In response to the other thread about Bismarck doing better, I wondered, what if Bismarck had gone down sooner. How is this achieved? Well, instead of the flank hit she took from Victorious' Swordfish, the one hit she gets is on her rudders. How does the early sinking of the ship affect the war?
Early End for Bismarck (BB)
- Thread starter MattII
- Start date
Saphroneth
Banned
There's a number of ways to sink her sooner. Lucky hit by Hood, different angle so the Denmark Strait engagement is two capital ships versus one, even her taking the Faroes gap instead and thus running into KGV+Repulse (IIRC).
If she blows the Hood (or Repulse...) up she's still got her inflated reputation, but if she doesn't she probably gets a depressed reputation over her real capabilities. No loss of the Hood may also mean - but I don't know how likely it is - that Hood gets her much-overdue deep refit.
If she blows the Hood (or Repulse...) up she's still got her inflated reputation, but if she doesn't she probably gets a depressed reputation over her real capabilities. No loss of the Hood may also mean - but I don't know how likely it is - that Hood gets her much-overdue deep refit.
Lost Freeway
Banned
Really? The Yamato-class have a pretty overblown reputation despite the fact that neither of them sunk any capital ships.
Saphroneth
Banned
Yeah, but they went down under an avalanche of bombs and torpedoes. Being sunk by smaller ships - some of them older - without achieving a single thing would (IMO) make Bismarck look kind of naff.
POW hit Bismarck a couple of times - 1 of the hits slowed her down (engineering hit) and the other hit mission killed her (lost fuel forcing her to abort)
It woudn't take more than a few more hits to greatly impact Bismarcks ability - have her guns and crew drills stand up for a bit longer.
Or have KGV swap with POW for what ever reason - her guns / crew are more worked up and while she too had issues - KGV still managed to fire 30+ salvos before experiancing any issues when she engaged the Bismarck later on - which is pretty good by the standards of the day.
Another idea is to have the Hood and POW work more closely with the 2 8" Cruisers and (IIRC) 6 Fleet Destroyers in a combined attack (ie the 2 Cruisers attack Prinz Eugen while the DDs make a mass torpedo run on the Bismarck)
How about on her way North up the Norwiegen coast Bismark takes a torepedo from a RN submarine which jams her helm (as did the torepedo from the Swordfish of the FAA in OTL) unable to manouvre the Bismark is driven ashore on the rocky Norwegian shore and becomes a total loss. No heroic end jast a heap of rusting steel lying semisubmerged.
That sort of lame @$$ ending to a proud ship just might cause Corporal Hitler to decide that capital warships are not worth the trouble.
That's possibly the best answer to a simple question I've ever heard on this board.
It's a win-win-win ad infinitum.
Hood survives, along with 1400 young men.
The 2000 odd young men on the Bismarck survive.
Mr H has an aneurism.
The rest of the German surface fleet is scrapped.
Nazi prestige takes a huge blow.
Oh, and I almost forgot.
AH.commers spend the rest of eternity debating what would have happened if she'd survived to try the Denmark Strait.
Anyone who suggests she destroys Hood with one shot and forces PoW to withdraw is immediately accused of ASB.
AH.commers spend the rest of eternity debating what would have happened if she'd survived to try the Denmark Strait.
Anyone who suggests she destroys Hood with one shot and forces PoW to withdraw is immediately accused of ASB.
Saphroneth
Banned
Slight correction, Mr. Ironside.
...not everyone on Hood or Bismarck was a young man, you missed out a few older men such as the CPOs and the like.
...not everyone on Hood or Bismarck was a young man, you missed out a few older men such as the CPOs and the like.
Lost Freeway
Banned
And wehraboos churn out an endless stream of TLs where she sends the entire Royal Navy to the bottom.
Oh, and Kantai Collection doesn't have a famous non-IJN Axis ship for its roster, so instead the developers end up adding Allied ships.
True, but the average age was probably below thirty. Anyone have the true aversge to hand?
Redbeard
Banned
If HMS Hood at the Denmark Strait makes her turn a second sooner or later the fatal shell from Bismarck will either miss or bounce the armour. After that the most likely outcome is the two British ships overwhelming the Bismarck with fire, much like what happened in OTL a few days later. Bismarck was close to impossible to sink with gunfire but her fighting capacity was quite vulnerable. In the OTL last battle her forward turrets were out of action after a few minuttes and her last main gun after 21 minuttes.
HMS Norfolk will probably close on the smoking wreck and sink her with torpedoes.
HMS Norfolk will probably close on the smoking wreck and sink her with torpedoes.
