Scenario: The Royal Navy decides to build 2 Battleships in 2022 and got the fundings and names sorted, HMS Dreadnought and HMS Warspite. Now, how would you configure them Main Guns, Secondaries, AA, Armor etc. and why?
I was leafing through the James Cameron book at work and a co-worker said "Hey! That's my barber." We looked into it and sure enough, the fellow who's non battle station job on the Bismarck was cutting hair, survived the sinking, moved to Toronto and was still cutting hair as of the late 80's.
@@lifeindetale we are rather insignificant when you consider we are a tiny little space rock flying through the never ending vastness of space that is constantly expanding, forever.
My brother once stood 6 hours in Texas on his only break on a business trip to get Bob Ballard to sign a picture of the Bismarck addressed to me then framed it for my birthday present. Still the best gift I've ever received.
I met him as a kid as part of the JASON Project; if I remember right I was involved in XII and XIII; I don't know the details but my dad's employer, EDS, was a big sponsor or something and we did a lot of JASON stuff at his offices. Ever since I started getting more interested in naval history/engineering, I've regretted that I didn't talk to him more about some of his work when I had the chance.
Around 1990 I was a real estate photographer in the hire of realtors in the Adelaide Hills This day I went to a house in the older German estates of the hills, a house located in open land that looked for all the world like it had been put there from Austria, and that Julie Andrews would make an appearance over the meadow at any instant. The house itself was quite the architectural triumph with splendid indoor/outdoor garden, a number of glazed interior walls, extensive use of interior masonry and timber work. The lady of the house spoke with a German accent and invited me to look around to get my bearings. As I passed one of the glazed walls I passed by a model of a warship in a glass case, an old man spoke to me in a German accent, 'do you know what ship that is?' to which I replied, "I knew her at once, she is unmistakably Bismark". His face filled with joy that I knew his ship. This frail old man was dying of cancer, and he described to me something of his experiences about being crew on Bismark. We exchanged a few questions, I recall he did tell me about being picked up by a British destroyer, and his term as a POW. And that after the war was over he returned to Germany only briefly to bring his wife back to the UK where they lived until emigrating to Australia. In an experience that I found hard to forget, I often wonder how he got on.
My grandfather was a US Navy Piliot, I was lucky enough to hear him and some of his friends talk about some of the things they saw,experienced and many tearfull stories.
I wonder what he did post war to earn a living, sounds like a wonderful place, although being pre 2005 and south australia, it was probably far closer to attainable than anything is now. When i first bought my farm/property a regular wage was sufficient, 7 years later and two semi decent wages are just barely enough to scrape through. Guess i should have tried harder in school. Haha
@@Colt45hatchback I dont know the answer to that. In the time of his immigration, he would still have been a young man. Seems like eventually he came to what were historically German settlements like Barossa or Hahndorf. This house was quite special, perhaps he was from the building game somewhere, or even an architect.
What a great story. You're very fortunate to have spoken with that piece of living history. In 1975 had the opportunity to listen to an American sailor who survived the loss of the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor. He had just left the ship when the attack came, and most or all of his buddies were killed. He was a very troubled and bitter man who denied the existence of a God that would "let that happen".
I was an exchange student in Japan in the mid 80s. My host's father was on Yamato but was transferred before her final trip. He was fascinated that my father was on a Destroyer at the same time. (Not in the same part of the Pacific though)
As an American, we kind of get tired of James Cameron, too. We keep poking him with a stick hoping for another T2, Aliens, or True Lies and we always end up getting Avatar.
The argument that the Royal Navy didn't sink Bismarck because her crew set off scuttling charges has always sounded to me like a defence lawyer trying to argue "yes, my client did stab the victim, shoot him and set him on fire, but it wasn't murder because the victim jumped off the roof to get away and the fall is what killed him."
To be fair, the whole story is already humiliating to the RN even without scuttling. Use a whole fcking fleet, with many battleships, cruisers, destroyers, and 2 aircraft carrier, to hunt down and sink a SINGLE ship without any escort just because mentioned ship sinked the pride of the fleet in a 2v2 where the other RN ship retreated humiliated with malfunctioning main guns. Then during the hunt, RN almost torpedoed a US ship misidentified as Bismarck, BUT luckly those torpedoes malfunctioned too. Then another RN airstrike failed with all but 1 torpedo, and only that 1 torpedo crippled the Bismarck make it unable to avoid RN fleet. And no, I don't talk about the torpedoes from the last fight, I talk about the Ark Royal carrier based ones, which almost all failed. So after a victorius battle, without docking any port to refill, separated from it's only escort ship all alone crippled by a single realy lucky torpedo, sail into the crossfire of a major fleet of the largest Navy of the era all alone, it doesn't matter if Germans scuttled it or not after all that RN was pretty pathetic anyway.
@@Brecconable Fine. Battle of the Strait of Otranto (1917) Austro-Hungarian Navy won against the superior and more advanced united French Italian British Navy. Not bad from a landlocked country to beat 3 major naval power.
I once rubbed Bill Jurens very badly the wrong way by quoting some of the Channel 4 Hood & Bismark expedition conclusions. Seems he did not agree with the conclusions in question and felt that his professional reputation had been severely damaged by his name being included in the documentary and implying that he agreed with them. So just because a particular person was involved in the programme doesn't mean that they agree what the documentary maker finally puts out.
Thats a real bad thing, when documentaries stretch some "truths" to produce a more dramatic show who they think would be receipt better by the audience as the real events. I hate this. Most people dont question what they see in a documentary.
The whole list of claims about Bismarck’s hull damage is really irrelevant. The British turned the ship into floating scrapyard full of dead bodies. Sinking a wreck with zero offensive capability becomes an act of tidying up the mess.
The thing is Cameron also bankrolled the documentary... so brevity notwithstanding (and TBH I don't think that's one of Cameron's greatest strengths), why would he leave important contextual information out?
The Hood pulled a Bilbo Baggins and is enjoying the sweet life in the Bahamas. (In the book, Gandalf add a bit of theatrical flash to hide Bilbo's using the ring, just in case anyone starts going off on a rant and cites the movie.)
The main launching point of my love for history was when my librarian in my grade-school saw that I kept checking out the same 3 books about the titanic….and she recommended “here’s another book about a different ship that sank, try this one.” This book included the history and design of the Bismarck, survivor accounts, and info from the Cameron dive research. She had NO idea what she had just set in motion.
Well mine was reading “A Night to Remember” and then starting into a deep dive into the Titanic. By the time I was 12 I’d found and read every book on the topic, even a few of the loony ones which previous research made them look silly. Then the wreck was found. I still have the copies of National Geographic and Time etc in a nice safe place.
My wife works in a public library which is becoming a very hard job in this day and age. I'll let her know about your story. It will help stay focused on who needs her and why. Thank You!
@@belliott538 of course not, that’s entirely unrealistic. Only BULL sharks are wide enough to properly mount the latest Raytheon laser discharge weapons.
I once talked to a survivor of the Prinz Eugen. He said that they all cried tears when they parted from Bismarck because they knew they would not see her again.
None of the four Japanese carriers lost at Midway suffered any significant damage below the waterline by U.S. planes, but there's no question the U.S. sank them.
I’ve ran into people who claim that Yorktown and Enterprise’s dive bomber squadrons should have had the hit credits removed due to them only causing the fires and damaging Akagi, Kaga, Hiryu and Soryu to the point where they need to be scuttled. I don’t agree with them as you’re basically nitpicking at that point.
@@ph89787 Next time you run into one of those folks, ask them if a burning aircraft shot full of holes has been shot down or in fact "scuttled" by its crew should they be fortunate enough to bail out seconds before the crash! :-)
@@danielford1380 the Internet is full of people who like to split hairs on everything. Heck going even further. I’ve had people claim that carriers don’t have a kill count as the planes did all the work. Forgetting that they have their own guns. As well as a carrier’s primary weapon is their aircraft
Drach at his MOST "I have a hard-on for Bismarck cause it sank/blew the shit out of my favorite ship of ALL TIME... the HOOD" ... There are other episodes where his British triumphalism really comes thru... Another is when/ where he implies that a sole Brit carrier deployed briefly in the Pacific in '43 saved the USN in the Pacific...
@@MrArtbv I find it interesting how two people can listen to the same thing and come away with an entirely opposing understanding of what was stated. It is obvious to anyone who can speak/comprehend English properly the he did not say or imply anything like what you are making out. Seems you have you own bias and probably some prejudice towards this channel and its subject matter that is causing you to hear things that are fallacy. Rather than what was in fact stated in several videos on this channel.. you have just heard what you want to hear or you are being deliberately untruthful. Simply talking about a part of history that is less well know like hms victorious/uss robin and what she did in the pacific with the usn is what a historian should do. and pointing out some of the contributions made and mutual learning that took place between the rn and usn is very interesting.. and not obviously "implying the sole brit carrier saved the USN in the pacific". You fool. All the best.
Well "Sport"; 85 people obviously agreed and a couple pointed out specific examples/reasons... So put a sock on it and toodle/toddle on back to your hole
It never occured to me that scuttling should be considered to be a ‘self kill.’ You wouldnt scuttle that large of an investment unless you were defeated. Say if the germans 100% were the reason she sank, how is that not still a british victory? They fought a battle to remove a threat, weither they put a hole that made her sink, or boxed her into a corner that germans had no choice but to sink her themselves is a major strategic victory either way. If the british goal was to protect shipping and open the seas, by removing axis threats, how is this not a clear victory? They went at her and as a result she scuttled herself?
She was massively on fire, her hull was penetrated in many ways and she was well down by the bow. Scuttling was like a person poisoned with cyanide, shooting themselves in the head. Who is to say that blown water intakes for the condensers let in more water than two torpedo hits?
Totally agree. If we apply the “Bismarck was scuttled, so technically she wasn’t sunk by the British” reasoning to other naval battles, it’s frankly ridiculous. Following that logic, Midway was an incredible Japanese victory since all four carriers there were scuttled as well, while the US suffered a carrier sunk.
Quite right. Whether or not the British torpedoes sank the German or not is immaterial, the Bismarck was combat ineffective and cornered by a force that could destroy it at their leisure. Overall, a definite victory for the Royal Navy.
It's like a chess player noticing that they'll be in a checkmate next turn, so they just give up and congratulate their enemy on the victory, without having to go through the needless motions of playing out the last turn.
As I have mentioned in comments to a previous video, my late friend Cecil Greenwood of Mytholmroyd, West Yorkshire was present at this engagement on HMS Rodney's deck and hence witnessed the sinking of the Bismarck. He told me about his involvement, what he saw, and his feelings at the time. I clearly recall him telling me about him seeing the hit that disabled Bruno turret and simply feeling very relieved that it wasn't going to shoot at Rodney any more, tempered by his knowing that he'd just seen a lot of young men like himself killed by just that one shell out of the many hits he saw striking the upper works. From his position on deck he could actually see Rodney's shells in flight and estimate where they would hit even before they got there. I doubt he knew what actually sank Bismarck, but he definitely felt great pity for those on board.
As a fleet the fight was a personal vendetta. To a man it was the job. You can fight an enemy in war with all that you have, but you can weep at their demise if you know they are just like you, fighting the same as you are, but are just on the other side and less lucky in those moments. Beyond that is the overwhelming rule of the sea. All sailors fight against the death that the sea threatens them with. They love their ships that protect them from the sea, provide them home, and transport them to adventurous places and eventually (hopefully) back home. In that time a sailor would fight his opposite with all his resolve, but could not truly condemn or hate them so long as the rules of the mariners were observed.
@@chrismaverick9828 And yet they aborted the rescue mission, leaving hundreds of survivors to die at sea, even though many of them had already touched the hull of the British ship. They claim to have had contact with a submarine, but did not leave behind a single destroyer for rescue, nor any of their lifeboats or life rafts. Therefore, claiming a German threat is merely an excuse to pick up just a few men for intelligence purposes and leave the rest to die mercilessly.
@@thkempeRescuing survivors is a task that requires your ship to remain stationary for a significant period of time - making you a prime target (and a sitting duck) for a submarine. Suppose the submarine they spotted had fired its torpedos at about the time they saw it - they might not even have gotten the chance to get underway. As Drach said in his video on Operation Rheinübung, the rescuing cruiser's captain also had to consider the safety of his own ship - and its crew - before that of the German survivors. It's extremely tragic, but it was a necessary choice.
Hard to blame him, Bismarck fangirls are neanderthals that want to make the ship out to be some world beating beast for no reason other than hearing stories about it as a kid
@@kinggeorgewows9695 In denial about the Wehraboos/Kriegaboos/Luftaboos ever being defeated. They will alway return to insist that if the Tirpitz had been retrofitted with VTOL capabilities, Germany would have won the war, or some other equally interesting suggestion.
"Did the Royal Navy sink the Bismarck?" Wehraboo: No! "What did the Bismarck do about the Royal Navy trying to sink her?" Wehraboo: Made it easier for them... no, hang on a minute...
The Diamond Rio song It's all In Your Head springs to mind. It was revealed to me down in my soul, there were two shooters on the grassy knoll. We never walked on the moon, Elvis ain't dead. You ain't crazy. It's all in your head.
