What if the Bismark and Prinze Eugene had'nt spilt up and had Hitler's blessing to take on warships?It seems to me with a couple escort ships and some U-Boats they could have done in most of Britain's navy. What a waste of naval power shooting up merchant ships.
If the Bismark and Prinz Eugen hadn't split up both would have ended up sunk. A single battleship (and not all that powerful of one to begin with) and a single heavy cruiser stood no chance of success in a stand up fight with what the British had in the Atlantic to take them on with. In Bismark's final battle the Rodney (9 x 16") and KGV (10 x 14") totally overpowered the Bismark. The numerous heavy and light cruisers (along with dozens of destroyers not to mention aircraft carriers) just overwhelmed the Bismark and would have done the same to the Prinz Eugen. Adding two or three destroyers does nothing to change this equation. U-boats are useless as part of such a task force as they could barely keep up on the surface and could not coordinate their attacks if submerged. This is why every nation didn't operate submarines as part of surface task forces but rather independently as pickets or in Guerre de Course campaigns against merchant shipping. That the Bismark (or Prinz Eugen) sank the Hood was meerly a stroke of luck that wasn't likely to be repeated the next time they ran into several British capital ships (as acutally happened).
I think as well that that Bismarck and Prinz Eugen could not have made it together IN BATTLE but there are still things that could have made the difference for escaping even without that : Whta if the Bismarck ruddle had not been damaged it would had a much better chance of escaping if possible. The Royal Navy was running out of fuel and were in a hurry to find Bismarck. The U-556 had no torpedoes left and the others were still far away: On the evening of the 26th May 1941 the U-556’s watch reported the approach of warships. Lt. Commander Wohlfarth crash-dived and then raising his periscope was just in time to see what must have been every U-boat commander’s dream. The HMS Renown and the HMS Ark Royal were streaming directly towards him, their massive grey hulls plunging repeatedly into mountainous seas. Wohlfarth didn’t even need to manoeuvre; it was as though they were steaming straight into his torpedo tubes. All he had to do was press the firing button to send the Ark Royal and HMS Renown to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. But he had no torpedoes left. The last of them had been used on a relatively unimportant merchant ship. http://www.ety.com/HRP/walshcomments/20010625.htm But as well Bismarck had been earlier quite lucky as the Royal Navy lost its traces and then came the fatal error: Luthjens´ 30 minutes radio message to Hitler as he thought he was close to being finished thanx to which they were found and destroyed! And: http://www.ww2forums.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=9;t=000054#000008 [ 26. December 2003, 03:22 AM: Message edited by: Kai-Petri ]
So who's idea was it to build such powerful ships to shoot up merchant ships? A quote from Hitler"on land I'm a hero,on water I'm a coward"or something like that.Lucky hit on the HOOD uhhn.The Bismarck had found the "range" and would have poked holes through the HOOD even if it had'nt had that "lucky" hit. Did not the Prinz Eguen already hit one ship before the Bismarck even engaged the HOOD?Which brings back my question,why such an enormous ship/ships to shoot up merchant vessels? It sees to me,either commit to take on capital ships or let the Uboats do the merchants in.But like ya'll said it would'nt matter,since we had broken their code and they did'nt know it.I'm just a novice so take it easy on me! framert
think about your question/statement for a minute......... why do you think the Kriegsmarine invested so much time and manpower in hunting down US/English cargo ships ? ~E
AS well, Framert, something to read: http://users.swing.be/baten/bat/1146.html http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq104-3.htm One good example can be seen with the famous convoy PQ17: Intelligence suggested the fearsome battleship Tirpitz was steaming their way, and while PQ17's escorts went off to find her, the merchant ships were left to find their own way unprotected. It later emerged Tirpitz had been docked at Altenfjord in Northern Norway at the time. http://homepage.ntlworld.com/micheal.overton/History%2010.htm http://www.naval-history.net/WW2CampaignRoyalNavy.htm
