Great video archive and I've not seen it before, I'm glad you are teaching your students about this type of history from WW2.. It means a lot to me personally as my late father was on HMS Norfolk during this battle against Scharnhorst and the battle of the Bismarck..he also endured PQ17 and many Arctic convoys which in later life caused issues with his feet and knees due to the extreme cold, according to Churchill the Arctic convoys were the worst journey in the world. He managed to go though the war without injury but his relation (aged 19) was killed on HMS Glorious when it was sunk. I cannot imagine the terror of having large shells approaching the ship thinking is it our turn next..RIP and ."Lest we forget"
Quite right, but please DO NOT FORGET the role of Polish mathematicians in breaking of the Enigma! They were but three, but their work was excellent. Their names were M Rejewski, J Różycki and H Zygalski. Only after their efforts the breaking of the Enigma at BP became possible. 😊🇵🇱🇬🇧♍
Scharnhorst is described as Germany's last serviceable major unit in the video. Tirpitz was still serviceable in 1943. She did not become irreparably damaged until 1944. Strange that Scharnhorst was sent out on such a mission, but every time Tirpitz had an opportunity to intercept a convoy, Hitler ordered her back to anchorage. Had Tirpitz been present at North Cape under similarcircumstances, she might have survived. That said, this is a very enjoyable video and it's great that it's available for naval history nuts like me to view and enjoy.
_Scharnhorst_ *WAS* the only serviceable heavy unit - _Tirpitz_ was under repairs from the Operation Source attack on her on 22nd September of 1943 with the damage needing almost 7 months of stationary repairs
And old Kriegsmarine veteran visited my small town many years ago he called Norway the grave of Kriegsmarine. First the germans lost the Blucher when they invaded after it was sunk by a land fort in the Oslo fjord, then the battle of Narvik that cost the German navy dearly, Scharnhorst and the Tirpitz all of these losses in Norway.
@@ashermccready Chamberlain said Cunningham has a great reputation as a fighter and I am sure he won't miss a chance. Cape Matapan, chance taken. Chamberlain ruled the waves, and effectively still does. Cunningham and Warspite, may they all be remembered with the respect they deserve, irrespective of the Battle Ensign not flying during that battle, Senior Service Moments!
A note on strategy: the U-Boats were supposed to force the merchant traffic to convoy, allowing the surface warships to attack them. The German surface fleet was, regretfully, too small to do much of the latter.
Regretfully?? You sound saddened that the German Navy didn’t have the surface combatants to challenge the Royal Navy to a successful fleet engagement. Luckily the Royal Navy DID have the resources to destroy what was left of naval Naziism.
This documentary gives scant credit to the pivotal roll the DOY played. It was DOY phenomenal accuracy of her gunnery that was the deciding factor. Also after receiving considerable damage it looked for a while that she was actually going to escape and it was only a shell from DOY that hit her boiler room and slowed her to 20kts that allowed DOY and the cruisers to finish her off. To say she received 5 torpedo hits at the time they implied is simply mistaken. She only received those hits AFTER she had been slowed by DOY. Typical British production. We always give maximum credit to foreigners yet cannot manage to do the same for our own.
Not bad, except that a number of times in the commentary, the Scharnhorst & Gneisenau are referred to as 'pocket battleships'. This of course is wrong, - they were full-sized ones. The pocket battleships were the much smaller Deutschland, Admiral Hipper and Admiral Graf Spee.
Scharnhorst and her sistership Gneisenau were no battlecruisers, they were battleships. The critical difference between battleships and battlecruisers was armour, not their main guns. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were heavily armoured, some parts were even stronger than on the Bismarck class, and nobody would say the Bismarck and the Tirpitz were no battleships.
Both Scharnhorst and Gneisenau was meant to be battleships but ended up being battlecruisers, yes they have preety good armor and guns however both ships cant fight a battleship on their own cause they both have only 11 inch guns, Plus her speed.
@@kms_scharnhorst congratulations,you played yourself...According to your speed requirement,the South Carolinas weren't dreadnoughts either.According to your armament requirements,neither were...Basically everything that came after the Bellerophons. Nassau had a uniform main battery of twelve 11inch guns,the 150mm did not count as an intermediate caliber as for example the 24cm guns Wittelsbach carried for example
@@kms_scharnhorst Actually i have only shown that the armament and speed requirements you have given are...not exactly the best...I didn't even go into Nassaus earlier designs because quite frankly,i was too lazy to look it up again. At this point you would actually have to make an argument why South Carolina is a dreadnought and Nassau isn't(Speed) or why Nassaus 150mm and 88mm guns disqualify her because of "the lack of a uniform main battery" Those calibers where not considered intermediate,and most dreadnoughts and super dreadnoughts carrier a secondary battery roughly in this range
@@cliffrightmove1527 Ignorance is only one step away from stupidity, as you prove beautifully. Be happy you "five o'clocker" that you don't have to speak German...
