Bismarck was a German battleship, the keel of which was laid in 1936 and launched in February 1939. The battleship entered the rope service in the German Navy (German Kriegsmarine) in August 1940. The ship was 251 meters long, 36 meters wide, and had a full displacement of 53,000 tons. Bismarck's top speed was around 29-30 knots. The main armament was 8 380 mm guns in four twin turrets, and the secondary armament included: 12 150 mm guns or 16 105 mm guns.
The Bismarck was the first ship of the type with the same name - the Bismarck. It was ordered to replace in line the old battleship Hannover, completely obsolete in the 1930s. At the time of launch, Bismarck was the largest German ship and the largest European battleship. It had good armor, and its main or secondary armament was inferior to its counterparts on British ships. He made his maiden voyage in September 1940, when he was ferry to Gdynia, which was to be his home port. Bismarck's combat trail during World War II was very short. Bismarck set out on its first combat voyage on May 19, 1941 - it was supposed to perform cruising operations in the Atlantic and attack primarily Allied convoys. In carrying out this plan, Bismarck, with the accompanying heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, was already crossing the Danish Strait a few days later. On May 24, a battle took place in this strait between the German team and British ships, as a result of which the battlecruiser HMS Hood was sunk and Bismarck itself was badly damaged. After this battle, significant Royal Navy forces - including the Polish destroyer ORP Piorun - were directed against Bismarck, which the German ship tracked down and sent to the bottom on May 27, 1941. It is worth noting that there is a probable hypothesis assuming that the battleship Bismarck was self-sunk by the crew in connection with the damage sustained in combat on May 27, which made it impossible to return to the base on its own.
HMS Hood was a British battlecruiser, the keel of which was laid in 1916, launched in April 1918, and entered service with the Royal Navy in May 1920. The total length of the ship was 262 m, width 32 m, and her full displacement in 1941 - 48,400 tons. HMS Hood's top speed was around 28-32 knots. The main armament at the outbreak of World War II was eight 381 mm guns in four twin turrets. The secondary armament consists of 14 102 mm guns, 24 40 mm cannons and 4 533 mm torpedo tubes.
HMS Hood was the only Admiral class ship to enter service with the Royal Navy. It was also the only line cruiser put into service after the end of World War I. What's more - throughout the interwar period it was the largest ship in the world, which was specially negotiated by British diplomats during the Washington Conference in 1921-1922. Despite her great size, HMS Hood had at the time of launching similar artillery armament as other line ships in the Royal Navy. However, it had much weaker armor, which was to be compensated for by considerable speed - which actually happened in the 1920s. However, at the outbreak of World War II, the German, Italian, and Japanese battleships were at least as fast as HMS Hood, but had much better armor. HMS Hood was built at the John Brown shipyard in Clydebank. From the moment she entered service, she was part of the British Atlantic Fleet, quickly becoming a kind of showcase of the Royal Navy, as the largest ship in the world. In the period from 1920 to 1939, he made numerous representative and occasional cruises - e.g. in the years 1924-1925 he made a cruise around the world. At the outbreak of World War II, he served in the North Atlantic, and in 1940 he was ferry to Gibraltar and took part in Operation Catapult, i.e. the destruction of the French navy at the base in Mers-el-Kebir. In May 1941, he was sent, with the battleship HMS Prince of Wales, against the German battleship Bismarck. During the clash with him in the Danish Strait, he was sunk on May 24, 1941.