If you could swap out Bismarck with any other WWII-era battleship design (and no non-battleship warship) for the sake of the Kriegsmarine, which ship would you choose?
Of the two ships lost in Force Z which was the bigger loss Repulse or Prince of Wales? I know Wales was the newer and better protected ship but Repulse is faster and has bigger guns.
the racing stripe idea is a scam...what you really want are speed holes. you have to ask for them special, but if you can get them in the 14-16" range they really do a number
This honestly could be the start of a new series. Drach's Resdesigns of Badly Designed ships. Maybe the Admiral Hippers or the Koingsburg cruisers next?
I’d also like to see a series on “how to make well-designed ships even better”. “Redesigning Yamato”: keep her size, speed, main armament, and armour layout. Use the 100mm dual-purpose gun or even the Japanese 5” instead of the 6” triples secondaries. Fix the flawed TDS. Better yet, not build her at all (not that it would be enough to let Japan win the war, not by a long shot). “Redesigning Iowa”: keep the overall design but cut down around one knot of speed in exchange for better seakeeping. Use a North Carolina-esque TDS instead. Better still, not build her at all (so the US can win even harder in the Pacific). “Redesigning KGV”: drop the “fire horizontally across the bow” requirement for better seakeeping. Maybe not build her at all, but there’s a *slightly* better argument for building her than building Yamato or Iowa. “Redesigning Shokaku”: Replace the 5” dual-purpose with the 100mm dual-purpose. Use the foam fire suppression system used on Unryu.
My late father-in-law wanted to make a large and very detailed model of the Bismarck, so he wrote to Blohm und Voss asking if it was possible to get a copy of the plans for the ship. He received a very nice reply letter saying that they would love to be able to, but that unfortunately the plans were destroyed by his air force during the war.
@@JamesThomas-gg6ilin fact, they where. Bombed tons of civilians to prevent Germany from having a industrial workforce, so bombing the production bureaus was a logic step... i would say a logical prior step but for allies was a logic next step. 🤔
Nah, they’d expect that, instead put a few dozen 91cm mortars, Or better yet, use both, Mortars as main guns, and Gustavs as secondaries, hopefully the ship doesn’t get torn apart from those, but if so, make it stronger
Just for full UNSC with it. Build the ship on the cannon instead of the cannon on the ship. Edit: thinking more on it, something like the UNSC Infinity’s “double barrel” cannons might work. Or UNSC Pillar of Autumn’s quick loading magazines.
I think a more "practical" wunderwaffe since we're going there is ripping out let's say the aft most turret and reusing the turret ring for a reloadable V-2 rocket launcher. Where you have a few at the bottom and the launch pad near the top. Something similar to what Orochi has. I couldn't think of a better ship to compare with I'm sorry.
The triode vacuum tubes used on the Bismarck’s FuMO 23 radars were known as TS1. They indeed did suffer from shock of the 15 inch guns (ok on prinz Eugene) but the TS6 triodes of the FuMO 26 used on Tirpitz only 5 months latter didn’t suffer from shock.
The forward looking Radar is not blinded from the smoke or blast from the main guns, it was the shock which make them drop out. In the case of "Bismarck" the firing against the both CA which shadowed them, this resulted in a "Nummerntausch" means "Prinz Eugen" changed to first position because of her working forward looking radar. Ryan, the Curator of "Battleship New Jersey" mentioned in one of his Videos that the US Navy have initially problems with Radars which dropped out if the main battery is firing. I think this is not a Kriegsmarine problem, it is more a teething problem with the early Battleship based radar which all Nations has to figure out.
@@CRAIGKMSBISMARCKTIRPITZ533 most sane wehrboo be like (PS: for those who might be wondering, no Germans did not call their ships as females. In Bismarck case, her captain, Ernst Lindermann thought to himself, a ship as powerful as Bismarck should be called as a male, but even his crew ignored his order on this. And many german propaganda pieces still featured Bismarck as female.)
In 2007 I went to the Ship yard of Blohm and Voss in Hamburg. An experience in its self, taking the private, and very beautiful tunnel under the river Elbe to get to the yard in the middle of the river. We were shown an absolutely immense builders model of the Bismarck, that had been built in the yard. We were told by the director that the model had only recently been exhumed from the yard. It had apparently been buried in the closing days of the war, and it was only in the early 2000’s that the Blohm and Voss management had decided that enough time had passed that it was politically acceptable to exhume and show the builders model again. What ever you might think of its engineering..it was a stunningly beautiful ship.
Definitely a beautiful ship. Although personally, I think the Admiral Hipper and the Scharnhorst are equally gorgeous ships. Some of my favourites to play and appreciate in something like WoW. Although gameplay wise I prefer Tirpitz to Bismarck for the extra surprise of a few torps for any ships that get too close too quickly.
With my vast knowledge of engineering and historical battleships, I can, with certainty, say that in Dora's place in the 3x3 layout, there would be a pool.
The tripple turrets combined with the large aft deck space for aviation and torpedoes would have actually worked really well with their surface raiding strategy
Moving the aircraft facilities aft, and moving the ships boats around would free up a lot of room amidships for AA guns. One of Bismarck's big issues is the catapult is taking up a lot of prime real estate.
@@Zer0LifeNegi Depends on what the aim was, really, doesn't it? I mean, in a sense, _Bismarck_ had a _very_ successful mission. Look at the number of RN vessels she pulled off station!
If we're going for futuristic technology that could actually have been put on a 1940's warship I suggest: 1. radar-guided 30 mm Gatling guns 2. anti-ship missiles guided by either beam-riding, active radar homing, anti-radiation, or infra-red; or some combination of the above
Okay, hear me out on this one: all big guns. _All_ big guns. Deck: gun barrels. Hull plates: gun barrels. Rudder: gun barrels One shell preloaded in each gives a 300-gun broadside.
Secondary spam actually would have helped Bismarck quite a bit. She was headed out to do some merchant raiding and freighters typically are not armored or particularly fast. Reducing her displacement would also be beneficial, nothing is quite as awkward as your new flagship getting stuck in the canal because she's too heavy.
Given how the individual rudder which was not ejected by the torpedo became entangled with the center propeller I don't think that would have made any difference.
I felt it might have been prudent to try having divers cut or blast it off, yes this would require stopping (briefly) but it could have worked, then you floor it toward France until under cover of the Kustenflieger.
@@Rammstein0963.The reason they didn't, according to Drach in his video on Operation Rheinübung, was because they worried that the amount of explosives required would wreck other propellers and/or rudders (don't remember which).
Wanted to thank you again for all the awesome content you provide. I (29) was speaking to my uncle who served in Vietnam (67) yesterday, and discovered that we both share an interest in naval history and your channel came up in the conversation. Maybe it wasn't on purpose, but you brought two distant family members together over the incredibly dry subject of naval history. Thanks Drach.
Lmao! Though frankly, I doubt the kanmusus of most, if not all, of the 29 WWII-generation battleships would have any interest in fighting for the species that created them and thus forced them into a wretched, miserable, boring and pointless existence. They make a lot more sense as Abyssal/Siren bosses actively trying to destroy the governments and nations that created them in the first place.
@@bkjeong4302 i mean in azur lane they do be fighin each other AND the aliens And don't say anything about how Kancole is better, since it doesn't have a english/global version
The scale model ship company Alnavco and its master modeler, Wayne Smith came up with this similar version of Bismarck a year or so ago. Three triple turrets, the 120mm DP guns and a slight rearrangement of the superstructure.
I love how the results of this are "Maybe make it a bit more like a North Carolina or South Dakota?" which seems to be the ideal battleship design for roughly Bismarck tonnage. The fact that Richelieu gets Bismarck's job done on some ~10,000 tons less and a 2 knot higher listed top speed really goes to show how, despite the fanboying, Bismarck ends up quite far from being an efficient design.