The explanation of how difficult enigma was totally messed up. With 26 letters in the alphabet, a repeat of one key press (eg of K's) encoding to the same encoding letter (G then G ) , was most likely within 20 presses of K away ... nothing like millions of millions... What there are millions of millions of are settings, so that even if you have an enigma machine, you can't test out all the settings in the month that they used the same settings..This was due to the settings of the rotors and plug boards.
Also,the capturing and decoding of Enigma,atleast for the U Boat warfare is slightly overstated in my eyes...The Naval Charts captured were nearly as important..for example,what can you do if the information that U 1234 is to go do Square BD4359,if you dont have a german naval map to actually find out where that is
What do you think, friends, of naming some modern German warships with traditional names like 'Scharnhorst' or 'Gneisenau'? Both men have their well-deserved places in the military history of the country; so far, thre were four Gneisenaus and three Scharnhorsts with three German navies. Strangely enough, the famous names first appeared on the bows and sterns of... small passenger vessels under the flag of the NDL. One 'Scharnhorst', with the gross tonnage of ca. 18.200 register tonnes, entered the German maritime history as the first big passenger ship ever built in the 3rd Reich. Her career was a strange one, as she ended up under... Japanese colours, converted into a carrier (!) Her flight deck proved too short, to allow modern aircraft to land on it. The planes starting from the 'Shinyo' had to find bigger ships with longer decks to land on... ♍🇵🇱👍🇯🇵👍
German battlecruisers traded firepower for armor; British ones traded armor for speed. I like calling this ship a battlecruiser, have since I first read about it (I was five), since it fits the German ideal thereof, but if everybody calls it a battleship I won't argue!
Not true at all. Dalt we would be able to capture France by ourselves and supply Russia at the same time. But Germany could never have invaded UK. There navy was to weak.
Of course. We were totally helpless. That’s why we swatted ALL the German ships that came out of port, or bombed them into oblivion at their moorings, and then sank all their U-Boats.
...and the biggest boy, The Duke of York, didn't actually do anything. It might have contributed some fear, but by this account it was not at all credited with the Scharnhorst's demise. It was the little ships wot dunnit.
Great video archive and I've not seen it before, I'm glad you are teaching your students about this type of history from WW2.. It means a lot to me personally as my late father was on HMS Norfolk during this battle against Scharnhorst and the battle of the Bismarck..he also endured PQ17 and many Arctic convoys which in later life caused issues with his feet and knees due to the extreme cold, according to Churchill the Arctic convoys were the worst journey in the world. He managed to go though the war without injury but his relation (aged 19) was killed on HMS Glorious when it was sunk. I cannot imagine the terror of having large shells approaching the ship thinking is it our turn next..RIP and ."Lest we forget"
Breath takingly good documentary. Congratulations to everyone involved in making it.
Quite right, but please DO NOT FORGET the role of Polish mathematicians in breaking of the Enigma! They were but three, but their work was excellent. Their names were M Rejewski, J Różycki and H Zygalski. Only after their efforts the breaking of the Enigma at BP became possible. 😊🇵🇱🇬🇧♍
@@WojciechWachniewski-st1zm Good point. Thank you.
Scharnhorst is described as Germany's last serviceable major unit in the video. Tirpitz was still serviceable in 1943. She did not become irreparably damaged until 1944.
Strange that Scharnhorst was sent out on such a mission, but every time Tirpitz had an opportunity to intercept a convoy, Hitler ordered her back to anchorage.
Had Tirpitz been present at North Cape under similarcircumstances, she might have survived.
That said, this is a very enjoyable video and it's great that it's available for naval history nuts like me to view and enjoy.
and Churchill had obsession of Tirpitz...
Any historic sources for Hitlers "tactic" ?
_Scharnhorst_ *WAS* the only serviceable heavy unit - _Tirpitz_ was under repairs from the Operation Source attack on her on 22nd September of 1943 with the damage needing almost 7 months of stationary repairs
Hitler's Ship's Were & Are Male's Not Females. My GrandFather's Served On KMS'S GNEISENAU,SCHARNHORST,BISMARCK & TIRPITZ 😃
@CRAIGKMSBISMARCKTIRPITZ533 If he served on _Bismarck_ then it is highly unlikely he was on _Tirpitz_
Wow! Really interesting documentary on Kriegsmarine's demise. Thank you for posting it online!
