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1/350 BISMARCK BATTLESHIP

1:350 Bismarck Battleship

Item: TAM78013
Dimensions: (H x W x L) 0.0 x 0.0 x 0.0
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1:350 Bismarck Battleship
Item #78013

About the German Bismarck Battleship

At 06.00 hours on Saturday 24th May 1941, at position 63 deg. 20'

N, 31deg. 50' W, the Royal Navy was dealt one of its most
shattering blows. The 42,000 ton battle-cruiser Hood was
destroyed after an action lasting barely eight minutes with
Bismarch, the largest and most modern battleship in service with
the German Navy. Three days later, after the most celebrated sea
chase of the Second World War, which involved no fewer than three

British battleships, two battlecruisers, two aircraft carriers
and nine cruisers, plus numerous destroyers, Bismarck was brought

to bay, reduced to a blazing hulk, and finally sunk. The career
of the most feared German warship was terminated a mere nine
months after she was commissioned.

By the Treaty of Versailles of 1919, Germany was forbidden to
build warships displacing more than 10,000 tons or carrying
armament of a calibre greater than 290mm. Three so-called "pocket

battleships" were built more or less within these restrictions
between 1929 and 1935, but capital ships capable of rivaling the
heaviest units of the major naval powers were not laid down until

1936. These ships, Bismarck and her sister Tirpitz, did not have
the benefit of continuous development and improvement as did
those of foreign navies, and were fundamentally adaptations of
the designs for the Baden class battle-ships built during the
First World War. Despite this handicap, Battleships 'F'
(Bismarck) and 'G' (Tirpitz) proved to be formidable warships,
and although very much lacking in the protection afforded to
their internal communications systems, a defect which was to
prove particularly disastrous for Bismarck, their vertical
armour, machinery and armament were excellent.

The Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 1935 suplanted the conditions

imposed by the Treaty of Versailles and recognized the right of
the German Navy to possess capital ships of a size comparable to
those of other navies, which were themselves limited by the 1930
London Naval Treaty to 35,000 tons. In fact, studies for ships of

this nature had already been drawn up, and the design of a 380mm
turret was well in hand, by the time the Agreement was signed.
Accordingly, on 2st July 1936, the keel of Battle-ship 'F' was
laid at the Blohm und Voss shipyard in Hamburg, and despite a
number of technical problems the ship was launched on 145h
February 1939. Bismarck was commissioned on 24th August 1940, and

after a period of trials, crew training and general working-up
in the Baltic, was joined in April 1941 by the heavy cruiser
Prinz Eugen. The two ships trained together for several weeks and

in the middle of May moved north to the Norwegian fjords. On
22nd May, Bismarck and Prinz Eugen, under the command of Admiral
Gunther Lutjens, left friendly waters and steered north-west on
Operation Rheinubung, a break out, via the Denmark Strait, into
the Atlantic Ocean with the intention of attacking the vital
British convoys. The British, realizing the immense threat posed
by the two raiders, made strenuous efforts to locate the German
vessels, and by the evening of 23rd May the cruisers Suffolk and
Norfolk had sighted them and proceeded to track their movements
by radar, eventually delivering them to the guns of Hood and the
brand new battleship Prince of Wales.

Although Hood was destroyed, Bismarck had received three hits
from Prince of Wales, on of which had penetrated a fuel tank,
causing a leak which left a slick in the vessel's wake and
contaminating much of the oil that remained. In view of the
seriousness of the damage, Admiral Lutjens decided to cancel
Operation Rheinubung and, after detaching Prinz Eugen, made for
the Terman-held French coast. The journey was never completed.
The pursuit, interception and final annihilation of Bismarck was
fraught with incident. First, Swordfish torpedo bombers from the
carrier Victorious launched three attacks, but without
significant success. Then the British lost contact. It was
regained through Bismarck's transmission of a radio message, but
the signals were misinterpreted and the German battleship was not

positively located again until early on 26th May, when she was
spotted by an RAF Catalina flying boat. Strikes by Swordfish
aircraft, this time from Ark Royal, were delivered, first in
error against the British cruiser Sheffield, then against
Bismarck, and one torpedo struck the stern of the battleship,
jamming her steering gear and sealing her fate. On the morning of

27th May, the British battleships King George V and Rodney
appeared on the horizon and, closing the range, proceeded to
pound Bismarck to a wreck. An hour and three quarters later, the
cruiser Dorsetshire put three torpedoes into her, and at 10.40
hours she capsized and sank, taking with her some 1,800 sailors.