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Observers will often see what they want to see. Sometimes injecting a little confusion is all you need. It doesn't need to look like Yes-KGV, it just needs to look like Not-Bismarck.

@ maomatic
Dummy-funnel somewhat dubious ? a strange position during a "hot-battle phase". By positionning this dummy-funnel on the catapult, you condemn the use of the catapult (& you lost all ability to aerial reco)
I fully agree, this kind of structure takes dozens of hours to be built, dubious by 25-26 may 1941


On these pics on 27 may, the dummy-funnel look "incomplete or does not exist"

Bismarck sinking viewed by british-gunners

No wreckage from the dummy-funnel is visible (for british gunners)
(However, even if the dummy-funnel was extremely fragile, it is obvious that british hits would create large wreckage amidship aft the main funnel), and the catapult apparently still look in place

I don't ever remember even seeing any material with Bismarck with a second funnel but that's not to say I know all

However as the British gunners drawing shows there is no trace, but there is yet to be a smoking gun suggesting that's the case. Being made of predominately canvas and presumably timber, it would have been fairly removed by the fires which gripped the central area. especially if a few rounds had already demolished it to deck level. But just a theory.

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Robert D. Ballard's Discovery of the Bismarck featured a mini outline of where the dummy would be. It matches the drawing above.
From the text it appears the effort was to divert the crew's minds from the fact they had been spotted and were being chased. It was after Lutjen's 'victory or death' speech on May 25, Lindemann and the officers then sought ways to raise morale and keep the crew busy so they devised the dummy funnel scheme. It worked, helped by the realisation that they had broken contact with the British, and the Chief Engineering Officer Lieutenant-Commander Walter Lehmann's order to draw cigars to smoke in the dummy stack was part of this jesting. From the account in Ballard it makes it sound as though the funnel was nearly completed by the end of Sunday 25 May, but it was never rigged. It wasn't used during the air attacks on the 26th for example. So its seems it was a psychological exercise rather than for any tactical need.

I feel the dummy was probably some kind of very basic wood and canvas affair, perhaps even 2-D (interestingly in the film Baby and Battleship, the British cruiser deploys a flat canvas dummy funnel from the ship's boat crane). I doubt Bismarck would have carried that much timber to build anything robust and if it was completed within a day it sounds more like sheet of canvas with some wooden supports to keep its shape rather than a proper 3-D representation.

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@Hood: I agree with you, probably something similar to what Panzerschiff "Graf Spee" used in November '39.

My "sketch" is basically just a copy of the one shown in the book I mentioned. The funnel seems way too elaborate and should be taken with more than one grain of salt. I just did it to give you a basic impression on how it might have looked.

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Anyway - I`ve managed to draw a stern view of "Bismarck" in her May '41 livery.
Both the stern and the bow view are still WIP and will be added on a single template together with the respective port, starboard an top-down views.
Especially the top-down view will take some time, as I don`t think I will be able to use much of the one I did for "Tirpitz".

I had some difficulties in showing "proper" bow and stern views, so I have opted to "cut" the ship in half.
The drawings were much too cluttered otherwise.

I`m still not totally satisfied with the hull-shading, so I`m open for your suggestions.


P.S.:
I know that the portholes on the stern view are not correct. I just couldn`t find a way to add the actual amount of them. SB-Scale limitations, I guess...

Thanks for looking!

Beautiful bow and stern views Maomatic.

I do like people doing the overhead, bow and stern views - they add a lot in being able to visualise the ship as a whole

But... Sorry Maomatic, the B&S views are not quite right - if you overlay one view over the other you can see the parts from each view which should also be visible on the opposite view. e.g. the mainmast on the rear view should still be visible in the bow view, while the bridge superstructure should still be in view from the stern view.

as he said, he cut the ship in half to stop cluttering

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If you take time to read what he have writen. This is also an problem we have on the forum, people that dosn't read the text following the drawing, but also say in detail whats wrong.

here if you had read his text, you would have read this:

Hi guys,

I didn`t want to start any difficulties.

Sure, I did write about "mutilating" the drawing, but I have to admit that it does look kind of odd...
When combining both drawings to form proper bow&stern views I was getting way too many areas with double black lines (especially around the masts) - something I try to avoid whenever possible.

Maybe somebody has a better idea? Constructive comments are always more then welcome!