Battleship Bismarck the best according to www.kbismarck.com?

[sopas]

I have read that the German battleship Bismarck was the most powerful battleship of her time. Literally as taken from http://www.kbismarck.com: "the Bismarck was the largest, most powerful, and for many, the most beautiful warship afloat."

I was wondering how did the Bismarck compared with other battleships and if she was really the most powerfull of them all. What are your opinions? and... how accurate is that statement?

Thanks

You can read that comment on:
http://www.kbismarck.com/introi.html

[admfisher]

At her time say in 1941 she was one of the best. The USN was just rolling off it's 16 in gunned ships and the RN was putting out the KGV class. In Japan the Yamato class if done would of been number 1.

Grant

[Caldric]

The problem with Yamato, besides the fact of such wasteful ship building, is that it was short legged and was a nightmare on logistics. Its fuel consumption alone killed any benefit the ship could have brought Japan. Most importantly considering fuel was one of the major set backs for the Japanese.

It was not overly difficult to sink either.

Bismarck was a great ship, and He (as the captain chose to call him instead of her) was a great pride to Germany, but again a wasteful investment. A great ship no doubt, and during the short life of the ship I doubt any were as good.

[Takao]

Caldric,

Most ,if not all, Japanese ships were short-legged. Japanese strategic policy had called for a giant battle to be fought relativly close to Japan, and the fleet would not have to travel very far to engage the enemy. Therefore, the weight savings from carrying less fuel was dedicated to weaponry.

The fuel was there, but not in vast quantities. I believe the Japanese High Command did not want to risk their capital ships. How would Guadalcanal have turned out if it had been the Yamato and Musashi instead of Hiei and Kirishima?

As for the Yamato being easily sunk. That was a foregone conclusion, seeing as the Americans sent more aircraft at her than the Japanese used to attack Pearl Harbor.

[admfisher]

Caldric,

Most ,if not all, Japanese ships were short-legged. Japanese strategic policy had called for a giant battle to be fought relativly close to Japan, and the fleet would not have to travel very far to engage the enemy. Therefore, the weight savings from carrying less fuel was dedicated to weaponry.

The fuel was there, but not in vast quantities. I believe the Japanese High Command did not want to risk their capital ships. How would Guadalcanal have turned out if it had been the Yamato and Musashi instead of Hiei and Kirishima?

As for the Yamato being easily sunk. That was a foregone conclusion, seeing as the Americans sent more aircraft at her than the Japanese used to attack Pearl Harbor.

Yamato took a beating. And we must remember she was not alone so there was a good deal AA being fired. The number of planes could only be for sinking her no matter what. Don't forget at that stage of the war the USN still thought she was a 16 in gunned ship. So the large attack is almost a credit to her legend.

[Ovidius]

As for the Yamato being easily sunk. That was a foregone conclusion, seeing as the Americans sent more aircraft at her than the Japanese used to attack Pearl Harbor.

Yamato was truly an easy hit - she did sink after 19 bombs(I don't know which type, but I suppose the usual USN 1000-lbs/454kg) and 17 torpedoes. Compare with Bismarck's over 700 hits + tens of torpedoes + scuttling charges....

~Ovidius

[admfisher]

As for the Yamato being easily sunk. That was a foregone conclusion, seeing as the Americans sent more aircraft at her than the Japanese used to attack Pearl Harbor.

Yamato was truly an easy hit - she did sink after 19 bombs(I don't know which type, but I suppose the usual USN 1000-lbs/454kg) and 17 torpedoes. Compare with Bismarck's over 700 hits + tens of torpedoes + scuttling charges....

~Ovidius

Ovidius the Yamato was no easy kill your post would leave a unread reader to think it was an easy kill. For a simple kill look POW when the screws were hit the flooded all the way back to the enginge rooms which is a very large area. Basically she went down alot faster.

[Takao]

Ovidius,

Where did you get the "tens of torpedoes" from? From what I have found, the Bismarck was hit with 5 - 10 torpedoes depending on whose claims you believe.

Victorious a/c hit with 1 of 9
Ark Royal a/c hit with 2-3 of 15
British destroyers hit with British claim/ 2 Germans claim 0 out of ???
Rodney hit with British claim 1/ Germans claim 0 out of 12
Norfolk hit with 1 possible of 8
Dorsetshire hit with 2 of 3

Sinking the Bismarck might have been quicker had Tovey used the aircraft that he had on hand. There were Swordfish a/c airborne and orbiting the battle area, however Tovey called them off and used his warships to continue the battle.

As for the Yamato...
The Musashi absorbed 20 confirmed torpedo hits(13 - port & 7 - starboard) and 17 bomb hits. This attack caused the Americans to rethink their strategy for attacking large warships. The new strategy called for the attacking torpedo aircraft to concentrate their attacks on one side of a warship. The air attack on the Yamato was an example of this. The Yamato took 11 confirmed and 2 possible torpedo hits. Of these, all but 2 hit the port side of the ship.

[Xanthro]

It's always difficult to determine how many hits a ship takes, especially when there are many attackers.