The fact that anyone can seriously suggest that Rodney's 16' rifles would be unable to penetrate Bismarck's main belt at what was basically Lee-Enfield range is mind-numbingly stupid. I might believe it if they said it about the turtleback, but absolutely not the main belt.
Still it is impressive that there aren't many more penetrations, so the belt was at least performing quite well and the sight of bouncing shells helps explain why this claim even exist. So one could assume that favourable circumstances where needed to penetrate it (which Rodney achieved). As usual it's not a matter of either or but both claims have a kernel of truth in them. And via Chinese telephone, "only two confirmed visible penetrations" turns into "none at all" and "superior German steel". So I would assume that unless it hit at a favourable angle at enough velocity, like at close range the armor belt was capable of largely withstanding 14 and 16 inch shells. But also the conning tower shows that if the angle and speed was good, 16 inch shells can pen even more than 320 mm, so all this doesn't matter a whole lot, the ship was going to sink and the citadel was severely damaged.
Face facts, the crew blew her bottom out to scuttle her. Yes, it would have eventually sunk, but it wasnt from the royal navys actions, it was scuttled. Ever heard of Masada??????
I've never heard those claims. I'm glad I've avoided that part of the internet. My question for those claimants is, why would the Germans scuttle Bismark if the RN was not about to either sink it or capture it?
@@Scoobydcs you've misunderstood what the guy said, he's saying if Bismarck wasn't about to be captured or sunk why would the Germans scuttle it and not keep fighting like they would've if they had any way too, not why did the Germans scuttle it and not let it be sunk or captured.
Bismarck's main armour belt extended 2.3 meters below and 2.4 meters above the waterline (As can be seen at 6:43). To intentionally & directly strike that long, narrow strake of armour, showing above the water's surface even from the range of sub 3000m that HMS Rodney closed to whilst making headway in a heavy stormy North Atlantic swell would be nigh on impossible. As the report clearly says "the very large number of hits on the main belt WERE MOSTLY IF NOT ALL FROM SECONDARY guns". A number of the major calibre hits that impacted that long narrow main armour belt more than likely ricochetted off the surface of the sea due to the relatively short range and flattened trajectories involved and lost a large part of their momentum as they did so, that is apart from the two penetrations which were probably the only two direct major calibre hits on the 320mm armour belt.. Gun data for Rodney's 16"/45 Mark I main guns shows their penetration ability as 14.4 inches of vertical armour at 15000 yards. She was firing a LOT closer than this for much of the engagement, so even taking into account her shells striking the main belt at a reasonable angle she would have very little problem with penetrating Bismarck's main belt of 320mm (12.6 inches). The principle is the same as arguing a dart cannot penetrate the skin of a balloon from 2 miles away. To which the answer is "of course it can.... if it can manage to hit it". P.S And don't even get me started about Bismarck's wiki page. I've lost count of the exchanges I've had with the page's "self appointed guardian" A.K.A Parsecboy, who polices the page using his jaded, biased agenda, and who when presented with corroborated evidence supporting facts which he doesn't like (such as admiralty reports from the UK national archives), or even correcting blatant errors or misrepresentations on the page, he as a "wiki approved editor" deletes any changes he doesn't like with impunity, and if you've really rubbed his nose in it, will also temporarily ban your IP address from editing wikipedia at all. Not that it "gets my goat"... HONESTLY !!!!
Unfortunately, far too many of Wikipedia's pages are dominated by self-prepossessed little tyrants like Parsecboy-arrogant little cretins who have managed to carve out a tiny little turf for themselves in which they can exercise the only power they will ever have...a power they abuse in disservice to the truth. One Drach video vanquishes an entire army of such imbeciles.
@@patrickspringer6534 Aye true, But as with the likes of "covid marshalls" he appears to be an inadequate given wikipedia "authority" far in excess his wisdom & abilities. It's why people should beware using wikipedia as a source.
Welcome to the great disillusionment with our Age of Information. Fools and ideologs obtain strangleholds on speech and data, with no recourse available for free exchange of information to overcome their agenda.
Hearing how frustrated Drach sounds early in the video has me chuckling a bit. That tone of voice only ever means one thing: "I am right, and you are wrong. I can prove it, and I'm about to. Also, no; you can't stop me."
true . Hence we need no other sorces . . . we have Drach. . . he looks at all sides and diggs till he finds the truth. . I am sure if he could he would dive down to the Bismarck ,and dig till all truths were discoverd and documented. .
just my two cents. Whether or not the Germans or British delivered the final blow is irrelevant. The actions the British took alone directly caused Bismarck sink other wise it would have made it to France. Whether or not it was guns or charges that delivered the final blow doesn't matter, the British are responsible for Bismarck's lost.
I read of an fellow here in the states who insisted, INSISTED, the the Bismark was sunk by the U.S.S. Missouri, which, BTW, was not even built yet. What are you going to do?
Dear Drach, Excellent review of the Cameron Expedition Report. Your careful citation and refutation of the claims made in Wikipedia, etc. indicate that you are a first-class scholar of the sort who can state specific views in a way that can be supported. Perhaps the only reason you couldn’t wear the cap and gown to teach at Cambridge or Oxford is that you are *not* a bore *nor* full of yourself, which is an automatic disqualification if one is to be considered for professorship. * 😉 PS I always look for your new posts as s breath of fresh air soon as I open YT. Your precision as an engineer and dry British wit, along with commentary such as that presented in the bit bout the "Mark XIV: Failure is like Onions," is just what I need before looking at Fake News of all sorts. (In my future InfoSec assignments, I'll make sure my team watches that 45 minutes of "failure Analysis" *before* a single line of code/test script is written.) The last reliable news we had in the USA was when we lost Edward R Murrow, "The Voice of London," reporting during the "Blitz" (and after), along with the last of his “Boys,” Andy Rooney and Walter Cronkite. If you want to see a *REAL* documentary, watch Murrow's *Harvest of Shame* on YT. * Note: I have "Been there/Done that," which I why, after 5 *frustrating* years as an associate professor in Higher Education and Statistical Measurement, including being a Dean/VP of Administrative Services for a small college, and a reviewer of papers for publication for the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME), I quit, to pursue Computer Science--*0s* and *1s* don't give a damn about the politics of currently fashionable theories of education!
This had me howling with laughter at your *barely masked* desire to start ranting and raving at people. This is the most polite, posh, and absolutely thoroughly well done essay of 'get fucked' nerd rage I've ever seen. I love it sir, bravo.
I will probably never understand people who insist that a ship which was rendered immobile and toothless by enemy action, and whose crew was in the process of taking to the lifeboats, was "scuttled" instead of "sunk" - and further, that this is somehow *very important.* At best this is a distinction without a difference, as there was zero chance _Bismarck_ was going to reach a friendly shore. Weirder yet, this delusion seems most prevalent in the former _Allied_ nations. All I can conclude is that people who fetishize the WW2 Axis militaries be weird, yo.
It makes narrative sense, if no other kind of sense. The tougher the enemy, the more valiant "our" side. How glorious were the Royal Navy if they defeated the unsinkable Bismarck?
@@jacobvardy Pretty much, it makes the naval war a little less thrilling when you frame it as "The worlds 2 biggest and most advanced navies teamed up and beat the distant 3rd and very distant 4th and (arguably) 5th"
I try to avoid arguments about Bismarck on social media. I've always felt the main lesson learned was, it's unwise to go out unsupported and virtually alone.
In which Drach does an excellent job of stretching "read the bloody report before hitting the Keyboard Warrior button you dumbarses" out past the crucial ten-minute mark in his signature dry and understated style. Informative, interesting and entertaining, as always. The warship guides are still great "meat and potatoes" content for the channel but the historical retrospectives, analyses and lore lessons really guarantee that the likelihood of me unsubscribing is about as small as the chance that Bismarck was sunk by scuttling charges alone. Thanks for the excellent content once again mate!
Weather or not the crew of Bismarck set off scuttling charges or not, He was sunk by the Royal Navy. The torpedo that took out the steering guaranteed his death, because there was no chance of the Kriegsmarine could get out to save him. Even if they had run out of ammunition, Admiral Tovey would have let the planes and destroyers have a go at him, and would have called for more ships to bombard the hulk. I strongly believe that Admiral Tovey would have not settled for anything less than the sinking of Bismarck. I don't think the option of capturing Bismarck was in his vocabulary at that time. The crew setting off scuttling charges only saved the Royal Navy fuel and ammunition. He was going down no matter how long it took. Excellent video Drach. Thanks and thank you for the copy of the report to read for myself.
I like the logic at play in these arguments: "The German engineering was FLAWLESS, and the Fuhrer's blessing repelled ALL shells no matter how physically impossible, meaning the Bismarck was INVINCIBLE and could have destroyed the entire Royal Navy single-handedly through sheer discipline and good training. It's just that these invincible super-soldiers decided to sabotage their own ship and jump into the sea for literally no reason, that's the only reason they lost!"
Except that it really does not prove anything one way or another, because they couldn't survey the entire armor deck. The outer layers, meaning the main belt, upper belt and upper deck, were never meant to be immune to penetration. Their purpose was to tear off the AP cap and set off the fuse, so that the shell would detonate before reaching the main armor deck. So yeah, unless the main armor deck is completely examined, which is probably impossible, we will never know.
Its the same nonsense such as the "Bismarck was the most powerful ship of her time" well given the British showed up with 16 inch guns vs Bismarck's paltry 15. And yes, a single inch in naval gunnery results in a much, MUCH larger shell.
@@dynamo1796 Absolutely, and all ten american fast battleships carried 9x16 main batteries with excellent fire control and besides that, arguebly the best DP secondary armament with outstanding fire rate and accuracy against both aerial and surface targets.
I feel it's an odd insult to the crew to say the Bismarck was mostly intact and went down entirely because it was scuttled. As this would mean the crew failed to fight the ship to her limit.
Well I think at that point most of the guns were destroyed or inoperable, I suppose they could have hurled burning bits of the superstructure at the RN, not sure how effective that would be (edit: I'm not doubting she was sinking anyway).
I have to admit I find the whole discussion as to who sank the Bismark puzzling. If Bismark had scuttled herself before the RN even caught her that would definitely not have been seen as in any way a "victory" for the KM. Likewise the scuttling of Graf Spee was not seen as a "victory" in Germany - Hitler refused to allow Langsdorf's body to be repatriated. Likewise no-one (apart from maybe the crew of Renown) felt they had been cheated of a fight by Graf Spee being scuttled. At the end of the day the job of a battleship is to destroy enemy ships, not to valiantly scuttle itself.
With Langsdorff, he was in disgrace because he had disobeyed his orders which were not to engage enemy warships unless absolutely necessary. Yet he charged at and engaged three British cruises with no convoy or prize in sight. He should have run away or engaged them at long range in order to disable them and allow him to escape.
It's literally just resentment and spite about the wehraboo's invincible supership getting killed. That's the whole and entire reason for the controversy.
@@bairdrew it makes no sense, as Bismarck wasn't even that powerful of a battleship for the era. More powerful than the KGV class, but outgunned by several older ships (albeit ones that weren't as fast), using an obsolete armor scheme, and completely outclassed by contemporaneous designs from the USA, Japan, and Italy.
@@danielkorladis7869 Define powerful as in gun size,as in electronics,etc cause if you claim that Bismarck is better than the KGVs you are exclusively looking at guns which is stupid in so many ways.
@@danielkorladis7869 It wasn't even more powerful than the KGVs at all. They were pretty much the equal of eachother - the 10x14" with their increased blasting charges performed as well as the British 15"s, and they were considerably better protected than Bismarck, whilst only being about 1.5kts slower (neither Bismarck nor Tirpitz achieved their advertised 30kts at anything other than light load, which means they could never achieve that speed if being used for something important) And the KGVs managed all that whilst massing 1000tons less than Bismarck.
My Father was involved in this action, commanding the secondary Port side forward turrets of the KGV (140 shells fired), he always said the the vessel was smoking from stem to stern at the end of the action and that much of that came for "below decks" rather than burning superstructure, he doubted the survival of those members of the crew who had not reached the deck and adamantlyrefuted the ship sunk because she was "scuttled"...
Overlooked in the discussion of false claims about Bismarck's demise is that the report backs Lutjens decision to disengage. With flooding forward and in the engineering spaces Bismarck no longer had the speed to close the range on Prince of Wales and was one more 14" round from certain destruction. she was already mission killed so the correct decision was to break off and attempt to return to a friendly port.
To be fair to Lutjens, he had awful luck. There was really no way out. There was only one ship in the entire world capable of catching Bismarck and fighting her, and that ship turned up at his rear. Even after miraculously sinking Hood, they were locked in a fight with Prince of Wales. After that, they had the entire undivided attention of two aircraft carriers, two more battleships (with PoW maintaining pursuit for a time), and of all things, a random US coastguard Catalina that he couldn't shoot at even if it came close enough. That's not even counting all the other resources that the British were prepared to use. There was really nothing that could've been done. Given all that, I'm astonished that Prinz Eugen managed to slip away.
Captain Lindemann did want to pursue the Prince of Wales in order to achieve a highly unexpected and unequivocal naval victory to help the propaganda front, believing that they might just as well as they would have to abandon their original intentions of convoy raiding anyway. He was overruled by Lutjens. If they had chosen to be more adventurous the outcome would have depended on whether the Prinz Eugen could get close enough to deliver her torpedoes and, if so, whether they would have actually exploded. There were many cases during the war of defective German torpedoes.
