Unless there's a really lucky shot at some unprotected vulnerable part, sinking a BB is the result of overwhelming the BB with many shots.  My opinion is the Hood sunk as a result of a lucky shot and the Bismark was, in more traditional manner, overwhelmed to the point of her demise.    But then again, given the Hood's lack of armor, I believe she could never survive a slugfest with Bismark, so maybe it wasn't so much as luck after all.  Regardless of Hood's speed, a good firing solution is good if the target is fast moving or slow moving.  It just doesn't matter.

BTW, I'm too lazy to google for the facts, but whether she took a torpedo or was scuttled, it doesn't matter.  No captain will scuttler his ship unless he's left with no other alternatives.  So, it doesn't matter, the Royal Navy sunk Bismark, regardless of who fired the last shot.

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Perhaps this site is in error, but that's what it stated:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Hood_%2851%29

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That may be so, but as you stated above, it was in fact, a battlecruiser vs battleship engagement.

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The Prince of Wales wasn't sunk, Hood was.

Perhaps,  but positioning your ship so you can allow all your mounts to engage the enemy is a fairly standard consideration in naval gunnery, so you can't dismiss Hood's demise to that manuver like that.  It's just one of those things in warfare, the element of chance is always present.

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Yes. But when you know that you have relatively unarmoured decks and at great range any incoming fire will be coming in at a steep angle and therefore most likely to hit the decks then you have to revise your tactics so that you get in close enough to eliminate most of the risk from plunging fire before turning to bear your rear guns.

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If the Hood wasn't outclassed by Bismarck then the Prince of Wales wouldn't have been there. She was a brand new ship and there were two cruisers, Suffolk and Norfolk, shadowing Bismark that could have taken on the Prinz Eugen should the Hood have been capable of tackling Bismarck alone.

Once Bismarck had decided to concentrate her fire on Hood, there was little Prince of Wales could have done to draw her fire.

Interesting that the Hood's fate had been suffered by the HMS Good Hope at the hands of the Gneisenau almost 27 years earlier....

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Neither have I.  I know the Graf Spee was scuttled off Montevideo.  That's it for me.

The US Navy learned after alot of pain and beaurocratic stonewalling that magnetic detonators were no good.  You design and test them at one latitude on the earth, not considering the magnetic field varies from latitude to latitude.  So what works at Groton Conneticuit fails off Borneo.

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Langsdorf was a Captain of the old school and I believe that he didn't want to risk his crew in another round with the British. True he could have slipped out unseen by the british, the Plate estury is 100 miles wide and none of the vessels had Radar.

Whats more, during his 72 hours in Montevideo there were so many rumours of a British task force gathering outside the mouth of the river that no one really knew just what was waiting for him. As far as Langsdorf knew it could have just been Ajax and Achilliies, (in truth Cumberland had arrived from South Georgia and had taken over from Exeter) or the Graf Spee could have steamed out straight into Hood and Ark Royal