..not complaining, but cooler with an actual german accent ..... -and female ...... yes. ...we need actual 'Ilsa , Queen of the SS'' to narrate the German warship videos ........
A modern note: One of the tall boys dropped of Lutzow was detonated in October 2020 and the video of the explosion really shows the power of the weapons targeted against these ships.
The wreck of Admiral Scheer still rests where it was sunk (6:31 ff), the former harbor basin is covered with concrete. The place nowadays is used as a parking lot.
Only part of the capsized ship lies there. Everything sticking out of the water was salvaged and scrapped in 1945/46. The superstructure and the guns are still there today. The harbor basin where the ship capsized was no longer needed after the war and was filled with war debris and sand. Today, above the remains of the ship, there is a parking lot for the Naval Arsenal employees. My father was with the harbor police from 1946 to 1948 and was able to observe the scrapping of the ship during his daily patrols. At the same time as the cruiser Admiral Scheer, the cruisers Admiral Hipper and Emden were also scrapped in Heikendorf Bay.
Does anyone else feel sad every time you're reminded that most WW2 ships were took apart, sunk, nuclear bombed, etc. after the war instead of becoming museums?
More to the point, how many of these ships were built at great expense and never used for much of anything and then dismantled? Generations of pre WW-I ships, including many predreadnaughts and the sail to steam hybrids all went to the scrap heap. The occasional museum would be nice.
It is sad but these navies were way to big and the ships way to expensive to keep but a tiny bit of them. What I see as really sad - was the likes of the Enterprise going to the breakers. That ship was essential to the early war efforts of the US and it is a travesty that it was not preserved. Think what it would be like to walk the decks McClusky's dive bombers took off from at Midway. CV-6, USS Enterprise en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Enterprise_(CV-6) I think the problem with the Enterprise - was that she didn't have a sponsor - like the Battleships named after states. They were going to make her a memorial in New York - but somehow the biggest city in the USA could not come up with the money ... When I was 9 I chipped in my dimes at school to buy the USS North Carolina and got to play on her July 1st 1963, an experience I've never forgotten and to this day - I have a USS North Carolina Souvenir pocket knife I bought that day at her gift shop. .
Panzerschiff (Armored Ship) was not the term for german Capital Ships at any time (after maybe the 1850s). The Deutschlands were called Panzerschiffe because of the Treaty of Versailles, where Germany was allowed a certain number of cuirasses (which is french for armored ship and how they called their capital ships). So Germany went with this term to show the world how it held to the Treaty, and because those ships really werent battleships nor cruisers.
I feel like these ships are in between the lines of a heavy cruiser and a true battlecruiser. Pretty much a very heavily armed heavy cruiser. Their best role in the war was commerce raiding and destroying enemy cruisers.
FYI - The single 15cm (5.9") guns weren't in turrets, they were open-backed shield mounts, though some later had doors attached to the back for weather protection.
**I've got a brilliant idea for naming future warships! Obviously it's not good to name ships after an important national symbol, because of potential morale issues if and when it's sunk. Not to mention the propaganda value your enemies will enjoy once they sink your ships.** Here's how you solve this problem: you name your warships after your ENEMY'S most important national symbols and leaders. For instance, the Graf Spee SHOULD have been named KMS United Kingdom, KMS King George VI, or KMS Winston Churchill. That way the British would try their best NOT to sink enemy ships! Imagine the news after the battle of the river Platte. "Today, the royal navy located a German heavy cruiser attempting to intercept a supply convoy, but declined to engage her, allowing the KMS Winston Churchill to sink 8 allied supply ships bound for England".** Lolyou
The Germans should have painted portraits of the Queen on the side of their ships. The greatly loyal British captains would not dare to fire on the Queen.
Today's German Navy has decided not more to name ships after people. They only carry names of federal states and cities. At persons always run the risk that later it turns out they may have been assholes or Nazis and not only honorably. It has happened a few times in the past.
@@folkestender2025 Most navies went that way during the 20th century though, naming ships after cities, towns, counties or states. There are trends in naming ships, which is why we often saw 17th century ships named after greek and roman gods, regardless which side they fought for.
@@lavrentivs9891 There was actually a case in which Hitler had the armored ship "Deutschland", which had been taken over by the Weimar Republic, renamed "Lützow" because he feared the negative propaganda effect of a possible sinking of a ship called "Deutschland". In this respect it would have had a positive effect if the British had renamed "HMS Hood" to "HMS Deutschland" in good time, she would still be sailing today.... ;-)
Fantastic videos! I am just amazed at the amount of top notch info you supply, thank you so much for your time and effort , it truly is appreciated. Cheers!
Oh she is such a piece of beauty! God's own prototype of a cruiser. Fast, accurate, straight lines. No casemats. The medium-ari can find its own fire-solutions for point-defense, the main-ari is concentrated and focused, she has auxillary range-finders that work together or redundant... the port-holes underline the size... I'd love to build her in 1:100 Full-Scale...
I've been uploading almost all of his videos on the World of Warships subreddit to promote him, but yeah, he deserves more subs. I wish Wargaming would partner with him.
FYI You did not state where the 10K ton limit came from, which I found confusing. At first I thought one of the London/Washington treaties, but internet search says it was from the the Treaty of Versailles. Just saying ;)
About naming ships after your country - HMAS Australia (Indefatigable class battle-cruiser) served throughout WW1, and it's successor HMAS Australia (County class cruiser) survived WW2, including multiple hits by multiple kamikazes!
theREDdevilz22 Battlecruisers were intended to be Cruisers so superior to older cruisers as to render them obselete. The "Battlecruiser" moniker was coined by the Admiralty to differentiate between them and the cruisers, after it was decided that cruisers still had a role to play, and would continue to be produced.
Far too mush fuss is made of the British deception plan. The arrival of the heavy cruiser HMS Cumberland is ignored by fans of the plan. This makes the movie Battle of the River Plate more accurate than some documentaries. Isn't it supposed to be the over way around?
I REALLY, liked these ships. I wonder how much weight they would have saved with both main turrets forward (ala Dunkerques/Richelieus)? But do not raise the rear one - to save more weight. And forget the 5.9 inch altogether. Instead, install 3 or 4, twin 4.1 inch turrets (all on the centerline). Say, 2 superfiring aft and try to squeeze one forward, firing over the main turrets. I wonder what weight that would save? Well, the almost 200 tons for the 8x5.9 inch mounts for certain. Plus, the weight saved from greatly shortening the main armored citadel.
I tend to think these ships could have been immensely successful as a commerce raider/cruiser killer if not for the compromise on tonnage. These could have been superb had they been given about 35-45% more armor. In terms of armament, it turns out that their secondary armament was either too light, or too few, for this ship to really fight on even terms when outnumbered. The ideal weight for this class is perhaps 15,000 tons with an additional 10 meters in length. Give it armor to completely protect it against 8 inch guns, and a heavy secondary armament (give it four 8 inch guns to go with the six inch guns and it really could quickly cripple a second cruiser while the main batteries are engaging the heavier enemy ship) so it can evenly engage a heavy cruiser and medium cruiser at the same time, and it becomes an excellent ship.
