Was building Bismarck and Tirpitz a mistake?

[Haratio Fales]

Building these 2 ships were a mistake. The Germans should have laid down 2 more in secret like the Japanese did with the Yamato's. The Bismarck's were well designed for Battleships however like anything else which has already been mentioned, hinged site is the golden criticism. The Germans also had no idea that their codes had been compromised for most of the war. They missed out on situations by making bad judgments. They could have sunk the 2 cruisers if they would have had a light cruiser like Nuremburg or Liepzig with PE and Bismarck. They might have been able to sink POW if they would have been escorted by Hipper. and they could have possibly set up luring actions to be able to engage British battle groups like they tried to do during WW1, except now they could have set up an area where they could have been on the edge of Luft Waffe air space. And if they could have had Graf Zeplin, with them then air cover would have tied up the RN even more and made a more balanced defensive group. The problem was always the size and numbers. Germany was just never going to match Briton in a fair fight because it was never going to be able to build that Navy. If they could have Ran bigger groups though I think they would have done better. Imagine Bismarck and Tirpitz with PE, Hipper and 2 M class Light Cruisers. The other obvious thing was the fuel though they just couldn't sustain the operations for to large of a Navy. and the Panzerships were to slow to run with the Battlecruisers and Battleships. 2 Aircraft Carriers would have been better, if they would have known how to use them. They didn't and the one they had was never used because Goering was a big Ars and insisted on having LW pilots fly the planes from the KM ships, and personaly blocked the KM from getting the planes for Graf Zeplin. There is a good book about Plan Z written by Davidd Wrag that discusses the Plan Z issues, and politics, however he does not cover the designs of the ships but it is a good, what if history book and a good history of why it would not have worked book. I think it was also a bad thing that the Germans never mounted the 15 inch guns on the battle Cruisers, however this would most likely not have changed anything either. The 2 of them might have been able to take on KGV though or at least had a better chance even with 11 inch guns had they been together. If the Germans could have built better destroyers, faster Panzerships, more support vessels, a few aircraft carriers, ext, ext, Had any kind of real coordination with the Japanese forces, Got their hands on Oil, built underground factories, made and used long range bombers and fighter escort. Basically develop everything the U.S. ended up producing then yea they would have done better, and still would have ended up losing unless they just fought Russia and left everyone else alone, or invaded England and France first and stayed treaty buddies with the Russians.

[nebelwerferXXX]

Bismarck cost the British "only" an obsolescent WW I battle-cruiser, the Hood. The balance of resources expended here was to British advantage.

The Bismarck: The Plan and the Profile.

[Marcus]

An off-topic post by nebelwerferxxx was removed.

/Marcus