Graf spee and Gneisenau

A couple things ....

First, Steve H. .... congrats on making it through your surgery and I hope you are recovering well.

Now ... backing waaaaaaaaaaaaay up to the question about what kind of ship the Graf Spee is ... it's a moot point to try and classify this class of heavily armed and lightly armored ships.  Germany deliberately created something of an anomoly in order to skirt the various treaties she wa bound by, including Versailles and then the Washington Naval Treaty.  By building ships that could arguably fall into several categories ... heavy cruiser, battlecruiser, Battleship or whatever ... they made it difficult for others to prove they were in any kind of violation.  Of course, they eventually dropped the facade altogether and put the Z Plan into effect, building their legendary giants of WWII.

I think it would be a near draw, with odds slightly favoring the Japanese.   Not because Takao is more likely to win, I think the odds of winning is about even.  But Takao was much faster and can run and avoiding being sunk if things starts to go badly.   Graf Spee would not have that option and she faces a bigger change of being hunted down and sunk if things go badly.

Beau Mansfield wrote:

http://www.deutschland-class.dk/admiral_graf_spee/miscellanous/admiral_graf_spee_stern_eagle.html   Regarding the eagle on the stern of the Graf Spee.  Check out this link. It should clear up any misgivings about the eagle on the stern of the Graf Spee. When seen from the side it is correct. But I do agree with you that when view from below the wings seam different and it could be mistaken for a different eagle. This is because of the shape of the stern.   Regards,   Beau.

Thanks for providing this link, Beau. The eagle appearred to me to resemble a cormorant drying its wings in the other museum shots. It is interesting that the swastika is being so prominently exhibited. I don't have a problem with it, but could understand where others might.

anthony2779 wrote:

How would have Graf Spee done against a Takao or Myoko class ?

She could have won, but only if she scored key hits early in the contest.  Graf Spee's bigger guns gave her greater range, and German ships were noted for their superior range-finding equipment, giving her greater accuracy as well.  But the Takao's superior speed would have closed the range pretty quickly, so unless Graf Spee scored hits that slowed her opponent down early on, the Takao's ten 8-inch guns could have easily out-pummelled Graf Spee's six 11-inch guns.  I'm sure someone else can, and probably will, work up some numbers showing total weight of each ship's salvo, and a Graf Spee salvo might outweigh a Takao salvo - but the Takao with more guns would have a greater chance of scoring a hit with any given salvo, thus weakening her opponent more quickly than the Graf Spee - all other aspects of the battle being equal.

Of course, this could just be another example of me thinking it makes perfect sense when there are a thousand reasons why it couldn't possibly be so.  But I've lived with that possibility for years now - why stop now? 

Some modern Nationalists, perhaps.  But if such scruples exist amongst modern nationalists in Japan, it would not be because of any observance of any strictures of Bushido code as was recognized during WWII.     Bushido does not seem to have effectively taught that the attack on civilians is wrong.  It instead seems to have fostered the notion that attacks on civilians is so easy that you don’t show your mettle by doing it.   There is a huge difference between teaching that civilian life, even enemy civilian life, is valuable, and teaching that enemy civilian life is so worthless that you loose face by wasting your time to go out of your way to kill them instead of doing more useful things.   Evidence points strongly to latter as the true fruit of WWII Japanese observance of Bushido.  If there is any hint at all that killing civilians could bring Japanese the most remote advantage, Japan of WWII never showed any compunction and always erred on the side of killing way too many.

The Japanese militarists of WWII would have condemned the 9-11 attack for not killing military personnel.  But they would not have condemned the death of 2000 civilians from the 9-11 attack.   They would not have lost face by exhibiting any shameful weakness in deigning to notice a thing as trivial as the death of some enemy civilians.

Hi

The Japanese also started a war before Russia in the 1880's with China and Korea in the 1890's. Other war where also started by pre-emtive strikes, but Russia and the Allies of WWII are the most famous.

Steve H.

Good post, Steve, but the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor was against a military target so it fits into the "code of Bushido."  Even the most die-hard Japanese nationalist would have been shocked and offended by the al-Quaeda attacks of 9/11/2001. 