@@simonpitt8145 Bismarck was no longer capable of catching Prince of Wales nor was her opponent crippled. At this point Prince of Wales was at least knot faster than Bismark. While having some problems keeping all her main guns from firing she was returning fire. If Bismarck took a round in wrong place she was doomed in the Denmark Strait and probably taking Prince Eugen with her.
@@johnshepherd8687 I think you'll find that the Prince of Wales WAS damaged and also had her speed reduced. One of Bismarck's shells had actually penetrated her main belt armour clean through, fortunately without exploding ( typical rotten German luck ). The shell was discovered during repairs. The hit on the Prince of Wales's compass platform killed a significant amount of brave sailors and there were two other hits from the German battleship as well as three lighter ones from Prinz Eugen. Considering that the Prince of Wales's main battery was breaking down all over the place and she had to disengage in the first place, I don't know how you consider her not crippled. If she wasn't, why disengage? Bismarck's gunnery was excellent and it is interesting to note that she hit the Prince of Wales more often than the other way round despite the fact that she prioritised the Hood for half the battle while the British ship targeted the Bismarck right throughout. The change of target didn't seem to hinder the German gunners either as they found their range seamlessly. No, I think if Captain Lindemann had his way there would have been TWO British battleships at the bottom of the Denmark Strait - on the proviso that the Prinz Eugen's torpedoes actually worked.
@@simonpitt8145 The PoW was still capable of 28 knots. (The Iron Sea, Chapter 2, the Hunted). Visibility was poor and the PoW was rapidly closing in on Norfolk and Suffolk which would have put Bismark under the threat torpedo attack and the Prinz Eugen at 2:1 disadvantage in a gunfight. Given that PoW engaged in a long range gunnery exchange into the evening I doubt Bismarck would have not been at an unacceptable risk in continuing the engagement. Lindemann was undoubtedly charged up with adrenaline after sinking the Hood and not coolly accessing risks. This is not a wargame where you fight to the death. Lutjens was responsible for the mission and safety of both ships. He made the only decision that made sense under the circumstances. He still had a chance to bring Bismark safely into port. PoW disengaged under orders because all the Admiralty knew was that she had been hit. She had taken less damage than Bismatck. That fact that she disengage should make it obvious that she had the speed advantage at that point. Just because she was having problem with her guns does mean she was toothless.
Thank you Drach for a valiant effort in correcting "common knowledge" on the internet. I also have a spare broom if you'd like some help beating the ocean back. Seriously, though - thank you for your usual excellent and well researched job.
Who in their right mind would believe, that a ship, hailed as the miracle of technological advances, got scuttled by it's crew. Imagine the scene, the ship is fine, torpedo defences are all right, armor belt and deck intact, not a single torpedo hit, you are being tailed by a vicious Royal Navy fleet, keen to avenge Hood, you are aiming straight for a French shore, yet despite all of this, you decide to scuttle the ship and drown in the icy cold water, just because some airplanes spotted you.
You forget: the ship cant get anywhere, it can only run in circles and cant be repaired, the guns of the ship is knocked out and destroyed, most of the super structure is destroyed, ship is on fire, crew is getting killed by all shells, whole of royal navy around you, no help is coming, so what shall they do? Play poker? xD Like graf spee who were also damaged and couldnt be repaired but seaworthy: graf spee scuttled itself, and so did bismarck. It wasnt a ship in perfect condition, it wasnt operational anymore.
Some of you should learn about sarcasm., because that's all my comment was. The ship was fu*ked, far from the pristine condition the "Cameronists" would want you to believe.
A friend of mine said that the Bismarck was scuttled in the act of sinking. Really with all the damage she'd taken and the asymetrical flooding, she'd have sunk of progressive flooding regardless of anything else. And we've got examples of scuttlings that took a damn sight longer and were better prepared and planned. The scuttling of the HSF shows that even with the bilge pumps open, the watertight doors removed and judicious use of charges, it took ages for a capital ship to sink. The scuttling charges on Bismarck, if they were fired would have been in a delusatory and not organised way. And unless they blew the bottom out which they didn't then yeah, she's already going down due to flooding from god knows how many holes and dents in her sides, and the scuttling may have helped it along a bit.
The story of premature torpedo explosions probably was confused with an earlier involving a flight of swordfish torpedo bombers mistaking a British cruiser for the Bismarck their attack failed because they were using magnetic detonators causing it explode immediately after hitting the sea, the silver lining from this incident, when the they did find and attack the Bismarck they used contact detonators that did work.
I would interpret the section on Page 42 to mean that the armoured deck was not damaged by the outburst rather than checking for shell holes. It does seem a bit ambiguous.
As a US Naval vet of 10 years, (74-84) I would like to comment. First of all, I was not on the Bismark nor was I on any of the British ships on that fateful day. Second, I have not gown down to see the remains of the Bismark nor would I if I had the chance. Third, I can only view the pictures / video that has been taken by someone else AND read / hear what has been reported. SO, having said that, my answer to what sank the Bismark would logically be, I truly do not know nor would I have any way of definitively knowing until such time, if at all, some one raises her and takes an in-depth look at the entire ship. NO ONE today really knows. If the ship was sunk by the British OR it was scuttled OR a combination of the two, it really does not matter except for pride. By the way Drac...as always a great / insightful and interesting presentation...thank you. Now I will shut up.
It's always bizarre to me the claim of the scuttling. Like, I was already under the impression that, like a lot of sinkings, it is generally a mixture of factors, but the ferventness of people defending the German scuttling is surprising. It can be an inoffensive thing to look at in the academic sense, not so much when people get emotional since it probably matters little to the over 2,000 sailors who were killed aboard Bismarck and in the water afterwards.
I saw in 90s a german doku about the Bismarck. It was full of interviews of the surviving sailors and all of them told that an audio message was sent in the last instants to leave the ship because they were scuttling it.
@@angeledduirbonesu1989 I wonder how credible that claim is by so many people? Could they have even heard such a message through all the noise, chaos and destruction? It could have been an agreed position promoted by one of the surviving officers.
@@John.0z I don't know, maybe. The only way to know it is to make an exploration of the inside of the ship, which was described as intact by the leaving sailors.
"Saying the Royal navy did not sink the Bismark because it was scuttled, is like saying the allies did not win WW2 because Hitler committed suicide." - I can't remember who
LOL! I once attended a lecture by Dr. Ballard at Brown University. I told my dad that I was going and he asked me to ask if Dr. Ballard could find his barracks bag on the USS McCauley. The bag contained my mother's letters. It also had a $2.00 bill in it that Ballard could keep as a tip. Dr. Ballard laughed and said he 'd take a look.
Drach, the claims that you took the time to refute are almost trolling type claims. It's just so obvious, for example, the claims of the armored citadel not being penetrated. The reconstructionist history from the German side reminds me of "The lost cause," in the Southern United States.
Idk if anyone else has taken the time to say so, but the quality of your advertisements for your sponsors have improved dramatically in quality as of late. Particularly the squarespace series where you build or edit your website. No lie, they are some of the most engaging, well thought out and informative. You can tell that you actually put some thought into them, all that to say your sponsors are really getting their monies worth when the ad is done as well as the rest of your content. Top notch as always Drach! Much love from Oregon
Thanks for another awesome video Drach. In a world where the prevailing attitude appears to be never let the facts get in the way of a good story it is great to have someone who won’t let a (good, bad or indifferent) story get in the way of the facts.
I think the discussion is kind of moot. Regardless of the mechanism of the sinking, it sank. It wouldn't have if the British hadn't been there. So... the interaction between the Brits and the Nazis generally and specifically caused the Bismark to sink. -.-
My boss has working in video and audio wiring for years, and he told me that he worked on Ballards expedition to find the titanic, helping to run the remote submarines.
Bismarck suffered no damage.... in fact she was a giant submarine and merely submerged and left the area unscathed. She sailed South East towards the Bahama's where she still hunts ships for resupply today in the Bermuda Triangle. The Allied nations know this and but cover it up as if she weren't sunk it would be a national embarrassment. It's true, I swear daily.
Well gosh darn it. I knew it! I hear it parties with Elvis, Lord Lucan and Shergar... I know this to be a fact. A friend of a friend of mine saw it on the Interweb 😂
After looking extensively into my sources (this video), I can be almost certain, that it is quite probable, perhaps even likely, that The Bismarck did indeed, sink. I'm still looking for absolute confirmation, but once, if, and when I find it, I shall contact the press, and Mr. Cameron out of courtesy.
In the event it turns out to in fact still be afloat rather than in the silt at the bottom of the sea as seems most likely, and should you need assistance in damage control in order to bring her into port, i shall offer assistance via a stick welder and portable generator 😂
Make sure you don't get fooled by the decoy. The REAL Bismarck merely went into submarine mode and is still prowling the depths, silent and unseen. The Russians, by the way, employed the same technology on the mighty cruiser-sub Moskva.
@@garfieldfarkle 😂 ah yes, much like yamato musashi and shinano, hiding beneath the surface waiting to unleash fury for the next world wa-....hmmm probably about 3 weeks and we'll be sorely dissapointed im afraid. Haha
I had no idea that there has been a historical debate (fist fight) about what sunk the Bismarck. I think the fact that most of the Royal Navy returned to port and the Bismarck wound up on the sea floor makes it rather a moot point.
Quite. A parallel could be drawn with what is termed a “manoeuvre kill” in aviation: it doesn’t really matter if the opponent goes down as a result of your fire or as a result of the actions he takes as a response to your presence - it’s still a result for the one left standing when it’s over.
Fundamentally, those ridiculous claims all still confirm ----- the Bismark sank ---- which was the outcome the Royal Navy wanted. Any ship facing the fire-power that Bismark faced would have suffered damage.
Thank you so much! It drives me crazy what passes for research these days. Cherry picking a few sentences out of context has become an art form... Great video more please!!!
Bismark's upper works were pummeled at close range. They thought he'd go down from weight of shot or quickly become impotent. They ran in close enough to harry secondaries. They wanted to just keep hitting him. I don't think penetration mattered at all to the gunners. Baby seal comes to mind...
“This was revealed to me in a vision.” Best dry humor one liner I’ve heard this year. Hat’s off sir, I just spit a mouth full of beer out on the floor laugh/choking on that sarcastic gold.
Great summary! As my grandma used to say: "People who are able to read have a clear advantage". But of course this will not keep many id..ts from further perpetrating their alternate facts...
Such a great presentation as always. AND a fantastic comment about doing your own research and drawing your own conclusions instead of just parroting what someone else said.
Oooo. Interesting video today. I watched the expedition. It was amazing. Crazy to think about what it shows.. Seeing the sailors remains when they looked at the seaplane launcher was.. Haunting..
The one thing I've heard about the final bombardment of Bismarck, is that the British were too close. The contention being that the armor scheme of Bismarck was designed for a closer rather than long range battle (because of it's angling) and as a result the British would have better off staying further away. I understand however the emotional satisfaction of getting closer and being able to actually see the impact of your hits on the enemy, especially given the circumstances.
They were, more range would allow plunging fire to get through the deck armour and detonate deep in the ship. As it was most of the heavy gun fire was hitting above the belt and not doing devastating damage leading to a quick sinking, it shredded the superstructure though (personalty I'd call turning the ship into an uninhabitable inferno devastating enough).
@@John.0z The report directly states that close range fire was ineffective for the exact reason the OP stated. There are penetrations but little as most hits didn't actually hit the main belt.
@@jatzi1526 That was probably not the perception of the RN admirals at the time. They would most likely have tried something different had they known that their shells were passing straight through. But in the fog of war, would they have known that?
@@John.0z Witnesses did see that a lot of the hits were going into the superstructure, and in the case of the heavy guns passing straight through fairly ineffectually. I think it’s worth bearing in mind that penetrating hits at the belt, especially if below the waterline are difficult to see unless they cause something obvious externally. Flooding can also be hard to notice, especially in very heavy weather . In any event, if the close range gunnery wasn’t going to sink Bismarck, then closing the range would allow the destroyers and cruisers to get close enough to finish Bismarck off with torpedos.
I do have to wonder what these people think Bismarck is made out of, they seem to think that saying turtle back is enough, it's baffling. I imagine they think that it must have had thicker armour because it was like the biggest.
Even though the Japanese Yamato class ships were bigger, more heavily armed, and armoured. Despite those features, all three of those hulls were sunk too.
@@John.0z Yep. Bismarck would get her ass kicked. Inferior guns and armor, a really bad armor scheme, inferior fire control, and a higher speed by 2.6 knots in not enough to save her. Tirpitz has a few of these issues fixed, like improving the armor scheme and radar that actually worked, but she would have gone down as well, due to the fact that she probably wasn’t even capable of penetrating Yamato’s armor from anything beyond point blank range
Thank you for enclosing the report. I will look forward to reading it. And once again thank you for such a well-documented video. I really appreciated it. ^^
Drach, how can anyone imagine that 16" and 14" shell hits not damaging any ship, this Bismarck myth is just ridiculous,. After the amount of time and excellent videos you've done on naval history, it just seems incredible that people can't accept logic that Bismarck was probably full of holes as it slipped below the waves courtesy of Rodney and KG5,'. keep up the great videos and try not to scream too loudly at these utterly stupid theories, cheers. Ray
The WW1 era 14" guns of the Kongo class kirishima did in fact bounce off the 17.3" turret barbette side armor of USS South Dakota. Leaving only a dent despite hitting in pretty much ideal conditions, flat on at 5000 yards... However the shell detonating outside the main armor still then proceeded to blow a 20ft wide hole in the weather deck (60# steel thickness, or about 1.5", first of three layers of deck armor), before being stopped by the second layer of the maindexk (5-5.3").
