| “ | Good day. I am Bismarck, the nameship of the Bismarck-class battleships. You should remember it well. |
„ |
| ~ Bismarck |
Bismarck is a character and one of the heroes from the Kantai Collection series who was implemented into the game on the 14th of March, 2014.
Bismarck (along with Nelson) is partially the Fleet Girl counterpart to the European Water Princess.
She is voiced by Endou Aya and drawn by Shimada Humikane.
Biography[]
Bismarck was the first of two Bismarck-class battleships built for the German Kriegsmarine. Named after Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, the primary force behind the unification of Germany in 1871, the ship was laid down at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg in July 1936 and launched two and a half years later in February 1939. Work was completed in August 1940, when she was commissioned into the German fleet. Bismarck and her sister ship Tirpitz were the largest battleships ever built by Germany, and two of the largest built by any European power.
In the course of the warship's eight-month career under its sole commanding officer, Capt. Ernst Lindemann, Bismarck conducted only one offensive operation, in May 1941, codenamed Rheinübung. The ship, along with the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, was to break into the Atlantic Ocean and raid Allied shipping from North America to Great Britain. The two ships were detected several times off Scandinavia, and British naval units were deployed to block their route. At the Battle of the Denmark Strait, Bismarck engaged and destroyed the battlecruiser HMS Hood, the pride of the Royal Navy, and forced the battleship HMS Prince of Wales to retreat; Bismarck was hit three times and suffered an oil leak from a ruptured tank.
The destruction of Hood spurred a relentless pursuit by the Royal Navy involving dozens of warships. Two days later, while heading for the relative safety of occupied France, Bismarck was attacked by obsolescent Fairey Swordfish biplane torpedo bombers from the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal; one scored a hit that rendered the battleship's steering gear inoperable. In her final battle the following morning, Bismarck was neutralised by a sustained bombardment from a British fleet, was scuttled by her crew, and sank with heavy loss of life. Most experts agree that the battle damage would have caused her to sink eventually. In June 1989, several years after discovering the wreck of the Titanic, Robert Ballard located the wreck, which has since been surveyed by several other expeditions.
Appearance[]
She wears a bottomless gray, black and red uniform which slightly changes after each remodels based on her historical paintjobs which features a chestplate, thighhighs, detached sleeves as well as a peaked cap.
She embodies the ideals of the Aryan race with her blonde hair, blue eyes and tall stature.
Personality[]
She's a dutiful and prideful girl.
Trivia[]
- Bismarck is named after the German chancellor, Otto von Bismarck.
- The captain of Bismarck during WW2 in real life often addressed his battleship as 'he'.
- The Bismarck-class was the largest built by the European powers.
- 'Super Dreadnought' described battleships designed during the interbellum that surpassed the specifications of earlier 'Dreadnought'-type warships. The term fell out of favor as increasingly larger vessels were commissioned.
- Historically, Bismarck was not equipped with torpedo tubes. Her sister ship, Tirpitz, had them installed after her sister sank
- She sunk the world's largest battlecruiser, the HMS Hood (51).
- She was sunk on her first operation, Operation Rheinübung, on May 27, 1941 in the North Atlantic Ocean (48°10'N 16°12'W).
- Fairey Swordfishes eventually scored a torpedo hit on the rudder, jamming it to starboard & ending Bismarck's retreat to Brest, France.
- Her wreck was discovered in 1989 by Dr. Robert Ballard.
- Subsequent expeditions revealed a crew-initiated scuttling.
Merchandise[]