@@i.r.s9494 I largely agree with you. 15,000+ tons and more armor to deal with 8 inch guns. But I disagree with the secondary armament. On reflection? Probably the ideal ship of that size for commerce raiding would have been a small, aircraft carrier with about 20+ aircraft. Armed with Stuka's and Bf-109's (and Fw-190's exclusively when they became available). And 34-35 knots to outrun anything that could make trouble for her. Plus, they could hit targets without the enemy ever seeing the ship. And even take out much, larger targets. But...for a 13-14,000 ton ship? They sure caused a HECK of a lot of trouble and worry for the British and French as they were. Heck, the French built an entire class of ships JUST to take on the Deutschland's. That is a huge compliment.
They already were close to that mark, and weighed more than a heavy cruiser of the time. They wanted 15-inch guns in the first place because Jutland taught them there was no replacement for calibre, their 11-inch guns back then had much weight in fire, yet were useless against a BB. "Complete protection" is misleading, because superstructures were important, yet cannot be armoured by much without causing serious stability problems, and even small guns firing HE and star shells could cause crippling damage to fire control and comms systems on the superstructure. The German economy was also in bad shape at that point, so they cannot go building an entire fleet of super-dreadnoughts even if it were allowed, which means these new ships needed to be affordable. The worst part was that they were crippled by disarmament. Upgrading old dreadnoughts and BCs would result in a much more effective capital ship fleet for much less money, and provided the chance to trial new technologies and experience with them. They had to develop a lot of naval technology, but still fell behind in things like dual-purpose secondary guns
@@McRocket We shouldn't go on what is ideal, but what is possible. We all know Essex-class carriers or a large fleet of U-boats are the best for that role, because they could strike hard while also being able to defend themselves in the meantime. 20 would be far too few for something small enough to fit. Carriers needed to be escorted by a battlefleet, because their hangars and infrastructure meant they were flimsy, and fully loaded strike aircraft could only be launched in good conditions and strong headwind from a small carrier. While ships could reach top speed for some time, they suffer from massively reduced range, and that is not counting the disadvantages diesel engines had in performance under load. It also required a lot of experienced naval pilots which cannot be allowed to even form, let alone train on the seas
A great ship with a great Captain, he was well regarded and his humane treatment won the respect of the ships' officers detained as his prisoners. She was great being a heavy cruiser, A British heavy cruiser and two light cruisers could not take her down, was that the strenght of the ship or the Captain, I belive it was both, the right man for the right ship, doing the right thing. A true Gentlman and a true and galant ship. But this is my own opinion and I do not expect anyone to agree with me.
As designed the Class could sail without refueling from Germany to the Southern Tip of Africa and back at normal cruising speed. A Hipper Class ship could make it to the coast near Gilbrator and back without refueling.
Marine diesel engines are not known for blistering performance even today. They used the same types of fuel as an oil-fired boiler, didn't need hours to raise steam before going anywhere, typically used less fuel and saved weight while also eliminating the dangers of high pressure steam. That was a blessing in logistics, tactical flexibility, safety and displacement. They would be a lot more popular if they did not also have glaring shortcomings in acceleration and performance under high load, at least compared to geared turbines and boilers.
I have a question about a certain Deutschland/Lützow picture that appears twice (around 3:30 and 5:56). It seems that the middle gun of the front turret is missing. Anyone knows why?
rly nis after posting the question I have been investigating a bit and it seems that the picture was taken in April 1940, and it is captioned as taken during the invasion of Norway. During the battle if the Drøbak Narrows (April 8th) the Lützow was hit in the middle front gun by the Norwegian shore batteries and sustained some other moderate damage, while the cruiser Blücher was sunk. After landing the troops, the Lützow returned to Germany for repairs (and she was torpdoed in the stern while underway, raising the damage level from moderate to severe). After reading this information I think that the picture was altered for propaganda purposes to hide the battle damage, so rather than taken during the invasion of Norway, it was taken immediately after. This is the bundesarchiv link: www.bild.bundesarchiv.de/archives/barchpic/search/_1530978169/?search[view]=detail&search[focus]=1 The picture can be seen as well on the Deutschland Wikipedia entry.
I know Tirpitz has the most aerial photos like this, but this is a Panzerschiffe, notice two main turrets, not four, and three guns per turret, not two. :)
@@Drachinifel Yes you are correct, I was under the assumption that Tallboy bombs were only used against Tirpitz, hence my wrong judgment per the huge bombcraters surrounding the ship
So assuming the Germans wanted to keep the ship to 10000 tons and 6x11 guns. what would they have had to give up to get to that limit? i think they were all over the limit from 1 to 3 thousand tons
Wow. I knew the Germans' surface ship designs were pretty much World War 1 designs, but my god, those rejected designs were just sad. Those are PRE-World War 1 turret placements.
german interwar ships where neither "world war 1 designs" (in fact they where innovative with diesel propulsion) and neither where the rejected designs "sad" since they are comparable to US and UK design concepts of the time.
I've always thought the pocket battleships were inspired by the American heavy frigates like the USS Constitution - built to outgun any regular frigates, and outrun any ships of the line.
@@kyle857 he just said inspired not the sole reason, hell the Cruiser Killers like the Alaska's are exactly as said, out gun the targets they would face run away from anything they can't
If this was just a regular heavy cruiser with little real celebrity about it, it would have been considered a great heavy cruiser design and a real workhorse of a cruiser.
Any such deception alluded to at approx 5:40 is merely academic. The oil purification plant had been irreparably damaged within time allowed to remain in neutral port and fuel in the 'ready use' bunkers was insufficient for sea going operation.
Originally there where to be more Pocket Battleships. Instead of the scharnhorst & Bismark class would it have been better to have a larger fleet of smaller raiders?
The list of German battleships on Wikipedia must be wrong. It shows four other ships for the Deutschland class but doesn't list the Lutzow or Admiral Sheer anywhere. Maybe you can help them correct it. It would be a service to Wikipedia users around the world. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_battleships_of_Germany#Deutschland_class Thank you for your great videos. Haven't seen your videos specifically on the Lutzow and Admiral Sheer yet. Looking forward to those.
Graf Spee had a severe Achilles Heel. One of Exeter's 8-inch shells hit her on-board steam generator which was above the armoured deck and around the main mast and not protected. Steam was needed for the galleys and also for the refining of its raw diesoline. Although the ship had just refuelled, it could no longer refine its fuel at sea. This was partially repaired at Montevideo but it could then only make around 17 knots, so it had no chance of returning to Germany. Langsdorff kept this flaw secret because its 2 sister-ships also had it. He also had only enough 11" ammunition for another hour's worth of fighting.
