Sink the Bismarck!

[Seeker]

Every time I read the Bismarck story I just can't believe the lucky torpedo...

All that...and one Torpedo...from a freakin' Swordfish 1920s biplane...basically renders a gigantic investment of resources and manpower a sitting duck.

Reminds me of people talking about Clinton bombing the Sudan...using million dollar cruise missiles to blow up 1 dollar tents.

Two questions:

1. Why the heck couldn't they have compensated or repaired somehow?

2. It must be pretty frustrating to get taken down right off the bat in your first ra roo ra charge, but geeze...if there really wasn't anything to do but spin around in circles and wait for the RN to show why not surrender?

On the topic of the legendary Swordfish...apparently, the Swordfish torpedo biplane was the ORIGINAL 'Pearl Harbour'. The Brits attacked the Italian Navy in port in 1939 or 40 and scared them good. For a long and crucial period the Italians thought that their Navy was in a lot more danger than it really was all because of a few crazed Englishmen in obsolete biplanes.

[Unimatrix11]

21 of them - first wave 12, then 9... (just bragging )

[Patroklos]

1. Why the heck couldn't they have compensated or repaired somehow?

We are talking about a multiple ton piece of equipment located under a ship in the middle of the ocean.

US warships (and presumable all modern warships) have quite a bit of redunancy as far as steering goes. All new ships have at least two rudders for one, and there are backup stearing units for each. If powered steering fails, you can actually take a wrench and manually turn the screws pushing the rams. Takes forever, but it is better than nothing.

I assume that the torpedoe hit the rudder hard enough to strip the gearing, which meant there was no at sea remedy. Perhaps with modern dive equipement something could have been rigged (cut the damn thing off with a PECU), but I doubt they would have been able to do it back then.

[TheStinger]

The swordfish was on paper rubbish and obsolete even in 1939, however it outlasted it's replacement.

I do accept you would have to be slightly made to attack a 40000 ton battleship in one

[chequita guevara]

Bismarck had a flawed steering system which was vulnerable to exactly what happened.

[Lefty Scaevola]

Originally posted by Berzerker
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.

That's fictional, none of the three were inside the belly of the ship. Able Seaman Tilburn was on the deck aft, Ordinary Signalman Briggs was on the signal platfrom, and Midshipman Dundas was on the bridge. They were picked up by the Electra (directly, because it had sent its sea boat to search elswhere in the wreckage).

Tilburn
And what's up with you poverty stricken bastards, ain't you got not bloody boats?

Signalman Briggs
Isn't that my rotten luck, to be picked up by a chatty ship. ... Oh god, my mates.

Dundas]
'm sorry i can't salute sir, but I seem to have lost my cap

KIA 94 officer and 1321 ratings

From the Bismark the DorsetShire pick up 2 officers and 100 ratings; The U-75 some hours later picked up 3, and the weather trawler Sachsenwald picked up two.
KIA 2,291.

Note the difference in the crew sizes (1,418 vs 2,408) for similar sized and armed ships, again the inefficiancy of the Bissmark design.

[Patroklos]

I imagine the bubble created by a boiler explosion would be in the neighborhood of 1000 degrees as well

[CerberusIV]

A lot of Bismarck's problems stem from Germany not being able to retain heavy warship design teams after the Treaty of Versailles. Whilst the USN, RN, and IJN were able to shell and bomb obsolete ships and learn how to make improvements to armour layout, etc the Germans were stuck. So Bismarck was essentially an enlargement of the Bayern class of 1916. Possibly one of the best battleship designs of WW1 but with an outdated armour scheme (the Scharnhorst class were also based on a WW1 battlecruiser design).

Really battleships were obsolete by 1940 except as AA escorts for carrier groups and fire support for amphibious landings - that's why very few that were under construction in 1939 were ever completed and the Iowas were the only ones laid down during hostilities to actually be completed and see active service in WW2.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Seeker
...
1. Why the heck couldn't they have compensated or repaired somehow?

...

I do remember they sent down a diver who came up and reported the problem could not be repaired at sea.

But now that I think about it why not use a charge to blow off the rudder and steer only with the screws?

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by BeBro


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

The British King George V class actually displaced 1000 more tons.

The American Colorado and North Carolina classes carried 16 inch guns.

[Dr Strangelove]

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

If a ship is turning in a circle there's not time to train the guns on a target. By the time you get the guns pointed at the target your ship has turned away. You could point them and wait for the course of the ship to bring the guns to bear on the target, but then you don't have time to correct for elevation, and you'd have to be pretty good with timing. Also Bismark was listing at the bow in the direction she was turning so the whole ship was angled enough that the main guns couldn't be bear on a target. Her circular course made her harder to hit, which may be why the British did so little damage to her.