Sink the Bismarck!

[TheStinger]

Originally posted by Comrade Snuggles
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.

i htought it was disputed that the Bismark was scuttled, however still a well built ship.

I believe the Schrnhorst a true BC and not a BB took a lot of sinking when up against Battleships.

[dannubis]

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.

The deeper the wreck, the longer the preservation.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Berzerker
I like the movie, they should do a modern version

Did you notice Star Trek's "Scottie" in naval headquarters holding the door for some superior officers?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by TheStinger
i htought it was disputed that the Bismark was scuttled, however still a well built ship.

It was disputed, but I read that subsequent investigations of the ship have shown that's its hatches were opened and that Bismarck doesn't have any significant damage below the waterline.

[Zkribbler]

Historical inaccuracies in the movie, according to Wikipedia:

In the film, the German fleet commander, Admiral Lütjens, is portrayed as overconfident, vengeful, egotistic, and an enthusiastic Nazi who is furious over his and Germany's lack of recognition following the end of World War I. This characterization is completely fictitious and is meant to make Lütjens the villain of the film. In reality Lütjens was the opposite of this characterization. Lütjens was pessimistic over the chance of success of Bismarck's mission and he publicly protested the brutality of Nazi anti-Semitic crimes during Kristallnacht along with two other navy commanders.[1]

The film also makes a mistake in the sequence of events aboard the Bismarck, showing Lütjens ordering Captain Ernst Lindemann, to open fire on the Hood and Prince of Wales. In the actual event, Lütjens actually ordered Lindemann to avoid engaging the Hood, in which Lindemann refused his order and ordered the ship's gun crews to open fire on the Hood and Prince of Wales.

Importantly, the film also misrepresents the movements of the Hood and Prince of Wales during the early part of the battle. The film shows an order being given to turn, thus allowing the Hood, and presumably the Prince of Wales, to fire full broadsides at the German ship. In reality, the British sought to close the distance first, thus only firing their forward turrets and negating their firepower advantage since the Bismarck was firing full broadsides. Only in the final moments before exploding did the Hood begin a turn to present all her guns to the Bismarck. By this time, however, it was too late and the Hood exploded. This tactical deployment has often been called into question and cited as a possible cause for the British defeat, an issue the movie simply sidesteps.[2]

In addition, the film includes a scene aboard the Bismarck where Lutjens schemes about the aftermath of Bismarck undergoing its expected repairs in Brest, France. He (seemingly ingeniously) thinks of the possibility of two German battlecruisers based there, Gneisenau and Scharnhorst, going out with the Bismarck after the ship has undergone repairs. There is no evidence of such a discussion, though the idea of Bismarck going out to sea with the two battlecruisers from Brest to raid Allied shipping in the Atlantic would have been a possibility if Bismarck had reached the port. However, this concept was not an original idea of Lutjens: it had already been proposed by German naval staff before the battle but was scrapped because of the serious repairs that the two German battlecruisers needed, from damage sustained during an air raid.

Another mistake was made during the engagement between British destroyers and the Bismarck. The film portrayal shows three British hits by torpedoes, while the British destroyer Solent is hit and destroyed by the Bismarck. This never happened. There was no destroyer Solent. However, the Royal Navy did lose a destroyer in the operations. The Mashona was sunk by the Luftwaffe on may 28th. [3] The destroyers that attacked were HMS Cossack, HMS Maori, HMS Sikh, and HMS Zulu. In reality, the Royal Navy did make a failed attempt at a torpedo attack, but scored no hits. In return only Bismarck inflicted some minor damage to the British destroyers. Aboard Zulu, a sub-lieutenant in the gunnery control tower lost a hand to shell splinters while a shell landed on the destroyers forecastle, but did not explode. Cossack had its radio antenna sheared off by a shell[4]. Also, the attacks by the Swordfish biplane torpedo bombers in the movie show some of the planes being shot down. In the actual event, no Swordfish was shot down by Bismarck's anti-aircraft guns. However, from the Victorious air raid two Swordfish in fact failed to return, and three fliers were picked up from a rubber boat. The film also does not show the controversial details of what happened immediately after the Bismarck was sunk, including HMS Dorsetshire's quick departure after rescuing only 110 of Bismarck's survivors. The Dorsetshire's crew suspected that a German U-Boat was operating in the area; the captain of the Dorsetshire responded by calling off rescue efforts and departing. Hundreds of German sailors were left behind in the sea to die.

