Calling all Bismarck and Tirpitz fans

[LordAnkarin]

After hours of searching books, photos and forums, I am nearly ready to begin my 1/350 Tamiya Bismarck as it would have looked starting Operation Rhein�bung. I only have two lingering questions to which I can not find answers:

1) Did Bismarck have her outboard ladders out after setting sail? Ya know those ladders hanging off the hull, going down to the waterline. I'm 95% sure they would have been pulled up and stowed.

2) Where was the Kreigsmarine flag flying on Bismarck? Her foremast was removed, and I do not see her stern mast in any of the pictures.

Also, what color paint would be best to represent the red banners around the swastikas? Accuracy wise that is.

[Channell]

After hours of searching books, photos and forums, I am nearly ready to begin my 1/350 Tamiya Bismarck as it would have looked starting Operation Rhein�bung. I only have two lingering questions to which I can not find answers:

1) Did Bismarck have her outboard ladders out after setting sail? Ya know those ladders hanging off the hull, going down to the waterline. I'm 95% sure they would have been pulled up and stowed.

2) Where was the Kreigsmarine flag flying on Bismarck? Her foremast was removed, and I do not see her stern mast in any of the pictures.

Also, what color paint would be best to represent the red banners around the swastikas? Accuracy wise that is.

The ladders were been pulled up and stowed along the superstructure before going out to sea. They were stowed on deck along the bulkheads just behind the aft-most secondary gun turrets.

Not sure if you've seen this but it's one of the best Operation Rhineburg Bismarck models I've come across online; Copying Peter isn't a bad plan... even for the flags as it's a VERY well researched scratchbuilt model!

http://www.bismarck-class.dk/shipmodels ... sheim.html

[LordAnkarin]

I thought they were. Thanks for the help.

I've been using that, and a few other builds as referance. I'm attempting to do mine at the very beginning of Rhineubung, before it was repainted in Norway. Though I have a feeling I might change that the first time I get frustrated while attempting that camo.

[Timmy C]

The new Revell Bismarck/Tirpitz kits have turrets that are shaped significantly differently from other kits on the market - in particular, the slopes are gentler, resulting in a smaller area for the horizontal top. Is this accurate?

[Olaf Held]

If you refer to the 350 kits, somewhere tucked away I have comparison photos (Revell/Tamiya/Academy/actual ship) in which you can see that Revell is much closer to the actual shape. Only those silly protrusions on the front plate of the turrets should be dealt with...

Happy modelling ~ Olaf!

[Timmy C]

Thanks Olaf! The 350th is what I remember most, but I had assumed the 1/700 would be similar since they're just scaled down from the 350th - at least, in Revell's case.

[Rob Wood]

Thought I'd share a bit about the mechanics of deploying a scout plane on either Bismarck or Tirpitz, in regard to a previous post. These aircraft were not stored on the catapult, but rather in one of three hangars: either in one of of the small hangars adjacent to each side of the stack, or in the main hangar immediately aft of the stack. Their wings were folded to minimize the storage space required.

The catapult itself was also stowed when not in use. Cover plates that were flush with the deck protected the catapult in the stowed position, and the ends of the catapult were withdrawn into the tunnel below the deck surface.

To deploy one of the aircraft, the cover plates over the catapult were opened, and the two extensions were pulled out, port and starboard. The hangar door was opened (as was a second smaller door in the peak of the rafters in the case of deploying from a small hangar), and the aircraft wheeled out in a storage cradle that also served as the launch cradle. The cradle ran on a set of tracks that joined the tracks of the catapult itself - much as a train siding meets the main line. The aircraft was wheeled out, the cradle set and locked into the catapult launch mechanism, and its wings unfolded and locked into place. The clamps holding the fuselage to the cradle were unfastened, and the engine prepared for takeoff.

What I've never seen is a model of either Bismarck or Tirpitz that showed an aircraft in mid-deployment - something I'm working on for my own 1:144 Bismarck. The following photos of Arado deployment on Tirpitz are copyrighted, and not to be re-posted or published by anyone without permission.

Photo 1: Aircraft stored in starboard side hangar


Photo 2: Aircraft being wheeled out of hangar on tracks set into the deck. Note the 2 hangar doors, large and small


Photo 3: Aircraft being pulled on hangar track to main track


Photo 4: Aircraft with wings unfolded, preparing for deployment


Hope this helps.

Rob

[Charlestonguy]

Rob
What about the main hangar? I see the tracks for the two next to the stack but nothing for the large main hangar. Any idea what they did there?

[RNfanDan]

Excellent images there, Rob!

I appreciate you having taken time to share them.

And thank you as well, for spelling "hangar" correctly!

[Charlestonguy]

Better now Dan

[Yancey101]

Rob, thanks for the photos of the Arados storage. That explains so much, very similar to the Japanese method of moving their aircraft. Also, what is your source? If anyone else has info on my questions from above I would greatly appreciate any help.

Hey Chalestonguy, got your message on the side. I was unable to reply because as far as I can tell I haven't logged enough hours here and am not allowed to use that feature. And yes that was me at the R12 show with the 1/200 USS AZ. I will attempt to contact you through the Charleston IPMS club and thanks for the advice.

