To put it slightly differently, using the very best modern naval surface warfare simulation software, if you ran the fight between Hood and Bismarck 100 times, would the Hood win any reasonable number of times, or is the weakness of her armor just an insurmountable limitation?
(And, yeah, there are always 1000-to-1 “critical hits…”)
Even without the crits I think one on one the Hood just would have been outclassed, although she might have done better than I initially thought.
The Bismarck had better guns, armour, and maybe better fire control computers. Here is an interesting breakdown of Bismarck and her contemporaries:
One thing to keep in mind is that Hood had modern (for the time) fire control radar in the Type 284 (US Mark 3) radar set. Bismarck’s fire control system was strictly visual, with only a search radar to find the ships in a general sense.
This would have given Hood a big advantage if used correctly; in the Pacific, American ships with fire control radar absolutely savaged the Japanese ships they encountered without it- look at Kirishima v. Washington off Guadalcanal, or the Battle of the Surigao Strait.
One thing I heard is that the Hood had the same metallurgical vulnerabilities as the Titanic, though I do not know how much difference that would have ultimately made.
Yes. To employ a term that one of our regular posters here often uses, there was a non zero chance of it happening.
But the there was a non zero chance of a Heavy Cruiser doing the same to the Bismarck. Hood’s chances were much more than zero compared to the hypothetical heavy cruiser, it was a ship with heavy guns and fire control, but the odds were stacked against her, she was facing a ship a generation newer.
Like with the Washington and Kirishima, if you run a simulation a hundred times, the newer ship would win most of the bouts, but the older one would have enough wins that for a matchup you would not write it off.
There are sims out there that can do exactly that. My Google fu is faling me tho, can’t find the sim I had ~10 years ago which would do this. [and work beckons in 30 min]
I think the question should be:
“Could the Hood and Prince of Wales possibly have Whipped the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen?”
Of course they could have. One modern battleship and one modern heavy cruiser vs one old plus one modern battleship is a pretty one-sided matchup unless the side with only one battleship gets very very lucky, which it so happens they did.
That’s not even mentioning the two British heavy cruisers hurrying to get into the fight.
I think the question should be:
“Could the Hood and Prince of Wales possibly have Whipped the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen?”
Of course they could have. One modern battleship and one modern heavy cruiser vs one old plus one modern battleship is a pretty one-sided matchup unless the side with only one battleship gets very very lucky, which it so happens they did.
That’s not even mentioning the two British heavy cruisers hurrying to get into the fight.
Agreed. The Bismarck was in fact vulnerable to plunging fire, having been designed as a “we will win a rerun of the battle of Jutland” ship, being armored to take hits from the side at close range. Given the accuracy of gunnery at that time, it was pure luck that Bismarck got a hit so soon, and as luck would have it, in a vulnerable area. Exactly what happened is a matter of debate. Also, Hood starting firing at Prinz Eugen instead of Bismarck and had to correct.
PoW had problems with the quadruple turrets and could not put out as many shells as it could have, yet it scored hits on the Bismarck, including the crucial damage to the fuel tanks that forced Bismarck to abort its mission. It could be argued that Hood and PoW had done their job on the basis of that alone. My guess is that the RN had always expected to lose a ship or two against the Bismarck, but it did not matter, as they had many more, and Germany did not.
The quadruple mountings were very complex, with numerous safety interlocks, which caused trouble throughout the *KGV-*class’s career. All due to trying to get inside the 35,000-ton treaty limit - arguably a smaller battery would proved more reliable.
Hood had been due for a substantial reconstruction, originally timetabled for 1941, which would have left her resembling a modified Renown, but the war situation meant she could not be spared.
Brayne_Ded
Agreed. The Bismarck was in fact vulnerable to plunging fire, having been designed as a “we will win a rerun of the battle of Jutland” ship, being armored to take hits from the side at close range. Given the accuracy of gunnery at that time, it was pure luck that Bismarck got a hit so soon, and as luck would have it, in a vulnerable area. Exactly what happened is a matter of debate. Also, Hood starting firing at Prinz Eugen instead of Bismarck and had to correct.
Then Bismark had an incredible streak of pure luck. First the Hood, then the Prince of Wales, and lastly the Rodney. In all three she found the range within four salvos. No other battleship has ever done that. And if shooting at a cruiser initially and then switching to a battleship is hard, consider what the Bismark did; firing salvos at the Hood with her main guns and at the same time shooting at the Prince of Wales with her secondary batteries,
That certainly makes sense, strategically. The British could win by attrition, and the Germans most certainly could not.
(On my computer shelf, right in front of me as I am typing, I have a 7-inch die-cast replica of the Rodney. Always loved its guns-forward configuration!)
