The Battleship Scharnhorst

By Stefan Draminski

The Kriegsmarine's Scharnhorst was a German capital ship, described either as a battleship or battlecruiser, and the lead ship of her class, which included one other ship, Gneisenau. She was launched on 3 October 1936 and completed in January 1939, armed with nine 28cm C/34 guns in three triple turrets. She operated with Gneisenau for much of the early portion of World War II, including sorties into the Atlantic to raid British merchant shipping. They took part in Operation Weserübung (April–June 1940), the German invasion of Norway, during which they sank the aircraft carrier HMS Glorious and her escort destroyers Acasta and Ardent. Scharnhorst also sank HMS Rawalpindi in November 1939. In early 1943, Scharnhorst joined the Tirpitz in Norway to intercept Allied convoys to the Soviet Union. On a sortie from Norway to attack a convoy, the German force was intercepted by British ships and during the Battle of the North Cape (26 December 1943), HMS Duke of York and her escorts sank Scharnhorst. Most of her crew was lost.

This is the most comprehensive examination of Scharnhorst ever published, drawing on new research and technology to tell the full story of the ship. It includes a complete set of detailed line drawings with fully descriptive keys and full-colour 3D artwork, supported by technical details, photographs, and text on the building of the ship, as well as a record of her service history.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Jan 21, 2021
• ISBN: 9781472848420

Stefan Draminski

Stefan Draminski is a naval researcher and illustrator. Since 2002 he has worked on numerous publications on military history subjects. Using 3D software, he creates highly detailed and historically accurate digital models of warships, aircraft and vehicles. He is the author and illustrator of several acclaimed recent titles in the Anatomy of the Ship series, most recently The Aircraft Carrier Hiryu. He lives in Torun, Poland, with his wife, children and dog.

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CONTENTS

SECTION 1

Introduction

The battleship Scharnhorst – technical description

History of the battleship Scharnhorst

SECTION 2

Primary views

SECTION 3

The drawings

A General arrangements

B Hull structure

C Superstructure

D Rig

E Armament

F Fire control

G Fittings

H Aircraft

I Boats

Bibliography

INTRODUCTION

The battleship Scharnhorst was one of the most famous German ships that served in World War II. Her construction, which started in 1936, was an important step of the effort to rebuild Germany's surface fleet following the Treaty of Versailles. Scharnhorst's design incorporated strong propulsion and adequate armour protection. However, the calibre of her main armament was not big enough, which proved to be a serious limitation.

Scharnhorst turned out to be the vessel with the richest service record out of all German capital ships of World War II. For the most part of her career, she operated with her sister ship Gneisenau. The Ugly Twins, as nicknamed by the British, earned their fame in numerous combat actions in the early stages of the war. These included the sinking of the auxiliary cruiser HMS Rawalpindi (November 1939), an inconclusive artillery duel with the battlecruiser HMS Renown during the German invasion of Norway (April 1940), and the sinking of the aircraft carrier HMS Glorious together with her escorting destroyers HMS Ardent and HMS Acasta (June 1940). Between January and March 1941, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau conducted a merchant raiding mission in the Atlantic. They managed to sink or capture 22 ships and successfully avoided encounters with overwhelming forces of the Royal Navy. In February 1942 the two German battleships, accompanied by the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen and some escorts, succeeded in escaping home to Germany through the narrow English Channel in the immediate vicinity of British bases. This was an embarrassing blow to the Royal Navy and its prestige suffered greatly.

After Gneisenau received lethal damage during an air raid, Scharnhorst was relocated to Norway. She met her end during the Battle of the North Cape (December 1943), when she fell victim to the shells and torpedoes of a vastly superior British force. Scharnhorst sank in icy Arctic waters with a great loss of life. Only 36 of her 1,968-strong crew survived.

