I suppose that many people, like myself, have a general idea of the battle in the North Atlantic between the battleship Hood, pride of the British fleet, and the Bismarck, newly built German battleship. Most of the details are probably gleaned from the excellent feature film, "Sink the Bismarck." But this straightens out some of the oversimplication in the feature film. The Captain of the Hood, Holland, knew very well that his ship, built during the First World War, was ill equipped to handle plunging fire -- that is, shells lobbed from such a distance that the arc placed them on the deck instead of against the well-armored side of the ship. Only the forward part of the Hood's deck was armored. The after part was left weakly protected, including the section over the after magazine.
In the film, Holland simply opens fire when within range and we see the ships exchanging salvos. But Holland was a savvy skipper. His intent was to get within close range of the Bismarck so that instead of the shells' trajectories assuming a high arc, they would be fire at a flatter angle against the ship's side and superstructure.
Hood and Prince of Wales rushed towards Bismarck to close the distance, but in doing so they were able only to engage their forward guns, while Bismarck could use all of her turrets. Holland had just about reached a point close enough to Bismarck to turn so that all her guns could be engaged and in fact was entering her turn when a German shell plunged through her after deck and exploded the magazine beneath.
The Hood blew up and sank in a few minutes with only three survivors. If Hood had completed her turn, her thick side armor would have taken the brunt of the Bismarck's fire and Hood probably would have survived.
These shells, it should be noted, weighted several tons and left the muzzles at about twice the speed of sound. They had ten miles to travel in an arc and they completed the trip in about thirty seconds. The explosion in the after magazine evidently ignited the ammunition in the forward part of the ship. That's two hundred tons of explosives going off.
Much of the program is taken up with an exploration of the Hood's remains. The only living survivor of the calamity contributes personal observations. It's an interesting episode with new information, but I find these underwater explorations generally dull. These hulking wrecks almost call out to be left alone.