With the disparity in shipbuilding capability, that is unlikely. The British Empire had the greatest ability to build capital ships on the planet alongside the USA, owing to many more large slipways than Germany, and had a full navy. There is no way any nation would watch it happen without acting. The German economy was also on meth, and it was a race to rearm and rebuild before their debts matured. It was not as crippling as starving and beating >15% of your population to death just to get a little heavy industry going, but that plan was never going to happen in time
1:12 baby battleship by the look of the shape it looks like michael bay pearl harbor oklahoma filmset of the bow section cause in bts pearl harbor the oklahoma filmset is a cruiser shape the turret is too close to the bow
The light cruiser _HMS AJAX_ has never been called I-ax in English, it is pronounced A-jax. I think you are confusing her with a Dutch Association Football team.😊👍
With all the praise heaped on German ships it's annoying that all too many people ignore just how massively they exceeded the treaty limits. Yes, they were forced to sign the Versailles Treaty, but that's what happens when you lose a war. These ships were not 'slightly' overweight. They exceeded the Versailles treaty limits of 10,000 tons by between 17-21%. That's a huge margin and any ships going over their design specs by that much would have severe sea keeping and stability problems and their speed would suffer. As this wasn't the case, these ships were designed to exceed the limits and Germany just lied and understated thir true tonnage as they later did for all their large surface ships. Much like Japan did for their cruisers and carriers. How about a video about the Flower class corvettes for all the incredible work they did escorting merchant ships in the Altantic in some of the worst weather.
Germany had every right to do the construction. After all the versailles dictation had not only points for germany. The allied powers never disarmed themself in 1927.
I have to say that these ships were IMHO among the more innovative designs of the interwar period. As commerce raiders they were really hard to beat. All ships of course have drawbacks. But theirs were not many in terms of their intended purpose. Battle-cruisers and aircraft were the only thing they really needed to fear.
Why does the ship model in the picture have a fictional imperial flag with the iron cross on it. They could easily just put the current BRD flag on it because it IS a picture of the plans for the ship and the ships were designed and started to be build during the Weimar Republic. Or they could put the "normal" imperial flag on it because in April 1933, when the "Deutschland" joined the service the german flag was, after Hitlers acsension in January 1933 the official flag for germany was the imperial one and not yet the nazi party flag. The nazi party flag was often depicted alongside the imperial one by the nazis but only in 1935 did it become the official flag of facist germany replacing the nazi flag. So both the Deutschland/Lützow and the Admiral Scheer can be shown perfectly fine with the imperial flag. Only the Graf Spee entered service after the official flag switch. But its just me beeing a bit nitpicking :) Also the Lützow was not sunk by the RAF, it was made unmanouverable by the bombing. It served as coastal support fire for the german army well over a months after the bombing with its crew still on board and was scuttled by the german crew on the 4th of May 1945. The scuttling didnt go as planned though and the ship beached itself (again) on the sea floor without to much damage. The soviets later on just refloated it by pumping out the water and raising it again. It was still operational to soem degree at that point until the soviets dropped a 5 special bombs on it and most importantly deactivated the water pump keeping the water from flooding the ship. If finally sunk in 1947 at the hands of the soviet navy, NOT the RAF.
With the Royal Navy across the North Sea the German Navy should have stayed with submarines, and nothing larger than Destroyers. Because the Kriegsmarine was never competitive against the British in surface warships.
A all sub navy doesn't get you far. And they act as a decoy to the Home Fleet. The RN has to keep tons ships at Scapa flow to guard against raiders. Ships that could have been in action, elsewhere.
WALTERBROADDUS ..... well, in the Mediterranean. Where the British were already dominate. Or in the Pacific. But the Pacific wasn’t a priority for the British before 1945.
In reality, displacement determines capacity. Destroyers were only support ships precisely because they were no match against any cruiser in an age of hydroscopes and radar with their puny 5" guns, and had much less armour and AA firepower. The Royal Navy also had plenty of destroyers and capital ships to make it worse. Many interwar destroyers also had the seaworthiness of a leaking submarine, so there is no way a destroyer fleet could control any kind of sea against large ships. Only having small ships is problematic because U-boats were slower than pre-dreadnoughts, so were extremely easy to catch, and could not hide because they cannot stay submerged for long. We also fail to appreciate how much resources a destroyer fleet can consume, with powerful destroyers like Shimakaze consuming almost as much fuel as an actual battleship You are basically calling for a Jeune Ecole doctrine in the 1930s, where advances in fire control made capital ships much deadlier, yet the poor seaworthiness of the submarine, torpedo boat and destroyer have not been overcome. And now there are carriers and radar equipment to make their lives even more difficult.
@@charlesc.9012 ….Germany could never be competitive with the Royal Navy in capital ships. Both in numbers and access into the North Atlantic. Add to that the American Atlantic Fleet.
In hindsight, Germany would have been better off allocating restricted resources to submarines and light surface vessels--none larger than a destroyer. By WWII surface commerce raiding was quickly becoming obsolete. However, understanding that surface commerce raiding was still a widely accepted strategy, the best allocation of resources would have probably been more heavy cruisers (Hipper-type)--forgetting the slower Deutschlands or very expensive battle cruisers and battleships.
These ships were built when Germany still had a democratic government that was (mostly) honouring its treaties, and the Versailles treaty that these ships were built under banned Germany from having any submarines. So submarines were not an option. The treaty was the limiting factor, not how much Germany could afford, so if they were allowed x tonnage of destroyers and three 10,000-ton ships they might as well build the cruisers. Three Washington Treaty cruisers, on the other hand, would not have done anything much for Germany. Germany was also in the position of worrying about naval supremacy in the Baltic. With the size of their WWI navy that was trivial, but when limited to three modern cruiser-size ships rivalry with other Baltic naval powers was a consideration. The diesel power that made these ships slower than conventional cruisers had two major advantages. The engines could be simply turned on and off, unlike steam engines which required that steam be raised (imagine a 19th-Century locomotive), and so the ship had the theoretical ability to outrun a normally faster steamship in the first moments of an encounter. Second, the range of these ships was phenomenal. There was a plan for Lutzow to raid whaling ships off Antarctica. And IIRC it was common for merchant ships of the time to be diesel powered so a diesel-powered commerce raider might be able to take fuel from its captures? - I don't know how well that would work in practice. However, the slow speed of the diesels meant the ships didn't tactically integrate well with the 30-plus knot steamships later built for the KM. So they were, in my view, a very good design for the time and circumstances of their construction.
As a kid I thought that was silly- even the civilians should know it was just a ship. Expensive ship, and good men dead, but shouldn't be an extra blow to morale because of the name. On the other hand, what idiot thought it was a good idea to name it after the country in the first place? It was a warship. Always a chance it might get sunk by the enemy. Might even get sunk in a hurricane. You never know.
The victor always writes the history. Making it rather one sided. The story of these ships is somewhat screwed. Especially the history of the Graph Spee. A Panzerschiff is the German descriptive word for an Armored Ship not Battleship. A Linienschiff is the descriptive word for a Ship of the line or Battleship as we commonly call a ship of the line or battle line. Pocket Battleship is a media description of these ships given by the British press to sell newspapers. The battle of the River Platte was a clear German victory, the three British cruisers failed to destroy the German ship and were mauled to the point of only having two guns remaining in action between the three ships. The Exeter barely surviving the battle. From a design perspective the British cruiser concept of many small hulls over fewer larger more capable cruiser hulls was a failure in battle. The River Platte battle confirms that fact. The German plan to employ the ship as a raider was a tactical mistake. Nine merchant ships was not worth the cost of the armored cruiser. Scuttling the ship was also a mistake. Interning her in Montevideo would have made more sense at that stage of the war. Back to design, it was really a brilliant idea to employ the Armored cruiser design as a battleship replacement. The capabilities of these ships far outweighed all foreign navy capabilities in the 10,000 to 15,000 ton range. The only design issue was her speed was not quite what it needed to be, 26 knots was a few knots too slow to escape. Had the Graf Spee been operating on Diesel fuel she wouldn’t have needed to seek refuge in Montevideo after the battle. It can be decided that the Captain of the Graf Spee made several errors in decisions before the battle, during the battle and after the battle. We cannot blame the ships design for errors in command. Human error in battle and in life are typically far more frequent than mechanical error or design error. Dudley Pope’s book “The Life and Death of a Raider” is a good collective story on the Graf Spee’s WWII accounts and the Battle of the River Platte but it is skewed to present British “superiority” and heroism, of course.
