Just when the day couldnt get any better (Bismarck TF's)

[ltforce]

Well It was May 15 1941, U-123 sailed from Lorient to be a reconnaissance eye outside of Scapa flow to report to BDU if any Capital ships were leaving towards the North Atlantic to hunt the Bismarck....and this is how it happend....

May 20th, 18:30 first contact is made from the lookout on the bridge....2 large ships on the horizon!







Prince of Whales hit by 2 torpedos and Hood also hit by 2.

Prince of Whales begins to list immediately to Port and Hood starts slowly sinking by the bow but it will take more to finish both ships off...








Prince of Whales is hit with another fish fight between the funnels and slowly sinks by the stern....Hood is hit with another 2 fish right behind turret B and also between the funnels and goes down quite fast....







U-123 now starts heading down the coast of Ireland to rendevous with KM Bismarck in Square BE (Exact square to be confirmed)

Just when U-123 thinks its going to be a nice calm return....on May 22nd there is a report of a TF due South of its position.....Interception course immidiatley.....Smoke on the horizon!! After a closer look the HMS Ark Royal and HMS Renwon spotted! 1 salvo of 2 fish fired at each ship, 1 hit on each ship heard.




First hit on Renown blew its bridge clean off!!!







After evading the escorts and making it to 8km at 180M when the 3 Destroyers left U-123 returned and finished off both ships with 1 fish each....










In all Honesty I couldnt believe I ran into the second task force, the hood and Prince of Whales I expected to run into since I was waiting off the Western approachs to Scapa but running into the Ark Royal and Renown was complete luck!!

This was played on 90% realism ( Exterior camera for screenies only) and it was my first time playing without weapons officer assistance....hence a few misses here and there.

Hope you enjoyed!!

[mookiemookie]

"Be More Agressive!"

[dvdk87]

Dam, that's nuts. Nice shooting skills Capt.

[meduza]

Well done, Herr Kaleun!

[Jimbuna]

You do realise you have singlehandedly changed the course of history!!.....Dont You!!

BTW....the RN would be very appreciative if you would stop calling one of their capital ships a 'Whale'

@Mookie......Ya cheeky bugga

[BulSoldier]

Youve oblitared pride of the british navy... lol

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

@Mookie......Ya cheeky bugga

:rotfl:When I was typing that, I was thinking "hah, now what's jimbuna going to say?"

[VirtualVikingX]

NICE work, dude!

[ltforce]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

You do realise you have singlehandedly changed the course of history!!.....Dont You!!

BTW....the RN would be very appreciative if you would stop calling one of their capital ships a 'Whale'

@Mookie......Ya cheeky bugga

Haha I didnt even notice the miss spelling of the Prince of Wales (Im from Canada not England hahaha I dont know their provinces) I just spelt it as I would a whale haha but thanks for noticing.

Yes clearly this would have changed things in history, The Suffolk and Norfolk would probably have continued to track it and maybe avoided some painful convoy battles by radioing its position but either way what a mess this would have caused!!! Which carrier would have flown off aircraft to Malta in its time of need??? That would have been the 3rd RN carrier sunk since 1939(correct me if im wrong...HMS Courageous, and Glourious before it) The Prince of Wales would have not have gone to the Indian ocean with the Repulse (eventhough they were both sunk by that japanese anyways.) The RN would have had to rely on its WW1 vintage BB's and the Nelson class's to get everything done, since the KGV was the only ship in the King George V class ready....Duke of York(November 41), Anson and Howe were only comissioned in 1942!!! Maybe the Germans would have also sortied the Tirpitz since most of the RN's most powerful ships would have been out of commision....

I enjoy playing this game and thinking wow if this really happend...what would the war have been like!!

Hope you enjoyed the pics....they seem small I wonder if I should resize?

[Torplexed]

Originally Posted by ltforce

I enjoy playing this game and thinking wow if this really happend...what would the war have been like!!

It's fun and interesting to speculate. After a British naval disaster like this my guess is that Uncle Sam may have come to the rescue. During the actual war the US fleet carrier Ranger was loaned to the Royal Navy for a time. With US still neutral I wouldn't have surprised if she would have been offered under Lend-Lease given a full-blown British naval emergency. I can also imagine US battleships starting to escort convoys earlier and more aggressively than they did previously under the terms of the Neutrality Patrol. Who knows? We could have an interesting battle pitting the Bismarck versus the North Carolina.

Tirpitz had a lot of teething problems and was still on sea trials in the Baltic well into 1941. As a consequence she wasn't deployed to Norway until early 1942. The Germans could have rushed her into action, but may have run into the same problems the British did with the Prince of Wales.

