The Wreck of DKM Bismarck − A Marine Forensics Analysis 1 The ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

The Wreck of DKM Bismarck − A Marine Forensics Analysis The battered superstructure on the port side forward, one deck level down from the conning tower level. Seaman Theo Klaes just avoided death, as a 406-mm shell tore its way through this bulkhead, detonating inside and killing all the personnel there just before he entered. [6072ADL6073C2] The remains of the port aircraft-boat crane lies in the debris field, adjacent to the slide scar. A shell hit carried away the sheaves, hook, and cable. To the right, a close-up view of the detached, crushed fore command tower, discovered lying upside down alongside the slide scar. This structure came down on the side of the seamount down-slope from where the main hull landed. HYDRAULIC OUTBURST From above the main hull looks in excellent condition. More than a decade earlier, after Dr. Ballard examined his photography from his down-looking Argo sled, he pronounced the ship remarkably intact. This erroneous initial insight was shattered during Jim Cameron’s 2002 40
The Wreck of DKM Bismarck − A Marine Forensics Analysis expedition, following a close examination of the hull at and below the sediment line. A number of long sections of hull (some upwards of 100' long) are completely missing or are flayed outward on the bottom, severed cleanly at the bottom edge of the main armor belt. This damage appears to be from a hydraulic "outburst" effect that was caused by ship’s impact with the seamount, which created internal loading on the hull as the incompressible water inside the ship was "squeezed" between the ship's bottom, which had stopped moving upon contact with the dense sediments, and the great weight of the upper decks/superstructure concentrated and supported by the relatively rigid deck armor system, which were still traveling downwards at This is part of the hull of Bismarck−”large section of lower hull” as depicted on the sketch on page 44 − found a few meters south of the boundary of the impact trough. It appears that torpedo damage helped to weaken the bottom structure. This massive structural failure was caused by hydraulic outburst resulting from massive compressive forces caused by the severe impact with the sea bed. This piece of hull is almost bent 90 degrees from the compression caused from that impact. a speed of approximately 20 knots. This down-force would have been the combined kinetic energy of the steel structure, the water contained within the structure, and the water in a volume of entrained flow above the ship. This enormous mass came down like a hydraulic press on the structures below the armor deck, all of which are buckled and compressed. The Panzerdeck or Armor Deck of Bismarck was designed with relatively few penetrations, just a few relatively small armored hatches for crew access and the boiler uptakes. This Armor Deck acted as a sealed barrier of great strength over most of the area of the ship, forcing the water beneath it to virtually explode laterally out of the hull when compressed vertically. The hull failed at join between the lower hull and the bottom of the main armor belt, due to the discontinuity in strength and rigidity between the armor and the relatively thin shell plating immediately below it. The shell plate separated in a perfectly straight line, leaving gaping openings in the lower hull, some of them 30 meters long. 41
Page 1 and 2: The Wreck of DKM Bismarck − A Mar
Page 39: The Wreck of DKM Bismarck − A Mar

The Wreck of DKM Bismarck − A Marine Forensics Analysis 1 The ...

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?