Quote:
Originally Posted by KaiserWilhelm
Had Bismarck caught, say, HMS Nelson alone, Bismarck would have likely won, should she have chosen to fight. British gunnery, other than that of Jelicoe's Grand Fleet, was notoriously bad since the advent of Dreadnought. This is the type of opponent that Bismarck could have caught and killed (although, honestly, this is highly unlikely in of itself. Bismarck was built as a commerce raider, capable of breaking up convoys and outrunning older battleships. |
I don't disagree with most of what you say, but I think you're wrong on this one. I'm currently reading Friedman's new book "Firepower", which focuses mainly on battleship fire control systems. This includes a comparative analysis of the performance of Bismarck and the RN ships which engaged her, and concludes that Bismarck's shooting was not as good. I haven't reached the end of the book yet, but the impression I'm forming was that the then state-of-the-art RN system was the best surface fire control system in service (but not all of the British battleships had the latest system).
Unfortunately, the RN's high-angle AA fire control systems were markedly inferior to the US Mk 37 director, but that's another matter.