Originally posted by Monash
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The Battle of the North Cape was instigated by the new admiral of the fleet Doenitz, who won from Hitler an overturn of his previous directive.
Lesser ships had previously been given a chance of proving their raiding worth during the Battle of the Barents Sea, a combat so embarrassing that afterwards Hitler spat his dummy, threw his toys out of the cot, and wanted to scrap the ships and turn their resources to the other services.
He had to be talked out of what would have been a huge propaganda/prestige blow without a lot of return.
Originally posted by Monash
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Those capital ships sank very little in the way of merchant shipping.
Bismarck was lost on her maiden voyage, I'm not sure Tirpitz even fired a shot at another ship.
Better luck was experienced by the smaller Scharnhorst and Gneisenau during Operation Berlin, but they were under orders not to mix it with the RN.
A clash would have been hard to avoid if all four ships met in the Atlantic, which was actually the original idea for Bismarck's first sortie.
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