Bismarck

***Bismarck*** is a German Battleship in the game.

## History:

The *Bismarck* was the first of the two most powerful *Bismarck*-class battleships built in Europe. Named after the Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, the *Bismarck*'s keel was laid down at Blohm and Voss shipbuilders in Hamburg on the 1st July 1936 and was launched on the 14th February 1939.

Originally built for the German *Kriegsmarine* to counter the French naval expansion, specifically from the French *Richelieu*-class battleship, construction on *Bismarck* and its sister ship, *Tirpitz* begun after signing of the Anglo-German Naval Agreement, restricting the displacement weight of the *Kriegsmarine*'s fleet to 35,000 long tonnes (36,000 tonnes). Under the both the Anglo-German Naval Treaty and the Washington Naval Treaty, both the *Bismarck* and the *Tirpitz* had displacement of 35,000 tonnes, but following Japan's withdrawal in 1937, the original signatories of the Washington Naval Treaty had invoked an "escalator clause" that had saw the increase the *Kriegsmarine* fleet's displacement weight to 45,000 long tonnes (46,000 tonnes).

As a result, the *Bismarck* upon completion had a build displacement of 41,000 long tonnes (41,700 tonnes) with a final load displacement of 49,500 long tonnes (50,300 tonnes), making it the heaviest battleship in the *Kriegsmarine* fleet, and at 251 metres, the *Bismarck* was also biggest in the fleet.

The *Bismarck*'s pulsion system consist of three Blohm & Voss geared steam turbines with twelve oil-fired Wagner superheated boilers, producing 148,116hp, giving the ship a top speed of 30 knots.

The *Bismarck*'s main armaments consisted of eight 15-inch guns, arranged in four twin turrets: two forward turrets nicknamed *Anton* and *Bruno* and two rear nicknamed *Caesar* and *Dora*. The Bismarck secondary armaments consisted of 12 5.9-inch and 0.79-inch guns along with 16 4.1-inch and 1.5-inch guns.

Due to her size, the *Bismarck*'s standard crew consisted of 103 officers and 1,962 enlisted men. The crew were divided into 12 divisions of between 80 and 120 men with the first four divisions assigned to the *Bismarck*'s main and secondary armaments and fifth and sixth divisions were assigned to the ship's anti-aircraft guns. Seventh division consisted of specialist crew, including the ship's cooks and carpenters, eighth division were assigned to handling the ship's ammunition with the ninth division consisting of the *Bismarck*'s quartermasters, radio officers and signalmen. The last three divisions were assigned to the *Bismarck*'s engine room. When the *Bismarck* left port, the ship had a crew of 2,200 onboard, consisting of fleet staff, prize crew and war correspondents. 200 of the engine personnel were the crew of the former *Reichsmarine* *Königsberg*-class light cruiser *Karlsruhe* that sank at the start of *Operation Weserübung*, the German Invasion of Norway on the 9th April 1940. The crew of the *Bismarck* had published the ship's own newspaper entitled *Die Schiffsglocke* (The Ship's Bell) that was published once on the 23rd April 1941 by the commander of the *Bismarck*'s engineering department, Gerhard Junack.

On the 24th August 1940, the *Bismarck* was commissioned into the *Kriegsmarine* fleet for sea trials in the Baltic under the command of *Kapitän zur See* Ernst Lindemann. On the 15th September 1940, *Bismarck* left Hamburg for sea trials in the Kiel Bay, before being escorted by the auxiliary ship, *Sperrbrecher 13* to the Cape Arkona on the 28th September and then to Gotenhafen in Northern Poland for sea trials in the Gulf of Danzig, before returning to Hamburg on the 9th December for repairs and the completion of the ship's fitting out process.

After the fitting out process was completed, *Bismarck* was scheduled to return to Kiel on the 24th January 1941, but a merchant vessel was sunk in the Kiel Channel, preventing access and as a result of several weather hampering efforts to recover the wreck, the *Bismarck* didn't reach Kiel until March. While in port at Hamburg, the *Bismarck* was visited by the Swedish Naval attaché to Germany, Captain Anders Forshell who returned to Sweden with a detailed report on the vessel. The report was leaked by pro-British elements within the Swedish Navy to Britain, providing the Royal Navy with the necessary information on the vessel although the report didn't include the important facts, such as the vessel's top speed, radius of action, and the displacement weight.

