What if the Bismark returned?

[Troy Tempest]

Hi Hyperion, I agree! While Andy is right in asking whether or not Admiral Lutjens knew whether or not the PoW was badly damaged or not, (why would it steam away at full possible speed if it wasn't), and whether or not there was a larger force around (maybe, but that force could be around at any time, and the Bismarck was already being shadowed by the Norfolk and Suffolk, and the RAF Catalinas, so it's not like the RN wasn't aware of her presence or intentions, best to deal with it while things are going your way), so when a golden opportunity is laid at your feet, go for it! I don't think the best use of a top line battleship is to sink merchant ships, you can do that with cruisers and U-boats! If it was sent out for that purpose, fair enough. But having had combat thrust upon it changes everything! It's all very well to say 'orders prevented the Bismarck persuing PoW', but orders are often broken in the field, when opportunities present themselves, the local commander can and often does take action on his own initiative. SS-Obergruppenführer Paul Hausser and Generalfeldmarshals von Manstein, Model and Kesselring often took risks or didn't stick to the rigid orders they may have been given, because a local situation had changed, and they acted! I often wonder what Captain Lindemann would have done if he wasn't burdened with the presence of Admiral Lutjens. Let's just say he did persue and sink the PoW, and then either returned home or to Norway. I can't see the Führer flying into a frenzy because the Bismarck didn't sink some tankers or merchantmen, but instead sunk two RN capital ships and made it home, there would be Knights Crosses all round. Even if the Bismarck had incurred more damage while sinking the PoW, damage can be repaired a lot faster than the RN can build two new capital ships. Even if it lay in a fjiord in Norway for who knows how long afterwards, its presence would still require RN assets to be allocated to it, just like the Tirpitz. While the Führer often punished people for not following his specific orders, it is also true, that he also rewarded people who disobeyed his orders and pulled off a great victory. The commander in the field must have the last say, I believe, and I believe Captain Lindemann would have run the PoW down given the chance. Timidity or overcaution seems to have run in the family for a lot of Kriegsmarine surface commanders. I still think the massive potential propaganda blow that the sinking of the PoW as well as the Hood would have created, surely justified such a risk.

[phylo_roadking]

Ok....

First of all, I'm assuming Lutjens' orders would have come from Raeder? And traditionally NAVIES of ANY nation do NOT foster individual initiative. This can be awarded if not actively encouraged on the land battlefield, because the outcome of SO many battles depends on circumstance outside an officer's own orders or anything directly under his or his superiors' control. Find your opponent has made a feck-up and exploit it? OF COURSE you get an accolade....

(The navy tradition comes as a result of hundreds' of years of "remote" direction of ships by admiralties by way of VERY explicit orders - and a court of investigation to determine if ANY changes a captain made were contrary to those orders NO MATTER WHAT the benefit. Written orders and windpower gave captains months if not often years out of contact with authority - but it did NOT give him the authority to countermand or ignore orders. They walked, broken from the service, if they did that without very remarkably good reasons.)

BUT the war at sea is a VERY different prospect. Its a LOT more like some gigantic game of chess, knowing where the enemy has his units and stopping him from knowing where yours are. On land you ONLY do that to the point it gives you an edge THEN you throw them together! At sea you avoid contact UNLESS that is your GIVEN objective, or its unavoidable, because the time/distance factor means that there isn't a naval battle in history that occurs between exactly equal forces OR time/distance allows ANY practical reinforcement.

You have to remember that as far as ANYONE on the Bismarck was concerned - the Hood's destruction was a miracle. Yes, there had been magazine fires before - at the Falklands and Coronel and Jutland, but none QUITE so catastrophic quite so quickly with relatively-speaking so little damage in return. Lutjens hoped after all to break out into the Atlantic WITHOUT contact with the RN, and to do so at the cost of the Hood and very little - though ultimately important - damage....all his Christmases had come at once.

Also, remember we're talking PRE-Pearl Harbour here - RAF Coastal Command did not yet have Liberators, and the central North Atlantic was still way beyond maritime reconaissance. So as part of that great chess game, Lutjens knew that if he turned back...

1/ He'd be under the possibility of British aerial reconaissance all the way;

2/ He'd have to run the gauntlet of the Grennland-Iceland-UK Gap AGAIN, in reverse, AFTER Hood/POW had reported her general location;

3/ He had only accounted for ONE RN unit - he had no idea exactly how much damage POW had taken, or how soon she could put about again;

4/ He STILL had the cover of bad weather for another 24 hours to get him into mid-Atlantic; If he turned back, with the weather generally clearing, he'd be 24 hours from friendly air cover - in the open.....so he could either be in the shelter of the LW form Norway, or "lost" in the Atlantic.....

5/ He'd be disobeying orders having SUCCESSFULLY broken out into the Atlantic - the Board of Inquiry after giving away THAT incredible advantage could have seen him swing!

6/ He was still fuelled and provisioned for a long commerce-raiding voyage; he had no idea that the Admiralty had stripped Gibraltar to send against him.

Would YOU turn back?

[Troy Tempest]

Wouldn't he have presumed the RN would pull out all stops to find him? Especially after the loss of the Hood, he would have known they wouldn't have taken that lying down? With the Norfolk and Suffolk already shadowing him, he must have realized the RN weren't going to let go? Wouldn't at least going to Norway for repairs have been a wiser choice, even if he didn't persue the PoW?

