WI the Bismarck was sunk by battleships?

Gents,

Seeing as even more ponderous bloviating about the alleged superiority of Bismarck's design and construction has been dumped into this thread again, let me share the following link with you all:

http://www.navweaps.com/index_inro/INRO_Bismarck_p1.htm

It's a very exhaustive, , very technical, and very detailed examination of the ship's final battle and loss. Expect to spend an hour or so reading the materials there and following the footnotes provided.

One extremely important point to remember in all this simplistic chest beating regarding Bismarck's design and "unskinkability", is the fact that the ship was MISSION KILLED within 20 minutes of the RN battleships opening fire. How long it took Bismarck to sink and why Bismarck eventually sank is of no consequence when Bismarck's antiquated armor scheme could not protect her crew from gunfire for 20 minutes or prevent gunfire from turning her into becoming a defenseless waterlogged hulk in the same period of time.

Compare that 20 minute period to the experience of USS South Dakota in the Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal and you'll see why Bismarck's design was a failure.


Bill


P.S. Before the Usual Suspects take exception to my description of Bismarck's armor scheme as antiquated, either out of relfexive chest beating or general incomprehension, I am not referring to the steel used to create Bismarck's armor but rather how the battleship's armor was arranged within her hull.
 
Gents,

Seeing as even more ponderous bloviating about the alleged superiority of Bismarck's design and construction has been dumped into this thread again, let me share the following link with you all:

http://www.navweaps.com/index_inro/INRO_Bismarck_p1.htm

It's a very exhaustive, , very technical, and very detailed examination of the ship's final battle and loss. Expect to spend an hour or so reading the materials there and following the footnotes provided.

One extremely important point to remember in all this simplistic chest beating regarding Bismarck's design and "unskinkability", is the fact that the ship was MISSION KILLED within 20 minutes of the RN battleships opening fire. How long it took Bismarck to sink and why Bismarck eventually sank is of no consequence when Bismarck's antiquated armor scheme could not protect her crew from gunfire for 20 minutes or prevent gunfire from turning her into becoming a defenseless waterlogged hulk in the same period of time.

Compare that 20 minute period to the experience of USS South Dakota in the Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal and you'll see why Bismarck's design was a failure.


Bill


P.S. Before the Usual Suspects take exception to my description of Bismarck's armor scheme as antiquated, either out of relfexive chest beating or general incomprehension, I am not referring to the steel used to create Bismarck's armor but rather how the battleship's armor was arranged within her hull.



There is no disagreement in the fact the German ship was knocked out soon after the final started, it was a technical debate how to sink a doomed hulk, incapable of defending itself. As a design Bismarck was optimised for gunnery and sacrificed firepower for this, as a ship of her size in most other navies certainly would have carried a bigger ordonance.

The point also is that no allied ship ever had an ordeal simillar to this vessel, as even the often superior claimed South Dakota was relatively fighting a minor fight at guadalcanal. (Have her hit by the same amount of ordonance and she would sink, even within minutes, being of a much less strong design, especially underwater. She would have succumbed earlier, after the first three airborne torpedoes by the way.) Only a King George V class and a Yamato could approach the level of protection on Bismarck, but either at the expense of firepower, or making it almost one and a half time bigger.
 
Gents,

Seeing as even more ponderous bloviating about the alleged superiority of Bismarck's design and construction has been dumped into this thread again, let me share the following link with you all:

http://www.navweaps.com/index_inro/INRO_Bismarck_p1.htm

It's a very exhaustive, , very technical, and very detailed examination of the ship's final battle and loss. Expect to spend an hour or so reading the materials there and following the footnotes provided.

One extremely important point to remember in all this simplistic chest beating regarding Bismarck's design and "unskinkability", is the fact that the ship was MISSION KILLED within 20 minutes of the RN battleships opening fire. How long it took Bismarck to sink and why Bismarck eventually sank is of no consequence when Bismarck's antiquated armor scheme could not protect her crew from gunfire for 20 minutes or prevent gunfire from turning her into becoming a defenseless waterlogged hulk in the same period of time.

Compare that 20 minute period to the experience of USS South Dakota in the Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal and you'll see why Bismarck's design was a failure.


