Posted by Matty on October 14, 2011, 8:52:37, in reply to "All gone! n/t"
I don't have any 72-scale subs. (I was going to say "ship models" - of any kind - but I guess I have a couple boneyard 72-scale PT boats, and the Lindberg sub-chaser.)
Speaking of which, how did that 72-scale Elco boat build of yours turn out, Donny?
Cheers,
-Matt
Well......................
Posted by Don Murphy on October 14, 2011, 10:16:06, in reply to "Good On Ya'!"
I removed a lot of the JFK stuff and started my late-war scratching. I opened the front windows and drilled out mounts for the forward 37mm and forward 20mm. I then painted it in Testor's ModelMaster Field Green which was labelled "ACRYLIC" and then found out it wasn't. Ooops.
Soaked it in oven cleaner to remove everything and promptly returned said paint to the LHS and got a different bottle. Ah...success. This...is what I'm going for...
Her and her squadron mates are the ones that throttled the IJN battlewagons at Surigao Strait. Still in the planning phases right now. Got talked into watching Das Boot the other day and that got me wishing I had one of the OOP U-boats. Luckily I found someone that had an extra and wants a Gato.
I just noticed - something I completely missed, when reading your post the first time: you said the PTs in Surigao Strait "throttled" the Southern Force BBs (Yamashiro and Fuso).
As I recall (multiple) sources claim the PTs did attack the BBs - they may have "kettled" them - but failed to score any hits and then it fell to the DDs - likewise, launching every torpedo they had - to actually hit Yamashiro and Fuso, the latter breaking in half right then and there.
But you're saying it was the PT torpedoes that scored that decisive blow - and so we have (yet) another discrepancy between the conventional "wisdom" and some other interpretation(s) of the record?!! This would be BIG - another one to rival even the "Hood-Sunk-by-Prince Eugen-as-opposed-to-Bismarck" debate!
Now I do know that even the respective roles of Yamashiro and Fuso - which one broke in half, and which continued on, into the radar-controlled USN BBs' gunfire - has (at least once) been questioned. By none other (at least) than the author of "Anatomy of The Ship HIMJS Fuso" who, IIRC, believed it was Yamashiro that succumbed to the torpedo attack, and Fuso that went on to face the USN BBs.
However, this question - whose torpedoes achieved the initial, devastating ambush - is much more crucial, and potentially interesting, IMHO. And, though in the end I never was convinced of the argument for Prinz Eugen - and granted the evidence is so scarce and fragmentary it seems far from conclusive for Hood, either - still I would be VERY interested to hear who/where did you see any indication(s) that the Surigao PTs were the ones whose torpedoes really struck home. So, talk to me, Donny!
Also - a point of interest: PT boat torpedoes were visibly (very) much shorter than DD torpedoes - in fact, the former look more like airborne torpedoes, like carried by (for example) the Avenger - which I'm sure indicates a shorter range and likely even lower speed, as well. But were the warheads of the PT torpedoes the same size/power as on a DD of the day? The World Wonders...
Cheers,
-Matty
Well to be fair, everyone except subs has claimed the Fuso and her sis
Posted by Don Murphy on February 18, 2012, 17:57:07, in reply to "WAIT a minute!"
The battleship crowd naturally waxed poetic about it with the press of the day loving the angle "look, the Jap bb's that took part in the Pearl raid were sunk by bb's that were sunk at Pearl." It sounded good at the time. Two of Oldendorf's "old girls" suffered South Dakota-esque power failures which were predicted (hence, six battleships to wait for two Japanese). Had the two IJN units have actually physically reached the USN battle line with no DD/PT interference, it may not have been the cakewalk the USN fantasized about.
NavAir, still patting themselves on the back for Philippine Sea, Sibuyan Sea, Lingayen Gulf, etc, wanted credit for post-action killing. Their claim has always been that they happened upon the damaged pair and sunk them.
Destroyers is a hard claim to make as DD skippers were brave, but not stupid. USS Laffey at Guadalcanal was in every DD skipper's memory. No one wanted a repeat of that. The DD's and PT's were to shoo the two battleships into the waiting guns of the USN battle line. And that's where the story blurs. The DD's apparently did just that. Just enough smoke and gun fire to convince the IJN that it was safest heading forward.
The PT's however, never apparently had a plan according to S.E. Morrison's "Two Ocean War." Ballantine's "Death Of The IJN" also states squadrons of PT's ("numbering in the hundreds") making willy-nilly attacks all in the name of "just because" and "because they are there."
