Bismarck: The Iron Chancellor

Today we’ll be covering the legendary Bismarck! One of the most famous battleships of all time with a fascinating story.

Bismarck: A Battleship for Germany at Rank VII

At a glance:

  • 380 mm (15 inch) guns
  • Strong all-around armor layout
  • High accuracy
  • Limited anti-air protection

Vehicle History

Work on Bismarck began on July 1st 1936 at Blohm & Voss in Kiel, after several years she was launched on February 14th 1939. On May 18th 1941, she was sent out on her maiden voyage to the Atlantic together with the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen in Operation Rheinübung. Several days later, the pair would encounter HMS Hood and the new battleship HMS Prince of Wales, along with heavy cruisers Norfolk and Suffolk. Hood as the pride of the Royal Navy was famously sunk by Bismarck after only five salvos, with Prince of Wales able to disengage after several hits.

The sinking of the Hood ignited a fierce pursuit by the entire Home Fleet of the Royal Navy. Despite the victory Bismarck was not unharmed, one of her boilers was in critical condition and she was listing starboard, which forced her to head back towards occupied France for repairs. After an inconsequential attack from the aircraft of HMS Victorious, the British lost contact with Bismarck. Only two days later however, she was detected again by a PBY Catalina. Shortly after her position was relayed, HMS Ark Royal launched several Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers to attack Bismarck, these old biplanes suffered no losses and scored several hits, with the most pivotal being to Bismarck’s rudder.

Unable to sail straight, Bismarck was cornered a British fleet of 2 battleships, 2 heavy cruisers and 8 destroyers. The battleships King George V and Rodney opened fire on Bismarck, which could not fire effectively due to her damaged control systems and crippled handling, rendering her useless. The British battleships fired around 700 shells of their main batteries at Bismarck, with the entire fleet firing around 2,800 shells in total. This onslaught turned the German battleship into a floating wreck within 90 minutes, but still did not sink. After orders were given to attack the German behemoth with torpedoes, it was already listing to the side and the deck was partly under water. At 10:40 on the May 27th Bismarck sank stern first. It’s still highly debated if the ship was ultimately sunk by scuttling from her own crew or from the damage. In 1989 the wreck was found in a depth of 4,800 m.

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Introducing Bismarck!

The time has come to talk about Bismarck, perhaps Germany’s most famous ship and one of the most famous in history, ultimately being a true household name. This epic ship is joining the top ranks of the German Bluewater fleet in the next major update, so let’s take a look at what she can do.

First up, let’s talk about the guns! Bismarck is equipped with eight 380 mm guns, known for their high power and accuracy. While they aren’t as large as many contemporary main batteries, their accuracy even at long range is particularly impressive, her reload speed is great too, up to 2.6 rounds per minute — the fastest reload for the caliber!

Interesting: Bismarck gets her iconic name from German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck!

Bismarck can equip four primary shells, AP, and three HE types, regular, base fuse, and timed fuse for anti-aircraft. The AP rounds will be able to punch through just over 700 mm of armor max, with a decent helping of explosive filler. The base fuse HE will also form a nice middle ground between the AP and standard HE, with over 500 mm of penetration and around 32kg of explosive filler! These main caliber guns are complemented by twelve 150 mm guns in six mounts, able to provide shorter range fire against soft targets.

Much like real life, Bismarck is somewhat lacking in regards to anti-air protection, with only a handful of large caliber 105 mm AA guns, and a complement of older, smaller 37 mm and 20 mm cannons — effective in the right circumstances, but lacking the volume of fire necessary to form a strong air defense.

Interesting: Despite her strength, Bismarck’s rudder was disabled by old Swordfish aircraft, allowing the Royal Navy to finish her off.

Like all big ships, Bismarck is very well protected, there’s a lot of detail here but we’ll just give you the quick version! Bismarck is protected by about 320 mm of armor around the belt, the turret face and barbettes are similarly well defended at 360 mm and 340 mm respectively. While Bismarck may not have the thickest armor on paper, its protection is notable as it is very well defended across the board, with few areas that could be considered as pivotal weakspots. Although the standard armor plates are not angled like her contemporaries, the angling of the armored deck provides an extra 110-120 mm of internal protection.