Some minor mistakes involve the visual appearance of the Bismarck. When a spy in Kristiansand, Norway sees Bismarck arrive in Norwegian waters, the ship has no apparent camouflage on it. Actually, upon arriving in Kristiansand, Bismarck had striped camouflage along its sides which was removed shortly before it headed out to sea. Upon sustaining significant damage during its battle with Hood and Prince of Wales, flooding caused Bismarck's bow to be barely maintained above the sea level, in the film, Bismarck's bow remains at the same level before, during and after the battle.

The Bismarck is referred to in the film as the largest and most powerful battleship in the world. Some naval experts criticized Bismarck's design for being antiquated, as its design was based on the World War I Bayern class battleships. Her fifteen-inch main guns were outsized by a number of warships that had sixteen-inch guns or significantly more weaponry. HMS Rodney was armed with sixteen-inch guns, and HMS King George V mounted ten guns in three turrets (compared to Bismarck's eight guns in four turrets). Two larger battleships were under construction in Japan — the Yamato and the Musashi — which were larger than Hood or Bismarck and had eighteen-inch guns and thicker armour.

In the film, the Hood is firing to port while the Bismarck is firing to starboard; in reality it was the other way around.

[Berzerker]

thx Zkrib and Lefty

and no I didnt know Scottie was in it but I'll be looking for him the next time I watch it

Reading Lefty's post, it looks like the Hood was very unlucky - it races up to get closer and makes such a sudden turn her decks were facing the Bismarck as a broadside hits. Ouch! I wonder if the Hood's capt should have been timing that turn better.

And thats surprising Zkrib, that capt over ruled Lutjens in firing on the Hood? He went from hero to Lutjens downfall, had the Bismarck tried to avoid fighting it wouldn't have ended up making for port with enough damage to end its campaign. Like in the movie, Lutjens is always telling the capt that Hitler doesn't care about fighting other British ships, he wants convoys attacked and sunk. And I thought the Bismarck was new, not some revamped design from WWI. Yeah, they need a modern version - this stuff you guys have been talking about would actually make the movie more interesting.

[chequita guevara]

Keep in mind that Bismarck also knocked out Prince of Wales and might have been able to sink it had Bismarck not broken contact.

Of course, luck definitely played a part. Prinz Eugen had taken the lead in the formation, and so the Brits fired upon it instead, then had to start finding the range all over again when they realized their error. Meanwhile, Bismarck had found Hood and was hitting her repeatedly.

[Zkribbler]

Only 3 crewmen from the Hood survived its sinking.

[Berzerker]

I watched Cameron's docu on it (or who was it, same guy found the Titannic) and they had an interview with one of the 3 survivors and he said they lived because they were caught in a massive bubble when the boiler blew and they got thrown up out of the top of the ship which apparently had buckled by then leaving air to fly threw instead of a deck.

On a sidenote, Prinz Eugen survived the nuke test at Bikini Atoll

[dannubis]

Ballard.

[TheStinger]

Was it the Prince Eugen that raced up the channel with the Scharhorst and escaped the entire RN and RAF.

IIRC it was an old fashioned Heavy cruiser and not a BC or pocket battleship

[Patroklos]

Yes, along with the Gneisenau.

She was a heavy cruiser, but was hardly old fashioned. Prinz Eugen was the last completed vessel of the Hipper-class, and was the only upgraded version of that class incorporating lessons leaned from her sister ships. She was launched in 1938.

[TheStinger]

When I said old fashioned, I just meant that it was a fairly unusual ship type to be built, most new builds at the time where normal cruisers or the bigger battleship/battlecruiser.

[Patroklos]

Germany had to do a little more tap dancing than most other powers concerning military constuction for most of the 1930s

[TheStinger]

Thats true, the washington treaty resulted in the Rodney and the Nelson