Why Was The Bismarck The Most Feared Ship Of WW2? | History Hit | War Stories
Vložit
- čas přidán 31. 05. 2024
- During WWII, the Bismark was one of the most famous ships in Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine. Designed to break into the Atlantic and distrupt Allied shipping, its size, reputation and strong defences put fear into the men of the Royal Navy. So how exactly would the Allies manage to track her down and if they did what on earth would take her down...?
Presented by Dan Snow, this exclusive episode of History Hit's Bismark series takes us on a journey into the first stages of the hunt for the Bismark.
War Stories is your one stop shop for all things military history. From Waterloo to Verdun, we'll be bringing you only the best documentaries and stories from history's most engaging and dramatic conflicts.
You can find more from us on:
/ warstoriesdocs
This channel is part of the History Hit Network. For any queries, please contact owned-enquiries@littledotstudios.com. #warstories Discover the past on History Hit with ad-free exclusive podcasts and documentaries released weekly presented by world renowned historians Dan Snow, Suzannah Lipscomb, Matt Lewis and more. Get 50% off your first 3 months with code WARSTORIES bit.ly/3rc7nqm
It's like Netflix for history... Sign up to History Hit the world's best history documentary service with code 'WARSTORIES' for a huge discount! bit.ly/3CTTXEV
annoying for you to keep mentioning netflix, trying to use them for promoting your channel.
@@redshoesgirl ppppp
The Japanese actually had the largest and heaviest Battleships ever bull with 18 inch guns
Ok
@@kaus3587 Yes but at the point Bismarck was launched, it (he) was the biggest battleship afloat.
As a youth I spent 6 months in Germany in 1980. There was a jeweler who had a shop across the street. I came to be friends with him and he explained to me he was one of the few survivors of the Bismark. He was taken prisoner and taken to Canada. As an adult I learned that only maybe 100-150 crew survived the sinking. In Canada, he took a piece of wood from under a table, and carved a replica of the Bismark, with a mechanism which turned the guns with a wooden key. He took a shoebox size box from a closet and showed it to me. He had lost the key. He showed me the ropes were his actual hairs which were red. He made little battle flags an it was quite impressive.
Do you remember his name?
That should be in a museum!
Sorry I forgot his name, but it was in Siegen or spelled Seigen. It was about 45 years ago. I do remember him telling me it took like 3-4 years to carve, but he had the time.
Wow this is incredible
@@PlateletRichGel your first memory was correct, its spelled "Siegen". Greetings
Actually, the scariest ship was the US Navy's ice cream barge. Not kidding, the USN had a ice cream ship during WW2, in the Pacific. Why was it scary? When you have so much extra shipping tonnage that you can afford an ice cream ship, it sends the enemy a powerful message.
Yes the same thing happened with the Berlin Airlift. Our planes landing in blockaded Berlin would drop candy to children on final approach. The Soviet Marshall veiwing this said he knew their siege was doomed to fail because the Americans could afford to do this.
The Royal Navy had a brewery ship in the Pacific theatre ....
@@FirstSpaceLord Of course they did. The RN is known for being properely equiped. Brewery ships have been a thing for some time. Why just transport grain when you can make more money with a finished product?
Interesting take , agreed.
Yeah I remember hearing about the Japanese pilots being disappointed they didnt have ice cream while returning from attacking Pearl Harbor.
Andrew Choong is awesome. He’s clear, coherent, and concise. He also has a natural ability to narrate. Give the man more screen time.
I have been watching his Up Front episodes.
Are you talking about the guy narrating with a lisp?
@@Eric_the_miserable_midget No, that’s not him. Andrew was quite articulate with no discernible lisp…
Sounds like he needs to drink water.
@donwon7592 or his tongue is swollen. It's driving me nuts.
I met one of the 4 survivors of the Bismarck and got his autograph on a picture of the ship. Still have it.
There were 114 survivors from Bismarck.
Admiral Raeder in fact had no illusions when it came to a direct confrontation between his Kriegsmarine and the Royal Navy. When speaking of this in 1939 he said that at least the Kriegsmarine would go down fighting, meaning that it would not go down like the German Imperial Navy at the end of WWI which surrendered its major fleet to the Royal Navy and subsequently scuttled its warships in Scapa Flow in a final act of defiance.
But that's not what happened.
@@celtspeaksgoth7251
No, practically all of the Kriegsmarine major warships had been sunk by 1945 or had been badly damaged and were confined to ports. Destroyers, mine layers and other minor vessels were all that remained - apart from the U-Boat fleet of course.
And again one of these absurd exaggerations regarding German weapons in WWII. No, the Bismarck was definitely not the most feared ship of WW2. The most dangerous ships for the Allies were the Japanese aircraft carriers. The German ships, on the other hand, were completely irrelevant to the course of the war. The only German sea vehicles that were dangerous were the submarines and certainly not ships like the Bismarck.
@@GreatPolishWingedHussars There is a certain exaggeration of German weapons in WW2 but you sound as if you have an axe to grind because of the invasion of your country, and to dismiss the big German ships like Tirpitz/Bismarck as completely irrelevant is short sighted and naïve.
Even when those ships where in port they tied up fairly large amounts of men and material which could have been used on convoy duties and the like, Had they joined up and wandered along the shipping lanes and convoys, the outcome of the whole war may have been different.
Its only with hindsight can they be dismissed as an irrelevancy
@@jackreacher5667 Absurd claim! My criticism of the exaggerations regarding German weapons is justified and your accusation is ridiculous!
My father was a midshipman on HMS Suffolk during the hunt for Bismarck. Unfortunately I was unable to have an adult conversation with him about those days but I have his autobiographical account. Miss you, dad.xx
And again one of these absurd exaggerations regarding German weapons in WWII. No, the Bismarck was definitely not the most feared ship of WW2. The most dangerous ships for the Allies were the Japanese aircraft carriers. The German ships, on the other hand, were completely irrelevant to the course of the war. The only German sea vehicles that were dangerous were the submarines and certainly not ships like the Bismarck.
@@GreatPolishWingedHussars shut up
Wasn't the Suffolk the first ship that encountered Bismarck and Prinz Eugun in Denmark strait ?
@@sukhastings4200 It was. Along with HMS Norfolk. Both were equipped with early forms of radar so they each had one side of the Denmark Strait to cover. Once they’d made contact they played cat n’ mouse in and out of fog banks with Bismarck sending the occasional 15” to say hello.
Hello dear
My grandfather was involved in the hunt for the Bismarck, on Mashona, one of the Tribal class destroyers that was escorting the Rodney.
Mashona was sunk on her way back to Britain. My grandad was rescued.
My father was not far away at the time. He was a stoker onboard HMS Dorsetshire returning to Newcastle with the Bismarck survivors. Thank god the ship that Ludovic Kennedy was aboard, HMS Tartar, was accompanying Mashona, and able to pick up the survivors including your grandfather. Respects to their memories..
Thanks for that! I know very little about it, he never really talked about it.
I know he was a rangefinder operator. When Mashona sank, he helped another sailor with severe arm injuries stay afloat until they were rescued.
He was awarded a distinguished service order, he used the medal to prop up the leg on an aquarium.
@@alanjm1234 Much the same as my own father did a year later in the (admittedly much warmer) Indian Ocean when Dorsetshire herself was sunk by Japanese dive bombers, he and 600 others clung to wreckage for 33 hours before their eventual rescue. All the best Alan.
@ alan Mac I'll bet your Grandfather had some incredible stories locked inside his head.
Thank God for people like your Grandfather.
