[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by harzfeld

Well, the Royal Navy’s strategy isn’t the only one that deserves being criticized, why did Hood took lead instead putting Prince of Wales with better armor in front of Hood to absorb the shelling hits? Would this tactical have worked better? Did it have to do with references on Hood being “Mighty”?

I think it had more to do with the fact that Hood was Admiral Holland's flagship, and British tradition was that the flagship leads the line; as opposed to German doctrine from WW1 that the flagship is in the middle of the line.

Well there goes double the pride, then double the fall. Hood was more of WW1 ship, its armor was no match for Bismarck.

True. The best discussion I've ever seen on the subject is this one:
http://www.navweaps.com/index_inro/INRO_Hood_p1.htm

I remember reading somewhere that there were hundreds of shells hitting Bismarck during the chase, plus some torpedoes too, before Bismarck got scuttled. There were King George V & Rodney, plus some aircraft carriers up in Atlantic, and would it have worked better if Royal Navy had been more patience and gathered their task force up in strength before introducing themselves to Bismarck? What was the hurry to send Hood in the first place?

The hurry was that Bismarck had been sighted, and they had to send the nearest warships immediately. If the British lost her again, the next place she might turn up could be in the way of a big convoy. If possible, the nearest ships had to intercept and engage now.

Bismarck still would have to return to port at France’s coast for refueling while Royal Navy could have awaits for it. Sure Bismarck would have brought havoc to convoy, but German already had Uboats doing that and Bismarck can be easily avoid while Royal Navy was shadowing it, alerting convoy to change routes or stay at ports.

Not so. Bismarck had weeks of fuel onboard. The reason they had to head for France was that Prince of Wales put a hole in one of her fuel tanks. No battle, no hole, no run for France. The British felt that they must stop Bismarck now, or possibly never. One example of this was the Armored Cruisers, or 'Pocket Battleships'. Yes, Graf Spee had been stopped, but not until after wreaking havoc with the British merchant marine. Admiral Scheer had also done much damage, and was not intercepted.

They also had the example of the previous war: The German battlecruiser Goeben was in the Mediterranean, along with the light cruiser Breslau. The British had three battlecruisers on station, under admiral Milne. Thinking Goeben had to get out of the Med and into the Atlantic, Milne placed himself between her and the Straight of Gibraltar. When the Germans instead headed east for Turkey, Milne ordered the four armored cruisers of vice-admiral Troubridge to try to intercept. When Troubridge realized that he would probably lose all four of his ships for no gain, and Goeben would still escape unharmed, he called off his pursuit. Goeben escaped to Turkey, and the British press wanted both admirals taken out and shot. They were court-martialed, Milne for incompetence and Troubridge for cowardice. Both were found not guilty, but neither ever commanded a ship again.

A few months later, when rear-admiral Christopher Craddock was ordered into the Pacific to intercept the armored cruiser squadron of vice-admiral Graf von Spee, and realizing he was probably going to his doom, he commented "I hope I shall not suffer the fate of poor Troubridge." He didn't; the German squadron obliterated his, killing Craddock and the crews of both his armored cruisers.

This was the cloud hanging over Admiral Holland when he found his was the closest group to Bismarck. And, as I said, they thought they were probably more than a match for the Germans.

I also think German deserved being criticized for sending capital ships into sea without air and sea escorts. Bismarck could have turned back when it realized the Royal Navy had become responsive of its present before entering Atlantic, but it choose to press on. It was pretty much poor in tactical for Royal Navy on Demark Strait, the only benefit they lucky got was having Bismarck to change course heading one of France’s ports for repairing & refueling. German had poor strategy for both battles regardless and why did German sent Bismarck in first place if they were surprised of their victory at Demark Strait?

The problem there is that Germany really didn't have the air and sea escorts to protect their big ships at sea. They knew they couldn't fight the British ship for ship. The only option they could see was to send them out as fast surface raiders and hope to do as much damage possible before they were cornered. If they waited until they had the ships to make a proper battle group they never would have sailed at all. Look at what happened to Tirpitz.