[ltforce]

Originally Posted by Torplexed

It's fun and interesting to speculate. After a British naval disaster like this my guess is that Uncle Sam may have come to the rescue. During the actual war the US fleet carrier Ranger was loaned to the Royal Navy for a time. With US still neutral I wouldn't have surprised if she would have been offered under Lend-Lease given a full-blown British naval emergency. I can also imagine US battleships starting to escort convoys earlier and more aggressively than they did previously under the terms of the Neutrality Patrol. Who knows? We could have an interesting battle pitting the Bismarck versus the North Carolina.

Tirpitz had a lot of teething problems and was still on sea trials in the Baltic well into 1941. As a consequence she wasn't deployed to Norway until early 1942. The Germans could have rushed her into action, but may have run into the same problems the British did with the Prince of Wales.

I think the Prince of Wales was only sent out with the hood to intimidate the Bismarck...even though that didn't work at all....most of her armament wasn't even in working condition and was still being worked on by the contractors....As for Bismarck vs North Carolina....I think it would go in favor of the Bismarck...but Bismarck vs Iowa class would be very close and very interesting!!

As for the Tirpitz I meant a little later on in the war I knew she was only ready in the spring of 1942, she was actually in the Baltic doing her sea trials in the summer of 41....It was the loss of the Bismarck that ended North Atlantic runs for the KM with surface ships.

[ryanglavin]

is this mod sh3 commander? because if it is, this is gonna be the first thing i'm going to do tommorow (that is, downloading sh3 commander).

[ltforce]

no just GWX 3.0

[PavelKirilovich]

My speculation is that with Kriegsmarine convoy raiding made possible by surface ships in the Atlantic, not just the rudeltaktik wolfpacks, the Soviets may very well have been pushed back beyond the Ural mountains. Moscow almost certainly would have been put to the torch (whatever was left to burn) before being given over the Germans, and we would have seen another RKKA army destroyed in a massive battle of annihilation in its defence.

The most significant Lend-Lease aid was not warplanes (Such as the P-39 Airacobra or P-40 Warhawk) or tanks (M4 Sherman, once refitted with a Russian 76.2mm gun is apparently quite a good machine until 1943), but rations, bolts of cloth, and trucks. The entirety of Russian industry was given over to producing the weapons of war, to the detriment of the logistics side which needed every Studebaker truck it could get its hands on. Uniforms were made with Canadian and American cloth. Canadian grain and American meat went overseas in tremendous quantities to make up for the lost agricultural potential of the USSR and Britain, as they had mobilized so much of their male population that many farms were down to literally just a handful of people, either not of fighting age or infirm.

KMS Bismarck and similar warships getting in amongst any of the PQs would have raised merry Hell with this. Combined with a solid offensive the East, the USSR might have collapsed. The Germans were very, very good as this sort of strategic-operational coordination and without that flood of supplies through the back door Hitler's idiocy and the fawning retardation of the General Staff would have made up for a large number of deficiencies.

Edit: I just forgot to mention the obvious. ltforce, bloody nice work. A Knight's Cross for you and your crew, certainly, probably with some sort of made up attachment specifically in your honour to go with the oak leaves, swords, and diamonds.

[Torplexed]

Originally Posted by PavelKirilovich

KMS Bismarck and similar warships getting in amongst any of the PQs would have raised merry Hell with this. Combined with a solid offensive the East, the USSR might have collapsed. The Germans were very, very good as this sort of strategic-operational coordination and without that flood of supplies through the back door Hitler's idiocy and the fawning retardation of the General Staff would have made up for a large number of deficiencies.

Don't forget that the PQ convoys weren't the only supply route to Russia. About 50% of the Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union was via the Pacific Ocean through Vladivostok and the Alaska-Siberia air corridor. In addition, there was the overland route through Persia which accounted for another 25%. Plus, aside from the PQ-17 debacle, the German surface fleet didn't exactly have a enviable wartime record even on those rare occasions when they came to grips with an arctic convoy. The best example being the unsuccessful attack on convoy JW-51B, the so-called Battle of the Barents Sea where a superior German surface fleet was bamboozled and chased off by a smaller British force. This embarrassing defeat led to Hitler demanding the big surface ships be scrapped and Admiral Raeder tending his resignation. It was at this point that Admiral Doenitz got the job as C-in-C of the German Navy. The defeat pointed out that were some serious deficiencies in the German navy that weren't just material.

My guess in this scenario is that the Bismarck and her sisters at some point in the war would have eventuality met their actual WW2 nemesis in the form of lots of planes. I've always been of the opinion that had she survived her first sortie and made it safely to Brest she not only would have received a hero's welcome by Hitler but also the loving attention of RAF Bomber Command while anchored there even if they had to forgo bombing German cities to do it. That's ultimately why the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau were pulled out of there. They were just slowly getting battered by aerial nuisance raids and you can't fit a battleship in a U-Boat bunker.