I agree that it was a good design and effective, though it seems just a little bit more armor and speed would have made it truly an apex commerce raider. Its deficiency was its weak secondary battery. 3-on-1 is really much for the six 11-inch guns in only two turrets, and 8 6-inch guns were not enough to combat multiple cruisers at once. 8 single turrets, without a single one on the center line, is not great. Add to that the turrets for the 6 inch guns were not armored per se. I forget the source, but I think it is mentioned that the gun crews suffered badly during that battle as a result from splinters from the British 6 inchers penetrating the thin gun shields.
always same mistake- not triple turrets, but three gun turrets- because each gun can elevate without the rest. Triple turrets means that all guns move together.
What if: the basic Deutschland design had been enlarged, geared steam turbines installed along with more and better armor while keeping the updated 11.1” Main Armament, improved AAA and Radar. The Germans could have designed superb Aircraft Carriers. If Hitler had kept to his original schedule and attacked in the late ‘40s the Nazis with far more advanced tools of War may have been almost unstoppable.
These ships were heavy cruisers not Battleships nor battle-cruisers as such they were far from obsolete they were efficient for killing other cruisers both heavy and light and commerce raiding. Against Battle cruisers or Battleships they were at a major disadvantage. interestingly Battle-cruisers would be more considered as crap due to being a kinda unnecessary piece of equipment, They had the guns of full fledged battleships but the amour of cruisers, and were treated as being able to stand up to battleships. The US kinda saw this and learned quickly by naming the Alaska Class a large cruiser and enforcing policy that it be used as a heavy cruiser even though it looked liked a smaller IOWA or a North Carolina. This was done so it wouldn't be put in a stupid situation where it might face a full-fledged battleship or designated battle-cruisers like what happened to the HMS Hood. The Scharnhorst-class I believe were the only true Battlecruiser Type and were effectively battleships and named such by there adversaries and allies they might have been easily labled as light battleships if such a classification existed and should have existed. .
@@Quetzalcoatl_Feathered_Serpent not only their adversaries, the Germans called them Battleship (Schlachtschiff) too, during my youth i had an original "Mützenband" "Schlachtschiff Scharnhorst", as an ex federal german navy member ( naval air wing 3) i know that when the Type (and Name) is writen on the cap then it is the offical name for this shiptype
These videos with a human voice narrating are SO much more enjoyable!
Thank you!
No way, the robot voice is cool.
..not complaining, but cooler with an actual german accent ..... -and female ......
yes.
...we need actual 'Ilsa , Queen of the SS'' to narrate the German warship videos ........
The Blücher sank in the Oslofjord by the Norwegians
He has a great voice.
A modern note: One of the tall boys dropped of Lutzow was detonated in October 2020 and the video of the explosion really shows the power of the weapons targeted against these ships.
The wreck of Admiral Scheer still rests where it was sunk (6:31 ff), the former harbor basin is covered with concrete. The place nowadays is used as a parking lot.
Only part of the capsized ship lies there. Everything sticking out of the water was salvaged and scrapped in 1945/46. The superstructure and the guns are still there today. The harbor basin where the ship capsized was no longer needed after the war and was filled with war debris and sand. Today, above the remains of the ship, there is a parking lot for the Naval Arsenal employees. My father was with the harbor police from 1946 to 1948 and was able to observe the scrapping of the ship during his daily patrols. At the same time as the cruiser Admiral Scheer, the cruisers Admiral Hipper and Emden were also scrapped in Heikendorf Bay.
Beautiful ship, clean lines. I want a yacht based on this design
As long as we're dreaming, may as well get the real thing eh?
A yacht with 11 inch guns... Best way to say "Dont f with me". Can even sail near Somalia.
WW2 hstorian walking up to the yacht: "wait a minute"
@@danilvinyukov2060 with modern technology we could cut the crew down as well
Is blohm&voss still naking ships?.
I heard they maje yachts too in wiki.
Does anyone else feel sad every time you're reminded that most WW2 ships were took apart, sunk, nuclear bombed, etc. after the war instead of becoming museums?
@Nuno dos Santos they found one of the uboats buried by a bomb I believe
More to the point, how many of these ships were built at great expense and never used for much of anything and then dismantled? Generations of pre WW-I ships, including many predreadnaughts and the sail to steam hybrids all went to the scrap heap. The occasional museum would be nice.
Yes.
It is sad but these navies were way to big and the ships way to expensive to keep but a tiny bit of them. What I see as really sad - was the likes of the Enterprise going to the breakers. That ship was essential to the early war efforts of the US and it is a travesty that it was not preserved. Think what it would be like to walk the decks McClusky's dive bombers took off from at Midway.
CV-6, USS Enterprise
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Enterprise_(CV-6)
I think the problem with the Enterprise - was that she didn't have a sponsor - like the Battleships named after states. They were going to make her a memorial in New York - but somehow the biggest city in the USA could not come up with the money ...
When I was 9 I chipped in my dimes at school to buy the USS North Carolina and got to play on her July 1st 1963, an experience I've never forgotten and to this day - I have a USS North Carolina Souvenir pocket knife I bought that day at her gift shop.
.
The USS Texas is the only surviving capital ship from WW1, All sunk, scuttled or scraped....
Panzerschiff (Armored Ship) was not the term for german Capital Ships at any time (after maybe the 1850s). The Deutschlands were called Panzerschiffe because of the Treaty of Versailles, where Germany was allowed a certain number of cuirasses (which is french for armored ship and how they called their capital ships). So Germany went with this term to show the world how it held to the Treaty, and because those ships really werent battleships nor cruisers.
I feel like these ships are in between the lines of a heavy cruiser and a true battlecruiser. Pretty much a very heavily armed heavy cruiser. Their best role in the war was commerce raiding and destroying enemy cruisers.
FYI - The single 15cm (5.9") guns weren't in turrets, they were open-backed shield mounts, though some later had doors attached to the back for weather protection.
Poor bastards! 🤣🤷🏼♂️
The Adm Scheer is still there. He could be recovered and restored to Weimar Republic form. Now THAT would draw tourists for sure.
Nobody would give a damn if it was in Weimar form. It would be more exciting and attractive in NSDAP form.
great video one of my favorite cruiser designs
**I've got a brilliant idea for naming future warships! Obviously it's not good to name ships after an important national symbol, because of potential morale issues if and when it's sunk. Not to mention the propaganda value your enemies will enjoy once they sink your ships.**
Here's how you solve this problem: you name your warships after your ENEMY'S most important national symbols and leaders. For instance, the Graf Spee SHOULD have been named KMS United Kingdom, KMS King George VI, or KMS Winston Churchill. That way the British would try their best NOT to sink enemy ships! Imagine the news after the battle of the river Platte. "Today, the royal navy located a German heavy cruiser attempting to intercept a supply convoy, but declined to engage her, allowing the KMS Winston Churchill to sink 8 allied supply ships bound for England".** Lolyou
The Germans should have painted portraits of the Queen on the side of their ships. The greatly loyal British captains would not dare to fire on the Queen.
