It’s about the Battleships You Don’t Choose

Never miss an opportunity to work battleships into the news cycle:

Look… many people find warships, and especially battleships, to be aesthetically pleasing. From time to time I’ve decorated the wallpaper of my social media with various battleships, including Axis vessels such as HIJMS Nagato. So I understand the impulse… but SMS Bismarck is a troubling choice. She is far from the most aesthetically pleasing battleship; even among the warships that played a role in her career HMS Hood is a far more visually striking ship. I suppose that the objection would then run something along the lines of Virgin HMS Hood vs. Chad SMS Bismarck, but then why not go with HMS Rodney or HMS King George V, the battleships that ended Bismarck’s short, unsuccessful career? Unlike Nagato (the only Japanese battleship to survive the war), or HIJMS Yamato (come on, look at that pagoda!) there’s nothing particularly striking or interesting about Bismarck apart from her association with Nazism and latter day fascist iconography…

Oh. I get it now.