no more than 20 could be classed (charitably) as large. And the main battery had a range of at best 20 miles (22½ if firing over land)
I think the Bismark was strongly constructed but probably not the most powerful ship ever. I know it had 15 inch guns but the American Iowa class and even the slightly older ones had 16 inch guns.
The Japanese Yamato and Musahshi had 18 inch main battery. I recall that a single torpedo almost sunk her due to a flaw in the armor. That was corrected and after that she was probably the most powerful of any battleship.
Bismarck was a good battleship, but far from the best ever built. She was definitely outclassed be the Yamatos and Iowas. She may not even have been the equal of the South Dakotas.
But the point of the article is well-taken. She received her decisive wound from a slow, obsolete biplane. Proof that the battlship, without air cover, was an obsolete wepons system in its own right.
A little pluck, a little ingenuity, and a lot faith—Traits that characterized the America I grew-up in.
And my kids wonder why I’m so disgusted the the current “leadership” of the Republican Party.
This is garbage.
The Bismarck is one of the most overrated ships in naval history. Many of its design characteristics were obsolete and left over from end-of-WWI designs.
The Bismarck had a fairly weak anti-aircraft armament that was NOT up-to-date, was poorly coordinated, had faulty equipment, and the crew was not well trained in anti-aircraft fire.
The assertion that the Swordfish were "too slow" to hit is idiotic.
Man, I missed this. This is even more stupid and reveals that the author knows nothing about naval warfare.
In World War II, the only "anti-torpedo" device were nets, deployed around stationary ships in port. Other than that, all you could do is maneuver to avoid them (despite extremely rare incidences of torpedoes being shot). You couldn't use "cannons" or "depth charges" to stop a torpedo in the water.
This my friends is how we can spot liberal progressive thinking, they cannot tell the truth, everything is hyped, inflated and incorrect, a lie living in fantasyland.
Anothere lesson of how to spot liberal propaganda.
I know the real facts of this story, but somebody has an agenda to rewrite history.
Just like an Obama groupie.