29_panorama_2012.jpg


The USS Yorktown. CV-10. Currently moored at Patriots Point. :)

I've been to her many times and I still haven't seen the entire ship.
 

Harlock

I should have expected that really
Tomorrow if Valentines day, when all real men remember to acknowledge that it was the day the KMS Bismarck was launched.
For the one person who probably doesn't know the story here are some Swedes to give the run down




Obviously as a Brit my reaction is good riddance, but I can also respect a worthy enemy which the Bismarck and her crew was. Both her Captain and Admiral were opposed to Nazism and took a stand against Hitler during their careers.

While the story of her demise is well known one of the less common stories is about Bismarck and the submarine U-556. The Submarine and Bismarck were neighbours at the B&V yard in Hamburg with Bismarck fitting out while the U-556 was being built with the officers and crew of both vessels ending up friends. When U-556 launched the Captain had wanted a band but as a mere submarine none was provided and he couldn't afford one of his own. However Captain Lindemann of the Bismarck on hearing this sent over the Bismarcks own band to play for the little submarine.

This clearly struck a nerve and as a sign of appreciation and friendship the Captain of U-556 made a charming promise to the Bismarck that if ever the bigger ship ran into trouble it could call on U-556 to help.

Move forward a few months and Bismarck is making it's run for France with half the Royal navy hunting it. They have the battleship spotted and are closing for the decisive strike. At this time U-556 was heading back from hitting convoys when it heard and at once moved to try and find Bismarck.
The weather was terrible and by luck and skill U-556 stumbled into Force H including the Carrier Ark Royal which was lining up for the critical airstrike that would knock out Bismarcks rudder and leave the ship helpless to escape. The sub had a perfect shot at Ark, the escorts had no idea she was there, with a single shot she could save the Bismarck, fulfil her promise to help her friend in need and rob the RN of a vital warship.

But U-556 had no torpedoes, she had expended them all and so could only watch the aircraft carrier launch her strike, and then later watch the distant flashes as Bismarck was surrounded and destroyed by superior force. Despite being in the perfect position to perhaps change destiny and save the Bismarck the promise of her Captain and crew remained forever unfulfilled. She didn't even have enough fuel left to pick up survivors.

U-556 was sunk on her next deployment joining big brother Bismarck at the bottom of the Atlantic.

Patenschafts.png

"We, U-556 (500 tons), hereby declare before Neptune, Lord over oceans, seas, lakes, rivers, brooks, ponds, and rivulets, that we will provide any desired assistance to our Big Brother, the battleship Bismarck (42,000 tons), at any place on the water, under water, on land, or in the air."
 
Last edited:

BF110C4

Well-known member
That's tragic, a torpedo might be a little bigger than a nail, and it would have less of an impact on the war that said nail had on Richard the Third, but I am sure that the large german crew that was ultimately lost due to a particular lucky hit of an obsolete but otherwise unremarkable biplane of that particular air strike of that specific carrier would have appreciated it.
 

Harlock

I should have expected that really
The whole thing is quite a story :)


The air attack was always the thing that caught my attention. The weather during that final phase of the battle was terrible, a Force 10 storm driving 60 foot waves. Coming up from Gibraltar Ark Royal was sailing straight into the wind and was running at half speed because any faster would damage the ship.

This is what she was going to be launching her aircraft into. For reference the Ark herself was about 60 feet tall so those waves were breaking over the flight deck. The whole ship was pitching again by 60 feet so the timing needed to actually take off or worse land on a ship that was rising and falling by its own height was considerable.
Even more fun the wind over the deck was about 50 knots which was also the landing speed of a Swordfish meaning that unless the ship slowed down they would be literally blown backwards away from the ship while trying to land. However slowing the ship meant it pitched and rolled even more which caused its own problems.

When launching the strike they needed twenty men on each aircraft to hold it down so the storm didn't catch its wings and blow it off the ship before the engine revved up enough to beat the gale. Even then they couldn't launch into the wind as carriers normally do and had to fly off at an angle which was very dangerous. If they got the timing wrong they'd be flying straight into the waves and in those conditions nobody was going to be rescued.

By a miracle they got every aircraft off and went into the attack despite the storm. Bismarck naturally opened up on them with everything including its main guns. The idea there was not to try and hit a plane with a 15 inch shell but to hit the water ahead of the plane and send a few hundred tons of seawater a hundred and something feet into the air in front of the plane and either swamp it or force it to break off its run.
The planes came in and dropped their torpedoes at a hundred feet altitude which was lower than the Bismarck's superstructure height, at a hundred miles per hour and a range of a thousand yards. Which is really, really close when someone is firing artillery at you :p
No planes were shot down but most were shredded by shrapnel and written off when they returned home, Swordfish apparently were pretty hardy. A lot of planes were wrecked on landing, mostly crushing their landing gear trying to put down on the pitching ship with battle damage.

