Bismarck on Youtube

[chrisjpainter]

Historian Dan Snow's done a feature length (96 mins) programme on the engagement, hunt, chase and ultimate sinking of Bismarck. Not the usual Youtube nonsense of conspiracy theory and ego, this is a really good watch, with eye witness accounts from two of the three who survived Hood and from those who were on other ships during the conflict. Highly worth a watch, even if like me you know the story reasonable well. (you just have to suffer the you tube ads! They're not long; seconds rather than minutes).

 

Edited April 9 by chrisjpainter

[Stephen-H]

Am I right in thinking the Germans helped to scuttle it once the British had caught upto it & given it a shelling? 

[chrisjpainter]

3 hours ago, Stephen-H said:

Am I right in thinking the Germans helped to scuttle it once the British had caught upto it & given it a shelling? 

Yeah. The documentary looks at this. She would have sunk eventually and she was essentially dead in the water with all guns out of action, but in keeping with German tradition, she was scuttled, probably hastening her actual sinking by hours and denying the British any potential bid to board and salvage her

Edited April 9 by chrisjpainter

[Penelope]

I like Dan Snow's stuff; his ol' man, less so.

[Stephen-H]

1 hour ago, chrisjpainter said:

Yeah. The documentary looks at this. She would have sunk eventually and she was essentially dead in the water with all guns out of action, but in keeping with German tradition, she was scuttled, probably hastening her actual sinking by hours and deny the British any potential bid to board and salvage her

Will have a watch of this later on I enjoyed the netflix series ww2 in colour it's followed all aspects of ww2 from navy, raf & army it covered the bismarck. 

This might be of interest to you covering the ww2 wrecks in the Pacific & how some are sadly being looted & cut up for there steel & the props a lot of the large battleships have sadly disappeared 

 

 

Edited April 9 by Stephen-H

[enfieldspares]

Dan Snow there's someone who didn't get his job because of who his father was. Sorry but for me the words Dan Snow mean I reach for the "off" button. There's much better on You Tube as well as the Drachinifel blogger videos. Dan Snow? No thanks.

 

[chrisjpainter]

44 minutes ago, enfieldspares said:

Dan Snow there's someone who didn't get his job because of who his father was. Sorry but for me the words Dan Snow mean I reach for the "off" button. There's much better on You Tube as well as the Drachinifel blogger videos. Dan Snow? No thanks.

 

If you don't like Dan Snow, fair enough. But 12 minutes of doomy music and mock graphics is hardly a 'much better' job than 90 minutes that uses several different experts in their field, original video, original sound recording, original photography and original testimony. That 12 minutes barely scratches the surfaces of the context and sticks to just another description of the battle - albeit a stripped out one because it's trying to fit it all into 12 minutes. 

Edited April 9 by chrisjpainter

[amateur]

An excellent history.

Thanks for the link, Chris

[Westward]

On 09/04/2024 at 13:02, enfieldspares said:

Dan Snow there's someone who didn't get his job because of who his father was. Sorry but for me the words Dan Snow mean I reach for the "off" button. There's much better on You Tube as well as the Drachinifel blogger videos. Dan Snow? No thanks.

Agree entirely about Dan Snow. Can't stand him. His English is pretty poor too. It should read "How Britain sank the infamous German battleship"

HMS Rodney's 16 inch guns could outrange Bismark's 15 inch guns and along with it's sister ship HMS Nelson (deployed in the Med) Rodney was unusual in that all her main armament was forward of the bridge. She could thus bring all 9 guns to bear whilst sailing straight ahead and she began scoring hits on Bismark from 13 miles away. With both ships under way this was a record at the time.

Rodney was later deployed to use he massive guns to support the D-Day landings. Fabulous ship.

[old man]

On 09/04/2024 at 13:02, enfieldspares said:

Dan Snow there's someone who didn't get his job because of who his father was. Sorry but for me the words Dan Snow mean I reach for the "off" button. There's much better on You Tube as well as the Drachinifel blogger videos. Dan Snow? No thanks.

 

Not my flavour either, always seems a bit too superior to me?

[Stephen-H]

Watching it now think it's alright to be honest catches a younger audience to get them into history & keeps it fresh & moving 

[enfieldspares]

22 hours ago, Westward said:

HMS Rodney's 16 inch guns could outrange Bismark's 15 inch guns and along with it's sister ship HMS Nelson (deployed in the Med) Rodney was unusual in that all her main armament was forward of the bridge.

My father's "engineer" (basically he did all the repairs to the metal machinery and also worked otherwise in the boiler room) at his factory served in the RN in WWII and I always remember him telling me the ditty "Give me the Rodney, Repulse or Renown, For this old wreck is sure to go down." As in get sunk. Which was ironic if that's the word as the Repulse would be lost on 1941. He served on HMS Victorious. 

[pork chop]

Hope the adds are minimal 

I was watching something last month n adds made it very hard work to watch 

[Westward]

It's often said that Bismark was the most powerful and formidable battleship of the war. Only partly true since heavies like Warspite, Nelson and Rodney had the firepower but lacked the speed to catch her, she'd already sunk Hood (probably the most overrated capital ship in the fleet) and seriously damaged Prince of Wales, sister ship to King George V. These 2 ships, PoW and KGV, were built to comply with the naval treaty which everyone except Britain ignored. They simply couldn't match Bismark's nine 15 inch guns as their main armament comprising 14 inch guns had neither the range nor enough destructive capability. Consequently when Bismark was intercepted, KGV held back out of range until Rodney had devastated Bismark's ability to fight back. 

[chrisjpainter]

1 hour ago, Westward said:

It's often said that Bismark was the most powerful and formidable battleship of the war. Only partly true since heavies like Warspite, Nelson and Rodney had the firepower but lacked the speed to catch her, she'd already sunk Hood (probably the most overrated capital ship in the fleet) and seriously damaged Prince of Wales, sister ship to King George V. These 2 ships, PoW and KGV, were built to comply with the naval treaty which everyone except Britain ignored. They simply couldn't match Bismark's nine 15 inch guns as their main armament comprising 14 inch guns had neither the range nor enough destructive capability. Consequently when Bismark was intercepted, KGV held back out of range until Rodney had devastated Bismark's ability to fight back. 

You're right, I think people get a little caught up in the myth of Bismarck, rather than the facts. The expert from the National Maritime put it quite well. He said it was 'comparable to the other battleships of that era - certainly not the best - but definitely comparable,' which is a nice way to put it. The fact that she blew Hood up with her fifth salvo should reflect more on the paucity of Hood rather than the prowess of Bismarck. She was ripe for a plunging shot and Bismarck had the range. It was an inevitable disaster, it just happened that it was Bismarck who was there to do the job.

[enfieldspares]

23 hours ago, chrisjpainter said:

You're right, I think people get a little caught up in the myth of Bismarck, rather than the facts.

Yes. Notwithstanding the Washington Treaty and the subsequent London Treaty the Germans had been out of the dreadnought building business for twenty years and Bismark was in that sense a far from perfect design. Some say it was little more than a warmed up WWI design. This was proven by the loss of its radar and lack of built in redundancy when most US and UK capital ships had some sort of back up if the main radar was destroyed.