What if the Bismarck had surrended?

I read in the paper today, how two familes, who had relatives who served on HMS Rodney during the battle, claimed that the Bismarck tried to surrender. Due to Churchills order to sink the Bismarck, senior officers aboard ignored this. Now I dont know whether this is true, but what would the effects be if the Royal Navy captured the Bismarck?

Personally I think this would be a great propaganda victory and maybe another enigma machine gets captured, cant think of many other changes though.
 
Surrendering a whole damn battleship to the enemy? Never. No navy would do that, least of all during that time.
And after all I read about the whole battle, that claim sounds like a bit of BS to me, to be honest.
 
Surrendering a whole damn battleship to the enemy? Never. No navy would do that, least of all during that time.
And after all I read about the whole battle, that claim sounds like a bit of BS to me, to be honest.

Yeh sort of doubt it myself. Just was wondering what the effects would be if she did surrender.

How would you surrender a battleship in the middle of a battle? Was my first thought upon reading this.

Apprentley a seaman aboard Rodney saw a black flag been run up and this is a signal that a ship wants to surrender (dont know if thats true). Also semaphore signals asking to surrender were also seen.
 
Yeh sort of doubt it myself. Just was wondering what the effects would be if she did surrender.

How would you surrender a battleship in the middle of a battle? Was my first thought upon reading this.

Apprentley a seaman aboard Rodney saw a black flag been run up and this is a signal that a ship wants to surrender (dont know if thats true). Also semaphore signals asking to surrender were also seen.

Black flag usually indicate a signal which means "surrender or die" not "we surrender"!

As for a couple of guys waving their arms around - not going to stop a naval battle.
 
Surrender...

Russian battleships surrendered at Tsushima, and there were a few isolated incidents where a warship of one sort or another surrendered in both world wars. I would call a surrender very unlikely, but not quite ASB, depending on who the surviving senior officer is. The problem would be seeing the surrender signal.

If the ship does surrender, I would expect there to be more survivors--but the u-boat sighting would cause the Royal Navy to likely scuttle the hulk anyway.

Germany would proclaim tha the crew hadn't surrendered, no matter what happened. (Getting the hulk back to port would have been VERY unlikely, IMVHO, unless the Bismarck was caught closer to Britian.)
 

sharlin

Banned
If thanks to ASB's the Bismark did surrender she would have never seen service. She was a battered wreck and towing her home would have been bloody difficult considering the fuel state of the RN ships chasing her. But again thanks to ASB's the Bis does get home, her value would have been as was mentioned a propaganda peice.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
This is effectively impossible with modern warships. The risk is too great to accept the surrender, especially from what is more or less a a steel island full of guns (many people forget that surrendering isn't an automatic, the other side has to accept it).

There is also the difficulty in getting an entire crew the orders to surrender on a damaged ship. All it would take is one 20mm gunner whose sound phone cable is broken to open up an the cutter or destroyer moving in to accept the surrender to blow the whole deal sky high.
 
This is effectively impossible with modern warships. The risk is too great to accept the surrender, especially from what is more or less a a steel island full of guns (many people forget that surrendering isn't an automatic, the other side has to accept it).

There is also the difficulty in getting an entire crew the orders to surrender on a damaged ship. All it would take is one 20mm gunner whose sound phone cable is broken to open up an the cutter or destroyer moving in to accept the surrender to blow the whole deal sky high.
It's from a Futuristic, POV ...

But, I Think this Excerpt from Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's "Reflex"; REALLY Sums up, The Intricacies that would be Involved:

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/spacewardefense.php#Force_Fields~Langston_Field
 
I read in the paper today, how two familes, who had relatives who served on HMS Rodney during the battle, claimed that the Bismarck tried to surrender. Due to Churchills order to sink the Bismarck, senior officers aboard ignored this. Now I dont know whether this is true, but what would the effects be if the Royal Navy captured the Bismarck?

Personally I think this would be a great propaganda victory and maybe another enigma machine gets captured, cant think of many other changes though.


I think it is unlikely that a German Battleship would surrender in a battle. Apart from U boats I don't recall any German surface ship in either world war trying to surrender. Usually a German warship would scuttle if they knew all was lost. Also remember that the Navy was pretty well Nazified.

The Bismarck scuttled itself after being pounded to a hulk. There is no record of any German survivor from the Bismarck saying that they tried to surrender the ship.
 
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