BOOJUM!: Swordfishtromblowns

With Apologies To Tom Waits

As you may be aware, if you've ever bothered with this blog over time, we infrequently indulge in deep dives into a particular subject matter, which of late has been 'Whisky Cask Investment Scams', thanks to my news feed bringing up sponsor details all the time. It's a fascinating field, because whisky casks are far, far more complicated than you might imagine. For one thing, the

ANYWAY now, thanks to 'Military History Visualised', we are going to concentrate on a subject matter you have no doubt been considering at the back of your mind for Lo! these many years. Art!

This big steel shark is the 'Bismark', Teuton warship of Second Unpleasantness vintage, most famous for sinking HMS 'Hood'. Doing this was a bit of a mistake, as it enraged the Royal Navy, who then set out to sink the Bismark at any cost. The Bizzy, which was intended to prey on shipping convoys, not indulge in stand-up drag-out fights, might have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for those meddling kids. Sorry! Swordfish torpedo bombers. An easy mistake to make. Art!

This is the 'Stringbag', as it was affectionately known by crews, and 'That effing obsolete beggar that blows up battleships' by the Italians, whom had cause to quail about it at Taranto. Despite looking as if it came directly from Flanders during the Battle of the Somme, the Stringy was an extremely robust bird that could soak up an awful lot of punishment and keep on going.

It was a squadron of these puppies that torpedoed the Bizzy, crippling her steering and reducing her speed to a crawl, which in turn allowed the vengeful British battleships to catch up. As MHV points out, how come none of the 15 Stringys involved were shot down? because the Bizzy did not lack for anti-aircraft guns. Art!

Naval anti-aircraft gunnery is a complex matter that I won't go into overmuch, even though this knowledge might save your life later on. The aircraft attacking a ship have to be countered by knowing their speed, altitude, direction and range, which they are not going to advertise. The heavy AA guns, as above, will have mechanical predictor gear; the lighter stuff has to be aimed using Hom. Sap's inherent eyeballs.

Nor is that all, for the ship in question is not static and will be moving itself, as this is one of the ways to make things harder for Stringys. Thus it will be subject to yaw and pitch. Then there's wind, and rain, and - Art!

Sorry, couldn't resist

MHV came up with a digest at the end of their vlog that summarised why no Stringbags got shot down, which would have made interesting reading for the Bizzy's AA gunners, if any of them survived. Art!

Great cover art but not how a torpedo bomber operates, which is at very low level, all the better to drop the torpedo. The Bizzy's heavy AA guns could not be depressed below a certain level, since they were intended to be used at elevation against targets up high in the firmament.
Then MHV detailed another explanation I'd semi-dismissed as urban legend: that the heavy AA guns couldn't range the Swordfish because of their excessively low speed. The Teuton technology simply wasn't designed to cope with anything so slow. So, not all the AA guns, but enough to make a difference. Art!

The light AA guns, despite being numerous, had limited rates of fire, which is a curious failure in equipment that should be designed to chuck as much metal as fast as possible. Art!

Lastly, there is the construction of the Swordfish itself, and there's a clue in the nickname 'Stringbag'. These were fabric-covered biplanes, so any AA shell that hit them was far more likely to pass straight through, making a couple of neat holes, than explode and cause significant damage. As mentioned above, the Stringy was a very robust aircraft.

I am now going to cheat and add in a Comment, from an interview the poster had with Stringbag pilot John Moffat, in the interests of clarity and upping the Word Count:

On the particular evening of the Bismarck attack he said there was a heavy sea running and they came in as low as 10 - 20ft above the swells which he estimated at 30ft, so they were rolling up and down following the contours of the waves. Most of the fire was above them because of their low level and at the end of their attack run, mindful of his experience when defending Ark Royal, he said he just used full rudder deflection to in effect yaw the aircraft through his exit turn rather than using his ailerons as this would have meant he would have to have gained height exposing himself to the defending fire which could not deflect low enough to hit him.

Art!

Grumpy German Still Grumpy

Conrad is battling the modern torment that is a power cut, which seems likely to persist for at least two or three hours. Feel my pain - I can type this out but not add in any pictures. Well, using your imagination is good mental exercise for you.

17 September 1944

Officer Commanding 2 Company is also in hospital. Same 'sickness' as the cattle-dealer. There are deserters from all companies now. Strong activity of enemy air force. I have not seen a single German aircraft.

Conrad's Commentary: The Teutons generally were at a very low ebb at this date, suffering from poor morale - hence the OC skiving off with an imagined illness, which doesn't seem to have fooled our cynical NCO, and the deserters. The lack of Luftwaffe wasn't anything new, it had become what the South Canadians call a 'busted flush' months earlier, and things had not improved for it since then.

This is the last entry for our grumpy Gefreiter, whom is never blessed with a name by the Canadian intelligence officer doing the translating. The options are that he was killed, hence no more entries, or captured, in which case also no more entries. Being injured wouldn't have been a get-out-of-jail option either, as the Wehrmacht was desperate for warm bodies it could put into uniform.

Something In The Water?

I've just been looking at the Word document I keep of information and snippets for use on the blog, and came across a BBC News sidebar that I'd forgotten about, from months ago. Art!

I guess we'll have to see if it uploads properly when the internet is back up. In the meantime, use your imagination!

Which Came First?

That old saw, which came first, the chicken or the egg, is mis-phrased, because the Archaeopteryx came first.

What am I on about? Well, an interesting concept from "Lawrence In Arabia", which I am currently ploughing through. Young T E Lawrrie, a slightly-built chap seemingly made of teak and steel cable, had an idea about comparative architecture. Art!

Crac de Chevaliers, Crusader housing in modern Syria

What he wanted to explore was the possible cross-learning of the Crusader kingdoms and Oriental natives, in terms of did each of them influence the other when constructing castles? He had discovered a pash for archaeology, after all, and considered bicycling around France for hundreds of miles as nothing particularly difficult.

The text, annoyingly, doesn't answer the question, so Your Humble Scribe may be doing a bit of digging himself in the near future.

Conrad - Pointing And Laughing

I am guessing that Peskov, whom as a spokesperson does a splendid toilet-brush impersonation, is going to be whining about this being 'So unfair'. Art!