Yeah, even with the failure of the French 152mm dual-purpose gun to actually be dual-purpose, Richelieu was a dramatically better design than Bismarck. Well, at least once the problems with the shell hoists were solved. Initially, Richelieu had a very slow rate of fire for her main guns.
More like 3-4k tons less as built - and she ended up more or less as heavy as Bismarck after her 1943 refit. It's easy to see where those extra tons went on the Bismarck though; Bismarck carried slightly more fuel, 3 more 6" guns (and in dual rather than triple mounts), 4 more 105mm guns, and twice as many 37mm anti-aircraft guns, and had a complement nearly 400 men larger than Richelieu as built. On balance, the Richelieu is a slightly more efficient design than Bismarck and Vanguard but only because of the all-forward turret layout, which is a compromise; it has advantages and disadvantages.
As finished, Richelieu weighed almost the same as Tirpitz and had poorer range. And her guns could barely hit anything smaller than a mid sized island - even after her late war upgrades which reduced her speed to 30 knots. Bismarck's guns had the smallest dispersion of any large calibre naval gun, Richelieu the worst - even after she was improved in 1943.
@@The_Seeker All-forward turret layout may be fine, if you rule the seas. But a German battleship would sometimes have to run away from superior forces. Then a backward firing gun, that can slow down a cruiser or even a battle crusier with a single hit is very useful.
I don't know if you take suggestions, but I'd love to see the Battle of the Dalmatian Straits from the Croatian War of Independence covered. The nascent Croatian armed forces used several batteries of coastal guns (mostly made up of captured Soviet field guns with a few German WWII 88mm flak guns) to deter an ostensibly more capable Yugoslavian naval force. I've always loved coastal defense guns and how they are used, and this battle is entirely focused around them, so learning about what guns were used, where they were positioned, and how effective these anti-tank, anti-aircraft, and field guns were in the coastal defense role would be super fun!
Hmm, didn't get much out of it. Bear in mind that Bismarck and the surface fleet were not designed to take on the RN singlehandedly, in fact no surface unit did- so claiming the Hood was a major publicity victory. But then I'll address the rest to Drach. MY own view is that the concept of the Post WWI fleet after about the PE class was an absurdity. They were designed primarily for surface raiding- you don't want large targets for that, you want U boats and that's the principle argument of the German naval command of the time. The concept of a balanced fleet under plan Z wouldn't have worked either. B and T were of more use as a fleet in being but equally it would have cost the RN more in resources and attrition to deal with largely submerged forces as U Boat command proved.
@@leoroverman4541 I don't think he meant operationally. He is talking about design efficiency. For 50k tons they only got about the same as the American's did for 40k tons on North Carolina or the British did on 40k tons with the KGV.
@@Neneset So just out of curiosity. What about Vanguard? 50k tons and eight 15" guns in twin turrets. Are the British bad designers too or maybe there is more to it then you think.
@@hannesromhild8532 Vanguard mounted turrets from the battlecruisers Courageous and Glorious, dismounted when they were converted to CVs. Most probably British designers would have chosen three or four guns turrets (like they did in the King George V class) but money and time constraints forced them to reuse old weapons from the Great War
She was like a half sister to Vanguard - very similar. So was Vanguard extremely ineffecient as well? Those extra tons gave Bismarck a combination of speed and range that only the even larger Iowa did better.
The best use of that displacement would be a few hundred thousand cast-iron park benches around Germany. 50,000 tons of displacement wouldn't affect the naval war in the slightest no matter how it was expended.
@@rupertboleyn3885Considering the damage Donitz was able to do with 75, even adding another 25 might have been enough to force Britain out of the war in 1940/41.
Fascinating discussion. Not long ago, I speculated on a triple main armament. Even found a speculative drawing of Bismark with a three-triple main armament. Like you, I wondered why they did not go triple, as, having built the Deutschlands and Scharnhorsts with triples, they should have been in their comfort zone with them. The only concern I had was that, with the horizontal sliding breech, the barbette would need to be larger, which might cause a problem for Anton, given the width of the hull at that point. However, with only three turrets, seems the superstructure could be moved aft, so Anton and Bruno would be where the hull is wider. I posted about this thought on a Navy group on Facebook. Knowing that you lurk that group from time to time, what did you think of that discussion? As for the 105mm DP secondary, iirc, Jackie Fisher was an advocate of a greater number of 4", vs the 6" secondary the RN was going to in the run-up to WWI. The two classes Fisher had a direct hand in, Renown and Courageous, had the infamous triple 4", while QE and Revenge had 6". Can't help but wonder why the RN did not go with the QF 4", rather than the BL. With the QF's fixed rounds, both the bag man and rammer could be eliminated, reducing the crowding that plagued that triple mount. wrt the triple screw design, I have read that the Germans found a triple screw layout made it easier to negotiate the turns in the Kiel Canal. Looking at how they have the rudders laid out: one either side of the center screw, I wonder if they were going for a thrust vectoring effect. I speculate the drill when transiting the canal was to make the trip on the center screw only. With only the center screw providing thrust, it would be running faster than if all three were turning, producing a stronger stream. With the twin rudders, whichever way the helm was turned, the broad side of one rudder or the other would be turned into that high speed stream from the center screw, vectoring the thrust. Really enjoyed this post. Thanks!
Post WW1 was not a happy time for the German navy. A lot of the best designers, engineers, and builders were gone or not allowed to work on naval weapons. this left a knowledge gap. Very hard to start from scratch.
Understandable, but in my mind only to a point. For instance, using Drach's example of the citadel design - essentially that it is flawed because it cannot support the ship on its own if watertight integrity has been lost elsewhere. I'm not a naval architect, but shouldn't that design problem be a standard understanding of shipbuilding? The Germans have been building ocean going ships for years prior to Bismarck; citadel design should not have been a "revelation" to them, nor should the Treaty restrictions have removed this type of shipbuilding 101 knowledge - yet they went ahead with this design rather than others. I'm curious as to why?
I have always found it curious when people bash the Bismarck as if it was a bad ship or something, so i ask one simple question, can any of you name one single ship in the British navy that would have survived the onslaught brought to bear on the Bismarck? i sure as Hell can't, The Bismarck faced off against no less than 1 = Aircraft Carrier 3 = Battleships 1 = Super Battlecruiser 3 = Heavy Cruisers 1 = Flotilla of Destroyers In the final battle it was crippled with no radar or steering and a speed of 10 knots. It took 400 heavy caliber shells and at least 5 torpedoes plus scuttling charges to finally sink the damn thing and everyone on this talk back is like "WOW what a piece of shit it was" You all need to step back and rethink your stance on this and realize that is was a lucky hit that doomed the ship and nothing more, Hell if anything i would lay more blame on the bad 15" shells it had, if the one that hit the bridge on POW exploded God knows what other damage it would have caused besides just killing all the command crew and then the one that didn't detonate that punched into the fuel bunker, can you imagine if that one exploded it could have sunk the Prince of Wales and then how would the Bismarck's tally look, The bottom line is this, when she was fully functional she went up against a Battleship, a Super Battlecruiser and two heavy cruisers and came out on top. I will give you the radar being damaged by gun blast as a bad design flaw and the abysmal AA set up but in reality i think it did pretty damn good considering what was sent against it. One to think about, what if instead of detaching the Prinz Eugen she escorted the Bismarck home, its very likely that had its AA guns been added to the fight they may have stopped the Swordfish that scored the lucky hit and its also possible that the Swordfish would have split the attack against both ships and once again maybe the lucky hit doesn't happen and Bismarck lives to fight another day, then to make matters worse what if it did come back out with Scharnhorst and Gneisenau plus an appropriate number of escorts, oh what could have been!!!! And before any of you say anything i am well aware that the British would have bombed any harbor with those three ships in it 24-7 and twice on Sunday but i can still dream can't I ?????
