Contrary to most of the other comments I've read, I thought your documentary was very entertaining. Lots of film footage i have not seen before and of good quality. Well narrated as well. Personally, i watch these documentaries to be entertained more than educated. In that regard I say mission accomplished. Thanks for the effort. 👍👍🇺🇸

You said that during the invasion of Norway that the cruiser Hipper rammed a British destroyer and sunk it but this is incorrect in fact it was the destroyer HMS Glowworm that rammed the Hipper because she had fired her torpedoes and her main guns were little better than popguns against a ship of the Hippers size and so the captain decided to ram hoping to inflict as much damage as possible.

The naval inquiry revealed Hood crew were ordered to leave blast doors open for shell/charge elevators, to increase rate of fire. Thus the sudden loss when the powder magazines went off. Bad gamble. Bismark was up to most straight up fights. Bismark's fatal flaw, the powerful AA systems were not designed to effectively target the slow, low flying Swordfish. Despite all her 'modern' martial art, Bismark fell to WW I technology. A true David vs Goliath tale.

@michaelmcnally2331

Жыл бұрын

Shows that some people never learn. That was also found to be the cause of British ships “having something wrong with them today” at Jutland where crews had either left open, or in some cases had removed the doors altogether along with storing dangerous levels of charges etc around the turrets. And then some 20 odd years later still doing the same thing.

All WAR IS HELL 😢

Hood was sunk by a shell from Bismarck, not Prince Eugene. As memtioned below Hood was well past her best and arguably the Nelson class ships with their nine 16 inch guns made them the most powerful in the RN.

@theodorrodriguez1800

Жыл бұрын

yes if my memory serves me correctly it took 8 minutes and direct hit to the magazine

@mikearmstrong8483

Жыл бұрын

Several of the Bismark's 15" shells that did hit the British ships either partially or completely failed to detonate. The 8" shells fired by the Prinz Eugen were known to be effective at starting fires, and it is known at least one hit in the area containing AA ammo stored outside the citadel, which could have started a fire that spread to the aft magazines. The assumption that it had to be the Bismark that sank the Hood is a just a popular unproven conception.

@TTTT-oc4eb

Жыл бұрын

@@mikearmstrong8483 It was Bismarck that sunk Hood. The explotion happened right after one or two hits from Bismarck. PE had already shifted its fire to POW when it happened. "The 8" shells fired by the Prinz Eugen were known to be effective at starting fires" How? They were standard HE shells.

@mikearmstrong8483

Жыл бұрын

@@TTTT-oc4eb Yes. They were standard HE shells that actually exploded. Whereas Bismark's shells had such poor detonators that they usually didn't explode. Shells that explode cause fires, shells that don't explode do not.

@mikearmstrong8483

Жыл бұрын

@@TTTT-oc4eb Also, not all HE is the same. I haven't looked up if the fillers were different on German 8" and 15" shells of that period, but some is definitely better than others at starting fires, and the German 8" naval shell is recorded for that. I get my info from sources that have consulted naval archives, not from things like wikipedia or video games, so I tend to rely on their accuracy.

No navy reports speeds in kilometers per hour.

Sorry War TV but this "documentary" has more holes in it than swiss cheese!

@jackwebster8720

Жыл бұрын

In naval terms: she does not hold water.

Very Poor Account of the Tirpitz sinking !

How do you spell “Turpitz?” Isn’t it a valid theory that a disaffected German soldier purposely didn’t report the impending attack in a timely manner?

People need to keep in mind this series was made in the 60s or 70s. We know a lot of what they thought back then wasnt true or was exagerated. Russians didnt open their archives til the 90s. So you cant judge these on what we know in 2023. There are errors-but its a pretty good series for what they knew back then...& what they didnt. Weve learned much bout WW2 since.

I am the Hood was no match for the Bismark. Both sides new the Hoods deck plating was not up to the task. This was a huge miss match. No mention that the Prince of Wales had hit the Bismarks oil tank and for this reason she had to abort the mission and head for France From the moment of the first battle the Bismarks days were numbered.

@jackwebster8720

Жыл бұрын

A lone wolf, being hunted by the entire Royal Navy...

@mikearmstrong8483

Жыл бұрын

No capital ship had deck armor that could withstand plunging fire of heavy shells, so this was not a failing of the Hood. Armor of the time was designed to provide a wide immunity zone. At a range closer than the zone, shells had enough velocity and a flat enough trajectory to penetrate belt armor. At a range farther than the zone, velocity had fallen off enough for shells to plunge down at a sufficiently steep angle to not ricochet off the deck. The tactical principle was to maneuver to place your ship within your immunity zone from the opponent's fire, although against an opposing capital ship with similar main armament, this usually meant that the enemy was within his own immunity zone. It is still not known for certain that the Bismark sank the Hood, as several of the 15" shells that did hit the British ships either partially or completely failed to detonate. Whereas the 8" shells of the type fired by Prinz Eugen were known to be good at starting fires, and it is recorded that at least one of these hit in an area containing a lot of AA ammo that was stored outside of the citadel, and the fire could have spread to the aft magazines.

12 minutes and we are onto the subject matter.