Bill


P.S. Before the Usual Suspects take exception to my description of Bismarck's armor scheme as antiquated, either out of relfexive chest beating or general incomprehension, I am not referring to the steel used to create Bismarck's armor but rather how the battleship's armor was arranged within her hull.
Part of that's because she's basically an enlarged and slightly improved, via the addition of AA guns, version of the World War I-era Baden-class, right?
 
Part of that's because she's basically an enlarged and slightly improved, via the addition of AA guns, version of the World War I-era Baden-class, right?


Wolfman,

Basically yes. Unlike South Dakota, Bismarck was put out of action inside of twenty minutes because her WW1-style "low" armored deck could not protect her crew and the various equipment such as communicators, electrical power, telemotor leads, and the like the crew needed to use to fight.

In comparison, South Dakota, "deaf, dumb, and blind" due to an electrical casualty, suffered 65 hits over 17 minutes of undivided attention from a battleship, four cruisers, and eight destroyers while "only" losing 98 killed or wounded and was ready to fight again the next day.

Bismarck was hit over 400 times, but most of those hits came after she could no longer fire in return and KGV, Rodney, Dorsetshire, and Norfolk were using her as a punching bag for over 90 minutes at close range during daylight in attempt to sink her.

Bismarck's design made her very tough to sink, but that same design gave her a glass jaw too. Staying afloat is of no use when a ship can be so easily mission killed.


Bill
 
Gents,

...ponderous bloviating...

Now that's using the English language the way God intended, sailor!

And in the ponderously bloviated lyrics of Johnny Horton,

"In May of 1941
The war had just begun.

The Germans had the Biggest Ship
It had the Biggest Guns"

It just wouldn't be the same if the words were

"In May of 1941
The Brits had nearly won."

The Germans had a bloated ship
Without the biggest guns."

But according to Breyer, its shells were "as big as steers".
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
Based upon folks who are far more knowledgable than I on the matter, chiefly Nathan Okun, you are about as wrong as it is possible to be when comparing the underwater protection schemes of the Bismarck to just about any other ship of the era.

The Bismarck had a very shallow belt, and it was quite thin, at least when compared to her contemporaries. The protection on the upper works was better than the underwater protection, but it was still far inferior to the American designs beginning with BB-56. The German ship's armor was both thinner in actual size and was of a lesser quality (although good, the German plate was not of the same quality as the the American homogenous plate, which was the best ever put to sea, based on actual testing).

The confusion may be in that the American South Dakota & Iowa classes were not balanced designs (i.e. the ship's main guns could defeat the ship's armor). The reality, however, is that with the possible exception of the IJN 18.1" AP shell their wasn't a gun ever floated as powerful as the U.S. 16"/45 & 16"/50 with the "super heavy" AP shell in use (the Japanese 18.1" shell, while heavier than the U.S. 16" shell, had a much inferior AP cap and testing indicates that the 18.1" shell would have been decapped prior to penetration by the U.S. BB main belt and deck armor schemes). The German 15" shell was not even in the same league.

For some rather detailed analysis, I recommend this site:

http://www.combinedfleet.com/okun_biz.htm
There is no disagreement in the fact the German ship was knocked out soon after the final started, it was a technical debate how to sink a doomed hulk, incapable of defending itself. As a design Bismarck was optimised for gunnery and sacrificed firepower for this, as a ship of her size in most other navies certainly would have carried a bigger ordonance.

The point also is that no allied ship ever had an ordeal simillar to this vessel, as even the often superior claimed South Dakota was relatively fighting a minor fight at guadalcanal. (Have her hit by the same amount of ordonance and she would sink, even within minutes, being of a much less strong design, especially underwater. She would have succumbed earlier, after the first three airborne torpedoes by the way.) Only a King George V class and a Yamato could approach the level of protection on Bismarck, but either at the expense of firepower, or making it almost one and a half time bigger.
 
Only a King George V class and a Yamato could approach the level of protection on Bismarck, but either at the expense of firepower, or making it almost one and a half time bigger.
I have to agree that the armour KG V class was probably not much better than the Bismark. Of course, either was 'ead and shoulders above the 'Ood.

Still, and I know this is silly to ask, do you have any reputable sources to support your claim that the armour scheme of either the KG V or of the Bismarck was as good as you claim? Certainly, there are numerous well researched sources pointing out the many shortcoming of both classes, particularly those damning the Bismarck and her armour. There seems to be a dearth of scholarly support presented for your claims of such superiority of protection.
 
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