Hunting the Bismarck – Part I

Without doubt, the Bismarck is the single best-known German warship of World War II. Large, fast, hard to sink and equipped with the latest in German radar and optics technology, it quickly earned notoriety after it sank the HMS Hood, the pride of the Royal Navy. The panicked British response eventually brought low the German monster, but only after a chase involving every single ship they could mobilize. 

At least, that’s one side of the story. The other is that the Bismarck was a ship built according to World War I design sensibilities, its intended purpose was to raid commercial shipping rather than hunt down enemy warships, it sank a single aging enemy ship during its short career, and it was destroyed on its first mission – a far less flattering picture. This article will try to give you an impartial description of the Bismarck’s famous voyage.

German war planners knew that Britain’s Achilles’ heel was its far-flung colonial empire. Britain itself was reliant on a constant flow of supplies, and disrupting these would make it much easier to defeat the island nation. (Read our earlier article) Germany didn’t have nearly enough U-boats to accomplish this early in the war, so the job fell to heavy surface ships. In fact, since Germany could never match the Royal Navy (RN) in numbers, hitting Britain’s commerce was the best use of whatever ships they had.

The newly-built Bismarck and her sister ship Tirpitz seemed perfectly suited for the role. At a sustained speed of 30 knots, they were faster than any battleships the RN had (making them great commerce raiders), and their wise beam made them stable firing platforms.

RTWT