The Musashi took a pounding in terms of torpedoes, but most were delivered within a short period of time. Flooding of a ship that large takes time. Whether 10 torps would be enough or the 20 couldn't be determined. She also took far more bombs hits than her sister.

The Yamato went down with 10 torps and 10 500 lb bombs. Not a huge amount of damage, compared to her sister, but the damage was spread out over time.

The Yamato did receive two more torp hits, but as she was already list at 28% when these hits, and thus they hit her bottom and not side, the ship was doomed at that point.

The number of torp hits on the Bismark is in doubt, simply because so many ships were hitting it. Literally, hundreds of rounds hit the ship. Scores of torpedos were fired. Since many of these were at a stationary target one could assume that most hit. The problem is, how do you confirm a torp explosive when there are 15", 13", 8" and 5" rounds all hitting in the same area at the same time?

My guess is that the Bismark was the best overall ship. Both the Iowa Class and the Yamato class didn't make stable gun platforms. This was later corrected in the Iowa, because computers could compensate for the roll. The Yamato class did engage enemy ships, and found it difficult to hit and sink them. In this case, the guns are simply too powerful. Firing them rolls your ship and throws off the aim.

Xanthro

[Ovidius]

My guess is that the Bismark was the best overall ship. Both the Iowa Class and the Yamato class didn't make stable gun platforms. This was later corrected in the Iowa, because computers could compensate for the roll. The Yamato class did engage enemy ships, and found it difficult to hit and sink them. In this case, the guns are simply too powerful. Firing them rolls your ship and throws off the aim.

The power of the guns, once fired, to roll/push back a vessel is grossly overestimated by most people. If the vessel rolls too much, this is almost always due to hull design and hydrodynamic efficiency, not guns.

The recoil of a 15in/380mm gun does not exceed 40-50 tons - this makes about 320-400 tons for all 8 guns. Or, the ship weighed 50,000 tons... obviously the difference was so huge that the recoil of all 8 guns fired at once could not move the vessel even one inch.

What looks like a side-ways wake is just the water being broiled up by the muzzle blasts. The ship doesn't move an inch or even heel from a broadside.

The guns have a recoil slide of up to 48 inches and the shock is distributed evenly through the turret foundation and the hull structure. The mass of a 57,000 ton ship is just too great for the recoil of the guns to move it. Well, theoretically, a fraction of a millimeter.

Source: http://www.warships1.com/W-Tech/tech-022.htm

~Regards,

Ovidius

[Xanthro]

The power of the guns, once fired, to roll/push back a vessel is grossly overestimated by most people. If the vessel rolls too much, this is almost always due to hull design and hydrodynamic efficiency, not guns.

No argument there, it's the ship's hull design that greatly influences the ship's stability as a weapons platform.

What I'm saying is the guns on the Iowa and Yamato class were to powerful for the hull designs.

The Iowa class had to fit in the Panama canal, a pretty big disadvantage.

The Yamato did't perform well in her encounters. She had difficutly stay on target.

Plus, if you're ship rolls an inch, you'll never hit your target when it's 15,000 meters out.

Xanthro

[Ovidius]

What I'm saying is the guns on the Iowa and Yamato class were to powerful for the hull designs.

The Iowa class had to fit in the Panama canal, a pretty big disadvantage.

The hulls of the Iowa class were apparently also weakly built and prone to cracks in normal operating conditions! See here:

When the ship got up to 26 knots, a rooster tail would start to appear. Vibration was reported, but only aft of frame 166 (where the aft transverse armored bulkhead is). Chief's quarters were pretty bouncy and the Nixie room was like standing on a jackhammer. I set my notebook down on a table to record some data and you can barely make out my handwriting.

Walking forward, the vibration almost totally disappears as soon as you cross the threshold at frame 166. By the time you get up near the anchor windlass room, you can feel a slight torque to the bow. An almost imperceptible twisting that can only be felt by people with excellent sense of balance. I think it was that twisting that caused hairline cracks in the upper outboard corners of bulkhead 36 and allowed fuel to leak into the storeroom. Identical cracks were found on 3 of the 4 ships.

Source: http://www.warships1.com/W-Tech/tech-054.htm

Until reading this, I wouldn't even have thought about...

~Ovidius

[Takao]

The vibration of the stern was not a new problem. Stern flutter in ships can be found going back to the transatlantic ocean liners of the early 1900's. The problem also arose in the North Carolina class battleships. However, I could find no data about this problem on the South Dakotas.

On the Iowa class the problem was usually caused by loose or misaligned shaft bearings. The New Jersey experienced this problem during her trials in 1943. When the Iowas were reactivated in the mid-80's stern flutter was again a problem and steps were taken to correct it. These step went far to lessen stern flutter, but did not entirely do away with the problem.

From what I have found, it had something to do with the wake of the fore propellors hitting the after propellors. The wake would cause a bounce to occur each time a blade entered the wake. If the shaft bearings were not properly tightened the vibration would occur. The Iowas' were fitted with 5 bladed aft propellors in an early attempt to correct stern flutter. This was of great help, but again did not do away with the problem.