We didn't Sink the Bismark

[Marshal Dan Troop 70448]

Now the other side of the story.  MT

 

[DocWard]

Well, technically, I believe it was scuttled... lol

 

[Chantry]

4 hours ago, DocWard said:

Well, technically, I believe it was scuttled... lol

 

Scuttled or sunk is a moot point, the British destroyed the Bismarck as fighting ship and while the HMS King George V and the supporting cruisers did quite a bit of damage, it was the HMS Rodney, the oldest and slowest battleship involved, that closed to 3,000 yards and blew the hell out of the Bismark's superstructure and most  everything else above the Bismarck's armored belt.

[Sixgun Sheridan]

You can thank a brave Fairey Swordfish pilot for effectively sinking the Bismarck. If he hadn't hit the rudder with his torpedo and jammed it the Bismarck would've made it back to Brest, France and history would've been a lot different. Once the Bismark became difficult to turn and forced to sail right into the path of the British battleships the ending was merely a formality.

[Widder, SASS #59054]

How did the size and power of the Bismarck compare to that huge battleship the Japanese had in WWII?

 

..........Widder

 

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

Bismark had. 8 15” guns, Yamato had 9 18.1”. B was 41,700 tons, Y was 65,000

[Sixgun Sheridan]

Also the Bismarck's belt armor was just 12.1" thick while the Yamato's was 16". Honestly the Bismarck wasn't that powerful a battleship; she was just very powerful compared to most of the WW1-era junk the British had. Her biggest problem was ineffective AA armament that couldn't even track the slow, clumsy Swordfish biplanes. Of course in those pre-Pearl Harbor days nobody seriously believed a battleship could be sunk by aircraft anyway.

[Marshal Dan Troop 70448]

1 hour ago, Sixgun Sheridan said:

Also the Bismarck's belt armor was just 12.1" thick while the Yamato's was 16". Honestly the Bismarck wasn't that powerful a battleship; she was just very powerful compared to most of the WW1-era junk the British had. Her biggest problem was ineffective AA armament that couldn't even track the slow, clumsy Swordfish biplanes. Of course in those pre-Pearl Harbor days nobody seriously believed a battleship could be sunk by aircraft anyway.

As to tracking the Swordfish, in a previous encounter before this, another of its flaws besides unable to steer as most ships are capable of just using its props, which the Bismark was flawed at by design which was not considered. also previous Salvos fired by the turrets and position of its radars both fore and aft, concussion damaged their radar making them useless when tracking especially aircrafts. They actualy had very good radar, but were out of commision. The Bismark was relying on the Prinz Eugen for radar.

The Bismark was rushed into the war, Items that were noted as problems, includng Radar position, and props unable to be used efficiently to steer ship in case of rudder failures were not done. Also the Bismark was to top its fuel tanks off, which again was not done. When fuel tanks were damaged, and sea water entered these tanks, the Bismark could not use its full potential of speed and almost cut in half their top speed, if topped off, may very well have gotten away, or close enough, U-Boats were already sent out, and been a different story. MT

 

 

[DocWard]

3 hours ago, Widder, SASS #59054 said:

How did the size and power of the Bismarck compare to that huge battleship the Japanese had in WWII?

 

..........Widder

 

 

There were two Yamato class battleships, the Yamato and the Musashi.

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

The Bismark is under 15000 ft of water.  The Yamato,  only 1100. Musashi, 3300.

 

about the launch of Musashi

Quote

The launch was concealed by means including a citywide air-raid drill staged on the launch day to keep people inside their homes. Musashi was launched on 1 November 1940, coming to a stop only 1 metre (3.3 ft) in excess of the hull's expected 220 metres (720 ft) travel distance across the harbour. The entry of such a large mass into the water caused a 120 cm (3 ft 11 in) tsunami, which swept the harbour and local rivers, flooding homes and capsizing small fishing boats.

 

[Marshal Dan Troop 70448]

3 hours ago, Widder, SASS #59054 said:

How did the size and power of the Bismarck compare to that huge battleship the Japanese had in WWII?

