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December 27, 1936

With the disappointing, to say nothing of embarrassing, "failure" of the Deutschland class Panzerschiffe, Adm. Erich Raeder was facing the prospects of their replacement.

Deutschland and Admiral Scheer were to be striken from the register entirely, while the still usable Graf Spee was to be disarmed, and replace Schleswig-Holstein as a training and barracks ship.

The problem was that, though nominally capital ships in their own right, the Scharnhorst-class was the only viable replacement design, and likely to be quite provoking to the Tommies if another pair were announced.

Picking up his telephone handset, Raeder asked to be connected to Adolf Hitler's office. Though late, the Führer was known to keep odd hours.

After a long, heated discussion, a conclusion was reached.

"Herr Raeder, I hope you understand the gravity of the situation. I'm trusting your experience on this matter, but should this prove to be a mistake, failure is your responsibility. We only have so much capacity to construct ships."

"I understand, mein Führer. Though I do not believe this will prove to be a mistake. And in any case, our other projects can benefit from further work, even if the ship's themselves will not be available in the near future."

With that the line went dead.

On December 28th, the Kriegsmarine announced construction of two additional Scharnhorst-class vessels to be built to a slightly modified design, as replacement for the entire Deutschland class.

Characteristic of the seemingly neurotic leadership, the unnamed aircraft carrier, known only as Flugzeugträger-A was canceled the day she was to be laid down.

Six days later, a story was run drawing little international attention. Deutschland had suffered a severe fire while returning from a patrol.


May 18th, 1941

Admiral Lütjens looked out across the harbor, and saw the ships he would be sortieing with. They represented the total of German's capital ships. Both the sister of his flagship, Tirpitz, and all four of the Scharnhorsts would make a daring breakout into the Atlantic.

The ships were to travel in twos, and rendezvous near Bergen.


May 21, Bergen Norway.

Lütjens had gathered all of the captains onboard Bismarck. The cruiser Prinz Eugen had departed for northern Norway after refueling earlier in the day, leaving only the battleships and battlecruisers in the harbor.

Lütjens was feeling nervous, as the last pair of ships, Sachsen and Yorck, had been spotted by a swedish cruiser. He directed the ships to split up again, Bismarck and Tirpitz in the lead, with the battlecruisers following 40km behind. He hoped the rest of their voyage would pass without a hitch. Greenland-Iceland gap was confining, and they had no clear route to safe harbor.


May 23rd

Despite all caution they could take, Bismarck and Tirpitz had been spotted. A pair of British cruisers was now dogging them. Holding just outside of their effective range.

However, his battlecruisers would be quite near to them. Though he was hesitant to break radio silence, they had already been spotted, so there was little sense to the extra precaucion now.

His message was only three words:
"Alle Schiffe, feuererlaubnis".



Rear-admiral Wake-Walker felt his stomach sink as Suffolk reported that four new contacts had appeared on radar, and that she was under heavy fire.

He has just turned to order Norfolk to relay the information to the Admiralty, when there was an explosion forward of the conning tower. Turning around, he saw A and B turrets were clearly knocked out, and another salvo sailed over his ship, and created three large water columns. 12" guns, if he were to guess by the size of them.

"Radio in that we're under attack, four large enemy ships trailing the leading Jerry ships.

Helmsman, take evasive action! Full Speed Ahead!"

Moments later, the ship had just begun to make its turn, when another salvo tore through the conning tower.

He had only time to feel the sudden give of bones breaking as he was thrown into the wall, and then blackness overtook him.



Sachsen radioed back "Two ships sunk. Resuming course."


Lütjens made a mental note to chastise the captain of the Sachsen at the next opportunity. He should know better than to report over radio what Bismarck would be perfectly capable of seeing on her own radar.

His radio operator sent a message telling him there were no transmissions from the British ships, save for the one panicked message from the first cruiser before she began to sink. With any luck, they would be entirely unaware of his battlecruisers.


May 23rd, 03:35

The Bismarck's radar had detected a contact to their west. A lookout reported it to be only a destroyer, though there was no way Bismarck could keep her from trailing them. Even her secondary guns would be like swatting at a mosquito with a baseball bat.

Fourty minutes later, her hydrophones reported multiple high speed screws to the west. It seemed they had somehow ended up east of the searching British ships. And he was lucky enough to have them crossing their own T, though it would be at extreme range before they pulled onto his stern.

At 04:17, the first salvo was fired by Hood. Shells landed nearly a thousand meters to stern of Bismarck. Prince of Wales would open fire on Tirpitz a minute and seventeen seconds later. Her first salvo hit Tirpitz, but did little damage to the thick belt armor.

At 04:22, as Hood bracketed Bismarck, Lütjens ordered his ships to return fire. One of Bismarck's shells struck amid ship, and smoke began to rise from Hood, but the ship continued on unhindered.

By 04:45, suffering two hits, and Tirpitz taking three, though none of them doing serious damage, Hood, and the King George V battleship had slipped onto Lütjens' stern, and were continuing to fire from roughly 20,000 yds, but were unable to close at any significant speed.

Lütjens, at a disadvantage in weight of fire, ordered his ships into a hard turn to port, to open his forward turrets to the enemy ships, which themselves began to turn with him, so as to pull abeam of him.

It was then that he broke radio silence to his battlecruisers. "Make full speed and engage the enemy".

Their flagship, Scharnhorst's reply was succinct, and wholey welcome to Lütjens "Zu Befehl".

Having doubled back on their own course, Lütjens and the British under command of Admiral Holland were now closing on the German battlecruisers at nearly 60 knots.

10 minutes later, the German ships had closed to 27,000yds, and Gneisenau, the leading ship, opened fire, breaking her sister Scharnhorst's record for the longest ranged hit in naval history when her opening salvo struck Hood forward of the conning tower, and damaged one of her boiler rooms, slowing her to 21kn.

Hood and Price of Wales made a hard turn to starboard, cutting across Lütjens' bow, briefly crossing his T, but made clear efforts to withdraw. Lütjens decided to pursue Prince of Wales with Bismarck and Tirpitz, while leaving his battlecruiser group to deal with hood.

By 04:57, closings to within 11,000m, Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Sachsen, and Yorck would score 53 hits on Hood before she capsized at 05:22 and began sinking by the bow. Her stern slipped below the water at 05:39. During the course of the action, Scharnhorst sustained four hits, her C turret being disabled, and Yorck suffering two hits, and sustaining crippling damage to one of her turbines, limiting her to only 20kn.


After disabling Prince of Wales' aft turret at 05:04, and damaging her turbines five minutes later, Bismarck and Tirpitz were able to slow PoW to 24kn, allowing them to close to an effective engagement range. Burning fiercely after 32 close range 15" hits, and countless 150mm hits, Bismarck and Tirpitz broke off at 05:27 to rejoin Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Sachsen, and Yorck.
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