Dear David G Brown
I have great respect for your many years of experience, let me pu that on record, but I regret that I must take up certain, only certain, of your above comments
(1) That Bismarck remained a fighting ship until scuttled by her crew - this is a point of some contention to this day, wherever two or three naval historians gather together they will disagree about what finally sank the Bismarck. However, whatever may have ultimately sank her, she was destroyed as a fighting ship very early on in the battle - her fire control was destroyed and her bridge may, I will admit to the use of the word may, have been destroyed - it is certainly the case that her bridgework is riddled with holes. That was caused by the gunfire of HMS Rodney ( 16 inch guns ) and HMS King George V ( 14 inch guns ).
One could even argue that as a fighting ship she was ' mission destroyed ' as soon as POW but that hole in her bows.
However, we can agree to disagree as to what finally sank her - she was a very tough ship and it is my personal belief after many years of research that the scuttling charges let more water into a brave ship that was already going down ( after all, there is a hole near the catapult that bears a striking resemblance to a torpedo hole, which must have come from the cruiser ( Devonshire or Dorsetshire I always get the two mixed up ) which means that her decks were already awash to some extent and she had a very heavy list )
Phew
(2) Most Battleships were designed to stand up to one another - the estimate was that 20 heavy calibre ships would be necessary to put any battleship under - and it took at lot more than that to sink Bismarck, to be sure. Now, the ships that blew up at Jutland were battlecruisers - and were unlike battleships, being less well armoured. Again, why these ships exploded is a matter of some debate - it is likely that their turret armour was penetrated because it was thinner than normal rather than any fault in the steel. However, it is also probable that poor ammunition handling practice on the part of the RN was a major contribution - basically, the stuff was lying about outside the protective system waiting to be exploded.
(3) Plunging fire was a killer - although Hood may have been unlucky - and was only really factored into designs after WW1 - and even then there was a lot of guess-work.
I don't think that the big nations continued Battleship building just for ' Big Stick' / ' showing the flag' purposes - there were sound reasons to believe that BBs were a reasonable investment - in, say, 1938 when a lot of these ships wre first designed, it was by no means certain that aircraft posed a threat to battleships. Of course, by the end of 1941 when POW / Repulse went down off Malaya, this was a more dubious position.
How then to explain the fact that even after that event, not only Britain but other nations including the USA continued to complete existing ships, and even plan new ones- the British in 1946 intended to build the Lions, the Americans kept the Iowas in service, and the Soviets began the Stalingrad class as late as 1953.
Well, I would suggest, because there was still a role for them - hunting down other battleships in all weathers ( for example, no carrier played a part in sinking the Scharnhorst in 1943 ), and it amy be belived by some that, adequately protected from air attack, the battleship still had a place.
Ultimately, however, the carrier could do the jobs better - but that required the evolution of better all- weather strike planes, search radar, and the like.
However, I apologise for taking up so much of your time, and that of the other mebers of this board. If you feel my conclusions are wrong, please feel free to put foward your own, as i will enjoy hearing them
Warmest regards
Dave Moran