The Story of The Admiral Scheer: Germany's Mighty Pocket Battleship
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- Опубликовано: 9 июн 2023
- Dive into the fascinating history of the Admiral Scheer, one of Germany's powerful pocket battleships that played a significant role in World War II. Join us on a captivating journey as we explore the origins, design, and combat engagements of this remarkable warship. In this video, we'll take you back to the aftermath of World War I and the Treaty of Versailles, which imposed restrictions on Germany's naval capabilities. Discover how Germany, facing economic hardships and political turmoil, navigated these challenges while striving to maintain a naval presence. Learn about the meticulous design process that led to the creation of the Panzerschiffe, commonly known as pocket battleships, and how the Admiral Scheer emerged as the second ship in its class. Explore the unique features and armament of this formidable vessel, including its innovative triple turret arrangement and exclusive use of diesel propulsion. Follow the Admiral Scheer's eventful career, from its commissioning in 1934 to its involvement in naval exercises and diplomatic missions. Witness its deployment to the Spanish Civil War and its reprisal attacks on Republican-held towns, leaving a lasting impact on the conflict. Experience the outbreak of World War II and the Admiral Scheer's encounters with enemy forces, including the daring air attack by Bristol Blenheim bombers. Discover how the ship underwent overhaul and modifications to enhance its performance, preparing for more intense naval operations. This video provides a comprehensive overview of the Admiral Scheer's service until its final months in April 1945. Marvel at its impressive armament, remarkable speed, and the bravery of its crew as they engaged in battles across the Arctic and the Indian Ocean.
Sources/Other Reading:
www.amazon.com/Pocket-Battles...
www.amazon.com/Big-Guns-Atlan...
hmsjervisbay.com/Story.Illust...
www.amazon.com/Northern-Theat...
Video Information:
Copyright fair use notice. All media used in this video is used for the purpose of education under the terms of fair use. All footage and images used belong to their copyright holders, when applicable.
Hey Everyone thanks for watching! Some important things of note that I failed to catch in editing.
1. The Admiral Scheer achieved a top speed of 28.3 knots.
2. She was initially equipped with 6 88 mm guns, later to be changed to 105 mm guns.
3. I say she heads to Trondheim and then fail to mention where she goes after that. She goes to Bogen in Norway.
Sorry for these mistakes, the sources make things a bit confusing!
then you need to do a voiceover clip correcting your errors in the video
Excellent video, pictures and historical data are superb.
I’ve always been a WWII amateur history buff and enjoy videos like yours. Keep up the good work.
Being drawn to this particular time in history I have been working on as many 1:350 scale models of WWII era ships I can find for years. To date I have over 70 ships in my collection, including ships from the U.S., IJN, British, French, Kriegsmarine, and Italy, navies. Including this particular ship. Seeing them in three dimensions, next to ships of the same era gives a new appreciation of the elegance of these ships.
I fell in love with Admiral Scheer after reading Kranke's book about her raiding sortie to South Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Having previously read about the loss of the Jervis Bay, reading about the same encounter from the German side, and the the respect they had for the Jervis Bay's courage, was quite humbling. Even during wartime the Scheer's crew respected the ancient "Crossing The Line" ceremonies when passing into the South Atlantic. They even de-coked the diesels in mid-Atlantic.
The description of the Duquesa refrigerated ship's cargo and what the Scheer's crew did with all those eggs had a certain comical ring to it. Duquesa was coal-fired so she was towed around by other ships to conserve her coal for the refrigerators. Every meal had eggs in it, even soup, until the crew were sick and tired of them. Kranke even tried hunting for a collier to refuel the Duquesa, but to no avail. Eventually she was sunk after the coal ran out and the food had been transferred. Imagine the difference for the crew with meat and eggs every day while their kinsfolk in Germany were on severe rations. No wonder Raeder was impressed.
The best description I ever saw of the Panzerschiffe is that they were a brilliant solution to a problem that no other navy faced - basically, they were the naval version of a platypus. For what they were, they gave pretty good service.
Admiral Scheer had to be the record holder for hits by duds - incredible - I never knew that - a real fighter, well done video, will look forward to more.
Scheer was a fine ship but somewhat underemployed during WW2. Like Tirpitz she spent far too long hiding and idle in Norwegian waters instead of striking quickly and often in the manner for which she was designed.
Thanks for posting!
Except she managed to be the most successful raiser in history by GRT.
@@WorshipinIdols Not so. She was certainly pretty impressive yes, but as for the most successful raider by either GRT or number of ships sunk, try studying the German auxiliary cruisers. The Atlantis, the Thor and the Pinguin in particular.
A ship that's hiding is better than a ship at the bottom. I'm the case of tirpitz, her very existence exacted a lot from the British, more than a sortie that would have risked her being sunk.
Well done. I think Scheer was the most successful of all three pocket battleships. One detail that could perhaps have added is that at Christmas 1940, Scheer met up with her supply ships and two or three of the armed surface raiders (the only name I can remember is Atlantis). They was quite a large German party in the middle of British controlled waters.
Is that something to be celebrated. We sunk the Atlantis.