The guns were so powerful on Bismark, when they fired a 15" volley, it knocked out several pieces of equipment, the main radar, and the eardrums of 2 dozen men. His secondary battery was bigger than over 90% of Allied ship guns
Large battleship guns ALWAYS used to cause a degree of damage to the firing ship. Imagine what the forward NINE 16" guns of the Nelson class class did to their mother ship !!!
Even smaller guns could cause damage to their own ships when firing. When the RN's heavy cruiser HMS Suffolk's fired her forward 8" guns abaft at one point during the Bismarck saga they blew in her own bridge windows leaving the captain & bridge staff to deal with dreadful North Atlantic weather until she eventually returned to port for repairs. (Mind you HMS Suffolk was lucky.... HMS Norfolk who accompanied her still had a completely OPEN BRIDGE that the Royal Navy seemed to prefer (well at least the admirals sat in their warm offices back in Whitehall seemed to prefer !!!).
Please don't be silly. Bismarck carried 12 x five point nine inch low angle guns, which were outdated by 1940 and never actually managed to hit anything. The British Nelson class , built ten years earlier, carried 12 x 6 inch LA guns, and the King George V class 16 x 5'25 DP. Modern US battleships carried 20 x 5 inch DPs. Perhaps if Bismarck had had a DP secondary armament, she might not have been quite so unprepared to cope with attacks by torpedo bombers?
The main guns in Bismarck were so powerful that they fired a broadside of 14,112 lbs., compared to the 15,900 of the KGVs, the 18,432 of a Nelson, or the 24,300 of a Washington, Iowa, or South Dakota.
Or, come to that, the 18,000 lbs of a Tennessee, or the 15,504 lbs of a Queen Elizabet or R class..
Do you consider that having radar which failed when the guns fired was really beneficial? The radars of US & British capital ships generally had no such limitations.
I love the story of the Bismarck as much as the next man, but she would of been relegated to the fate of the Tirpitz if she had survived, constantly hounded by air power living up to a shell of her potential. I believe her sinking is what made her legendary and a ship all naval enthusiasts love.
'All' might be overdoing it
@@silverhost9782 Love is also a strong word. I'm intrigued by Bismark. I LOVE ships like USS Tuscaloosa, USS New Jersey, or the brave men and destroyers of Taffy 3, as just a few examples.
A typical sitting duck scenario in the making if the Bismarck had got back to port.
@@gangleweed you mean, the port where the germans has massive air superiority as well as layers upon layers of AA? you DO realize that it wasn't until AFTER D-day that the allies were even able to bomb the port at Brest, right?
@@thomasneal9291 if that was true, why didn't the twins deploy from there to continue convoy raids?
One can indeed imagine how awefully shocking it must have been for that 16 year old boy sailor who went to the bridge of HMS Prince of Wales, expecting to find men with nice clean wounds that could be aided by just patching them up with bandages. Instead he found to his horror the truth of warfare - men's bodies reduced to lumps of flesh and body parts and the horrendous mutilations and eviscerations of men that he had seen alive and healthy just shortly beforehand. I can well imagine that this young man saw these horrific images in his nightmares for the rest of his life - that is what PTSD does to a person..... the horror and fear experienced in warfare haunts one like a demon, never giving peace.
Yes Indeed.
Made him tough!
@@healdiseasenow ... or breaks him (post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD))!
It's not exactly like that. Affected people can go for months or even years without problems...then something triggers an associative memory and they have an episode. But it's usually not a constant thing. I had a high school shop teacher who was a WW2 marine and saw absolutely horrendous things. Every couple of years some random loud noise would trigger him and he would become unresponsive...almost catatonic. When it happened they'd call his brother (a local cop) and he'd come and sit/talk with him. Everyone understood and supported him.
@@fredjones7705
People suffered differently. My father suffered nearly every night of his long life from nightmares of what he experienced during WW2, so one cannot generalise the syndrom at all.
Bismarck's reputation was greater than its ability.
On paper, it looked formidable, but Germany's lack of experience in designing warships since WW2 left it with crucial design flaws that made it vulnerable.
The quote "Bismarck is as capable as anything the British have got" is simply not true. Bismarck was designed to be a commerce raider, sinking British convoys and tying up huge numbers of British ships to hunt her over the expanse of the Atlantic. In a 1:1 fight, the British had a class that could fight the Bismarck on at least equal terms.
Once the issues with the quad 14'' turrets was resolved, the KGV class was definitely superior in terms of armour and firepower, the 14'' shells having excellent ballistic capabilities and a large bursting charge, added to the fact that they mounted 10 guns to Bismarck's 8.
Bismarck's greatest weakness was that the German ship designers put vital electrical and hydraulic systems ABOVE the main armoured deck, which meant that shells that did not penetrate the armour damaged these systems when they burst and cut power to the turrets and communications.This meant that the fighting ability of the ship was crippled, even though it was in no danger of sinking. This accounts for its rapid disabling in its final battle, with its main armament being rendered inoperative within 40 mins of the British opening fire, rendering the ship defenceless.
Bismarck's slight speed advantage was vital in avoiding battle with British naval units which were serious risks to it.
Distinguished naval historian Antony Preston ranked Bismarck amongst the world's worst warships. I don't agree with that assessment, but it was not the undefeatable leviathan many portray it as.
The concept of being an eyewitness to an explosion powerful enough to rip a 40,000 ton warship in half defies imagination, yet, that actually happened; my God
It defies imagination that three sailors survived. That is whats known as a miracle.
@@3-Angels-Message aye and 1 Hood surviour died in a car crash in the 50s
Prince of Wales wasn't just alone fighting Bismarck after Hood exploded. Prince of Wales was a ship technically still under construction that was experiencing malfunctions with her quadruple turrets. Fighting Bismarck with only two main guns operational would be senseless.
So PoW did withdraw, but did not abandon the cruisers. After the death of Vice-Admiral Holland, PoW now fell under the command of Rear Admiral Frederic Wake-Walker (flagship HMS Norfolk). PoW withdrew to join the cruisers and repair her turrets while continuing to shadow Bismarck. PoW closed the distance a few times after this firing her guns at long range at Bismarck, but missed scoring no additional hits. Though the damage PoW inflicted on Bismarck at the Battle of the Denmark Strait was a mission kill on Bismarck and the reason Bismarck was ultimately heading for France.
Bismarck turned and fired on Prince of Wales on May 24 when covering the escape of Prinz Eugen. Overnight Bismarck managed to evade the pursuing ships as well. With contact lost and PoW damaged, PoW was detached to head for Iceland for provisional repairs.
PoW did not run away and abandon anyone.
@Hoa Tattis The documentary implies this between 44 and 45 minutes, saying correctly that PoW withdrew from combat with Bismarck for repairs (repairs at sea to get the turrets working properly again, which took a couple of hours). Then has a crew member on Suffolk saying they felt alone with PoW withdrawing for repairs after announcement from the Captain. Implies that PoW had gone off to some harbor for repairs, which she actually did more than 24 hours later, after Bismarck managed to evade the ships shadowing Bismarck (Prince of Wales, Norfolk, Suffolk) in the night and failing to regain contact with Bismarck after 12 hours of search. I think they are trying to be careful not to lie but also deliberately leaving things out in order to present a misleading image of the conflict.
This documentary seems to want to present an image of the Royal Navy being afraid of Bismarck. There is a difference between being concerned about the damage Bismarck might do to a convoy and being afraid of facing Bismarck in combat.
Every ship that could pursue or search for Bismarck was out there doing just that. Only one ship in this story was running away trying to escape the enemy navy, and that ship was Bismarck.
