[thushioli]

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.

[ttoothh]

Yes but there was lots of navel gazing.

[bF8CCmmr]

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....

[PaulRyansew]

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.

[bUqLfXRI]

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.

[effebrala]

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.

[QualityReachOut]

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.

[DoctorDeryOne]

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?

[Guloqkcm]

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.

[VogsHoock]

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.

[popandopulus]

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

[feeshyLew]

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

[sbrscnds]

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.

[NicolasOL]

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

[lrUyiva1]

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

[RildFiemodo]

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

[themsrsdude]

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.

[29clepayJainync]

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.

[buyviagraonlineusatoday]

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.