Wrecks of HK Kormoran and HMAS Sydney found

[CaptHawkeye]

It's supposed to be 'largely intact', which opens up the debate on what exactly sent her down.

A commerce raider masquerading as a Dutch frieghter. Haven't you heard?

What do some people think ships are supposed to do when they lose a fight? Go up in wildly spectacular explosions with lots of fireworks? That's a sci-fi cliche thank you. Not every ship in the world is HMS Hood, and even Hood has a wreck.

I'd known about the Sydney/Kormoran mystery for a while but had no idea their was a conspiracy attached to it. Some people will use anything for attention.

[Thanas]

You wait for one and three turn up at the same time.....

HMS Hunter was found a few weeks ago as well, heh.

I would love to read more about that. Do you have any links?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I'd say only the Captain could be at fault, for making the assumption that any maritime stop & inspect would be "routine" enough that there was no need for action stations. Even if they thought it was a Dutch ship, by that time the Dutch were occupied by the Germans anyway so I'd criticise the Captain for not being suspicious of a Dutch flag. The crew, however, certainly performed well.

No, the Dutch commercial vessels were under the jurisdiction of the Dutch East Indies, which was still independent, with all the allied powers recognizing the government there as the successor to the government of the occupied Netherlands, so it was in fact just another allied freighter if truly Dutch.

[Dartzap]

You wait for one and three turn up at the same time.....

HMS Hunter was found a few weeks ago as well, heh.

I would love to read more about that. Do you have any links?

Ask and Ye' Shall Receive

Sunken WWII ship found in fjord
The wreck of a Royal Navy destroyer has been found in a Norwegian fjord, 68 years after she sank during battle.

HMS Hunter has remained undisturbed since April 1940 when she sank, killing 110 people during the Battle of Narvik.

It was found 305m (1,000ft) under water by a Norwegian mine control vessel on a multinational training exercise.

The site will be marked as a war grave on Saturday. Major General Garry Robison said finding HMS Hunter had been a "poignant moment".

HMS Hunter was one of two Allied destroyers lost during the first Battle of Narvik - the Germans lost four destroyers.

'Long lost'

The 1,880 tonne H-Class Destroyer had a crew of 145 - 110 of whom were killed when she was sunk at 0530 GMT on 10 April 1940.

There have been several attempts to find her over the years, but it was the Norwegian mine hunter Hnoms Tyr, while on an exercise with the Royal Navy, Royal Norwegian Navy and Royal Netherlands Navy which discovered her.

In a statement, the Ministry of Defence said HMS Hunter was discovered using an "echo sounder".

"It became clear that this was the long-lost HMS Hunter, lying as she was when she had finally succumbed to the unforgiving waters after bravely fighting during the Battle of Narvik," it said.

Ships from the Royal Navy, the Netherlands Maritime Force and the Norwegian Navy, will lay wreaths over the spot in a commemorative service on Saturday.

Poignant moment

Ships will sail in "formed line" past the site, which will now be marked as a war grave.

Maj Gen Robison, the commander of the UK's amphibious force, said: "Finding HMS Hunter was a poignant moment and being able to pay our respects along with our Norwegian and Dutch allies is particularly fitting to those who lost their lives."

Norwegian defence spokesman Colonel John Ogland said: "Being able to host this large multinational exercise is great for us but to find HMS Hunter whilst doing so makes it very special indeed.

"We remain close allies and are eternally grateful to those who helped preserve our freedom."

[Darth Onasi]

It's supposed to be 'largely intact', which opens up the debate on what exactly sent her down.

A commerce raider masquerading as a Dutch frieghter. Haven't you heard?

What do some people think ships are supposed to do when they lose a fight? Go up in wildly spectacular explosions with lots of fireworks? That's a sci-fi cliche thank you. Not every ship in the world is HMS Hood, and even Hood has a wreck.

I'd known about the Sydney/Kormoran mystery for a while but had no idea their was a conspiracy attached to it. Some people will use anything for attention.

Hell even in the case of the Hood some people weren't willing to accept that Bismarck got a lucky shot and sent her to the bottom due to an explosion. There had to be a conspiracy!
Some just can't handle the fact that real-life hero ships do not have character shields.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

As a matter of fact, magazine explosions are pretty damn uncommon ways for ships to sink. Most combat wrecks sank with less violence, usually hours after the battle had ended, sometimes earlier. Though even a torpedo hit which causes a vessel to immediately capsize and sink will, of course, leave it more or less intact.

[Thanas]

*snip*

Thanks Dartzap, but I am afraid that is rather sparse information.

Are there any pictures of the wreck?