I don’t believe an admiral will sacrifice a capital ship and more than 1,000 lives to throw them into a battle they are sure to lose. We know of suicide attacks during the war and Denmark Strait wasn’t one of them.
To answer your question, the Hood and the POW should have immediately ganged up on Bismark, whether via crossing the ‘T’ ala Surigao Strait, or a widening ‘V’ ala Rio Plata. What WW2 has taught us is a WWI-vintage battleship/cruiser should avoid a one-on-one confrontation with a post-Washington Treaty battlewagon.
Against Hood, Prinz Eugen outshot Bismarck. She straddled on the 1st salvo, the 2nd salvo was unobserved, and the 3rd salvo hit.
Neither of those attack movements vs. Bismarck was an option for Admiral Holland. They arrived too late to cross the T, or to split up ala Rio Plata.
Also, strange things happen in combat. One WW1 battlecruiser did defeat a modern BB. Kirishima was clearly the victor against the far superior South Dakota. Five main battery hits vs zero.
Well, night fighting at Guadalcanal was always a wooly-pooly affair with a ship getting hit usually while it’s busy pounding at another ship. The South Dakota was pounding the destroyer Ayanami while Kirishima and the Atago were already training their guns at her. The Washington, meanwhile was already tracking Kirishima while the latter was still focused on South Dak. The Washington sank Kirishima but she took at least one torpedo hit that didn’t go off.
So without the shoot-and-be-shot-at risk at Guadalcanal, How could Holland have deployed his ships? If the can’t maneuver into better firing positions as you said, the best they could have done was to stand it off outside 5 miles in a running fight, and let other British units join in. A couple more heavy cruisers or one more battleship perhaps.
I remember watching a sim a couple of years ago where the Yamato got beaten by the Bismarck (though the Bismarck took enough damage it was basically a smoldering wreck at the end but it was still afloat)
I still don’t believe it, I can’t envision a scenario where the Yamato loses to the Bismarck even with lucky hits unless somehow every crew member on the Yamato dies of a heart attack all at once.
Re: the original post, it’s possible for Hood and Prince of Wales to win. It requires something unlikely. For instance, if Bis loses electrical power at a critical moment, as South Dakota did at Guadalcanal. Or Bis could be hit in her main fire control station, which was used to aim the main guns. This was a relatively small target, but was vulnerable to even small caliber artillery. Three days after the Hood-Bismarck battle, Bismarck was hit here by an 8” cruiser shell. Bis shifted her gunfire control to her aft FC station, but in the interval, her gunfire became ineffective.
Bismarck defeating Yamato? Some similar critical loss is needed for that, too.
Agreed, Holland’s options were poor. He’d have done better with his toughest ship (PofW) in front.
Notso hotso a configuration when trying to run away and deliver large caliber fire against your pursuers.
I also wonder how much having a visually distinctive configuration makes you a preferred target. A rule of thumb in the infantry is that the guy wearing the non-typical uniform gets shot at first. If nothing else, back in the days of visual ship recognition, by being the weird-looking one you’re giving whoever you’re up against certainty about their opponent and her capabilities earlier rather than later.
Backing off that topic to the thread in general …
I recall back in the 1980s reading an article in USNI’s Proceedings about ship combat statistics. I’d link to it but I don’t recall enough tidbits to search effectively. The article may well have been a couple of decades old even then.
But the punchline is that through analysis they found that the combat power of a ship, any ship, declines exponentially on the number of hits it’s taken. Vital hits increase the coefficient more than do minor hits, but the number that really matters is hits absorbed; the rest is just noise.
With the result that between evenly matched vessels the first side to score a hit almost always wins. And for an under-matched vessel, getting the first hit alone is often enough to even the odds, while first two hits may well give a huge advantage. Whether two hits is decisive or the underdog needs three depends mostly on how over/under the match-up was at the outset.
Any given battle will unfold as it may, so the statistics may not play out with these two particular ships at this particular place and time. But it’s sure the way to bet. And therefore is sure the way for fleet commanders to deploy and spend their ships.
Obviously having a greater range of effectively aimed fire than the other guy is the ideal way to ensure you get that extremely valuable first hit. And to some degree, better aiming can trade off for greater kinematic range.
But who gets the first hit still has a large element of luck: who’s got the more alert, effective crew & CIC? Who sees who first versus the weather? At what angles? Bow on has a firing disadvantage against broadside, but broadside is easier to see in the first place. etc.
My bottom line as to Hood vs Bismarck: With enough luck, of course they could have whipped the Bis. All they needed was a couple of early shots to land while Bis’s missed or were never fired.
Navies at War is the sim I was thinking of.
The thing is, while all of the ship’s vitals is covered by armor (effective or not), the upper works are not. Take out the gun directors early, and now each gun must be trained from the turret.