Saphroneth
Banned
Bismarck was no different to other BBs in being close to impossible to sink with gunfire - though I've seen one report of the damage which suggests that she had nevertheless been left in a sinking condition before being scuttled/torpedoed. (That is, she had holes below the waterline in her citadel and would eventually sink.)
Redbeard
Banned
Bismarck's armour belt was built with a prominent socalled turtle deck. A heavy sloped plate behind the main belt. This meant that even if shells penetrated the main belt they would be unlikely to go beyond the sloped plate and into the internals of the ship. This was common practice in early 20th century (Hood had a similar, but not as heavy system) and was especially effective at short to medium range, where the shell trajectory would be flat. And long range, which became a real possibility in late WWI, a plunging shell could however penetrate the main deck without ever meeting the main belt or the turtle deck. Bismarck was the only modern battleship built with the turtledeck protection system so prominent, and has often been acused of just being a "dusted off WWI design".
Hood's armour arrangement was similar and at ranges shorter than the OTL would have had a very good chance of defeating Bismarck's shells, but at exactly the range and inclination met in OTL a shell could go through the relatively thin upper belt and almost perpendicularly through the turtle deck.
When Bismarck met KGV and Rodney the fighting was at relatively short range meaning a lot of hits very quickly reducing Bismarck to a floating wreck, but it is likely that no shell made it to the machinery or magazines. If she actually sank because of the scuttling charges, the torpedoes or damage recieved from the gunnery is IMHO rather irrelevant as she long before that had been reduced to a wreck not capable of fighting back.
Modern capital ships were relatively difficult to sink with gunfire alone (short of a magazine explosion), but Bismarck especially so. The discussion anyway is mainly theoretical, as we have very few instances of modern battleships being exposed to substantial gunfire. They probably all were quite vulnerable to their fighting capacity. Just take South dakoto who was effectively blinded after being hit with a few 14" and a lot of lighter shells.
Saphroneth
Banned
I rely on
http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-016.htm
as my source which indicates that
"Photographs of the battleship at 0950 (ten minutes before the scuttling order) shows her very low in the water with her main deck almost awash. At this point she must already have had at least 10,000 tons of floodwater on board and was foundering"
and
http://www.navweaps.com/index_inro/INRO_Bismarck_p3.htm
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=-1]"By 1000 on 27 May, only one 20mm gun remained operational on board Bismarck. All the 380mm, 150mm, 105mm, and 37mm guns had been disabled. Some shells had holed the armor belts and water was flooding compartments below. Fires had occurred in turrets Bruno, Anton, and Dora; and several 150mm, 105mm, and 37mm magazine fires had forced flooding of magazines to prevent explosions."[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=-1]While only a few shells penetrated the citadel, it does seem as though more than none did.
[/SIZE][/FONT]
http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-016.htm
as my source which indicates that
"Photographs of the battleship at 0950 (ten minutes before the scuttling order) shows her very low in the water with her main deck almost awash. At this point she must already have had at least 10,000 tons of floodwater on board and was foundering"
and
http://www.navweaps.com/index_inro/INRO_Bismarck_p3.htm
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=-1]"By 1000 on 27 May, only one 20mm gun remained operational on board Bismarck. All the 380mm, 150mm, 105mm, and 37mm guns had been disabled. Some shells had holed the armor belts and water was flooding compartments below. Fires had occurred in turrets Bruno, Anton, and Dora; and several 150mm, 105mm, and 37mm magazine fires had forced flooding of magazines to prevent explosions."[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=-1]While only a few shells penetrated the citadel, it does seem as though more than none did.
[/SIZE][/FONT]
It's a truism that ships as big and as well sub-divided as Bismarck don't sink quickly. Even POW survived for a considerable time despite eviscerating herself.
Also, the turtle deck is relatively low in the ship. If we take the report of Bismarck being low in the water at face value, then it suggests that flooding was occurring on top of the turtle deck, and would be capable of penetrating into the citadel through openings such as boiler uptakes and boiler room exhausts. I'm not aware of reports of that happening, but there were few survivors and some of the reports from inside the citadel have been said to have been wrong anyway, such as the reports of heavy shells exploding inside engineering spaces:
Also, the turtle deck is relatively low in the ship. If we take the report of Bismarck being low in the water at face value, then it suggests that flooding was occurring on top of the turtle deck, and would be capable of penetrating into the citadel through openings such as boiler uptakes and boiler room exhausts. I'm not aware of reports of that happening, but there were few survivors and some of the reports from inside the citadel have been said to have been wrong anyway, such as the reports of heavy shells exploding inside engineering spaces:
Saphroneth
Banned
Oh, yeah, I think there's no contest about that.
I just find it interesting with regard to whether the Bismarck was somehow especially well protected or not.