[brianeyci]

I'm no naval history expert but I'm still surprised there's a conspiracy around this. I get 9/11... gravitational potential energy is just beyond some people.

But it should be obvious to the most scientifically and militarily ignorant that a whole bunch of crew, basking in the sun, not at action stations facing certain kinds of guns at point blank range will take massive damage.

Hell you teleport a destroyer next to a battleship and it could knock out the radars or even wose if it dumped a shitload of torpedoes. The sinking reads to be a one in a million shot (I don't know if that's just the style of the news article or if the ammunition cooking off like Jutland is actually true.) so Sydney looks like it almost survived.

[Thanas]

As a matter of fact, magazine explosions are pretty damn uncommon ways for ships to sink. Most combat wrecks sank with less violence, usually hours after the battle had ended, sometimes earlier. Though even a torpedo hit which causes a vessel to immediately capsize and sink will, of course, leave it more or less intact.

They are not really that uncommon, though. From all the losses in WWI and II, I can think of at least 3 battlecruisers (Jutland), one fast battleship/battlecruiser (Hood) and six battleships (Arizona, Barham, Bretagne, Roma, Tirpitz, Yamato), where the cause of sinking was either due to magazine explosions or where the magazines exploded after the sinking.

[Dartzap]

*snip*

Thanks Dartzap, but I am afraid that is rather sparse information.

Are there any pictures of the wreck?

I'm still looking heh, there's not been amount told about it, really.

[Thanas]

Hell you teleport a destroyer next to a battleship and it could knock out the radars or even wose if it dumped a shitload of torpedoes. The sinking reads to be a one in a million shot (I don't know if that's just the style of the news article or if the ammunition cooking off like Jutland is actually true.) so Sydney looks like it almost survived.

It is just the style of the news article. If you look at the german reports, they clearly show the ship out of action, having ceased firing and listing. "Almost survived" is like saying the Bismarck almost survived the pounding from the Rodney and the KGV.

What I find amusing is that the Sydney web site classifies it as a "battle cruiser". And not only once, but twice.

[Dartzap]

A site

Some images found at last, heh. Those guns look in great shape, surprisingly.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Hell you teleport a destroyer next to a battleship and it could knock out the radars or even wose if it dumped a shitload of torpedoes. The sinking reads to be a one in a million shot (I don't know if that's just the style of the news article or if the ammunition cooking off like Jutland is actually true.) so Sydney looks like it almost survived.

It is just the style of the news article. If you look at the german reports, they clearly show the ship out of action, having ceased firing and listing. "Almost survived" is like saying the Bismarck almost survived the pounding from the Rodney and the KGV.

What I find amusing is that the Sydney web site classifies it as a "battle cruiser". And not only once, but twice. :lol:

Actually, it's true--the magazine explosion happened after the battle. That implies that the crew lost the battle to control the ship's damage. It's not impossible that she could have been saved. Likely the fact that a very large portion of the crew had been killed or wounded as they were not at stations when the Germans began to sweep the decks with autocannon fire was what contributed to her demise; damage control is really all about having lots of skilled people able to respond instantly.

[Darth Onasi]

I'm no naval history expert but I'm still surprised there's a conspiracy around this. I get 9/11... gravitational potential energy is just beyond some people.

But it should be obvious to the most scientifically and militarily ignorant that a whole bunch of crew, basking in the sun, not at action stations facing certain kinds of guns at point blank range will take massive damage.

Hell you teleport a destroyer next to a battleship and it could knock out the radars or even wose if it dumped a shitload of torpedoes. The sinking reads to be a one in a million shot (I don't know if that's just the style of the news article or if the ammunition cooking off like Jutland is actually true.) so Sydney looks like it almost survived.

I figure that in the common mindset of many people, warships are meant to go down in great fleet battles or a tremendous blaze of glory where they take out 2 dozen enemies or something.
A short engagement where a ship is essentially ambushed and sunk isn't enough. Despite the fact that in this case the Sydney took it's attacker with it to the bottom.

[Thanas]

Actually, it's true--the magazine explosion happened after the battle. That implies that the crew lost the battle to control the ship's damage. It's not impossible that she could have been saved.

Right. It is also not impossible that the Bismarck could have been saved. However, in both instances, the circumstances did not allow for it. And that really is all that matters - whether the ship sunk due to loss of crew or due to damage does not really matter - she was damaged by the battle, and the damage could not be fixed in time. The only way she could have been saved is if there was another warship in the vicinity, and there wasn't. I see no point in arguing that she could have been saved if the circumstances were different, because the circumstances made saving the ship pretty much impossible.

