Why Lutjens expected to sacrifice Bismarck

Lutjens told a friend that a one-battleship sortie would probably require his sacrifice, yet he accepted it rather than risk being labelled a coward. That expectation threatened to make him treat defeat as settled before the operation began. Marschall advised him to adapt orders when circumstances changed, but Lutjens remembered that two fleet commanders had already been removed for doing exactly that. Lindemann brought Tirpitz wargame results in which every attempted Atlantic breakout was detected and ended in battle. Those results reinforced the danger without providing an escape from it. The criticism is that loyalty and fear of disobeying orders inhibited the tactical flexibility Lutjens had shown in small craft.