Piece of shit or not, just knowing the Allies could muster their numbers to sink one ship shows who had the winning strategy, whether British vs the Bismarck or US vs the Yamato.
I don't think that what it went up against matter The polish succesfully destroyed a surprising number of tanks using anti tank rifle on horse back but that doesn't mean that anti tank on horse back is an effective strategy Its that with 50k displacement the allies made better ships such as the North Carolina for example For a 50k displacement ships Bismarck isn't anything special
I agree with the most if these changes to secondaries and adding 15" triple turrets.. However i would ensure that i could retro-fit with twin 128mm when that system is proven to work....and then getting rid of the 37mm with a pile of quad 20mm is the the most likely thing that Germany could have done and it would simplifyed logistics I dont think that German designers had the ability to build "all or nothing" as the design is a warmed over WWI design. However they could have fixed the reserve buoyancy issues in the current scheme and then put the fire-control cables under the armour belt.
Modify the heavy anti-aircraft analog fire control computers. They were not able to track, follow, and calculate a targeting solution for aircraft as slow as the Swordfish bi-plane torpedo bomber.
I dont really understand the buoyancy thing, yes it might not technically have need to get the citadel penetrated go sink but it's not reasonable to assume all the other compartments would have ever gotten penetrated enough to cause it to sink, I would like to think rhe designers were at least more compentnt the him when it comes to ship design
In looking at the design flaws and pluses of the Bismarck ships, I feel many overlook the operational requirements of the different navies. The UK had bases all over the world, so a damaged ship could head to port for emergency repairs pretty much anywhere. Whereas a German ship HAD to return to Europe. So their capitol ships had the be able to 'take a beating' and still get home. Considering the level of shelling Bismarck received and the colossal explosive force of Tallboy bombs on Tirpitz, I don't think we can really argue they were not 'tough ships'. Also, from my understanding of plan Z (which I may have misinterpreted) the ships up to the Bismarck were really 'convoy raiders' not specifically designed as 'toe to toe' Battleships; that would have been the job of the 'H' class. From what I have read after the hull survey done on Bismark, yes there are penetrations from the 16 inch guns of Rodney in the belt (I believe one?) and none for the 14inch calibre. Same for the conning tower, described as a 'swiss cheese' on the Rodney 'side'. So in a confrontation with a KGV class I think the design behaved well. I think anyone can see how your secondary armament redesign would have improved the dual purpose use, but then, Bismarck like many other ships was designed before the full realisation of aircraft danger, and from what I've read elsewhere, was unable to cope with the low speed, low level attack of the Swordfish (unable to depress armament sufficiently). So probably the multiple 20mm installations would have made a difference to that event. Even the Iowa's had design flaws, and no doubt so did the next level Montana's?
Building a capital ship to use as commerce raider is strategic idiocy in and of itself, so if anything that makes the Bismarcks even worse even if it was true (which it wasn’t; Bismarck was intended as a Richelieu counter, except she somehow ended up being less capable and France fell before either class had even a single operational vessel between them)
@@bkjeong4302 H39-42(at best) were only designed as 'battleship killers/toe to toe' Like the Montana/Lion/Yamato classes. Germany always had to design for commerce raiding, that's why the secondary armament focus was decided for Destroyer protection, not dual purpose. with the limited range (due to the non event of the original propulsion units) I'd have seen Bismark/Tirpitz as more Baltic operations once the H class were built. (But that's my personal opinion). The Italian ships were really Mediterranean only, and had the Kreigsmarine captured the French fleet then the Richelieu's would have been absorbed.
To see what might be done to Bismarck one only needs to look at Tirpitz. The fist thing would be a replacement of the twin 2.0cm C30 guns by Quad C38 and more mounts. The 3.7cm SK30 mounts were gyro stabilised but the guns needed dial gauges to use the FLAK predictors. 150mm gun flash obscured the 3.7cm gunners view of the attacking swordfish. The 10.5cm guns needed to be in turrets.
@@grahamstrouse1165 -The German 2.0cm C30 and C38 round had very good ballistics. When the quad gun 'flakvierling' came into use the guns were upgraded from twin Mauser C30 to quad Rhinemetal C38. The C38 had almost twice the rate of fire and was more reliable. They used the same 20 round magazine clip. The quad flakviering was and extremely solid and accurate mount (the Japanese and french 25mm mounts were vibration prone) being gear driven hand cranked and heavy. It was usual to fire 2 diagonally opposite guns at once. When the magazine clip was empty is would unclip itself and part pop out. The loaders on each side would then remove and replace with a new clip while the other guns were fired. This also allowed the guns to cool. It was a very effective and accurate weapon. -The problem probably was the 3.7 cm/83 SK C/30 guns. These had very good ballistics (considerably better than the Luftwaffe/German Army 3.7cm) but the were semi automatic. IE they ejected the cartridge case after shooting and drew in the manually loaded round. Each gun could sustain 30 rounds/minute so about 6o rounds for the two gun mount. There was a project to make these fully automatic (and there is not doubt the Germans could do this eg 3.7cm FLAK 42, 3.7 cm/69 (1.5") Flak M42 which were excellent but fired a lighter round. -The problem was that an increased rate of fire would likely obscure the gunners visions from smoke and might require water cooling. This would then require a fire control system. I Have seen photos of the 3.7 cm/83 SK C/30 with reflector sights (it was gyro stabilized mount) and I imagine they received gryo sights. -It may be that these guns could be linked to the triaxial FLAK predictors used by the 105mm guns. I don't know. It wouldn't be hard.
One problem was the Swordfish flying too slow for the lowest setting of the AA gunnery computers, AFAIK. Still, Bismarck delivered a concentrated, accurate and dangerous fire on them, hitting nearly every plane, however the Swordfish was known to be pretty unfazed over getting a lot of holes and kept flying.
@@advorak8529 This speculation that the Swordfish were too slow for Bismarks FLAK predictors came from the US author Norman Friedman. Certainly Friedman is very credible but It's not really true.. Friedman suggested that because the Bismark FLAK predictors were designed to track very fast moving aircraft the percentage error would be high even against slow moving aircraft. -It's not correct for several reasons. The first one is that the FLAK predictors (triaxially stabilized) had been designed to attack fast PT boats by firing air bursts above them. The second thing was they were very acccurate predictors. It has to be noted that the 2 rear of the 4 predictors (spherical devices on her port, starboard and two at the rear with 3.5m range finders ) had been removed and given to Russia so that inferior baxial directors had to be used in these location . This was part of the Molotiv-Ribbentrop treaty. This left Bismark with an inferior system fir her 10.5cm guns. Also the 3.7cm guns were blinded by gun flash from the 150mm and finally this was an early stage of the war and everyone was under armed. Tirpitz was much more heavily armed.
Main issue with the Bismarck was that she was based on WW1 Bayern class propulsion layout. Other big issues was thhe division between heavy FLAK and secondary. Germany did not have an equivalent of the 5"/38 so those duties had to be split between the secondary and the FLAK. But ther worst issue was that she was doomed to fail, fighting alone against a huge overpowering fleet.
@@bkjeong4302 TBH medium caliber was not an issue during her active career. The 12.5 cm heavy FLAK and the 15 cm secondary would have not helped her in the situation she was in. The 15 cm was okay, but the 12.5 was horribly misplaced. She would never have been the target of high altitude carpet bombingn - the only thing ther 12.5 was reasonably good at. More lighter, quicker, faster firing light and medium AA would have been better. But then again, you need proper AA directors for that... which was more an issue than the guns themselves.