@@iansneddon2956 yeah your right it was the Bismarck that was doing the running
@Brian Roome PoW withdrew and continued to shadow Bismarck occasionally closing and firing on Bismarck from extreme range. With the death of Admiral Holland, PoW came under the command of Rear Admiral Wake-Walker who commanded the cruiser squadron (HMS Suffolk and HMS Norfolk), so PoW joined up with the force of their commanding officer. Being just out of her shakedown cruise and still somewhat under construction with a not fully trained crew, it took time for PoW's crew hours to get her guns fully operational again - but by the evening of May 24 PoW was again firing on Bismarck, and again after midnight at a closer range of about 20,000 yards, but one of PoWs turrets jammed again. The pursuing force lost Bismarck overnight. After searching for Bismarck for 12 hours and failing to locate Bismarck, PoW diverted to Iceland for repairs.
Bismark ran.
IIRC the KG5 turrets were just a bad design in general; with 4 guns there was hardly any space to operate and the systems were overcomplicated and unrealible.
PoW was a fully commission warship Completed 31 March 1941. Commissioned 19 January 1941. "malfunctions with her quadruple turrets", after it was fired on by 15 and 8 inch guns.
You could use the Bismarck for a analogy of the Germans during WW2. Came out swinging with great success only to be hobbled then surrounded on all sides and brought down.
Fitting metaphor- or annalogy if you like.
What an awesome documentary! Very well done. I loved all of it. I was particularly interested in the explanation of the Hood's strengths and weaknesses with the use of the model.
Ships carried souls, don't forget those who died on either side. 🙏
3 ,men survived the Hood. About 120 survived the Bismarck. Brits threw 2800 shells at her when she was sunk, hitting her about 700 times
True words. And those who have ever gone to sea on both sides saw each other as fellow sufferers.
@@sukhastings4200 Yet she didn't sink all until the explosive was ordered to be set/the torpedoes got her
Did either German ship even suffer any casualties from this engagement? Ik they got hit but they make it sound like nobody actually died
We need part 2!!
Mr. Choong's commentary was excellent and really added great information and context.
The big explosion seen on the horizon at about 38:34 is not the Hood exploding, which had already blown up, but a salvo from the forward 14-inch gun of the POW which was coming over right behind the Hood and had to brutally swerve to starboard to avoid the burning wreck. We can see the smoke coming from the Hood next to her right.
I could listen to Andrew Choong all day - brilliant exposition of his knowledge
Wow, what a superior documentary. It clarified a lot of unexplained questions for me regarding comparisons between the Bismark and the Royal Navy's capital ships. Thanks.
I know this is about the Bismarck but a reminder that Prinz Eugen had a remarkable career - she was sent ahead of Bismarck in Denmark Strait after the Bismarck's radar failed due to the shock of her guns engaging the Norfolk and Suffolk. Her underwater hydrophones detected the heavy ship noise of Hood and POW and warned Lutjens - after the war the USN studied theses hydrophones. Prinz Eugen was one of the three German vessels to sail up the English Channel from Brest to Germany - something not achieved since the Spanish Armada. By the end of war she was till shelling the Red Army in East Prussia and Poland. Finally having been assigned to the USN after the war she was the only vessel to survive not one but two nuclear bomb attacks - she subsequently leaked and can still be seen capsized in the Kwajalein atoll.
The difference being that Medina Sidonia's Armada was trying to meet the Duke of Parma's army and ferry it as an invasion force to England, whereas Prinz Eugen, Scharnhorst, & Gneisenau were running for German Home Waters to get away from the firing line after Raeder had given up the idea of operating German heavy ships in the Atlantic.
As far as I know, they switched places, to have Bismaeck facing the 2 british heavy cruisers.
The Prinz was the only of several heavy Axis ships to survive the nuclear tests....she withstood not only one but two atomic bombs ! Wow, that surely speaks for the superior quality of the German naval industry...! Hats off, gents !
@@walterseaman2556 the nagato withstood the damage even better after the first 2 tests there was only a slight 2-3 degree list to starboard and it took five days to eventually sink nagato
the only reason it sank was the lack of crew to fix the flooding due to the radiation
I've seen several presentations of the battle between the Hood and the Bismarck but this is likely the best. Kudos to the producers for blending so many disparate bits of film with contemporary production to create this film. I found the short bits of B-roll to be particularly interesting.👍
it's just too bad they had zero clue how to pronounce any of the german ship names correctly, or the captains, or the admirals.
And again one of these absurd exaggerations regarding German weapons in WWII. No, the Bismarck was definitely not the most feared ship of WW2. The most dangerous ships for the Allies were the Japanese aircraft carriers. The German ships, on the other hand, were completely irrelevant to the course of the war. The only German sea vehicles that were dangerous were the submarines and certainly not ships like the Bismarck.
@@GreatPolishWingedHussars Meanwhile the Polish armed forces knowing years before the Molotov/Ribbentrob pact that was going to split Poland in two between Germany and Russia did nothing. They did no re-arm and thought the by basing there whole military around Cavalry would be enough to depend themselves against the might of the Wehrmacht and Red Army. While the Imperial Japanese Navy was strong and feared with all there Aircraft carriers and the Yamato class Battleships, the Bismarck was feared not so much in what she could do in a Naval engagement but what she could do in terms of Commerce raiding. As stated in the film, the U-boats did the bulk of the commerce raiding of the merchant ships coming in, but as the allies protected those fleets more and more with anti-submarine warships the Kriegsmarine needed heavy ships like the Bismarck, Tirpitz, Gneisenau, Scharnhorst, Graf Spee etc.
That is why the Bismarck was so feared because if she was let loose on the North Atlantic to do what she wished to all the supplies coming across the North Atlantic from around the world, then Britain would starve and then make it easy for the Germans to attempt Operation Sealion again.
You just reiterated the narrative of this excellent documentary. The menace of ships like Bismarck was in there combination with subs.
It was not the "most feared ship" it was feared what it could do to merchant shipping if it was not found and destroyed. Every other German major warship was similarly "feared".
The Geinesau and Scharnhorst did far more damage.
The smal, very fast Torpedoboats did fair bits of establishing fear as well.
As they said: It was feared because it was the perfect addition to the U-boats to rip enemy convoys....either they scatter and get picked up by the U-boats or they stay together with their bodyguards, where Bismarck would have had its advantage to destroy the convoy.
Thats the biggest reason why it needed to get hunted down + after hood it would be good propaganda to seek revenge.
The most feared warship of ww2 was the Yamato or Midway
For real, the Kriegsmarine were bullied by the RN for the entire war. The surface vessels did not stand a chance against the RN.
@@FrankPierece horses**t !!
Fantastic video! I was riveted the whole time. Thanks! btw; we need part 2
Very well made!
I hope, something like this will never happen again.
Think of the thousands of young men on Hood and Bismarck, which had a horrible death.
It's just cruel.
it happened several times again already
The best thing about these videos are the comments by family or people with stories . It makes understanding these stories so much easier.
"Social history" is that of the indivduals who experienced the events and always provides some beautiful texture to the "big story".
A Top Quality Documentary by Dan Snow,
Excellent Stuff
Cheers Paul Foster
Would like to see a second part on this chase. Of all the capital ships involved in the Bismarck chase , I would say(personal opinion) that the Rodney was the best ship, had the most experienced crew and Captain(Dalrymple Hamilton) . Captain Hamilton's tactics were very good , and his ships gun crews were very good that day. Nothing against KG5 except she was also a new ship overcoming a few problems of her own.
