How a Group of Outdated Biplanes put Bismarck in Peril
When I asked you all to name an iconic battleship from WW2, many answered either Yamato or Bismarck. Today, I chose to talk about Bismarck because they have quite an embarrassing story. While being hunted down by the Royal Navy in the Atlantic, the terror of the Kriegsmarine, the German Navy, was crippled by a squadron of 15 (outdated) biplane swordfishes. The idea that the most advanced ship of the time was put in mortal danger by a group of biplanes seems to be ridiculous at first. To be fair to Bismarck, she was put in an unfavourable situation. Indeed, WW2 saw the rise of naval-air combat, and the German battleship was ill-suited against aircraft. His AA defences consisted of eight twins mounted 10.5cm, eight twins 3.7cm and twelve 2cm flak guns. At first, this seems to be quite a remarkable firepower, but this isn't where the problem was. Bismarck remained vulnerable to air attacks because of its targeting systems and poor German radars. The targeting systems, on top of...