The 8 x 2 gun 150mm guns of Bismark could fire an FLAK shell at between 6-8 rounds per minute. The additional 8 x 2 gun 10.5cm guns could fire up to 20 rpm. The 150mm guns had 50% more range than the US 5” DP and twice the shell weight. The Bismark had to fight its way out through the enclosed waters and 150mm guns were needed to fend of destroyers.
The best way to make Bismark more efficient would have been to build her as a series of U-Boats, or small combatants that were more than single use. The surface fleet in general were more of a liability to Germany than benefit.
Battleship raiders worked well with u-boats. The only way to protect merchant ships from u-boats and the Luftwaffe's aircraft was to form them into convoys, If a Tirpitz intercepted a convoy it would be able to sink it probably in ;less than half an hour including many of he escorts. Hence when the RN suspected Tirpitz was about to intercept convoy PQ17 the convoy was dispersed and subsequently almost completely sunk by u-boats and the Luftwaffe.
@@mliittsc63More than you can crew by moving her sailors into the tanks. With U-boats it's the same - you'd need to find hundreds more men. However, a lot of the industry required to make a battleship wouldn't be that useful for making submersibles or tanks - the engines are totally different, for one. Also, while maybe 50 more U-boats would've made life for the British unpleasant in the early war, in the greater scheme of things as over a thousand U-boats were constructed in the war, and most were sunk, and I don;'t think they'd have lasted long enough to make a great difference. In the event the German capital ships of WWII weren't very useful (aside from /Tirpitz/ tying up a pile of RN heavy ships just by existing), but that's at least in part because the war the Nazis got was not the war they were planning for (which describes most combatants in WWII).
@@mliittsc63 Roughly the same weight, so 1x40,000t battleship is about 1000x40t tanks. So for the 2 Bismarcks and 2 Scharnhorsts they could have had 3000-4000 Panther tanks. Of course the Panther could have been made more efficient too (e.g. put the drive sprockets at the back, lower the desk, so it needs less armour) and if they'd done something like the Entwicklung series in the 1930s, maybe 5000 tanks. But they'd still have lost the war because they had no fuel.
Bismarck was intended to be a commerce-raiding battleship--essentially a big cruiser. The purpose of the 5.9" secondaries was to engage with and sink merchant ships, which could be armed with 6" guns. That would save on using the expensive and limited 15" rounds. Replacing those secondaries with 4.1s would make it necessary to use the big main guns to fight merchant ships--she would run out of ammo quickly, and not be able to make a long cruise. One thing you did not discuss which was a major flaw, which did impact her survival, was the angled rudders with rudder shafts connected above in the hull. Independent rudders, with mechanical controls well-separated, would have eliminated that weakness. The torpedo hit by the Swordfish would not then have crippled her. But in the end, the Bismarck was designed to fight merchant ships and escorts, not to fight a fleet action against heavy units. Her design makes sense in that context, although it could be seen as a colossal waste of money. Building the Bismarcks took away resources which would have been far more damaging to the Allies if expended on U-boats. The best improvement to the Bismarck would have been to not build her at all.
While the Bismarcks really shouldn’t have been built (even more so than the other WWII-era battleships on either side of the war, which were already massive strategic disasters), the idea they were intended as commerce raiders is false. She was built for a capital ship role like literally every battleship ever built (because gaining naval superiority by fighting enemy capital ships was the only thing that could ever have justified that level of expenditure) The Bismarcks were forced into the (stupid) commerce raiding role because France fell without a single naval response and because it turned out battleships were obsolete by WWII.
15 inch main battery was a useless weight penalty IF Bismarcks were indeed designed for the commerce raiding. It would have been much more useful to build one or two more Scharnhorsts, and the best option would have been to skip additional heavy units and build more submarines and fighter planes..
'Fraid not. (Response to bkjeong) At the end of WWI, there was an abortive sortie by the High Seas Fleet to raid commerce. Admiral Raeder built on this with his theories of commerce raiding, He wanted his capital ships to be used directly against enemy merchant shipping. The Bismarcks were never intended for fleet actions against enemy battle fleets. The surface warships were to be used against convoys. The defense against surface raiders would have been to scatter the convoy components (as happened with PQ-17 on a scare from the Tirpitz), making them easy targets for U-boats (as happened with PQ-17). Force Z was to have been powerful, but a powerful commerce-raiding force. The French were preoccupied with the Mediterranean--they saw their main rival as Italy, not Germany. Their ships would not have been deployed against the Germans anyway. And France had no intention of going to war with Germany without Britain. That was one of the reasons they did not contest the remilitarization of the Rhineland.
Response to Ah01. Indeed. The Scharnhorsts would have been (and were) more useful to the Germans. But they were an extemporization, using the guns, gun mountings, and turrets intended for the last three pocket battleships which were never built. As built, they had problems with seakeeping and maintaining speed in a seaway, and had to have their bows raised. It wasn't clear they would be so useful in war. The Bismarcks' 15-inch guns would have been useful to dealing with convoys' escorting battleships, and would have given them a range advantage over escorting cruisers. Hitler was enamored of big guns--he wanted big guns, and got them. But yes, they were useless weight on the Bismarck, as was the rest of the ship. Agreed--the Allies would have sustained far more damage from more U-boats built with the money and material that went into the Bismarcks. That would have been the best option. But Raeder had his commerce-raiding theories, which did involve capital ships, and Hitler liked big guns.
@@phantomforester9337 Yep. But still there was a strick order for german capital ships to avoid fighting RN capital ships, Bismarck had that too, but the battle could not be avoided since there were ice obstacles hindering a straight escape north away from Hood and POW.
The reason why the Germans went for 4 twins - aside from redundancy - was that half-salvo firing could be very conveniently done with 2 turret groups of 4 barrels each. If you want to change that to triple turrets, I'd be in favour of having 2 aft and 1 forward, because catching a 30-31 knot ship with 6x15inch high-velocity barrels aft is not a fun task for any RN capital ship - the BCs had only 4x15inch forwards, and the KGVs 6x14inch, and while Rodney has 6x16inch, she is far too slow. (But honestly, I think the main battery was very much effective as it was - German battleships have a really good historical record of getting on target quickly and keep hitting it. If you have any doubts about this, just ask HMS Glorious) Regarding the secondary battery I fully agree with a uniform 105mm battery, but perhaps the new, fully enclosed mounts of the H class (Dop. L. C/38), which had an automatic loading system and quicker traverse and elevation speed. Given that they were under production by 1939 (I assume), at least Tirpitz could have been equipped that way - German engineers actually did quite a bit of experimenting with Tirpitz to the point that she was actually more like a half-sister of Bismarck. This mount actually weighed 44 tons while the Dop. L. C/37 fitted on Tirpitz weighed 27 tons, but I still think its worth it. Regarding armour - I know a very emotional topic for many - I really like that the belt ran for 70% of the waterline length, and the additional strakes fore and aft gave additional protection against flooding by shell splinters or everything up to light cruiser guns. While putting a thick, single main deck on the upper edge of the main belt is certainly great against plunging fire, I'd still like to have the turtleback, even if a bit thinner than historical. So basically build an angled deck into the hull which is connected to the lower edge of the main belt and runs up to the main armour deck. (Similar to the layout of the Königsberg-class cruisers, although I'd want the entire internal armour sloped - Bismarck has the beam to support this. Königsberg had a bit of a slope, but then basically a second internal belt connected to the main deck)
I did a post on a Naval group on Facebook a while back, speculating on a triple turret arrangement. That half salvo doctrine was one of the objections made, and redundancy was another. But the Scharnhorsts, with three triples, seems to discredit the idea of half salvos and redundancy being mandatory. After years of building triples, the reversion to twins just does not make sense.
