Another excellent book on the subject is "The Bismark Chase New Light on a Famus Engagement," by Robert J. Windlareth.
The Brits were pretty intent on sinking Bismark, which is the source of my target practice crack. Didn't they have another cruiser or two shadowing her? Target practice can involve torpedoes as well as gunfire.
I'm aware of the Luftwaffe and fuel problems. They're factors that made the task so urgent. And British fear of German subs was a big reason so few men survived the Bismark. Mullenheim-Rechberg was picked up by Dorsetshire and actually protested to her Captain when the cruiser suddenly left the scene in the middle of the rescue. (The Captain gave him a scotch. The ability to booze it up while in the middle of battle is an advantage the Brits still retain over us). There had been what the British believed was a submarine sighting, and they weren't about to loiter.
I suspect that had Bismark survived, further German operations would more likely have been more of the same -- a single big ship with an escort or two, acting as commerce raiders -- rather than concentrating his assets into anything resembling a cohesive force. Of course, that's just conjecture on my part. And I'm d*mn glad it is.
Total British Forces that engaged Bismarck in combat or as an escort for its destruction:
Battleships - King George V (e), Rodney (e), Ramilles, Revenge, Prince of Wales (e)
Aircraft Carriers - Victorious (e), Ark Royal (e), Furious, Implacable, Indefatigable, Fencer, Nabob, Searcher, Pursuer, Trumpeter
Battlecruisers - Hood (e), Renown, Repulse
Heavy Cruisers - Norfolk,Suffolk,Dorsetshire,London (all e)
Light Cruisers - Manchester(e), Hermoine, Sheffield (e), Neptune (e), Arethusa, Edinburgh, Galatea, Birmingham, Aurora
Destroyers - Achates, Antelope, Anthony, Echo, Somali, Eskimo, Nestor, Jupiter, Electra, Icarus, Active, Inglefield
Intrepid, Assiniboine, Saguenay, Lance, Legion, Columbia
Punjabi, Winsor, Mashona, Cossack, Sikh, Zulu, Maori
Piorun (Polish), Tartar, Faulknor, Foresight, Forester, Foxhound, Fury, Hesperus (Tribals engaged Bismarck as class)
As you can see they had nearly the whole Royal Navy after her. They knew the morale problems that would happen if the Bismarck returned to port. Another great book is Pursuit by Ludovic Kennedy.
I bet had the Bismarck survived, Raeder would have sent at least two to three groups of ships as task groups.
Group 1: Bismarck or Tirpitz with Admiral Scheer or Lutzow
Group 2:Scharnhorst and Gneisenau
plus 1 heavy, 2 light and four to six destroyers as escorts per group.
To send these ships out at the same time would have created bedlam with the Home Fleet. With their Fleet in Being concept it would have given them great versatility.