@@duvetofreason16 that was the previous battle the previous night against the cruiser squadron where hiei was crippled and then scuttled. The ijn started with AP loaded the next night to avoid a repeat of the issue, which ironically resulted in the 8" fire from the escorting cruisers passing straight through the unarmored portions of the SoDak without detonating, due to the overly long fuses of their diving shells. The cruisers also misidentified the SoDak as a Baltimore class cruiser and based the lead aim of their torpedoes based on that, which resulted in them all missing despite the short range.
@@Kieselmeister To be fair, the AP shell went through a hatch coaming and was deflected by the deck just enough to displace the AP cap. That displacement kept the cap from protecting the nose adequately and helped shatter it early so the shell underperformed. Nathan Okun has a great article on Navweaps on the subject. Nice to meet another SoDak fan! Cheers
I remember my Dad letting me stay up late to watch "Sink The Bismarck" As always, this video was very well done. I have found the Bismarck Cult tedious.
I've never understood why this was so damn important to some people, and I appreciate the time you've taken to underscore that regardless of who sank the bloody ship, that it is in fact SUNK and resting on the seabed.
it would seem if those who say the Bismarck didn't suffer critical damage, then that really does'nt say good things about the Bismarck crew, who in their minds scuttled a perfectly good ship (well it was th Bismarck) so a perfectly average ship :)
No normal person would conclude that. You do not scuttle a perfectly good ship! You scuttle a beaten ship that you do not want the enemy to get. Or you might want to end a pointless battle to safe atleast some crew.
A perfectly floating ship can still be disabled by superficial damage, massive fire or loss of crew. This still leaves a captured hull to be towed back to Portsmouth by the Royal Navy to repair and use against Germany at worst, or to have a very accurate Tirpitz gunnery target and study subject at least.
@@thevictoryoverhimself7298 Battleships are supposed to be rather difficult to disable. If Bismarck was rendered combat ineffective by damage that did not imperil the ship, that speaks rather poorly of its design, now, doesn’t it?
@@jamesharding3459 not really. It means you can recover the hull and repair the ship even when it’s heavily damaged. Or if you think you’re going to be captured you can (get this) open the hatches and scuttle the ship… exactly like what happened. You need to understand how expensive battleships are to construct. Britain didn’t pay off its war debt until well into the Blair/Bush era. If you can recover a damaged one, you’d want the option.
Churchill ordered the Royal Navy to sink the Bismarck, it was sunk. I would question the scuttling on the grounds that would you risk abandoning your vessel in the mid-Atlantic if you don’t have to.
If a ship has already been damaged beyond any chance of staying afloat by enemy action how could it possibly be considered to have been intentionally scuttled? Scuttling involves a deliberate attempt to cause a ship to sink the ship by its own crew a choice that the British had already taken out of their hands.
With that kind of damage the purpose of scuttling a Capital ship is more about ensuring it sinks faster to avoid valuable, secret and sensitive information or technology falling into enemy hands. It can take a fair old while for a capital ship to finally sink, they are built expressly to absorb damage and stay afloat after all. That being said, Bismarck was already down at the bow before the order to scuttle was given so she had clearly taken damage below or at the waterline and was taking on water. Given her state, the fact she was on fire from bow to stern, then really it is just a matter of time. All the scuttling did was speed up the inevitable sinking, and is a balm to wounded pride that many take to the extreme. The fact is whether Bismarck was scuttled or not is irrelevant. She was already sinking, her upperworks utterly smashed, no guns were capable of firing and she was dead in the water. She was combat ineffective, and was so because of the damage inflicted by the Royal Navy. Nothing else is really relevant. The exact mechanics of how she sunk are not the important factor, the really important factor is WHY she sunk. The 14 and 16 inch rifles of the Rodney and KGV pretty much sum up the answer to that particular question.....
I never understood why some people get so fixated on the whole "Bismark wasn't sunk, she was scuttled" thing. She was rendered combat ineffective by the Royal Navy and there was no saving her either way. You never hear "well Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū, and Hiryū weren't sunk, they were scuttled," it's acknowledged that they were all but destroyed by the Americans and were scuttled because saving them was impossible.
Maybe because the Japanese can take a drubbing and accept it, whereas it seems to be a German national trait to attempt to "save face" by being seen as masters of their own fate, regardless of the fact that they'd previously been drubbed.
Five minutes in: forward photos of battleships always astound me - they are so unlike destroyers and frigates in that they look so fat, twice as wide you expect a ship to be. I understand that this provides stability for firing the big guns, but when I actually see it I am amazed.
Now lets be honest, everyone knows the real ship that sunk the Bismark was the ORP Piorun. The crew had to scuttle the ship out of pure embarrassment for not being able to score any hits while being taunted by the enemy crew for over an hour. ^this is a joke
Even if Bismarck was scuttled it doesn’t change the fact that it was done because the Royal Navy had battered her into a useless flaming wreck. Claiming otherwise is like saying Akagi and Kaga were scuttled but not because they were reduced to wrecks by the dive bombing attack.
A great video and my main take away is that the fan boys took the Cameron report and, surprise surprise, distorted the facts. Not an uncommon phenomenon. But you present your arguments and facts in a very thoughtful and professional manner. It's my first time seeing one of your videos, so well done! And Cameron has even stated that had the Germans not set scuttling charges, Bismarck would have succumbed to it's wounds eventually. I remember hearing that given the damage, the list, etc. It probably could have stayed afloat a couple hours at most. His documentary also states the German's scuttling it just sped up the inevitable as a way of ending the British onslaught. Got to love the fan boys selective hearing and making them talking points. 😅 In the end, it was a well designed ship that did take a beating, but like everything, wasn't the end all be all and certainly not unsinkable.
Excellent presentation! I know Bill Garzke and am a member of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers (SNAME) Marine Forensics Committee that Bill founded and still co-chairs. He (and other members of the MFC) have similar issues with people who ignore the facts and are unwilling to follow solid forensic procedures when analyzing a maritime casualty. Bill has authored a number of articles and books on the DKM Bismarck, each well thought out and based on the best information available at the time. On a semi-related topic, he has just written a paper on the sinking of the RMS Lusitania based on the availability of the recently uncovered actual cargo manifest that shows the ship was carrying several hundred tonnes of munitions on the final voyage and the effect of the torpedo hit on that cargo. This paper will be presented at the SNAME Maritime Convention 27-29 September 2022 in Houston, TX.
James Cameron is a storyteller and I don't remember the documentary on his expedition to Bismarck as well as the one to Titanic since I've seen the Titanic one more recently. While I'm glad Cameron put the expeditions together and did the documentaries because they looked great, I think the report contradicts itself often because Cameron had the story in his head the way he thought it went no matter what the actual evidence revealed.
James Cameron was a film maker, not a group known for historical accuracy. He used the Akademik Mstislav Keldysh as his ship, he had previously used her for his film Titanic. Her two Mir Submersibles were used to film the wreck. I have looked through the 20cm vision ports and the vision is poor, so cameras would be better. Film makers like many modern revisionist authors of today use the made up "Controversy" to publish there works, there is nothing that counts as bad news.
ah - maybe he wants to sell the story to the German public which is understandable so a heroic death is needed not a humiliating loss and destruction. Up against better modern warships this ship was vulnerable.
Pinned post for Q&A :)
What are those red and white stripes on the bows of Regia Marina ships?
@@Aelxi Fairly sure they were there to let the Luftwaffe and Regia Aeronautica know not to bomb them.
Has there been much of an investigation of the Scharnhorst (ww2) wreck?
Why are you still seething about the German victory in the Battle of Jutland?
Scenario: The Royal Navy decides to build 2 Battleships in 2022 and got the fundings and names sorted, HMS Dreadnought and HMS Warspite. Now, how would you configure them Main Guns, Secondaries, AA, Armor etc. and why?
I was leafing through the James Cameron book at work and a co-worker said "Hey! That's my barber." We looked into it and sure enough, the fellow who's non battle station job on the Bismarck was cutting hair, survived the sinking, moved to Toronto and was still cutting hair as of the late 80's.
Wow
It's a small world after all
@@lifeindetale we are rather insignificant when you consider we are a tiny little space rock flying through the never ending vastness of space that is constantly expanding, forever.
@@andygilbert3022...and ever...
As my late father would call him : Herr Kut . ( Sorry, couldn't resist. ) (Edit : thanks Mar)
My brother once stood 6 hours in Texas on his only break on a business trip to get Bob Ballard to sign a picture of the Bismarck addressed to me then framed it for my birthday present. Still the best gift I've ever received.
Your brother rocks.
Great memento 👍
I met him as a kid as part of the JASON Project; if I remember right I was involved in XII and XIII; I don't know the details but my dad's employer, EDS, was a big sponsor or something and we did a lot of JASON stuff at his offices. Ever since I started getting more interested in naval history/engineering, I've regretted that I didn't talk to him more about some of his work when I had the chance.
That’s amazing
Around 1990 I was a real estate photographer in the hire of realtors in the Adelaide Hills This day I went to a house in the older German estates of the hills, a house located in open land that looked for all the world like it had been put there from Austria, and that Julie Andrews would make an appearance over the meadow at any instant. The house itself was quite the architectural triumph with splendid indoor/outdoor garden, a number of glazed interior walls, extensive use of interior masonry and timber work. The lady of the house spoke with a German accent and invited me to look around to get my bearings. As I passed one of the glazed walls I passed by a model of a warship in a glass case, an old man spoke to me in a German accent, 'do you know what ship that is?' to which I replied, "I knew her at once, she is unmistakably Bismark". His face filled with joy that I knew his ship. This frail old man was dying of cancer, and he described to me something of his experiences about being crew on Bismark. We exchanged a few questions, I recall he did tell me about being picked up by a British destroyer, and his term as a POW. And that after the war was over he returned to Germany only briefly to bring his wife back to the UK where they lived until emigrating to Australia. In an experience that I found hard to forget, I often wonder how he got on.
My grandfather was a US Navy Piliot, I was lucky enough to hear him and some of his friends talk about some of the things they saw,experienced and many tearfull stories.
I wonder what he did post war to earn a living, sounds like a wonderful place, although being pre 2005 and south australia, it was probably far closer to attainable than anything is now. When i first bought my farm/property a regular wage was sufficient, 7 years later and two semi decent wages are just barely enough to scrape through. Guess i should have tried harder in school. Haha
@@Colt45hatchback I dont know the answer to that. In the time of his immigration, he would still have been a young man. Seems like eventually he came to what were historically German settlements like Barossa or Hahndorf. This house was quite special, perhaps he was from the building game somewhere, or even an architect.
What a great story. You're very fortunate to have spoken with that piece of living history.
In 1975 had the opportunity to listen to an American sailor who survived the loss of the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor. He had just left the ship when the attack came, and most or all of his buddies were killed. He was a very troubled and bitter man who denied the existence of a God that would "let that happen".
I was an exchange student in Japan in the mid 80s. My host's father was on Yamato but was transferred before her final trip. He was fascinated that my father was on a Destroyer at the same time. (Not in the same part of the Pacific though)
As a fellow British person, the sarcasm, wit and oh so not veiled putdowns are wonderful. Keep up the superlative work, Drach.
As an American, we kind of get tired of James Cameron, too. We keep poking him with a stick hoping for another T2, Aliens, or True Lies and we always end up getting Avatar.
@@thew8belt169 Ahhh, yes. Avatar, Dances with Wolves in space......
Such an original storyline.
Me an Anglophile, agree about the very funny jokes and the sarcasm. God bless the UK and her very interesting people and history.
@@thew8belt169 Use a bigger stick....
@@russguffee6661 pocahontas in space. Thr last samurai in space. Probably a few other movies with Tom cruise in it in space
The argument that the Royal Navy didn't sink Bismarck because her crew set off scuttling charges has always sounded to me like a defence lawyer trying to argue "yes, my client did stab the victim, shoot him and set him on fire, but it wasn't murder because the victim jumped off the roof to get away and the fall is what killed him."
🤣🤣🤣
So true.
And here I was expecting the end of that to be "because he was already dead"..I think I like your version better.
To be fair, the whole story is already humiliating to the RN even without scuttling.
Use a whole fcking fleet, with many battleships, cruisers, destroyers, and 2 aircraft carrier, to hunt down and sink a SINGLE ship without any escort just because mentioned ship sinked the pride of the fleet in a 2v2 where the other RN ship retreated humiliated with malfunctioning main guns.
Then during the hunt, RN almost torpedoed a US ship misidentified as Bismarck, BUT luckly those torpedoes malfunctioned too.
Then another RN airstrike failed with all but 1 torpedo, and only that 1 torpedo crippled the Bismarck make it unable to avoid RN fleet. And no, I don't talk about the torpedoes from the last fight, I talk about the Ark Royal carrier based ones, which almost all failed.
