German battlecruiser Gneisenau
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- For other ships named Gneisenau, see Gneisenau.
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| Career |  |
|---|---|
| Ordered: | January 25, 1934 |
| Laid down: | May 6, 1935 |
| Launched: | December 8, 1936 |
| Commissioned: | May 21, 1938 |
| Fate: | Sunk as blockship in Gotenhafen on March 23, 1945 |
| General Characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 31,500 tonnes (standard) 38,900 tonnes (full load) |
| Length: | 235 m (772 ft) overall 226 m (741.5 ft) waterline |
| Beam: | 30 m (98.4 ft) |
| Draft: | 9.69 m (31 ft 9 in.) at 37,303 tons |
| Armament: | 9 × 280 mm (11 inch) 12 × 150 mm (5.9 inch) 14 × 105 mm (4.1 inch) 16 × 37 mm 10 × 20 mm (later 16) 6 × 533 mm torpedo tubes |
| Armor: | Main belt: 350 mm (13.78 inch) Deck: 95 mm max. |
| Aircraft: | 3 Arado Ar 196A-3, 1 catapult |
| Propulsion: | 3 Germania geared turbines with single reduction 3 three-bladed propellers, 4.8 m (15 9 inch) diameter 151,893 shp = 33 kt |
| Range: | 8,400 nm at 19 kt |
| Complement: | 1,669 (56 officers, 1613 enlisted) |
Gneisenau was a famous World War II 31,100 ton Gneisenau class battlecruiser[1] of the German Kriegsmarine. She was the second to carry the name of the Prussian general August von Gneisenau; the first was the World War I armored cruiser SMS Gneisenau, destroyed at the battle of the Falkland Islands in 1914.
She usually sailed into battle accompanied by her sister ship, the equally famous Scharnhorst.
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[edit] Construction
She was laid down in February 1934, at Deutsche Werke Kiel. Construction was delayed, however. She was then redesigned and re-laid in May 1935. When completed, she displaced just under the Washington Naval Treaty limit of 35,000 tons though Germany had never been covered by that Treaty.
She carried a main armor belt of 350 mm (13.78 inch), comparable to modern battleships of the time, and vastly heavier than the World War I British battlecruisers HMS Renown and HMS Repulse and the French battlecruisers Dunkerque and Strasbourg. The ships were armed with nine 280 mm (11 inch) main guns. While these had long range and quite good armor penetration power because of their high muzzle velocity, they were no match for the 380 mm (15 inch) guns of most of the battleships of her day. The choice of armament was a result of their hasty commissioning.
If a later proposal to upgrade the main armament to six 15 inch (380 mm) guns in three twin turrets, had been implemented, Gneisenau would have been a very formidable opponent, faster than any British capital ship and as well armored. When Gneisenau was designed, no 380mm guns were available for the German Kriegsmarine. It was decided to go ahead with 280mm guns, because as a commerce raider, she was not intended to fight a capital ship. Instead, superior speed would be used to avoid an engagement with a battleship. Due to priorities and constraints imposed by World War II, she retained her 11 inch guns throughout her career. Both Gneisenau and her sister were designed for an extended range to allow for commerce raiding.
She was considered a handsome ship, and looked as fast as she was. She and her sistership, the Scharnhorst, are generally spoken of as the most successful German design of the period. The main criticism of the design was their relatively low deck height above the water, the "freeboard", which made them "wet" when at heavy seas. This led to alterations in the sheer line and installation of the 'Atlantic Bow' in a winter 1938 refit. She conducted trials in the Atlantic in June, 1939.
[edit] The ugly sisters - Scharnhorst and Gneisenau
On September 9, 1939, six days after war was declared, she was attacked by Royal Air Force aircraft at Brunsbüttelkoog with no damage. On 8 October, she sailed with the cruiser Köln and 9 destroyers to create a diversion for the Allied forces searching for the Deutschland. Gneisenau was often seen in company with her sistership the Scharnhorst, and the two ships became known as the "ugly sisters" due to their prowling together, and the amount of havoc they caused to British shipping. In late 1939 the sisters operating in the North Atlantic sank the Armed Merchant Cruiser HMS Rawalpindi, but Gneisenau suffered severe sea damage in a storm.
