King George V class was not so great. I think that Nelson class was better.
I agree there - but the Nelson was a far more radical design then, hard to really estimate its capabilities. Nobody would build a warship like that today.
But in fact, Bismarck was not more protected than other contemporary classes, and their 380 mm main guns had precision but not so much penetration capabilities.
The fact that it was still swimming and scuttled in the end speaks words about the protection, German ships have always had a good protection in comparison to others. Also later expeditions to the wreck also confirmed that the citadel of the ship was still intact. Badly bruised, but intact. No comparison to the devastation found on British or Japanese wrecks.
The Tirpitz was a good improvement above the Bismarck, with heavier anti aircraft armament, greater range and torpedoes.
Well, not sure there, since the Tirpitz never really took part in the war, except as target. I would say the Scharnhorst was the more successful design for Germany.
A radical refit for the Hood (similar to the Queen Elizabeth class refit) was already scheduled but the war broke out and the project was halted, forcing the British to put the ship in action in the original layout.
Yeah, the delay was also caused by the fact, that the Hood was constantly deployed for political missions.
Surely the Hood was an old ship and even a total refit could not correct some deficiences. And surely the Bismarck was a more modern and superior battleship. Repeating that battle a hundred times, the Hood would be defeated a hundred times. No chance against Bismarck. But such a devastating end was absolutely imprevedible. Even the Bismarck crew was very surprised for such a spectacular victory.
Not sure if that end was really unpredictable. What was surprising was, how fast the battle ended for the Hood. Even for the crew of the Prince Of Wales. It was the third or fourth salvo of the Bismarck to straddle the Hood and just the second or third important direct hit on the ship.
But if you remember the reports and photographs of the Battle of Jutland, like also many seamen in Germany had seen, you would know what to expect when a British battlecruiser is hit - the explosion of the Queen Mary was famous in German propaganda, also after just two hits by the German battlecruiser Derfflinger.
Anyway, the Bismarck has exhausted very soon her luck...
Sure, but then it was really a very lucky victory for the British. But the air defenses really failed epically against such slow planes, I remember reports that the fire control computers had problems calculating a solution, because the planes had been flying below minimum allowed input for the air target speed.
Hard to tell, how the battle would have been, would the computer not have been designed for faster contemporary aircraft. Not a single Swordfish was shot down, which is a really epic failure.