Comments by "doveton sturdee" (@dovetonsturdee7033) on "Extra History" channel.

  1. Whereas, presumably, in your mind Bismarck & Prinz Eugen were simply cruise liners, with no intention of doing any harm to anyone?
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  2. The Jean Bart was only commissioned in 1949. Impero displaced 45485 tons, and was 790 feet long. Bismarck displaced 49500 tons, and was 823 feet long.
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  3. Why? Because they sank a ship which had been on a mission to attack convoys? What precisely is morally unacceptable about that?
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  4. Scharnhorst & Gneisenau didn't pick up survivors after sinking the carrier Glorious off Norway in 1940 either, but no-one has ever suggested that that was a crime.
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  5. How exactly did the British leave the crew of 'Tirpitz' to die. She sank in a Norwegian Fjord, for heaven's sake.
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  6. The Washington naval treaty allowed the British to construct two 16 inch gunned battleships, because the US navy already had the Colorados, and the Japanese navy the Nagatos.
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  7. The Enigma Turing and his team broke was far more advanced than that initially broken by Polish mathematicians, but in point of fact most people who know anything about the subject are well aware that Bletchley Park built on the initial Polish achievements.
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  8. But not in service in May 1941.
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  9.  @laurarobertson2287  No, the Yamato was vastly superior to the Bismarck. Both, however, were built for a time that had gone.
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  10. Bismarck was slightly smaller than Tirpitz, but Tirpitz wasn't operational in May, 1941. Neither was Yamato or the North Carolinas.
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  11.  @noobmithut2767  So nothing. I was simply correcting your false assertion. In May, 1941, Bismarck was the biggest battleship on earth, although hardly the best.
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  12. Actually, Bismarck's weight of broadside was inferior to that of the Nelsons, the KGVs, Hood, the QEs, and the Rs. In terms of armour, the Nelsons & the KGVs were both much superior.
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  13. Not in the slightest. Bismarck's commerce raiding mission had already been abandoned after the damage she received from Prince of Wales. She would probably have fled back to Germany with Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, & Prinz Eugen as part of the 'Channel Dash' after the Kreigsmarine abandoned any idea of surface ship operations in the Atlantic, and thereafter ended up hiding in a fjord with Tirpitz as a fleet in being. Like Tirpitz, she would have been subjected to regular attacks by the British, and in particular by the Fleet Air Arm, until, like Tirpitz, she was finished off by Bomber Command Lancasters.
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  14. No.
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  15. This would be the same Yamato which didn't complete until over 6 months later, I assume?
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  16. Not in May, 1941, she wasn't.
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  17. If Holland had taken a 23 knot Nelson class with him, he wouldn't have been in the Denmark Strait in time to engage Bismarck.
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  18. In May, 1941, Germany had not attacked the Soviet Union.
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  19. No, she wasn't. She was launched in August, 1940, but only began sea trials in October/November, 1941.
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  20. I say, Lindemann, what is that shape on the horizon? Looks like HMS Rodney, herr Admiral. Oh dear.
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  21. Not in May, 1941, she wasn't. Yamato only commissioned in December, 1941.
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  22. Why?
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  23. Except Yamato wasn't in commission in May, 1941, she only commissioned in December.
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  24. Lutjens was ordered to attack convoys, and to avoid action with the Home Fleet. He failed on both counts. His ship was damaged in the Denmark Strait action, after which he tried to reached France, and failed for a third time.
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  25. She was listing badly and slowly sinking. Whether the crew chose to speed things up doesn't really matter. The Bismarck ended up precisely where the British Admiralty wanted her to be.
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  26. Bismarck actually sank one British warship, but failed to sink any of the merchantmen she had been sent out to destroy.
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  27. I'm sure that the crew of the Bismarck were laughing all the way to the sea bed on 27 May.
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  28. Except of course for the fact that, in the engagement, Bismarck has been damaged, has abandoned any attempt to carry out commerce-raiding in the Atlantic, and is trying to get back to a French port.
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  29. Oh please! Dunkirk was awful enough.
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  30. They weren't 'just left.' The British had had reports of U-boats in the area, and knew that U-boats had been ordered to Bismarck's position. Would you suggest that Dorsetshire should have stopped and made herself, potentially, a sitting target?
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  31.  @randomelite4562  No she wasn't. The Nelsons were authorised by the Treaty, because the US Navy had the Colorado class, but had not to exceed the 35,000 ton limit. Hence, the RN stripped the G3 battlecruiser design of engine power, in order to produce two well armoured, heavily gunned warships, which were still capable of 23 knots. In the RN of the time, they were nicknamed 'Cherry Tree Ships.' i.e., cut down by Washington.
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  32.  @youraveragescotsman7119  Prinz Eugen had long departed by 27 May.
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  33. The captain and admiral were on the bridge, which was destroyed very early in the action. If a survivor said what you say, he was mistaken. Indeed, I understand that none of the survivors came from the forrard part of the ship.
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  34. Who had to do that? Certainly not the Royal Navy.
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  35. Why do you think Bismarck was a sea? Was it because 1). She was taking a group of elderly Gentlefolk out on a pleasant Atlantic cruise? Or, 2). She was on an Atlantic raiding mission, hoping to come across a convoy of 30 or so unarmed merchant ships and sink them? Answers, in Green Crayon, to anyone but me.
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  36. Actually, it was so brilliantly designed that it could submerge to avoid being attacked. To this very day, the British still fear that this monster will surface and re-commence attacks on shipping. How many people know that HMS Vanguard was not scrapped, but was mothballed, hidden in a Scottish Loch, and is awaiting the call?
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  37. Yes, but she didn't commission until December, 1941.
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  38. By the time Yamato commissioned, Bismarck had been on the Atlantic sea bed for six months.
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  39. Why would you say that? Have you never heard the phrase, common to the sailors of most navies, that 'We fight the ship, not the men.' In this case, there was as much pity felt for the crew of the Bismarck by the Royal Navy as there was for the crew of the Hood by the Bismarck & Prinz Eugen, and this was a considerable amount on both sides.
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