Bismarck Battleship: The behemoth of the seas during World War II, the debut made the Royal Navy disgraced

In the era of World War II, which advocated large artillery ships, there were many very good super battleships on the earth, when Nazi Germany in order to obtain more powerful sea power, has been looking for opportunities to build super battleships, during World War I, Germany signed the relevant treaties, after 1936, began to lose restrictions on Germany, in the turbulent international environment, Germany began to build a long-planned large battleship, this battleship is the first ship of the Bismarck class battleship - Bismarck battleship, The Bismarck battleship was the largest warship ever built by the German Navy, named after Otto von Bismarck, a prominent politician and diplomat in modern German history. The gun and armor scheme of the Bismarck-class battleships followed the advantages of the Bavarian-class battleships during the First World War, and the Bismarck battleships after construction were 250.5 meters long, 36 meters wide, with a full load draft of 10.7 meters, a standard displacement of 41,637 tons, and a full load displacement of 50,900 tons, compared with the previous cruisers, the Bismarck-class battleships have been greatly improved in production technology, so they will have a great advantage in dealing with various harsh environments in the ocean. The Bismarck-class battleships are powered by 12 Wagner high-pressure heavy oil boilers, with three Blomforce-style steam turbines, with a maximum power of 45,400 horsepower each, a total of three turbines, with a maximum total power of 150,170 horsepower. And each main engine can drive a propeller with a diameter of 4.7 meters, so the three propellers allow the Bismarck-class battleship to operate at a maximum speed of 30.8 knots, which was very high at the time, when the German battleship was built, its hull was designed to be spun cone-shaped in the middle, and gradually tapered to the end of the hull, so that it could obtain reliable structural strength. At the same time, in order to protect the hull, people made thousands of watertight compartments, as well as a large number of different sizes of mine chambers, bismarck's main armor plate length of 171 meters, from 3 meters below the waterline to the upper armor plate, is the World War II period, the largest proportion of armor coverage area of the battleship, the upper armor thickness of 145 mm, the lower armor thickness of 320 mm, combined with the hull exterior design and inner armor, it can be said that the total horizontal armor thickness of the shells that attack from the side can reach 658 mm. And the inclined upper armor can make it possible for incoming shells to produce jumping bullets, coupled with a large area of mine protection area, can prevent most of the mines and artillery strikes, in the weapon, bismarck battleship's main gun diameter of 380 mm, for the skc34 type 52 times caliber of eight mortar type, the gun was designed by the German Krupp company in 1934, each main gun weighs about 1100 tons, the total weight of 1107 tons, the length of the gun body is 19.63 meters. The main gun has a maximum range of 36520 meters, in a range of 35000 meters, can penetrate 170 mm thick German horizontal surface reinforced armor, and the main gun turret horizontal rotation speed of 5 degrees per second, the loading mechanism is semi-automatic loading, these eight main guns are installed in pairs on 4 sets of gun mounts, the front armor plate and rear armor plate are arranged with two main guns of the battleship Bismarck, the design is very successful, not only powerful firepower, large range, and wide range of fire, It can be said that it is a typical representative of the era of giant ship cannons at that time, of course, in addition to the main gun, there are 6 skc28 type 55 times caliber 150 mm caliber twin secondary guns. All battleships are equipped with their own independent shooting gun aiming equipment, which can cope with dense aerial firepower, but because the 20 mm anti-aircraft guns are mostly single-barreled, using magazine-type ammunition, the use of conventional crosshair aiming, the 20 mm anti-aircraft guns used in actual combat, it is difficult to form a sufficiently dense short-range anti-aircraft fire, but the hit rate of the main gun and the secondary gun is extremely high, because the Bismarck battleship is equipped with a sophisticated fire control system, which can ensure the ability of at least two rounds of accurate salvos. The first and final mission after the formal formation of combat power in 1941 was in the Rhine military exercise on 18 May 1941, when Germany sent the Bismarck battleship to carry out the first attack on Allied ships, in order to force the British to suspend the task of sending escort convoys, but after entering the Atlantic Ocean in the Denmark Strait, there was a battle with the British battleship Prince of Wales and the largest cruiser of the time, the battlecruiser HMS Hood. In this engagement, bismarck battleships carried out five salvos, less than ten minutes sank the battleship Hood, this victory, let the world be shocked, but then the British sent 42 battleships to surround and destroy Bismarck, after a large number of torpedo bombardment by sailfish aircraft, Bismarck battleship's starboard rudder was damaged, began to lose control, after losing control, Bismarck was attacked by at least dozens or even hundreds of large-caliber armor-piercing shells and hundreds of small-caliber shells, and finally the German soldiers saw little hope of escape. In order to avoid the capture of the battleship, the passage valve of the battleship Bismarck was opened, and it was sunk to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, announcing the end of a generation of aces.