So after a victorius battle, without docking any port to refill, separated from it's only escort ship all alone crippled by a single realy lucky torpedo, sail into the crossfire of a major fleet of the largest Navy of the era all alone, it doesn't matter if Germans scuttled it or not after all that RN was pretty pathetic anyway.
@@StArShIpEnTeRpRiSe Lets talk about your country's naval history shall we?
@@Brecconable Fine.
Battle of the Strait of Otranto (1917)
Austro-Hungarian Navy won against the superior and more advanced united French Italian British Navy.
Not bad from a landlocked country to beat 3 major naval power.
I once rubbed Bill Jurens very badly the wrong way by quoting some of the Channel 4 Hood & Bismark expedition conclusions. Seems he did not agree with the conclusions in question and felt that his professional reputation had been severely damaged by his name being included in the documentary and implying that he agreed with them.
So just because a particular person was involved in the programme doesn't mean that they agree what the documentary maker finally puts out.
Thats a real bad thing, when documentaries stretch some "truths" to produce a more dramatic show who they think would be receipt better by the audience as the real events. I hate this. Most people dont question what they see in a documentary.
As Irving Finkel put it: documentary makers tend to leave out important details such as the word "not" ;-)
With nobody particularly in mind, some people don’t talk to authors and documentary makers, because their (perceived) mistakes might get exposed.
The whole list of claims about Bismarck’s hull damage is really irrelevant. The British turned the ship into floating scrapyard full of dead bodies. Sinking a wreck with zero offensive capability becomes an act of tidying up the mess.
The thing is Cameron also bankrolled the documentary... so brevity notwithstanding (and TBH I don't think that's one of Cameron's greatest strengths), why would he leave important contextual information out?
Bismarck *faked her own sinking* and is living under an assumed name in Palm Springs.
I thought it was hiding in the Marianas Trench with its buddy The Meg…
@@grahamstrouse1165 "Shaddap, Meg"
The Hood pulled a Bilbo Baggins and is enjoying the sweet life in the Bahamas.
(In the book, Gandalf add a bit of theatrical flash to hide Bilbo's using the ring, just in case anyone starts going off on a rant and cites the movie.)
Bismarck escaped on a u-boat and lived our her years as a tramp-steamer in Buenos Aries.
That's mint.
The TRUTH is that Bismark was sunk by a group of Japanese torpedo boats who had been wandering lost for 40-ish years. Kamtchatka is redeemed ! LOL
And all this time, I thought it was the Ukranians. 🙂
That makes total sense!
Kamchatka always makes me smile lol
I AM A POLE
She was right all along
The main launching point of my love for history was when my librarian in my grade-school saw that I kept checking out the same 3 books about the titanic….and she recommended “here’s another book about a different ship that sank, try this one.” This book included the history and design of the Bismarck, survivor accounts, and info from the Cameron dive research. She had NO idea what she had just set in motion.
Well mine was reading “A Night to Remember” and then starting into a deep dive into the Titanic. By the time I was 12 I’d found and read every book on the topic, even a few of the loony ones which previous research made them look silly. Then the wreck was found. I still have the copies of National Geographic and Time etc in a nice safe place.
I bought the book about the finding of the Bismarck by the finder Bob Ballard...I too was mesmerized !!!!!!
My wife works in a public library which is becoming a very hard job in this day and age. I'll let her know about your story. It will help stay focused on who needs her and why. Thank You!
So did you grow up to be an Evil Overlord living in a secluded Volcano Base with a school of Trained, Laser Beam equipped Mako Sharks? 😎
@@belliott538 of course not, that’s entirely unrealistic. Only BULL sharks are wide enough to properly mount the latest Raytheon laser discharge weapons.
I once talked to a survivor of the Prinz Eugen. He said that they all cried tears when they parted from Bismarck because they knew they would not see her again.
None of the four Japanese carriers lost at Midway suffered any significant damage below the waterline by U.S. planes, but there's no question the U.S. sank them.
I’ve ran into people who claim that Yorktown and Enterprise’s dive bomber squadrons should have had the hit credits removed due to them only causing the fires and damaging Akagi, Kaga, Hiryu and Soryu to the point where they need to be scuttled. I don’t agree with them as you’re basically nitpicking at that point.
@@ph89787 Next time you run into one of those folks, ask them if a burning aircraft shot full of holes has been shot down or in fact "scuttled" by its crew should they be fortunate enough to bail out seconds before the crash! :-)
@@danielford1380 the Internet is full of people who like to split hairs on everything.
Heck going even further. I’ve had people claim that carriers don’t have a kill count as the planes did all the work. Forgetting that they have their own guns. As well as a carrier’s primary weapon is their aircraft
So what sank them then?
@@pedrokantor3997 Technically, Japanese torpedoes.
The sheer amount of passive-aggressive Drachinifel in this episode is as awe-inspiring as it is entertaining.
Passive-aggressive behavior is a wellspring of wit for a certain kind of Englishman, especially naval persons.
Drach at his MOST "I have a hard-on for Bismarck cause it sank/blew the shit out of my favorite ship of ALL TIME... the HOOD" ... There are other episodes where his British triumphalism really comes thru... Another is when/ where he implies that a sole Brit carrier deployed briefly in the Pacific in '43 saved the USN in the Pacific...
@@MrArtbv I find it interesting how two people can listen to the same thing and come away with an entirely opposing understanding of what was stated. It is obvious to anyone who can speak/comprehend English properly the he did not say or imply anything like what you are making out. Seems you have you own bias and probably some prejudice towards this channel and its subject matter that is causing you to hear things that are fallacy. Rather than what was in fact stated in several videos on this channel.. you have just heard what you want to hear or you are being deliberately untruthful.
Simply talking about a part of history that is less well know like hms victorious/uss robin and what she did in the pacific with the usn is what a historian should do. and pointing out some of the contributions made and mutual learning that took place between the rn and usn is very interesting.. and not obviously "implying the sole brit carrier saved the USN in the pacific". You fool.
All the best.
Well "Sport"; 85 people obviously agreed and a couple pointed out specific examples/reasons... So put a sock on it and toodle/toddle on back to your hole
@@MrArtbv85 people agreed... so RUclips 'likes' equal supporting evidence of someones interpretstion of factual statements now?
Oh dear oh dear 🙄😆
It never occured to me that scuttling should be considered to be a ‘self kill.’
You wouldnt scuttle that large of an investment unless you were defeated. Say if the germans 100% were the
reason she sank, how is that not still a british victory? They fought a battle to remove a threat, weither they put a hole that made her sink, or boxed her into a corner that germans had no choice but to sink her themselves is a major strategic victory either way.
If the british goal was to protect shipping and open the seas, by removing axis threats, how is this not a clear victory? They went at her and as a result she scuttled herself?
She was massively on fire, her hull was penetrated in many ways and she was well down by the bow. Scuttling was like a person poisoned with cyanide, shooting themselves in the head. Who is to say that blown water intakes for the condensers let in more water than two torpedo hits?
My point was that if you force someone into taking cyanide, that is no different in a victory then actually putting a hole through their heart.
Totally agree. If we apply the “Bismarck was scuttled, so technically she wasn’t sunk by the British” reasoning to other naval battles, it’s frankly ridiculous. Following that logic, Midway was an incredible Japanese victory since all four carriers there were scuttled as well, while the US suffered a carrier sunk.
Quite right. Whether or not the British torpedoes sank the German or not is immaterial, the Bismarck was combat ineffective and cornered by a force that could destroy it at their leisure.
Overall, a definite victory for the Royal Navy.
It's like a chess player noticing that they'll be in a checkmate next turn, so they just give up and congratulate their enemy on the victory, without having to go through the needless motions of playing out the last turn.
As I have mentioned in comments to a previous video, my late friend Cecil Greenwood of Mytholmroyd, West Yorkshire was present at this engagement on HMS Rodney's deck and hence witnessed the sinking of the Bismarck. He told me about his involvement, what he saw, and his feelings at the time.
I clearly recall him telling me about him seeing the hit that disabled Bruno turret and simply feeling very relieved that it wasn't going to shoot at Rodney any more, tempered by his knowing that he'd just seen a lot of young men like himself killed by just that one shell out of the many hits he saw striking the upper works. From his position on deck he could actually see Rodney's shells in flight and estimate where they would hit even before they got there.
I doubt he knew what actually sank Bismarck, but he definitely felt great pity for those on board.
As a fleet the fight was a personal vendetta. To a man it was the job. You can fight an enemy in war with all that you have, but you can weep at their demise if you know they are just like you, fighting the same as you are, but are just on the other side and less lucky in those moments. Beyond that is the overwhelming rule of the sea. All sailors fight against the death that the sea threatens them with. They love their ships that protect them from the sea, provide them home, and transport them to adventurous places and eventually (hopefully) back home. In that time a sailor would fight his opposite with all his resolve, but could not truly condemn or hate them so long as the rules of the mariners were observed.
@@chrismaverick9828 And yet they aborted the rescue mission, leaving hundreds of survivors to die at sea, even though many of them had already touched the hull of the British ship. They claim to have had contact with a submarine, but did not leave behind a single destroyer for rescue, nor any of their lifeboats or life rafts.
Therefore, claiming a German threat is merely an excuse to pick up just a few men for intelligence purposes and leave the rest to die mercilessly.
@thkempe not really. The destroyers didn't have the fuel to stay.
@@thkempeRescuing survivors is a task that requires your ship to remain stationary for a significant period of time - making you a prime target (and a sitting duck) for a submarine. Suppose the submarine they spotted had fired its torpedos at about the time they saw it - they might not even have gotten the chance to get underway. As Drach said in his video on Operation Rheinübung, the rescuing cruiser's captain also had to consider the safety of his own ship - and its crew - before that of the German survivors. It's extremely tragic, but it was a necessary choice.
And so, Drach's never ending quest to dispel any and every myth about Bismarck continues...
Hard to blame him, Bismarck fangirls are neanderthals that want to make the ship out to be some world beating beast for no reason other than hearing stories about it as a kid
One day the Wehraboo scourge will be defeated
@@EvidensInsania wouldn't they technically be Kriegboos? Kriegsboos? Kriegerboos? Something like that.
@@rohanthandi4903 In denial about what? 🤣
@@kinggeorgewows9695 In denial about the Wehraboos/Kriegaboos/Luftaboos ever being defeated. They will alway return to insist that if the Tirpitz had been retrofitted with VTOL capabilities, Germany would have won the war, or some other equally interesting suggestion.
"Did the Royal Navy sink the Bismarck?"
Wehraboo: No!
"What did the Bismarck do about the Royal Navy trying to sink her?"
Wehraboo: Made it easier for them... no, hang on a minute...
The Bismarck just rage quit because of the unfair match making
@@wolf310ii wait rage quiting doesn't count as losing? I have some developers to write to. Certain stats need updating.
Combat logging
Lol man it's astounding how little people like you know jealous of 1940 is Germany still cracks me up
"This was revealed to me in a vision" is a great line to end next years april fools day video.
The Diamond Rio song It's all In Your Head springs to mind.
It was revealed to me down in my soul, there were two shooters on the grassy knoll. We never walked on the moon, Elvis ain't dead. You ain't crazy. It's all in your head.
The fact that anyone can seriously suggest that Rodney's 16' rifles would be unable to penetrate Bismarck's main belt at what was basically Lee-Enfield range is mind-numbingly stupid.
I might believe it if they said it about the turtleback, but absolutely not the main belt.
Still it is impressive that there aren't many more penetrations, so the belt was at least performing quite well and the sight of bouncing shells helps explain why this claim even exist.
So one could assume that favourable circumstances where needed to penetrate it (which Rodney achieved). As usual it's not a matter of either or but both claims have a kernel of truth in them. And via Chinese telephone, "only two confirmed visible penetrations" turns into "none at all" and "superior German steel".
So I would assume that unless it hit at a favourable angle at enough velocity, like at close range the armor belt was capable of largely withstanding 14 and 16 inch shells. But also the conning tower shows that if the angle and speed was good, 16 inch shells can pen even more than 320 mm, so all this doesn't matter a whole lot, the ship was going to sink and the citadel was severely damaged.
@@221b-l3t Being a student of both Truth and Irony… I find that Truth more often then not lies between two Extremes.
Face facts, the crew blew her bottom out to scuttle her. Yes, it would have eventually sunk, but it wasnt from the royal navys actions, it was scuttled. Ever heard of Masada??????
@@HarborLockRoad at most it saved a couple hours of floundering before the inevitable. Take it elsewhere Kriegerboo.
@@HarborLockRoad Everybody knows Masada is at risk of sinking, thats why theystore it in the desert to keep it safe!
I've never heard those claims. I'm glad I've avoided that part of the internet. My question for those claimants is, why would the Germans scuttle Bismark if the RN was not about to either sink it or capture it?
Shhh, you're not supposed to ask that. For bonus points, you can also opine that the Maus is the best tank ever.
pride and the LAST thing they wanted is for the rn to capture bismark
to provide a hazard to navigation for all allied lobsters and flatfish?
@@Scoobydcs you've misunderstood what the guy said, he's saying if Bismarck wasn't about to be captured or sunk why would the Germans scuttle it and not keep fighting like they would've if they had any way too, not why did the Germans scuttle it and not let it be sunk or captured.