Starting a war with a surprise attack was a Japanese habit, they did it to the Russians in 1904 at Port Arthur, and probably at other points in their history which doesn't fall into the realm of my so-called knowledge. 

Hi

As a footnote, in early WWII, it was rumored that Japan was building their own versions of the German "Pocket Battleships". So the U.S. Navy responded in kind with the Large Heavy Cruisers of the "Alaska class", designed with 9-12" guns to hunt the new Japanese threat. However it only turned out to be a ruse, Japan never built them. As it turned out the Japanese never considered the role of commerce raiders, nor did they order their subs to attack merchant ships. Straingly enough the Japanese thought of attacking merchant ships to be "unhonorable", and  an act of cowardice. They ordered their subs to only attack warships, strainge considuring how they started the war in the Pacific, with a surprise attack.

Steve H.

http://www.deutschland-class.dk/admiral_graf_spee/miscellanous/admiral_graf_spee_stern_eagle.html

Regarding the eagle on the stern of the Graf Spee. 

Check out this link.

It should clear up any misgivings about the eagle on the stern of the Graf Spee.

When seen from the side it is correct.

But I do agree with you that when view from below the wings seam different and it could be mistaken for a different eagle.

This is because of the shape of the stern.

Regards,

Beau.

The British Battlecruiser with 2 18in. guns was the HMS Corageous, later modified to a aircraft carrier (HMS Corageous sunk during the battle of Norway by the German battlecruisers Scharnhost and Gnesiaue. sorry about the spelling.) It claims to be the most heavily armed carrier before it was removed to make way for a larger flght deck.

edit>I think my carriers are mixed up and that it was the HMS Glorius that was sunk off Norway.

David

Hi

Now that I'm back from colon cancer surgury, I'M BACK !!!!!  At the time the first dreadnoughts{H.M.S. Dreadnought & the American Carolina class} were being built. Ad. Jackie Fisher first concieved the idea of the "Battlecruiser". It was planed as a ship with BIG guns{12" at first, then up to 15" during the "Great War", with one being built with 2-18" guns.}, and whatever battleship she could not out shoot, with lighter armour she could out run with more powerfull engines. The battlecruiser as planed by the Brits had a much larger engineering section, thus most battles cruisers where longer than battleships being built in the same timeframe. They were designed to replace the older class's of "Armoured Cruisers".

At the WWI "Battle off the Dogger Bank", a force of German ships including Battlecruisers, one Armoured Cruiser{the Blucher}, took on a British force that included the Battlecruiser "Invincible" fought it out. The Germans retired but the Blucher which was designed similar design as the deadnought type ships, was only armed with 8.1" guns. The British Battlecruisers were armed with 12" guns, no contest. The Blucher was easily overwhelmed by the bigger guns. Just as Ad. Graf Spee's squadron of older Armoured Cruisers were overwhelmed by the Invicible and one of her sister ships at the "First Battle of the Falklands" at the earlier part of the war.

However at the "Battle of Jutland", the British had 3 Battlecruisers blow up while they fought it out with German Battleships.

The German counterpart of the British Battlecruiser, were of similar large size, but the Germans gave their Battlecruisers more armour than their British counterparts{German guns started at 11" and grew to 15" in later models}.

The Graf Spee and her sisters ships were officialy classed as "Armoured Cruisers", but the armour did not stand up well to well aimed shots of British 6" and 8" guns.

Likewise the Scharnhost Class Battlecruisers were built along the lines of their WWI ancesters, also with 9/11" guns. But it was planned to when war broke out to enlarge both ships from 9/11" guns, to 8/15" guns as used in the Bismarck Class Battleships. Lucky for the Brits that never happened.

Steve H.

P.S. There are those that claim, that the Bismarck was heavily engaging the Prince of Wales. That the shot that blew up the Battlecruiser Hood came from the Heavy Cruiser Prinze Eugen. Intriging huh?

alumni72 wrote:

Well, it could have been damaged when the ship was scuttled, or if part of the ship settled in top of it after it sank.

She did get quite warm, I would suspect that the heat did some alterations to it.

I got some first try photos of both ships, try to indentify the "unknow ship".

Here's the unkow ship, at back there the Gneisenau, but the close up didn't work.

Here's a good view of Graf and Gneisenau, notice I use Gneisenau box cover for dispaly on top.