I'm proud to say my dad was on the crew of the HMS Rodney that helped sink the Bismark. I live in the USA and I too am served/retired fm the USN. I recall my dad telling me stories how scared he and everyone was on the fateful day they sunk the Bismark.
@@BartMan59 my grandad wasn't far away then, he was on Mashona, one of Rodney's destroyer escorts .
Ron Bartolo you sound like a Cuban rafter
And again one of these absurd exaggerations regarding German weapons in WWII. No, the Bismarck was definitely not the most feared ship of WW2. The most dangerous ships for the Allies were the Japanese aircraft carriers. The German ships, on the other hand, were completely irrelevant to the course of the war. The only German sea vehicles that were dangerous were the submarines and certainly not ships like the Bismarck.
@@GreatPolishWingedHussars Japan and the USA had not yet entered the war when the Bismarck set out on it's mission. The only thing keeping Britain in the fight was the supply convoys crossing the Atlantic. If Bismarck had broken out to harass the convoys with the wolf packs, Britain may have been cut off from any help/supplies. So yes, it was certainly a threat that needed to be stopped.
I have always loved the battleship stories and the Bismarck is my favorite of course. Thank you.
Extremely well done. Excited to see more!
Great documentary and storytelling. Excellent, balanced input from the three experts.
And again one of these absurd exaggerations regarding German weapons in WWII. No, the Bismarck was definitely not the most feared ship of WW2. The most dangerous ships for the Allies were the Japanese aircraft carriers. The German ships, on the other hand, were completely irrelevant to the course of the war. The only German sea vehicles that were dangerous were the submarines and certainly not ships like the Bismarck.
@@GreatPolishWingedHussars Why comment when you clearly didn't even watch the documentary? Bismarck was feared because she was a deadly threat to the convoy system, and thus the sheer survival of Great Britain. In May 1941 Great Britain wasn't even at war with Japan, and hardly ever faced Japanese aircraft carriers anyway.
Excellent presentation. It was nice to see something new/different on this event.
When I was in the Navy and we left port to head out into the Atlantic or were coming out of the Med into the Atlantic you could notice the change in the swells. Long an broad were the swells in the Atlantic and you knew you were in a completely different body of water.
This was why many WWII era German battleships/battlecruisers were modified with an "Atlantic bow"
You could also tell roughly where you were by the colour of the sea
@@southerneruk often the colour of the sea can be oberved to change even many miles from shore as large rivers discharge into the ocean carrying with them the debris and vegetation torn from flooding and the rivers rapid surge far out to sea.
@@brucegibbins3792 Every sea has its own colour, each ocean current also has it own colour, stay at long enough at sea, and you will know where you are roughly by the colour of the sea, the colour difference for the Med and Atlantic, or the difference in colour between the Atlantic and Pacific or the Southern Ocean
I was deployed on a LST in the 70’s. I loved being at sea but not on those.
Definitely needs a Part II
Brilliant video thank u 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
I enjoyed this presentation, and learned much. My father (Richard Frank Al Green ) served on the King George V, and knew of the many men, to whom went down with the Hoo
d. He said he was transfered from the Hood, to the K.G.V a few days before she left port. He was a wine officer, 3rd class. I give a THANK YOU to my father, and ALL to whom, answered the call to....SINK THE BISMARK.
One of Sir Winston s classic quotes " you must sink the Bismarck "
There's something magical about a battleship story ✨️
Subscribed.
Thank you for a well spoken & thughtful video. Worth every minute spent watching.
DOUGout
The real fear that Bismarck posed was rather limited... for the Royal Navy was more than capable of dealing with Bismarck, even with what it had before 1941. For while, yes, Bismarck was newer than much of what the British had, its guns were not that much more powerful than the 15 in guns on many of the WWI era battleships that British still had in service and had already performed reasonably well in WWI.
HMS Warspite, a veteran of the Battle of Jutland, engaged German destroyers at Narvik in 1940 and sank them with minimal, if any damage to itself. Other battleships of the Revenge Class and the Warspite's Queen Elizabeth Class had also taken up roles in assuring no attempt at Sealion would be tried and would even take on convoy escort roles in 1940. Bismarck's big advantage would be that it was newer... that that was about it... and these were with the oldest ships the British had. There was also the Nelson class, which had thicker armor than Bismarck and 16 in guns. Bismarck's only advantage over the Nelson and Rodney was that it was faster and could likely avoid a fight. Which is also largely what German raiding strategy relied on... and essentially gave the British the advantage at sea as the Germans weren't looking for a fight.
And this plays out in the Battle of the Denmark Strait. For while Hood is sunk... a round from Prince of Wales did damage to Bismarck's fuel tanks and this essentially put an end to the entire operation. Bismarck would not have had the fuel to remain at sea for long and needed to refuel and repair and thus made the dash for Brest imperative and ignored the pull to go convoy hunting. Thus, even with the tactical loss coming from the sinking of the Hood... the two ships had defeated Bismarck's entire strategic objective.
Naval Historian Drachinifel has a very cogent theory as to how Hood was destroyed. He says the range was too short for plunging shells. His theory is the fateful shell hit below her belt armour where the wake dipped exposing her hull below the waterline.
However this is again one of these absurd exaggerations regarding German weapons in WWII. No, the Bismarck was definitely not the most feared ship of WW2. The most dangerous ships for the Allies were the Japanese aircraft carriers. The German ships, on the other hand, were completely irrelevant to the course of the war. The only German sea vehicles that were dangerous were the submarines and certainly not ships like the Bismarck.
@@GreatPolishWingedHussarsi agree... It's like a nation claiming they did the most in the war. Subjective.
@@gordonilaoa1275 Yes that is correct!
@@GreatPolishWingedHussars Nobody feared japanese aircraft carriers. They feared getting hit by a 15 inch shell in the middle of the atlantic.
@@PatrickDoolittle Your comment is just nonsense! Japanese aircraft carriers have spread not just fear, but panic. Americans panicked when Japanese aircraft carriers attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the American aircraft carriers had heavy fighting against Japanese aircraft carriers. And the Japanese aircraft carriers have by no means lost all the battles. Like the Battle of the Coral Sea in 1942 or Battle of Sunda Strait in 1942 or Second Battle of the Java Sea in 1942 or Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands in 1942. By the way, with your talk about Japanese aircraft carriers in the middle of the Atlantic, you show that you have no idea. Because Japanese aircraft carriers were not used in the Atlantic.
Hood was supposed to go to the USA in 1939 for a major refit that would have substantially strengthened the horizontal armor. This was canceled due to the outbreak of hostilities on the continent and the need for all available ships on the home front. One can only speculate how the Denmark Strait battle might have turned out if the Hood had received it's scheduled update.
True, Tovey sent her ahead to cover the Denmark Straight as he had no other choice. I wonder if Admiral Holland did have time to realise the tragedy set upon his Ship.
She would still ahve been scrapped later after the war, Bismarck did her a favour,
@@alexandarvoncarsteinzarovi3723 Yeah... a fourteen hundred dead favour.
The royal navy was working through major modernization all done in British dockyards why was the hood going to amrica! .
@@chrisangus7078 It was common pratice. The French also sent their ships to New York to be refited.
41:24 - my god, that's terrifying . . . . . those poor sailors !
This was fantastic but there absolutely had to be a part 2
There is no part 2 of hood vs bismark. This is real history
Bring on part 2 asap please
The victory was bitter sweet. While celebrating the sinking the Hood the sailors of the Bismarck realized that they were next in line.
Fantastic Video Thank You!