The rendez vouz you mentioned was on the Indian ocean, well off the route hot spots, so reasonably safe meeting. The ships meeting Scheer were Atlantis and two of Atlantis` prays, other one a norwegian tanker Ketty Brövig that refueled all the other ships and was scuttled later on and another a merchantman Speybank that was sent to St Nazaire as a blockade runner, later named Doggerbank by germans.
@@roysimmons3549 miserable prick...
They where fucking cruisers. Stop calling them pocket battleships, ffs
All of 3 were very successfull under the circunstances.
The 26.000 km salvo of the Scharnhorst that hit the British aircraft carrier HMS Glorious,is one of the Greastest feats in naval warfare.
In that day o May of 1940 in the north sea near Norway the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau sunk the Aircraft carrier HMS Glorious,the Battlecruiser HMS Renown and the Destroyers HMS Acasta and the HMS Ardent.
Not a bad day at all for those 2 ships .
Great episode - an overlooked ship, one whose history I didn't know well. Thanks for this I'm learning a lot from this. Keep it up love your channel.
This was an excellent documentary on the Panzerschiff design and their operations. The Battle of the River Plate will always stand out as the peak operations of the Graf Spee. The old movie was excellent and portrayed the entire ruse of the British well. Captain Langsdorf was not fond of the Nazi Party and his allegiances lied with the German Navy. He was chivalrous and courteous to those that he captured and he was a very kind and accommodating captain (which is more than can be said of the captain of the Altmark, Captain Henrich Dau). With the British scheming to deceive the Germans into believing that the majority of the British naval fleet was waiting just outside of the mouth of the River Plate off of Montevideo, Captain Langsdorf chose a skeleton crew, sailed out of Montevideo Harbor, stopped his ship, set the explosives to scuttle his ship, and abandoned ship. A week later he committed suicide on the German flag. In my humble opinion Captain Langsdorf was a proper gentleman, a dedicated captain, and he placed the needs of his crew above his own. He knew that Hitler would personally see to his breaking upon arrival back to Germany, so he did what he had to do. He did not want to see the destruction of his ship, the loss of his crew, or the potential of the enemy getting a hold of his ship, so he did the best that he could do when faced with such a difficult situation.
No. La razón para hundirlo y para que no cayeran manos británicas tiene que ver con el sistema de medición por radio Funksmessgerät Fu MG 38G .....el "Seetakt".
Uno de los primeros radares navales de la Kriegsmarine. Eso llevaba a bordo el Graf Spee. Cada vez que disparaba a un target en movimiento acertaba. Los británicos no. Eso era lo que querían los británicos y para esos que en algún momento Churchill quiso recuperar restos. El telémetro ya se recuperó. Está en Uruguay
I have subscribed, purely on the basis of the effectiveness of this video. I am knowledgeable, a sucker for detail--and picky! I like your narrative style and your clean spare presentation. I learned quite a lot. Thank you. Good job. I hope to see more and to see you get the subscriber growth you apparently deserve.
Fantastic video. Keep this up mate!
Good job mate, very interesting. great delivery.
Nicely done.
PanzerSchiff were a hybrid that worked out about as well as can be expected.
Early war, before allied air patrols, they were rather successful as raiders.
Once allied resources reached the remote areas the Raiders thrived in, their day was over.
Top speed was a liability as British cruisers could run them down. Diesel engines offered extensive range, but were never super reliable.
I’m always surprised there is not more information or videos done on scheer. One of the most successful kreigsmarine surface units.
These ships were never intended to replace battleships but was more of a heavy cruiser concept with a need to compensate lack of volumes with quality to maximise the intended commerce raiding tasks for these ships
They were conceived by the Weimar Republic as ships capable of intercepting French troop convoys in the event of war between Germany & France, or France & Poland. The immediate French response was construction of the Strasbourgs.
Blew the hell out of my grandfathers ship the San Demetrio when she attacked convoy HX 84 in November 1940, grandad survived the attack.
Enjoyed this, thanks.
good design under the circumstances.proved to be very capable/versatile. not intended to fight battleships,but capable of holding its own against heavy cruisers.
Maybe so, but as we saw with the Admiral Graf Spee, THREE British Cruisers were far too many for it.
@@Otokichi786 yes;but they got hurt pretty bad in the process. those 11 inch guns were wicked and far superior to 8 inch. still too many 6 and 8 inch barrels firing from multiple angles to overcome with just 2 turrets.
@@Otokichi786 The problem was where the battle took place. If the same battle would be faught in the North Sea or between Norway and England/Island the Graf Spee would be the winner hands down, against 3 British Cruisers. The battle damage was medium, nothing realy seroius for a couple of hundred sea miles but not 3000-4000.
@@carstenlaun1026 Why a problem? long range raiding was the job she was build to do!
but her designflaw was obvious. she was said to be faster than those stronger ships, but stronger than the faster ones. but if you turn this around its also true:
she was weaker than slower ships, and the weaker opponents were to fast for her to catch. and more over there were several heavier and faster ships british Hood, Renown, Repulse, French Dunkerque and Strasbourg and the fast treaty-battleships were already looming on the horizon.