 

..........Widder

 

Bismarck had speed and do a hit and run, but the Japanese because of thicker armor could take substained hits. I'm sure the Bismarck as outclassed by the Japanese Yamato. MT

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

Yes, it is reported that Musashi was hit by 19 torpedoes and 17 bombs.

[DocWard]

3 minutes ago, Marshal Dan Troop 70448 said:

Bismarck had speed and do a hit and run, but the Japanese because of thicker armor could take substained hits. I'm sure the Bismarck as outclassed by the Japanese Yamato. MT

 

I had to double check, because I was thinking the Yamato and Musashi were fast. They were, for their size. 27 knots, vs. 30 for the Bismarck.

[Four-Eyed Buck,SASS #14795]

`There was a third sister to the Yamato, Shinano. After the Midway disaster, she was converted to an aircraft carrier. Not quite completed by the last year of the war, she was sent out to get away from air raids and was caught by a U.S. sub, the Archerfish. She wasn't fully equipped and couldn't stem the flooding and sank not quite 24 hours out of port

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

Shinano is the largest warship sunk by a submarine.  Archerfish was not credited with sinking a carrier until after the war.

[Sixgun Sheridan]

It's a good thing the Iowa-class battleships never came across the Yamato or Musashi because they only had 12-inch belt armor as well. Of course in any capital ship duel it was usually either dumb luck or the skill of the captain and crew that determined the outcome, not the raw numbers. The HMS Hood was a very capable ship and on paper she was more than good enough to take on the Bismarck, yet she was sunk in less than ten minutes simply because a lone German shell managed to find her Achilles' heel.

[Icebox McSnuggles]

American fire control radar let American ships fire from distance beyond what any of the Japanese ships could do. American battle ships did not meet the Yamato or the Mushashi but they destroyed 2 other battleships at Leyte Gulf. I think they would have held up pretty well.

[Trailrider #896]

6 hours ago, Sixgun Sheridan said:

Also the Bismarck's belt armor was just 12.1" thick while the Yamato's was 16". Honestly the Bismarck wasn't that powerful a battleship; she was just very powerful compared to most of the WW1-era junk the British had. Her biggest problem was ineffective AA armament that couldn't even track the slow, clumsy Swordfish biplanes. Of course in those pre-Pearl Harbor days nobody seriously believed a battleship could be sunk by aircraft anyway.

Yeah, they just ignored what the Swordfish did to Italian battleships at Taranto (sp?).  They also ignored what Billy Mitchell's bombers did to the captured German battleship after WWI!  And he got court-martialled for his trouble.  He also really torqued off the brass when he said the Japanese would attack Pearl Harbor...by air! And that was a couple of decades before December 7, 1941! 

[DocWard]

1 hour ago, Icebox McSnuggles said:

American fire control radar let American ships fire from distance beyond what any of the Japanese ships could do. American battle ships did not meet the Yamato or the Mushashi but they destroyed 2 other battleships at Leyte Gulf. I think they would have held up pretty well.

 

If going battleship against battleship in a slugfest, the Yamato might very well have prevailed.

https://www.navygeneralboard.com/yamato-vs-iowa-putting-debate-rest/

 

Quote

Despite the Iowa’s powerful shells, she could not overcome the massive cannons of the Yamato. Some might argue that radar would allow Iowa to attack ships from longer ranges. However, radar directed gunfire at long range was still in its infancy. On the other hand, the Yamato was equipped with excellent optics that could accurately cover the normal combat ranges for battleships at that time. The argument could be made that the Iowa was able to just as easily dispatch any warship afloat during WW2 as the Yamato. However, an advantage is still an advantage and the Yamato offers better primary firepower if only slightly.

When secondary weapons are added however, the battleships are much closer. Iowa’s modern 5″/38 outmatch their contemporaries with a much higher rate of fire. When defending itself or other ships from hostile destroyers or other small warships, the Iowa might offer slightly better protection. Against larger, more heavily armed ships, the Yamato’s combination of 46cm and 15.5cm guns would certainly be more beneficial.

As far as anti-ship firepower is concerned, the Yamato wins this one.