In terms of speed and maneuverability, Bismarck is fairly effective. With a max speed of around 30 knots (56 km/h), this lets her traverse the map quickly. Her turning circle is also surprisingly good, being able to change direction relatively quickly for such a large battleship. This maneuverability is key to the playstyle, adjusting your heading and responding to new threats quickly is vital when cannons are this powerful, so keep this in mind and make sure to keep your armor effective against the enemy!

That’s all for today, thank you for being with us for another blog! Bismarck will be making her way to the German tree in the Leviathans major update, until then, we’ve still got more to share, see you back here soon for more devblogs!

Please note that this vehicle’s characteristics may be changed before it is added to the game.


You can greatly speed up the research of the Bismarck with this preorder pack:

Pre-order - KMS Gneisenau Pack

The Kit Includes:

  • KMS Gneisenau (Rank VI, Germany) (available after the next major update)
  • Premium account for 30 days
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  • Pre-order bonus: unique “Glorious Hit” title
  • Pre-order bonus: unique “Gneisenau ship crest” decoration (available after the next major update)

79.99 Store

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Quite cool to see.

Shame the text doesn’t mention the group of destroyers which harassed the Bismarck at night, causing the sailors onboard a bit of fatigue.

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can’t wait to cut HMS hood in half ; D

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Untitled design

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From the mist a shape, a ship is taking form

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“At least the planes are gone, now we can rest a bit”

The devious Piorun:

(Plus the other participating destroyers)

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her armor withstood fire a 1.5 miles from 14 inch guns of british fleet and was only scuttled when she was disabled personally i like tirpitz more

And fix using only Flex Tape!

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Sinks one boat

Sinks to a biplane

Weihraboos claim its the best ship ever.

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How many ships did other upcoming BBs like USS Iowa sink? Soyuz? Vang? Roma? Rich?

It also trashed the POW btw. In that naval battle Bismarck vs. POW + Hood. Sunk one, mauled another. For 1 vs 2 not that bad (ignoring the cruisers on both sides).

That long radio report this idiot squadron leader RADM L. ordered to be sent to Berlin was total idiocy. Without that, there never would have been another contact with the RN. Well, most likely not.

Insufficient training of AA crews who obviously couldn’t put in the correct (very low) speed of these biplanes was very unfortunate. As well as this (un)lucky hit at her rudder. As if they didn’t learned about the most common enemy air assets and their basic stats.

The last two points were kind of human errors and unpredictable luck or lack off. The ship itself was fine.

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to be fair you only disabled bismarck and to prevent capture scuttled it

also they where extremely tired being awake for long shifts the previous knight cause of ark royal

And the 8 or so destroyers harassing the Bismarck at night

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Thats true, but certain ppl don’t like the fact that RN’s main calibre fire proved ineffective to penetrate the citadel. There are two versions: In a German doc from years ago with surving sailors they claimed Bismarck sunk by her own crew (opened the seacocks, exploded demo charges). The other version is that HMS Dorsetshire had to torpedo the hulk to sink it.

Long story shot, Bismarck should be pretty safe vs. 14’’ and 15’’ BBs.

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In all fairness Vanguard was only completed post war, Soyuz wasn’t even finished, and Roma never took part in combat before it sunk.

That only really leaves the other two, one of which was operating in a carrier dominant theatre and the other switched sides mid war.

To say any of the complete ships were bad seems a bit crass, Bismarck included.

That being said, WARSPITE NUMBER 1

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(this was a reply to a german main who was mad at my comment about the bismarks rather underwhelming track record, which got mass flagged because of course it would, I made fun of a german wunderwaffe)

I knew id get a cope reply from a german main.

The boat lost, with only one sinking of its own from a lucky shot. POW survived and later was sunk by Japanese bombers.

its in good condition for a coral reef
image

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Still a W for the stringbag

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