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AT 0525 Hydrophones aboard the Bismarck detects two ships to the port side. Battlestations are sounded.
At 0537 the first ship is sighted and at 0543 another. *Admiral Lütjens decide to scare of what he believes are light cruisers and orders a salvo of high explosive shells fired from the Bismarck at what is believed to be bold heavy cruisers. The first salvo at 35000 meters is not close, but Lütjens feels a snag*. Why are two heavy cruisers on a collision course with hat they know is the Bismarck and a heavy cruiser.
Lütjens orders the guns loaded with armor piercing Shells. Firing is commenced at 34000 ms from the Bismarck at the hintermost ship and from Prince Eugen at the leading ships as the 20,3 cm guns has slightly shorter range. This time the Shells fall close from either ship and the second salvo straddles what was later known to be the Prince of Wales. The third, fourth and Fifth salvo straddles the PoW and hits are scored at PoW at the fourth and fifth salvo. At this range of about 34000 ms plunging fire penetrates the 5 inch armored deck amidships and cause thousands of liter of seawater to flood two of the boiler rooms and and leads to a heavy list to starboard. Bismarck continues to straddle the PoW while the range Closes to 28000 m over the next 15 mins and 25 salvos are fired leading to5 further hits. These no longer penetrates the armored deck, but they dont have to. Catastrophic loss of buoyancy from hits to the front deck and aft of the citadel leads to extensive splinter damage and exposes a further hit abbove the Water line. Two of the Shells further starts fires and extensive smoke complicates the damage control efforts. PoW vs. Bismarck makes history as the longest ranged battleship engagement and made PoW one of the few battleships sunk by enemy gun fire.
Meanwhile, Prince Eugen, one mile ahead of the Bismarck and shooting at Hood 1 mile ahead had used its rapid rate of fire to rain Down Shells at 4-5 salvos per minute. It had managed 65 salvos and 13 hits on the Hood. Several had penetrated the upper deck and the forecaste and fires had started. Firecontrol had been knocked out and when Bismarck also turned its fire towards the Hood it was only a matter of time. 5 mins later, a catastrophic detonation broke Hood in half.
The two German ships resumed their southward journay, having barely changed course and despite beeing straddled a few times not taken any hits.

Lütjens would signal Berlin at 0600: Brief engagement with British heavy surface units. Hood and KGV class battleship sunk. No damage received.

Later that evening, Bismarck and Prince Eugen would evade their cruiser screen and continue raiding in the North Atlantic.

*Lütjens deciding to open fire at the first sighting is the POD, the conclusions that they are battleships follows from this.
OK, what hapens next. Is this all revenge or how would fear play in with the British tactics.
As the titles says this is not a very likely scenario, but I want to discuss the scenario that was planned, "heavy raider on the Loose", AND, a raider that would strike fear in the opposing forces so they would only dare engage it with very favorable odds.
I know there has been many variations of this, but maybe not this exact one?
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