All those men, thousands upon thousands, to a cold watery grave, it saddens me fiercely
Well I suppose a cold watery grave is better than a red hot molten metal one when the ship exploded and you get shredded to become BBQ'd fish meal.
@@gangleweed Bismark was basically slowly BBQ'd. imagine the deaths those sailors endured.
@@thomasneal9291 War isn't fun and you must accept the risk for going to war on any side for any reason.
Excellent presentation. Mighty Hood!
@Brian Roome Yet they lost 2 wars in a row and never once gained naval supremacy over the British. Funny that...
Admiral Lutjens decided not to refuel in Bergen. Bismark left Norway without 2000 tons of fuel it could have loaded. That was going to have massive importance later. When Bismark was racing towards France, they were short on fuel, and Bismark had to run it's engines at 22 knots, instead of 28 knots (22 Knots was the efficient speed, while 28 knots consumed fuel at a much faster rate which would have exhausted the fuel supply before reaching France) If they had sailed at top speed, Bismark would have been 160 miles closer to France when it was found by the flying boat. And she would have been out of range for the swordfish from Ark Royal, and too far ahead for the Royal Navy
I heard Bismark sailed at least 200 tons short of oil, not 2000. She could have reoiled from Gotenhafen, or from an Atlantic fuel ship, but never did.
Also, a hit from Prince of Wales contaminated at least 1,000 more oil tons.
But as you said, if any of these 4 events had occured, or not occured, she could have escaped, and safely made Brest at a higher speed.
Either way, not reoiling at all was a terrible mistake.
Bismarck left Gotenhafen in the Baltic 1000 tons short of full oil capacity. And then spent another 1000 tons during the sailing to Bergen. Thus, it had capacity for 2000 tons of fuel. Lutjens decided not to refuel in Bergen, and refuel instead in the Artic from the tanker Weissenburg. This refueling was later cancelled. Lutjens and Lindemann were to miss those 2000 tons of oil later on. The shell from Prince of Wales, opened one oil tank to the sea (contaminating 1000 tons) but also destroyed the pumps connecting to two other tanks (making 2000 aditional tons unaccesible )
Sorry, they left Gotenhafen 200 tons short. Plus 1000 tons spent sailing to Bergen makes 200 +1000 = 1200 tons they could have refuelled in Bergen, not 2000
Yes, yes, Part Two! Please!
One of the best accounts of the engagement between Hood and Bismarck. Well done and offered some different perspectives by experts.
And again one of these absurd exaggerations regarding German weapons in WWII. No, the Bismarck was definitely not the most feared ship of WW2. The most dangerous ships for the Allies were the Japanese aircraft carriers. The German ships, on the other hand, were completely irrelevant to the course of the war. The only German sea vehicles that were dangerous were the submarines and certainly not ships like the Bismarck.
indeed. there is always so much more to the story than just the numbers and recorded effects/incidents. this was a well done video.
Bismark was 1 ship , vastly outnumbered. The Prinze Eugen was an impressive shipBut one ship to cover the whole Atlantic?? I love how these war stories get bigger and bigger with time.
The Bismarck could destroy entire convoys by itself. Its mere existence in the North Atlantic would be a huge disrupting factor, causing convoys to swing wide of the Bismarck's last reported position.
It was not because she was all alone to cover the vast atlantic but THE LORD GOD DOES NOT ALLOW SUCH DEMONIC INTENTION TO PREVAIL...
@@manelflora4472 Yeah sorry but you obviously have no idea what's going on.
We lost WW2. God gave the white man one final chance of redemption, we failed to unite and thus fought on the wrong side. The result? Weimar 2.0
That's the trick isn't it.
How to make yourself and your victory look even better? praise the incredible power of your adversary.
That, in a way, is also insulting but hey, heroism never was a civilized art for those writing the history books.
@@manelflora4472 Right. God made sure to sink a battleship because of "demonic intention", but didn't worry about millions of men, women and children being starved, tortured and murdered in Eastern Europe at the same time. Makes sense.
Great breakdown, reasoned opinions. Thank you!
Great doc , the Barham explosion always turns my guts watching it .
The short answer for why Bismarck was so feared was she was the first proper German Battleship since WWI. The Deutschland Class "Pocket Battleships" (of which Graf Spee is the most famous) were that, pocket mini-imitations of battleships. Basically, slower heavy cruisers with oversized main guns. The KMS Scharnhorst and her sister Gneisenau were also odd-duck designs. Something between a heavy cruiser and a battleship: heavy armor, speed of heavy cruisers, but armed only with slightly upgraded variants of the Deutschland cruisers' 11-inch cannons. These guns would tear apart any heavy cruiser, but would struggle to do serious damage to proper battleships. This is why they were often interchangeably called Battleships/Battlecruisers.
But Bismarck was different, because she had full-sized 15-inch main batteries. Now, one battleship alone is not going to do much against the *FIFTEEN* battleships and battlecruisers of the British Royal Navy. In a battle where Bismarck was up against all of them, she would not survive. Heck, she was destroyed in a two-on-one duel involving HMS Rodney and HMS King George V.
But the Germans didn't have to fight direct naval battles against the British capital ships. Bismarck just had to hunt down and destroy convoys, because Britain is an island nation susceptible to naval blockade.
A battleship makes for a terrifying convoy raider. As a modern Fast Battleship, she could outrun all but three of the British capital ships (HMS Hood, HMS Repulse, & HMS Renown), all of which were battlecruisers with weaker armor sacrificed for speed, which would make them vulnerable to Bismarck's high velocity armor piercing shells. Not even the modern British Fast Battleships, the King George V class, were fast enough to catch Bismarck.
The usual escorts for convoys at most typically go up to heavy cruisers, this type of ship are almost as rare as battleships, with frigates and destroyers being the most common. Frigates and destroyers are far outranged by battleship cannons, and Bismarck's high speed and the fact that destroyers would be escorting slow merchant ships mean they would not be able to run into torpedo range quickly, fire off their torpedo salvos, and get back out of range before Bismarck's secondary guns could destroy them.
A single well-placed 15-inch high-explosive shell can easily sink a merchant ship, and Bismarck had superb high-quality German engineered rangefinders for accurately placing fire. If Bismarck caught only a few convoys and destroyed them, she could easily force the British to sue for peace and exit WWII.
And again one of these absurd exaggerations regarding German weapons in WWII. No, the Bismarck was definitely not the most feared ship of WW2. The most dangerous ships for the Allies were the Japanese aircraft carriers. The German ships, on the other hand, were completely irrelevant to the course of the war. The only German sea vehicles that were dangerous were the submarines and certainly not ships like the Bismarck.
Also lets not forget Bismarcks range and cruising speed, as the only bbs able to match Bismarcks range of 8525 nm at 19kn were NC 17450 nm at 15kn or 5740 nm at 25kn and the Iowa with 18000 nm at 12 kn or 14890 nm at 15kn.
@@GreatPolishWingedHussars No doubt this more of a Germophobe rant than any sensible analysis. A Battleship, if it intercepted a convoy, would very quickly sink that convoy and its escorts. There were 8 turrets with two 150mm guns and 4 turrets with two 37cm/15 inch guns with a advanced fire control could handle a large number of targets accurately and quickly. The ships could only be protected from aircraft and u-boats by forming them into a convoy. If formed into a convoy they would be extremely vulnerable to a battleship.
@@williamzk9083 Ridiculous accusation, by the way, what's that supposed to be germophobic? For the rest, my criticism is completely justified! Moreover, no one denies that the ship was a threat to Allied transport ships. But the ship was unable to attack any transport ships because it was sunk by British superiority.