@stevevalley7835 the shooting of the twins against Glorious was excellent, they scored repeated hits from around 20km. In my opinion, twins aren't necessary, although I like the redundancy part. Given that the Germans didn't stick to the treaty anyways, I also like the 70% coverage of the waterline with a heavy belt.
@@michaelkovacic2608 Another reply on this post made me think for a moment. By the time Bismark was launched, in 39, the US and UK had, by mutual agreement, increased the treaty displacement limit to 45,000. and the gun escalator had also been triggered, so Bismark was treaty compliant.
Hi Drachinifel . With bismarck they could have taken the book on Project 1047 the dutch battle cruiser plan , that was basically a scharnhorst but with many improvements , and more efficient in armor , dual puropose weapons etc .
@@grahamstrouse1165 Only in armor thickness , same guns , 3x2 120mm dual purpose guns , Higher elevation of the main guns ,. Better torpedo protection and subdivisions , better armor sceme , 4 propellor shafts , not using problematic German high pressure powerplants. She was mostly superior in all aspects exept for the armor thickness. elimination all weaknesses of scharnhorst
the racing stripe idea is a scam...what you really want are speed holes. you have to ask for them special, but if you can get them in the 14-16" range they really do a number
I've a silly question: How does removing Caesar turret reduce the citadel length if Dora hasn't moved? Do we rotate Dora's magazine so it only extends forwards of the turret, whereas before it had to extend aft to accomodate Caesar's magazine?
@@seeingeyegod But you still need to protect Dora. I thought the citadel was an armoured box that runs from the fore most turret to the aft most turret. Anton & Dora haven't moved. There's the option of removing Caesar, then reprofiling the aft structure so that Dora is now positioned where Caesar was.
I thought it was only removing Dora that reduced the citadel length. I'll have to rewatch that bit, maybe I misheard - no, Drach did say the citadel length would be reduced, possibly as a result of only a single, tho larger magazine for Dora, which sounds a little unconvincing.
The 3 screws were chosen to help keep the ship narrow enough to use the emden canal. Bismark had twin rudders but the tiller arms were joined and jammed 15 degrees to port. No ship could be manoeuvred in such condition. You would have to have rudders that were independent and further apart.
@@williamzk9083 the combination of three screws has particularly bad hydrodynamics that results is diminished performance for the given power and the centerline screw causes extreme vibration to be transmitted throughout the hull. It nothing else it would be better to just omit the center prop.
@@gustaveliasson5395 (I am dumb dumb and confused other designs here. This doesn't apply to Bismarck.) There was a smaller (useless for the size of the ship) second rudder mounted ahead of the main rudder. Being both too small to be effective and physically linked to the main rudder it is particularly useless deadweight. Best to go to a side by side fully independent rudder set like the American fast battleships.
@@Yaivenov Many efficient ships used 3 screws. I’m sure it has its challenges but I doubt it was significant. The rudders jamming and not being independent was the main one.
I fee like pointing out how and why the ship became what it was . Sec guns , the Km simply never had dp cannons of the right caliber , 105mm was deemed not to be enough to fight of ships . An heavier 128mm was planed for the Gneisenau refit but she was scutteled out of the lack of resources , but that gun simply wasn´t avaible as the Bismark twins where build . Keep in mind that the KM never had the resources other navies had , they made plans and build some ships but just the number of ships should tell you that we are truely talking about a tiny navy . Armour layout , let me tell you that this ship was not build for long range indirect fire engagements , issue is that the north atlantic and Nordic sea are quite rawer seas as like the pacific . Wave patterns bouncing of coasts and storms quickly apear that kind of stuff . Its also the reason of her size , length up the biggest yard avaible and width so that it justs passes though the middleland channel or KW channel . You know biggest platform is most stable . Also the engagements shown that the british also favorited to get in close too . So the main belts job was it to keep most of the shots towards critical sectors out . It was believed that shots that could penetrate it where simply to strong to be stopped on any amour thickness possible to field . The turtlebacks angeled armour was therefore the last resort in order to deflect the slowed down and damaged shell up where i can hopefully damage something less critical . Making the belt higher would have saved more room but any shoot that could penetrate the belt could make the worst of her . Gun layout The idea of four turrets wich each two guns was supposted to be a very balanced layout . ( reminder how small the Km was ) No matter where the enemy was to her did she had two turrets to fight , if one was knocked out she still had one . Both turrets could also support each other , with local rangefinding and some system like hydralics where also connected so one´s aggregate could support both in an emergency . Each turret had its gun as much apard from each other as possible , it was believed ( otehr ships proven that ) that the force of one could diviate the other causing higher disperson . In scharnhorst they made sure to fire the middle cannon slightly earlier , but it wasn´t perfect . She was not the best ship , a lot could have been made different . At the end it was a knowledge and money question . Also not sure if making her another Iowa or roma would have made a better ship .
Drach, I agree that the "All Or Nothing" armor scheme would be stronger than BISMARCK'S original "turtle-back" design. I would also change her anti-aircraft guns to quad 40mm Bofors. We should also do better armor on the steering gear.
Bismarck was basically an "All or Nothing" ship with added armor against cruiser fire on her upper belt and for most of her bow and stern sections. Not very much difference.
Maybe repositioning the main battery radar would've also been a good idea. I'm just an amateur and have no clue how to build battleships obviously, but I would say that it's very helpful when the first salvo doesn't disable the rear radar
It was the front radar i think. Breaking the radar is something battleships do from time to time. New Jersey for exsample broke her radar with her first salvo aswell.
@@patrick3426 Ah, fair, I thought it was the rear radar because she fired at Norfolk/Suffolk that were trailing her before the battle of Denmark strait. In any case, it's less than ideal hahaha
@@NiHi557 It was Suffork who found Bismarck and followed her, Norfolk was on her way to join. And due to very thick fog found herself face to face with Bismarck 😆 (Suffork did the same, but didn't got shot at)
It was a common occurrence at the time; radars were very new technology, and all the navies had these sort of problems. For what it is worth, the radar fitted five months later to the Tirpitz didn't have this problem.
Even later in the war, US BBs occasionally had radar outages lasting a few seconds from main battery vibration. Even the interior lighting of a 5”/38 twin mount and some crew lockers were shock-mounted on springs.
By far the best design change (fortunately not made) would have been to shred the plans and not build the Bismarcks. More destroyers and possibly more cruisers would have been better and an additional 2-4 armoured divisions would have been much better and might have made WW2 go completely differently. Two or a few battleships of the size of the Bismarck would never have been enough to defeat a major naval power and for small naval powers even the Scharnhorsts would have been more than enough. Ultimately, the same problem that Russia currently has with its heavy units: they are of no use but waste money and resources.
Agree with not building the Bismarcks (that entire WWII generation of battleships across all the navies honestly should not have been built, at least in hindsight), but disagree with using it on cruisers and destroyers instead. Do take a look at how badly the Germans fucked up cruiser and destroyer designs. And they’re still part of the surface fleet and still a waste of money in a German context.
@@bkjeong4302 A reasonable number of medium units would still have been better than the battleships. But what would have really made a difference would have been a use of the resources for the army. On paper, the Bismarck is equivalent to almost 2,000 Panzer IIIs. Of course, with weapons, support vehicles, logistics, etc much less, but it would have been a couple of divsions.
Bismarck was WWI design that took some advantage of more advanced technology, but still too heavy, and not efficient. Armour scheme was good for close combat, but with advanced in fire control systems, she would be vulnerable. Delete turtle back, and used those reinforced deck instead. Secondary were not uniform (same problems as Italian). Gun layout that took up unnecessary weight (should continue with triple from Scharnhorst). And finally, not so good compartmentalization.
My tip: power it with a nuclear reactor, equip it with swordfish seeking missiles, give it the shields of the starship enterprise... why they didn't do this in the first place is beyond me....
