I remeber when the Eugen sunk the Hood theory came out (or at least surfaced again). Seamed like a pretty plausible case was made for it at the time. However I've seen enough discussions on it in the last decade to believe the probability was very low at this point.

By far the best article I have ever read on what caused the loss of HMS Hood is on this web-site
International Naval Research Organization (INRO) Pages

It also has an equally good article on the damage suffered by the Bismarck.

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if in doubt....Panic!!!!

I just picked up a cheap copy of Bercuson & Herwig's book 'Bismarck' , dipped into it and now I'm hooked - it's a gripping story.

OK, I very much doubt that this is a great book on the subject but I suddenly realised that, like everyone, I reckoned I was 'familiar' with the story ( I've read articles, seen the movie, watched documentaries, etc ) but I've never read a book on the subject !

Hitler just wasn't 'into' Naval stuff, was he....?

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

This is a blurb from a photo in a book with hitler inspecting the Battleship Bismarck.
'The Worlds Great Battleships'


"Adolf Hitler inspecting Bismarck in Danzig. Hitler once confessed that although warships fascinated him, he was "a coward at sea"



Copyright © 1998-2008 KBismarck.com
Photo form KBismarck.com - Adolf Hitler Inspecting the Bismarck

So who knows judging by that.

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I think you are right, the Germans just didn't know how to use capital ships like the "Bismarck" and the "Tirpitz".

Look at the "Bismarck"s erratic odyssé across the Atlantic, breaking radio silence for long periods of time, allowing the british to track her.

The best of German engineering and craftmanship wasted for nothing, exept for one more or less obsolete british battleship, the HMS "Hood".

The same thing happened with the "Tirpitz", lying idle in a Norwegian fjord for months and years until she was sunk. The germans just didn't know what to do with this formidable battleship.

And the "Scharnhorst", leaving her escorts behind and heading right into the jaws of an allied task force!

Regards
RAM

^Not to mention the heavy cruiser Blücher being sunk by antiquated (And German-made) gun batteries and torpedoes from the Norwegian Oscarsborg Fortress in 1940. That was one hell of a black eye IMO.

Right now I'm reading "Robert Ballard's Bismarck" (AKA "The discovery of the Bismarck"). I'm skipping through the chapters regarding the search for the wreck, and focusing mainly on the RN's hunt for it in 1941. After that, I might take a look at some of the other "Bismarck" books my local library has.

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-Paardeburg-Ypres-Mont Sorrel-The Somme -Vimy Ridge-Passchendaele-Cambrai-Mons-The Battle of Britain-The Battle of the Atlantic-Hong Kong-Dieppe-Ortona-The Liri Valley-Juno Beach-Falaise-The Scheldt-The Netherlands-Hochwald Forest-Kapyong-The Medak Pocket-Afghanistan-

Remember...

Here's something else to ponder. The Hood was, in the strictest sense, a Battlecruiser, not a Battleship. The British should have learned their lesson on the vulnerability of relatively lightly armoured Battlecruisers at Jutland. The Battlecruisers on both sides were hammered by the true battleships.

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David

"It is history that teaches us to hope"
Robert E. Lee

Quite right and this has been argued ever since - it goes back to Beatty's famous remark 'There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today' at Jutland. Battlecruisers were supposed to sacrifice armour for speed but advances in naval gunnery nullified any speed advantage.

Although on paper the Hood was an outdated ship, one shouldn't underestimate the enormous blow to National pride and the Royal Navy's prestige at the loss of the ship in such a dramatic fashion. Everyone in the country knew that the Hood was the 'pride of the Fleet' ; my Dad, who was a boy at the time, still remembers the sense of total disbelief when the news came through......

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

Theres a thread starter. How would you propose to use those ships?

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I forgot my password, can I use yours?

I wouldn't have built them. The Germans as underdogs as naval powers go had two realistic choices on building a navy:

1. Build a coastal defense fleet and use commerce raiding as their offensive strategy.

2. Build a fleet around a core of ships that changes the current paradigim of what constitutes naval strength.

In WW 1 the Germans did the second by accident. With the advent of technologies that came together to change the nature of battleships... that is the construction of Dreadnought type battleships ..... earlier slow battleships were rendered obsolesent overnight. This allowed the Germans to start an arms race as a naval power against Britain from a position of essentially equality.
During the war the Germans failed to appreciably use their fleet against the British enmasse. With the exception of Jutland they never really fully challenged British control of the seas. At the time Germany could afford to lose their fleet; Britain couldn't.