I would like to express my gratitude towards the following people who kindly helped me with my research for this book: Jan Dohmen, Shawn Pringle, Marek J. Murawski. Special thanks goes to my friend Antonio Bonomi who not only provided valuable source materials but also shared his knowledge and gave advice on several occasions. As with every major project, I received a lot of assistance from my wife Iwona. She did the meticulous job of designing the layout of the book and prepared the front cover artwork.

It has to be stressed that this book is not intended to promote Nazi ideology in any way. The only purpose of depicting symbols associated with the Third Reich is for maintaining historical accuracy.

Stefan Dramiński

Toruń, Poland, September 2020

THE BATTLESHIP SCHARNHORST

The Treaty of Versailles, signed in 1919, imposed serious limitations on the Reichsmarine (German Navy). It was only allowed to retain a handful of obsolete ships, and new ones were not to exceed a displacement of 10,000 tons. This did not discourage the Germans, who soon started design work on their first capital ships. The result was the Deutschland class – three vessels with an official displacement within the limit, commissioned from 1933 to 1936. Their design was far from standard, but was successful in fitting six relatively powerful 28cm guns within a small hull.

The French response to the German vessels was the Dunkerque class – two fast battleships armed with eight 33cm guns each. In the meantime, with the rise of Adolf Hitler to power, German plans for fleet expansion became more ambitious. Although officially it was forbidden, from spring 1933 German designers started discussing new ships that could be a match for the Dunkerque. The ships with the working names D and E were supposed to be immune to the French 33cm projectiles at most battle ranges and have a high maximum speed. For the main armament, several gun calibres were considered, including 28cm, 30.5cm and 33cm. The final decision was to arm the ships with six 28cm guns in two triple turrets, a solution far from ideal.

On 25 January 1934 battleship D was ordered from Reichsmarinewerft (renamed Kriegsmarinewerft in 1935) in Wilhelmshaven, and battleship E was ordered from Deutsche Werke in Kiel. Alternative names of the vessels were Ersatz Elsass and Ersatz Hessen at this stage, after the old pre-dreadnoughts they were meant to replace. In the meantime, Admiral Erich Raeder, Commander in Chief of the Reichsmarine, was still grossly dissatisfied with the new ships’ armament. He arranged a meeting with Hitler on 27 June 1934 and managed to convince the Führer to modify the design. As a result, work that had already begun in both shipyards was abandoned. It took some months to agree the new final design. At the beginning of 1935, armament layout was still under discussion, with proposals ranging from nine 28cm to six 38cm guns. It was realized that producing a larger gun would delay the vessels’ construction by some considerable time, whereas the 28cm model was ready to be used. Finally, it was decided to mount nine 28cm guns in three triple turrets, but with a possibility to replace them with three twin turrets with guns of a larger calibre. Special arrangements were made to ensure the barbettes’ diameters could be matched.

High-pressure steam turbines were chosen as the battleships’ propulsion. Diesel engines used in the preceding Deutschland class proved to be problematic: they were plagued with frequent failures and took up more space and weight for the same output power of a turbine. Thus, it was considered better to mount steam turbines in the new larger ships, although they were neither as economic on fuel nor did they have the advantage of a quick start-up.

Battleship D was laid down on 15 June 1935 and launched on 3 October 1936, whereas battleship E was laid down on 6 May 1935 and launched on 8 December 1936. It was decided to name them Scharnhorst and Gneisenau respectively, in honour of Prussian generals of the Napoleonic wars. Total construction cost of each vessel was over 140 million Reichsmark.

Kriegsmarinewerft shipyard, Wilhelmshaven, 3 October 1936. On this day the hull of Scharnhorst was launched. Most of the attendants of the ceremony are gathered around a small tribune near the bow. At this stage of the construction, the only elements visible above the upper deck are the main and secondary artillery barbettes. Note that the main armour belt is not yet fitted, but the fore and aft boundaries of its extent are clearly visible. (Bundesarchiv, Bild 134-B0845, photo: o.Ang.)

