tjadams

http://www.kbismarck.com/propulsioni.html

Heidi XX

Don;t worrie,I and everybody knowes that you knowe more than I do,plus i value you;re posts.

PADDYBOY

I think you're doing very well Heidi

Bucephalus

Actually, at the time of the sinking of Bismarck, both the German battleship Tirpitz (commissioned in Feb 1941) and the French battleship Richelieu (commissioned in 1940) were larger than Prince of Wales. Additionally, Prince of Wales sister ship, King George V, was the same size as her sister. Shortly, however, none of these ships was the largest afloat, ultimately surpassed by US and Japanese battleships in overall tonnage.

Toltec

I think Heidi said mightiest not largest, if so surely both Richelieu and George V though smaller than Bismark were mightier.

tjadams

Thanks Heidi, I'm just a member here who's willing to listen & maybe learn a new thing or two.

Paragonrex

Indeed I believe the claim was mightiest, not largest, if that was the case then the Yamato would hands down have been the largest, but in the fighting ring the last man standing is the winner and thus mightiest so....."Prince of Wales" anyone?????

diddyriddick

I had a lengthy response composed, and it wouldn't let me post it!

#$&*!

Here is the Reader's Digest Condensed version.

1. As mentioned earlier, the Hood was a Battlecruiser and the Bismark was a Battleship. The theory behind a Battlecruiser was that it could outshoot anything fast enough to catch it, and outrun anything that could outshoot it. This was proven tragically wrong at Jutland in 1916.

2. One could make a persuasive argument that the Bismark was as powerful, or more powerful than any ship afloat in 1940; But that changed rapidly. As mentioned earlier, the King George Vs, American North Carolinas, South Dakotas, and Iowas, and of course the mighty Yamatos with their 18" guns altered the balance of power in battleship fleets.

3. Carrier borne aircraft proved battleship power illusory. Whenever battleships faced fleet carriers in WWII, the battleships lost. This experience played out repeatedly at places like Taranto, Pearl Harbor, Coral Sea, and Midway. Battleships were irrelevant; it just took a while before some realized it.

Bucephalus

Well, if we're talking mightiest battleship at the time of the Bismarck sinking, the Yamato had not yet been commissioned (not until December of that year). If "mightyness" is defined in terms of firepower, The Bismarck's sister ship, Tirpitz, was virtually identical to Bismarck, with her eight 15" guns (versus the ten 14" guns of Prince of Wales) - so you'd have to make a case for her as well as Prince of Wales, even though she saw no real action in the war.

Ultimately, the US Iowa-Class battleships (nine 16" guns) and the Japanese Yamato-class battleships (nine 18" guns) were to be the mightiest in tems of firepower.

All of this "mightyness" was somewhat moot, however, as shown several times during the war when some these immense floating fortresses were sunk by aircraft attacks, including Prince of Wales (1941), Tirpitz (1944), Musashi (1944), and Yamato (1945).

Ivor Badger

1. The trouble with the battlecruiser theory was that the ship carried battleship armament, ended up taking its place in the battle fleet and used as a battleship. The definitive BC action was the Falklands which resulted in the laying down Repluse and Renown and the planning of the Hoods. Jutland blew the theory and led to the effective cancellation of three of the Hoods. By the next battleship building race, machinery had moved on enough to reduce machinery weight to allow the power required for the speed and still leave capacity for the armour.

2. The only thing that makes Bismarck the most powerful battleship when completed was that her construction started ahead of her contemporaries and therefore finished ahead of them. Apart from top speed, Nelson and Rodney were better all round ships.

3. There were no battleships directly involved in Coral Sea or Midway. Battleships are not irrelevant, there were lots of actions even late in the war when aircraft could not have dealt with the opposing forces, North Cape and Suriago Straight. The thing that made the battleship obsolete was the fact the aircraft could carry a bomb/torpedo further than a battleship could fire a shell.
I once asked someone more knowledgeable than me at what point carrier aircraft could have fought North Cape and the answer was the early 1960s.