The Bismarck

I loved the movie “Sink the Bismark” when I was a kid as well as the song by Johnny Horton. It was absolutely amazing when they found her wreck.

“And no, I have no idea why I like these big ol’ ships. I just do.” Well, M’Lady I have some theories on that subject. FIRST of all, deep down inside, you have always wanted to be a Gun Bunny. You know it, I know it, everyone on this site knows it! And there is nothing at all wrong with that. The roaring of a rolling barrage, the bringing of all weapons to bear, the crashing symphony of a fire by turret, who doesn’t love the smell of cordite in the morning? The Guns, The Guns, We All Live to Serve The Guns. And the floating Artillery Platforms have the biggest and the best. This desire to be a Gun Bunny has its roots in your former duty as a Master Chief Petty Officer, COB, of the Door Gunners charged with the defence of the Battlestar Galactica. How many times did we dirt digging, pony faced, dog soldiers watch as you pushed a newb out of the way to blast a hole in a swarm Cylons. If that wanna be former diver in command of the Pegasus had of listened to you, he might of saved his ship and not be stuck hunting in the sea. Throughout the rest of your lifetimes, you were the keeper of the cats for the Alexandrians, the educator of Plato, Socrates’ doctor, showed the Chinese how to mix burnt wood with saltpeter/nitre to make things go boom, and perfected pasta and flat bread meat dishes to serve to travelling Eyetalians. Another time, when they called you Molly, you quit carrying the water, picked up a sponge and rammer and gave the Red Coats What For. Then there was that little trip with Andy down to Noo Orlins. You fired your cannon till the barrel melted down, then you grabbed an alligator and you fought another round. Served with Algenon Dickerson/Almaron Dickinson at a broke down Chapel in Tejas firing the last shot from the 12 pounder before being overrun. Nearly 30 years later, as a Gallant Young Major of Artillery, you held up an… Read more »

German battleship designer #1: “Hey, should we worry about WWI biplanes?”

German battleship designer #2: “Nah”

I read somewhere that nobody on HMS Prince of Wales heard the explosion of Hood’s aft magazines. Supposedly the energy released by the blast pushed it to a frequency beyond human hearing.

HMS Hood was slated for conversion to a fast battleship via improvements to her propulsion and increased deck armor, but budgets, bureaucracy, and her status as the Royal Navy’s showpiece ship meant that the conversion, or even a regular overhaul of her machinery, which by 1941 was beyond worn-out and barely able to push the ship to 27 knots, kept getting indefinitely postponed.

I wonder sometimes whether more than just the three survivors made it off of Hood as she went down. The waters around Iceland are cold as shit even in summer. How many men may have survived the sinking, only to freeze to death before anyone found them?