In 1940 she covered the invasion of Norway and fought with HMS Renown (a World War I battlecruiser) to no conclusion, but suffered damage to her aft turret and radar. On 5 May, she set off a magnetic mine about 21 meters off the port quarter, and suffered shock damage, flooding, and a loss of steering for 18 minutes. The damage was repaired by 21 May at Kiel. In the British withdrawal on 8 June, she and Scharnhorst surprised and sank the British aircraft carrier HMS Glorious, a converted battlecruiser, and her two escorts, the destroyers HMS Acasta and Ardent. She was torpedoed in the North Atlantic in June.
After repairs, she joined Scharnhorst in their most successful commerce raiding campaign from January to March, 1941 (Operation Berlin), Gneisenau sinking 14 ships, Scharnhorst sinking 8, mostly from unescorted convoys but avoiding British battleships operating on convoy escorts.
The two ships returned to Brest, but air attacks made by 22 Squadron from RAF St Eval the port unsafe. Gneisenau was torpedoed on 6 April 1941 and hit by four bombs on the night of April 9-10 April. She was repaired at Brest through December, 1941.
In 1942, Gneisenau and Scharnhorst, accompanied by the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen and a covering screen of destroyers and torpedo boats, executed a daring daylight run to Germany (Operation Cerberus, known in Britain as the "Channel Dash"). All three ships escaped damage in the furious air and sea battles that ensued, but Gneisenau struck a mine off Terschelling and required repairs at Kiel.
[edit] Reconstruction
In air attacks on February 26-27 February 1942, on the floating dock where she was being repaired for mine damage, she became the target of massive RAF attacks by 178 bombers and was struck on the bow. Contrary to normal practice, and since repairs were planned to be completed within two weeks, ammunition had not been unloaded and the resultant fires set off an explosion that destroyed the entire bow section. However, after emergency bow repairs, Gneisenau steamed under her own power to Gotenhafen where she was decommissioned and reconstruction was to be done there.
Although some work was done from 1942 through to 1944 to reconstruct her, she was withdrawn from service in July 1943 to allow the replacement of the 28 cm battery with twin 38 cm (15 in) turrets. After the sinking of the Scharnhorst, this work was finally abandoned. One of the 38 cm guns intended for the rearmament exists today at the museum of Hanstholm in Denmark. Her guns from turret Anton were removed and sent to the Netherlands; and turrets Bruno and Caesar and their guns were sent to Norway for coastal defence.
Gneisenau ended the war as a blockship, sunk in Gotenhafen harbor. She was raised, broken up, and scrapped after the war.
Her aft main turret, "Caesar" was converted to a coastal battery named Austråt Fort in Ørland near Trondheim, Norway and still exists today. In Denmark, at the former "Stevnsfort" near Rødvig, two twin 15 cm turrets from her secondary armament still exist. In the Netherlands parts of the guns of turret Anton are on display at the former "Stichting Fort" Hoek Van Holland.
[edit] Commanding Officers
KzS Erich Forste - 21 May 1938 - 25 November 1939
KzS Harald Netzbandt - 25 November 1939 - 20 August 1940
KzS / KADM Otto Fein - 20 August 1940 - 11 April 1942 (Promoted to KADM on 1 April 1942.)
KzS Rudolf Peters - 11 April 1942 - 1 July 1942
[edit] Bibliography
- William H. Garzke, Jr., and Robert O. Dulin, Jr., Battleships: Axis and Neutral Battleships in World War II (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 1985). Includes the design and operational histories, information on the guns, and other design and statistical information about the ship.
- Siegfried Breyer, Battleships and Battlecruisers 1905-1970 (Doubleday and Company; Garden City, New York, 1973) (originally published in German as Schlachtschiffe und Schlachtkreuzer 1905-1970, J.F. Lehmanns, Verlag, Munchen, 1970). Contains various line drawings of the ship as designed and as built, and the proposed 1942 38 cm gun version.
- Robert Gardiner, ed., Conway’s All the World’s Fighting Ships 1922 - 1946 (Conway Maritime Press, London, 1980)
- Jane´s Battleships of the Twentieth Century (Harper Collins, London, 1996)
[edit] Notes
- ^ The battlecruiser classification came from the Royal Navy, the German Kriegsmarine classification was Schlachtschiff (battleship).
[edit] See also
- Kriegsmarine
- List of Kriegsmarine ships
- List of naval ships of Germany
- List of World War II ships
- List of ship launches in 1936
- List of ship commissionings in 1938
- List of shipwrecks in 1945
[edit] External links