The Lusitania was carrying munitions, in contrivention of international law, possibly the reason for the second explosion that actually doomed the ship, and the German government had warned passengers about travelling on her. That actually made her a legitimate target. Of course that fact was never mentioned!

@SammyNeedsAnAlibi

Жыл бұрын

You noticed that, too? Yeah, there are several areas that this documentary needs to re-do or just take it down. Like the Hood was sunk by Bismark not Prinz Eugène is another glaring error.

@mikearmstrong8483

Жыл бұрын

Just saying that it was carry munitions really means nothing. The Lusitania was carrying small arms ammo and artillery fuses, neither of which would cause a secondary explosion sufficient to do much damage to the ship. The second explosion was most likely a boiler.

@mikearmstrong8483

Жыл бұрын

​@@SammyNeedsAnAlibi Several of the Bismark's 15" shells that did hit the British ships either partially or completely failed to detonate. The 8" shells fired by the Prinz Eugen were known to be effective at starting fires, and it is known at least one hit in the area containing AA ammo stored outside the citadel, which could have started a fire that spread to the aft magazines. The assumption that it had to be the Bismark that sank the Hood is a just a popular unproven conception.

@dentonstales2778

Жыл бұрын

@@mikearmstrong8483 No, carrying munitions means everything, it made her a legitimate target, and Cunard had been warned. The secondary explosion was probably a boiler, or else something else had been loaded aboard unknown to the captain. You are correct, small arms ammo does not explode like that, it goes off a few at a time if there's a fire.

@mikearmstrong8483

Жыл бұрын

@@dentonstales2778 I could have worded that better. Legally it was significant, but in terms of directly contributing to the ship sinking (secondaries) it was not.

Docu's like this are nice and I enjoy them but due to time constraints much information is left out or abbreviated to save time.--Why have a Navy if you're not going to use it?, those Kaiser's Battleships sure could have been used as a night time channel Raiders giving the shore far inland a few Big Boomers & back to dock.

Total waste of time. Just fluff and video footage with no significant content!

@EllieMaes-Grandad

Жыл бұрын

Reference to Graf Spee failed to mention the rescue of sailors from Altmark by HMS Cossack.

@andrewreilly1018

11 ай бұрын

yes some nice footage, mostly not of the Kreigsmarine, narration needs to have better research as the Scharnhorst class had quite good armour but sacrificed gun calibre. One of the three (yes, 3) royal commisions did find the damage leading to loss of the Hood was in fact caused by the 8" hits from the PE in a UP ready mag or torpedo mag igniting a fire that propagated to the X mag

A film about the navy but showing air force things?

good for us: bottom line, Raeder and his boyz built Hitler the wrong navy, way smaller ww-1 navy. Hitler just needed many pocket battleships, S-boats, u-boats instead what Hitler had in 1939....

@mikearmstrong8483

Жыл бұрын

Except that "Raeder and his boys" did not build the Kriegsmarine. That was done by civilian firms complying with the furher's orders as to what he wanted the fleet to be.

The German surface fleet: the second worst (the Soviet fleet was even worse) and the most overrated (by a massive margin) out of all the major naval powers in WWII.

@TTTT-oc4eb

Жыл бұрын

German surface units did far more than the French and Italian ones. Gneisenau and Scharnhorst between them sank more ships than all other battleships/battlecruisers combined - in both world wars. Bismarck was the only battleship to fight off a 2:1 superiority, and one of only three BB/BC to singlehandily sink another capital ship - and she also sunk the heaviest ship by any battleship. Tirpitz, by just existing, caused the scattering and near destruction of Convoy PQ17, which carried cargo worth 700 million dollars - ten times the cost of building Tirpitz. And forced the RN to keep at least two modern battleships ready. In their own backyard, the rough waters of the North Atlantic, Bismarck and Tirpitz were the best balanced battleships of the war. Only post war Vanguard came close.

@jimedwards6945

Жыл бұрын

You overlooked France and Italy’s fleets, one scuttled in port, the other destroyed in port.

@bkjeong4302

Жыл бұрын

@@jimedwards6945 The Regia Marina played a FAR larger role in WWII than often given credit for and had a number of engagements with the Royal Navy, some of which they even won (keep in mind that the Taranto raid only got some of the battleships: the actually important surface warships of WWII were not battleships but cruisers and destroyers, and Italy still had plenty of those left after Taranto). The French fleet was pretty damn ineffective, but so were the Germans, and the French by WWII had better-designed ships.

@TTTT-oc4eb

Жыл бұрын

@@bkjeong4302 You don't have a clue what you're talking about.

@mikearmstrong8483

Жыл бұрын

1) Scharnhorst and Gneisenau sinking more merchant ships than any other capital ships is completely irrelevant, because that is not what capital ships are built for; that is a waste of money and resources. And it was a very miniscule number compared to merchant shipping sunk by submarines, aircraft, and armed merchant raiders. 2) So what if the Bismark fought an engagement at 2:1 odds? It still never returned home. And it was not the only ship to do so. At Mers El Kebir the French battleship Strasbourg managed to get up steam, leave harbor from a standing start, and fight her way clear of 3 British battleships.

German surface ships vastly overated as with much of German armour on land.

@bkjeong4302

Жыл бұрын

Frankly, they are more overrated.