Calling all Bismarck and Tirpitz fans

[Charlestonguy]

Great info thanks guys!

Rob I was looking for the plan set you have and found this address.
Hans Gally Bismarck/Tirpitz drawings. 1:100 scale
Hans Gally
Konrad-Adenauer-Ring 34
76316 Malsch
Germany

The forum said they run about 200. EUR's, is this where you got your set?

[Rob Wood]

Yes, that's the source. Hans Gally's drawings are considered the best and most accurate by most Bismarck/Tirpitz historians, professional and serious amateurs alike. I've been immersed in this subject for the past 10 years or so, and I've never found any better. If I were to advise someone who wanted a single set of plans from which to build an accurate scale model of Bismarck, that's where I would point him.

Rob

[Channell]

I have a couple more color questions...

For the area around the signal flag platform and roof of the main hangar:



I've found a photo which shows the floor of the signal platform was painted dark grey (like the rest of the metal deck areas) but I can't determine if the roof of the hangar was also painted dark grey (under the boats). Anybody know?

Also, should the bottoms of the launches/boats be red or black and/or did they change colors and if so, when? I've seen them done both ways on models and can't tell anything from the original photos. Thanks!

[109]

Roof of all hangars black grey in april - may 41. Boats always blackgrey, too.

Great work BTW!

[Bissyboat]

Another subject. Is it true that the Bismarck had the turret crowns on the 380 mm and 150 mm painted red? If so, can someone produce the evidence in terms of the date. I�m building the Airfix 1/600 and would like to use that particular colour scheme on the guns. However, if it�s not eligible, I might opt for yellow turret crowns instead.

Thanks in advance.

[Rob Wood]

I agree concerning the color of the main hangar roof.

But there doesn't seem to be any consensus in the model building community on the color of the bottoms of the ship's boats. Some models have them red, and some black. The official shipyard model at Blohm & Voss shows them as red:



In addition, there are some restored/preserved examples still in existence, but their colors don't prove anything:



Miroslaw Skwiot's Kriegsmarine Colors vol. 1 shows them as red.

Here's an example of black bottoms from one of the finest Bismarck models I know of, the fantastic 1:100 work of Pierre Reinhard:



Does anyone have proof, one way or another?

[Bissyboat]

This is interesting. You look at the B&W photos of the lifeboats and think of black. But red also turns into black in grayscale colours, I think it�s a good chance the lifeboats appeared with red keels on the Bismarck in the period between march 1941 in Faettenfjord/Norway and in the latter part, 26-27 may 1941.

[Rob Wood]

On red main and secondary turret tops:

There is no concrete evidence to support the notion that the turret tops and 150mm secondaries were painted anything other than dark gray. Although model builders would love to add some color in those areas, there simply isn't any historical basis for red or - as is sometimes suggested - yellow. The problem is that all of these suppositions are based upon interpretations of black and white photos, and that's a very tricky - and imprecise - approach to determining color.

John Asmussen, one of the foremost experts - maybe the foremost expert - on Bismarck, has the same opinion as I shared above. He actually visited the Bismarck wreck to see for himself, and although the main turrets are upside down, buried on the bottom, the secondaries are still attached to the hull. John says there isn't a trace of either red or yellow paint on the tops. Although one could argue that the red or yellow may have disintegrated over the decades of sitting on the bottom, John says the dark gray paint is uniformly monochromatic.

My 1:144 Bismarck turrets, both mains and secondaries, will be painted dark gray, as John depicts them for Operation "Rhein�bung":


image removed due to copyright violation

Here's a photo of a secondary on the wreck itself:
image removed due to copyright violation

Rob

[Bissyboat]

Cheers Rob.

Thanks for the back info on the turret crowns. I felt a trifle discombobulated by the colour guides in the "Bismarck and Tirpitz" book by Steve backer. The third image from the top in birds eye view shows that the forward turret had its turret painted red, but the others were grey (no scan, sorry).

[Rob Wood]

One other source of rumors about Bismarck's turret tops having been painted red at some point, according to John, is the fact that Prinz Eugen's were red during sea trials. That fact does not transfer to Bismarck, however.

