Not the story I read, the upper works of Scharnhorst were virtually blown away, but the armour belt stopped the shells at 10000 yds, that is why the destroyers went in on a torpedo run and were successful, the resultant list of about 15 degrees enable DOY to pump shells into her innards. But at the end of the day with the demise of Tirpitz, they full filled their purpose, shore bombardment and close AA support to carriers. Just been reading my book Colin on Nelson to Vanguard , an interesting bit for you, was a section about Valiant and Warspite where the old WW1 6" guns were replaced with twin 4.5", it was mention there was concern at the time that they would be insuffient against Destroyers . The 15" guns were vastly improved at the beginning of the war when Valiant and Warspite had the elevation of their turrets increased to 30 degrees which gave them a huge extra punch massive range increase over previous 15" mountings. One of the reasons why Vanguard was built and equipped with those modified mountings. The Lion class were cancelled by the cabinet because of their massive size and cost.