Comments by "doveton sturdee" (@dovetonsturdee7033) on "Bismarck: Why its mission made sense!" video.

The point people always seem to miss is that the German navy of the mid-late 1930s was not intended to challenge the RN, but the French Navy. German assumptions from the late 1920s onwards had been that the next war would be against France or France/Poland. The Deutchlands were intended the challenge French convoys. In response the French built the Strasbourgs. The German response was the Scharnhorsts, the French the Richelieus, and the Germans the Bismarcks. As part of a Franco-German naval arms race, the thinking behind the Bismarcks was reasonable.
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The whole purpose of the Home Fleet was to seek out and destroy enemy warships in the North Sea, the Arctic, and the Atlantic.
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@naamadossantossilva4736 Maths didn't help Haguro, when confronted by an RN destroyer flotilla in 1945.
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@philiphumphrey1548 After the hits from Prince of Wales, it is by no means certain that Bismarck had the speed to pursue her. Moreover, the two British ships had been identified as Hood and King George V or Renown. If Renown, then for all Lutjens knew, they might well be supported by other British units just over the horizon. The two counties were in no danger, as they had the speed to avoid action. St Nazaire was a sensible choice, as the Normandie dry dock was the only one on the French coast capable of taking a ship of Bismarck's size. Tirpitz was actually only declared operation in early 1942.
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In 1941? I rather think not.
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The whereabouts of the Home Fleet had no effect on the convoy system, as the heavy ships of the fleet were not used on convoy escort duties in the Atlantic.
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@HSMiyamoto No. Cruisers were not used as convoy escorts in the Atlantic. They were used as close cover for some Arctic convoys, which is what Sheffield & Jamaica were doing for JW51B, but, apart from accompanying fast troop convoys, cruisers did not form part of Atlantic escort groups. The destroyers used with Arctic convoys were generally more modern fleet types, whereas Atlantic convoys generally had older destroyers, corvettes, sloops, frigates, and ex-American coastguard cutters with them. None of these were fleet vessels.
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@HSMiyamoto The historical evidence supports precisely what I have stated. Do a search for 'Mid Ocean Escort Force.' The information on this is accurate, and it tells you the composition of the Escort Groups B1 - B7 (British) C1 - C4 ( Canadian) and A1 (American). The vessels comprising each group are listed. Read them, and then tell me which are cruisers. Certainly, cruisers carried depth charges (although they tended to ditch them in the face of impending surface action) and asdic, but they were too valuable to use as convoy escorts, just as fleet carriers were not risked on Atlantic convoy escort duties.
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In which case, Bismarck would, effectively, have been reduced to 16 knots at most, this being the best surface speed a Type VII or Type IX could make.
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Not in the west. The carrier was not so significant against Germany & Italy. It played very much a supporting role, unlike in the Pacific.
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Good luck with the Graf Zeppelin. An outdated design even when conceived, with an air group of modified land based aircraft. Bf109 undercarriages were frail enough even when landing on terra firma.
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The Bismarcks were built in response to the French Richelieus, as part of the Franco-German naval arms race, rather than as an attempt to challenge the Royal Navy. The U-Boat offensive, by the way, never actually came close to 'strangling' the British. Certainly, it never approached the level of threat that the Kaiser's boats did in mid 1917.
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To be correct, Operation Berlin succeeded because Tovey concluded that Scharnhorst and Gneisenau would use the Iceland-Faroes Gap, and concentrated his forces there. Sir John learned from his error, and for the Bismarck action put two of his four fast capital ships into the Denmark Strait, whilst retaining the other two in the Gap. His dispositions worked, as Lutjens abandoned his mission after Bismarck had been damaged by Prince of Wales, and immediately made for St. Nazaire.
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@SuperiorAmericanGuy Apart from the fact that both the Nelsons and the King Georg Vs were better armed and better armoured, of course. Bismarck was only superior in speed which, until the torpedo hit, might have enabled her to avoid action.
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@JacobA6464 Except the Iowas were not in existence at the time.
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By the time the Fleet Air Arm did what it had been trained for since the mid 1930s (disable an enemy capital ship in order to bring it into the range of the battlefleet) and what it had already done once in the Mediterranean, Lutjens had already abandoned his mission and was running for St. Nazaire.
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Easy to say, but much less clear cut, from Lutjens' point of view. Firstly, Bismarck was damaged, listing, and down by the bows. It was far from clear that she was still capable of catching Prince of Wales. If she could, Bismarck had no access to repair facilities, and one or two more hits could have left her more or less helpless. Secondly, as far as Lutjens knew, The two capital ships he had just engaged might well have had further heavy units coming up in support. He might well have ended up in a repeat of Hipper's predicament at Jutland. In pursuing Beatty's battlecruisers, he walked right into Evan Thomas's 5th Battle Squadron. I assume you know that Prince of Wales was barely damaged, by the way?
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No. They were hoping that Bismarck and Prinz Eugen would break out into the convoy lanes and cause widespread disruption. That was the mission, and it failed utterly.
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Not really. Bismarck was firing at Hood.
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