Dan thank you as well for pointing out my spelling hangar as hanger. Normally I would care less but having come from the real aviation community and working and flying on real 1/1 scale aircraft this was particularly embarrassing. So again thank you for the correction. I guess its like hearing someone pronounce pitot as pee-tot?

[Timmy C]

Yancey - you should be able to use the PM system now. The threshold is three posts, which you now have.

[Antonio Bonomi]

hello everybody,

Bismarck and Tirpitz had 2 different way to deploy the Arado 196 from the hangar's to the launching cart on the catapult ( startwagen) .

Tirpitz was a lot improved and had a rail system made and a moving cart ( pullungswagen) as the photos Rob posted above show.

We covered this on the marinearchiv.de and Kbismarck.com forums with the associated drawings.

http://www.kbismarck.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5589

Bye Antonio

[RNfanDan]

Better now Dan

Just one of my little nerve ticks! Here are some others:

*Denmark Straight (Strait)
*Going to fast (too)
*Prince of Whales (Wales)
*Bismark (needs a "c")
*Smokestack (funnel)
*Chocks:
1) bollards
2) cradles
3) fairleads
4) gunwales
5) Tracy White's chair

[Charlestonguy]

Thanks Antonio for the link.

[just some dude]

In response to a comment made in the link that Antonio posted, does anybody know for certain if the different arrangement of the cranes and 4.1" guns on Tirpitz was in fact a direct result of knowledge gained during Bismarck's trials, or was that different arrangement already planned? Is there any reference source/picture/whatever that proves this one way or the other? Thanks!

[Rob Wood]

Sorry, everyone, but I lost track of this thread. (Life got in the way.) Here is more info on Bismarck and Tirpitz Arado handling procedures and structures.

In answer to the question of where the copyrighted photos of Arado deployment on Tirpitz came from: The came from a scrapbook owned by an Arado mechanic who served on Tirpitz. The scrapbook was purchased and scanned, and a DVD of all of the photos is available on eBay.

After reading some of the replies here, I went back and studied all of my photos of both ships, plus Gally's drawings, and confirmed that the tracks leading out of the hangars and onto the catapult only existed on Tirpitz. Although there are really very few photos of Bismarck in existence, and almost all of them taken during construction, I think I know what the difference was in aircraft handling on the two ships. Both involved a great deal of brute force, as you can see in the copyrighted Tirpitz photos I supplied. The difference was that the tracks on Tirpitz provided a much more stable and, I'm sure, smoother deployment, requiring fewer men and less work. On Bismarck, the aircraft would have been wheeled to and from the hangars by rolling the carriage across the deck, but the end result would have been the same.

Now, as many of you know, Hans Gally is one of the foremost draftsmen of Bismarck and Tirpitz. If you look at his Bismarck (January 1941) catapult/hangar detail drawing, you will see that there are no tracks shown leading from any of the 3 hangars to the catapult. Three photos that I have in my collection confirm that this is accurate:









Gally's Tirpitz drawing (July, 1942 - November, 1943) shows the tracks installed. I'm only guessing here, but I assume that lessons were learned from Bismarck's difficulties in handling the aircraft, and that the tracks were either added during construction, or after. It's difficult to say, because as you can see, the tracks are mounted on top of the decking, and not inset:







Hope this helps to shed some light on this subject.

Rob

[Charlestonguy]

Thanks Rob, great information!
I still can't see how they could move the aircraft around inside of Bismarcks main hangar. With the mast going all the way down inside and what looks like only one side had a door, making that swing around the mast would have been a real pain
unless both sides opened up like Tirpitz.

[just some dude]

I still can't see how they could move the aircraft around inside of Bismarcks main hangar. With the mast going all the way down inside and what looks like only one side had a door, making that swing around the mast would have been a real pain
unless both sides opened up like Tirpitz.

Both sides had doors. The door on the port side was outside of the hangar, and was very visible because all of its bracing was outside of the hangar. The door on the starboard side was inside the hangar, and was barely visible because it was flush on the outside (and presumably had all of its bracing on the inside of the hangar). Each of these doors slid toward the other side to open, such that when one door was open, it blocked the opening for the other door. As far as I know, these doors functioned in the same way for both the Bismarck and the Tirpitz (although given how many other detail differences there are between these two ships, these doors might not have actually been identical).

[Rob Wood]

I think Just Some Dude is correct. The aircraft weren't moved around inside the main hangar - only rolled in and out (one on each side). I have no documentation as to how the inside of the starboard side door was constructed, except logic would dictate that the framework was similar to the port side door, only reversed.

As to the question of differences between Bismarck and Tirpitz main hangars: I don't have any photos of the Tirpitz main hangar - only of the hangars on each side of the stack. Those look the same as Bismarck's, from what I can tell. What is really difficult to pin down is the difference between the original design for Tirpitz, the original as fitted out before commissioning, and what might have been modified during the course of the war. Tirpitz suffered a great deal of damage over the years, and underwent numerous repairs.

What I did find is the Gally Bismarck hangar elevation, and the Gally Tirpitz hangar elevation, and they aren't the same at all. I don't know what to make of it, but here they are: