I want to be clear on these projects. DO NOT propose additional changes that would result in two conversations going on in the same topic at the same time (e.g., with and without Bismarck being sunk after the rudder jammed). If you want to propose another scenario, email me, but I have a dozen or more on the list already. Also, I don't plan to consider scifi/time-tunnel alternates like Guns of the South or my own Watchmaker story.

Not sure of the order, but future ones will include Normandy, codebreaking, Gettysburg, Battle of Britain, Dunkirk, Waterloo, and El-Alamein.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, May 19, 2025 - 05:00 pm: Edit

Just a comment on Alan Trevor's question about what if the torpedo did not jam the Bismarck's rudder and the ship reached Brest.

Given that Scharnhorst, Gneisenau (don't blame me for bad spelling), and Eugene were kept trapped in Brest being repaired from constant bomb damage, the idea that any of them were going to raid the Atlantic was dubious. The Bismarck episode had shown that you could not get through the Denmark Strait without being spotted and followed. Airplanes and radar had made battleship convoy raids highly dubious except maybe in extreme geographic areas like Norway. Bismarck is likely to have joined the Channel Dash and been part of the "fleet in being" for the rest of the war, when not bombarding Leningrad, anyway.