Repair This! A HMS Repulse Timeline
- Thread starter USS_Ward
- Start date
David Flin
Gone Fishin'
What would be the logical thing for the RN to do under the conditions that pertain. That's the starting point, and deviations from that need a reader prompt.
The air crew from Victorious can probably come in for a second bite.
From my head (something else might change this) I haven't been drawing a track chart for the battle or anything.
Bismarck is heading broadly south easterly towards Brest
POW Repulse are probably 2 miles north of Bismarck and shadowing.
Tovey with Hood KGV Hood and Victorious are about 150 miles Northeast and closing.
Force H with Ark Royal and Renown about 1000 miles to the south and closing.
It only makes sense for Force H to get involved if Bismarck gets away from the home fleet (as happened historically it was Ark Royal playing goalkeeper that found Bismark after Norfolk and Suffolk lost her.
Yeah totally - Victorious and her adhoc airgroup (minus Fulmars and any damage kites) could close the distance and launch a shorter ranged attack - if nothing else it will fray and exhaust the crew even more.
Then with the Bismarcks speed reduced (I am assuming with the shaft hit and machinery damage she is greatly reduced in speed) she is not going to be as difficult for the slower BBs such as Rodney to catch up
Erm, really? 2 miles is pretty much point blank range for all their guns. If they were that close, they would be engaging.
Bismarck's max range was approx 36km or 22 miles
PoW's max range was approx 38km or 23 miles
Repulse's max range was approx 30km or 18 miles
They would be shadowing at least no closer than that range, and probably further away to give them time to react should Bismarck try anything. Plus radar from HMS Suffolk would be able to detect her at far longer ranges than that still
Typo.
20 miles was meant. Not 2.
While the theoretical range is longer Bismarck never fired at that long a range.
We saw from the Prinz Eugene's turn that the range was close enough for shadowers to be unable to react well. I do agree that a longer shadowing range would be usual.
I also note that the first chapter of the timeline sees Repulse and POW engage Bismarck without Suffolk and Norfolk implying that the Suffolk had its historical radar failure before Denmark strait. This could lead to the Royal Navy being paranoid about shadowing for a little bit.
For the shadowing range I am thinking 30,000 yards or 17 miles would be a safe range. There were iirc two hits at around 27,000 yards that occurred in WWII. A hit at 30,000 yards in the N Atlantic in cruddy weather wouldn't be a golden shot it would be a denial of physics shot.
The RN doesn't want to give Bismarck the ghost of a chance I think it will be Swordfish dropping torpedoes until Bismarck is a rolling static gunnery target. Then the big blue hammer will crack the nut.
Same for bombs. The Fulmar was rated to carry a pair of 250 pound bombs. Might not do much to kill a BB, but it would play hell with the exposed AAA crews and could be downright disturbing to a cruiser with only a couple inches of deck armor.
To quote the movie version of Buffy -
"Kill her a lot."
Garrison
Donor
I suspect the surface ships will want to press in for the kill, they won't want the credit going to the FAA.
I expect a torpedo strike to cause severe shock damage to the engines that's very fixable but temporarily slows Bismarck to less than 20 knots and the capital ships just diving in.
Oh i have no doubt thats gonna happen, its just a matter of how we kill her a lot
I continue to search but I cannot find an example in WW2 where any ship took 3 or more torpedoes and did not sink - granted some took many fish and sunk - but it does appear that 3 hits and your done!
Air launched torpedoes, at least early war types, I believe tended to be smaller then submarine or ship launched torpedoes so that could make a slight difference.
Ultimately it would probably just depend on location of hits. Even just a single hit would do wonders if say it hits right in the area the first torpedo hit occured.
Ultimately it would probably just depend on location of hits. Even just a single hit would do wonders if say it hits right in the area the first torpedo hit occured.
Yep. 2 miles is only 3.500 yards.
They'd be shooting at each other with 2cm Flak and 2 pounders.
Airbourne torpedoes were 18 inch through the war. Most shipbourne torpedoes were 21 inch.
Around this time the mk 12 airbourne torpedo was common with 388 pounds of explosive charge. The late war British mk 17 airbourne torpedo had 600 lbs of explosive charge. The mk8 21 inch torpedo was common on British submarines and destroyers through the war. It had 750lbs of explosive charge.
Very much so.
The British standard air dropped torpedo at the time was the 18" Mark 12. 388 pound TNT warhead. Their subs used the 21" Mark 8** 805 pound Torpex* warhead (interesting weapon, introduced in 1927, it was still in service during the Falklands and was used from an SSN to sink an Argentine cruiser). Surface ships used a very similar Mark IX** with the same size warhead.
*Torpex is around 50% more powerful than TNT so the air dropped torpedo had less than 1/4 the kick of a submarine or surface ship mounted weapon.