Today's German Navy has decided not more to name ships after people. They only carry names of federal states and cities. At persons always run the risk that later it turns out they may have been assholes or Nazis and not only honorably. It has happened a few times in the past.
@@bluemountain4181 Britain was ruled by King George VI though, not a queen.
@@folkestender2025 Most navies went that way during the 20th century though, naming ships after cities, towns, counties or states. There are trends in naming ships, which is why we often saw 17th century ships named after greek and roman gods, regardless which side they fought for.
@@lavrentivs9891 There was actually a case in which Hitler had the armored ship "Deutschland", which had been taken over by the Weimar Republic, renamed "Lützow" because he feared the negative propaganda effect of a possible sinking of a ship called "Deutschland".
In this respect it would have had a positive effect if the British had renamed "HMS Hood" to "HMS Deutschland" in good time, she would still be sailing today.... ;-)
Fantastic videos! I am just amazed at the amount of top notch info you supply, thank you so much for your time and effort , it truly is appreciated. Cheers!
Sort of hoped you would go into the combined powerplant; its design and implementation. This class had a most unusual powerplant for the times.
Great little potted history.
All of the sources I can find put the Panzershiff side armour nearer to 3 inches than 5 although they did vary.
It depends on how you measure the thickness, by purely the main belt it's just over 3 inches, if you include internal backing plates it's more. :)
@@Drachinifel didn't even know they had torpedo bulkheads.
Cheers.
You really need to do an extremely detailed one on the Lutzow if the photos exist after the Soviet capture.
Not many original content posts on this site; thanks, good stuff.
Heavy cruiser HMS renown. Like the invincible through deck cruisers or the courageous large light cruisers
Oh she is such a piece of beauty! God's own prototype of a cruiser.
Fast, accurate, straight lines. No casemats. The medium-ari can find its own fire-solutions for point-defense, the main-ari is concentrated and focused, she has auxillary range-finders that work together or redundant... the port-holes underline the size...
I'd love to build her in 1:100 Full-Scale...
Straight criminal that you don’t have more subs, you have shown ships/naval designs I otherwise would have never happened across.
I've been uploading almost all of his videos on the World of Warships subreddit to promote him, but yeah, he deserves more subs. I wish Wargaming would partner with him.
Diego Salvati he really does deserve it, not many channels do what he does, it really is unique
FYI You did not state where the 10K ton limit came from, which I found confusing. At first I thought one of the London/Washington treaties, but internet search says it was from the the Treaty of Versailles. Just saying ;)
In From the Depths, I’m designing one of my Cruisers after this ship
Ah, a fellow FtD player, a rare discovery
we need a 5 minute guide on the SS Tyr
5:50 - ‘heavy cruiser renown’ !!!!
JK great video
Panzerschiff was not the standard classification for battleships - that would've been Linienschiff
Parsecboy nein wie haben sie schlactschiff genannt
@@taggartlawfirm Linienschiff ist ein altes Wort für Schlachtschiff das von der kaiserlichen Marine benutzt wurde
Velicht fur segelshiffn, aber nicht im zeitalter des damfes.
@@taggartlawfirm ooooh doch. Informier dich gefälligst. Im Kaiserreich wurden Schlachtschiffe, Linienschiffe genannt
Bitte, fur dampfschiffen? konnen sie mir erzahlen wohin sie haben das gelernt?
Love your videos!!! Could you do the Alaska class BC in the near future?
It's on the list somewhere :)
About naming ships after your country - HMAS Australia (Indefatigable class battle-cruiser) served throughout WW1, and it's successor HMAS Australia (County class cruiser) survived WW2, including multiple hits by multiple kamikazes!
Renown was a battlecruiser, not a heavy cruiser 😋
theREDdevilz22 you‘re correct, but we all know that...
theREDdevilz22
Battlecruisers were intended to be Cruisers so superior to older cruisers as to render them obselete. The "Battlecruiser" moniker was coined by the Admiralty to differentiate between them and the cruisers, after it was decided that cruisers still had a role to play, and would continue to be produced.
Michael Coulter good old Jackie Fisher..
Far too mush fuss is made of the British deception plan. The arrival of the heavy cruiser HMS Cumberland is ignored by fans of the plan. This makes the movie Battle of the River Plate more accurate than some documentaries. Isn't it supposed to be the over way around?
the REDdevilz22: Which was noted, they were bigger, FASTER and more heavily armed with 15in guns!
Any chance for the early design studies that led to HMS dreadnought? X4 was mentioned somewhere
Thank you sir - excellent as always
Excellent video as usual. Thanks
Plz do the schleswig-holstein
donaz hevon pre-dreadnought?
I REALLY, liked these ships.
I wonder how much weight they would have saved with both main turrets forward (ala Dunkerques/Richelieus)?
But do not raise the rear one - to save more weight.
And forget the 5.9 inch altogether.
Instead, install 3 or 4, twin 4.1 inch turrets (all on the centerline).
Say, 2 superfiring aft and try to squeeze one forward, firing over the main turrets.
I wonder what weight that would save?
Well, the almost 200 tons for the 8x5.9 inch mounts for certain.
Plus, the weight saved from greatly shortening the main armored citadel.
I tend to think these ships could have been immensely successful as a commerce raider/cruiser killer if not for the compromise on tonnage. These could have been superb had they been given about 35-45% more armor. In terms of armament, it turns out that their secondary armament was either too light, or too few, for this ship to really fight on even terms when outnumbered. The ideal weight for this class is perhaps 15,000 tons with an additional 10 meters in length. Give it armor to completely protect it against 8 inch guns, and a heavy secondary armament (give it four 8 inch guns to go with the six inch guns and it really could quickly cripple a second cruiser while the main batteries are engaging the heavier enemy ship) so it can evenly engage a heavy cruiser and medium cruiser at the same time, and it becomes an excellent ship.
@@i.r.s9494 I largely agree with you.
15,000+ tons and more armor to deal with 8 inch guns.
But I disagree with the secondary armament.
On reflection? Probably the ideal ship of that size for commerce raiding would have been a small, aircraft carrier with about 20+ aircraft. Armed with Stuka's and Bf-109's (and Fw-190's exclusively when they became available).
And 34-35 knots to outrun anything that could make trouble for her. Plus, they could hit targets without the enemy ever seeing the ship. And even take out much, larger targets.
But...for a 13-14,000 ton ship?
They sure caused a HECK of a lot of trouble and worry for the British and French as they were.
Heck, the French built an entire class of ships JUST to take on the Deutschland's.
That is a huge compliment.
@@McRocket Maybe the 8-inch guns are too much. Adding more 6-inch guns might suffice. Say 12 instead of 8.
They already were close to that mark, and weighed more than a heavy cruiser of the time. They wanted 15-inch guns in the first place because Jutland taught them there was no replacement for calibre, their 11-inch guns back then had much weight in fire, yet were useless against a BB. "Complete protection" is misleading, because superstructures were important, yet cannot be armoured by much without causing serious stability problems, and even small guns firing HE and star shells could cause crippling damage to fire control and comms systems on the superstructure.
