The Bismarck-class battleship was the largest capital ship built by Nazi Germany, surpassing the British Royal Navy's flagship, the battlecruiser HMS Hood, to become the world's highest tonnage warship at the time. There are two ships of the same class www.biquge.info: Bismarck and Tirpitz.

The Bismarck was named after Otto von Bismarck, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Prussia and Chancellor of the German Empire (1815-1898), known as the "Iron Chancellor".

The Tirpitz was named after Marshal Alfred von Tirpitz (1849-1930), known as the "Father of the German Navy".

After the First World War, defeated Germany always wanted to get rid of \ restrictions. As early as 1932, the German Navy began to conduct theoretical studies on the construction of 35,000-ton battleships, and conducted feasibility studies on their armament, armor and speed.

Bismarck-class battleships. After Nazi Germany announced the tearing up of the Treaty of Versailles, the Anglo-German Naval Agreement was signed with Great Britain in 1935. Soon the German Navy began preparations for the construction of Bismarck-class battleships. Britain had asked Germany to limit the displacement of the ship to 35,000 tons, but Germany flatly refused on the grounds that it was not a signatory to the Washington Naval Treaty. Start date: Bismarck 1936.7.1/Tirpitz 1936.10.30, Service date: Bismarck 1940.8.24/Tirpitz 1941.2.25. The Bismarck-class hull is limited by the water depth of the Kiel Canal, and the hull is moderately widened to reduce the draft, with a length-to-width ratio of 6.67:1, and the superstructure is relatively compact, which improves the stability of the hull. Since it was the first time that Germany had built a pure battleship since its defeat in World War I in 1918, in order to reduce the risk and ensure the progress of development, it was decided to use the ready-made technology as much as possible, and decided to use a twin 380 mm caliber naval gun (the technology was derived from the naval guns on the Bavaria-class battleships), and the main turret was arranged in a symmetrical knapsack layout with two seats each (carrying 8 main guns). The theoretical rate of fire of its main gun is very high, reaching the highest level of battleships in the same period, and the armor-piercing shell of the main gun adopts a "high muzzle velocity light projectile", which has a good power at medium and close combat distances, but the long-distance target storage speed performance is correspondingly reduced. Its armor protection is different from the popular armor protection design called "key protection" at the time, following the design pattern of "IncrementalArmorScheme" (called "full protection"), with the largest protection scale among battleships of the same period, its main armor sidewalls cover 70% of the waterline length and 56% of the broadside height, and the total weight of the armor reaches the largest proportion of battleships in the same period, accounting for 41.85% of the standard displacement. In addition, while achieving a large protection scale, the ship relies on the space compensation provided by the large protection scale, and the main horizontal armor is arranged on the third deck, so that it overlaps on the ballistic trajectory with the main side armor, so that the protection of the critical parts of the hull has also been strengthened, surpassing the battleships built at the same time.

The battleship Bismarck was commissioned on 24 August 1940 and left Hamburg on 15 September 1940 for its first sea trials in the Gulf of Kiel before returning to the Blonn-Forss shipyard for final assembly. On May 19, 1941, the "Bismarck", accompanied by the heavy cruiser "Prinz Eugen", sailed out of the port of Gdynia and made its first voyage to the Atlantic Ocean to disrupt British shipping routes. However, its attempt was discovered by the British and was pursued and intercepted by ships of the British Royal Navy. The British Navy deployed the battlecruiser HMS Hood and the battleship Prince of Wales to intercept them. During the battle, the Bismarck sank the Hood, wounded the Prince of Wales, and was wounded by a bullet herself, resulting in a drop in speed and fuel loss. The British then deployed Royal Navy ships to besiege them. On 27 May, the Bismarck was damaged by a shipboard torpedo machine (Swordfish) of the British aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal, and was unable to steer. The British fleet, which arrived the next day, laid siege, and the ship's superstructure was almost completely destroyed, but the hull was still largely intact, and the British cruiser fired torpedoes at the Bismarck, and in order to avoid capture by the British, the captain finally ordered it to sink 400 nautical miles west of the French port of Brest.

The battleship Tirpitz was the second ship of the Bismarck-class with two additional torpedo tubes. While the Tirpitz was undergoing subsequent assembly, its shipyard, the Wilhelmshaven Naval Shipyard, was repeatedly attacked by British aircraft, carrying 1,042 sorties and dropping about 670 tons of bombs. Although not a single bomb hit the Tirpitz, repeated bombardment dragged it until its commissioning on February 25, 1941. Since its completion, the Tirpitz has been hidden in the Norwegian fjords since 1942, holding back a large number of Allied naval forces and making the British Royal Navy afraid to use troops in other operational directions. The British Navy and Air Force used heavy bombers, pocket submarines, aircraft carriers, and carrier-based aircraft to launch several attacks, but failed to sink it until November 12, 1944, when the British Royal Air Force used heavy bombers carrying 5,500 kilograms of "tall cabinet" heavy bombs to sink it.

Standard displacement: Bismarck 41,700 tons / Tirpitz 42,300 tons; Full load displacement: design value 49400 tons / maximum 52900 tons.

Dimensions: length 251 meters / width 36 meters / depth 15 meters / design draft 10.2 meters / actual maximum draft 10.7 meters.

Power: 12 high-pressure boilers, 3 steam turbines, the maximum design power is 138,000 horsepower, the actual stable maximum power is 150,170 horsepower, and the actual maximum power is 163026 horsepower.

Speed: 30.8 knots, fuel capacity 7400 tons, cruising range: 8525 nautical miles/19 knots, 9500 nautical miles/16 knots.

Armament: 8 twin 380 mm/52 x diameter (48 times caliber according to British standards) main guns; 6 twin 150mm/55x secondary guns; 8 twin 105-mm anti-aircraft guns; 8 twin 37-mm anti-aircraft guns; 2 quadruple and 12 single-barreled 20-mm anti-aircraft guns (Tirpitz was 18 quadruple-mounted and 6 single-barreled 20-mm anti-aircraft guns).

Armor: main broadside armor 320 mm; double armored deck, 50-80 mm on the upper deck and 80-120 mm on the main deck (arranged in the position of the third deck, overlapping the ballistic trajectory along with the main broadside armor); The main gun turret 130-360 mm, the gun mount 340 mm; conning tower 350 mm; Mine armor 45 mm. The lightning protection system is designed to withstand 250 kg of TNT explosives, but it can actually withstand 300 kg of German hexanite high explosives. The total weight of the armor is 17,450 tons (excluding the rotating part of the turret), and the total weight of the hull structure is 11,691 tons.

Construction materials: hull structure, St52 shipbuilding steel; façade armor, KCn/A surface carburized hardened steel; horizontal armor, Wsh high-strength homogeneous steel; Mine-resistant armor, Ww highly elastic homogeneous steel.

Carrier-based aircraft: 4 Ar-196 seaplanes (for reconnaissance, calibration and liaison)

Crew: 1927 people. The entire crew was organized into 12 detachments, each with 180-220 people.