@@GreatPolishWingedHussars The japenese fleet were irrelevant for the war in Europe. They were a high threat for the US, sure, but not for the UK.
There were rather 2 wars. The pacific war between Japan and the US, and the European war between the axis and the allies.
The sheer existence of german battleships were a huge threat for UK's supplies. No safe route planning would have benn possible if these ships would have been successful.
Luckily for the rest of the world, bismarck was sunk 3 days after this battle.
If that ship wouldn't have been that dangerous for the UK, they wouldn't have put their entire available fleet against it.
Would the war have gone differently if all if the steel that made the Bismarck and all the oil it used went into making Tiger and Panther tanks? We'll never know but it's interesting to conjecture.
The allies won the war because of air superiority
No it would have made no difference. You can build all the tanks you want, but if you don't have the fuel to run them, you may as well have stayed at home building Airfix kits.
No. No it wouldn't have. Tanks weren't Germany's problem and had basically 0 bearing on the outcome of the war.
If I’m not mistaken towards the late war period Germany has issues even Manning what tanks they do have. Further mechanization is not something that’s going to help them. Not to also mention while they are good tanks, german armored unit performance is often horrible during the period Panther is operational and the reputation of the tank is overblown on the basis of a few cases, not the fundamental issues of the German army.
Tiger, incidentally does tend to perform well due to the nature of how it was manned and how it was intended to be used. It is explicitly and intentionally a low-production specialized tank meant to be used for breakthroughs and allow other vehicles to conduct exploitation. It would tend to be crewed by more experienced/trained individuals thanks to its low production nature. The overall point, however, is that there wasn’t supposed to be many to begin with.
That was amazing...part two?
Tisztelet a hősöknek!! Örökké!!
Prinz Eugan a lucky ship and a fighting ship. 1945-46 commissioned into the US Navy....survived 2 atomic blasts at Bikini Atoll. How ever she was to hot to board and turn on the bildge pumps so slowly sank, maybe 6 or 8 mths. I don't know, maybe a fitting end to one of the great warships of WW2 ?
I’ve heard people call Prinz Eugen a luck vampire because how practically any time she did anything, all of the ships around her were sunk but she somehow survived to the end of the war
33:35 "If it was me, being a coward..." John Gaynor on the HMS Prince of Wales. I'd hope to have a fraction of his courage
Brave men think like that..
Wow , so awesome, I have ADHD and I struggled to understand this in any directional way. This explanation made me eat it up and I loved it. Thank u
naval warfare so interesting in the tactics .. i had no idea ..
lord bless you all - brave lads . be at peace x
Would love to see a comparison between the Bismarck and Japan's Yamato!
Check out the movie........
Great War Of Archimedes
Well done movie about Japan's planning and construction of the Yamato and the fatal destruction
by US Dive Bombers.
Yep those two, Tirpitz and Iowa.
Yamato was bigger and more heavily armed and was sunk by American planes. Bismarck was faster and sleeker and was sunk after being crippled by British planes. Both were powerful ships manned by courageous men who were worthy of better causes than fascism. I will leave a detailed technical comparison to someone with a stronger engineering background.
Yamato would slaughter a Bismarck.
and that is essentially what you need to know. Yamatos design is a lot more efficient and *also* bigger. She is better in every regard except speed.
The German navy WAS limited in WW2, the mention of the Norwegian campaign should have emphasized the incredible damage suffered in that conflict. The German destroyer fleet was decimated and they lost one of their capital cruisers. This action crippled the Kriegsmarine for the entire war.
They also suffered damage to Scharnhorst and Gneisenau that kept them out of any consideration in planning for their fantasy invasion of UK (Sealion).
The Royal Navy took the threat of invasion seriously but with demands on ships to keep the sea lanes open could only keep a portion of their force in home waters to fend off an invasion if the Germans were crazy enough to attempt one.
The Kriegsmarine had left about 10 destroyers and around three dozen torpedo boats with which they could try to defend the very slow moving invasion convoys that could transport troops to beaches in the south of England. Against this force the Royal Navy Home Fleet could only deploy 6 battleships, 11 cruisers, 67 destroyers and over 700 smaller craft.
The RN would have obliterated any Sealion invasion fleet. Not to mention the RAF.
You don’t force your way up through a narrow strait, unless you want to be the fish in the barrel. Blucher died a virgin, and the Kreigsmarine lost 1/3 their strength by forcing what should have been an easy parachute drop
One lucky torpedo hit stopped the giant. Ebenso, her second salvo straddled the Rodney
I’ve YET-to hear a sub skipper talk about the “happy time”
Also, I'd like to say rest in peace to Albert Edward Pryke (Ted) Briggs MBE (March 1st, 1923 to October 4th, 2008) one of three survivors of HMS Hood.
Incredibly well made documentary!
And here’s me thinking that Johnny Horton sunk the Bismarck!
I guess Johnny Horton won the battle of New Orleans and went North to Alaska?
It's great to speculate on history (I love the ships, tactics etc.) and of course hindsight is 20/20, but the young men who fought these battles really did save the world. Many of them sadly gave their lives and most of them were just kids.
@Will MunyObv from the Allies perspective....Germany and Japan dominating and controlling the World. Germany and Japan had an agreement to split the USA in 2.
@Will Muny save the world from Axis domination. Are you kidding?
😂
@Will Muny Nuclear weapons. When Bismarkc would have escaped, there would not have been a reason to develop the bombs.
Things would have been different, not necessarily better or worse.
@pettytoni1955 God it would of been so awful if Europe was dominated by a hardworking, good looking people and the Russian/communist menace was subdued 100 years ago 😢. I'm so thankful we have a Europe filled with diversity ❤️. Arabs are what truly makes us Europe if you think about it. The good guys truly won.
we need part 2 !
very good doccumental as always
This is what you call a "television document", a vague, often inaccurate document meant for people that unintentionally switched into that respective channel.
To point out a few proper inaccuracies, Hood was not a battlecruiser by design, it was battlecruiser only by description/classification. By design it was a fast battleship. Its armor scheme and thickness was derived from the Queen Elizabeth class battleships, and it was no less armored than those ships. It was specifically designed with the Jutland lesson in mind, as a battlecruiser capable of fighting heavily armed battleships.
Its horizontal protection was perfectly able to resist 15in shells at normal distance, it was only insufficient against super heavy 16in, Japanese 18in, or dive bombers. The hit that sunk the Hood did not come and COULD NOT come from a plunging shell, as such shell at the respective distance would not travel at an angle that would endanger the magazine, and in case of penetration (which by itself wasnt possible) the shell would bypass the magazine over its armored roof and leave the ship on the other side.
And finally, the penetration was possible only by bypassing the main BELT armor under the thickest part, due to the bow wake being too deep and exposing the unarmored lower hull.
" It was specifically designed with the Jutland lesson in mind"
superficially... yes. but on the interior? had the EXACT same issues, which is why she could only take two hull breaches as opposed to the POW, which took FIVE, and was able to disengage still.
@@thomasneal9291 I meant Hood, not Bismarck.
It was most feared by Winston Churchill and the British admiralty until it was sunk in May 1941. They then feared the Tirpitz most until November of 1944 when it was sunk in a Norwegian Fjord. Other Navies placed different ships on their most feared list🙂
Exactly, feared because they existed. They tied up resources to prevent them raiding convoys, both in terms of monitoring their whereabouts and protecting the convoys.
Mussolini actually built a larger battleship. The British Swordfish sunk it ( and 4 others) off Malta several months before the events with the Bismarck. Proved then airpower could destroy any battleship
Would have been nice you see more on the hunt for the Bismarck & her last battle. Can't see a video on that on this channel - which I'd love to watch
You want to do what to who for how many monkeys?