The German economy was also in bad shape at that point, so they cannot go building an entire fleet of super-dreadnoughts even if it were allowed, which means these new ships needed to be affordable. The worst part was that they were crippled by disarmament. Upgrading old dreadnoughts and BCs would result in a much more effective capital ship fleet for much less money, and provided the chance to trial new technologies and experience with them. They had to develop a lot of naval technology, but still fell behind in things like dual-purpose secondary guns
@@McRocket We shouldn't go on what is ideal, but what is possible. We all know Essex-class carriers or a large fleet of U-boats are the best for that role, because they could strike hard while also being able to defend themselves in the meantime. 20 would be far too few for something small enough to fit.
Carriers needed to be escorted by a battlefleet, because their hangars and infrastructure meant they were flimsy, and fully loaded strike aircraft could only be launched in good conditions and strong headwind from a small carrier. While ships could reach top speed for some time, they suffer from massively reduced range, and that is not counting the disadvantages diesel engines had in performance under load. It also required a lot of experienced naval pilots which cannot be allowed to even form, let alone train on the seas
5:46
Is the Renown a heavy cruiser now?
The pronunciation of "Lützow" is "Luetzof" with the "z" spoken quite sharply.
I apologize for not being able to give phonetik script.
Hey can we plz have video on BB-48 the USS West Virginia
The W in Lützow is silent. It's pronounced Lützo.
This is the case with all German words that end in W (e.g. Seelow Heights, Pankow, von Bülow).
A great ship with a great Captain, he was well regarded and his humane treatment won the respect of the ships' officers detained as his prisoners.
She was great being a heavy cruiser, A British heavy cruiser and two light cruisers could not take her down, was that the strenght of the ship or the Captain, I belive it was both, the right man for the right ship, doing the right thing. A true Gentlman and a true and galant ship. But this is my own opinion and I do not expect anyone to agree with me.
Do you have a video on the Admiral Scheer the most successful member of the class?
When did the Ajax start being called the Eye-Yaks? When I was growing up after WW2, it was never anything but A-Jacks!
I think that is how the Greeks pronounce that name.
1:00
*Yorck from World of Warships says ‘Hi’.*
Nice layout on the ships but was really surprised at how slow they were. I didnt know the Deutchland class were limited to 26 knots.
Anlushac11 yeah they were designed for range and reliability over speed
Graf Spee reportedly reached 29.5 knots during the Battle Of The River Plate
As designed the Class could sail without refueling from Germany to the Southern Tip of Africa and back at normal cruising speed. A Hipper Class ship could make it to the coast near Gilbrator and back without refueling.
Marine diesel engines are not known for blistering performance even today. They used the same types of fuel as an oil-fired boiler, didn't need hours to raise steam before going anywhere, typically used less fuel and saved weight while also eliminating the dangers of high pressure steam. That was a blessing in logistics, tactical flexibility, safety and displacement. They would be a lot more popular if they did not also have glaring shortcomings in acceleration and performance under high load, at least compared to geared turbines and boilers.
At 5.56 Renown is described a s a heavy cruiser. 😉
I have a question about a certain Deutschland/Lützow picture that appears twice (around 3:30 and 5:56). It seems that the middle gun of the front turret is missing. Anyone knows why?
Diego Ferreiro might be lowered for cleaning
rly nis after posting the question I have been investigating a bit and it seems that the picture was taken in April 1940, and it is captioned as taken during the invasion of Norway. During the battle if the Drøbak Narrows (April 8th) the Lützow was hit in the middle front gun by the Norwegian shore batteries and sustained some other moderate damage, while the cruiser Blücher was sunk. After landing the troops, the Lützow returned to Germany for repairs (and she was torpdoed in the stern while underway, raising the damage level from moderate to severe).
After reading this information I think that the picture was altered for propaganda purposes to hide the battle damage, so rather than taken during the invasion of Norway, it was taken immediately after.
This is the bundesarchiv link: www.bild.bundesarchiv.de/archives/barchpic/search/_1530978169/?search[view]=detail&search[focus]=1 The picture can be seen as well on the Deutschland Wikipedia entry.
6:38
That's the Tirpitz, not Scheer or Lutzow
I know Tirpitz has the most aerial photos like this, but this is a Panzerschiffe, notice two main turrets, not four, and three guns per turret, not two. :)
@@Drachinifel
Yes you are correct, I was under the assumption that Tallboy bombs were only used against Tirpitz, hence my wrong judgment per the huge bombcraters surrounding the ship
Why did warships have portholes below the main deck ?
air circulation, light, emergency escape.
Why do we see the question mark or smiley inbetween?
So assuming the Germans wanted to keep the ship to 10000 tons and 6x11 guns. what would they have had to give up to get to that limit? i think they were all over the limit from 1 to 3 thousand tons
KMS Admiral Hipper, H class battleships, O class battlecruisers please, thanks, and excuse you
Wow. I knew the Germans' surface ship designs were pretty much World War 1 designs, but my god, those rejected designs were just sad. Those are PRE-World War 1 turret placements.
They were coastal defense ship designs. Just because they look similar does not mean they are the same concepts.
german interwar ships where neither "world war 1 designs" (in fact they where innovative with diesel propulsion) and neither where the rejected designs "sad" since they are comparable to US and UK design concepts of the time.
@madscientist 666 had.
How about the H class battleships designed after the bismarck. H-39 H-42 and H-44.
Kuma class pls
ewrr tzui will do
Drachinifel thanks
I've always thought the pocket battleships were inspired by the American heavy frigates like the USS Constitution - built to outgun any regular frigates, and outrun any ships of the line.
No. Due to treaty restriction.
@@kyle857 he just said inspired not the sole reason, hell the Cruiser Killers like the Alaska's are exactly as said, out gun the targets they would face run away from anything they can't
If this was just a regular heavy cruiser with little real celebrity about it, it would have been considered a great heavy cruiser design and a real workhorse of a cruiser.
aww those ships are cute
Any such deception alluded to at approx 5:40 is merely academic. The oil purification plant had been irreparably damaged within time allowed to remain in neutral port and fuel in the 'ready use' bunkers was insufficient for sea going operation.
Originally there where to be more Pocket Battleships.
Instead of the scharnhorst & Bismark class would it have been better to have a larger fleet of smaller raiders?
Were the ships any good or were they terrible
The list of German battleships on Wikipedia must be wrong. It shows four other ships for the Deutschland class but doesn't list the Lutzow or Admiral Sheer anywhere. Maybe you can help them correct it. It would be a service to Wikipedia users around the world. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_battleships_of_Germany#Deutschland_class Thank you for your great videos. Haven't seen your videos specifically on the Lutzow and Admiral Sheer yet. Looking forward to those.
The list is of the pre-dreadnoughts of the WW1 High Seas Fleet.
That is a list of Deutschland battleships this is a video on Deutschland cruisers.
Graf Spee had a severe Achilles Heel. One of Exeter's 8-inch shells hit her on-board steam generator which was above the armoured deck and around the main mast and not protected. Steam was needed for the galleys and also for the refining of its raw diesoline. Although the ship had just refuelled, it could no longer refine its fuel at sea. This was partially repaired at Montevideo but it could then only make around 17 knots, so it had no chance of returning to Germany. Langsdorff kept this flaw secret because its 2 sister-ships also had it. He also had only enough 11" ammunition for another hour's worth of fighting.