Troy

[phylo_roadking]

The repairs weren't at that point anything like serious enough to force a withdrawal, it was the damage from the Glorious' Swordfish that did that later. As far as Lutjens would have figured, IF he'd met TWO capital ships exactly where he expected to meet some RN elements, then he'd have quite rightly expected the Home Fleet to be split up watching all the passages out of the North Sea into the Atlantic. In 1941, with gunnery radar but as yet not decently long-range surface radar, a sea search was still a matter of knowing or guessing where your opponent was going to be, and waiting for him there - which is exactly what the RN had done...except they had had to cover FOUR locations! LOL

As for the Norfolk and Suffolk, the weather was still foul at that point...and they DID loose him LOL

Imagine the map plot now - IF he turned back, and this was reported...to get to Norway he would have had to steer a course that WHATEVER passage INTO the North Sea he took, he would be the focus of the converging ships of the Home Fleet I.E. he would be steering straight into a fleet action! But keeping on into the Atlantic he was doing what ALL sea captains do once they've broken contact - opening up the distance between him and any pursuit with every nautical mile. Remember - "a stern chase is a long chase" and with the Bismark heading into the dead zone of no aerial recce and bad weather, he was multiplying the factors that were working to his advantage.

Don't forget, what stopped him was NOT the predictable - it was the weather clearing JUST long enough for him to be spotted and his position given to the Glorious, and after that it was the flotilla from Gibraltar, including the Ark Royal, that stopped him, allowing the POW to catch up. Both the air attacks were not predictable, but the general positions of the Home Fleet WOULD have been guessable - he was an admiral, if he'd had limited units to cover four positions in strength he'd have divided his forces in the same way! He couldn't have named or classed the vessels at each passage, but in contacting the Hood and the POW he at aleast knew where they were - and who WASN'T there! LOL

Remember the idea of the chess game? Exactly the sort of figuring that put Henry Harwood off Montevideo for the Graf Spee. A senior naval officer in the days before modern aerial and satellite recconaissance would have made a great Grand Master LOL

[Troy Tempest]

Remember - "a stern chase is a long chase"

Are you a former naval guy phylo? Or just an armchair admiral like the rest of us!

Troy

[Andy H]

The RN also had a back up plan.
In the RTL, the RN strung a line of submarines across the approaches to the French Atlantic ports. Obviously the RN surface assets could only sail so far before the Bismarck came under LW cover.

Regards

[phylo_roadking]

Yep :-) Because even the RN had come to the same conclusions as Lutjens, that it would be suicidal to turn directly back to Norway.

Not forner navy, but have navy in the family.

[Troy Tempest]

Hi phylo, I don't meant to sound flippant about the loss of men, but couldn't the Luftwaffe have sent some Condors out to perhaps bomb the RN units as they closed on the Bismarck? Would the range of the Fw 200's have enabled them to fly one-way to the battle site for their mission? A volunteer mission? Even if suicidal, they could have stripped all the crew except maybe the pilot and navigator/bombadier, so at the worst, the would lose only two crew per plane. If a schwarm of Fw 200s had found the RN battleships, perhaps they may have been able to damage them or drive them off? Sorry if this sounds really far-fetched, but if it was possible, then I think the potential loss of life from the four bombers would have been a good trade if they could have saved the Bismarck. Afterall, Japanese land based level bombers sank the PoW the next year at sea, though probably under better conditions.

Troy

[redcoat]

but couldn't the Luftwaffe have sent some Condors out to perhaps bomb the RN units as they closed on the Bismarck? Would the range of the Fw 200's have enabled them to fly one-way to the battle site for their mission? A volunteer mission? Even if suicidal, they could have stripped all the crew except maybe the pilot and navigator/bombadier, so at the worst, the would lose only two crew per plane. If a schwarm of Fw 200s had found the RN battleships, perhaps they may have been able to damage them or drive them off?

The Fw 200 Condors would have had enough range to reach the Bismark, but the FW 200 was only ever operational in small numbers, and the aircraft was totally unsuitable for an attack on a battle fleet with a heavy AA armament, being highly vulnerable to even light MG fire.
Almost certainly, if an attack of this type had been launched, the Fw 200's would have been shot out of the sky, without achieving anything

[phylo_roadking]

Yes, and accurate bombing at sea means divebombing - with the Condors could NOT have even dreamt of attempting, they'd have pulled their own wings off. These wonderplanes more than occasionally broke in two on landing! Its was Stukas and Ju88s that the RN was so vulnerable to at Dunkirk and in the Med.

Don't forget too that the RN would have had fighter cover from Glorious and Ark Royal.

[sid guttridge]

Hi Guys,

Bismarck had been damaged and had lost some speed. Could she even have caught Prince of Wales?

Cheers,

Sid.

[Andy H]

If memory serves didn't the Bismarck pass over the British minefields between Iceland & Greenland?

Regards

[Troy Tempest]

Yes, and accurate bombing at sea means divebombing

Hi phylo, if my admittedely faulty memory serves me correctly, weren't the bombers that sunk the PoW and ? land based Betty bombers?

Troy

[Tiornu]

Yes, Betties and Nells.

[phylo_roadking]

Which could, like Ju88s, just about function in a divebomber or skip-bombing role, though more restricted....but certainly not half as restricted as the structural integrity or lack of it of an FW200. Plus the Condor was regarded by the LW pretty much like its big five and six-engined flying boats, as somewhat of a strategic-level resource, for long-range recconaisance and merchant vessel attacking - I don't think the LW would have "wasted" them on an operation like this, I don't think they'd have been ALLOWED to, in the sense of - you lose a major capital ship, or you lose a major capital ship AND your only real long-range maritime rcee and striking potential. Don't forget, the KM knew Glorious was in the North Sea as part of the Home fleet, so the LW would have been putting their most precious (at that time) resource in the air in the face of her fighter complement....