Secrets of the Bismark

Once built, the best role for Germany's heavy surface units was:
A Fleet In Being.

As long as one has assets to threaten his/her/their enemy,
that enemy is forced to tie up a larger number of resources in defense.

Sometimes the threat of action is stronger than action itself.

[Freiwillige]

4 turrets with one gun added = 4 guns. That's how I was looking at it anyways.

On researching the the battle I found it amusing that once the Hood opened fire lutjens refused to return fire all the while English shells were landing perilously close. Capt. Lindemann finally fed up with lutjens failing to respond gave the order to return fire with this quote "I'm not just gonna sit here and wait for my ship to get shot out from under my ass!"

Lutjens had orders not to engage any capitol ships, but to sail blindly along while shells are landing all around you seems a bit unreal.

Lutjens also vetoed Lindemann's request to pursue and finish the Prince of Whales much to Lindemann's aggravation.

Another interesting fact is that Norway was allot closer than Brest France.
Why the Bismark chose France is beyond belief as the road back to Norway was open.

[Freiwillige]

Criticism of the Bismark



Preston claimed that the design was an enlarged reworking of the World War I Bayern class battleships and retained old-fashioned features particularly in respect of the Armour layout, regarded as outdated by the Royal Navy and United States Navy. Authors like Jack Brower or William H. Garzke and Robert O. Dulin have claimed this is not true in their books The Battleship Bismarck and Battleships: Axis and Neutral Battleships in World War II: "This...resulted in some speculation that the Bismarck-class battleships were mere copies of these older ships. This is false; the new ships had to be faster and have more protection, range and firepower; and the percentages allocated to Armour protection, firepower and propulsion were not the same as Bayern. The triple-shaft arrangement and the distribution and caliber of the main armament were the only major similarities."
The low location of the main Armour deck, in the same position as that in WWI ships, left the two decks above the Armour deck exposed to plunging fire and bombs, which the British and Americans reduced by positioning the main Armour decks one deck higher. The Bismarck class battleships were designed to fight in the North Sea and the North Atlantic. In these waters poor visibility, especially during the winter, meant relatively short ranges of engagement, typically 10-15,000 m, were expected; the emphasis was, therefore, on close-range protection. The dual armored decks were chosen by the Kriegsmarine to guarantee that shells and bombs burst upon contact with the upper armored deck, rather than penetrating deeper into the ship's vitals.
Some communication systems, including her main damage-control center and fire-control rooms, were beneath the main armored deck and the cables from bridge and rangefinders were routed through the three armored shafts between these stations and the rooms beneath the main armored deck.
The provision of both a secondary armament of twelve 5.9-inch (150 mm) guns and the inclusion of a separate battery of sixteen 4.1-inch (100 mm) high-angle (anti-aircraft) guns was also criticized on the grounds that fitting two types of weapons required more deck space than the dual-purpose secondary armaments of Allied ships. These weapons enabled both air and surface targets to be engaged, thereby saving on weight used elsewhere in their designs, eliminating the need to carry two sizes of secondary ammunition and facilitating simplified fire-control. The use of dual-purpose armament might possibly have increased the number of anti-aircraft guns but might have weakened the ship's defense against destroyer attacks, which German naval experts deemed more important.The sixteen 4.1-inch (100 mm) AA guns gave good performance early in the war, but against newer and better aircraft types it became necessary to convert the 5.9-inch (150 mm) guns for dual-purpose use against both surface and aerial threats.

[Danelov]

This point mencioned by Cohaagen that was really so; a great number of capital ships and others german ships have loss the stern in combat.Prinz Eugen by submarine torpedo, Deutschland by submarine torpedo, Bismarck(also his hull in the bottom of sea is complet minus stern)Graf Spee(the same complet hull without stern in the bottom of the River Plate).
About the Battle of Denmark Strait and the defeat of the force of Adm Holland must consider also: Prince of Wales was no really 100 % combat ready, there was multiple problems in the artillery and there was also civil specialized personnel working still in the ship this day. The combat dispositive utilised by Holland was far of be ideal and his priority was to put Hood the more near possible of the Lutjens force to evite high incoming artillery rounds. That mean heading direct to the Germans with only half of his main artillery in conditions of use.Sun was also in advantage for Lutjens.
That was a victory for Lutjens , but also must consider, this three hits of 356mm in Bismarck had aborted the complet Rheinübung operation.The worst was in the fuel bunkers and had decided Lutjens to take heading to Brest and the separation of Prinz Eugen.

