[akdavis]

Originally Posted by d5j55

well some of that stuff i do aggree with but some i don't, mainly because i just spent an hour a day for about 70 days writing an essay on the bismarck and the commparison from "him" to the other capital ships. the armmament was most definantly not the biggest but it was one of the fastest. also the tirpitz had many more AA guns almost as much as the other ships, and the bismarck used KC n/a which was an offly good steel even better than most other types. sorry for the bold i couldn't get it off.

I think the article they reference for the armor comparison is the product of far more than 70 hours of research:

http://www.combinedfleet.com/okun_biz.htm

Bismark/Tirpitz did have an incredible secondary battery, on par with Iowa/South Dakota and Yamato for anti-ship fire, but its usefulness against aircraft was far less than US ships secondary batteries (but perhaps equal or greater than any other contemporary, fire control aside). I simply quote the authors here: "Iowa and SoDak have by far the best heavy AA suite of the seven. The 5"/38, coupled with the Mark 37 fire-control system, was the best heavy AA system of the war. Period."

On the light AA armament, I think their ranking of Bismark/Tirpitz (and note they used the late-war Tirpitz light AA complement in the comparison, not the much lighter early war complement) below Iowa, South Dakota King George V is indisputable. Not even considering superior, rate of fire, fire-control and proximity fuses, the US/British ships exceed Bismark/Tirpitz in throw weight/minute to a very significant degree. Iowa = 31,392 lbs./min.; Tirpitz = 6,713 lbs.

Combining the secondary battery and light AA leads to the following rates: Iowa = 48,992 lbs./min.; King George V = 35,593 lbs./min.; and Tirpitz = 20,677 lbs./min.

Then factor in the increasing use of fire control radar and proximity fusing on all the AA guns on the US/British ships and the comparison is a foregone conclusion.