And old Kriegsmarine veteran visited my small town many years ago he called Norway the grave of Kriegsmarine.
First the germans lost the Blucher when they invaded after it was sunk by a land fort in the Oslo fjord, then the battle of Narvik that cost the German navy dearly, Scharnhorst and the Tirpitz all of these losses in Norway.
Scharnhorst achieved one of the longest-range naval gunfire hits in history.
The same as HMS Warspite, both of them landed a hit to a ship at the range of about 26,000 yards
Only on a carrier crawling along with a captain holding a placard over the side of the bridge saying You can't miss mate!
@@robertewing3114 meanwhile that shot isn't even the coolest thing warspite did lol, that ship was almost unbelievably tenacious.
@@ashermccready Chamberlain said Cunningham has a great reputation as a fighter and I am sure he won't miss a chance. Cape Matapan, chance taken. Chamberlain ruled the waves, and effectively still does. Cunningham and Warspite, may they all be remembered with the respect they deserve, irrespective of the Battle Ensign not flying during that battle, Senior Service Moments!
Very good, thanks. This is a much better copy of the same video to be found elsewhere on RUclips.
Absolutely Incredible.
Thank You.
A note on strategy: the U-Boats were supposed to force the merchant traffic to convoy, allowing the surface warships to attack them. The German surface fleet was, regretfully, too small to do much of the latter.
Regretfully?? You sound saddened that the German Navy didn’t have the surface combatants to challenge the Royal Navy to a successful fleet engagement. Luckily the Royal Navy DID have the resources to destroy what was left of naval Naziism.
Have to raise an eyebrow, when Navy chief said "Regretted sinking Her , not pleasant" ! Oh dear.
NICE WW2 documentary collection
thanks
Fantastic documentary! Thank you for posting.
Think those ships would pass emissions testing lol ? Great video tho I really enjoyed it.
Scharnhorst will echo in eternity
Thank you
This documentary gives scant credit to the pivotal roll the DOY played. It was DOY phenomenal accuracy of her gunnery that was the deciding factor. Also after receiving considerable damage it looked for a while that she was actually going to escape and it was only a shell from DOY that hit her boiler room and slowed her to 20kts that allowed DOY and the cruisers to finish her off. To say she received 5 torpedo hits at the time they implied is simply mistaken. She only received those hits AFTER she had been slowed by DOY. Typical British production. We always give maximum credit to foreigners yet cannot manage to do the same for our own.
Great Overkill" All those young men deep inside"
What do you call a ship with cruiser like guns, battleship like armor, destroyer like speed you call it scharnhorst
No. We call that bismarck
Churchill might've been a great politician and leader, but as a military man he was an utter disaster.
@Chong Li Well..Churchill is responsible for Gallipoli,...
How prophetic Raeder was.
Not bad, except that a number of times in the commentary, the Scharnhorst & Gneisenau are referred to as 'pocket battleships'. This of course is wrong, - they were full-sized ones. The pocket battleships were the much smaller Deutschland, Admiral Hipper and Admiral Graf Spee.
They would have been using the terms used by the RN at the time - BBC rules on this subject were very clear
Great documentary, but I'd ask whoever is in charge of the music to slow down on the cocaine
Scharnhorst and her sistership Gneisenau were no battlecruisers, they were battleships. The critical difference between battleships and battlecruisers was armour, not their main guns. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were heavily armoured, some parts were even stronger than on the Bismarck class, and nobody would say the Bismarck and the Tirpitz were no battleships.
Both Scharnhorst and Gneisenau was meant to be battleships but ended up being battlecruisers, yes they have preety good armor and guns however both ships cant fight a battleship on their own cause they both have only 11 inch guns,
Plus her speed.
@@jesse8381 They were battleships in name and doctrine, regardless of armament.
@@kms_scharnhorst Well,Nassau is a dreadnought...Even developed BEFORE HMS Dreadnought^^
@@kms_scharnhorst congratulations,you played yourself...According to your speed requirement,the South Carolinas weren't dreadnoughts either.According to your armament requirements,neither were...Basically everything that came after the Bellerophons.
Nassau had a uniform main battery of twelve 11inch guns,the 150mm did not count as an intermediate caliber as for example the 24cm guns Wittelsbach carried for example
@@kms_scharnhorst Actually i have only shown that the armament and speed requirements you have given are...not exactly the best...I didn't even go into Nassaus earlier designs because quite frankly,i was too lazy to look it up again.
