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} |} The ''Bismarck'' class was a pair of battleships built for Nazi Germany's ''Kriegsmarine'' shortly before the outbreak of World War II. The ships were the largest warships built for the Kriegsmarine. was laid down in July 1936 and completed in September 1940, while her sister s keel was laid in October 1936 and work finished in February 1941. The two ships were broadly similar to the World War I-era , in that they mounted a similar main battery. Both ships had short service careers. ''Bismarck'' conducted only one operation, Operation Rheinübung, a sortie into the North Atlantic to raid supply convoys sent from North America to Great Britain. During the operation, she destroyed the British battlecruiser and damaged the new battleship in the Battle of the Denmark Strait. ''Bismarck'' was defeated and sunk in a final engagement after a three-day chase by the Royal Navy. Disagreements over the cause of the sinking persist with chiefly British sources claiming responsibility for the sinking of the ship. Evidence reviewed by Robert Ballard and James Cameron indicates that her loss was most likely due to scuttling as originally claimed by her surviving crew-members. ''Tirpitz''s career was less dramatic; she was sent to Norwegian waters in 1942, where she acted as a fleet in being, threatening the convoys from Britain to the Soviet Union. She was repeatedly attacked by the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force. In 1944, Lancaster bombers hit the ship with three Tallboy bombs, which caused extensive internal damage and capsized the battleship. ''Tirpitz'' was broken up for scrap between 1948 and 1957. A large portion of the bow remains where it sank in 1944. == Design == A series of conceptual designs were begun in 1932 to determine the ideal characteristics of a battleship built to the limit of the Washington Naval Treaty. These early studies determined that the ship should be armed with eight guns, have a top speed of , and have strong armour protection. The design work for what became the ''Bismarck'' class was begun in 1933 and continued until 1936. In June 1935, Germany signed the Anglo-German Naval Agreement, which allowed Germany to build battleships at a ratio of 35 percent to the total tonnage of the Royal Navy. It also made Germany party to the international treaty system begun at the Washington Conference. At the time, France, which had begun a program of naval expansion, was viewed as the most likely threat, not Great Britain. As a result, ''Bismarck'' and ''Tirpitz'' were intended to counter the new French battleships being built at the time. A series of questions needed to be answered during the design process, including the calibre of the main battery, the propulsion system, and armour protection. The deciding factor for the adoption of guns for ''Bismarck'' and ''Tirpitz'' was the decision of the French Navy to arm its four ships then under construction with 38 cm pieces. It was decided that four twin turrets would provide the best solution to distribution of the main battery, as it would provide equal firepower forward and aft, as well as simplify fire control. This arrangement was similar to the last German battleships of the Imperial period, the . The similarity led to speculation that the ''Bismarck''s were essentially copies of the earlier ships, though the arrangement of the main battery was the only shared trait, along with a three-shaft propulsion system. The naval constructors examined diesel geared drive, steam drive, and turbo-electric drive engines; the last system was the preferred choice, as it had been extremely successful in the two American s and the French passenger ship . The design staff were also required to provide sufficient range to the new battleships; they would have to make long voyages from German ports to reach the Atlantic, and Germany had no overseas bases where the ships could refuel. Due to the numerical inferiority of the German fleet and the assumption that naval battles would take place at relatively close range in the North Sea, the design placed great emphasis on stability and armour protection. Very thick vertical belt armour was adopted, along with heavy upper-citadel armour plating and extensive splinter protection in the bow and stern of the ships. The displacement of ''Bismarck'' and ''Tirpitz'' were limited by the capabilities of existing infrastructure in Kiel and Wilhelmshaven, and the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal. On 11 February 1937, the Construction Office informed ''Generaladmiral'' (General Admiral) Erich Raeder that the ships could not displace more than due to harbour constraints and canal depths. The office also expressed a preference for building a third vessel and remaining within the 35,000-ton treaty limit. Admiral Werner Fuchs, the head of the General Command Office of the Oberkommando der Marine, advised Raeder and Adolf Hitler that modifications would be necessary to reduce the displacement to ensure the new ships met the legal requirements of the London Naval Treaty. Japan refused to sign the new treaty, and so on 1 April 1937 an escalator clause permitting treaty signatories to build ships up to a limit of went into effect. The final design displacement of was well within this limit, so Fuchs's modifications were discarded. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Bismarck-class battleship」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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