Guys, John Moffat, the swordfish pilot who dropped the torpedo which crippled the Bismark, later leading to its sinking, died today in Scone, Perthshire. Rest in Peace and clear skies.
Please note credit for this story goes to Wallace Shackleton who's big into his aviation and military history.

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Happy Crunching,

Graham

RIP

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

R.I.P.

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R.I.P

Also a commemoration took place yesterday for the pilot that found the Bismarck.

Pilot who found Bismarck remembered

I can't even imagine flying towards that monster (The Bismark) in an antiquated Bi-Plane.
That .... and the brave crews of the X-Craft that attacked the Tirpitz.
Bill

The thing is that biplane design was obsolete at the time, but then again it was said that Bismarck's AA batteries were not able to track such a slow aircraft, so the rest is History, the Bismarck is laying on the side of an undersea volcano, of the shells fired against Her, only the 16" shells were doing much damage, the 14" shells were literally just bouncing off, since Bismarck was designed to repel shells of that size.

I hope no one objects to this, I thought this would add some context to what John Moffat was up against, those were very dangerous times indeed.

Just be glad the later designs, aka: the H Class from 1944 were not built(they were too big to be built where both both Bismarck and Tirpitz were built at, and the Kiel Canal was too small), as this last class would've had eight 20" main guns, and would have probably been almost invincible, with armor a lot thicker than anything seen before, but thankfully Germany went off half cocked, the war could have been much worse, more would have died. Another problem with the Bismarck design I read is the rudders were too close to each other, which is also why they were jammed in the last position.

I looked for an example, as to how huge the H Class was, this pic illustrates this:

(Germany)H  44      Class (never built, just a design exercise, which one I'm not sure)
(US)     Montana    Class (never built, scrapped on the slip)
(Germany)H  42      Class ?

This drawing shows the relative size vs Bismarck... Note the Montana Class was to be 121' 2" Beam(max width at waterline), Yamato 121' 1".

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

Interesting stuff there Vic !
Bill

Interesting stuff there Vic !
Bill

Thanks Bill, yeah Hitler liked building BIG stuff, He even had a tank made(the Panzer VIII MAUS(Maus = Mouse) that might have even given an M1 tank, a run for the money, at least for armor protection. But I digress.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

Hi Vic,

Many thanks for the extra Info. I'd heard that the Swordfish had an advantage in that is was too slow for the Bismark's AA fire-control systems, but I wasn't certain about it.

Those two other Batleships were monsters, Weren't they?

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Happy Crunching,

Graham

Hi Vic,

Many thanks for the extra Info. I'd heard that the Swordfish had an advantage in that is was too slow for the Bismark's AA fire-control systems, but I wasn't certain about it.

Those two other Batleships were monsters, Weren't they?

Yes, very much so. But then so were the people who ran Germany from 1933-45.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's