As far as i know most of her ammunition was spend, water- and fuelprocessing facilities and her Arado destroyed. so she would not be able to travel home or travel much at all, could not defend herself and no reconplan left. thats why she was sunk, as a now useless wreck in foreign waters. and her sailors were lucky that HMS Cumberland (8x8in)was left behind at the Falklands and only the budget cruiser HMS Exeter (6x8in) met her in battle.
@@marting1056 1. She was never built for long range raiding that is a secondary sorce Myth, which is completely failse. She was designed as a political ship to use the weaknesses of the Washington-Treaty. The order book called for defending the approaches to the Baltic Sea, convoy protection and Atlantic warfare.
2. Around half of her ammuntion was spend.
3. "water- and fuelprocessing facilities and her Arado destroyed". This is the next secondary source Myth. Accept the Arado nothing of this was destroyed. AGS had a heavy hit at the bow with a big hole, underwater, which wasn't realy repairable without a dock and all her kitchens were destroyed. It was no longer possible to bake bread and no warm meal could be given to the crew.Nothing which can't be kompensated for a few days but not for weeks and a break through at Denmark straight. Her fighting ability was perfectly intact after the battle with the three cruisers.
As sources I have all Kriegstagebücher from Admiral Graf Spee plus IAO, chief enginneer and first officer!
Very good video!
Fine looking warship. 👍
Great video, interesting ship ! It seems that Graf Spee's famous battle at River Plate outshone the Scheer's career though...
good reporting, good delivery...a parking lot...............
Could you do a video on the USS TWIGGS? Im researching to write a book about the Fletcher class destroyer sunk off Okinawa on radar picket duty. My uncle died on the ship June 16, 1945. It was found recently. Could you help me generate a little interest please?
Prinz Eugen was a Hipper class heavy cruiser, about the same size as the "pocket battleships" but armed with 8" rather than 11" guns. The 8" cruisers did not have the range of Admiral Scheer and the other two pocket battleships (although they were reclassified as heavy cruisers later in the war).
Most interesting
Commenting to boost your algorithm 👍
Hey,a Scheer Video NOT done by the horrible "DarkSeas" :)
Every T*kT*k video is better than that Dark* crap.
IH videos are *much* better though. 🙂
Whats wrong with dark seas?
@@hisdivineshadow8263 Text and pictures. The rest is OK. :D
And what is this magnificent iron bridge we can see in the left corner of some photos ?
Do you mean like @8:55 ? If so ? The waterway is the Kiel Canal. The bridge itself ? Good question; I don't know it's name....
But there are photos & film of just about ever vessel of CA size or smaller taken at that vantage point. So much so, I tend to believe that either the Kriegsmarine or propaganda ministry made it a point to document DKM vessels passing through at that very spot- usually shot from the same vantage point...
My two cents.
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Might be a bit hard to do but I do not think anyone else on RUclips has made a video on HMS Dorris, read a little bit about her. A future project perhaps :)
And the remains were left as base for a new parking lot! Apt perhaps. Remarkable run this ship had though. I did not know it survived till the closing chapter of the 3rd Reich. Fascinating.
These ships were so good that once the Allies were onto them they had to hide in Fiords and were reliant on massive amounts of anti aircraft guns and nearby fighter bases to survive. Even that was insufficient.
An interesting video. I’ve never heard of the term “Panzer Ships”. I’ve only heard of the term as per armour vehicles.
There's an alternative term "pocket battleship".
Well described but you need to add the year when referring to dates.
wonder how much of it was actually left after the partial scrapping. do any pictures exist? and has the wreck of the Deutschland/Lutzow ever been found yet? supposedly the Soviets used it as a target ship in the Baltic.
It was further scrapped after the war and i think there really wasnt much left, also this intire harbor side dont exist anymore, it was way into the city, u wont believe it when you compare the pictures from then with how it looks today, the whole harbor basin dont exist anymore.
@@holgerwittmann8419 Look for Mark Felton 'The buried battleship'. Some parts of the hull will be found (if someone dares to dig) under grass and trees.
Probably the only battlewagon to survive the entire WW2 and finish up as the under-pinnings of a car park. "To such ill use doth destiny bring us..."
"Car park". Sounds like a waste of good scrap steel
You forgot the Prinz Eugen, used as A-Bomb target by the americans.
Having rayal navy connection s, you did a good job of this history.
In 1940 or 41 there were 3 pocket battleships loose in english channel. I believe it was sharnhorst, bismark geneissenau. They blasted english costal towns and cities from plymouth to dover and included portsmouth home of the Royal Navy. The R n had nothing that could catch them in speed or firepower at the time. They were tigers of the sea. Turpitz they called the beast. It wZ sunk in norway, busmark off vreenland in the denmark straights.
My mother cousin served on hms hood, he was lucky he got taken off 2 days before she went after bismark the rest they say is history. Hms hood was blown up of iceland. My mother s cousin left the navy as a commander in the 1950s.
Very powerfull ships all of them the rn had nothing in their class to match tbem, in speed armament or gunnery.
Thanks for the comment, but I think your thinking about the channel dash or operation Cerberus in 1942 when Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen made a run through the English Channel to return to Germany.