By WW 2 the available choice in this area is that Germany opts for a carrier centered navy. This would have taken some really forward thinking admirals on the German's part. But, the ones they had were generally very conservative and hidebound in their views of naval operations. Hence they opted for battleships that proved very nearly useless.

I think part of the reason they built them is Hitler viewed Britain as a natural ally. If Britain is an ally then the KM only needs to be able to take on the French or the Soviets. They certainly are up to the latter and could make a good show of the former. Especially before the new French BBs are commisioned.

Well Hitler did say "biggest is best" maybe that is the reason for the Bismarck and Tirpitz.

Commerce raiding I feel did very little. The Starving of Britain would require many ships and boats, and how would they get all these ships out to the Atlantic time and time again? Now even if they did, the British had the ships to spare to assign larger ships to escort duties to protect the convoys, not to mention to the Commerce raid hunter squadrons used to hunt down ships like the Graf Spee.

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Getting back to what was, rather than what might or shouldn't have been, I've just finished the Bercuson/Herwig Bismarck book.

All in all, not a bad 'starter' read on the subject, with only two irritating points ; the author constantly starts sentences with 'As well,...' and also tries to make much of a case that the USA was heavily involved in the chase (but then, it was originally published in the USA and obviously needed selling to the publishers...).

But it is a very dramatic story, truly fascinating, and could indeed be the starting point for dozens of 'what ifs'. The book has a good bibliography, and I'm fairly certain to be doing a bit more in-depth reading.

And I'm still wondering how Bismarck failed to shoot down a single Swordfish.....

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

The existence of the German Navy in WW II was not the result of a rational analysis of national strategic objectives. The questions of what the German navy was supposed to accomplish and the best way it could contribute to the achievement of national goals were apparently never explored. The statement that, "With the exception of Jutland they never really fully challenged British control of the seas. At the time Germany could afford to lose their fleet; Britain couldn't.", while essentially true, reveals a deeper fundamental truth; Germany was a "continental" or land-based power to which a blue-water navy was an expensive luxury, not a vital tool for furthering strategic objectives.

This remained true in WW II, as well. While the RN could control the seas, it was powerless to affect Germany on the continent, just so long as Germany could secure the crucial raw materials which fed German industries and enabled her war machine to function. If Britain could not challenge Germany on the Continent, it was equally true that Germany could not challenge Britain at sea, nor did it have any real reason to do so. Since Germany had no vital strategic objectives which required a navy (except coastal defense), there was no logical reason to build the Bismarck or the Graf Zeppelin. The resources expended on these ships could have been more usefully employed elsewhere. Commerce-raiding is traditionally the strategy of weak navies and could have been very effectively carried out by armed merchant cruisers and/or long ranged cruisers. Germany's cruisers were, however, built for other duties and, with the exception of the panzerschiffs did not have the requisite range for such a role.

Aircraft carriers would have done Germany no good as the projection of airpower beyond coastal ranges had absolutely no application in Germany's strategic aims. Moreover, the successful operation of aircraft carriers proved to be a matter of developing proper doctrine and design which required decades to accomplish. The Graf Zeppelin design, while ambitious, drew the wrong lessons from other navies' carrier design and doctrine and would have represented an abject failure for the Germany Navy.

The one exception to the above was the U-boat. Because of the unique geography of Britain, and Britain's inter-war neglect of underwater defense technology and doctrine, the U-boat represented the one naval weapon which Germany might have developed that could have defeated the RN. But Germany failed to produce the U-boat in the numbers needed in the time frame that might have secured them victory in the Atlantic war.

Actually, the U-boat campaign was very effective given its numbers. It tied up huge amounts of resources for the Allies.

Of course, but do you really think that it was going to win the war on its own?

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That's very true. But the problem was that the numbers of U-boats were insufficient to be decisive at a time when Britain might have been forced to the negotiating table. By the time Germany was able to produce large numbers of U-Boats, the United States was building ships literally faster than the U-Boats could sink them.

