Britain Between the Wars, pt 4 - 004 Index.jpg (1/1)

hielan' laddie added these comments in the current discussion du
jour ...

Thanks for the interesting ccommentary.

Nice series you've been posting, Mitchell. Please refresh my
memory, what was the name of the bi-wing torpedo bomber the
Brits used to

The Fairey Swordfish. 24 Swordfish launched from ARK ROYAL and
VICTORIOUS. The got three hits, two of which were minor, but the
third jammed the rudder and allowed the Home Fleet (dreadnoughts
KING GEORGE V and RODNEY plus several British cruisers and
British and Polish destroyers) to catch and engage.

Notable events:

Despite what is shown in the movie _Sink the Bismarck!_ no
Swordfish were shot down; several were damaged, one beyond
economic repair, and one was lost on the way back to the
carriers, but none fell to AAA, despite the fact that they were
going up against the best anti-aircraft guns afloat at the time.
Persistent rumour has it that the AAA fire-control tables (think
very large, mechanical, computers) on BISMARCK could not
properly aim the 105-mm twin gun turrets at aircraft flying
slower than 150 knots. As the maximum speed of a Swordfish was
120 knots... Certainly those same 105-mm guns, fired both from
shipboard and from land positions, were extremely effective
against both day and night bombers which moved at speeds greater
than 150 knots... The Swordfish which were damaged took damage
from light, hand-aimed, automatic cannon, 20-mm and 37-mm, not
the 105s.

All of BISMARCK's main battery turrets (and the 150-mm secondary
turrets, and the 105-mm AAA) were knocked out comparatively
early in the fight, apparently by KING GEORGE V's 14" guns as
RODNEY's shells tended to detonate early, but the ship proved
remarkably hard to sink. The cruiser DORSETSHIRE and five TRIBAL
destroyers, plus a Polish destroyer, went in to torpedo the
BISMARCK at roughly the same time as when the order was given to
scuttle the ship. German sources therefor tend to report that
the ship was scuttled, not sunk; British sources say that it was
torpedoed and sunk, not scuttled. It is absolutely certain that
BISMARCK would not have survived torpedo hits from that many
ships and that it would have been difficult to miss, given the
facts that BISMARCK's guns were out of action and the ship was
dead in the water and heavily afire.

As a direct result of BISMARCK running loose in the North
Atlantic, and the threat of TIRPITZ doing the same, Combined
Operations launched Operation Chariot, the Commando raid at St
Nazaire, which destroyed the 'NORMANDIE' dock, the only drydock
outside of Germany available to the Germans and big enough to
handle TIRPITZ. Operation Chariot is the single greatest raid
that the Royal Navy has ever made, and the RN has done a lot of
raids. Probably the only raid which could be compared to Chariot
would be Thunderbolt, the Israeli raid at Entebbe.

sink the Bismarck? Don't think I've seen it in any or yours but
I may have missed it.

Thanks and have a nice Friday.








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Jerry, aka HP

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