That footage of HMS Barham's destruction is insane.
It's amazing that at that incredible distance a shell can hit such a tiny target.
Bismarck partially was lucky reaching her aim. Also Hood behaved irresponsibly.
@@johnfalstaff2270 Lucky, I think luck must have played a big part in all these naval engagements, But did Hoods Captain have many options?
@@adoreslaurel, Sometimes very tough people get emotional and suddenly count on a luck. Admiral Holland probably tried (or hoped) to surprise and sink Bismarck, or possibly to inflict enough damage to stop the German battleship in the middle of the sea. It would give an advantageous time for British fleet to reach wounded German pride and sink it. However, If Bismarck sank right after the duel with HMS Hood then Admiral Holland would earn all honors and fame throughout the Europe. This is what I think.
@@johnfalstaff2270 Just glad I was not old enough to be a participant in WW2, and too old for Vietnam.
@@adoreslaurel, I think, your age was right for Vietnam.
They keep saying the Bismarck was a great and powerful ship but was easily stopped on her maiden voyage
Hey , its the British ships that have the reputation for going to the bottom in 2 pieces ...Ocean Liners or Battleships, they fall apart
No vessel is invulnerable when you inflict sufficient damage. You say it was easy to sink the Bismarck. In the two engagements, the Royal Navy committed 25 warships plus 31 aircraft, expending 2,900 shells and 40 torpedoes, with slightly over 400 munitions scoring hits. In addition, the Germans set off scuttling charges to hasten the sinking. More importantly, it cost the British 1,500 sailors. Not so easy.
It was easily stopped and the entire British fleet was activated to sink it?
Great show
Years ago I was coming into Bremerton where the Missouri was laid up in I was in my semi truck and the sunlight glistened off a bridge window at that moment a tire blew out on my semi, for a split second I thought she fired on me 😂
Lol, that would have been a great story to tell to your grandkids, I got broadsided by the Missouri!
41:58 Could, in extreme desperation, the gun crew fired and then open the breech allowing pressurized cool air from lower down as the water level was rising to help keep them cool and push the smaller ones through the barrel to pop up outside? What other options were there? When found, was the breech open?
Hood was not sunk by plunging fire, the range had already been closed. Deck armour was not an issue. It’s likely she was hit by a shell at the stern waterline, near the aft turrets as she was turning. The “short” as described in the programme.
Yes Drach explained how in the turn Hood would have left a dip in the bow wake alowing a shell to skip under the armour side belt.
@@trevortrevortsr2 incidentally my mother (RIP) lost her fiancé Percy on Hood. She met my father later in the war when he was stationed in her home town.
It's actually unknown exactly how Hood was sunk because so much of the vessel is missing. That said, a lucky hit does not automatically qualify as the most likely cause. It's merely the most commonly accepted cause. Captain Leach and Commander Lawson of PoW both stated in a post battle interrogation at Scapa Flow that their belief was that the exploding cordite from the ready- use UP ammunition was the cause of Hood's loss- most likely from the fire penetrating the flash proofing of X- turret. Leach himself was probably the most reliable witness present because of his rank, the fact that he was looking right at Hood when she disintegrated, and because of his prior assignment as Director of Naval Ordinance.
@@manilajohn0182 certain things can be eliminated.
@@chrisowen2763 Why the cryptic response? Are you saying that you don't believe the two officers? Seriously?
Twins super-firing over triples would have been a nice touch.
Born in 1935 this was on the electric radio after the set to i can feel the tension now after all these years with so many proud young men lost God bless every one.
I would say the Japanese aircraft carriers were the most feared from the axis. Until 1943, they were the scary things.
1945 the American aircraft carrier swarms were pretty dang scary.
Nah not the carriers, the Kamikaze HAHAHA
I would say the Enterprise was feared more than any of them.
The Japanese carriers were feared/respected due to the experience of their air wings. The IJN was involved fighting the Chinese from 1937 which meant they were at a high level of training, experience and effectiveness when they began the war with USA.
I would extend the concern over Japanese carriers on into 1943. While USA had Essex class carriers under construction from before the Pearl Harbor attack, they weren't ready. In 1943, USA borrowed an aircraft carrier from the British Royal Navy. With HMS Victorious (operating as USS Robin), USA had 2 carriers to Japan's 4. Victorious wasn't returned until later in 1943 after two of the modern Essex class carriers had arrived in Pearl Harbor.
But by this time the quality of Japan's air wings was diminishing as they could not keep up with the massive training program and modernization of equipment of the US Navy. (the A6M Zero could hold its own well enough against an F4F Wildcat, but not against the F6F Hellcats they were encountering from later in 1943. Better aircraft in greater numbers carried by larger and more modern carriers.
Well no i don't think so , the Americans knew that the japanese couldn't match in production numbers. Japan economy was to small.
American carriers sunk four Japanese carriers at Midway in June, 1942. From that point on the Japanese were on the defensive in the Pacific and American naval aviation had the upper hand.
From that point on the Japanese were afraid to even send major ships into battle such as the two Yamoto class battleships, either of which were larger and more powerful than the Bismark. They mostly stayed in port and were called hotel ships or used as troop transports after Midway.
The only reason U.S, ships weren’t bigger was the Panama Canal. The Yamato couldn’t go through the canal but it wasn’t meant to. I am not sure the dimensions of the Bismarck but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t built to go to the pacific.
Well, the Bismarck was designed to pass through the Kiel Canal, which was far more narrow than the Panama Canal, so she could have actually passed through the latter - but why would she even want to? The Atlantic was to be the Bismarck's prime hunting area, never the Pacific - unless of course the war had gone in an extremely different direction, which it obviously did not.
Primary reason for US not having the biggest and most powerfull battleships was honouring naval treaties, unlike Germany and Japan.
And if Japan hadn't managed to keep Yamato class secret as well as they managed, US would have certainly discarded those treaties.
@@SNP-1999 Actually Bismarck was only 96cm narrower than cancelled (in favour of carriers) Montana class, whose design was freed from need to fit through Panama canal locks.
@@SNP-1999 Not the case. Any ship with a beam greater than 110 feet would have been unable to traverse the Panama Canal. The Bismarck had a 118’ beam.
@@tuunaes the Iowa class were the most effective battleships built in WWII. It’s not even all that close.
Not just her unmatched power on the seas, her commander, Ernst Lindemann is also the factor for her to became the pride of the Kreigsmarine, after almost a century, the tales of her final battle still burn in the heart of those who knows.
'Her final battle?' You mean the one when she failed to score a single hit?
'Her unmatched power?' When, of course, a Rodney or a KGV wasn't around.
At least compare to the British battleships like Hood or Prince of Wales, her power surpassed them in some points, and she had to fight about 20 battleships
@@AverageSlime999 Hood was 20 years old. Prince of Wales was not worked up, more or less sreaight from the builders. Compare Bismarck to HMS Rodney, which was 15 years old in 1941.
Bismarck had weaker armour of an outmoded design. She also had a weaker weight of briadside. Specifically :-
Bismarck belt armour 12.6 inches. Deck armour 4.7 inches. Broadside 14112 lbs.
Rodney belt armour 14 inches. Deck armour 6.25 inches. Broadside 18432 lbs.
King George V belt armour 14 inches. Deck armour 6 inches. Broadside 15900 lbs.
This was (under)achieved on a displacement 15,000 tons greater that that of Rodney, and 10,000 tons greater than that of King George V.
