The Bismarck 1941: Hunting Germany’s greatest battleship (Campaign)

A good account of the sinking of the Bismark, but missing many details such as Churchills intetference in the British operation, the misdirection of the British ships due to an error in interpretation of bearings from radio direction finders, and the reckless actions of the Polish destroyer prior to final battle. I attribute these to the rigid format of the Osprey Campaign series books that restricts the space allowed for the author's text. But a very readable and useful account..

The author rehashes the old story. The worst is the continued and erroneous misconception that the Hood was sunk by plunging shells going through her thin deck armor. Had he done his research he would have found that the incoming rounds were descending at approximately 13 degrees. Also the Hood had up to 5" of deck armor in certain vital areas. German and American penetration tables indicate that at the 18,000 yards range the Bismarck's shells could penetrate 17" of armor. The Hood's belt of descending armor of 5",then7",then12" was meant to resist 8-11" gunfire, not modern 15".

The information is a little dated, especially in light of James Camerons expedition to BISMARCK, but is otherwise fairly detailed.

This little volume is basically a recap of the whole story of the famous battleship. I don't think there is nothing here you cannot find in far more detail in other books or the web, but if you want something lite for a quick read this is a good one.

I bought this book for my Grandson as an Easter gift.... He is 7 and told me it is a very good book with lots of great pictures..... He love books to do with Ships.

Great

nice book

The story of the German battleship Bismarck's sole wartime cruise in May 1941 is one of the most dramatic episodes in modern naval history and it never seems to lose its appeal for readers. Angus Konstam recounts the hunt for Bismarck in Osprey Campaign No. 232. While there are many extant books on this subject, Konstam's book is probably more concise and thereby useful for the general public. On the other hand, there is not much new in these pages, just a good synthesis of existing data. Overall, I would give the volume a `5' for graphic content and writing, but only a 3 for historical research and originality. Nevertheless, this is an eye-catching volume that many readers will want to include in their naval library. The volume begins with a nice introduction and operational chronology. Although the author mentions that the Germany Kriesgmarine (Navy) wanted Bismarck to sortie with other capital ships such as Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, this was not possible due to time constraints. He does not mention that Admiral Raeder, commander of the Kriesgmarine, wanted a major sortie in May 1941 a month before the up-coming German invasion of the USSR. Since Bismarck's sister-ship Tirpitz would soon have been available, it is one of the tantalizing "what ifs" of history if these two behemoths had sortied simultaneously. However, Raeder was unwilling to wait and wanted to make a "big splash" with his capital ships before the army stole all the headlines in Russia. The usual sections on opposing commanders, forces and plans are also here and concise, but useful. The campaign narrative itself is 58 pages in length and conventional, but quite good. The campaign section includes six 2-D maps, two BEVs and three superb battle scenes by Paul Wright. While many of the photos are well-known, the author manages to slip a few rare ones in (but there are no Bundesarchiv photos). Overall, the author provides a nice summary of the campaign with some terrific graphic support. There are a couple of points about the campaign that are either explicitly or implicitly brought out. First, the bane of the Bismarck turned out to be British radar, which enabled the Royal Navy to have superior situational awareness throughout most of the chase. For reasons not entirely clear, the Kriesgmarine failed to realize the significance of this British advantage nor did they make any significant effort to mitigate it with countermeasures. Second, the Royal Navy's carrier attack capability appeared anemic on the surface, with only limited numbers of obsolete biplane torpedo-bombers on hand, yet they twice pulled off the amazing feat of putting a torpedo into Bismarck in night attacks. When you consider how larger numbers of U.S. torpedo bombers were often unable to score torpedo hits in daylight attacks in the Pacific in 1942, one realizes that the skill level of Fleet Air Arm pilots was as impressively under-stated. It is doubtful if the Kriesgmarine recognized it either, until too late. Finally, on the one occasion where the Bismarck managed to elude her pursuers, Admiral Lutjens threw away his momentary advantage by radioing Berlin about sinking HMS Hood. Oftentimes, it seems that the Kriesgmarine exhibited a serious lack of common sense in the Second World War and this is one of those moments. Clearly, the smart play was to have the cruiser Prinz Eugen broadcast the report once it was detached and heading home to Brest, while Bismarck quietly snuck off in the opposite direction, but Lutjens was not going to allow a subordinate to share any of his glory. There are some odd omissions in this account, such as the failure to explain the role of Ultra and other HF/DF collection in pin-pointing Bismarck's intentions and position, or the subsequent British roll-up of Bismarck's supply ships in June 1941. Properly speaking, the Bismarck campaign extended past the sinking of the main protagonist and the British victory was more encompassing than suggested here, resulting in the utter destruction of the at-sea logistical network for other raiders, as well. Furthermore, the British naval effort in pursuit of the Bismarck put a damper on other Kriesgmarine operations, such as Hilfskreuzer (auxiliary cruiser) raiding in the Atlantic. Admiral Gorshkov, the Soviet admiral, provided a sober assessment of the Bismarck campaign in post-war writing that is more incisive than most of the British historiography on this subject. Gorshkov stated that the fundamental mistake was that the Germans viewed the Bismarck as a `super-warship' and sent it out essentially to fight on its own, with virtually no support from the rest of the German military. He stated that if the Germans had been more adept at integrating Luftwaffe support (Fw-200 Condors and other long-range aircraft), U-Boats, intelligence collection, deception and better coordination between the services, that the Bismarck might have had a fighting chance. Indeed, it is hard to understand why no diversionary measures were conducted prior to the Bismarck sortie to pull at least part of the Home Fleet away. Given that the British were able to rush CAM-ships and auxiliary carriers into service within months in 1940-41, it is also amazing that the Germans made no effort whatsoever to get even a few Bf-109s to sea with either the Bismarck group or any other raiders - surely a couple of Bf-109s would have made Swordfish attacks more problematic. In the end, the real blame for the loss of the Bismarck lies with the Kriesgmarine leadership and naval staff in Berlin, who were eager to prove the continued relevancy of battleships, but relied upon superior gunnery and armor plate instead of sound operational planning to achieve their objectives - a brute force approach that met its match.

While others have gone into great detail about split photos and some minor details wrong, which they are right to point out. OverallI found this book to be the best and most detailed of this historic action. The detailed maps of ships routes and time scales have answered many questions in my mind, I've seen the films, read some books and have the models, and yet I still learnt facts that had somehow escaped me. I highly recommend this book and I am in no doubt that some Sunday afternoon in the future I will pick it up and read it again.

Many books have been written about this subject,a tragedy that will never lose its interest,so there will always be room for one more,well written with lots of detail,USCG Modoc is included in the text,you would expect no less from Angus Konstam, a good selection of photographs,good and numerous maps then magnificant paintings by Paul Wright---ruined by being spread over two pages, why do they do this.

Very poor quality pictures and print Not what I usually expect from Osprey Looks like a poor quality copy

A must read for anyone wanting to find many good historic items.

Covers the whole campaign, excellent maps. Highly recommend