The KGM Bismarck

lol. With the North Carolina's fire control Bismarck would get taken apart within just a couple minutes...

 

Looking at South Dakota's performance at Guadalcanal there's a big chance a night encounter would have gone exactly the other way.

IMO luck and "freak accidents" play a huge part in deciding the fate of WW2 battleships. Those ships were extremely complex pieces of machinery and pushed current technology to the limit so it was easy for something to go very badly wrong with them even without enemy action, add a couple of 1 tonn shells and anything (or nothing) can happen.

 

And looking at the Washington's performance in the same battle...... and so on.

If one is going to talk about ship to ship comparisons, you have to start with both ships being at their peak.

Ship to ship, any USN battleship from the North Carolina class onwards, would have mopped the floor with the Bismarck. The US Ships had far superior fire control, heavier broadsides, better secondary, better AA. The one advantage the Bismarck would have had, is about a 3 knot edge in speed.

The Bismarck could through a 6,400 kg broadside.
The North Carolina a 11,016 kg broadside, farther.

Bigger, heavier, more accurate boom to the North Carolina.

 

Two ships present, one broke down, that's 50% chance to me though a statistician would say the sample is a bit small, still a major systems failure in one out 3 modern US battleships actually partecipating in surface engagements is not a good track record.
Prince of Wales had a similar problem at her final action and lost power to her main AA battery, but at least in her case the initial cause was enemy action and Mutsu blew up without enemy intervention.
Looks to me WW" era BB are so complex with respect to available technology that one on one engagements are very likely to be decided by freak accidents.
The German's reliance on older technology may be an actual advantage there, Bismark's electronics were brittle, she lost her forward radar to an "engineering hit" in her only cruise, but her optics were superb and less prone to accidents.

If you look at historical performance rather than builders specs you will realize that modern BBs chances of survival are awfully luck dependent, Vittorio Veneto took an aircraft torpedo similar to the one that doomed Bismark but manged to limp home, Littorio and North Carolina took sub torpedoes that had a much larger warhead with considerably less damage and so on ....

 

I can only think of a couple of freak hits that decided the outcome of ship to ship battles in WWII. The hit on the South Dakota in the Guadalcanal engagement, and that was only because the electrician tied all the breakers together before the battle started. If he hadn't done that, the SD wouldn't have suffered the electrical outage she did from the one hit.

In the Kormandorski Battle, one of the Richmond's shells caused the Nachi to lose power to her ammo hoists.

And of course the ultimate lucky freak hit, the sinking of the Hood.

Considering the prevailing weather conditions, the fog, rain, and low scudding clouds, CXAM radar would have located the Bismarck before she saw the North Carolina. German naval radar was never very good, and the CXAM set could range to 14 miles for surface actions. The Washington used radar to excellent purpose against the Kirishima, until she was blazing so well it wasn't needed any longer.

I'm not someone defending his country's ship out of patriotism. I used to think the Bismarck was the scariest thing on the seas (you can thank Johnny Horton for that). But over 40 years of research and reading have brought me to the conclusion that the Bismarck, while excellent, was a second rate battleship in comparison to US fast battleships.

 

Depends by what you mean by "freak hits", I think there are a lot of them.

I didn't think of Nachi/Richmond as no ships were lost as a direct result though it may have contributed to the Japanese failure to close the range and overwhelm the, at least on paper, weaker US squadron.
Same for the very long range hit on Cesare at Punta Stilo as once the Italian admiral decided to disengage there was little the slower British squadron could do.

Of instances where a ship received a single hit, that it was theoretically designed to withstand but instead proved decisive ...

Bismark/Hood though Hood actually recived multiple hits, and the rudder jam on Bismark more or less evened the luck factor out, neither was a foregone thing.

Barham and Royal Oak make a pattern so it may be a design flaw in the old ships underwater protection despite the addition of bulges.

The hit on the secondary turret on Musashi which penterated to the magazine.

The unlucky Prince of Wales had a similar experience to South Dakota with a japanese bomb and faulty electrical breakers.

The hit on Exeter at Java Sea decided the battle if not the immediate loss of the ship.

The hit on Sharnhorst's radar at her final battle.

Roma though I doubt the designers of her armour layout had 1.5 tonn glider bombs in mind. Littorio/Italia was also hit and survived as did Warspite from a similar hit though she took 5000 tonns of water and lost all power.

and I think I can scape up a frew more if I put myself to it (HMS Glorious, RN Pola, IJN Shinano, Tahio and Shokaku etc.) but if you look at the list that's about half of WW2 battleship losses.

IMO "critical hits" are a dominating fact of life in naval combat, no battle between big gun ships is a given, the "immune zone" theory was not proven by real life as it didn't apply to most surface engagements anyway because of visibility and other tactical consideration.

To say "this ship will make mincemeat of that ship" makes little sense, same for most on paper comparisons, especially if using one county's design criteria and "pet gun/armour theories" while not looking at the scenario the other ships designers had in mind.

Much better quote Napoleon when selecting generals "I know he's good but is he lucky?", luck and freak accidents count for a lot more than a few mm of of armour.

BTW I'm not a Bismark lover, though her gunnery with a relatively fresh crew was superb there were some serious problems with her shells.


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One can always make any case one wishes by resorting to the "luck" factor. However, when comparing the likely performance of two ships, "on paper" one must speak of probabilities. If the same encounter were to happen 100 times, the outcome would probably be that ship A would win "X" number of times and ship B would win "y" number of times. Even that is conjecture.

The fact is Bismarck's gunnery was "superb" only once; that tends to indicate that the "luck" factor was in play.

From a technical standpoint the US fast battleships had better FC, better armor, better radar, and generally better propulsion. The problem the South Dakota experienced at second Guadalcanal was NOT a design flaw, but rather a poorly trained crew member. So the statistical probability of success has to go to the American battleship.