Fuso's own logs put her at slight damage from torpedos. So she couldn't have tangled with a destroyer. Or two. PT torps were indeed air variants. Tho one or two squadrons may have had the older 21" jobs. Yamashiro's TROM reports "rocket fire" as well, which couldn't have been DD's.
As for Hood, several things come to in to play. Firstly, Holland and Leach were expecting the Germans to do what the British did. Two ships; one a battleship and one a cruiser? Why...of course the battleship is in front old man. And both ships having four turrets, one stack - well it's easy to see how Hood and POW imagined the ship in front to be Bismarck. So "Last Days Of The German Navy 1939 - 1945" accurately (as does every other account) has Eugen coming under fire first.
Lutjens was picked by Hitler as he was anal retentive and a stickler for detail. So Lutjens is making smoke (which is what a cruiser would do to protect her battleship) as he intends to break off. Lutjens isn't an idiot; he knows (1) that Hitler's orders are irrefutable and (2) he's up against two RN capital ships, one of which is 15" armed Hood. The RN continues hammering Eugen. How many salvoes would it take you (were you Eugen) to get the RN range?
By the time Lutjens changes his mind and joins the fight, Hood has already gotten her boat deck hit. Unless the German had some mutual support training where one ship could give coordinates and bearings to another, there's no way Bis' guns could have jumped ahead of Eugen's. IMHO of course...
Tedd Brigg's book clearly places Eugen's fire first, with Bismarck's as an echo. Which would make sense as smaller 8 inch guns reload faster than 15 inch guns. Now of course, the word "clearly" is Tedd's recollection which is as good as anyone elses that was there.
National pride also plays in to it. Bismarck sunk without a major kill? Embarrasment. Eugen's crew were the more experienced and sadly, they were under the most fire. They were in real danger of a hammering. Ted Brigg's book brings out something that is rarely discussed: RN fire on Eugen. 15" fire is 15" fire. It takes no prisoners and it's misses are as painful as it's hits. A "straddle" against a cruiser size target is gonna kill people and knock stuff out. We rarely discuss it.
While everyone focusses on Lindemman and Lutjens arguing over whether Bismarck would break off or join in, the reality of Eugen was that Hood was walking tons-o-steel in to her coordinates. Remember, Hood had the finest crew in the known world. Britannia ruled the waves and Hood *WAS* Britannia. Plus, if you look at Hood's first two turns, they put two of her turrets out of action, meaning she could only bring four guns to bear on Bismarck. This means that EARLIER she had eight guns on Eugen. That's scary shite!
Unlike the RN, the Germans had no leadership formational rules, meaning that one ship's skipper (or task force commander) didn't control the other ship's movement. Remember the controversy where Rodney "broke the line" to engage Bismarck? That's what it is all about - all RN ships doing what the flag leader says. The Germans had no such rules. So Eugen was free to say "holy shit, we're coming under fire, break left..." Had Eugen stayed where she was, all eight Hood guns would have easily hit Bismarck as well. Tedd Briggs also recounts something else we forgot. Hood wasn't stupid. Hood knew via flag and plain old radio that POW's guns were useless.
So doors were opened, hatch fouling was allowed to permit Hood's eight guns to do the work of both ships. Hood knew POW's ten guns were out of action. Vickers tech reps/workers who's career's were not on the line, had no problem regailing to their superiors how POW sailed with her guns aimlessly pointing skyward. Briggs also bears that out even going so far as to quote a nearby gun captain as yelling "why won't you bastards fire?!"
Ludovik Kennedy's "Pursuit" puts POW's bridge hit as coming after Hood's explosion. POW was trailing Hood to starboard which means she was further from Bismarck than Hood which was behind Eugen. For Eugen to have shot over Hood and hit POW is impossible. Firstly, she couldn't have seen through the Hood's pall of smoke and fireball. No way. Bismarck, trailing behind, would have seen POW silouetted against Hood's fireball. Easy peasy. The fact that she only got of four 15" rounds says how much farther POW was away from Hood. So if Bis could only get off four out of either, it's doubtful any of Eugen's 8"ers could have done better.
Plus, let's also consider armor penetration. If we're saying Eugen is the culprit then that means that POW's armored citadel was penetrated by a measly-ass 8 inch shell. Tsk tsk Vickers. Someone's ass would have been hanging from a noose in London's Marble Arch. Only a 15 incher could have punched through that and gone out the other side. Remember, this wasn't plunging fire against thiner roof armor, this was full on side impact. An 8 incher from above, maybe. Not from the direct side. That's asking too much from an 8 incher.