On red sometimes appearing as black in B&W photos, here's an illustration:





Rob

[Rob Wood]

Here's an artist's conception in Kriegsmarine Colors, vol. 1, on Bismarck's Anton gun house painted red in April or May, 1941. I've found no documentation to support it, and the author merely states it "probably" looked this way:

image removed due to copyright violation

Anyone have any documentation on this?


Rob

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ Rob,

here the infos about Bismarck air recognition scheme ( Fliegersichtzeichen ) published years ago :

http://www.kbismarck.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=232

in there you can find also the correct answer to your last question on the drawing with RED on Anton turret.

and here in particular about Operation Rheinubung with the YELLOW tops :

http://www.kbismarck.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1659

Regarding the boats bottom, it is enough to look at existing original colour photos to see it was black. One reference is Tirpitz on June 1941 colour photo in Kiel at Scheerhafen.

Bye Antonio

[Sutho]

There is colour footage of Bismarck available on youtube.

[Sutho]

[109]

Some 38cm-barrels show remains of red paint underneath the grey. Norway was "red sea area" with red signal color.

[EJFoeth]

A book suddenly popping up in E-format everywhere. You'd think, from the title I suppose, it's about HMS Hood but it has Bismarck on the front page. The title and synopsis suggest it is the worst book ever written on the subject.

The Mighty Hood: The Battleship that Challenged the Bismarck

When it was launched in 1918 the Hood, flagship of the Royal Navy, was the largest, fastest warship afloat and a symbol of British power, earning the nickname "The Mighty Hood." Her mere appearance on the horizon was enough to intimidate would-be aggressors. But for all the Hood's might, she had one fatal flaw: armor had been sacrificed for speed. In her first major engagement she confronted the almost legendary German warship Bismarck in a battle for supremacy of the Atlantic. A salvo from the enemy penetrated to the Hood's ammunition magazine, destroying and sinking the British ship in an awesome fireball, killing all but three of her crew of 1421 men and violently ending Britain's mastery of the seas. But it inspired Winston Churchill's vow to sink the Bismarck, and in time that vow was fulfilled. Ernle Bradford, naval man and acclaimed author, takes us through the birth and demise of one of the greatest ships of all time.

Funny as Hood did not sacrifice armor for speed and how could Hood have "challenged" the "legendary" Bismarck that became (somewhat of a) legendary ship because she sunk Hood? How was Britain's mastery of the sea ended, exactly, with Bismarck on the ocean floor a few days later? Was intimidation on the horizon Britain's modus operandi for mastering the seas and she couldn't do it without Hood? When the greatest ship of all time is discussed, exactly what ship are we talking about? Call me a sucker for hyphenation of compound adjectives, but was the almost legendary German warship partly Austrian or Danish? Or not really a warship it all? More to the point; how does one become nearly legendary? And, is the author unable to count? 1415 men died in Hood final battle and 1415+3 = 1421? And this after reading this one paragraph I am enticed: how much worse could it possibly get? Did anyone read it and live? Oh no, it just became worse! The battleship that challenged the Bismarck.

[Hallis]

A book suddenly popping up in E-format everywhere. You'd think, from the title I suppose, it's about HMS Hood but it has Bismarck on the front page. The title and synopsis suggest it is the worst book ever written on the subject.

The Mighty Hood: The Battleship that Challenged the Bismarck

When it was launched in 1918 the Hood, flagship of the Royal Navy, was the largest, fastest warship afloat and a symbol of British power, earning the nickname "The Mighty Hood." Her mere appearance on the horizon was enough to intimidate would-be aggressors. But for all the Hood's might, she had one fatal flaw: armor had been sacrificed for speed. In her first major engagement she confronted the almost legendary German warship Bismarck in a battle for supremacy of the Atlantic. A salvo from the enemy penetrated to the Hood's ammunition magazine, destroying and sinking the British ship in an awesome fireball, killing all but three of her crew of 1421 men and violently ending Britain's mastery of the seas. But it inspired Winston Churchill's vow to sink the Bismarck, and in time that vow was fulfilled. Ernle Bradford, naval man and acclaimed author, takes us through the birth and demise of one of the greatest ships of all time.