#Q&A What if Plan Z had been finished prior to the start of WWII?
WW2 would have had to start in like 1948 for that to happen.
With the disparity in shipbuilding capability, that is unlikely. The British Empire had the greatest ability to build capital ships on the planet alongside the USA, owing to many more large slipways than Germany, and had a full navy. There is no way any nation would watch it happen without acting.
The German economy was also on meth, and it was a race to rearm and rebuild before their debts matured. It was not as crippling as starving and beating >15% of your population to death just to get a little heavy industry going, but that plan was never going to happen in time
Very good video
Obviously no one told HMS Exeter that she couldn't take on a "Pocket Battleship".
If they had done the coastal defense type with 15s they could have had 15s on the scharnhorsts and maybe had the bismarcks sooner
Yeah especially 1:38. That thing has 15inch guns in a single triple tureet
The Texas is that last surviving dreadnaught
I wouldn't even call the Deutschlands heavy cruisers, they were more of a monitor-cruiser hybrid.
1:12 baby battleship
by the look of the shape it looks like michael bay pearl harbor oklahoma filmset of the bow section cause in bts pearl harbor the oklahoma filmset is a cruiser shape the turret is too close to the bow
Can you do the uss west Virginia
Advance Gamer yep
Thank you
Drachinifel I miss read it as wet vagina
The light cruiser _HMS AJAX_ has never been called I-ax in English, it is pronounced A-jax. I think you are confusing her with a Dutch Association Football team.😊👍
You didn’t say what happened to the scheer
Sunk in Port at Kiel in late April 1945.
Its a unique class indeed, its a Heavy Cruiser that isnt a glorified Battleship
Could you do one on the USS Cole. I admit it is a bit out of you time line stc but it would be interesting
He won't. It is way outside.
With all the praise heaped on German ships it's annoying that all too many people ignore just how massively they exceeded the treaty limits. Yes, they were forced to sign the Versailles Treaty, but that's what happens when you lose a war.
These ships were not 'slightly' overweight. They exceeded the Versailles treaty limits of 10,000 tons by between 17-21%.
That's a huge margin and any ships going over their design specs by that much would have severe sea keeping and stability problems and their speed would suffer. As this wasn't the case, these ships were designed to exceed the limits and Germany just lied and understated thir true tonnage as they later did for all their large surface ships.
Much like Japan did for their cruisers and carriers.
How about a video about the Flower class corvettes for all the incredible work they did escorting merchant ships in the Altantic in some of the worst weather.
John Fisher sure thing
Germany had every right to do the construction. After all the versailles dictation had not only points for germany. The allied powers never disarmed themself in 1927.
Absolutely .... the real heroes of the Atlantic war...were the shit-sucking, unarmed Canadians .....
as usual.
First of : verdun was shit, not something you do, not even if you win a war!
Secondly: not like the allies didnt have similar ships lmao
None of WWi was fought on German soil. They didn't lose, bolsheviks infiltrated German society and undermined the war effort, ala 'hippies' & Vietnam.
They were sorta like a 1930s take on the armored cruiser concept like the old Olympia.
Hitler renamed the Deutschland...he was worried lest such a named ship be sunk!
I have to say that these ships were IMHO among the more innovative designs of the interwar period. As commerce raiders they were really hard to beat. All ships of course have drawbacks. But theirs were not many in terms of their intended purpose. Battle-cruisers and aircraft were the only thing they really needed to fear.
What about heavy cruisers?
Ignoring the fact that they are most famous for their raids being ended by cruisers?
Why does the ship model in the picture have a fictional imperial flag with the iron cross on it.
They could easily just put the current BRD flag on it because it IS a picture of the plans for the ship and the ships were designed and started to be build during the Weimar Republic.
Or they could put the "normal" imperial flag on it because in April 1933, when the "Deutschland" joined the service the german flag was, after Hitlers acsension in January 1933 the official flag for germany was the imperial one and not yet the nazi party flag. The nazi party flag was often depicted alongside the imperial one by the nazis but only in 1935 did it become the official flag of facist germany replacing the nazi flag. So both the Deutschland/Lützow and the Admiral Scheer can be shown perfectly fine with the imperial flag. Only the Graf Spee entered service after the official flag switch.
But its just me beeing a bit nitpicking :)
Also the Lützow was not sunk by the RAF, it was made unmanouverable by the bombing. It served as coastal support fire for the german army well over a months after the bombing with its crew still on board and was scuttled by the german crew on the 4th of May 1945. The scuttling didnt go as planned though and the ship beached itself (again) on the sea floor without to much damage. The soviets later on just refloated it by pumping out the water and raising it again. It was still operational to soem degree at that point until the soviets dropped a 5 special bombs on it and most importantly deactivated the water pump keeping the water from flooding the ship. If finally sunk in 1947 at the hands of the soviet navy, NOT the RAF.
As designed faster then those she can't beat stronger then the faster.The 11in gun's,Same as Shienhorst.
Really enjoying your work. Baltimore class CA at some point please.
Come here after : ua-cam.com/video/uZnnj3J4Lw8/v-deo.html
Yes, it was suppose to land on the Lutzow (Deustland)
heavy. _cruiser_ . *_renown_* .
With the Royal Navy across the North Sea the German Navy should have stayed with submarines, and nothing larger than Destroyers. Because the Kriegsmarine was never competitive against the British in surface warships.
A all sub navy doesn't get you far. And they act as a decoy to the Home Fleet. The RN has to keep tons ships at Scapa flow to guard against raiders. Ships that could have been in action, elsewhere.
WALTERBROADDUS ..... well, in the Mediterranean. Where the British were already dominate. Or in the Pacific. But the Pacific wasn’t a priority for the British before 1945.
@@Idahoguy10157 That is the flaw of the RN. They have 3 Oceans and the Med sea to defend. So the decoy effect of German ships outweigh merchants sunk.
In reality, displacement determines capacity. Destroyers were only support ships precisely because they were no match against any cruiser in an age of hydroscopes and radar with their puny 5" guns, and had much less armour and AA firepower. The Royal Navy also had plenty of destroyers and capital ships to make it worse. Many interwar destroyers also had the seaworthiness of a leaking submarine, so there is no way a destroyer fleet could control any kind of sea against large ships. Only having small ships is problematic because U-boats were slower than pre-dreadnoughts, so were extremely easy to catch, and could not hide because they cannot stay submerged for long. We also fail to appreciate how much resources a destroyer fleet can consume, with powerful destroyers like Shimakaze consuming almost as much fuel as an actual battleship
You are basically calling for a Jeune Ecole doctrine in the 1930s, where advances in fire control made capital ships much deadlier, yet the poor seaworthiness of the submarine, torpedo boat and destroyer have not been overcome. And now there are carriers and radar equipment to make their lives even more difficult.
@@charlesc.9012 ….Germany could never be competitive with the Royal Navy in capital ships. Both in numbers and access into the North Atlantic. Add to that the American Atlantic Fleet.
And yet the British thought 'HMS New Zealand' was just fine...