 

My point is that "the luck factor" will often overshadow even large technical differences where naval gun battles are concerned, the numbers involved are just too small for the law of averages to work reliably.

There' a big difference between running a simulation a couple of hundred times and then averaging and "Bismarck would get taken apart within just a couple minutes... ". From what I know I would put the chances around 45/55 in favour of a US ship and that's far from a sure thing.

I have some experience with building computer models of real life and would really hate to do a battleship comparison one, the amount of variables is mind boggling even without including poorly trained individual crew members. The same shell hitting a couple of meters left or right can make a big difference and looking at the CEP of the guns at long range you would probably need a sample far greater than a real life battleship total magazine size to get a decent "confidence factor". And if you try to add the "engineering hits" that plagued most battleships in action to the model you're in for a truly big headache as you will get hundreds of low probability events with huge effects.

Luckily for them historical battleship designers didn't have computers and highly detailed info of enemy designs so were not even tempted to try.

BTW I have a personal theory the excellent first engagement but gradually declining results typical of German naval gunnery had more to do with crew fatigue than luck, I've been looking for proof of that for years finding lots of pointers but no conclusive evidence, but then I don't see Nazis freely admitting their "supersoldiers" could simply get too tired.

 

I wasn't necessarily talking about a computer simulation, but more generally the laws of probability. There have been some rather well designed and fairly accurate computer simulations which model naval battles, but they aren't available to the general public, and AFAIK, they have never been used to model the outcome of a battle between the Bismarck and any other capital ship.

I certainly do not share your estimate of the odds between a modern US battleship and the Bismarck. I would put them at about 65/35 in favor of the US ship, and that definitely would be indicative of the Bismarck getting "shot to pieces" as, historically, did happen eventually, albeit versus British battleships.

Fatigue, poor training, and morale factors are definitely difficult, but not impossible to model. But they are not really important when trying to hypothetically compare designs; as one poster has already pointed out you simply assume each crew is at the same level of fatigue, training, etc. That eliminates the crew as a factor. That's why I don't put much stock in issue lie the South Dakota's electrical problems which was, in essence, a training rather than a design issue.

Incidentally, that is one of the issues with an optical FC system, particularly of the type the Bismarck utilized; it is very dependent on experienced, skillful operators, and even in fairly short engagements, it's been proven that optical FC operators declined rather quickly in efficiency. That's one reason radar, even the rather primitive range-only sets gave such an advantage in FC.

 

What model are you referring to? Most miltary models I know of , not the graphically stunning traing aids, concentrate on fleet actions for surface ships as modern warships are designed to fight as integrated groups. Possibly a university research project ?

What I had in mind is a model of ship A firing at ship B and then raising the engagement's duration to get the low probability events in. Not very intutive as I have a gut feeling you would get multi hour engagemens and by that time both ships would be destroyed several times over by non critical hits.

 

I believe the models I refer to are still classified. Not sure what "training aids" you have in mind, but the models I'm aware of were developed by the Naval War College.

 

I was thinking of the graphics heavy simulators used for weapons and C3i training, AFAIK there are some naval ones besides the more common ones that are part of most modern military aircraft purchases. AFAIK those system's have little or no "what if analisys" capabilities as they have a quite different purpose.

 

As a battleship Bismarck was quite impressive. It wasn't ther largest but it was advanced and rather fast for a 50 000 ton battleship. The thing is it was obsolete even before construction on it began, The Submarine and the Aeroplane made large surface ships obsolete. And the 3rd Reich didn't have the resources to waste on two large and ultimately useless Battleships when it could have had 120+ U-boats for the same material and men, and would have been much more effective at blockading British Merchant shipping.

 

I agree with the entire post.
Good luck on finding anybody who will give the bismarck any credit.
Is a mini will a great sound system a better car than a BMW with none?

 

Despite the flaws of the Bismarck she did destroy the Hood, and damaged the POW, with the help of Prinz Eugen. Now that is a feat to be admired even if it was a lucky shot. I am not saying the Bismarck is 'awesome' or anything but she was surely a devastating ship nonetheless, you can just look at the efforts the British went to, to destroy her as well as her sister the Tirpitz. I am also not saying she was worth the time and money to build her, but she definitely deserves some credit for not only what she did achieve in her short operations but also what she possible could have done. How many RN sailors and merchantmen were saved by stopping her getting to the Atlantic?

AS for the car remark, I remember reading in a magazine that the coolest car in the world is the one sitting in your own garage regardless of what it is or what it can do.
Also why do people keep putting BMW so high on the list, I read another article that put the Australian Holden (American - Pontiac, British - Vauxhall) and Fords on the same level both in comfort, reliability and even had the Fords higher in personal safety in an accident then all of them. BMW simply have a better reputation because they are German, and everyone know everything the Germans make are always the best.

 

I origionally went for porsche(?)but wasnt sure on my spelling,

Australia 3 -ireland nil

 

Got me. Years ago I had a T-shirt I wore to racing events and pro-rallies I drove in. It read:

Porsche breakfeast of Champions!

this was below a picture of a Lotus with the ACBC (Authur Colin Brian Chapman) Lotus symbol in the background

 

They still will have had little time to gain experiance in carrier ops and the North Sea and North Atlantic are not especially good areas to operate carriers in. How much could or would the Germans have been able to devote to keeping the air wing up to date?

 

I dont think german aircraft carriers would make any sense in the atlantic,at least battleships can defend themselves.

 

But Baby flatops would make sense, the average CVL could carry about 30 aircraft which would be a good projection of power if combined with battleships. The issue would be that the British had fleets while the Germans had the equivalent of one small gunfleet. They could never match the brits.