On the 6th March, the *Bismarck* finally departed for Kiel. On the way, the *Bismarck* was given an escort, consisting of several Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters, a pair of armed merchant vessels, and an icebreaker. On the morning of the 8th March, the vessel ran aground in the southern end of the Kiel Channel but was freed after an hour. By the following day, the *Bismarck* arrived in Kiel where the vessel took on fuel, ammunition and other supplies. While docked in Kiel, the *Bismarck* received a coat of dazzle camouflage paint. On the 12th March, the vessel narrowly avoided being bombed in an air raid on Kiel Harbour by the British bombers. On the 17th March, the *Bismarck*, being escorted by the former *Kaiserliche Marine* pre-dreadnought *Deutschland*-class battleship, *SMS Schlesien* departed Kiel for Gotenhafen where the vessel was continuing combat readiness training.

As the *Bismarck* was undergoing combat training, the German Naval Command, (*Oberkommando der Marine* or OKM) under the command of Admiral Erich Raeder, had intended to continue the practice of using heavy surface ships as raiders against Allied merchant shipping in the Atlantic. The two *Scharnhorst*-class battleships consisting of the leading battleship *Scharnhorst* and the *Gneisenau* had returned to their base at Brest in Nazi-occupied France after completing *Operation Berlin* in which they sank 22 merchant ships in the period from January to March 1941. With the *Tirpitz* rapidly approaching completion, the planned sortie was for the *Bismarck* and the *Tirpitz* to sail from the Baltic to rendezvous with the *Scharnhorst* and the *Gneisenau* in the Atlantic with the date set for the 25th April 1941 when the new moon period had made condition favourable.

However, work on the *Tirpitz* took longer than expected and wasn't commissioned until the 25th February 1941 and wasn't combat ready until later in the year. Further complications occurred when the *Gneisenau* was torpedoed and then bombed while in drydock during an Allied air raid over Brest, while *Scharnhorst* was required for a boiler overhaul following *Operation Berlin*, but complications then again appeared when the workers found *Scharnhorst*'s boilers were in worst condition than they thought, resulting in the vessel being unavailable for the planned sortie. Another two vessels that was planned to part of the sortie with the *Bismarck*, *Tirpitz*, *Scharnhorst*, and *Gneisenau*, the *Deutschland-class* heavy cruiser, *Admiral Scheer* and the leading *Hipper*-class heavy cruiser, *Admiral Hipper* were being repaired in port at Kiel, but an attack on Kiel's storage depot by British bombers had delayed repairs to *Admiral Scheer* and *Admiral Hipper,* making the two vessels being not fully ready until July or August.

The Fleet Chief of the *Kriegsmarine*, Admiral Günther Lütjens, chosen by the OKM to lead the operation wanted to delay the operation until at least either *Scharnhorst* or *Tirpitz* had become ready. Despite the concern, the sortie codenamed *Operation Rheinübung* processed with a force consisting of the *Bismarck* and the *Hipper*-class heavy cruiser *Prinz Eugen*. In a final meeting with Admiral Raeder held in Paris on the 26th April 1941, Admiral Lütjens was encouraged by Raeder and eventually agreed to proceed with the operation to prevent the Allies from gaining any respite. On the 5th May, Hitler and the chief of the *Wehrmacht* High Command (the *Oberkommando der Wehrmacht* or OKW), Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel accompanied by their entourage arrived in Gotenhafen to view both the *Bismarck* and the *Tirpitz* and were given a tour of both vessels.

On the 16th May, Lütjens reported that both *Bismarck* and the *Prinz Eugen* were ready for *Operation Rheinübung* and was given the orders for both vessels to sail on the 19th May. As part of the operation, 18 ships were called upon to supply the *Bismarck* and the *Prinz Eugen* along with four U-boats placed along with convoy routes between Halifax and Britain to scout for the raiders. At 2:00am on the 19th May, the *Bismarck* departed Gotenhafen for the Danish straits. Onboard *Bismarck* was a crew of 2,221 officers and enlisted men. This included 65 men from Lütjens' staff and a prize crew of 80 men who could be used to crew any captured vessels. At 11:25am, the *Prinz Eugen* joined the *Bismarck*.

Both vessels were escorted by three *Kriegsmarine* destroyers - two *Type* *1934A*-class destroyers, *Z10 Hans Lody* and the *Z16 Friedrich Eckoldt* and a *Type 1936A*-class destroyer, *Z23* along with a flotilla of minesweepers. Both vessels had also received an air escort out of German waters by the *Luftwaffe*. An hour later, the group was spotted by the Swedish seaplane cruiser *HSwMS Gotland* who shadowed the group and then transmitted the sighting to the Swedish Naval Command. The report on the sighting was then passed on the British naval attaché to Sweden, Captain Henry Denham who in turn sent the report to the Admiralty in London. With the aid of the British codebreakers at the Government Code & Cypher School at Bletchley Park and information that both the *Bismarck* and the *Prinz Eugen* had taken on prize crews, the British Admiralty believed that a raid in the Atlantic was imminent. Acting on the information from the Bletchley Park codebreakers, the British sent two Supermarine Spitfire aircrafts to search along the coast of Nazi-occupied Norway for the German flotilla.