Yes i think i was, you did a good job on thoese ships.
Any idea what she would have looked like if she had stayed at the 10,000 tons displacement. What would she have had to loose to meet the weight ?
Well to be fair the closest out of the three to even be close to the 10,000 ton limit was Deutschland having an actual displacement of 10,600 tons. The three ships of the class had their own unique quirks to them, namely in armor distribution.
'I hope you enjoyed' - as an Englishman who 'feels' for any sailor I feel so much regret that those German sailors died so horribly, even if they were ruled by a monster. Very good video, but 'enjoyed' is the wrong word. 'Informed' would be better.
4k...👍
Excellent job ! just a little detail : please check the prononciation of "Scheer" as a German word
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15:00 The Adm. Scheer had depth charges???
Don't find a clue in the standard literature about depth charges, but 8 torpedo launchers. Perhaps submerged, but any opening under water proved dangerous.
@@wernerhahn141 No, the torpedo tubes were installed on the aft deck. But he says that two depth charges, usually a feature of destroyers or minor vessels, exploded.
I questioned that too. I took that directly from Pocket Battleships of the Deutschland class, Warships of the Kriegsmarine on page 228. Also Ray, how was my pronunciation, did I do okay with some of the German words?
@@ImportantHistory Don‘t have time to rewatch the video right now, but as far as I remember, you pronounced some words very well while others sounded understandable but not very German. I remember MAN (the Diesel manufacturer); this is an acronym: M.Ah.N. with a glottal stop after each letter.
Keep up your good work; looking forward to your next videos. . :)
12:30 I hope that was an impressive meal of steak & eggs: For me, it'd have to have been at least 500g of ribeye, served with at least 6 fried eggs.
Before talkinng about the Scheer please evaluate what the Treaty of Versailles was and what it meant. Like the Australian historian Prof. Christopher Clark stated: All of the major European powers had their fair share in the outbreak of WW 1, but Germany was the only country that was held accountable for it. Furthermore Germany´s surrender was a splendid opportunity for the UK and France to weaken Germany so intensely that it wouldn´t be a rival for the foreseeable future. The result - in the end - was quite the opposite. The German population felt like being treated very unfairly and in the end that led to the Nazi barbarians. So - the restrictions of that shameful treaty were massive. In fact you couldn´t build a real capital ship with 10.000 tons. The last Dreadnoughts scratched the 30.000 tons region and the German Navy had to decide whether it would build something like the pocket battleships or something like a heavy coastal monitor with big guns, strong armorment bur slow speed. They preferred the first possibility but had to live with the fact that they had to lie about the real size of these ships that actually was about 14.000 tons.
IMHO Scheer was the only ship of these three that was operating in the way that it was designed for. But with the upcoming RADAR technology and the building programs of fast battleships these ships became obsolete in their role as raiders. Furthermore they were not fast enough to operate like cruisers. So in the end the reamaining two ships were pretty useless.
A tip to nail the most commonly colloquial Australian pronunciation of Canberra is to say it as - can-bra. 😉
Seem to be two different ships in the video unless the Scheer had a new bridge/superstructure refit.
I try my best to verify photos, and sometimes (like in this case) it is difficult to find photos. I do show photos of Graf Spee and Deutschland throughout the video if they are brought up. If I used their photos in place of the Admiral Scheer I apologize.
@@ImportantHistory Apologies not needed, it is all the more interesting to see the slight differences between the three of them. I have read that they may be considered the ultimate Armoured Cruiser type.
Scheer did have a new superstructure fitted
Good job .
Kind of sad she ended up buried under a parking lot .
6.10 - two engines 'each providing 250 hp'. Eh? Actually total power was near 40,000 KW
That was a description of the original Mann engines designed for Torpedo Boats during WW1.
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You got to hand it to the Germans,they had great technology and design.
they still do.
Against superior forces, however good, destruction is the ending.
a prime example of naval race and what state of the art might become obsolete just 1 decade later...
By 1940 with only 3 battlecruisers avaiable for the Royal Navy and with France out of the war... Admiral Scheer and Lutzow should have their prime day...
but not, fast battleships make these "mini battlecruisers" (a much more reasonable name than pocket battleships) completely obsolete.
I never really understood why didn't they sail along in pairs... a 2x Pocket Battleship formation would have required at least 2 heavy and 4 light cruisers to reasonable contest. But judging by River Plate battle and how much the Spee could have sunk the entire british formation, the real number might be twice that. Or a full 1 battlecruiser + 3 cruisers
Good video on an often, overlooked aspect of WW2. While the Kriegsmarine was never as strong as the British or US navies the lion's share of glory has gone to the U-Boats. The achievements of the surface fleet have never been lauded by historians, choosing rather to focus on the dubious careers of the Bismarck, Tirpitz and Graf Spee.
You are right about that
They all ended up as junk
Please note Germany did not surrender on 11 November 1918 it was an ARMISTICE (halt to hostilities). The treaty of Versailles actually brought the war to an end (except between U.K. and red Russians)
The Allied Expeditionary Forces in Russia consisted of troops from Britain, France, the United States, Greece, Romania, Japan, China, Italy, Estonia, and Canada.
