As fine a design as the Bismarck was (and Tirpitz for that matter)...no ship is or ever was unsinkable.

Well many things like that have been claimed in the past and will be claimed in the future. Although there is a crowd which claim the Bismarck was scuttled. Regarding the pounding she got she would have gone down one way or another.

Actually what I would like to know what does the "ArmorLevel" do in the ZON file?

She was scuttled. She was also torpedoed. Both sides have claimed the other was wrong for the past seventy years. I've always like the words of Baron Von Mullenheim-Rechberg in the documentary I saw: "To both I say 'Yes, you sank us.'"

Exactly. I once had a 'discussion' with one of those who believed Bismarck to be 'unsinkable'. I pointed out that the ship was a burning, listing wreck which would have gone down within hours anyway. The torpedoing and scuttling were both merely attempts to prevent the wreck from being salvaged by the other side.

Oh, and I have to thank you. In looking online to get the Baron's name right, I stumbled on the book written by himself. Now I have to buy it. :sunny:

WOOHOO! $1.99 + shipping from Amazon for a collectible = $5.98 total!

I will check up on Baron Von Mullenheim-Rechberg. I think often that people like to build up a kind of nimbus about certain thing like an unsinkable Bismarck, the 88mm Flak cannon, the Tiger and Panther tanks. The stronger the enemy the better the victors.

Yeah. I had another "conversation" with a fellow American who insisted that the P-51. was absolutely the best fighter of WW2. I tried to show him that the Mustang's reputation came mainly from the fact that it was the only single-engine fighter that could fly from England to Germany and back, thus escorting bombers all the way. The latest marks of Spitfire, Bf-109 and FW-190 all had points in which they were superior. Of course he refused to give up the propaganda he had grown up with, and it was a lost cause.

Except in certain specific times, there is rarely an absolute "best" of anything.