Alternate Bismarck Campaign
Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2012 8:45 pm
What was the decisive “event” that allowed the Royal Navy to sink Bismarck? And what if the Royal Navy failed to sink her on that fateful maiden voyage?
The sinking of the Bismarck was a series of strange quirks, mishaps, misjudgments that all needed to happen for the British to be successful. There are so many of these oddities lined up one atop another, that one wonders what may have happened if one or more of these quirks of fate had not occurred.
Consider:
What if her fuel hose had not been damaged, which cost Bismarck 200 tons of fuel before the mission? What if Lutjens had elected to "top off" his fuel at Bergen while Prince Eugen was refueling there? What if Bismarck had rendezvoused with the oiler Weissenburg in the Norwegian sea before running the Denmark Strait? These fuel issues made the chance hit by Prince of Wales on Bismarck's fuel bunker a serious factor that might have otherwise been mitigated.
What if Bismarck's radar had not been damaged in the action against Norfolk & Suffolk, and therefore Prince Eugen had not been ordered to take the vanguard position in the Task Force when it ran the Denmark Strait? What if Holland had placed Prince of Wales in the vanguard of his task force, bowing to the realization that she had the better armor to lead in the attack?
What if the British had correctly identified Bismarck, and both Prince of Wales and Hood engaged her, leaving Prince Eugen alone? What if all the shells that hit targets in that engagement had exploded? (No duds)? What if Hood had not been struck that fateful and very lucky blow? What if Lutjens had selected the Faeros Iceland Gap instead of the Denmark Strait, where it was the cruiser Arethusa, without radar, that first encounters her. In that instance it would have been King George V and Repulse that intercepted the German task force first, and how would they have fared against Bismarck and Prince Eugen?
What if The British pilots off Ark Royal had not attacked Sheffield by mistake, discovering the bad magnetic pistols on their torpedoes in the process? What if that lucky Swordfish strike had not hit Bismarck's rudders? What if U-556 had not feasted on merchant ships and her Capt Wohlfarth had a few torpedoes left when he spotted HMS Rodney en route to the final battle with Bismarck?
Stacking all these questions up shows just how chancy the sinking of the Bismarck was. But trying to change the outcome by fiddling with any of the above levers may not be as easy as one might think. Kurt Lewin said it well when he wrote: “If you want to truly understand something, try to change it.”
The novel Golem 7 is an alternate history retelling of the hunt for the Bismarck where all these strange quirks of fate, chance occurrences, misjudgments and bad decisions are examined to see which, if any were decisive levers on the outcome of the campaign. It tells the story of a project team monitoring events and reported history by use of a clever program migrating through the internet called a “Golem.” Installed on millions of user computers, the Golems constantly monitor the history recorded on the Internet and compare it to the data stored in a massive “RAM Bank” to look for variations of contradictions. The novel opens when one of the researchers identifies a confounding change in the history of WWII—the battleship Bismarck was not sunk on her maiden voyage! Now the team sets out to discover how and why this could have happened, and resolves to “sink the Bismarck” and restore the history they know by means of a clever intervention that allows them to broadcast information through time—right to the British Admiralty engaged in the desperate hunt for the German battleship, which receives unaccountable, yet credible “intelligence” as the campaign unfolds. Yet as they struggle to aid the Royal Navy, the project team learns just how precarious the campaign was, and how chancy and uncertain the final outcome was as they struggle to put the dreadful German raider in her watery grave. Great read for Bismarck fans! Anyone interested in the story can learn more here: http://www.writingshop.ws/html/golem_7.html
I am interested to hear the opinions of anyone else examining these events. Did all these quirks of fate have to happen for Bismarck to sink?
The sinking of the Bismarck was a series of strange quirks, mishaps, misjudgments that all needed to happen for the British to be successful. There are so many of these oddities lined up one atop another, that one wonders what may have happened if one or more of these quirks of fate had not occurred.
Consider:
What if her fuel hose had not been damaged, which cost Bismarck 200 tons of fuel before the mission? What if Lutjens had elected to "top off" his fuel at Bergen while Prince Eugen was refueling there? What if Bismarck had rendezvoused with the oiler Weissenburg in the Norwegian sea before running the Denmark Strait? These fuel issues made the chance hit by Prince of Wales on Bismarck's fuel bunker a serious factor that might have otherwise been mitigated.
What if Bismarck's radar had not been damaged in the action against Norfolk & Suffolk, and therefore Prince Eugen had not been ordered to take the vanguard position in the Task Force when it ran the Denmark Strait? What if Holland had placed Prince of Wales in the vanguard of his task force, bowing to the realization that she had the better armor to lead in the attack?
What if the British had correctly identified Bismarck, and both Prince of Wales and Hood engaged her, leaving Prince Eugen alone? What if all the shells that hit targets in that engagement had exploded? (No duds)? What if Hood had not been struck that fateful and very lucky blow? What if Lutjens had selected the Faeros Iceland Gap instead of the Denmark Strait, where it was the cruiser Arethusa, without radar, that first encounters her. In that instance it would have been King George V and Repulse that intercepted the German task force first, and how would they have fared against Bismarck and Prince Eugen?
What if The British pilots off Ark Royal had not attacked Sheffield by mistake, discovering the bad magnetic pistols on their torpedoes in the process? What if that lucky Swordfish strike had not hit Bismarck's rudders? What if U-556 had not feasted on merchant ships and her Capt Wohlfarth had a few torpedoes left when he spotted HMS Rodney en route to the final battle with Bismarck?
Stacking all these questions up shows just how chancy the sinking of the Bismarck was. But trying to change the outcome by fiddling with any of the above levers may not be as easy as one might think. Kurt Lewin said it well when he wrote: “If you want to truly understand something, try to change it.”
The novel Golem 7 is an alternate history retelling of the hunt for the Bismarck where all these strange quirks of fate, chance occurrences, misjudgments and bad decisions are examined to see which, if any were decisive levers on the outcome of the campaign. It tells the story of a project team monitoring events and reported history by use of a clever program migrating through the internet called a “Golem.” Installed on millions of user computers, the Golems constantly monitor the history recorded on the Internet and compare it to the data stored in a massive “RAM Bank” to look for variations of contradictions. The novel opens when one of the researchers identifies a confounding change in the history of WWII—the battleship Bismarck was not sunk on her maiden voyage! Now the team sets out to discover how and why this could have happened, and resolves to “sink the Bismarck” and restore the history they know by means of a clever intervention that allows them to broadcast information through time—right to the British Admiralty engaged in the desperate hunt for the German battleship, which receives unaccountable, yet credible “intelligence” as the campaign unfolds. Yet as they struggle to aid the Royal Navy, the project team learns just how precarious the campaign was, and how chancy and uncertain the final outcome was as they struggle to put the dreadful German raider in her watery grave. Great read for Bismarck fans! Anyone interested in the story can learn more here: http://www.writingshop.ws/html/golem_7.html
I am interested to hear the opinions of anyone else examining these events. Did all these quirks of fate have to happen for Bismarck to sink?