# Why did the WWII German battleship Bismarck have trouble hitting the Swordfish torpedo bombers?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-wwii-german-battleship-bismarck-have-trouble-hitting-the-swordfish-torpedo-bombers/805298>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 26, 2017, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-wwii-german-battleship-bismarck-have-trouble-hitting-the-swordfish-torpedo-bombers/805298 "2017-12-26T03:45:57Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\
**Post date:** [December 26, 2017, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-wwii-german-battleship-bismarck-have-trouble-hitting-the-swordfish-torpedo-bombers/805298/1 "2017-12-26T03:45:57Z")

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I have heard it repeated in documentaries that the WWII German battleship Bismarck had trouble hitting the slow moving Swordfish torpedo bi-planes.

I do not understand why this is so though. It would seem it is easier to hit something going slow than going fast. Presumably the Bismarck’s AA guns were built to deal with more modern, fast moving planes. But even so one would think it should be trivial for the AA on Bismarck to annihilate the plodding Swordfish.

Clearly that didn’t happen though and the Swordfish were successful against the battleship.

So what gives?

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**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\
**Post date:** [December 26, 2017, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-wwii-german-battleship-bismarck-have-trouble-hitting-the-swordfish-torpedo-bombers/805298/2 "2017-12-26T04:47:52Z")

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Some of the problem was that the Swordfish were cloth-covered butterflies. Unless the AA hit something solid, it went right through without exploding.

The weather was also crap during the attack. The planes got one torpedo hit, which didn’t do much.

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**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\
**Post date:** [December 26, 2017, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-wwii-german-battleship-bismarck-have-trouble-hitting-the-swordfish-torpedo-bombers/805298/3 "2017-12-26T05:01:59Z")

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> [@silenus](#):
>
> The planes got one torpedo hit, which didn’t do much.

It did enough. 😉

There’s a discussion [here](http://www.kbismarck.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=65) that seeks to answer the very question of the OP.

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**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\
**Post date:** [December 26, 2017, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-wwii-german-battleship-bismarck-have-trouble-hitting-the-swordfish-torpedo-bombers/805298/4 "2017-12-26T05:18:41Z")

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> [@Johnny\_L.A](#):
>
> …There’s a discussion [here](http://www.kbismarck.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=65) that seeks to answer the very question of the OP.

Thanks! That was interesting. I’d always wondered about the _Bismarck_’s poor luck with the obsolete, relatively slow planes attacking it.