﻿My name is George, I'm from Athens, Greece.
I'm practicing the hobby of modellism for the last 50 years.
So I believe that I've tried to make a model that tells a story.
It happened few years back, to get along with Wargaming
and to see the way World of Warships represent Bismarck.
It is very likely that Battleship Bismarck is the most famous ship of World War II.
For some, she was a source of pride, for others, she was the sword of Damocles
hanging over the Atlantic Ocean—
the body of water through which the most vital British sea routes passed.
The ship was a perfect incarnation of the prevalent idea of that time
that only steel giants
equipped with powerful guns and thick armor could truly rule the seas.
Battleship Bismarck represented the greatest triumph of that idea,
and her fate—its grand fall.
Bismarck was laid down in 1936, and her construction was finished in 1940.
She was larger than all existing European battleships of the time.
Length: 250.5 meters. Width: 36 meters. Draught: 10.2 meters
Maximum combat displacement: 50,900 tons
40% of the ship’s combat displacement was allocated to her armor,
meaning that Bismarck had great armor.
Maximum thickness of the main armor belt: 320 mm.
Horizontal armor thickness: 110 mm.
Main turrets: 180–360 mm.
Conning tower thickness: 200–350 mm.
The primary weapon of the battleship—
her main caliber—was four twin turret mounts.
SK C/34 gun caliber: 380 mm.
Her secondary battery artillery
was primarily designed for fighting against destroyers,
and was presented with twelve 150 mm guns mounted in six turrets.
In terms of the battleship’s AA artillery, the following guns were installed:
Sixteen 105 mm guns in twin mounts. Sixteen 37 mm twin AA guns.
Twelve 20 mm automatic AA guns.
For reconnaissance and artillery guidance control,
Bismarck had four Arado Ar 196 seaplanes.
The battleship's propulsion consisted of 12 Wagner superheated boilers
and three geared turbines manufactured by Blohm & Voss,
and could produce up to 138,000 hp.
Top speed: 30 knots.
Cruising range: 8,410 miles at a speed of 15 knots.
A grand ceremony marking the occasion of battleship Bismarck entering service
was held on August 24, 1940.
The same night, the ship had to repel
a British air raid on the shipyard in Hamburg.
The battleship didn’t take any damage.
Meanwhile, Kriegsmarine Command
had developed a detailed plan of operations for their surface ships.
Their strategic task was to put pressure
on Allied communications in the Atlantic Ocean.
This would force the Allies to redeploy British battleships
to the Atlantic from the Mediterranean Sea,
so as to protect the convoys under threat.
This would shift the balance of power
in Germany and Italy’s favor in the Mediterranean.
On May 19, 1941, Bismarck set out on her first combat raid.
Heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen joined Bismarck for the raid.
Two days later, the British Admiralty received a message
that two heavy German ships had been spotted near Norwegian shores.
The Home Fleet was put on an alert,
while battlecruiser Hood and battleship Prince of Wales
were sent to intercept the raiders.
An alarm went off on Bismarck in the morning on May 24.
The British ships had been spotted to port.
The British opened fire from 22 km at 5:52 AM.
Three minutes later, Bismarck responded,
firing salvos at the leading enemy ship—battlecruiser Hood.
The enemies were getting closer to each other.
In just a few minutes, a shell from Prinz Eugen started a fire aboard Hood,
and Bismarck got hit three times by shells fired from Prince of Wales.
The German battleship fired a fifth salvo at the English battlecrusier.
Within mere seconds, an enormous explosion broke Hood in two parts.
After the beauty and pride of the British Navy—the "Mighty Hood,"
as the battlecruiser was called on the shores of the Foggy Albion—
had been destroyed,
Bismarck began firing at Prince of Wales and forced her to withdraw from the battle
after three successful hits.
In just 30 minutes, the German ship
had demonstrated her exceptional combat capabilities.
However, Bismarck was also damaged during the fight.
While the damage hadn’t reduced the battleship’s combat capabilities,
she was nevertheless ordered by Command to abort the operation.
Due to the flooding caused by the British shells, Bismarck was listing to port.
Her top speed was reduced to 28 knots and her fuel tanks were damaged.
I didn't choose to present a ship like it’s fresh out of the shipyard.
I try to present a ship that has been battered by the weather,
it was battle-scarred— so there is a lot of rust.
If you go to a real-life, during battle, you would see sailors
trying to repair daily stains of rust or stains of damage.
The Battle of the Denmark Strait on May 24
was a turning point in Bismarck’s history.