Why most comments under this video are just complete sci-fi unrealistic crap is beyond me. You'd expect anyone to follow Drach to be reasonable XD /irony
31:02 guess you didn't look at the notes from Bismarck's sea trials. She was unmanageable when they tested steering the ship with just the screws. This was attributed to having a three screw propulsion system.
Drach's basically arguing that, while four screws would make her marginally manageable, it wouldn't really make a huge difference. I can't say I remember the weather conditions on Bismarck's last night afloat, but it might well not have made a difference if the seas were insufficiently calm - And regardless, the ship's designers weren't exactly focused on the extremely minimal possibility of her rudder being jammed with the ship outside of combat while raiding in the Atlantic, and her needing to sail back home alone on marginal steering while being chased by the British Home Fleet in general. It's kind of an absurd situation for a battleship to end up in in general, which feeds into why we remember it so vividly. If we're trying to design the ship specifically to survive the situation she found herself in, I imagine we'd do lots of things - Quick-release rudders, perhaps, or sacrificial torpedo bulges that jut out to cover the rudder - Or perhaps small propellers mounted sideways on the bow and stern, bigger than the thrusters they actually had, powered by their own small motors, to steer with if the rudder goes down. Or any number of things the ship's actual designers would have found completely insane while designing the ship for the war they thought it would fight. Drach was trying to make their design better at being the battleship they wanted to have, not to make it the ship they actually needed - Realistically, the solution to the latter is to scrap the whole thing and make a bunch more u-boats, or invest the resources in actual naval aviation besides pretending Graf Zeppelin matters.
The problem with replacing all the 15 cm guns with 10,5 cm guns is that the anti ship battery effectiveness takes a hit, even with the massive increase in rate of fire. And that is because the replaced 15 cm guns threw a shell that is _three times heavier_ than the one from the 10,5 cm. Square law and all that. Now, granted, the AA effectiveness increase would be massive, but I suspect that reduction in raw punch (and quality of said punch, ie bursting charge, range and armor penetration capabilities) was the reason the designers opted to have the 15 cm guns in place. The anti shipping capabilities of Bismarck's secondary battery were second only to those of South Dakota/Iowa, and surpassed all other contemporaries. This is specially obvious when looking at the King George V; the 5,25" were handicapped by a poor reload speed, and it shows. Bismarck can put twice as much lead in the air with the anti shipping secondary battery. In hindsight, the AA increase is worth it (more than double the thrown weight!), but I can see why they went with the mixed arrangement.
A 3.5 I would possibly consider was to change to the 4 screws rather than the outdated 3 screw propulsion. ... The main armament change leaves so many open 'what if's' especially if German high command was in true Z plan mode. I could see them contenplating going into a more Montana layout.... Going to 4 tripples, juat to bog the ship down again. Quite well thought out changes on the ship. Well done sir.
conversion to 4 prop shaft layout with wider spaced rudders, movement of electrical cables to below the armored deck, a more uniform secondary dual purpose battery, adding a few Torpedo tubes above water like Tirpitz, the 150's would be replaced by dual purpose 128 weapons as would the 105m aa weapons. I'm not touching the armor as that was pretty good, and we don't want to make her to heavy.
The Germans tying to out-navy the Brits at that point was ill-advised. They would have been better off using those resources to build more U-boats or aircraft.
I do agree that Bismarck should never have been built, but there were other bottlenecks to German U-boat production. It would still have been a better trade than building Bismarck-just not one big enough to win the war.
I don't recall her having design problems outside the flag she was forced to serve, but okay. One fun althistory scenario I've seen born out of UA:D game is "what if USSR's Soviet Union class battleships were closer to completion and either Germany, or Italy decided to finished one of the captured one?" The interesting part comes with those ships being massive enough to accept components germans planned for H-class and at the same time infamous for poor quality control during construction. There is a scenario where A LOT can become variables. Would they be useful? Nope. But they can become quite entertaining and glorious disasters.
ISTR: 105mm mounts were known for electrical/reliability problems The AA fire control was not up to task The 3 shaft layout and non-wheel conning caused a lot of yawing/control issues causing cruising efficiency issues (e.g., getting to Brest and Mablehead was a VERY small beam and one rudder) The hull aft design was notoriously weak also affecting rudder spacing issues and backup control) and finally, as you note The armor scheme was outdated along with services like fire control communications running outside. Those are especially from Dulin/Garzke reviews. Seems like a lot of those issues could affect your details (i.e., I agree with the DP secondary and over-the-side with the 37mm) or might change the choices. BTW, if you're only dealing with 40mm Bofors on the ship just how 'mass-produced' do you need? BTW, the huge number of ordnance, engineering, and habitability issues with the Marblehead design REALLY shocked me that you didn't list it as one of the inter-war Mistakes.
The full auto 37's would need fire control from a director since more than 1 barrel would generate too much smoke for the gunners to see. This is within German technical capabilities (the trivial directors for the 105mm guns could be used for instance). It should be noted that the Bismark and Prinze Eugen both were to have 4 triaxial directors but because of the German-Russia Friendship and cooperation treaty (Molotov Ribbentrop pact) two were removed and far less capable biaxial predictors were added. This may be the reason for Bismark's poor performance.
I have heard criticism (including this site, I believe), that Bismarck did not have uniform 10.5cm flak setup, with the rear mounts a different model than the forward mounts.
True, the Germans were in a hurry and Bismarck was sent on her mission with known flaws in her AA setup. The AA crews were not satisfactory trained either. All this was to be fixed when she returned, but...
I agree with all of Drach's proposed changes. But the real question is what is Bismarck supposed to do. The heavy armament is of little use if when the ship gets into a fight, 3 hits are enough to partially cripple it and end the mission. Realistically it's never going to operate as a fleet battleship fighting other battleships because Germany never had enough ships. So more range and more speed might have been a better priority for a raider. Maybe diesel engines for cruising (more range), with steam turbines for when maximum speed is needed. The ship needs the ability to turn up unexpectedly, do as much damage as possible in a short time and scarper. If it sees another battleship then as a lone raider far from home the best course is to run away.
@@bkjeong4302 Good point, and no doubt it was not lost on Admiral Lutjens. The war was not going to be won by sinking British battleships, convoy raiding was the only realistic option for Bismarck in 1941. The only advantage of a battleship was that it could disable lightweight escorts (light cruisers and destroyers) at long range before their guns could reach Bismarck, then plough through the convoy, blasting everything with its secondary battery. But if the convoy contained an old battleship, like many did, then it simply wasn't worth the risk.
@@tomhenry897 In the battle of the Denmark Strait against two capital ships Bismarck still suffered critical damage, losing a generator and a boiler room and suffering damage to her fuel tanks. Net result was her speed was cut by two knots and she only had just enough fuel left to reach the French Coast at a reasonable speed, the whole mission was over. It was the same problem only worse faced by Admiral Graf Spee, she arguably won the fight with three smaller British cruisers on points, seriously damaging both Exeter and Ajax. But a shell from Exeter knocked out her fuel refining plant which couldn't be repaired quickly. Unlike the British he didn't have a base nearby, and she was stranded, unable to get home. A lone raider a long way from home simply couldn't afford to get into a scrap with anything that could hurt her.
I do remember hearing a tale about a destroyer being hit by 3 x 18inch AP shells and being back in the fight. But secondary battery is a big one, Totally agree on the armor layout needing to be heavily modified For the gun layout I believe in the American concept of having 4 triple turrets.
Those hits (one in particular near the keel) did in fact prove fatal to Johnston. It was just that she took so long to go under that she kept up her last stand for a while after that.
If you are thinking of the USS Johnston, she was hit by 3 14 inch shells before hiding in the smoke long enough to return to the fight. However this requires an Evans, something that all navies at the time suffered from shortages of. ☠
@@rembrandt972ify Johnston was definitely never hit by 14” shells. Kongo wasn’t even shooting at any ship when those hits happened (based on Kongo’s own logs) and was on the opposite side of the Japanese formation.
