Sink the Bismarck!

[Dinner]

Johnny Horton had a great song about one of the world's great naval battles.

[Dr Strangelove]

The song isn't terribly accurate. The Bismark was neither the biggest nor the most heavily gunned battleship in existence at the time. The Hull was nothing more than an uparmored battlecruiser. While she may have looked OK in stats her heavy armor was poorly arranged because it was added on after her keel had been laid. The decisive blow to the Bismark didn't come from British battleships, it came from a torpedo launched from a torpedo bomber which left the Bismark cruising in circles. When the British fleet caught up to her she couldn't fight back because she couldn't maintain a straight course long rnough to aim and fire her guns.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
The Hull was nothing more than an uparmored battlecruiser.

Hood, you mean?

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
When the British fleet caught up to her she couldn't fight back because she couldn't maintain a straight course long rnough to aim and fire her guns.

No offense, but that is BS - unless the rudder make random changes you can easily hit any target even when not going on a straight course.

Bismarcks main problem was that it couldn't get away from it's attackers.

Edit: btw, I thought that the defeat of Bismarck was a naval battle

Johnny Horton had a great song about one of the world's great navel battles.

[Dinner]

Yes but there was lots of navel gazing.

[Asher]

You thunk my battoeship.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
The song isn't terribly accurate. The Bismark was neither the biggest nor the most heavily gunned battleship in existence at the time.

Biggest in service when being sunk IIRC (may 41) since the bigger BBs (Yamatos, Iowas) were only finished later....

[One_more_turn]

The Bismarck is in surprisingly good shape despite spending almost 70 years in 5000 meters depth.

The same could not be said about Yamato who looked a lot worse than Titanic despite lying only below 100 meters of shallow water.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by One_more_turn
The Bismarck is in surprisingly good shape despite spending almost 70 years in 5000 meters depth.

The same could not be said about Yamato who looked a lot worse than Titanic despite lying only below 100 meters of shallow water.

Not surprising at all - there's a lot less oxygen at 5000 m than at 100.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by BlackCat


No offense, but that is BS - unless the rudder make random changes you can easily hit any target even when not going on a straight course.

Bismarcks main problem was that it couldn't get away from it's attackers.

Edit: btw, I thought that the defeat of Bismarck was a naval battle

The hit from the areo-torpedo jammed the rudder to the left, and so the Bismarck could only stream in circles.

HMS King George V and another British battleship repeated hit the Bismarck with their big guns. Once the Bismarch was helpless, destroyers launced the coup de grace with their own torpedoes.

Great song, but lousy historical accuracy.

[chequita guevara]

And still, Bismarck only sank when the Germans scuttled him. And, the vast majority of his crew survived going to go into the water. It's only because the Brits left them to drown that only about one tenth lived. The official claim is that an unknown periscope was sighted so it was unsafe to continue rescuing survivors, but there was also a lot of resentment for sinking Hood. That was one tough ship.

I have a 1/350 scale replica waiting in my closet to be built, once I think I'm good enough.

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by Comrade Snuggles
That was one tough ship.

All Germany surface ships were exceedingly tough, thanks to the legacy of Alfred "The principal mission of a ship is to remain afloat" Tirpitz.

[Berzerker]

I like the movie, they should do a modern version

[Lefty Scaevola]

Originally posted by Lonestar
All Germany surface ships were exceedingly tough,

Tough, but inefficient and overweight. The armor distribution was a refined WW1 scheme rather than a modern all or nothing scheme, and it had separate secondary batteries 150mm and 105mm, for antisurface and anti aircraft rather than dual purpose, both contributing to the great displacement and a lower ratio of capability to weight.
The Hood, for all its ww1 design, was the perfect ship to fight the Bismark under most common weather condition in the north Atlantic, including the visibility actually encountered at the Bismark Strait. but, RN naval doctrine sent in to medium close (10,000 to 14,000 yards) range in tandem with the Prince of Wales rather than leaving it spit to long range (20,000 to 24,000 yards) where it could drop its medium velocity high mass shells with a good % striking horizontal (deck, top) armors on the Bismark, which they would crash right through, while the Bismark's flat trajectory very high velocity light shell 15" were bouncing off its sides. But but Brit battlewagons followed a doctrine where they close to medium short range where everybody was bouncing off belts and they would beat the Bismark to death with 2 x1 fire. Theorectically that should have still worked, but the Hood got caught by a fluke, The Brits charge down the selected range at high speed and then turned hard to open broadsides. The combination of heel from the turn and the roll from the swell being coincidentally toward the enemy had the Hood helling over 30* toward the Bismark when Hood was struck by 2 hits out of a 15" half salvo from the Bismark STRIKING ITS DECK ARMOR, in the vicinity of the boat deck, heeled toward the enemy. They go right through and detonate two magazines, aft 15" and 4". Contrary to popular perception, it not the blast from the magazine that directly does the majority of the damage or blows the ship in half. The worst part comes just after the bottom under the magazine is blown down and out in the water and deformed hull acst like a giant brake. 40,000 tons at about 22 knots and a few seconds later at a standstill. Guess what happens to all that kinetic energy(example: one of the survivors, who had been up on the signal paltform, as he was going down, observed a massive multi ton piece of the ship's engines flying upwards). Only three survivors because most of the crew and smashed to death or unconscious as the ship tears itself apart.

[dannubis]

Be that as it may, the Brits severely underestimated their oppent in the hood bismark exchange. (PoW got dammaged pretty badly as well). A mistake they didn't make twice.