No. Guerre de Courses rarely are successful. Instead, they are spoilers. They are the strategy of choice at sea when you don't have the sea power to overcome your opponet. What you are doing is making the war as expensive as possible in the hopes of breaking the bank.

The bottom line for the Germans is that they cannot be both a sea power and a land power. If they choose to try and be both it is likely they will fail at both. At sea their best course of action was simply to defend their coasts and conduct a vicious commerce war against Britain. On land Britain would be incapable of winning and in the long run a stalemate would ensue. Due to the higher cost of the commerce war Germany could hope to eventually negotiate a peace on favorable terms.
For the British their only hope lay in gaining allies that could supply the necessary land power to overcome Germany. Russia and the US did this nicely for them. In addition, the British got the US as another seapower on top of their capacity as a land power.
Now, Japan and Germany might have complemented each other in a war had the two been more co-located than they were.

...after Adolf Hitler declared war on them both......

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

Not on its own, but if you need a look at what submarines could do to shipping lanes if not effectively countered, just look to the Pacific, to what the US Navy's submarines, faulty torpedoes and all, did to the Japanese supply chain.

Then think about where Britain would have been had the Germans been properly set up to do it right.

interesting topic sure to keep my eye on this one

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When I feed the poor, they call me a saint,
but when I ask why the poor are hungry,
they call me a communist.

... thereby earning the 1941 Darwin Award.

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the failure was due to the complete ineptness of both the KM and the LW not working together, the U-booten arm really did have a chance to really inflict terrible damage but without effective eyes from 43 onward...........0

It also helps if your surface fleet is bigger than the other guys and keep them busy as well.

It should also be noted that by the time the US submarine campaign really got going the torpedo problem was fixed.

This from Battle Damage to Surface Ships During World War II, by I. M. Korotkin, Leningrad, 1960, (translated from the Russian) for the Voyenno-Morshoy Flot. (The images may not come through, they'll be online RSN.)

