A stretched Scharnhorst with 15-inch guns was preferred to Bismarck

Would a stretched Scharnhorst with four 15-inch-gun turrets be a better battleship than the Bismarck class?

It is preferred as a compact counterfactual concept, although the design has not been fully calculated.

The proposed stretched Scharnhorst is preferred to the historical Bismarck class. Its shorthand design adds hull length and a fourth barbette before replacing the 11-inch turrets with 15-inch weapons. This is a design preference rather than a worked displacement, stability, armour, or machinery study. The concept provides a premise for fuller naval-architecture analysis, with the required secondary changes left unresolved.