When your forces have to stand down and become prisoners. And your Fleet gets sent to Scapa flFw. That's a surrender.
Good lecture, but the photos of her post reconstruction appear occasionally in the early part, and photos of her pre-reconstruction are peppered throughout the tale of her latter career. You should sort that out.
OCD?
Not long after the start of the war the Deutschland Class were designated for what they really were: Heavy Cruisers.
Would not the German Navy been more successful as a fleet-in-being/littoral-defense-force, and leaving the commerce raiding to exclusively the U-boat force?
In retrospect that's what they wound up doing. But, that doesn't fit with the Hitler plan of power projection. You're going to need a surface Force, if you're going to be doing stuff outside of Continental Europe. The U-boats are fine for Commerce raids. But do very little to support forces in Russia or North Africa.
Remarkable that the Kriegsmarine never hesitated to come out and fight, even though any German ship was liable to encounter a superior force at any moment.
When You want to make tanks, call them tractors. When You want to extract plutonium from uranium. Ask for centrifuges. -I hate this planet.
...when entering service there were only 5 ships the Deutschland-class couldn't outrun or outgun: the british Hood, and the japanese Kongo-class...!
HMS Renown and HMS Repulse might have something to say about that. Along with the slightly later but still pre-war French Dunkerque and Strasbourg.
Hard to outrun the reach of an aircraft carrier . . .
I can do the math on the 28cm barrels myself, and from prior studies I do know the barrel size, but to an American audience, as sad as you might think it is, the comparable inches would assist greatly most novice watchers of your channel, unless you only acknowledge viewers from across the pond. In that case......go Drachinifel!!
Bold design at 1920`s but hopelessly obsolete by the WW2. Overgunned heavy cruisers with an armour scheme marginally able to cope with british counties. Continius machinery problems and slow speed in 1939 standards.
Scheer was somewhat successful with it`s courier, two others less so. For raiding kriegsmarine would have spent their money better building three more heavy cruisers. The 11inch main battery did not give any decisive edge but limited seriously the amount of rounds that the ship could carry, thus limiting the usefullness on long ocean raiding missions.
How many rounds do you require? Her mission is not really supposed to be getting into extended gun fights. And it's Armament is to counter any Heavy Cruiser and make short work of any Commerce. Considering the compromise requirements, it's a success.
@@WALTERBROADDUS Something of a heavy cruiser armament would have been more cost (and weight) and overall effective against merchantmen, getting into extended fight was a high risk affair and against the doctrine anyway. Meeting an unprotected convoy it would have been essential to be able to harm as many ships as possible. With a heavier six gun main battery you cause more damage per hit, but you get much more projectile out from more numerous cruiser guns, more barrels and much higher rate of fire. And still cripple an unarmoured vessel as much.
The biggest flaw in WW2 - standards was of course the (lack of) speed and the lack of decent armour protection from even cruiser guns. There was no easy remedy for those problems. Obsolete ships.
If getmany had a few aircraft carrier they could have tsken iceland before the British or the United States, aircraft carriers could have won the battle of the Atlantic for the Germans along with their U-boats!
Why not 3 turrets 2 guns each
More weight with 3 turrets. It's not just the turret but the armoured barbette which connects to the magazines deep within the ship. A third turret would also use up a lot of space on deck and hull volume below all of which was already at a premium on this ship which was nominally 10,000 tonnes but already, at full load, 50% over this. Also, the 3rd turret has to be set higher in order to fire over its neighbour which, given the considerable weight involved, can have implications for the ship's stability. Japan, in particular, had many problems with many classes of ships being unstable because of too much top-weight.
@@EuroScot2023 Thanks you very much for the information. To me the weakness of this class of ships was the lack of armour and the two turrets, which was highlighted at the battle of river plate.
Could you please tell us more about the allied convoy that was nuked by the Germans? A strange and curious story caught my eye. We are talking about the death of convoy LW-143, which sailed from the United States to the shores of Great Britain. It was one of hundreds of such convoys that crossed the Atlantic during the war years, and by no means the largest. But you won't find it in the pages of the history books. Moreover, naval officials pretend that such a convoy never took place.
I came across it by chance while studying the activities of German submarines during the Second World War. In the spring of 1945, the German U-boats seemed to have nothing to catch in the Atlantic. They were opposed by hundreds of anti-submarine ships and aircraft. Rarely did one of the Dönitz boys manage to get hold of a transport, let alone a warship.
And now I stumble across a previously unknown name in the list of American escort aircraft carriers that died escorting convoys. The light escort aircraft carrier Sequoia, which joined the fleet in November 1944, dies on 18 March 1945, as stated in the reference book, "as a result of an attack by a German U-boat". The most interesting thing is that according to other publications, including the official US Department of Defence reference books, this ship is not visible at all. It's as if it didn't even exist! So was the Sequoia or not? To answer this question, I had to dig through a lot of sources and, to make matters worse, fly to the USA, even though I don't particularly like this country. As a result, I can give a very clear answer: Yes, the Sequoia did exist, but for some reason this fact is being hushed up.