 

In the interest of full disclosure, I have found other articles that gave the Iowa class a very slight advantage, purely because of fire control radar. However, if a "lucky shot" took it out, then the Yamato would've had an advantage.

 

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-ultimate-battleship-battle-japans-yamato-vs-americas-13737?page=2

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

Yamato was built at Hiroshima, Musashi at Nagasaki.  Both had unremarkable battle histories, except of course for their being defeated.

[DocWard]

1 minute ago, Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984 said:

Yamato was built at Hiroshima, Musashi at Nagasaki.  Both had unremarkable battle histories, except of course for their being defeated.

 

They were awe inspiring vessels, all things considered. The fact that they had unremarkable battle histories is more a testament to their placement in time and place than their capabilities.

[Sixgun Sheridan]

Their unremarkable battle histories was entirely due to the fact that they were considered too precious to risk, up until the point they had to because there was nothing else left to fight with. Had they been involved in the fighting around Guadalcanal the US Navy could have been in serious trouble.

.

[Wapaloosie73]

It’s the fact that a biplane with a torpedo took out the cream of the German Kreigsmarine points to the broader picture that battleships were virtually obsolete before WW2 even started.

 

And it was the success of a nations aircraft carriers that decided its fate. For the Germans it was over before it begun. And for the Japanese? Midway was a catastrophic loss she never overcame. If the Japanese had won at Midway? The Pacific would probably look very different today.

[Marshal Dan Troop 70448]

There were a total of 23 Battleships that the Navy had from beginning of WW2 to the end. Only 2 were sunk, the Arizona and the Oklahoma. Although damaged and righted, the Oklahoma was to damaged to put into service, rather parts taken for rebuilding.

As to Billy Mitchell's and crew showing that a plane can take out a ship, including Battleships, one must remember that no return fire was given from the captured German WW1 Battleship the Ostfriesland. She was anchored also.

Yet during WW2 numerous Japanese attacks on a Battleship failed to bring down a single Battleship. The biggest losses for the US Navy duing WW2 were its Destroyers and Submarines. Torpedo Planes were far the best offense aginst Battleships, and cruiser, the heavily armed ships.

There are many good books on the Japanese Battleships and their failure to make any impact, some stated here. Also the Bismarcks biggest mistake was rushing her into service when known problems should have been fixed which a trial run showed weaknesses, and problems. She was also sent out without the escorts usually given these large ships. She was powerfull yes, her gun crews were highy trained which can be check with the damages she made. But in the end, it was her weakness which were addressed during her sea trial, but were ignored and not dry docked, and rushed into service.  MT

Added: I'm weak on the Pacific War, and sure there are many thatcan correct me. But one thing alo, the German Navy was weak in its deployment of the Bismarck without escort ships as the other country did with its Battleships. They're thinking was that U-Boats could be deployed, and were but to late to help the Bismarck. One reason that so many lives were lost from the Bismarck. Word that U-Boats were headed to help her, and survivors of the Bismarck were left in the water after only picking a little over a 100 from the sea.

I'll add, something I haven't mentioned, I had an Uncle who served aboard the Bismarck, Radar Operator Fritz Schlorff. He was lucky and picked up. A POW till 1947 when he was finally released.

[Chantry]

12 hours ago, DocWard said:

 

If going battleship against battleship in a slugfest, the Yamato might very well have prevailed.

https://www.navygeneralboard.com/yamato-vs-iowa-putting-debate-rest/

 

 

In the interest of full disclosure, I have found other articles that gave the Iowa class a very slight advantage, purely because of fire control radar. However, if a "lucky shot" took it out, then the Yamato would've had an advantage.

 

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-ultimate-battleship-battle-japans-yamato-vs-americas-13737?page=2

 

That hypothetical battle has been discussed for decades.  The Iowa was 5-6 knots faster and American fire control and damage control was probably the best in the world.    The Yamato had heavier armor and larger guns, although the 2700 lb 16" came pretty close to matching the 18" guns in terms of armor penetration.  