Another thing to think about when it comes to the secondary battery: although you could add many more 105 turrets if you really wanted to, by keeping the number similar, you can afford to overbuild the support structures, and possibly when one day the ~150mm dual purpose is developed, it will be much easier to do the upgrade. In the meantime, the overbuilt mounts might let you up them to triple 105mm to make up for the lost turrets. I do have a question about this; would an unmixed secondary battery cut down the need for fire control equipment or is there very little savings because you end up with a separate fire control system for each mode of operation?
According to navweaps site the typical German destroyer 127/45 gun had a rate of fire of 15 - 18 rounds per minute. This is about the same as the 105/65 AA gun. Also, the 127 mm gun had an overall weight of 3,645 kg while the 105 mm was heavier at 4,560 kg. Probably the Germans could have modified the twin mounts of the 105s to take on the 127s without too much difficulty.
Completely different context and damage though. Bismarck lost the ability to steer. PoW had the shaft rip free and tear an opening down the shaft inside the ship, leading to uncontrollable flooding.
@@juicysushi True. But on the other hand - POW had an absolutely top of the line armour and torpedo defence scheme, and was not only mission killed but in effect sunk outright by a single little air-dropped torpedo. It should not have happened but it did.
@@ssanneru Not sure one little torpedo os accurate. In addition, no capital ship in any navy had the ability to avoid that kind of damage. It’s definitely a universal design problem that all capital ships shared.
@@juicysushi Yes, it was one single little half-sized air-dropped torpedo against a ship that was expressly designed to treat full-sized submarine launched torpedos with contempt. Prince of Wales was doomed from that first lucky hit, subsequent hits just made her sink faster but down she was going anyway. And the whole point is that there are always chinks in any armour system, no matter how well-designed. Props and rudders especially, it is physically impossible to defend them if they are going to do their job.
@@juicysushi It is, the wreck show it was only hit by 1 torpedo ... a Type 91 revision 2 that had a 204kg payload, mind you those were the same torpedoes used at Pearl Harbor but not the more powerful Rev.7 warhead that was in 1944 that was over double of that and intended to breach US battleship armor. Its just it hit just in the right spot rupturing the gland that prevents seawater from entering the shaft, when they restarted the shaft it flooded Engine Room B and the ship was now stuck at 16 kts among other effects (such as listing the ship that made her AA guns less effective due to elevation depression and cutting power to the aft dual purpose guns as well creating power loss all over the ship that further created problems with being able to pump out the water from the flooding and so on), the truth is the ship was dead .... if she wasnt under attack she might had make it with support of other ships but she was unable to counter the flooding she was taking, couldnt maneuver either because her steering was electric. The loss of Prince of Wales was so bad that the IJN suspended Shinano construction since not only the need of a 3rd new battleship was in question but also the ability of a battleship to survive a aerial attack was in question.
You were concentrating on armament and armor -- rightly -- but there is one major major change I would have made. 4 screws instead of 3, and maybe some better structure right aft.
Very interesting thoughts. But what do you think are the reasons why the Bismarck was built the way it was? Too little experience in building battleships because of the restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles? All other nations built battleships between 1918 and 1939 and were able to make great strides. Germany only had the "Deutschland"- and "Scharnhorst"classes to gain experience. And what about the Washington Treaty? The Bismarck had an official displacement of 35,000 tons but in reality was much more. With all your improvements it maybe becomes more heavy.
Well thought out. I agree with other commentors that this "build it better" idea could/should become a series!! Agree that the triple 15in/all high angle secondary version is probably the best possible rework without a complete clean sheet design. And, its also probably the most likely to change the historical outcome. I wonder how the designers might have taken a different route if theyd have been able to see plans for the NorthCals and SoDaks while designing Bismarck? Great idea video...hope to see more of this in the future!!
Well, _Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts_ doesn't do CIWS or TLAMS, but as it bans carriers and aircraft entirely, that's less of a problem. It _does_ let you play around with gas turbines, though... (I personally prefer turbo-electric, because then I can have ships that are remarkably accurate - for WWII ships - at up to almost 90% of their top speed - it's nice to finish an engagement and see the main battery scored 30% hits...)
Ironically modern CIWS guns might actually be worse than Bismarck's historical 4.1" battery at shooting down Swordfish. The principle issue was that their wood-and-canvas construction prevented shell splinters from inflicting major damage unless they got an absurdly lucky hit on the engine, fuel tanks, control lines, pilot, etc, since they'd otherwise just punch a tiny hole in the canvas and pass right through the airframe. Since modern CIWS (generally) uses solid tungsten slugs designed to kill anti-ship missiles, they'd suffer from the exact same problem, and run out of ammo faster to boot.
Ryan from the Battleship New Jersey actually pointed out in one of his videos that the 4 CWIS would not have been very effective in WW2. Sure they would have obliterated any metal planes they hit, but there's only four of them, and they can only fire for 15 sec between reloads. And it takes 15 minutes to reload them. Bismarck would have been much better served installing a whole bunch of Oerlikans on board, like the USN and RN tended to do. Set through with a contemporary radar fire director set, and they would have done the job almost as well with a lot more endurance.
@@Strelnikov403 Well, _Phalanx_ CIWS, yes. If you're looking at DARDO or something like that, I imagine that would have been formidable in a WWII setting.
Interesting thought experiment. AA was the game changer for many ships that managed to survive engagements. Germany was out of major capital ship design for over a decade after 1919, and it showed.
AA was only useful in defending a ship and any ships around it. It did little to allow you to actually fight back against wherever the aircraft came from.
My changes: 1) a dual-purpose secondary armament in the 5-inch range, eliminating the 5.9-inch secondary battery and the 4.1-inch heavy AA or tertiary battery. 2) a workable 37mm or 40mm heavy auto-cannon to replace the actual 37mm which fired far too slow. 3) a workable AA/predictor system as British examination of Hipper and others said the German system was next to useless. 4) deck torpedo tubes, as later fitted to KM Tirpitz. 5) cruising diesels to extend range for anti-commerce work.
This would have been a far better trade if Germany could actually build that many extra U-Boats with the available infrastructure (same reason why not building Yamato and Musashi doesn’t give Japan 6 extra carriers). But even assuming that they’d only get another few U-boats out of it, it would still have been a better investment, just not so much better to swing things in the German favour.
Would it though? Obviously Bismarck did fail in history, but if she had gotten out into the Atlantic in one piece not only would she have sent a lot of shipping to the bottom but also tied up a considerable amount of RN ships hunting her down. In the end the threat of Bismarck itself (along with other ships) made the RN dedicate significant resources to keep her penned up. Additionally if there were no German heavy surface assets in production, but more U-boats instead, I imagine Britain would have upped construction of escorts. In any event any major changes to history lead to massively difficult to predict outcomes
@@tomasdawe9379 Exactly. The sheer amount of forces and resources a navy has to commit to stop a threat of a single large surface combatant is powerful in itself. And only a few RN ships that could match Bismarcks firepower were capable of actually catching up to her. We all know how Hood ended up, Repulse and Renown would probably not fare any better. KGV class was still new and untested. Rodney and Nelson could never actually get into range without outside assistance, same thing with Queen Elizabeths and Revenges. If Bismarck actually survived and returned to port it would create serious trouble for RN especially after Tirpitz was completed.
I don't have the figures on me, but if one added up the tonnage of Bismarck, Tirpritz and Graf Zeppelin, that would produce a LOT of Mk 7's. If the Kriegsmarine had these on day one, Britain would have been starved into surrender with ease.
