On Fri, 22 Jan 2010 09:13:46 -0500, HEMI-Powered wrote
(in article ):

Mitchell Holman added these comments in the current discussion du
jour ...


Attachment decoded: 004 Index.jpg
`
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.