[Kakurin]

Originally Posted by AC-Phoenix

The armor alone doesn't really say much, german engineering back then was a bit different than on the rest of the world and Bismarck was pretty sturdy.
(Just look at her Wreckage)

It took a very lucky hit (her rudder) as well as 2 entire fleets to put eventually put her down.
Even when her rudder was damaged it took over 250 shells and several torpedoes to make her stop shooting.

Some of the scientists who went down to her sinking spot even discribed the damage to her hull as 'not enough to sink her'. While all of them share the common opinion that the honor of the kill goes to the UK, some of them think it was sabotage rather than the damage she took (so basically they think the German's scuttled her).

That's mainly because the British actually were too close to Bismarck and as such the angle of impact was unfavourable. Bismarck's armour protection scheme makes it very difficult to penetrate at close distance. However, the very same scheme is vulnerable at long-distance, where the angle is steeper. Had Tovey not chosen to shorten the distance after spotting Bismarck he could've done more damage to her. Moreover Bismarck's underwater protection wasn't too good, as shown by Prince of Wales' hit below the waterline that damaged her fuel tanks. That said, Bismarck was designed for North Sea / North Atlantic battles with the experience of Jutland. And as such the expectation was for the battle distance to be short with low visibility (in the absence of radar based fire control).

In good visibility conditions at long range Bismarck couldn't have realistically stood up to Yamato and with the Americans' radar-based firing control of the late war years she would've had no chance against Iowa.

Some survivors even claimed to have seen her captain standing at her front when she sunk.

That's not very likely. Lindemann and Lütjens were probably killed when the bridge was hit by shells from the British battleships.

Only thing I am personally surprised is that they didn't give her bigger cannons or at least triple cannons.

One is simply experience. The Germans had experience with 38cm guns (the last battleship class completed by Imperial Germany, the Bayern-class, had 38cm ones). Any gun above that size would have to be designed from scratch. And Bismarck's 38cm guns were good compared to contemporary 38cm or 40cm guns. Very accurate, good range and a fast firing cycle. Two is, while they could've gone 40cm, such a gun would have no doubt been a provocation to the Royal Navy. The last point regarding the triple cannons: the Germans feared more guns within a turret would lower the firing cycle (Bismarck's firing cycle of 20 seconds was at least 10 seconds faster than that of any other World War II battleship), more risky to have a higher percentage of the ship's firepower taken out by a single hit and last but not least, four twin turrets allowed for a better field of fire and firing sequence.