Naval History Forums

A 145mm Ww inner bulkhead as opposed to the 45mm Ww bulkhead may have helped stop the splinters, but the question remains what the side effects would have been in terms of protection from torpedoes and mines.

The 110 mm protective plating of the rudder compartment completely withstood the explosive effect of the rudder hit and remain watertight despite large destructive effect to the rooms within that compartment. Despite comparatively close proximity to the detonation site.

same can be found for North Carolina
in this case the 95mm inner citadel around the magazines completely withstood the explosive effect of a torpedo hit, maybe this was the lucky fact in NCs history.

Gentlemen,
I must agree with the majority, once Bismarck's rudder was disabled she was the proverbial 'sitting duck' for the two RN ships, at the final range from which they were firing 3-4000 yards she would have been shot to bits no matter how much armour she had and even if she had not sunk from the shells, the torpedoes would still have finished her, in fact the extra armour would probably contributed to her capsizing.