At this point you would actually have to make an argument why South Carolina is a dreadnought and Nassau isn't(Speed) or why Nassaus 150mm and 88mm guns disqualify her because of "the lack of a uniform main battery" Those calibers where not considered intermediate,and most dreadnoughts and super dreadnoughts carrier a secondary battery roughly in this range
I wonder if ever Brits will admit, that Enigma secrets was broken by Poles...
Now don’t tell me your Polish 🤣🤣🤣🤣
@@cliffrightmove1527 who cares who Am I?
@@doszymona81 absolutely right WHO CARE NELLY 👍
@@cliffrightmove1527 Ignorance is only one step away from stupidity, as you prove beautifully. Be happy you "five o'clocker" that you don't have to speak German...
...And the Lancasters which sank the Tirpitz were from 617 Squadron, The Dam Busters
living in milton keynes its weird to go past blechley park knowing the history of it
I think the term "wonder weapons"......would be more appropriately defined as "wacky weapons"
What of the destroyers that dispatched to find the convoy?
Returned to port.
The explanation of how difficult enigma was totally messed up. With 26 letters in the alphabet, a repeat of one key press (eg of K's) encoding to the same encoding letter (G then G ) , was most likely within 20 presses of K away ... nothing like millions of millions... What there are millions of millions of are settings, so that even if you have an enigma machine, you can't test out all the settings in the month that they used the same settings..This was due to the settings of the rotors and plug boards.
Also,the capturing and decoding of Enigma,atleast for the U Boat warfare is slightly overstated in my eyes...The Naval Charts captured were nearly as important..for example,what can you do if the information that U 1234 is to go do Square BD4359,if you dont have a german naval map to actually find out where that is
What do you think, friends, of naming some modern German warships with traditional names like 'Scharnhorst' or 'Gneisenau'? Both men have their well-deserved places in the military history of the country; so far, thre were four Gneisenaus and three Scharnhorsts with three German navies. Strangely enough, the famous names first appeared on the bows and sterns of... small passenger vessels under the flag of the NDL. One 'Scharnhorst', with the gross tonnage of ca. 18.200 register tonnes, entered the German maritime history as the first big passenger ship ever built in the 3rd Reich. Her career was a strange one, as she ended up under... Japanese colours, converted into a carrier (!) Her flight deck proved too short, to allow modern aircraft to land on it. The planes starting from the 'Shinyo' had to find bigger ships with longer decks to land on... ♍🇵🇱👍🇯🇵👍
Can anyone else hear the Star wars music tracks playing in the background?
The context here is wrong in so many ways. Good enough for anyone who isn't a naval buff. However, so many details here are all wrong...
Pindi was a brave fool....I give him that
Fell asleep……
I hope it gave you some good restful sleep.
The Scharnhorst Kriegsmarine lucky ship ,
Scharnhorst was a a battleship and not a battlecruiser !
Technically a Battlecruiser on her speed and guns
@@bloodrave9578 but officially she was a battleship that's why she was called schlachtschiff scharnhorst so battleship scharnhorst
German battlecruisers traded firepower for armor; British ones traded armor for speed. I like calling this ship a battlecruiser, have since I first read about it (I was five), since it fits the German ideal thereof, but if everybody calls it a battleship I won't argue!
Ben Laskowski nice attitude, I say this because I’ve seen people start ww3 on these sorta things
@@raspberryjam8563 Huh?
Jackson Paul Wilson Matthew Moore Nancy
??????
The Brits would not stand a chance against Germany had`nt it been for the americans:)
Lol, I do wonder who was the country that operated from the Atlantic, Pacific, Mediterranean, Norway Sea, Indian Ocean and even in the Australian sea
Roosevelt was given a chance by the UK, and he acknowledged it by telegram to Chamberlain, Good man.
Not true at all. Dalt we would be able to capture France by ourselves and supply Russia at the same time. But Germany could never have invaded UK. There navy was to weak.
Of course. We were totally helpless. That’s why we swatted ALL the German ships that came out of port, or bombed them into oblivion at their moorings, and then sank all their U-Boats.
Very true Äge we would have starved and the RN relocated to Canada. If it wasnt for the Russians we would have lost the war.
Nine British ships against Scharnhorst. It was a fair fight.
There were 13 ships vs the Scharnhorst.
...and the biggest boy, The Duke of York, didn't actually do anything. It might have contributed some fear, but by this account it was not at all credited with the Scharnhorst's demise. It was the little ships wot dunnit.
@michael hart To be fair, HMS Duke of York hit Scharnhost's boiler. Denying the Scharnhorst's chances to escape.