when the bismarck appeared it was not only the largest ship ever built by germany it became the largest european battleship by displacement only japan's yamato-class ships which we've actually covered already here are megaprojects and the u.s iowa class battleships displaced more during the war a total displacement came in at NUMBER_TOKEN NUMBER_TOKEN tons empty and NUMBER_TOKEN NUMBER_TOKEN tons fully loaded with a length of NUMBER_TOKEN meters that's about NUMBER_TOKEN feet the size of two and a half football pitches it had a beam of NUMBER_TOKEN meters NUMBER_TOKEN feet and a draft of NUMBER_TOKEN meters or about NUMBER_TOKEN feet the bismalak was a large ship and her size and balance gave her the added benefit of being fast in all weather below deck the ship was compartmentalized much more than usual which in theory would make the ship much harder to flood the bismarck came with three blomen voss geared steam turbines and NUMBER_TOKEN oil-fired wagner super-heated boilers giving her a NUMBER_TOKEN NUMBER_TOKEN shaft horsepower and a maximum speed of NUMBER_TOKEN knots which was faster than pretty much anything the royal navy had at sea at the time with the possible exception of one ship the hms hood which could travel at roughly the same speed her crew was composed of NUMBER_TOKEN officers and NUMBER_TOKEN NUMBER_TOKEN enlisted men and came with its own newspaper die shifts the ship's bell which was published only once by the commander of the engineering department gerhard yunuck the bismarck also had a dazzling arsenal that begins to tell you just why the british were so keen to hunt this monster into extinction it had eight NUMBER_TOKEN centimeter NUMBER_TOKEN-inch sk c-NUMBER_TOKEN guns arranged in four twin gun turrets two forward and two aft then we have the NUMBER_TOKEN NUMBER_TOKEN centimeter lNUMBER_TOKEN gun NUMBER_TOKEN NUMBER_TOKEN centimeter lNUMBER_TOKEN gun NUMBER_TOKEN NUMBER_TOKEN lNUMBER_TOKEN guns and NUMBER_TOKEN NUMBER_TOKEN centimeter anti-aircraft guns bringing the total number of guns on board to a run and hide NUMBER_TOKEN. the ship also had four errado ar-NUMBER_TOKEN reconnaissance float planes stowed away either in a double hanger in the middle of the ship or the two single hangers next to the funnel these aircraft could be launched via a double-ended catapult and finally not only was the bismarck absurdly fast and brutally well armed she came with some of the thickest armoring around her main belt the armor that fortified the ship's hull was NUMBER_TOKEN millimeters thick and covered by a pair of upper and main armored decks that were NUMBER_TOKEN millimeters and NUMBER_TOKEN to NUMBER_TOKEN millimeters thick the ship's turrets were protected by NUMBER_TOKEN millimeter thick faces and NUMBER_TOKEN millimeter thick sides now when we put all of this together it formed a fearsome battleship that may not have been the greatest battleship at sea at the time but it was certainly in the upper echelons hms hood was certainly one of her closest equivalents but while the pride of the british navy could just about keep up this was an aging ship that hadn't undergone many of the upgrades that were coming through at the time especially altering the armor to take into account the steep incoming curves of newer weapons essentially shells were now dropping vertically onto the top of a ship rather than hitting the well-armored sides now just before we
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