Basic Ship Data. Bismarck (sister ship of Tirpitz; see Item 17) was laid down in 1936, launched in 1939, and commissioned in 1941.
Damage to and Circumstances of the Loss of the Ship. The circumstances of the loss of BISMARCK were entirely different from those in which her sister ship Admiral Tirpitzwas sunk. The operation to destroy the TIRPITZ lasted more than a year; the sinking of Bismarck required only a few days, although the British Admiralty was forced to concentrate considerable naval power to achieve this.
On 19 May 1941, Bismarck together with Prinz Eugen was ordered into the Atlantic to mount attacks on British communication lines. According to her operating-tactical elements, Bismarck excelled any of the British ships of the line. However, the operations planned by the German command for the two raiders, which opposed the powerful and numerous units of the British fleet deployed in Atlantic waters to protect communications, took on the character of an adventure. It should be noted that up to the middle of May 1941, Bismarck and Prinz Eugen had not participated in any operations.
Having been warned of the sortie of two German ships, British intelligence worked diligently to discover them. At 1922, on 23 May, the British cruiser Suffolk established the position of Bismarck in the northern sector of the Danish Strait. At that time the British had at their disposal in the North Atlantic area: three battleships (King George V, Prince Of Wales, and Ramilles), two battle cruisers (Hood and Renown), three aircraft carriers (Illustrious, Victorious, and Ark Royal), four cruisers, and five destroyers.
On 24 May Bismarck entered into action with the battle cruiser Hood and sank her within a few minutes. During the very first salvos, Hood suffered a hit from a German 15-inch shell in the after projectile magazine; she exploded and sank so quickly that only three of the crew were saved. The sinking of Hood made a very strong impression on the British; therefore other British ships, afraid to share her fate, decided not to engage Bismarck on that day. So, from that time, the pursuit of Bismarck began to be organized and strengthened by the main forces of the British fleet.
Bismarck was attacked by torpedo planes from Victorious on 25 May and from Ark Royal on 26 May. The attacks by the torpedo planes were successful; the ship sustained three direct hits from aerial torpedoes and suffered serious damage. On the following day, the battleship again underwent an attack, this time from British destroyers, Cossack and Maori, and suffered two more torpedo hits. After five torpedo hits, the battleship was considerably damaged but was still in condition to engage in a gun fight with the British battleships Rodney and King George V and the cruiser Dorsetshire on 27 May. As a result of the engagement, Bismarck guns went out of commission; the ship lost way and found herself in a difficult condition. Finally the German battleship was sunk by torpedoes from the cruiser Dorsetshire .
Let us review the character and the consequences of the damage suffered by Bismarck from the action of torpedoes and enemy shells in the various steps of its destruction.
The first torpedo hit suffered by the battleship (in the midships section of the hull starboard side on 25 May 1941 at 0025) was from an aerial torpedo launched from an aircraft of Victorious. As a result the Bismarck was forced to reduce speed to 22 knots. Escaping from pursuit, the battleship began to change course and at 0300 hid from the enemy.
The second and third torpedo hits that Bismarck received (at 1730 on 25 May) occurred during an attack by aircraft from Ark Royal which had discovered the battleship a few hours earlier. The second torpedo hit amidships portside, and the third in the stern starboard side. The hull of the ship was damaged in the vicinity of the explosion; the rudder and the screws appeared to have been damaged, and the ship lost control and described two complete circles. Speed was decreased to 14 knots.
The fourth and fifth hits were suffered by the battleship on 27 May at 0130 during the attack by destroyers. Torpedoes hit the bow section of the battleship, one in the starboard side and another in the portside. The bow section of the ship was seriously damaged from the explosions and was enveloped in flames. This occurred 400 miles from Brest. The battleship at first stopped, then proceeded at 8 knots, and again began to engage in a gun duel with the British ships which lasted from 0900 to 1015. The engagement began from a distance of 10 miles, but toward the end of the battle, the British ships had shortened the distance to 2 1/2 to 3 miles. Most of the damage caused by shelling was in the above-water section of the battleship.
As a result of the gunfight, the following damage to the battleship occurred (basically in the above-water section of the ship): First the forward main battery turret was put out of action as were the forward and after fire-control stations. Then, after a direct hit which caused an internal explosion, Turret No. 4 was damaged. An hour after the engagement began, i.e., at 1000, all of the main battery guns of the battleship were put out of action and only the anti-mine guns continued to fire for another 10 minutes.
At 1015 Bismarck guns went completely out of commission, and the gun battle ceased.
The sixth, seventh, and eighth torpedo hits the battleship suffered were from the cruiser Dorsetshire , which also fired her guns at the same time. Two torpedoes hit the portside and one the starboard side of the battleship (according to other information, one of the three final torpedoes was launched by Rodney).
These last torpedo hits finished Bismarck; the battleship, which was settling by the stern and rising at the bow, rolled over on her port-side and sank at 1100.
In all, more than 90 torpedoes were launched at the ship (35 were ship-type and more than 55 were aerial). A diagram of torpedo hits is shown in Figure 90.
In the shelling of Bismarck on 27 May, in which battleships, cruisers, and destroyers participated, about 2900 shells were shot at the ship including 700 14- and 16-inch shells.
From the entire crew of the battleship, only about 100 men were saved; more than 2000 military and civilians aboard were lost.
Conclusions. Bismarck was sunk as a result of the combined effects of eight contact torpedo explosions and a great number of shells.
Three of the torpedoes that hit were aviation-type (210 kilograms of explosive substance) and five were ship-type (340 kilograms of explosive substance). The aerial torpedoes hit the midsection and the after section of the ship; the ship-type hit the bow and midsection. On the whole, the ship suffered the effects of about 3500 kilograms of explosive substance (in TNT equivalent) from torpedo hits alone.
