world of warships british destroyer missions

Bismarck’s armor was built to withstand attack from weapons much bigger than their light aerial torpedoes.

The only chance was by the British carrier Ark Royal, arriving from Gibraltar with a complement of obsolete Swordfish biplanes, but nobody expected much from the Swordfish. The Home Fleet battleships and cruisers were in no position to prevent it.

Bismarck, leaking oil from a lucky British shot, was hours away from escaping toward the coast of occupied France for repair and refit. The chase came down to a very close finish. Fortunately for the British, the Germans got the worst of it. Both sides were chronically hampered by bad luck, misjudgments, and mistakes. The British put everything they could into the pursuit, eventually leaving convoys and troop ships unguarded and shifting all of the resources they could to find and sink Bismarck. Before it was over, Bismarck would sink the pride of the Royal Navy, the renowned battle cruiser HMS Hood. The international press followed the action with front page reports. For the next six days, Bismarck would command the full attention of British Home Fleet. German U-boats had been operating against the convoys with deadly effect, but there were not enough of them to do the job alone.īritish reconnaissance confirmed the arrival May 21 of Bismarck and Prinz Eugen at Grimstad Fjord in Norway. The objective was to sever the British lifeline, the merchant convoys that were bringing supplies from North America. Their mission was not to directly challenge the Royal Navy, which had numerical if not qualitative superiority. They slipped through the channel between Denmark and Sweden and out of the Baltic, heading for Nazi-controlled Norway on the first leg of their breakout into the North Atlantic. No ship in the Royal Navy was a match for it in single combat, so the British planned to fight the fearsome newcomer with team tactics.īismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen lifted anchor at Gotenhafen Roads near Danzig in Poland on May 18, 1941. She had a top speed of 31 knots and was more heavily armored than anything else afloat. The Bismarck mounted eight 15?-inch guns and 81 smaller ones.

The British knew the Bismarck would soon make its first sortie into the Atlantic and prepared for it as best they could. She was launched to great acclaim in 1939 and finished her sea trials in April 1941. The German battleship Bismarck was the most powerful warship in the world. Bismarck, pictured, slams HMS Prince of Wales with fearsome artillery during Operation Rheinübung, an attempt to block allied shipping to Europe.

World of warships british destroyer missions