Which of the German captains sank it? An even more difficult question, because from the German side the destruction of the aircraft carrier is not visible at all! And that's rather strange, because every submarine commander would like to chalk up an aircraft carrier. The probability that someone was not convinced of his success and was modest is negligible. Modesty was not one of the virtues of German submariners.
Perhaps the aircraft carrier was sunk by a boat from the "Antarctic convoys"? Very unlikely. U-boats travelling to the Antarctic had clear orders to avoid any combat encounter with the enemy. Even if the most powerful battleship in the US fleet appeared in front of one of them with Roosevelt himself on board, the commander had no right to fire. Most of them were not even given torpedoes so as not to be tempted. The secrecy of the Antarctic base was paramount.
Perhaps everything is completely banal - there was a mistake and the Sequoia was sunk by its own submarine? Hard to believe. But perhaps I would have decided in favour of this version in the end if it hadn't been for a strange circumstance. The fact is that I switched from the list of aircraft carriers to the lists of other ships and found that on 18 March 1945 the US Navy lost another light cruiser, seven destroyers and a good dozen anti-submarine ships of other classes! All were listed as sunk by U-boats, although not a single German captain took responsibility for the deaths of these ships.
To be honest, such a massive loss of ships flying the Stars and Stripes flag baffled me. Especially considering the almost complete absence of losses before and after 18 March. There was also something else that puzzled me about this list. When I took a closer look, I realised: the list of sunken ships was actually a complete guard force for a small convoy! I picked up the list of American convoys faster than you read this line. Which convoy was on its way on 18 March? There were several, but they all arrived safely at their port of destination. And then I noticed in the list of LW series convoys the absence of number 143. There is also LW-142, LW-144, but for some reason the 143rd is not observed. I wonder why? The convoys left the states every three days; The 142nd left on 9 March, the 144th left on 15 March. Why was the 143rd cancelled? Or no one cancelled it and he went quietly to sea on the 12th of March? So he was travelling on the 18th?
The darker it got outside the window, the darker my suspicions became. Why is the truth about the 143rd convoy being hidden? And above all, what is the truth? Let's assume that the convoy was destroyed by one of the "wolf packs" - groups of German submarines. But then why are the Germans silent? They should have been shouting about this success at every turn! Moreover, a thorough and impartial review shows that the Germans would not have been able to assemble a group of U-boats large enough to defeat an entire convoy in March 1945. After all, a dozen warships were supposed to accompany at least 20-30 transports. To melt that many ships, at least fifty submarines had to be assembled. And this was unrealistic for the Dönitz department, especially in conditions when the best submarines were scurrying between Germany and Antarctica.
The solution came suddenly. In one of the archives I came across the miraculously preserved memoirs of an old American sailor. In it, he gives a rather long and boring description of his combat path (this sea wolf served on a heavy cruiser in the Atlantic throughout the war, so he never looked the enemy in the eye). I've never seen a more boring read in my life - probably why nobody bothered to finish his memoirs. And there, in the middle of a huge haystack, was a real gem.
At the end of March 1945, we were urgently sent to a fairly remote area of the Atlantic. This was the so-called "reserve route" - if a storm or large detachments of German U-boats got in the way of the convoys, they followed this special diversion. We rushed as if on fire, travelling at top speed, regardless of fuel consumption. Everyone on board wondered: what awaits us ahead that will send us hurtling into the full? Two days later, we received an answer.
About two dozen ships were drifting on the evening ocean. Or rather, no longer ships, but charred skeletons. One of them was recognisable as a destroyer, the other resembled a Liberty carrier. Most of them sent plumes of smoke into the air. We stood on deck, mesmerised by the sight. None of us had ever seen anything like it! It was as if a huge fire had turned a convoy into a flock of "flying Dutchmen", gloomy and lifeless. But we didn't have to argue for long: The unit commander gave the order to drown the appalling ruins. Our destroyers lined up in battle formation and began firing torpedo after torpedo at the dead ships.
Not so dead, though: from the deck of one of them, seemingly the least injured, a signal flare went up. Another showed a clumsy human figure trying to wave his hand. It looked strange somehow, so much so that no one dared to examine it through binoculars. Nevertheless, our admiral gave the order to drown everything that was on the surface of the water. Three hours later, it was all over. We tried not to think about what it was and whether there were any people living there. As a result, we never got an explanation for these strange phenomena.
The explanation is easy to find if we compare this story with the memories of an eyewitness to the American nuclear tests of 1948. Then the Yankees took a couple of old ships to the deserted atoll and detonated one of their (actually their) bombs. The picture after the explosion looked like this:
Abandoned ships were not particularly attractive even before the explosion, but after the tests they were simply terrible. Most of them were burning, the ones closer to the epicentre looked like charred fires. Strange that they were floating at all. If there were people there, they would have no chance of escaping.
That was the final touch and reinforced my confidence in what I had long suspected: the Germans had used their atomic bomb. The story most likely unfolded in this scenario.
Convoy LW-143 left American ports on 12 March. It consisted of about 30 transport and 15-20 escort warships. After a few days en route, the convoy commander received a message about a storm raging in the middle of the Atlantic (there really was a storm, by the way) and took an alternate route. Here the convoy was spotted by German submarines and transmitted information to the base.