@@leodesalis5915 oh, it was about to be sunk though lol
Honestly, If Drach says: "This was revealed to me in vision"
I would take it at face value
I assume any such visions would involve a reconstruction of Warspite.
Anyone up to spike Drach's tea?
@@absalomdraconis If it has a chance of getting Warspite back? Do you really need to ask? 😉
"Reconstruction of Warspite"
British shipbuilders: best we could do is slap her name on a ballistic missile nuclear submarine
Bismarck's main armour belt extended 2.3 meters below and 2.4 meters above the waterline (As can be seen at 6:43). To intentionally & directly strike that long, narrow strake of armour, showing above the water's surface even from the range of sub 3000m that HMS Rodney closed to whilst making headway in a heavy stormy North Atlantic swell would be nigh on impossible. As the report clearly says "the very large number of hits on the main belt WERE MOSTLY IF NOT ALL FROM SECONDARY guns". A number of the major calibre hits that impacted that long narrow main armour belt more than likely ricochetted off the surface of the sea due to the relatively short range and flattened trajectories involved and lost a large part of their momentum as they did so, that is apart from the two penetrations which were probably the only two direct major calibre hits on the 320mm armour belt..
Gun data for Rodney's 16"/45 Mark I main guns shows their penetration ability as 14.4 inches of vertical armour at 15000 yards. She was firing a LOT closer than this for much of the engagement, so even taking into account her shells striking the main belt at a reasonable angle she would have very little problem with penetrating Bismarck's main belt of 320mm (12.6 inches).
The principle is the same as arguing a dart cannot penetrate the skin of a balloon from 2 miles away. To which the answer is "of course it can.... if it can manage to hit it".
P.S And don't even get me started about Bismarck's wiki page. I've lost count of the exchanges I've had with the page's "self appointed guardian" A.K.A Parsecboy, who polices the page using his jaded, biased agenda, and who when presented with corroborated evidence supporting facts which he doesn't like (such as admiralty reports from the UK national archives), or even correcting blatant errors or misrepresentations on the page, he as a "wiki approved editor" deletes any changes he doesn't like with impunity, and if you've really rubbed his nose in it, will also temporarily ban your IP address from editing wikipedia at all. Not that it "gets my goat"... HONESTLY !!!!
Too many a Wehraboo, sadly.
Parsecboy? Are you serious? I couldn't take him seriously with a name like that. Probably lives in his parents basement.
Unfortunately, far too many of Wikipedia's pages are dominated by self-prepossessed little tyrants like Parsecboy-arrogant little cretins who have managed to carve out a tiny little turf for themselves in which they can exercise the only power they will ever have...a power they abuse in disservice to the truth. One Drach video vanquishes an entire army of such imbeciles.
@@patrickspringer6534 Aye true, But as with the likes of "covid marshalls" he appears to be an inadequate given wikipedia "authority" far in excess his wisdom & abilities. It's why people should beware using wikipedia as a source.
Welcome to the great disillusionment with our Age of Information.
Fools and ideologs obtain strangleholds on speech and data, with no recourse available for free exchange of information to overcome their agenda.
Hearing how frustrated Drach sounds early in the video has me chuckling a bit. That tone of voice only ever means one thing: "I am right, and you are wrong. I can prove it, and I'm about to. Also, no; you can't stop me."
true . Hence we need no other sorces . . . we have Drach. . . he looks at all sides and diggs till he finds the truth. . I am sure if he could he would dive down to the Bismarck ,and dig till all truths were discoverd and documented. .
Especially that little bit of salt at 10:20. I also chuckled.
Didn't need to stop them he did it himself why does it ruin everybody's Day how good the Bismarck was
just my two cents. Whether or not the Germans or British delivered the final blow is irrelevant. The actions the British took alone directly caused Bismarck sink other wise it would have made it to France. Whether or not it was guns or charges that delivered the final blow doesn't matter, the British are responsible for Bismarck's lost.
Exactly. "Most powerful battleship in the world" sailing in a circle, low on fuel and unable to shoot back.
@@shawnc1016 “Unsinkable!“ btw.
I read of an fellow here in the states who insisted, INSISTED, the the Bismark was sunk by the U.S.S. Missouri, which, BTW, was not even built yet. What are you going to do?
@@lorenrogers9269 Slap them across the face with HMS Shannon’s defeat of USS Chesapeake?
It's like a boxer saying "he didn't beat me, the referee stopped the fight".
"There’s no way the Bismarck was damaged by the British. It's impossible."
"Oh now you've done it. You summoned the Dark Lord of Naval History."
Darken your bathroom, approach the mirror and say in a clear voice "Drachinifel. Drachinifel. DRACHINIFEL"
And with the sound of HMS Rodney’s clapped out boilers being overtaxed, he shall appear.
Riding a rematerialised Warspite
Doom awaits you...
Dear Drach,
Excellent review of the Cameron Expedition Report. Your careful citation and refutation of the claims made in Wikipedia, etc. indicate that you are a first-class scholar of the sort who can state specific views in a way that can be supported.
Perhaps the only reason you couldn’t wear the cap and gown to teach at Cambridge or Oxford is that you are *not* a bore *nor* full of yourself, which is an automatic disqualification if one is to be considered for professorship. * 😉
PS I always look for your new posts as s breath of fresh air soon as I open YT. Your precision as an engineer and dry British wit, along with commentary such as that presented in the bit bout the "Mark XIV: Failure is like Onions," is just what I need before looking at Fake News of all sorts. (In my future InfoSec assignments, I'll make sure my team watches that 45 minutes of "failure Analysis" *before* a single line of code/test script is written.)
The last reliable news we had in the USA was when we lost Edward R Murrow, "The Voice of London," reporting during the "Blitz" (and after), along with the last of his “Boys,” Andy Rooney and Walter Cronkite. If you want to see a *REAL* documentary, watch Murrow's *Harvest of Shame* on YT.
* Note: I have "Been there/Done that," which I why, after 5 *frustrating* years as an associate professor in Higher Education and Statistical Measurement, including being a Dean/VP of Administrative Services for a small college, and a reviewer of papers for publication for the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME), I quit, to pursue Computer Science--*0s* and *1s* don't give a damn about the politics of currently fashionable theories of education!
It's somewhat pointless, to be honest. The fact is, after about half an hour, Bismarck's guns were silenced and it was as good as sunk.
Yep, a floating wreck.
This had me howling with laughter at your *barely masked* desire to start ranting and raving at people. This is the most polite, posh, and absolutely thoroughly well done essay of 'get fucked' nerd rage I've ever seen. I love it sir, bravo.
Its solid basis in fact is just the cherry on the cake.
Something Brits are good at. I enjoyed the show.
I will probably never understand people who insist that a ship which was rendered immobile and toothless by enemy action, and whose crew was in the process of taking to the lifeboats, was "scuttled" instead of "sunk" - and further, that this is somehow *very important.* At best this is a distinction without a difference, as there was zero chance _Bismarck_ was going to reach a friendly shore. Weirder yet, this delusion seems most prevalent in the former _Allied_ nations.
All I can conclude is that people who fetishize the WW2 Axis militaries be weird, yo.
Their uniforms were quite dapper but other than that I don't get it.
@@josephthomas8318 But skulls? Why skulls? :D
@@chrismaverick9828 Hans, are we the baddies?
It makes narrative sense, if no other kind of sense. The tougher the enemy, the more valiant "our" side. How glorious were the Royal Navy if they defeated the unsinkable Bismarck?
@@jacobvardy Pretty much, it makes the naval war a little less thrilling when you frame it as "The worlds 2 biggest and most advanced navies teamed up and beat the distant 3rd and very distant 4th and (arguably) 5th"
I try to avoid arguments about Bismarck on social media. I've always felt the main lesson learned was, it's unwise to go out unsupported and virtually alone.
So what you’re saying is Bismarck was asking for it? 😉
In which Drach does an excellent job of stretching "read the bloody report before hitting the Keyboard Warrior button you dumbarses" out past the crucial ten-minute mark in his signature dry and understated style.
Informative, interesting and entertaining, as always. The warship guides are still great "meat and potatoes" content for the channel but the historical retrospectives, analyses and lore lessons really guarantee that the likelihood of me unsubscribing is about as small as the chance that Bismarck was sunk by scuttling charges alone. Thanks for the excellent content once again mate!
So, the Bismarck was scuttled by the British using special 14 & 16" demolition charges flung from a distance 😉
Yep, and the Germans surrendered just because their sense of decency made them not wanting to kill any more allied soldiers.
The British were just being helpful that way.
Spicy flying mini coopers
Weather or not the crew of Bismarck set off scuttling charges or not, He was sunk by the Royal Navy. The torpedo that took out the steering guaranteed his death, because there was no chance of the Kriegsmarine could get out to save him. Even if they had run out of ammunition, Admiral Tovey would have let the planes and destroyers have a go at him, and would have called for more ships to bombard the hulk. I strongly believe that Admiral Tovey would have not settled for anything less than the sinking of Bismarck. I don't think the option of capturing Bismarck was in his vocabulary at that time. The crew setting off scuttling charges only saved the Royal Navy fuel and ammunition. He was going down no matter how long it took.
Excellent video Drach. Thanks and thank you for the copy of the report to read for myself.
She. Like it or not ships are never referred to as he or him. Unless of course you’re doing it on purpose to annoy people.
@@bebo4374 Bismarck's a he. Deal.
@@bebo4374 Captain Ernst Lindemann referred to the ship as HE
@@bebo4374 German ships were male
@@bebo4374 That is a cultural thing. Some places it is he, others it is she. In Germany it happens to be he.
I like the logic at play in these arguments: "The German engineering was FLAWLESS, and the Fuhrer's blessing repelled ALL shells no matter how physically impossible, meaning the Bismarck was INVINCIBLE and could have destroyed the entire Royal Navy single-handedly through sheer discipline and good training. It's just that these invincible super-soldiers decided to sabotage their own ship and jump into the sea for literally no reason, that's the only reason they lost!"
Truly, the mind of a Wehraboo is a fascinating thing
🤣 😂
"Nein nein nein nein nein nein nein!!" - Wehraboos probably
Bismarck was flawless, Der Fuhrer was flawless, Trump is flawless, the work goes on and on........
the Bismark wasn't damaged. Lutjens just liked sailing in circles
I've always been annoyed by the Bismarck myth. Good on you for setting some things straight!
Except that it really does not prove anything one way or another, because they couldn't survey the entire armor deck. The outer layers, meaning the main belt, upper belt and upper deck, were never meant to be immune to penetration. Their purpose was to tear off the AP cap and set off the fuse, so that the shell would detonate before reaching the main armor deck.
So yeah, unless the main armor deck is completely examined, which is probably impossible, we will never know.
Wich one?
Bismarck myths are like religion, irritating and some extremists believe regardless of the facts... but, good work drach..
Its the same nonsense such as the "Bismarck was the most powerful ship of her time" well given the British showed up with 16 inch guns vs Bismarck's paltry 15. And yes, a single inch in naval gunnery results in a much, MUCH larger shell.
@@dynamo1796 Absolutely, and all ten american fast battleships carried 9x16 main batteries with excellent fire control and besides that, arguebly the best DP secondary armament with outstanding fire rate and accuracy against both aerial and surface targets.
I feel it's an odd insult to the crew to say the Bismarck was mostly intact and went down entirely because it was scuttled. As this would mean the crew failed to fight the ship to her limit.
Well I think at that point most of the guns were destroyed or inoperable, I suppose they could have hurled burning bits of the superstructure at the RN, not sure how effective that would be (edit: I'm not doubting she was sinking anyway).
I have to admit I find the whole discussion as to who sank the Bismark puzzling. If Bismark had scuttled herself before the RN even caught her that would definitely not have been seen as in any way a "victory" for the KM. Likewise the scuttling of Graf Spee was not seen as a "victory" in Germany - Hitler refused to allow Langsdorf's body to be repatriated.
Likewise no-one (apart from maybe the crew of Renown) felt they had been cheated of a fight by Graf Spee being scuttled.
At the end of the day the job of a battleship is to destroy enemy ships, not to valiantly scuttle itself.
With Langsdorff, he was in disgrace because he had disobeyed his orders which were not to engage enemy warships unless absolutely necessary. Yet he charged at and engaged three British cruises with no convoy or prize in sight. He should have run away or engaged them at long range in order to disable them and allow him to escape.
It's literally just resentment and spite about the wehraboo's invincible supership getting killed.
That's the whole and entire reason for the controversy.
@@bairdrew it makes no sense, as Bismarck wasn't even that powerful of a battleship for the era. More powerful than the KGV class, but outgunned by several older ships (albeit ones that weren't as fast), using an obsolete armor scheme, and completely outclassed by contemporaneous designs from the USA, Japan, and Italy.
@@danielkorladis7869 Define powerful as in gun size,as in electronics,etc cause if you claim that Bismarck is better than the KGVs you are exclusively looking at guns which is stupid in so many ways.
@@danielkorladis7869 It wasn't even more powerful than the KGVs at all. They were pretty much the equal of eachother - the 10x14" with their increased blasting charges performed as well as the British 15"s, and they were considerably better protected than Bismarck, whilst only being about 1.5kts slower (neither Bismarck nor Tirpitz achieved their advertised 30kts at anything other than light load, which means they could never achieve that speed if being used for something important)
And the KGVs managed all that whilst massing 1000tons less than Bismarck.