 

In the end, if the  Iowa's captain played to the Iowa's strengths and fought at ranges in excess of 30,000 yards it is likely that Iowa would start scoring hits before the Yamato.    Of course one can't rule out luck and hits on the Iowa would have done a great deal of damage.  in the end the winner would probably be the ship that scored the first couple of hits.

[Sixgun Sheridan]

11 hours ago, Wapaloosie73 said:

If the Japanese had won at Midway? The Pacific would probably look very different today.

 

The USA would have eventually prevailed, but the war might have gone on for at least a couple more years. All the Japanese victories couldn't stop what was coming out of our shipyards at the time.

 

And contrary to popular belief battleships were not sitting ducks during WW2, at least no more so than any other surface warship. But they were very fat and juicy targets, as the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea proved when most of the attacking US Navy planes concentrated their efforts on sinking the Musashi and left most of the other Japanese ships alone.

[Wapaloosie73]

2 minutes ago, Sixgun Sheridan said:

 

The USA would have eventually prevailed, but the war might have gone on for at least a couple more years. All the Japanese victories couldn't stop what was coming out of our shipyards at the time.

 

And contrary to popular belief battleships were not sitting ducks during WW2, at least no more so than any other surface warship. But they were very fat and juicy targets, as the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea proved when most of the attacking US Navy planes concentrated their efforts on sinking the Musashi and left most of the other Japanese ships alone.

 

If the Jap navy had swept our Navy from the Pacific? We would not have had pacific coast shipyards or a Panama Canal, they would have been bombed to rubble. 

 

We have a old local military installation built on a mountain top called the radar dome. It was carefully built close to the Idaho border because it was out of range of Jap bombers launched from Puget sound. But could still effectively see into the pacific past the coast line. Japs attacking our coastline was a very real concern back then.

 

They were sitting ducks versus an aircraft carrier, that’s my point. The biggest guns in the world cannot launch shells nearly as far as a aircraft can fly them to its target.

 

 

 

[DocWard]

47 minutes ago, Sixgun Sheridan said:

 

The USA would have eventually prevailed, but the war might have gone on for at least a couple more years. All the Japanese victories couldn't stop what was coming out of our shipyards at the time.

 

If we are talking a true reversal of fortune, where all three of the American carriers were lost, and the Japanese lost at most one and kept much of their pilot corps intact, I believe we would've been very hard pressed to make any meaningful progress in the Pacific. The Panama Canal could've been blockaded, the Hawaiian dry docks and west coast shipyards open to the bombardment by a number of battleships, of which they had a good number and their large number of carriers. They would've been able to operate a number of task forces and hit with near impunity in those locations, not to mention opening up Australia to attack and likely invasion. Our "Germany First" strategy would've had to change dramatically, so that we could attempt to shift manpower to the Pacific. Could we have prevailed? Yes, probably. I would see suing for peace terms as being a distinct possibility though.

[Sixgun Sheridan]

I think you guys overestimate what the Japanese could have pulled off. Hawaii would've been in deep trouble and possibly even invaded, but the west coast of the USA would've been too much for them to chew. They simply lacked the capacity to hit us directly with anything but small carrier-based airplanes, and they certainly wouldn't have wanted to risk their carriers by sailing them as far as Washington or California. The Japanese never intended to invade the continental United States, but to knock us out of the picture so that they could continue to gobble up territory in SE Asia without interference from us. Their whole game plan was to disable the US Navy long enough for them to finish building their "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" across the western Pacific and be prepared to mount an effective defense to the inevitable US counter-attack. In the end their plans failed because we went on the offense after only six months of fighting, which didn't give them enough time to fortify the islands as much as they wanted to. Just imagine if every single island from Guadalcanal to Tarawa to the Marshalls had been as fortified as Iwo Jima and Okinawa were.

[Trailrider #896]

Allegedly, one reason Japan had no intention of invading the U.S. mainland was they feared they would "find a rifle behind every tree!"  In other words, an armed population!

As far as battleship against battleship in WWII, in the Pacific, the real "battleships" had their superstructures offset to one side of a flat flight deck, and their "main batteries" were torpedo bombers, dive bombers and fighters! They fought at long ranges, beyond what a real battle wagon could shoot.  The Iowa-class ships didn't sink Yamato and Musashi, it was aircraft!

