[AC-Phoenix]

Originally Posted by Kakurin-san

The British ships closing the distance therefore just reduced their chances to actually deal mortal damage. All they did was bang their head against a brick wall. Had they maintained a bigger distance they could've dealt significant damage either via the deck, or through underwater hits.

My point is that there must have been more than just 4 underwater hits from long range in the first place with 2800 shells fired.
Less than 1 % actually hitting sounds unlikely considering how her course was pretty much predictable.

Originally Posted by Kakurin-san

Do you have a source for that? I suspect you may confuse that for the problems with the stem the Germans had. Due to the rough Atlantic the German ships (especially the Gneisenaus) tended to take on much water which caused floodings in some areas and damage to the equipment. So they refitted practically all capital ships with a so-called "Atlantic bow". Bismarck already had that when she went out to sea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_battleship_Bismarck

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

In 1942 Prinz Eugen was also torpedoed in the stern, which subsequently collapsed. This prompted a strengthening of the stern structures on all German capital ships.

Originally Posted by Kakurin-san

A couple of recon planes make little difference. First of all, they can cover only a small part of the area. Then, launching them is a very delicate affair that quite often didn't go as planned. Last but not least, spotting by recon plane proved to be prone to human mistakes. Like mistaking ships, reporting the wrong position etc. Radar is far more accurate in this regard.

Oh I hope so, otherwise Radars would be useless anyway.

Human mistake is a good catchphrase here as it played a vital role in the Bismarcks sinking. (twice)
First Lütjens decision to not open fire or even shoot back., second his decision to make the maneuver that took out her rudder.