WI: altered Battle of Denmark Straits

Ming777

Monthly Donor
As we all know the first battle involving the Bismarck led to the sinking of the WWI era battlecruiser Hood. What if the Hood wasn't in her magazine but was still either knocked out of battle or nearly sunk.

What if the Hood did land a few hits on the Bismarck? What if the Prinz Eugen found itself targeted by the British and engaged as well?
 
Well Bismarck did get hit by PoW, one shot directly on her forward fuel line. I doubt you could reverse the fates of Hood and Bismarck, but a second shot from the RN that results in either the Prinz Eugen going up like OTL the Hood did, or results in critical damage to one or both of the Birmarck's forward turrets could easily force her to turn back there and then.
 

GarethC

Donor
Tovey said of the Hood's Captain Kerr, "He has a sound knowledge of tactics and strategy. I would always be glad to have him with me in battle. He expresses himself forcibly and clearly noth verbally and in writing. Never hesitates to give his own opinion."

Have Holland ask Captain Kerr whether Hood should face Bismarck. Kerr was at Jutland, and might just put pride in his ship aside to suggest that maybe PoW should lead when they meet the enemy, what with not being of the class of bloody ships with which there is something wrong.

If PoW leads (as she had been for much of the night until about half-an-hour before Lutjens was sighted) and is taken under fire first, then Hood will get a chance to show whether Kerr's gunnery exercises in the preceding three months had paid off. It's not clear if that will help - Hood's gunnery was ineffectual until she was sunk, though that may be due to a 15" shell passing through the spotting top early on.
 
HMS Hood was never refitted and still had her original firecontroll of her, as when constructed. It worked well agianst stationary targets at Mers el Kebir, aided by spotterplanes, but unsupported against a moving target, it was possibly an even weaker point than her thin deckprotection. The lower placement of this set meant she was not very well fitted to slug it out at longer range, although she would be usefull at short range battles. HMS Prince of Wales was state of the Art, but untested and always the better ship to give and take a punch.
 

Orry

Donor
Monthly Donor
I remember war gaming this on a church hall floor.....

By an absolute fluke the Hood landed her first salvo directly onto the Bismark - 8 15" shells all hitting at the same time does not a happy ship make.

Under the rules we were using the Bismark had to make a number of 'saving throws' (these were better than the British ships) the first couple they made but eventually they failed and that was that......

Bismark is not unsinkable and it was a fluke that sank the Hood - but the Bismark was the best ship in the fight so the luck has to run firmly with the RN for them to win - the Hood getting away damaged is more possible....
 
How about this, Hood takes a shot to her forward fuel line, but delivers a shot to Bismarck's foreturrets (the all-or-nothing armour prevents her from pulling an OTL Hood, but the shot jams the turrets), Meanwhile, Prinz Eugen whacks PoW's radar and one of her turrets, but in reply is sent down. Bismarck manages to escape due to PoW's now random gunnery (a few shots come close, but none hit), and Hood is in no position to give chase.
 

sharlin

Banned
If the Hood didn't get golden BBed and the RN closed the range as they planned then it would probably end with a badly damaged Hood withdrawing whilst the Bismark would also take a battering, especially if both battleships concentrated on the Bismark.

The Bismark's armour scheme is odd, she was incredibly tough as was proven in her final battle but because of the placement of her belt and lack of all or nothing scheme as well has having a VERY low armoured deck meant that she was relatively easy to disable as with what happened in her final fight. The British pair might not be able to sink her but if they can cause enough damage to mission kill her then they've won no matter what.
 

JRScott

Banned
Without the full destruction of the Hood, it is likely Britain would not have carried on the massive hunt and Bismark would have made St. Nazaire for repairs, assuming it was damaged as it is in the OTL. The Prinz Eugen was not the main threat to Prince of Wales and Hood, Bismark was, so it is unlikely they'd target the Prinz Eugen over the Bismark.

Figure couple months for repairs and it would be joined by Tirpitz and probably Schamhorst, Gneisenau, Admiral Scheer and Admiral Hipper as well as Prinz Eugen.

The combined squadron now would do considerable damage to any fleet pursuing it.
 
It was... unlikely for Hood to explode. Problem is RN ships had a clear track recorded of exploding. Core issue once you strip aside the other factors is that British cordite was just less stable. It was less forgiving of bad luck or mistakes.

Bad Luck: Hood getting hit by the golden BB
Mistakes: Beatty's ammo handling orders at Jutland

Plus

HMS Vanguard
Mistake: Left with old cordite on board and it just went off in port; 1917

Several of the AC's at Jutland exploded when out of control fires reached the magazines.

To me having British Cordite on board means the ships have thinner margins. You can't quantify how much riskier the RN ships are but its there.

Now if the golden BB doesn't hit Hood? Maybe another one does instead, the dice keep on rolling. Maybe Bismarck gets the golden BB instead. Or PE or PoW.

PoW is very likely to suffer a break down of some of its main armament during the engagement.

Random events aside Germans have 1 BB and a CA vs. 2 BB's. This heavily favor the British; they SHOULD win the engagement as N^2 runs the fight.

Michael
 

sharlin

Banned
The thing is trying to combine them, you can't dock a formation that size anywhere along the french seaboard without it getting regular visits from the RAF so the Bismark would have to go home or Norway to meet the other ships and thats a risky journey in itself.
 
It was... unlikely for Hood to explode. Problem is RN ships had a clear track recorded of exploding. Core issue once you strip aside the other factors is that British cordite was just less stable. It was less forgiving of bad luck or mistakes.

Bad Luck: Hood getting hit by the golden BB
Mistakes: Beatty's ammo handling orders at Jutland

Plus

HMS Vanguard
Mistake: Left with old cordite on board and it just went off in port; 1917

Several of the AC's at Jutland exploded when out of control fires reached the magazines.

To me having British Cordite on board means the ships have thinner margins. You can't quantify how much riskier the RN ships are but its there.

Now if the golden BB doesn't hit Hood? Maybe another one does instead, the dice keep on rolling. Maybe Bismarck gets the golden BB instead. Or PE or PoW.

PoW is very likely to suffer a break down of some of its main armament during the engagement.

Random events aside Germans have 1 BB and a CA vs. 2 BB's. This heavily favor the British; they SHOULD win the engagement as N^2 runs the fight.

Michael

Part of the problem in most navies at the time of WW2 was the way they stowed their propellant charges. Most navies, definitely the British, US and Japanese did use magazines for their propellant, where all the charges were stored together in a ready to use way, which meant: in the open, with no individual storage containers for each charge, like the Germans did use. Appart form the mentioned vessels, the USS Arizona and Japanese Mutsu, Kongo and possibly Fuso as well all exploded, due to a magazine setting off. In this way, a single charge could set of a chain reaction, causing all the nearby charges to explode as well, while the German individual containers gave at least some protection against this, needing something very big and powerful to ignite all charges at once; like some 4 tons of TNT in a warhead of a Talboy. A normal AP shell simply is not powerful enough to trigger the same effect, as it only had a few pounds of explosives at best, since most weight of such a shell is steel.
 

sharlin

Banned
Warspite speaks the truth. That and the Germans built their ships bloody well, the Sydlitz suffered a massive magazine fire at the battle of Dogger Bank that would have sunk any British ship but although the fire killed many men and disabled two turrets it didn't affect her speed a bit and she kept with the formation. At Jutland the Koenig was hit by a 13.5 inch round that punched through to her I think it was her 5.9 inch magazine and started a small fire but water flooded in and quenched the blaze before it could get more serious, that was the Germans biggest close call for a Dreadnought/Battleship in WW1.
 
Top