[Pacific_Ace]

"Why the Bismark chose France is beyond belief as the road back to Norway was open."
This is not hard to understand at all. They wanted BIsmark out in the open oceans doing commerce (convoys) raiding and thats really hard to do from Norway. Their entire strategy from U-boats to Bismark was to strangle England.
Although it happened almost a year later, if you examine the PQ-17 disaster, you see how terrified the Admiralty was of having German Battleships and/or Battle cruisers roaming the open ocean in search of convoys.

Had Bismark made it into the North Atlantic in battle worthy condition the consequences would have been immense and cannot be underestimated. This was 7 months before Pearl Harbor, UK could conceivably have been forced to end the war.

Had Bismark made it into the North Atlantic in battle worthy condition the consequences would have been immense and cannot be underestimated. This was 7 months before Pearl Harbor, UK could conceivably have been forced to end the war.

This is one of the great fictions of the Bismarck mythology, cruiser warfare by regular surface warships could never be decisive so any battle squadron sortie into the North Atlantic could never 'win the war' unless Britain just decided to up and quit.

The KM's ability to refuel at sea was vestigal, although better than the RN at least as far as big ships was concerned. Therefore all sorties were supported from ports where submarines, mines and aircraft could concentrate when the raiders returned to refuel. What tankers support there was staged several days steaming from the convoy routes and with ULTRA support killing them was relatively easy.

The probable fate of the surface raider was always that of Emden or Graf Spee (both the Admiral in 1914 and the ship in 1939). Some success might be expected and exploited for propaganda but they could never loiter in the sea lanes, so any stoppage of convoys would be at best temporary. Even the successful sorties of Admiral Scheer and the Scharnhorst twins failed to disrupt convoy traffic for more than a few days.

The German surface raider experiance in WW1 and to May 1941 should have taught them this but instead wishful thinking drove poor planning which created a raider doctrine that could only end in defeat and that defeat came when the war was still less than 2-years on.

Submarines on the other hand, could potentially be decisive because they could hide on the shipping lanes and remain on station for weeks, something no surface warship could ever do successfully.

Far from being nearly crippled Prince of Wales had her fighting power intact (her damage was largely confined to her hanger and bridge) and the defects on all but one of her heavy guns was repaired before she was ordered home - due to a lack of fuel. Hood was lost fighting a tactically mismanaged but doctrinally sound sea control battle whereas Bismarck was destroyed chasing the fantasy of decisive cruiser warfare.

Bismarck (and Tirpitz) would have served the Nazi's far better had she been melted down and turned into U-Boats.

Concerning the intact POW
After the hunt, POW was drydocked again for finishing works. The dockworkers were quite astonished to find a hole below the waterline and after tracing it, they found a 38 cm dud sitting in a quite crucial sport below turret B. Had it gone boom POW would have also gone boom.

Concerning the faulty aft portion
Lützow and Prinz Eugen got their tails shoot of by torps. The german engineers had overlooked the fact that the keel didn't stretch so far, so it was a strukturly weak spot for almost all german fighting ships. Bismarks tail also broke of during sinking, as the layout of wreckage on the seabed explains.
Scharnhorst got hit a bit foreward, which flooded parts of her engine compartment, the wreck has still gotten his tail (but not the bow - other story).

Concerning self-sinking
Evidence is not conclusive. During Camerons media-expedition it was shown that large parts of the outer hull had been broken of by the impact on the seabed. This allowed an inspection of the torpedo-bulkhead which looked intact. But some parts of the Bismarks are sitting almost to the waterline in the seabed, so until the ship isn't excavacated and raised there might still be some holes of deep running torpedos buried. For the sake of the argument lets say, the Bismark wouldn't have sunk without the British but the Germans have lend a helping hand in sinking this ship.

Guns layout
The german admirality wanted an equal firing cover at 360°. Thats why 4 turrets were installed. For the medium calibers, the Germans didn't have an all-purpose-gun like the Americans with their 5". So different calibers were installed with different goals. Why different bores were installed for the 10,5 cm flak beats me.

Tactical situation
Raeder was an admiral of the old guard. For him battles were fought above the sealevel, not bellow. In the 1930's he had Hitlers ear and Hitler liked big ships (after the war scetches with his initials were found, which showed ships with 60 cm guns). Would the German navy have accepeted her status as cruiser navy and neglected building big ships in favour for subs, the war might have gone otherwise.

[Brag]

Ha! This turned into a good and informative debate--Well done, chaps.