My Father was involved in this action, commanding the secondary Port side forward turrets of the KGV (140 shells fired), he always said the the vessel was smoking from stem to stern at the end of the action and that much of that came for "below decks" rather than burning superstructure, he doubted the survival of those members of the crew who had not reached the deck and adamantlyrefuted the ship sunk because she was "scuttled"...
Overlooked in the discussion of false claims about Bismarck's demise is that the report backs Lutjens decision to disengage. With flooding forward and in the engineering spaces Bismarck no longer had the speed to close the range on Prince of Wales and was one more 14" round from certain destruction. she was already mission killed so the correct decision was to break off and attempt to return to a friendly port.
To be fair to Lutjens, he had awful luck. There was really no way out. There was only one ship in the entire world capable of catching Bismarck and fighting her, and that ship turned up at his rear. Even after miraculously sinking Hood, they were locked in a fight with Prince of Wales. After that, they had the entire undivided attention of two aircraft carriers, two more battleships (with PoW maintaining pursuit for a time), and of all things, a random US coastguard Catalina that he couldn't shoot at even if it came close enough. That's not even counting all the other resources that the British were prepared to use. There was really nothing that could've been done.
Given all that, I'm astonished that Prinz Eugen managed to slip away.
Captain Lindemann did want to pursue the Prince of Wales in order to achieve a highly unexpected and unequivocal naval victory to help the propaganda front, believing that they might just as well as they would have to abandon their original intentions of convoy raiding anyway. He was overruled by Lutjens.
If they had chosen to be more adventurous the outcome would have depended on whether the Prinz Eugen could get close enough to deliver her torpedoes and, if so, whether they would have actually exploded. There were many cases during the war of defective German torpedoes.
@@simonpitt8145 Bismarck was no longer capable of catching Prince of Wales nor was her opponent crippled. At this point Prince of Wales was at least knot faster than Bismark. While having some problems keeping all her main guns from firing she was returning fire. If Bismarck took a round in wrong place she was doomed in the Denmark Strait and probably taking Prince Eugen with her.
@@johnshepherd8687 I think you'll find that the Prince of Wales WAS damaged and also had her speed reduced. One of Bismarck's shells had actually penetrated her main belt armour clean through, fortunately without exploding ( typical rotten German luck ). The shell was discovered during repairs. The hit on the Prince of Wales's compass platform killed a significant amount of brave sailors and there were two other hits from the German battleship as well as three lighter ones from Prinz Eugen.
Considering that the Prince of Wales's main battery was breaking down all over the place and she had to disengage in the first place, I don't know how you consider her not crippled. If she wasn't, why disengage?
Bismarck's gunnery was excellent and it is interesting to note that she hit the Prince of Wales more often than the other way round despite the fact that she prioritised the Hood for half the battle while the British ship targeted the Bismarck right throughout. The change of target didn't seem to hinder the German gunners either as they found their range seamlessly.
No, I think if Captain Lindemann had his way there would have been TWO British battleships at the bottom of the Denmark Strait - on the proviso that the Prinz Eugen's torpedoes actually worked.
@@simonpitt8145 The PoW was still capable of 28 knots. (The Iron Sea, Chapter 2, the Hunted). Visibility was poor and the PoW was rapidly closing in on Norfolk and Suffolk which would have put Bismark under the threat torpedo attack and the Prinz Eugen at 2:1 disadvantage in a gunfight. Given that PoW engaged in a long range gunnery exchange into the evening I doubt Bismarck would have not been at an unacceptable risk in continuing the engagement. Lindemann was undoubtedly charged up with adrenaline after sinking the Hood and not coolly accessing risks. This is not a wargame where you fight to the death. Lutjens was responsible for the mission and safety of both ships. He made the only decision that made sense under the circumstances. He still had a chance to bring Bismark safely into port.
PoW disengaged under orders because all the Admiralty knew was that she had been hit. She had taken less damage than Bismatck. That fact that she disengage should make it obvious that she had the speed advantage at that point. Just because she was having problem with her guns does mean she was toothless.
The propaganda armor of the unsinkable Bismarck cannot be penetrated by reality of any caliber.
I bet the White Star Line had the Bismarck PR department working for them!
Thank you Drach for a valiant effort in correcting "common knowledge" on the internet. I also have a spare broom if you'd like some help beating the ocean back. Seriously, though - thank you for your usual excellent and well researched job.
Who in their right mind would believe, that a ship, hailed as the miracle of technological advances, got scuttled by it's crew.
Imagine the scene, the ship is fine, torpedo defences are all right, armor belt and deck intact, not a single torpedo hit, you are being tailed by a vicious Royal Navy fleet, keen to avenge Hood, you are aiming straight for a French shore, yet despite all of this, you decide to scuttle the ship and drown in the icy cold water, just because some airplanes spotted you.
no but it was german policy to scuttle if fear of capture
She was hit by a torpedo , and steering was ruined , she could only go round in circles .... SMH
You forget: the ship cant get anywhere, it can only run in circles and cant be repaired, the guns of the ship is knocked out and destroyed, most of the super structure is destroyed, ship is on fire, crew is getting killed by all shells, whole of royal navy around you, no help is coming, so what shall they do? Play poker? xD
Like graf spee who were also damaged and couldnt be repaired but seaworthy: graf spee scuttled itself, and so did bismarck. It wasnt a ship in perfect condition, it wasnt operational anymore.
Steady on,you are contradicting the Nazi propaganda machine which seems to have survived to this day. Cheers
Some of you should learn about sarcasm., because that's all my comment was. The ship was fu*ked, far from the pristine condition the "Cameronists" would want you to believe.
A friend of mine said that the Bismarck was scuttled in the act of sinking. Really with all the damage she'd taken and the asymetrical flooding, she'd have sunk of progressive flooding regardless of anything else. And we've got examples of scuttlings that took a damn sight longer and were better prepared and planned. The scuttling of the HSF shows that even with the bilge pumps open, the watertight doors removed and judicious use of charges, it took ages for a capital ship to sink. The scuttling charges on Bismarck, if they were fired would have been in a delusatory and not organised way. And unless they blew the bottom out which they didn't then yeah, she's already going down due to flooding from god knows how many holes and dents in her sides, and the scuttling may have helped it along a bit.
The story of premature torpedo explosions probably was confused with an earlier involving a flight of swordfish torpedo bombers mistaking a British cruiser for the Bismarck their attack failed because they were using magnetic detonators causing it explode immediately after hitting the sea, the silver lining from this incident, when the they did find and attack the Bismarck they used contact detonators that did work.
Read the page just before he goes into the torpedo segment. They list premature detonations there.
Heh. Premature explosion.
I would interpret the section on Page 42 to mean that the armoured deck was not damaged by the outburst rather than checking for shell holes. It does seem a bit ambiguous.
A new Drachinifel video is one of the few where I give it a thumbs up before I watch it. Fascinating as always.
As a US Naval vet of 10 years, (74-84) I would like to comment. First of all, I was not on the Bismark nor was I on any of the British ships on that fateful day. Second, I have not gown down to see the remains of the Bismark nor would I if I had the chance. Third, I can only view the pictures / video that has been taken by someone else AND read / hear what has been reported. SO, having said that, my answer to what sank the Bismark would logically be, I truly do not know nor would I have any way of definitively knowing until such time, if at all, some one raises her and takes an in-depth look at the entire ship. NO ONE today really knows. If the ship was sunk by the British OR it was scuttled OR a combination of the two, it really does not matter except for pride. By the way Drac...as always a great / insightful and interesting presentation...thank you. Now I will shut up.
So true what you said , none of us where there that day and all we can do is guess what really happened , olny God knows
It's always bizarre to me the claim of the scuttling. Like, I was already under the impression that, like a lot of sinkings, it is generally a mixture of factors, but the ferventness of people defending the German scuttling is surprising. It can be an inoffensive thing to look at in the academic sense, not so much when people get emotional since it probably matters little to the over 2,000 sailors who were killed aboard Bismarck and in the water afterwards.
I saw in 90s a german doku about the Bismarck. It was full of interviews of the surviving sailors and all of them told that an audio message was sent in the last instants to leave the ship because they were scuttling it.
@@angeledduirbonesu1989 sure, we aren't arguing that the scuttling didn't happen, just that it wasn't the defining act of the sinking
@@angeledduirbonesu1989 I wonder how credible that claim is by so many people? Could they have even heard such a message through all the noise, chaos and destruction? It could have been an agreed position promoted by one of the surviving officers.
@@John.0z I don't know, maybe. The only way to know it is to make an exploration of the inside of the ship, which was described as intact by the leaving sailors.
As my brother likes to say, at the end of the day Bismarck was no longer in the German Navy List, or part of anyone's force calculations.
"Saying the Royal navy did not sink the Bismark because it was scuttled,
is like saying the allies did not win WW2 because Hitler committed suicide." - I can't remember who
That might be the best analogy Ive ever heard!!!
@@wheels-n-tires1846 I only copy from the best 😉
Just about the best comment on this entire thread, copied or not.
Ye've summed it up perfectly!
Stuff found by Ballard RMS Titanic, KMS Bismarck, USS Yorktown and the 50cents I lost in the Glenwood Springs Pool when I was Nine.
LOL! I once attended a lecture by Dr. Ballard at Brown University. I told my dad that I was going and he asked me to ask if Dr. Ballard could find his barracks bag on the USS McCauley. The bag contained my mother's letters. It also had a $2.00 bill in it that Ballard could keep as a tip. Dr. Ballard laughed and said he 'd take a look.
Well done Drach. Truly a pity there are those who parse words to the point of denying history. There are none so blind as those who will not see.
Drach, the claims that you took the time to refute are almost trolling type claims. It's just so obvious, for example, the claims of the armored citadel not being penetrated.
The reconstructionist history from the German side reminds me of "The lost cause," in the Southern United States.
Drach spitting facts and angering the wehr-aboos, what a glorious early start to the weekend!
Excellent job very well done. The way you explained everything makes perfect sense.
Fantastic rebuttal to these rumors! Your obvious disdain for rubbish claims and "history" reporting were priceless! Keep up the phenomenal work!!!
Idk if anyone else has taken the time to say so, but the quality of your advertisements for your sponsors have improved dramatically in quality as of late. Particularly the squarespace series where you build or edit your website. No lie, they are some of the most engaging, well thought out and informative. You can tell that you actually put some thought into them, all that to say your sponsors are really getting their monies worth when the ad is done as well as the rest of your content. Top notch as always Drach! Much love from Oregon
Thanks for another awesome video Drach. In a world where the prevailing attitude appears to be never let the facts get in the way of a good story it is great to have someone who won’t let a (good, bad or indifferent) story get in the way of the facts.
Nice I was just watching a Bismarck documentary for the 10th time and this popped up, thanks Drach for something new as always
I think the discussion is kind of moot. Regardless of the mechanism of the sinking, it sank. It wouldn't have if the British hadn't been there. So... the interaction between the Brits and the Nazis generally and specifically caused the Bismark to sink. -.-
Longest 'well actually' video I've seen, keep up the great work Drach!
I normally don't touch debunking videos of any sort with a barge pole, but since it was you I made an exception. Good job Drach.
Drach in rant mode.. we are in for a fun Friday
Full on rant mode, it was glorious
My boss has working in video and audio wiring for years, and he told me that he worked on Ballards expedition to find the titanic, helping to run the remote submarines.
"Don't let facts get in the way of a good story". Well done Drach, thank you for the facts that most seem to ignore. Bravo Zulu
Bismarck suffered no damage.... in fact she was a giant submarine and merely submerged and left the area unscathed. She sailed South East towards the Bahama's where she still hunts ships for resupply today in the Bermuda Triangle. The Allied nations know this and but cover it up as if she weren't sunk it would be a national embarrassment.
It's true, I swear daily.
Well, I'm convinced!
Well gosh darn it. I knew it!
I hear it parties with Elvis, Lord Lucan and Shergar...
I know this to be a fact. A friend of a friend of mine saw it on the Interweb 😂
After looking extensively into my sources (this video), I can be almost certain, that it is quite probable, perhaps even likely, that The Bismarck did indeed, sink. I'm still looking for absolute confirmation, but once, if, and when I find it, I shall contact the press, and Mr. Cameron out of courtesy.
In the event it turns out to in fact still be afloat rather than in the silt at the bottom of the sea as seems most likely, and should you need assistance in damage control in order to bring her into port, i shall offer assistance via a stick welder and portable generator 😂
Make sure you don't get fooled by the decoy.
The REAL Bismarck merely went into submarine mode and is still prowling the depths, silent and unseen.
The Russians, by the way, employed the same technology on the mighty cruiser-sub Moskva.
@@garfieldfarkle 😂 ah yes, much like yamato musashi and shinano, hiding beneath the surface waiting to unleash fury for the next world wa-....hmmm probably about 3 weeks and we'll be sorely dissapointed im afraid. Haha
I had no idea that there has been a historical debate (fist fight) about what sunk the Bismarck. I think the fact that most of the Royal Navy returned to port and the Bismarck wound up on the sea floor makes it rather a moot point.
Very interesting, thanks Drach. Personally to me it doesn't matter if she went down due to Royal Naval action or because of Royal Naval action.