:P
10 people are slow merchantmen.
In hindsight, Germany would have been better off allocating restricted resources to submarines and light surface vessels--none larger than a destroyer. By WWII surface commerce raiding was quickly becoming obsolete. However, understanding that surface commerce raiding was still a widely accepted strategy, the best allocation of resources would have probably been more heavy cruisers (Hipper-type)--forgetting the slower Deutschlands or very expensive battle cruisers and battleships.
The Hippers aren't exactly resource-efficient designs either tbh
These ships were built when Germany still had a democratic government that was (mostly) honouring its treaties, and the Versailles treaty that these ships were built under banned Germany from having any submarines. So submarines were not an option. The treaty was the limiting factor, not how much Germany could afford, so if they were allowed x tonnage of destroyers and three 10,000-ton ships they might as well build the cruisers. Three Washington Treaty cruisers, on the other hand, would not have done anything much for Germany.
Germany was also in the position of worrying about naval supremacy in the Baltic. With the size of their WWI navy that was trivial, but when limited to three modern cruiser-size ships rivalry with other Baltic naval powers was a consideration.
The diesel power that made these ships slower than conventional cruisers had two major advantages. The engines could be simply turned on and off, unlike steam engines which required that steam be raised (imagine a 19th-Century locomotive), and so the ship had the theoretical ability to outrun a normally faster steamship in the first moments of an encounter. Second, the range of these ships was phenomenal. There was a plan for Lutzow to raid whaling ships off Antarctica. And IIRC it was common for merchant ships of the time to be diesel powered so a diesel-powered commerce raider might be able to take fuel from its captures? - I don't know how well that would work in practice. However, the slow speed of the diesels meant the ships didn't tactically integrate well with the 30-plus knot steamships later built for the KM.
So they were, in my view, a very good design for the time and circumstances of their construction.
@@michael14195 Steamships with oil-fired boilers have no problem running on marine diesel fuel.
Tjey should have made them faster.
Using a interwar, rather than a modern illustration of Germany would have been nice
These things are modern USS Olympia. It's all basically the same just the Germans take with modern(ww2) weapons
but the america was sunk.
As a kid I thought that was silly- even the civilians should know it was just a ship. Expensive ship, and good men dead, but shouldn't be an extra blow to morale because of the name. On the other hand, what idiot thought it was a good idea to name it after the country in the first place? It was a warship. Always a chance it might get sunk by the enemy. Might even get sunk in a hurricane. You never know.
I like to think of these as the last generation of costal defense battleships
The victor always writes the history. Making it rather one sided. The story of these ships is somewhat screwed. Especially the history of the Graph Spee. A Panzerschiff is the German descriptive word for an Armored Ship not Battleship. A Linienschiff is the descriptive word for a Ship of the line or Battleship as we commonly call a ship of the line or battle line. Pocket Battleship is a media description of these ships given by the British press to sell newspapers.
The battle of the River Platte was a clear German victory, the three British cruisers failed to destroy the German ship and were mauled to the point of only having two guns remaining in action between the three ships. The Exeter barely surviving the battle. From a design perspective the British cruiser concept of many small hulls over fewer larger more capable cruiser hulls was a failure in battle. The River Platte battle confirms that fact. The German plan to employ the ship as a raider was a tactical mistake. Nine merchant ships was not worth the cost of the armored cruiser. Scuttling the ship was also a mistake. Interning her in Montevideo would have made more sense at that stage of the war.
Back to design, it was really a brilliant idea to employ the Armored cruiser design as a battleship replacement. The capabilities of these ships far outweighed all foreign navy capabilities in the 10,000 to 15,000 ton range. The only design issue was her speed was not quite what it needed to be, 26 knots was a few knots too slow to escape. Had the Graf Spee been operating on Diesel fuel she wouldn’t have needed to seek refuge in Montevideo after the battle. It can be decided that the Captain of the Graf Spee made several errors in decisions before the battle, during the battle and after the battle. We cannot blame the ships design for errors in command. Human error in battle and in life are typically far more frequent than mechanical error or design error. Dudley Pope’s book “The Life and Death of a Raider” is a good collective story on the Graf Spee’s WWII accounts and the Battle of the River Platte but it is skewed to present British “superiority” and heroism, of course.
I agree that it was a good design and effective, though it seems just a little bit more armor and speed would have made it truly an apex commerce raider.
Its deficiency was its weak secondary battery. 3-on-1 is really much for the six 11-inch guns in only two turrets, and 8 6-inch guns were not enough to combat multiple cruisers at once. 8 single turrets, without a single one on the center line, is not great. Add to that the turrets for the 6 inch guns were not armored per se. I forget the source, but I think it is mentioned that the gun crews suffered badly during that battle as a result from splinters from the British 6 inchers penetrating the thin gun shields.
If only they put the Atlantic bow on it. i.e scharhorst bow.
always same mistake- not triple turrets, but three gun turrets- because each gun can elevate without the rest. Triple turrets means that all guns move together.
Sexiest ships ever
USS America yes, USS United States, never gonna happen.
It did once. The United States was one of the sister ships of the Constitution in the War of 1812
There is the SS United States of course. Built for rapid conversion into a troopship, and still around.
Overrated ships.
Keep "Re-voicing" all these videos with a human narrator
What if: the basic Deutschland design had been enlarged, geared steam turbines installed along with more and better armor while keeping the updated 11.1” Main Armament, improved AAA and Radar. The Germans could have designed superb Aircraft Carriers. If Hitler had kept to his original schedule and attacked in the late ‘40s the Nazis with far more advanced tools of War may have been almost unstoppable.
Why are you using a Post WW2 map of Germany! It really ticks me off as it is not Historically accurate!
These ships were crap. Made for commerce raiding, they were obsolete before they left the slip because of radio and maritime aircraft.
The record says otherwise. Thus not crap
These ships were heavy cruisers not Battleships nor battle-cruisers as such they were far from obsolete they were efficient for killing other cruisers both heavy and light and commerce raiding. Against Battle cruisers or Battleships they were at a major disadvantage. interestingly Battle-cruisers would be more considered as crap due to being a kinda unnecessary piece of equipment, They had the guns of full fledged battleships but the amour of cruisers, and were treated as being able to stand up to battleships. The US kinda saw this and learned quickly by naming the Alaska Class a large cruiser and enforcing policy that it be used as a heavy cruiser even though it looked liked a smaller IOWA or a North Carolina. This was done so it wouldn't be put in a stupid situation where it might face a full-fledged battleship or designated battle-cruisers like what happened to the HMS Hood. The Scharnhorst-class I believe were the only true Battlecruiser Type and were effectively battleships and named such by there adversaries and allies they might have been easily labled as light battleships if such a classification existed and should have existed. .
@@Quetzalcoatl_Feathered_Serpent not only their adversaries, the Germans called them Battleship (Schlachtschiff) too, during my youth i had an original "Mützenband" "Schlachtschiff Scharnhorst", as an ex federal german navy member ( naval air wing 3) i know that when the Type (and Name) is writen on the cap then it is the offical name for this shiptype
Why do you use this dumb automated voice for your intro and ending?
He started out using the voice for the whole thing.
Why do you feel the need to bitch?
So before the Charlie Chaplin reject Germany already had plans for rearmament