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

Naval planning had been to slug it out with battleships, another example of planning to fight the last war. With all the battleships out of action for at least a few months, the admirals were forced to use what they had. In the words of Napoleon and (not yet) Patton, and Danton, “De l’audace, encore de l’audace, toujours de l’audace!”  “Audacity, audacity, always audacity.”  They had wargame experience with carriers. A battleship could project power over the range of its guns, 400or 500 square miles. A carrier projects power over the range of its planes.

 

timid captains and admirals were quickly replaced.

[Marshal Dan Troop 70448]

One interesting event that took place during WW2 was the bombing of Oregon by a floatplane deivered by submarine. The Japanese floatplane dropped 2 incendiary bombs outside Brookings, OR. in the forest. The fire was seen and put out by Forest Rangers on duty. Its only hesecond time in History that an arial bombing took place. The other was in Arizona, Naco in 1929. MT

[Sixgun Sheridan]

During WW2 most combatant nations were very reluctant to commit their battleships to action for fear of losing them, sort of like how the queen is the most dangerous piece in chess yet most players avoid using her for fear of making a wrong move. The US refused to use its new battleships in combat until the ship losses around Guadalcanal forced Halsey to commit the USS Washington and South Dakota, as there wasn't much left for him to defend the island with. As it was the Japanese themselves ended up losing two battleships in as many nights, one from air attack (Hiei) and the other (Kirishima) in a short duel with the Washington. The South Dakota was also badly damaged in the same fight. It was a reminder of a comment Winston Churchill once said of British Admiral John Jellicoe during World War One, saying that as commander of the entire Grand Fleet he was the one person who could possibly lose the entire war in an afternoon.

[Wapaloosie73]

1 hour ago, Sixgun Sheridan said:

I think you guys overestimate what the Japanese could have pulled off. Hawaii would've been in deep trouble and possibly even invaded, but the west coast of the USA would've been too much for them to chew. They simply lacked the capacity to hit us directly with anything but small carrier-based airplanes, and they certainly wouldn't have wanted to risk their carriers by sailing them as far as Washington or California. The Japanese never intended to invade the continental United States, but to knock us out of the picture so that they could continue to gobble up territory in SE Asia without interference from us. Their whole game plan was to disable the US Navy long enough for them to finish building their "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" across the western Pacific and be prepared to mount an effective defense to the inevitable US counter-attack. In the end their plans failed because we went on the offense after only six months of fighting, which didn't give them enough time to fortify the islands as much as they wanted to. Just imagine if every single island from Guadalcanal to Tarawa to the Marshalls had been as fortified as Iwo Jima and Okinawa were.

 

Im not talking about invasion and occupation of the US mainland. Although that could have came later. How long did Great Britain dominate the oceans and reap the benefits and build an empire?

 

I’m talking about the domination of the Pacific and the ramifications of that within the time frame of 1941-1945. If their goal was to knock us out of the war, then bombing Bremerton, Long Beach and the Panama Canal would certainly be conducive for their war efforts. 

 

If we lost at Midway? They wouldn’t be fortifying islands in the Pacific. We would be fortifying the West Coast. And probably moving our manufacturing base to Utah and Idaho. Except for ship yards...... We would have been on the defensive. And Europe would have suffered as well. 

 

I think its possibly the world would look very different today. With a third Reich in Europe, a Japanese empire controlling the Pacific and a much diminished USA. No Cold War and Soviet Union.

 

[Trailrider #896]

At Midway we had not yet learned how to coordinate our air power.  In actuality, that lack of coordination on the part of our air elements was the major factor in our victory.  The torpedo bombers' sacrifice sucked the Japanese CAP down to the water level. That enabled the dive bombers to attack relatively unscathed.  Of course Adm. Nagumo's dithering about what load to put on his next attack wave, also played a big factor.  In about 15 minutes Japan had lost her major aircraft carriers.  The sad thing was that it took many thousands of lives to finish the war.