An observation. Only the USN & RN mounted true DP secondaries, Germany, France, Italy and USSR all carried 6" secondaries and 4"/3.5" AAA tertiary batteries. IMO this was due to the fact that both the USN/RN had large CV forces and thus thought more about air threats than did non CV navies. As you mention, the Yamato's were on a different level.
When you switched to the medium AA the Bofurs was the first thing I thought of. I believe the Germans would have had a easier time with mass producing the guns then the US since they never would have to convert from Metric to English measurements.
Americans didn't have a problem converting to metric, we had a problem with the way the parts on the bofors were produced. Hand fitting in america means you suck at machining, and some parts were changed from milling to castings. America produced the most bofors in ww2. The weapon that gave America problems were the aircraft 20mm, because we produce from the blueprint, even if the blueprint is wrong and even if the machinist and engineers know it's wrong.
The Germans actually had a factory producing the 4cm Bofors. When they overran Norway, they got the Kongswerk factory intact and it already had the Bofors in production.
@@scottbaase4042 Totally agree. Forgot about the hand made parts issue as well. Still the conversion takes time and since standard and metric don’t exactly line up (some play between them) I’m not sure if the American version had more of a greater tolerance then the Norwegian mounts.
a buddy and I had the same conversation a year ago, and we actually came up with some good ideas and somehow managed to keep the armor scheme but it drastically improved her fighting capability, granted we decided to play around more than be serious about it and slap 4 triple 18 inch guns on her
So if you switched to 4 screws, the hull in the stern could be deeper and the torpedo might strike the ships side rather than under the stern between the rudders.
There is not much you can do, really. Bulges cannot be placed there. At most what you could do is copy the Italians: in the Littorios, a single main rudder was supported by two auxiliary rudders for a triple rudder layout. The auxiliary rudders were mounted just after the outer screws, some 25m (82′) ahead of the main rudder. This layout prevented a single torpedo from damaging all three rudders. In addition, it seems that two rudders were sufficient to manoeuvre the battleship even with one rudder inoperable.
Hi Drach, I'd like to raise a point regarding Bismarck's propulsion. The engineers at B&V built Bismarck with convergent shaft outer screws that made her outer screws yaw neutral. So perfectly did the shaft/screw angle counterbalance the port and starboard screws' positional yaw moment that during Bismarck's Baltic Sea trials, not even *full opposite rotation* of the port and starboard screws produced any usable steering. To say this caused consternation during the sea trials would be an understatement, but I'm confident that was nothing in comparison to the hopelessness and terror experienced by Bismarck's crew when battle damage jammed her rudders. The steering of USS Marblehead was certainly compromised when her rudders were rendered useless by battle damage during the Battle of Makassar Strait, yet she managed to sail (albeit with considerable difficulty and lots of throttle jockeying) more than 14,000 nautical miles to undergo various stages of repair at successive ports until her (rudder-based) steering was finally restored in New York at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Such a voyage with crippled rudders would have been utterly impossible for Bismarck. The fact that Bismarck had an elaborate steering override that required the equivalent of a turret crew to operate manually through gearing was a cruel irony given the fact that the only contingency covered was the loss of the steam-powered steering motors and not battle damage to the rudders. I regard that as a fatal marine architectural flaw in any warship to say nothing of a battleship. I would love to be able to read any reports documenting Bismarck's sea trials to find out what the Kriegsmarine thought about this interesting "feature" of their new battleship, and perhaps to read what Bismarck's marine architects and engineers were thinking when they designed and built that all too perfectly imperfect convergent shaft propulsion system.
USS Marblehead was an 8,000 ton light cruiser - a bit different from a 45,000 battleship. 18,000 ton Prinz Eugen, which was in many ways a scaled-down Bismarck, suffered similar damage and was still able to steer. Any battleship suffering a similar hit would very likely be in big trouble - depending exactly where the torpedo hit.
Hello@@TTTT-oc4eb , the largest ship I know of where differential thrust permitted steering in the face of jammed rudders was the Essex class WWII carrier USS Intrepid (CV-11) displacing ~37,000 t, loaded. In February 1944 near Truk, a torpedo from a Japanese aircraft jammed Intrepid's rudders to port. She made it back to Pearl Harbor after six days of sailing on port propulsion. The first two days in calm seas went fairly well and Intrepid was able to navigate out of harm's way on a course back to Pearl Harbor using differential thrust only. But as soon as wind and seas picked up, the differential thrust alone (occasionally in conjunction with starboard reverse thrust) was insufficient to keep Intrepid on course, illustrating just how tenuous this steering method is in the face of rudders jammed in one direction. The crew managed to jury rig a *sail* using scrap canvas and hatch covers that was rigged to provide enough starboard yaw to give sufficient steering authority back to the propulsion system to keep the ship on a generally Pearl Harbor-ish course. My point is that even with rudders jammed to port, an Essex class carrier still had enough thrust-based steering to navigate in calm seas and get itself out of immediate harm's way, and then at least not be totally helpless in rougher seas. I would contend that if Intrepid had as yaw-neutral a drive system as Bismarck, she would have been crippled and unable to navigate at all, not even in calmer seas. An open question is whether Prince Eugen's propulsion system was as perfectly yaw-neutral as Bismarck's. One more comment I'd like to make is that in certain naval forums, whether a ship has or doesn't have convergent outer shafts is unimportant and that differential steering in either case is a layman's myth. If this is indeed hydrodynamic gospel truth, then someone needs to go back in time to inform Capt. Thomas L. Sprague and his intrepid (no pun intended) damage control crew, that steering a large ship with differential propulsion is impossible.
One of the numerous weakness has the triple screw propellers, not because of staring power but because it allows for a narrow sleek stern of the ship. I'm thinking of the Matapan battle, where Vittorio Veneto was able to steam up to the port on its own power despite suffering a very similar hit to what doomed the Bismark. More redundancy of the range finders would also help to keep the ship in battle for longer. About the AA, some solutions were devised, like the air burst shell on the Yamato main guns, while others did not work as intended, like gyroscopically stabilized 90mm secondary of Italian navy. The Doria class was imagined as having 4 triple 135mm dual purpose guns, but the system never worked as intended. Still better then the older twin 120mm who was nominally "dual purpose" but never really had the range or the firing volume of a proper deterrent. Against all in air attacks, no battleship ever stood it's ground except when surrounded by a heavily AA armed fleet (US pacific fleet): Taranto and the Bismark torpedoing happened at night on surprise attacks, while Roma and Tirpiz were bombed by high flying 4 engine bombers well outside of their AA range. Prince of Wales and Repuls simply stood no chance, despite their AA suits. The guided bombs that spelt the end of Roma was dropped from 9Km above the ship, well above its AA range as well and that's why AA missiles became mainstream just after the second word war: the US Fleet loitering around Japan was subject to Kamikaze attacks which brings a large target very close to the ship, coming in for quite some time, which made the Gun defenses effective, but not so much at Midway, where dive bombing and torpedo attacks were common. What made the USN AA effective was the concentration of ships, especially DDs and Atlanta like cruisers adding a wall of steel in the air around the fleet. I don't think, for a single ship, that having a North Carolina instead of a Bismark would have made much difference, unless luck being a factor.
Either explosive bolts on the rudders (so they can be instantly severed if they're critically damaged) or some SERIOUS armour on the stern would be my choice 👍🏻
This exact configuration would make an interesting addition to WoWs. It wouldn't completely outshine the Bismarck, as it'd have no turtleback and just less armour overall, but a thicker main belt, the secondaries would have much better dpm as now they're all the quicker-reloading 105s but have less penetration, which makes taking IFHE a valid choice if you want to go ham, and actually sitting or pushing while heavily angled or bow-in is now encouraged because you have two extra guns up front. Just give the main batteries 1.9 or 2.0 sigma and it'll be a pretty solid ship.
