Maximum amount of damage possible for the Tirpitz to inflict?

The posted pictures show the effects of a torpedo hit forward of the turrets, close to the stem, but the sonar images seem to show that a considerably greater chunk of bow has detached, with the split in the area of the turrets, and the bridge structure immediately behind the break. Do you not have a better picture?

The events related to her magazines are interesting though. "A" turret was penetrated very early in the battle, resulting in fire and flooding of the forward magazines. B magazine seems to have been drained, but A is unspecified. You say that B magazine had expended all its ammo and hence could not have exploded, but B turret was disabled via the ventilation trunk hit and therefore this seems unlikely. There are also references to ammo being transferred from the forward magazines to C turret, which would indicate the presence of propellant in B.

I've also never seen Gneisenau's bow fire ascribed to fuel before, and it seems improbable that a bomb on the armour deck could ignite such a fierce fire without the aid of propellant. For example, "Battleships of the Scharnhorst Class: Warships of the Kriegsmarine"
by Gerard Koop and Klaus-Peter Schmolke talks of igniting the ready charges in A magazine and an explosion that killed everyone in the turret and displaced the turret structure, with a greater explosion only being prevented by prompt flooding.

I agree with the Gneisenau thing, thopugh it was mentioned the propellant was not fully removed on her, by the time of the fatal bombingraid. A portion was still present and it ignited on impact of the bombhit, also igniting a fuelfire, that cause the ship to burn for two days. Ammunitionfire itself lacks this ability, being far more shorter termed in combustion.

As for Scharnhorst, there is not a real indication how large the part of the missing bow is, since it was not accurately measured. It might have been a large portion, it might be a small one. Most indications however suggest it was only the part in front of A turret that is missing, sicne a magazineexplosion of only a near emty magazine is not enough to cause such a massive structural problem. Most important is that Scharnhirst had fouight a fight of several hours, witha good rate of fire of her reamining main armamant of B and C turret, untill C turret was out of ammunition adn B tuuret knocked out, pretty late in the gunduel itself. Only A turret was knocked out early on and her magazine was pre-emptively flooded, due to a turretfire, which killed its crew as well. Sicne a flooded magazine cannot be triggered to blow, A magazine is more or less excluded to have caused such an event.

B-turret was near empty when knocked out, so her left over magazine contents could be used in C turret. Even if this magazine had to blow up, it was short of combustible stuff to cause a massive hullfracture as such. That leaves a more likely cause to be one, or perhaps more torpedoes doing the job of breaking the bow. Evidence for such a thing is hard to find, though the similar single hit on Gneisenau in 1940 already showed it was seriously possible that this narrow part of the streamlined hull was vulnerable to such damage.

Something else:
German propelant was stored in individual containers, just to prevent them from creating a chainreaction when one was to blow by whatever cause, unlike the normal practice of other navies at the time.

Crewmen move 28 cm charge container on Scharnhorst.
 
Yes, it's well known that German propellant was less sensitive and harder to ignite. A slower deflagration fits in well with the damage to Gneisenau - a fire as opposed to Barham going Boom. I didn't know that Gneisenau burnt for two days, that is interesting and probably requires fuel contribution, I wouldn't have thought that the internal fittings would have provided enough fuel. I presume fuel was stored in the bow similar to Bismarck?

The movement of ammunition from A/B to C is mentioned in Garzke and Dulin's Axis and Neutral Battleships, apparently, but I don't have a copy.
 
Aggression comes from orders, doctrine, leadership and training.

For example, here's HMS Glowworm attacking the German heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper. Given this level of risk taking, Scharnhorst would have closed with Renown with only her secondaries if need be. But German doctrine would never have gone for it, so you've got to run.
743158.jpg

Not to quibble, but that looks more like a picture of the Hipper attacking the Glowworm, and the Glowworm making smoke and trying to run for it.
 
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