Quite. A parallel could be drawn with what is termed a “manoeuvre kill” in aviation: it doesn’t really matter if the opponent goes down as a result of your fire or as a result of the actions he takes as a response to your presence - it’s still a result for the one left standing when it’s over.
@@alastairchurch4038 you put it so much better than I did.👍
This will be interesting haha! I'm looking forward to this! I always here people making outrageous claims about this dive
Fundamentally, those ridiculous claims all still confirm ----- the Bismark sank ---- which was the outcome the Royal Navy wanted.
Any ship facing the fire-power that Bismark faced would have suffered damage.
Ohhh F. ya! an unexpected awesome Drachinifel Fun-Friday video!
Thank you so much! It drives me crazy what passes for research these days. Cherry picking a few sentences out of context has become an art form... Great video more please!!!
Bismark's upper works were pummeled at close range. They thought he'd go down from weight of shot or quickly become impotent. They ran in close enough to harry secondaries. They wanted to just keep hitting him. I don't think penetration mattered at all to the gunners. Baby seal comes to mind...
“This was revealed to me in a vision.” Best dry humor one liner I’ve heard this year. Hat’s off sir, I just spit a mouth full of beer out on the floor laugh/choking on that sarcastic gold.
Great summary! As my grandma used to say: "People who are able to read have a clear advantage". But of course this will not keep many id..ts from further perpetrating their alternate facts...
Such a great presentation as always. AND a fantastic comment about doing your own research and drawing your own conclusions instead of just parroting what someone else said.
Oooo. Interesting video today. I watched the expedition. It was amazing. Crazy to think about what it shows..
Seeing the sailors remains when they looked at the seaplane launcher was.. Haunting..
The one thing I've heard about the final bombardment of Bismarck, is that the British were too close. The contention being that the armor scheme of Bismarck was designed for a closer rather than long range battle (because of it's angling) and as a result the British would have better off staying further away. I understand however the emotional satisfaction of getting closer and being able to actually see the impact of your hits on the enemy, especially given the circumstances.
With the ships at point blank range, which they were, the hit rate would be higher, and the impact force with it.
They were, more range would allow plunging fire to get through the deck armour and detonate deep in the ship. As it was most of the heavy gun fire was hitting above the belt and not doing devastating damage leading to a quick sinking, it shredded the superstructure though (personalty I'd call turning the ship into an uninhabitable inferno devastating enough).
@@John.0z The report directly states that close range fire was ineffective for the exact reason the OP stated. There are penetrations but little as most hits didn't actually hit the main belt.
@@jatzi1526 That was probably not the perception of the RN admirals at the time.
They would most likely have tried something different had they known that their shells were passing straight through. But in the fog of war, would they have known that?
@@John.0z Witnesses did see that a lot of the hits were going into the superstructure, and in the case of the heavy guns passing straight through fairly ineffectually. I think it’s worth bearing in mind that penetrating hits at the belt, especially if below the waterline are difficult to see unless they cause something obvious externally. Flooding can also be hard to notice, especially in very heavy weather . In any event, if the close range gunnery wasn’t going to sink Bismarck, then closing the range would allow the destroyers and cruisers to get close enough to finish Bismarck off with torpedos.
I do have to wonder what these people think Bismarck is made out of, they seem to think that saying turtle back is enough, it's baffling. I imagine they think that it must have had thicker armour because it was like the biggest.
Even though the Japanese Yamato class ships were bigger, more heavily armed, and armoured.
Despite those features, all three of those hulls were sunk too.
Probably plot armour.
@@John.0z And to think some crazy people think that Bismarck could realistically sink Yamato in a fair 1v1 duel.
@@metaknight115 As you say - crazy.
@@John.0z Yep. Bismarck would get her ass kicked. Inferior guns and armor, a really bad armor scheme, inferior fire control, and a higher speed by 2.6 knots in not enough to save her. Tirpitz has a few of these issues fixed, like improving the armor scheme and radar that actually worked, but she would have gone down as well, due to the fact that she probably wasn’t even capable of penetrating Yamato’s armor from anything beyond point blank range
Thank you for enclosing the report. I will look forward to reading it.
And once again thank you for such a well-documented video. I really appreciated it. ^^
Drach, how can anyone imagine that 16" and 14" shell hits not damaging any ship, this Bismarck myth is just ridiculous,. After the amount of time and excellent videos you've done on naval history, it just seems incredible that people can't accept logic that Bismarck was probably full of holes as it slipped below the waves courtesy of Rodney and KG5,'. keep up the great videos and try not to scream too loudly at these utterly stupid theories, cheers. Ray
The WW1 era 14" guns of the Kongo class kirishima did in fact bounce off the 17.3" turret barbette side armor of USS South Dakota. Leaving only a dent despite hitting in pretty much ideal conditions, flat on at 5000 yards... However the shell detonating outside the main armor still then proceeded to blow a 20ft wide hole in the weather deck (60# steel thickness, or about 1.5", first of three layers of deck armor), before being stopped by the second layer of the maindexk (5-5.3").
@@Kieselmeister Wasn't the Kirishima loaded with shells for shore bombardment and not armour piercing? At least for the beginning of the engagement?
@@duvetofreason16 that was the previous battle the previous night against the cruiser squadron where hiei was crippled and then scuttled. The ijn started with AP loaded the next night to avoid a repeat of the issue, which ironically resulted in the 8" fire from the escorting cruisers passing straight through the unarmored portions of the SoDak without detonating, due to the overly long fuses of their diving shells. The cruisers also misidentified the SoDak as a Baltimore class cruiser and based the lead aim of their torpedoes based on that, which resulted in them all missing despite the short range.
@@Kieselmeister To be fair, the AP shell went through a hatch coaming and was deflected by the deck just enough to displace the AP cap. That displacement kept the cap from protecting the nose adequately and helped shatter it early so the shell underperformed. Nathan Okun has a great article on Navweaps on the subject.
Nice to meet another SoDak fan! Cheers
@@Kieselmeister they were using HE shells and hadn't switched to AP, your claim that it was the night before is wrong.
I remember my Dad letting me stay up late to watch "Sink The Bismarck" As always, this video was very well done. I have found the Bismarck Cult tedious.
It was on late ~ 2300 when I watched it in Australia when I was a boy and my father made the same allowance for me!
Drach never disappoints.
I've never understood why this was so damn important to some people, and I appreciate the time you've taken to underscore that regardless of who sank the bloody ship, that it is in fact SUNK and resting on the seabed.
it would seem if those who say the Bismarck didn't suffer critical damage, then that really does'nt say good things about the Bismarck crew, who in their minds scuttled a perfectly good ship (well it was th Bismarck) so a perfectly average ship :)
No normal person would conclude that. You do not scuttle a perfectly good ship! You scuttle a beaten ship that you do not want the enemy to get. Or you might want to end a pointless battle to safe atleast some crew.
A perfectly floating ship can still be disabled by superficial damage, massive fire or loss of crew. This still leaves a captured hull to be towed back to Portsmouth by the Royal Navy to repair and use against Germany at worst, or to have a very accurate Tirpitz gunnery target and study subject at least.
pls have alook above (:-)
@@thevictoryoverhimself7298 Battleships are supposed to be rather difficult to disable. If Bismarck was rendered combat ineffective by damage that did not imperil the ship, that speaks rather poorly of its design, now, doesn’t it?
@@jamesharding3459 not really. It means you can recover the hull and repair the ship even when it’s heavily damaged. Or if you think you’re going to be captured you can (get this) open the hatches and scuttle the ship… exactly like what happened.
You need to understand how expensive battleships are to construct. Britain didn’t pay off its war debt until well into the Blair/Bush era. If you can recover a damaged one, you’d want the option.
What is truly sad is the sheer number of people who seem to be incapable of reading and comprehending a report paper.
Churchill ordered the Royal Navy to sink the Bismarck, it was sunk. I would question the scuttling on the grounds that would you risk abandoning your vessel in the mid-Atlantic if you don’t have to.
"For the Honor of the Flag". It makes a difference to many people, as you can tell by the dispute over the cause of her sinking.
This is just more of the idea that WW2 equipment was so advanced that nothing could touch them. Think Tiger tanks.
There is something Ironic about Prince of Wales scoring a hit that affected the boilers and propulsion on Bismarck.
If a ship has already been damaged beyond any chance of staying afloat by enemy action how could it possibly be considered to have been intentionally scuttled? Scuttling involves a deliberate attempt to cause a ship to sink the ship by its own crew a choice that the British had already taken out of their hands.
With that kind of damage the purpose of scuttling a Capital ship is more about ensuring it sinks faster to avoid valuable, secret and sensitive information or technology falling into enemy hands.
It can take a fair old while for a capital ship to finally sink, they are built expressly to absorb damage and stay afloat after all.
That being said, Bismarck was already down at the bow before the order to scuttle was given so she had clearly taken damage below or at the waterline and was taking on water. Given her state, the fact she was on fire from bow to stern, then really it is just a matter of time.
All the scuttling did was speed up the inevitable sinking, and is a balm to wounded pride that many take to the extreme. The fact is whether Bismarck was scuttled or not is irrelevant. She was already sinking, her upperworks utterly smashed, no guns were capable of firing and she was dead in the water. She was combat ineffective, and was so because of the damage inflicted by the Royal Navy. Nothing else is really relevant.
The exact mechanics of how she sunk are not the important factor, the really important factor is WHY she sunk. The 14 and 16 inch rifles of the Rodney and KGV pretty much sum up the answer to that particular question.....
I never understood why some people get so fixated on the whole "Bismark wasn't sunk, she was scuttled" thing. She was rendered combat ineffective by the Royal Navy and there was no saving her either way. You never hear "well Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū, and Hiryū weren't sunk, they were scuttled," it's acknowledged that they were all but destroyed by the Americans and were scuttled because saving them was impossible.
Maybe because the Japanese can take a drubbing and accept it, whereas it seems to be a German national trait to attempt to "save face" by being seen as masters of their own fate, regardless of the fact that they'd previously been drubbed.
Beautifully done. Thank you so much for your typical attention to detail and close scrutiny. An honest appraisal.
Five minutes in: forward photos of battleships always astound me - they are so unlike destroyers and frigates in that they look so fat, twice as wide you expect a ship to be. I understand that this provides stability for firing the big guns, but when I actually see it I am amazed.
Now lets be honest, everyone knows the real ship that sunk the Bismark was the ORP Piorun. The crew had to scuttle the ship out of pure embarrassment for not being able to score any hits while being taunted by the enemy crew for over an hour.
^this is a joke
Even if Bismarck was scuttled it doesn’t change the fact that it was done because the Royal Navy had battered her into a useless flaming wreck. Claiming otherwise is like saying Akagi and Kaga were scuttled but not because they were reduced to wrecks by the dive bombing attack.
A great video and my main take away is that the fan boys took the Cameron report and, surprise surprise, distorted the facts. Not an uncommon phenomenon. But you present your arguments and facts in a very thoughtful and professional manner. It's my first time seeing one of your videos, so well done! And Cameron has even stated that had the Germans not set scuttling charges, Bismarck would have succumbed to it's wounds eventually. I remember hearing that given the damage, the list, etc. It probably could have stayed afloat a couple hours at most. His documentary also states the German's scuttling it just sped up the inevitable as a way of ending the British onslaught. Got to love the fan boys selective hearing and making them talking points. 😅 In the end, it was a well designed ship that did take a beating, but like everything, wasn't the end all be all and certainly not unsinkable.
Excellent presentation! I know Bill Garzke and am a member of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers (SNAME) Marine Forensics Committee that Bill founded and still co-chairs. He (and other members of the MFC) have similar issues with people who ignore the facts and are unwilling to follow solid forensic procedures when analyzing a maritime casualty. Bill has authored a number of articles and books on the DKM Bismarck, each well thought out and based on the best information available at the time. On a semi-related topic, he has just written a paper on the sinking of the RMS Lusitania based on the availability of the recently uncovered actual cargo manifest that shows the ship was carrying several hundred tonnes of munitions on the final voyage and the effect of the torpedo hit on that cargo. This paper will be presented at the SNAME Maritime Convention 27-29 September 2022 in Houston, TX.
James Cameron is a storyteller and I don't remember the documentary on his expedition to Bismarck as well as the one to Titanic since I've seen the Titanic one more recently. While I'm glad Cameron put the expeditions together and did the documentaries because they looked great, I think the report contradicts itself often because Cameron had the story in his head the way he thought it went no matter what the actual evidence revealed.
James Cameron was a film maker, not a group known for historical accuracy. He used the Akademik Mstislav Keldysh as his ship, he had previously used her for his film Titanic. Her two Mir Submersibles were used to film the wreck. I have looked through the 20cm vision ports and the vision is poor, so cameras would be better.
Film makers like many modern revisionist authors of today use the made up "Controversy" to publish there works, there is nothing that counts as bad news.
ah - maybe he wants to sell the story to the German public which is understandable so a heroic death is needed not a humiliating loss and destruction. Up against better modern warships this ship was vulnerable.
@@Locochris1956 It would be for the wehraboos. I don't think modern day Germans care much one way or another.
Drach sir, just to let you know, notifications are AOK got here pdq
Drach letting his LaserPig out. Love it
He seems a bit sober though? Apply whiskey and I'm sure he can improve his rant game.
😂 Drachy, is FIRED UP!
Love ya work mate