[Thanas]

A site

Some images found at last, heh. Those guns look in great shape, surprisingly.

Thank you. Interesting images. I am actually not that surprised about the guns, though.

[Thanas]

Ghetto edit:

Video of the wreck of HMS Hunter

[CaptHawkeye]

Hell even in the case of the Hood some people weren't willing to accept that Bismarck got a lucky shot and sent her to the bottom due to an explosion. There had to be a conspiracy!

If you really want to get technical you could just say that Prinz Eugen ended up doing far more damage to Hood than Bismarck did. So Bismarck's one and only triumph in life is moot anyway.

[Thanas]

^Eh? Please elaborate.

[montypython]

I had heard reports about Prinz Eugen disabling a FC director on the Hood, enabling the Bismarck to fire the final shot.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

^Eh? Please elaborate.

There's this oft-bandied theory that Hood was destroyed by an 8in round impacting her torpedo stowage. However, both boards of enquiry concluded that it was a 15in round striking the 4in gun magazines which, when exploding, triggered a second, sympathetic detonation in the 15in magazines, destroying the ship.

[CaptHawkeye]

^Eh? Please elaborate.

It was the round from Prinz Eugen that started a huge fire on board Hood. By "damage" I was referring to the actual damage absorbed by the ship not counting Bismarck's lucky shot. The fire that was started on Hood was out of control by the time Bismarck started shooting at it. So their's the likelyhood that the fire was already at or very close to the magazine by the time Bismarck opened fire on it. Which means that even if Bismarck had ignored Hood the whole time, she was likely fucked anyway.

[CaptHawkeye]

^Eh? Please elaborate.

There's this oft-bandied theory that Hood was destroyed by an 8in round impacting her torpedo stowage. However, both boards of enquiry concluded that it was a 15in round striking the 4in gun magazines which, when exploding, triggered a second, sympathetic detonation in the 15in magazines, destroying the ship.

Oh, they came to the conclusion that it was *definantly* a 15 inch round that caused its destruction? I thought their was still some random banter going about as to Prinz Eugen's efforts against Hood during the fight.

[Isolder74]

I had heard reports about Prinz Eugen disabling a FC director on the Hood, enabling the Bismarck to fire the final shot.

How does knocking out the Aft Fire Control help the Bismark get the range on the Hood and make the Hood an easier target? The Hood turned to face Bismark and Prince Eugan before it was out of the threat of plunging fire from the Bismark and Eugan. That is what sank the Hood. That she had very little deck armor so however you look at it lucky shot or not the Hood was sunk because of major design problems.

[Thanas]

Here is what William Jurens has to say about the matter:

Speculations concerning Prinz Eugen's shells usually revolve around the idea that although her projectiles would have had little or no chance of penetrating Hood's belt armor at the specified range and obliquity, due to their "plunging" trajectory, they might have set off the after magazines after penetrating Hood's relatively thinly armored decks. In support of this, one article purporting to reproduce a diagram of the relative trajectories of Bismarck's and Prinz Eugen's guns has been drawn so as to give an angle of fall exceeding 35 degrees. A quick examination of the range tables, however, shows that such an angle is highly exaggerated, to say the least. In reality, due largely to the higher initial velocity of Prinz Eugen's guns, at the range at which Hood was engaged the angles of fall of both Bismarck's and Prinz Eugen's guns were remarkably similar. Over the ranges of interest, the angle of fall of Prinz Eugen's projectiles was only about 13°-19°, an angle which cannot in any meaningful sense be construed as "plunging fire." Further, the striking velocity of Prinz Eugen's shells could not have exceeded about 460 meters per second. Even assuming that the shells could have found a spot to hit the deck directly, at the calculated angle of fall the official German armor penetration curves for this gun, though not reproduced here, allow them a penetration of only about 40-60mm of homogeneous armor at best. In fact, as was the case of the 380mm gun, the curves for these conditions are effectively "off the graph," strongly implying almost no possibility of intact penetration at all. Even at the closest possible range, belt armor penetration at the calculated obliquity of 47° would have only been about 100mm for an intact projectile and 103mm for a broken one, both of which are well under the thickness of even Hood's uppermost and thinnest belt.

Although a hit from Prinz Eugen could possibly have caused the fire in Hood's after superstructure, it would have been almost impossible for such a hit to have penetrated to the after magazines. Prinz Eugen may have been able to hurt the Hood, but she would almost certainly be unable to kill her.

Taken from this excellent article with an abundance of technical info.

Incidentally, my grand uncle served on the Prinz Eugen, and I remember him laughing at the theory of Eugen destroying the Hood.