As I understand it, the only thing scary about the Hun in ocean was its U-boat capabilities. Though Churchill was said to have had USC-level of respeck for the Bismark as a capable if not scary machine, it was the subs that kept him up at night. Allegedly.
If Germany had gone ALL IN on building U-Boats in the mid to late 30s and said fuck it on wasting resources on capital ships they might have been able to starve out the Brits and get Churchill to sue for a negotiated peace.
Yeah, but if they had continued with the North Atlantic bullshit wouldn't that have pulled us in before the Japanese saw fit to do it?
Yeah, but fanaticism and meth help, too. I mean, you can fight like fuck if you're motivated AND don't have to sleep.
The key would have been to Germany to starve out the Brits before FDR started skirting US isolationism. And to do that they would have needed a much larger U-Boat fleet in 1939 along with the reconnaissance aircraft to scout the north Atlantic. They didn't prep adequately with either.
I can't remember now, but I watched a documentary where this was discussed. Like, the head of the Navy asking for more U-boats or not asking for more U-boats so they could build the Bismark or some shit that was basically a strategic decision that maybe wasn't the right one in terms of how to capitalize the Hun Navy. Fortunately, they didn't get it right.
Japan made a similar error with their Yamamoto battleship. Much bigger than the Bismark, too.
Which is ironic as fuck, because it was the Japanese who proved beyond any reasonable doubt at Pearl Harbor and Singapore (HMS Prince of Wales) that battleships were obsolete. After that battleships were only useful as floating artillery for amphibious landings provided your team had air superiority to protect them.