Never the less they did their job and came home in one piece. The most remarkable thing about the entire mission however was that the RN had by that point lost all of its experienced air crew, the men who flew this mission were all in their early twenties and fresh out of training. This was their first combat deployment and in such incredible and hostile conditions they still managed to carry out their mission and not lose a man either to the enemy or the storm. And in a bunch of biplanes held together by string and canvas :p
 

BF110C4

Well-known member
No planes were shot down but most were shredded by shrapnel and written off when they returned home, Swordfish apparently were pretty hardy. A lot of planes were wrecked on landing, mostly crushing their landing gear trying to put down on the pitching ship with battle damage.

Never the less they did their job and came home in one piece. The most remarkable thing about the entire mission however was that the RN had by that point lost all of its experienced air crew, the men who flew this mission were all in their early twenties and fresh out of training. This was their first combat deployment and in such incredible and hostile conditions they still managed to carry out their mission and not lose a man either to the enemy or the storm. And in a bunch of biplanes held together by string and canvas :p
The proof that the Swordfish was the best plane of its generation is that ten years and a whole bunch of technological advances later it could still make use of its disadvantages such as a extremely slow speed, obsolete biplane wings and the use of canvas instead of metal to operate from tiny carriers in atmospheric conditions that no other plane could (they pioneered night landings at the start of the war), the low speed was excellent for antisubmarine patrols -specially when using an air surface radar- and the canvas was surprisingly good at surviving flak.
 
Last edited:

PsihoKekec

Swashbuckling Accountant
However during the Channel Dash it resulted in complete wipeout of the squadrons sent. Swordfish were deathtraps when used against warships even if they could claim success in specific cirumstances.
 

BF110C4

Well-known member
However during the Channel Dash it resulted in complete wipeout of the squadrons sent. Swordfish were deathtraps when used against warships even if they could claim success in specific cirumstances.
To be fair they were downed by Bf-109s while flying in the middle of the day with minimal fighter cover against a predictable target, even late war torpedo bombers would have suffered serious casualties under such circumstances. And to intercept the Swordfish flight their hunters had to lower their own landing gear just to avoid overshooting them, which with a proper escort watching overhead would have been suicidal.
 

BF110C4

Well-known member
As I recall as much as half were shot down by Scharnhorst and Gneisenau flak.
Yeah, although with only six Swordfishes available is no surprise they were blown out of the air. The americans and japanese would have hesitated about sending alone five times the number of far more modern torpedo bombers against a capital ship.
 

Bacle

When the effort is no longer profitable...
Founder
Yeah, although with only six Swordfishes available is no surprise they were blown out of the air. The americans and japanese would have hesitated about sending alone five times the number of far more modern torpedo bombers against a capital ship.
Particularly multiple capital ships, with their own ground based cap providing top cover.

The Brits should have just let those ships pass without wasting lives in futile attacks on the. Particularly when both Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had already hit mines, and thus were not going to get away scott-free as is.

Heck, only Prinz Eugen came out of that dash without damage, and the Brits lost how many pilots on those foolish attacks.

The Brits would have been better served trying to hit the German ships with level bombers doing grid-squares from 40k ft, compared to sending torp bombers after them.
 

Harlock

I should have expected that really
There is the old story about Bismarck's guns not being able to hit the Swordfish as they were too slow, and I guess with a 100mph attack speed probably so :p
Though that is only half of it, the automatic calculators may not have worked so what happens next is that the crew do it manually, they try to calculate the speed and range themselves and fire over open sights. Bismarck's gunners however were too fresh and inexperienced to do that properly whereas I'd guess the more experienced crews could manage it during the Dash. Having a bunch of cap ships and escorts probably helped too with volume of fire
 

Harlock

I should have expected that really
The aircraft did apparently take a lot of damage from shrapnel with many crews wounded so I'd guess some part of it worked, but most of the hits were apparently as the aircraft were banking away after dropping torps and presented a bigger target and at close range.
 

BF110C4

Well-known member
Also light AA fuzes wouldn't detonate when hitting canvas covered Swordfish, unless they hit engine, fuel tank or crew.
Yeah, the canvas is effective against shrapnel, altough I doubt that the fuzes were affected at all, the nature of heavy flak is that no one expects to score a direct hit with a 5'' gun against a mobile target so the fuzes were designed to detonate an a particular altitude, after a set time of the shell's flight time or in the case of allied VT ammunition to do so when close enough to the plane, but since most of the time Flak is shot from your own lines it is considered a bad idea to add an impact trigger since if the first fuze fails then there is a very real possibility that you may hit something yours and blow it to hell and back.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top