The Germans didn't have nukes then . . . . or ever.
The Name of the Engine Manufacturer is pronounced M-A-N, not man.
The Graf speed was the first warship to be built of high strength steel. It's Diesel engines were vastly more efficient than steam turbines. It was faster than equally equipped potential enemies. Also not the Radar equipment.
Beautiful lines....
The Graff Spee was not the first warship to be built of "high-strength steel" It had Krupp Steel armor in some areas, as did many warships built before WW I.
@@thomaslinton5765 I assume you did not study engineering at PhD level - I don’t want to belittle you but the pertinent information is very detailed. The information I received was about some structural parts of the vessel and for that time, they used ST38 and higher. Krupp is famous for its very high strength steel and stainless steels - American rails, rail locomotive tires, Chrysler building roof etc. but the newer Steel grades were manufactured by other companies as well (available in the 30’s).
@@franzliszt4257 So, Doctor, was the Graff Spee the first warship to be built of "high-strength steel," and what authority defined steel as "high strength"? You?
@@thomaslinton5765 As far as I know it was the first of this particular grade of steel (ST38 I believe). The term high strength in itself is not a qualifier. In 193x that type of steel was considered high strength. Steels are rated by the manufacturer to DIN (today ISO) and/or ASTM (or British equivalent such as BSI) standards. The tests are carried out accordingly and the ratings are further refined.
There is more to steel strength than the rating (treatment, usage temperature, and many strength criteria).
As a general statement I would stand by what I said - the particular steel used in the majority of its construction was of particular high strength compared to its contemporaries.
Heavy crusier by any rational rating, and the official German desgnation when destroyed. Few, if any, innovations. Played no significant role in WWII. Sprent more time as a training ship than in all combat sorties combined.
No battleships played a significant role in WW2. It was dominated by aircraft and submarine. The Iowas, South Dakotas, KGVs etc had no more of an impact than the Scheer or her sisters.
@@simonpitt8145 Dominated, certainly. "No" significant role, hardly.
@@thomaslinton5765 What did the Howe do? What did the Anson do? What did the KGV do ( the Rodney could have taken the Bismarck alone and therefore KGV wasn't really needed )? What did the Prince of Wales do? What did any of the Iowas or South Dakotas do ( the Massachusetts' fight with an incomplete harbour restricted French ship hardly counts )? What did either of the Alaskas do? What did either of the Yamatos actually do?
I'd say that value for money wise the Scheer played a significantly greater role in WW2 than pretty much any other battleship ( of whatever size ) ever did. The only exceptions to this would be the Warspite, the Renown, Scharnhorst and the aforementioned Rodney.
What did battleships do?
KMS Bismarck sank the largely worn out HMS Hood.
HMS Howe, beyond escorting convoys past German heavy naval units, insuring that the USSR got its tons and tons of equipment and supplies (e.g. Did 400,000 jeeps and trucks, and thousands of tracked tanks and carriers help?) and furnished heavy artillery support to the invasions of Sicily and southern France, both those missions earning the gratitude of one of my uncles.
HMS Anson escorted nine Arctic convoys.
HMS KING George V (1940) was much faster than Rodney, a worn-out vessel destined to be removed from active duty before the War ended, and participated in putting Bismarck down. She also escorted two Artic convoys. Rodney had little chance against Bismarck alone in the opinion of the Royal Navy.
HMS Rodney (1928) helped sink Bismarck.
Prince of Wales, doomed to be thrown away by politicians and political military leaders, damaged Bismarck in the Battle of the Denmark strait, including damage done to Bismarck's forward fuel tanks which forced the abandonment of the breakout and forced the unsuccessful attempt to escape to dry dock facilities in occupied France.
“Fast battleships” like the Iowas, North Carolina’s and South Dakotas, as classes, chiefly served as heavy anti-aircraft escorts for carriers, regarded by the carrier admirals as an essential part of carrier warfare.
USS Iowa (1943), beyond protecting carriers in the Pacific, along with her sister New Jersey, sank the Japanese light cruiser Katori , carried out bombardment in the Marshall Islands, Pohnpei, Saipan and Tinian, and the Japanese Home Islands.
USS Wisconsin (Spring, 1944), joined Admiral William F. Halsey's 3rd Fleet in the Pacific December 9, 1944. Beyond providing heavy anti-aircraft to the U.S. carriers,, she bombarded the Japanese Home
USS New Jersey (1944) reported for duty in the Pacific in January, 1944. Beyond the typical heavy anti-aircraft defense for carriers, she bombarded Mille, Woleai, Truk, Panapi, Saipan and Tinian, and Okinawa.
USS Missouri (December, 1944) Beyond the typical heavy anti-aircraft defense for carriers, she bombarded the Japanese Home islands.
USS Massachusetts (1942 along with her sister New Jersey, sank the Japanese light cruiser Katoriwhile in action off Casablanca, silenced the enemy battleship, and hits from her guns helped sink two destroyers, two merchant ships, a floating dry-dock, and heavily damaged buildings and docks in Casablanca. Massachusetts also bombarded Ponape Island, gave fire supports at the invasions of Palau Islands, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa and shelled steel factories in Japan.