The following evening of the 20th May, the German flotilla reached the Norwegian coast with both the *Bismarck* and the *Prinz Eugen* and the destroyer escorts continuing north along the coast while the minesweepers were detached. At 7am on the 21st May, the radio officer on the *Prinz Eugen* received a signal, ordering a British aircraft to search for two battleships and three destroyers northbound off the Norwegian coast. Hours later, the German ships reached Bergen and anchored at Grimstadfjord. While anchored, the crews of both the *Bismarck* and the *Prinz Eugen* had repainted their vessels to an "outboard grey", the standard colour scheme for German warships operating in the Atlantic.

While in anchor at Grimstadfjord, *Bismarck* was protected by two Bf 109s from air attacks, despite this, the Royal Air Force Flying Officer Michael Suckling managed to fly his Spitfire over the German flotilla.

During the Battle of the Denmark Strait on the 24th May 1941, it sunk the British Battlecruiser *Hood* and damaged *Prince Of Wales*.

Sometime later its port rudder was jammed by torpedoes launched by Swordfish from HMS Ark Royal.

On the following day it was heavily damaged by British Battleships *King George V* and *Rodney* and Cruiser *Dorsetshire*. It was scuttled by its crew or sunk by Dorsetshire's torpedoes.

### Pros:

* One of the Largest HP pools of all tech-tree Tier VIII Battleships. He beats out Amagi and North Carolina by a Solid 3,000 HP each, and Monarch by a Good 8900 or so. Only Vladivostok has a larger HP pool, which actually rivals Friedrich der Grosse's stock hull.
* Outstanding secondary battery. With the right upgrades and commander skills, his secondary battery range can be extended past 11 km, allowing *Bismarck* to whittle down enemy ships before closing in for the kill, or he can use those secondaries to create a large immunity zone around him, to which destroyers must pay respect, or risk being reduced to just a few thousand HP, if not outright destroyed.
* Very decent dispersion on his secondaries.
* Sheer number of secondary battery guns (14 on each side), means that, despite the low fire chance of his secondary guns on an individual basis, he can stack lots of fires over time, provided he stays within secondary range.
* Has access to the Hydroacoustic Search (Sonar) consumable, making him very difficult to torpedo from long range, while also allowing him to ambush unsuspecting destroyers hiding in smoke.
* Reminiscent of earlier battleship gameplay: the closer he gets, the more dangerous he becomes to his enemies.
* Above average anti-aircraft suite. Equal or lower tier CV's will have a hard time punching through your air defenses. Kaga can throw all her planes at you, but what difference would that make?
* Surprisingly nimble for a battleship of his sheer size, with an excellent top speed (30 knots). This makes it slightly easier for aggressive gameplay style.
* Exceptionally durable with a good armor layout; has the vaunted "turtleback" armor.
* *Virtually* impossible to citadel, as opposed to all other tier VIII Battleships (with the exception of his brother ship Tirpitz)
* Has a 50 mm deck that makes him immune to any cruiser trying to throw a large number of shells until they're effective. (Henri with IFHE, German CA's and Large cruisers are excepted )
* 26 second reload means that your sustained damage is a LOT higher than rival battleships, you will be getting 21 reloads off frequently with Adrenaline Rush. Monarch has a one second faster reload, but worse accuracy and DPM with her AP shells.
* 825 m/s shell velocity and 5 deg/sec turret traverse (5.7 with Expert Marksman) gives a very comfortable gunnery experience, akin to Scharnhorst and Gascogne.

### Cons:

* No torpedoes like those found on his brother, *Tirpitz*.
* Only has eight (8) barrels, while every other ship at this tier has nine (9) or more of a higher caliber.
* 15-inch guns have trouble with angled enemy battleships (use HE against the superstructure or choose a different target).
* His anti-aircraft can be destroyed with sustained HE spam.
* Extremely vulnerable to fires. Superstructures can be set on fire by calibers of any size quite easily.
* The only true armor is his hull and his guns. The situation is his superstructure is low riding and rather hard for you hit at a distance. But, it is not armored nearly as much as it should be. Which leads to HE spam setting him ablaze.
* Like Tirpitz showing your broadside can be lights out.
* 8 barrels and German dispersion calculations make for a very frustrating experience if at mid to long range, and Aiming Systems Mod. 1 only improves this marginally at the cost of nearly 1 Km range and a great deal of accuracy on your secondary battery.
* Large-Caliber HE shells, such as the ones from British Battleships, will give you a very bad day. Bismarck's HE has a similar 1/4 HE pen, but anemic damage and fire chance.