Bismarck had around 7 knots advantage in speed over Rodney, and, arguably, 0.5 - 1 knot above that of a KGV. Her only advantage was the ability to avoid battle.
Bismarck was fortunate that PoW was little more than semi-operational, although PoW's hits did force Bismarck's mission to be abandoned, of course.
You asked for comparisons. Now you have them.
Oh nice, thanks for the accurate information :)
Excellent
Hood was classified as a battlecruiser much more based on it's rated speed. One can confortably argue that Hood might have been the first "fast battleship".
Hood's armour is reasonably battleship grade. Compare it fairly to the battlecruisers that blew up at Jutland and you'll see how much less protected were those. Look at the Kirishima vs. Washington to see what a gun duel means between a battlecruiser with actual less armour and a battleship. See how thick the belt armour was on the Kongos compared to Hood. Remember Hood's construction was delayed to incorporate some of the lessons of Jutland and she was alone in her class because they deemed it better to redesign the ships not yet building.
Even with her age and issues, Hood was a powerful asset. And the hit that took her down was a 1 in a million incredibly lucky hit. By no means was something to be expected in such a duel. Both at the time and with hindsight.
I believe Hood is described rather unfavourably in this video.
Overall it's another story of operation Rhine and I feel it answers poorly to the question in the title - why was Bismark feared so much?
The Royal Navy got plenty lucky in the following days. If you believe in luck as a determinant, it was probably a fair trade.
The Brits were supposed to upgrade the armor on the Hood. Because of the start of the war they never did.
Looking back at it I would say the Hood gained the reputation of being the world's mightiest battleship only because of the British many people at that time believe the Hood unsinkable and it just rolled that way for the Bismarck to sink which in all contrast kinda at times feels like a lucky hit gave the Bismarck that interpretation that hey the mighty Hood was sunk by a mightier ship named the Bismarck when in reality its just not so
Excellent program of this incredibly intense sea battle! One can only imagine how history may have turned out if both the Bismark and Tirpitz could have been paired up .. along with either the Prinz Eugen or Scharnhorst, and all sortied together.
Battleships were obsolete by WWII, they would've met the same fate as the yamato and musashi
I think the Kriegsmarine and the power of its surface fleet gets a bit exaggerated. The Royal Navy vastly outnumbered the Kriegsmarine both in terms of capital ships and smaller warships, as clearly demonstrated by the assets the Royal Navy were able to dedicate to sinking Bismarck.
@@nightruler666 You have a Pacific centred view of naval warfare in WW2. In the west, carriers were a part of the battlefleet, not the heart of it. Moreover, weather conditions in the Arctic & Atlantic often restricted carrier operations.
They would have been hunted down and attacked by aircraft , destroyers using torpedoes and subs and battlecruisers. They might have made a few successful raids destroying valuable surface ships and a few merchant ships but they would not be as consistantly active as subs and aircraft were and would eventually have been sunk, damaged, confined to a secure port by subs waiting off shore and aircraft as all of the german major surface eventually were.
@@nightruler666 Really? why didn't America lose a single Battleship after Pear Harbor?
Spitting fire
Very well laid out history. Problem is that one is constantly shifting the sound controls because of an inconsistent volume.
Andrew Choong is ALWAYS worth listening to. I do like listening to experts who know their field, and can discuss and expand on a subject fluently using their innate knowledge of the subject, and not the current style of resorting to vacuous, token "talking heads" reciting a prepared script.
SABATON: Bismark Lyrics
From the mist, a shape, a ship, is taking form
And the silence of the sea is about to drift into a storm
Sign of power, show of force
Raise the anchor, battleship's plotting its course
Pride of a nation, a beast made of steel
Bismarck in motion, king of the ocean
He was made to rule the waves across the seven seas
To lead the war machine
To rule the waves and lead the Kriegsmarine
The terror of the seas
The Bismarck and the Kriegsmarine
Two thousand men, and fifty thousand tons of steel
Set the course for the Atlantic with the Allies on their heel
Firepower, firefight
Battle Stations, keep the targets steady in sight
Into formation, the hunt has begun
Death and damnation, the fleet is coming
He was made to rule the waves across the seven seas
To lead the war machine
To rule the waves and lead the Kriegsmarine
The terror of the seas
The Bismarck and the Kriegsmarine
At the bottom of the ocean, the depths of the abyss
They are bound by iron and blood
The flagship of the navy, the terror of the seas
His guns have gone silent at last
Pride of a nation, a beast made of steel
Bismarck in motion, king of the ocean
He was made to rule the waves across the seven seas
To lead the war machine
To rule the waves and lead the Kriegsmarine
The terror of the seas
The Bismarck and the Kriegsmarine
To lead the war machine
To rule the waves and lead the Kriegsmarine
The terror of the seas
Bismarck and the Kriegsmarine
To lead the war machine
To rule the waves and lead the Kriegsmarine
The terror of the seas
Bismarck and the Kriegsmarine
the official video czcams.com/video/oVWEb-At8yc/video.html
Can I just say……. Dan Snow ?? TOTALLY SHAGWORTHY !!
I wish the Bismarck and Yamato would have never been sank, just captured, and kept in display all these years.
The Axis fleets scuttled their most advanced ships to prevent them from falling into Allied hands.
They would have either been scrapped or used in nuclear testing
Bismarck was discovered in 1988 by explorer Robert Ballard. Its location makes salvage operations too difficult
Are there really still historians repeating the "Hood was disadvantaged because she was a battlecruiser" rubbish?
One historian intelligently explains Hood was nearly as well protected as Bismarck and simply needed some attention to modernization of her protection. Great.....
Then another one comes on with the Jutland/battlecruiser rap that long ago was revealed to be inaccurate and irrelevant.
Hood was as well protected as Queen Elizabeth, really was a fast battleship. And at the ranges in Denmark straight action, her horizontal protection was probably sufficient.
The hit that destroyed her likely penetrated her side somewhere, not her horizontal protection.
Bismarck wouldn't stand a chance against any American carrier either early or late in the war.
With that said, one of the most beautiful battleships ever built.
Exactly, imagine the Bismarck trying to take on the Enterprise from 200 miles away. Enterprise didn't have biplanes, it had Dauntless Dive Bombers. LMAO
If the carrier had no aircraft, that would change everything wouldn't it? (playing too much World of Warships.) So, I don't see what's your point is in creating an absurd conflict? You might as well said: the BISMARCK wouldn't stand a chance against our ICBM's, nuclear subs or B-52's.
I'm just taking issue with your title. I like accuracy in advertising.
@@bobfriedman9969 issue with carriers was weather, and the Atlantic is not kind in that regard.
@@bobfriedman9969 How about Scharnhorst taking on HMS Glorious?
Bismark...most feared ship? My Dad was merchant marine during WW2. He always said the Tirpitz was the ship they feared the most. He did several convoys to Murmansk and Archangel.
tirpitz or bismarck, kinda the same ship.
@@locutusvonborg2k3but Tirpitz lasted longer and actually did more to affect the war effort
@@deeznoots6241 kinda funny isnt it, that the legend of bismarck is that much bigger
Bismark was obsolete when it was launched. Aircraft carriers were the primary and most important naval weapon of WW2. At the time of the Bismark/Hood battle the most powerful navy in the world was Japan with its six fleet carriers. Although he was talking about a different ship, Admiral Yamamoto's comment that "this ship will be as useful to Japan in this war as a samurai sword" was equally applicable to the Bismark.
Really? How was it then that aircraft carriers played a subsidiary role in the naval war against Germany & Italy?