In all the steps of the battle, torpedoes played the basic role in lowering watertight integrity, decreasing speed and, losing control. They were also the reason for the incapacitation of the electrical equipment and the flooding of heavy-caliber ammunition magazines which decreased the striking power of the ship.
The shell hits destroyed and put conning stations and main battery and antiaircraft directors out of commission. Shell hits on the side of the ship in the vicinity of the waterline also lowered her watertight integrity. However, despite the great number of shell hits, the ship remained afloat, and additional torpedoes were required to sink her.
The role played by the armored plating in the case of BISMARCK was to significantly increase survivability of the ship against the action of the shells. The armor system adopted by the German fleet with a main armored deck sloping to the side appeared to have been extremely effective against British 14-inch projectiles, despite the comparatively small thickness of the side armor used (320 mm).
The structural underwater protection of Bismarck was designed and tested (in the longitudinal center) to a resistance of 300 to 350 kilograms of TNT/RDX/AL explosive substance; i.e., it was at the limit of resistance against British ship torpedoes. At the extremities, it was significantly weaker. Thus, the effect of torpedoes, possessing great destructive force, would be most dangerous. Furthermore, they hit in the vicinity of the region where the structural underwater protection was the weakest.
According to her displacement and dimensions, Bismarck could have had a significantly stronger underwater protection, and consequently a much higher survivability (her structural underwater protection was equivalent in resistance to the structural underwater protection of Scharnhorst, which had significantly less displacement and beam).*
* In 1949, while discussing the reasons and the circumstances of the damage and the loss of Bismarck, British shipbuilders ascribed the ability to obtain a strong underwater protection on Bismarck to the adoption of a great beam for the ship (36.0 meters), but it should be noted that, within the limits of available space (5.4 meters) and weight, with correct construction of the underwater protection, the battleship could have been significantly less vulnerable.
The underwater protection for the ship had several major deficiencies which lowered her survivability. The weak point of the structural underwater protection was the absence of an inboard void compartment. In the protective system with a single and flat armored bulkhead (see Figure G2 for midship section of the sister ship TIRPITZ), each of her structural deficiencies appeared to have been fatal and, in case of destruction of her watertightness, the water flooded the most vital parts of the ship. Later, this circumstance was taken into account and, in subsequent plans for battleships (the "N"), the Germans provided for the presence of inboard void compartments.
Thus, on a whole, the underwater protection of the battleship was weak (against the guns of World War II). It could serve (and, actually, during circumstances complicated by damage, did serve) only to limit the amount of damage and flooding of the ship in the presence of torpedo explosions.
Moreover, it should be pointed out that Bismarck shared the fate of a majority of the battleships lost in World War II; she also sank while rolling over. The destructive lists were her weak point.
Being in good working order, the fire-control system on Bismarck operated very accurately and accounts for the rapid ranging and destruction of Hood. But even during a minor disturbance in the central [183] fire-control system — which was inescapable because of the damage to the superstructure where it was located (like that, for instance, which occurred during the engagement on 27 May) — Bismarck could not shoot successfully even at close range. This attests to the great vulnerability, of the superstructures of modern heavy ships even to medium-caliber gunfire.
On Bismarck, as on other warships, projecting parts of the ship appeared to be very vulnerable. During explosions of torpedoes even of small caliber, the rudder, propellers, and shafts went out of commission and led to a loss of way and control.
Circumstances which contributed to the sustained resistance of the ship against the action of enemy ammunition include the strong sides which provided for the survival of the ship, the well-organized damage-control procedures used by the crew, the protracted time of the action, and the equal distribution of torpedo hits on the sides.
The ship could withstand a comparatively great number of torpedo and shell hits and, in this regard, not only remained afloat with a small list but continued underway and continued firing.
The ship possessed a comparatively great stability (its initial metacentric height was about 4.0 meters); in addition to the underwater protection, which limited the amount of damage and flooding, there was a powerful system to restore zero list; watertightness of the hull was sufficiently well provided for.
It is quite possible that the height of maximum flooding of compartments was limited by the low location of the main armored deck (at the level of the waterline), which remained intact during explosions. In the presence of such a low location of the deck for completely flooded compartments, there were no free-surface effects on the stability of the ship; the center of gravity of the flooded compartments was lowered and could have improved ship stability somewhat.
Damage suffered by the battleship was not all inflicted immediately, but occurred gradually over a period of 3 days. This permitted the crew to use every means to save the ship, including anti-list systems and jettisoning of equipment.
The equal distribution of torpedo hits (four torpedoes each in the starboard side and portside) led to an automatic righting of the ship. There should be no doubt that if BISMARCK had received all of the hits on one side (as was the case with several Japanese and British battleships) and, moreover, received them in the space of a short time, she could have sustained a significantly smaller number of torpedo and shell hits.
It should be noted that those torpedoes which hit the extremities of the battleship caused considerable damage but did not cause great lists.

Larry J

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WWII Resources. Primary sources.
The Myths of Pearl Harbor. Demythologizing the attack.
Hyperwar. Hypertext history of the Second World War.
Veteran: USN, 1969-1989
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