A pair of Kings

There has been a number of Denmark Straits ‘what ifs’ recently – so not to be outdone I have come up with one of my own.

During the engagement where HMS Hood and the ‘unfinished’ HMS Prince of Wales engaged Bismarck and Prince Eugen HMS King George V was acting as the Home fleet flag ship.

And this is something that has always bugged me – why was the KGV held back as she was easily the most capable vessel regarding taking on Bismarck?

Why did she not join the Hood and POW or replaced either Hood (because she was obsolete) or the POW (because she was unfinished).

One of the reasons I have heard is that Tovey needed KGVs superior ‘Flag officer’ facilities and ability to communicate with the spread out Home fleet assets.

But I still don’t fully buy this.

So my POD is for whatever reason Hood is not sent to take on Bismarck and instead KGV leads POW into action on that fateful morning.

What changes with regards to the engagement? Do the British ships engage from further away (say 26K yards) and what is the likely outcome?

(I might try this scenario on Atlantic Fleet later)
 
Well tried it and it took about 25 turns to sink both German ships with heavy damage but as far as I could tell no citadel penetrations to POW and light damage to KGV
 

Coulsdon Eagle

Monthly Donor
KGV stayed at Scapa as the Admiralty & Tovey had no knowledge of what exit to the North Atlantic Bismarck & Prinz Eugen were to take. Hood & PoW were in postion to cover both the Denmark Strait and the Faroes-Iceland gap, while the Home Fleet could cover the southern / eastern part of the latter and also the shorter Orkney - Faroes gap.
 
You're talking about two ships that would be superior to the two ships in real life.

There's a degree of unpredictability about any engagement, especially one with such small numbers (i.e. two ships on each side), but it's fair to say the Germans will be at more of a disadvantage in this scenario.

However, if memory serves, Rodney would be slower than Bismarck, no? Possibly the Germans manage to avoid combat altogether, which was their orders after all.

(I may be wrong with that memory.)
 
Top