USS South Dakota, beyond protecting carriers in the Pacific with great effect, escorted Arctic Convoys, participated in the destruction of the IJN BB Kirishima on its way to bombard Henderson Field, which aircraft could not effect at night, bombarded Tarawa, Saipan and Tinian (to little effect), delivered fire support at Okinawa, and bombarded facilities in Japan.
USS Alabama (late 1942), which arrived in the Pacific in 1943, beyond protecting carriers in the Pacific, bombarded Roi-Namur, Saipan and the Japanese Home Islands, and she provided fire support at Tarawa.
USS Indiana (Spring 1942), beyond protecting carriers and convoys in the Pacific, bombarded Maloelap, Kwajalein, Saipan, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and the Japanese Home Islands, and she provided fire support at Kwajalein and Okinawa.
USS North Carolina (1941), beyond protecting carriers in the Pacific , participated in bombarding Roi-Namur, Pohnpei, and provided fire support at Makin, Tarawa, Iwo Jima, and Abemama
USS Washington (1942), , escorted Arctic Convoys, primarily effected the destruction of the IJN BB Kirishima on its way to bombard Henderson Field, which aircraft could not effect at night, escorted convoys in the South Pacific Theater, bombarded Kwajalein, Pohnpei, Saipan and Saipan and Tinian, and she provided fire support at the Iwo Jima, Hollandia and Okinawa campaigns
The Alaskas (USS Alaska and USS Guam) were not battleships and were commissioned so late in the War as to be fairly said to have been a total waste of resources, like almost every one of the thousands of M-26 tanks we manufactured and the thousands of warplanes and other weapons systems manufactured but never used.
The IJN Yamato Class battleships, accomplished relatively nothing.
@@simonpitt8145
This ship is the hero of WW2.
I think it was the most successful too,The Graf Spee was more famous, but it last that long.
Gdandz, not danzig
What strikes me is that in spite of all the grandeur and romance, the concept itself was ill-advised. For how many ships it actually sank compared to total convoy activity and even total Allied ships sunk over all, this ship was an abject failure.
Five-hundred pound bombs, not 500 tons . . .
I do say five hundred pounds, might be a bit hard to understand clearly because my microphone wasn’t great at the time and the other settings I had to do to get rid of background noise, sorry for the confusion! Have a great day :)
If you say so . . . @@ImportantHistory
A Parking lot,
For a mutant design, she get away w/ being fairly attractive
stayed idle for months - sounds like the German navy alright . . .
An intermittently wonky ship with a captain named Kranke - how funny is that?
I have always thought that Germany would have been better served with more pocket battleships and no ships like Bismarck.
The Germans would have been better served by no Bismarcks, no Scharnhorsts, no Admiral Hippers, no Graf Zeppelin, and no more than two hundred submarines to turn the North Sea into a no man's land. The ships I mentioned never justified the precious manpower and resources which the Germans invested in them (which came at the expense of both their army and air force), and they stood to gain nothing worthwhile by constructing them.
Fortunately for the Allies, the head of the German Navy was a man with a mind fixated on naval doctrine of WW1 and battleships.
A bit of effort to learn basic German pronunciation wouldn't go amiss.
what a disaster. Mighty mouse minow maybe. But mighty ship that never achieved anything
Nor did any of the much larger battleships all the other naval powers constructed. The Iowas, the Yamatos, the Richelieus, the Vitoria Venetos, even the KGVs and certainly the Vanguard were a total waste of resources as well.
Pronounced shayer. German phonetics are easy.
No, it is pronounced Scheer not shier or shayer. Even simple than you think.
The reparations were not ruinous. They were started and stopped many times. Ending in 1932. Germany was compelty able to pay them back. Germany was over spending and that is why they could not pay pay back. The social democrats refused to cut spending and kept printing resulting in massive inflation
Stop with the " Pocket Battleship " rubbish. There is no such thing. Scheer was a heavy cruiser. So was Graf Spee.
Supposed to be fast enough to outrun a battleship, and sufficiently well armed and armoured to out gun british cruisers. But at River Plate that theory was disproved when Graf Spee met her match
That battle was a three on one. Where Graf Spee’s captain elected to fight, versus fleeing
@@Idahoguy10157 yes but RN doctrine was to always fight in squadrons or 4 or more ships something the German planers seam to of forget and the Graf Spee’s captain elected to fight, because he thought he was facing destroyers not Cruisers
@@Idahoguy10157 Three to one. But only one of the British ships had guns capable of penetrating Graf Spee's armour.
@@dovetonsturdee7033 …. Consider the results
@@Idahoguy10157 You mean that Graf Spee never sailed again, whereas Ajax & Achilles had long and illustrious careers, which Exeter was repaired and perished in the service of the Allies?
BRITISH did not respect German War graves ... in sunken ships , yet demand respect of their sunken ships in the Pacific Ocean , in SE Asia .... Mm double standards much.
You may want to refer to it as wargrave. It's also a wreck obstructing a working port. The fact that they just buried it over is pretty honorable. They were not cutting it up for some sort of profit margin.