Funny as Hood did not sacrifice armor for speed and how could Hood have "challenged" the "legendary" Bismarck that became (somewhat of a) legendary ship because she sunk Hood? How was Britain's mastery of the sea ended, exactly, with Bismarck on the ocean floor a few days later? Was intimidation on the horizon Britain's modus operandi for mastering the seas and she couldn't do it without Hood? When the greatest ship of all time is discussed, exactly what ship are we talking about? Call me a sucker for hyphenation of compound adjectives, but was the almost legendary German warship partly Austrian or Danish? Or not really a warship it all? More to the point; how does one become nearly legendary? And, is the author unable to count? 1415 men died in Hood final battle and 1415+3 = 1421? And this after reading this one paragraph I am enticed: how much worse could it possibly get? Did anyone read it and live? Oh no, it just became worse! The battleship that challenged the Bismarck.

Man if there were a Battleship Hood I'll bet it would have been awesome. Only HMS Hood I know of was a Battlecruiser. She was a grand ship but she had a glass jaw like most battlecruisers and heavy cruisers do when facing opponents similarly armed.

[Olaf Held]

Just a quick note to Rob and of course, all others:

I deleted a few images from the latest posts because of copyright violation. Especially the one showing content from the Asmussen site as something like this caused John going berserk here some time ago.

If you have his permission to show content from his site here, then please make note of it when posting it. If not, please just post an URL that leads the reader to the image in order to follow the discussion. Furthermore, please check the other images you posted.


With regard to the colours, don't fall on secondary sources such as nice looking illustrations on the internet or in books regarding the Kriegsmarine. In 99% of the cases the authors don't have a clue on colours, camouflage schemes, painting regulations, photo interpretation, ship movements, and of course procedures etc. etc. whatsoever.


Happy painting ~ Olaf!

[Herr Nilsson]

A book suddenly popping up in E-format everywhere. You'd think, from the title I suppose, it's about HMS Hood but it has Bismarck on the front page. The title and synopsis suggest it is the worst book ever written on the subject.

The Mighty Hood: The Battleship that Challenged the Bismarck

When it was launched in 1918 the Hood, flagship of the Royal Navy, was the largest, fastest warship afloat and a symbol of British power, earning the nickname "The Mighty Hood." Her mere appearance on the horizon was enough to intimidate would-be aggressors. But for all the Hood's might, she had one fatal flaw: armor had been sacrificed for speed. In her first major engagement she confronted the almost legendary German warship Bismarck in a battle for supremacy of the Atlantic. A salvo from the enemy penetrated to the Hood's ammunition magazine, destroying and sinking the British ship in an awesome fireball, killing all but three of her crew of 1421 men and violently ending Britain's mastery of the seas. But it inspired Winston Churchill's vow to sink the Bismarck, and in time that vow was fulfilled. Ernle Bradford, naval man and acclaimed author, takes us through the birth and demise of one of the greatest ships of all time.

Funny as Hood did not sacrifice armor for speed and how could Hood have "challenged" the "legendary" Bismarck that became (somewhat of a) legendary ship because she sunk Hood? How was Britain's mastery of the sea ended, exactly, with Bismarck on the ocean floor a few days later? Was intimidation on the horizon Britain's modus operandi for mastering the seas and she couldn't do it without Hood? When the greatest ship of all time is discussed, exactly what ship are we talking about? Call me a sucker for hyphenation of compound adjectives, but was the almost legendary German warship partly Austrian or Danish? Or not really a warship it all? More to the point; how does one become nearly legendary? And, is the author unable to count? 1415 men died in Hood final battle and 1415+3 = 1421? And this after reading this one paragraph I am enticed: how much worse could it possibly get? Did anyone read it and live? Oh no, it just became worse! The battleship that challenged the Bismarck.

The book was first published in the '50s. In my edition (1974?) the synopsis is totally different.

[EJFoeth]

I see. Perhaps the e-book was "complemented" by a new sales pitch.