Plus, plunging fire is what Eugen was doing against Hood for a variety of reasons. It's possible the Eugen *COULD* have guessed at Hood's thin deck armor. I doubt it. I think the plunging was for the simple fact that Hood was shooting from farther away. Hood was hitting Eugen's area of water with ease. Eugen was having to plunge to get the range. So if Eugen had to use plunging fire against Hood, there's no way she could have done a straight horizontal shot on POW which was further behind. The shells would have hit the water.
Leach's potential courtsmartial (or at worst, sacking) comes from discrepancies from several sources. Briggs in his book shows POW's one and only full salvo coming at the beginning of shooting at Eugen. Eugen's logs echo that. Bismarck's gunnery officer in his book doesn't give POW credit for any gunfire at all. Why? Possibly because he was on the phone (not the eyepiece) awaiting Lindemann's relayed instruction to start fire. He wouldn't have been watching the battle until after he hung up. To make this worse on him, the phone is at the bottom of the director housing. So he couldn't realistically have watched while waiting.
All accounts show British realization that they are firing at the wrong target early early on. It only takes minutes for Hood to shift fire and at that time, as per all accounts, she straddles Bismarck. Were POW to have been in the fight, her salvo would have struck Bismarck. This is what prompts the Hood officer's hateful remark against POW. POW's failure was not like South Dakota's at Savo. POW's failure was mechanical. They were able to jury rig the twin turret (as per Leach) and they got off a salvo just as Hood fired her last complete (pre sinking) salvo.
Vickers tech as per Kennedy's "Pursuit" says they only got the number one gun from the forward turret to fire. So POW goes from having one ten gun salvo to having a two gun salvo to having a one gun shot. Hardly impressive and really lucky to have that solitary 14 inch round hole Bismarck's fuel tank. And like Eugen's relationship with Bismarck, POW would also have been firing ahead of Hood. No way. Too far.
Eugen's logs in "Death Of The German Navy 1939 - 1945" show a straddle from Hood's last complete salvo and a solitary splash aft of that, which would have been POW's lone shell. Prior to logs returning to the UK, Tovey and Churchill know via Enigma that Bismarck has a hole in her bow tanks. Bismarck has no earthly idea where it came from either. The Brit 15's were firing well within their envelope and Bis does take shrapnel damage mid-ships. So it's possible that Hood's last complete salvo put the hole in Bis's bow.
Everyone gives Hood's X and Y turret a final shot as she's turning over but even if the trigger was pulled just as she turned, the shells aren't going anywhere near Bismarck's bow. Final analysis?
1. Bismarck fails to hit Hood and hole's POW's bridge. KM command gives Hood's death to Bismarck out of pride. Pride of KM sinks pride of RN. Great copy.
2. Eugen fails to hit POW and hole's Hood's boat deck. KM command gives POW's bridge hole to Eugen.
3. POW fails to hit anything. Admiralty gives Bismarck's tank hole to POW out of embarrassment and out of fear for Leach's life. Rank and file RN is angry. Tovey is under pressure to hang Leach from Churchill who feels that POW should have rammed Bismarck and gone down fighting as well. "If the cream of the RN went down, he should have followed her." Based on this hatred, Leach is a pariah and volunteers for the British version of Ten-Go which was the sending of POW and Repulse to Singapore. All reports say that he survived the bombing and deliberately went down with POW, only to have his body float to the surface where it was found.
I remember the first time I saw that movie: afterwards, went straight out and bought - and built - the Revell 150-ish scale TypeVII, and displayed it prominently on my (student intern's) desk at the Washington State Dept. of Ecology. The passersby - bureaucrats and other office drones - couldn't figure out who the hell I was! ( And my supervisor was a German-American, too! LMAO) That was the last model I built, for the next 10 years - until a couple more in the late '80s, and then another 10-year dry spell, until I started up again.
Don, that PT boat is COOL - I had no idea the Leyte invasion PTs were tricked out like that! You know, some other cool little vessels from Leyte - with camo similar and even better - were the APDs: the converted DEs and even old 4-piper DDs, which carried infantry and LCVPs. (And BTW, the Revell Buckley and flush-decker DD are yet another couple of ships in 240-scale, as we were talking about the other day.)
Be sure to take pics and keep us posted on (any of) these, buddy!