Comments by "" (@RedXlV) on "The Drydock - Episode 124" video.

@lukedogwalker Had Bismarck been captured intact enough to be practical to repair and put back into service, a battleship with completely non-standard equipment would be a bit difficult to bring into operational service. Just the ammunition supply would be a problem, unless the guns and shell hoists turned out to be easily adapted to British ammo of the same caliber. And it would take some time to familiarize a crew with the German machinery. Odds are, the Royal Navy wouldn't consider it worthwhile to bring such a non-standard ship into service and instead she'd be given to one of the other Allies. But as hilarious as giving Bismarck to Poland would've been, the over 2,000 officers and men needed to crew the ship would constitute about 2/3 of the entire Polish Navy in exile. The only nation likely to have both the interest and the manpower to operate her would be the Soviets. Given that prior to Barbarossa they bought an incomplete heavy cruiser from Germany and were attempting to buy 38cm SK C/34 guns and turrets, it's likely the USSR already had the specifications on hand for the ammunition and would've been able to manufacture it. (Though based on their test-firing of a 406mm B-37 gun intended for the Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleships, the quality of large-caliber shells the Soviets could make at the time wasn't very high.) I shudder to think what condition Bismarck would've ended up in after a few years in Soviet hands, given that Royal Sovereign was returned to Britain with her turrets rusted in place.
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@Bjorn the overly, excessively enslaved singaporean Even beyond the knowledge to operate a modern battleship, the Poles also lacked the manpower. The Polish Navy in Britain had about 3,000 officers and men. It would take just over 2,000 of them to operate Bismarck. Meaning that crew would have to be diverted away from their destroyers. Which were desperately needed since Britain had a shortfall of destroyers.
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