Bismarck

The German Battleship Bismarck is one of the iconic ships of the Second World War. Ironically, and in spite of its size and potent armament, the Bismarck sank only one warship during its brief combat career, and proved emblematic of much that was wrong with the Third Reich's approach to naval warfare. Hitler and Raeder insisted on ordering up big gunned capital ships for the German Navy, and spent enormous sums on building up a small fleet that in spite of the expense incurred in building achieved little; illustrating the foolishness behind a strategy premised on marginalizing the aircraft and submarine in naval warfare. German capital ships sank only 47 Allied ships during the entire war, or, as Historian Marc Milner points out in his study on the Battle of the Atlantic, about the same number as the Allies lost to mines during any three month period during the War.

Picture Courtesy of Department of US Navy