It is often argued that due to their specification, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau should be classified as battlecruisers rather than battleships. By definition, a battlecruiser is a ship similar to a battleship, with the exception that one of her attributes (most often armour protection) is sacrificed in order to provide high speed. In the case of the Scharnhorst, armour layout was no worse than in contemporary foreign battleship designs, but the calibre of her main armament was indeed significantly smaller than any other vessel classified as a battleship at the time. Despite this, in the Kriegsmarine (the Reichsmarine was renamed the Kriegsmarine in 1935) the Scharnhorst class ships were referred to as Schlachtschiffe (battleships).

HULL STRUCTURE

The empty hull of Scharnhorst had the weight of 8,310 metric tonnes (excluding armour plates). Two types of construction steel were used: St 52 and St 42. The hull was almost entirely welded; rivets were only used in the most critical joints between the armour plates. Scharnhorst class vessels were one of the first capital ships in the world in whose construction welding was used to such extent. This approach enabled the engineers to save a lot of weight.

Transverse bulkheads divided the hull into 21 watertight sections. They were designated with Roman numbers, I at the stern to XXI at the bow. Frame number 0 marked the aftermost point of the waterline, whereas frame 226 was at the extreme bow (several more frames were added when the bow was rebuilt). The battleship’s double bottom had the height of 1.7m and stretched between frames 21.5 and 229.5. The spaces inside were used for fuel and water tanks. Overall, the hull had a very dense compartment division, giving Scharnhorst a capability of staying afloat with serious battle damage. A pair of bilge keels were fitted to both sides of the hull between frames 75.5 and 143, improving the vessel’s stability.

Scharnhorst shortly after being commissioned, early 1939. Some features of her original configuration are distinct in this photo: straight stem, side anchor hawses, short-capped funnel with mainmast fitted to its rear, as well as two aircraft catapults, one of them positioned on the roof of main artillery turret C. Note the appearance of the SL-6 AA director just to the rear of the funnel. Its triaxially stabilised spherical shield is tilted to the side, which indicates that the director was not yet in operation at the time. (Bundesarchiv, Bild 134-B0002, photo: o.Ang.)

Initially, the ship was built with a low straight bow. Soon after Scharnhorst was commissioned, it turned out that even at moderate speed and weather conditions, vast amounts of water were spilling through the forecastle, making the fore main artillery turrets difficult to operate and potentially causing malfunctions. For this reason, during the refit of mid-1939 the bow was rebuilt in a clipper shape, the so-called ‘Atlantic stem’, increasing the hull’s overall length by more than 5m.

ARMOUR

Scharnhorst’s designers emphasised providing the vessel with very strong armour protection. The resulting system, consisting of vertical, horizontal and sloped armour plates was aimed at stopping enemy projectiles, bombs and torpedoes from damaging the vitals of the ship. The total weight of the armour was 14,245 tonnes, which was over 45 per cent of Scharnhorst’s standard displacement.

Depending on a plate’s location and purpose, it was built from one of the following types of armour:

• KC (Krupp cementite) – face hardened armour steel. Its outer layer’s hardness was extremely high and reached 670 on the Brinnel scale. This decreased through the depth of the plate in order to prevent cracking when hit by a projectile. This type was used for most vertical armour plates: the armour belt, the fore and aft armoured bulkheads, the conning tower, turrets and barbettes;

• Wh (Wotan hart) – homogeneous armour steel, characterized by a tensile strength of 85–95kg/mm ² , strain of 20 per cent and yield point of 50–55kg/mm². This type was used for armoured deck plates and side armour plates fore and aft of the citadel;

• Ww (Wotan weich) – homogeneous armour steel, characterized by tensile strength of 65–75kg/mm ² , strain of 25 per cent and yield point of 38–40kg/mm ² . This type was used for longitudinal torpedo bulkheads.

It was possible to weld both the Wh and Ww plates. These types were used extensively for the first time in a German warship.