The English had mobilized almost all of their forces in the North Atlantic
to search for Hood’s killer—
even some escort ships and a task force from Gibraltar were engaged in the hunt.
The Commander of the German task force, Admiral Günther Lütjens,
considered his options and decided to separate from Prinz Eugen
so that she could act independently against enemy convoys.
It was decided to send Bismarck, which had lost a lot of fuel,
to the shores of occupied France—
specifically to the port of Saint-Nazaire.
In the evening of the same day,
aviation from British carrier Victorious attempted an attack on the battleship,
but the only torpedo that hit the ship didn't deal any significant damage.
A lot of people consider that the Swordfish was out of date
at the beginning of World War II, and in a sense that’s true.
But when it was designed in 1935, it was an extremely useful and good aircraft.
Its speed was good for the day at 139 mph.
And its capability for carrying a torpedo was exactly what the Navy needed.
Fairey Swordfish Performance Characteristics:
Length: 11.07 m.
Wingspan: 13.8 m. Maximum takeoff weight: 4,036 kg.
Engine: Bristol Pegasus IIIM, 690 hp.
Top speed: 222 km/h.
Combat load: three bombs; bomb weight—227 kg.
Torpedo: 702 kg.
If you will notice in the model itself, the top of the turrets is painted yellow.
The commanders of the ship decided on probably,
most probably, on the 26th of May,
the top of the turrets to be painted yellow,
so it will be an aerial recognition way,
until the German airplanes, the Luftwaffe,
would provide cover, air cover for the ship coming back.
Night fell, and Bismarck managed to lose her pursuers.
The next day, the battleship started sailing east as fast as possible.
By the end of the day on May 26,
Bismarck had approached the area controlled by the Luftwaffe,
while the British were right behind the battleship.
The closest of them to the German battleship
was the task force from Gibraltar,
of which aircraft carrier Ark Royal was a part.
At 8:47 PM, 15 Swordfish aircraft divided into squadrons of three
and commenced their attack on Bismarck.
Very few aircraft would’ve been able to battle their way
through the extremely poor weather conditions of that night
and locate and find the Bismarck
to be able to launch torpedoes and cripple it.
The Swordfish was incredibly strongly constructed.
It could take a lot of flak damage, it could take a lot of bullet holes.
It could take a lot of poor weather flying
and still manage to get itself back to the ship.
The Swordfish has no canopy, or cover,
or closed-in cockpit area the telegraphist air gunner, or TAG.
The TAG operated only a single Lewis K machine gun.
But again, this was a very, very small machine gun
really for its own self-defense.
The Swordfish could fly almost touching the wave tops,
down to 20-30 feet above the waves.
And this was under the enemy fire.
The Bismarck found that it couldn’t range its guns low enough
to shoot the incoming aircraft out of the sky.
One of two torpedoes released from the Swordfish hit Bismarck’s aft,
jamming her rudders and causing the ship to turn in a circle.
As darkness fell, the ship was spotted by some British destroyers
that didn’t give the wounded giant any chance to rest during the entire night.
In the morning of May 27, the final act of Bismarck's dramatic odyssey concluded.
British battleships Rodney and King George V appeared on the horizon
and opened fire at the German ship while on approach to their target.
Bismarck immediately responded in kind,
but due to the damage she had received over the course of previous days,
her salvos weren’t able to reach the British ships.
The battleship fought fiercely and desperately for an hour.
By 9:30 AM, Bismarck’s main armament had been destroyed;
10 minutes later, her secondary guns broke down;
and at 10:00 AM, her last 20 mm automatic gun went silent.
Bismarck, despite being rendered useless, was still afloat,
and her combat flag was still raised overhead.
Her fate was sealed at 10:39 AM,
when she was hit by torpedoes launched from English cruiser Dorsetshire,
listed to port, and sank.
Fifty-seven surface ships and eight submarines of the Royal Navy
directly participated in the operation against Bismarck.
Battleship Bismarck’s 9-day voyage became known
as one of the most dramatic episodes of the naval combat during World War II.
It brought both the greatest victory
and one of the most significant defeats of Germany’s surface fleet.
The German Maritime Command were forced to rethink their plans
to use large surface ships in raids against Allied convoys.
The British Admiralty also had the chance
to evaluate the Kriegsmarine’s capabilities,
and decided to focus large forces of the Home Fleet
in the North Atlantic Ocean to deflect any possible German threat.
Bismarck had been destroyed, but her sistership Tirpitz was still in service.
The German Navy were still strong.