From front to back, unknow ship, graf, and Gneisenau.

I'll get better pictures of each ship but Tell me what you of them now.

T-rex wrote:

Didn't you hear me, I said it was the same eagle, they extracted from the graf wreck and place it in display.

I was respondingto Yankee Clipper, who doubted whether the Eagle in the museum was the same one shown in the ship photo.

Correcting myself. 

It could well be the same eagle, if the museum one was photographed from below, as stated above, but it sure would be nice to have a human there for scale. 

Oh my, looks like Gneisenau didn't had much luck, unlike the graf spee, she went down is fame, not long ago they recover the german eagle on the stern, normaly this was remove before combat but not the Graf spee, now this is on diplay in the museum in montevideo.

I'll post pictures of my models soon, thanks.

In fact I believe a couple of Gneisenau's 11" turrets can still be seen where they were sited in WWII.

She and Scharnhorst were amongst the most beautiful of capital ships, ever ( once they got their North atlantic bows ).

Calling Graf Spee an armored ship (Panzer Schiff) is also somewhat misleading.   Every cruiser of her size had some armor.   To call a ship a panzer schiff implies that somehow armor forms a singular trait of this class of ships.    If fact that could not be further from the truth.   Graf Spee had some armor, but not a whole lot of it.    About half of the world's 8" heavy cruisers had better armor than the Panzer Schiff.   No real battleship or battle cruiser of the 20th century is as lightly armored as the Graf Spee.   Even Fisher's comically under protected Courageous class "large light cruisers" of WWI was more strongly armored than the Graf Spee.

 Graf Spee is really a slow, relatively modestly armored, but quite heavily armed cruiser.   

Just as 8" vs. 11" guns was an 'arbitrary notion', so is the idea of trying to fit the Graf Spee into a preconceived group of ship categories - battleship or cruiser, to be precise.  The Graf Spee class (actually the Deutschland class, but the original topic was the Graf Spee) was specifically categorized by Germany as Panzerschiffe - or, in English, Armored Ships.  This was, to the Germans, a specific class of warship.  The next highest class after that was Schlachtschiff, or Battle Ships.  This, to the Germans, included what the British would have called battlecruisers and battleships.  The term "Pocket Battleship" was spun by the Royal Navy - presumably to belittle the prowess or worth of the ships in the eye of the public.  The Germans never considered the Graf Spee a battleship in any sense of the word.  Dreadnought52, in their post above, stated quite succinctly the intent of the Graf Spee class.

As for battles fought by the Gnesienau, she spent a considerable amount of time in drydock from 1940-42, as she tended to have a knack for finding mines.  Along with Scharnhorst, she sank the HMS Glorious in 1940 during the British evacuation of Norway, along with her 2 destroyer escorts.  She also engaged in a few merchant raiding sorties.  She also made the Channel Run from Brest to Kiel, but in early 1942 she was hit in a bombing raid by the RAF and her entire bow section was blown off when a magazine was penetrated by a bomb.  The Germans planned on repairing her and replacing her main battery with 15" guns, but they never got a chance, as the Kriegsmarine fell into disfavor with Hitler after they repeatedly failed to even engage the Royal Navy in a significant action.  Her 11" main turrets were removed and used for coastal defense.

Graf Spee does not fit neatly into the catagories used by other major navies of the time.    But if you have to use a more meaningful term to specify exactly what sort of ship the Graf Spee is, then she is far closer to being a cruiser than anything else.   For get about speed.   That's a secondary trait to enable cruisers to do its cruiserly duties.    Forget about it's 11" guns.   The idea that cruisers should have 8" guns or less are just a arbitrary notion concocted to give Washington treaty some measurable standards to enforce.     What is a cruiser really?

A cruiser is a ship designed to cruise - to primarily operate independently for prolonged period of time as a scout, a commerce raider, or a trade route guardian, and to engage in gunnery battles mainly to fulfill these duties.    And a independent commerce raider is what Graf Spee was, and thus Graf Spee was a cruiser.   She may have tried to come at fullfilling a cruiser's duty using a different combination of characteristics than most cruisers of her era.   But she was still a ship intended to do cruiserly things.    So she was a cruiser.

Graf Spee was called a pocket battleship out of courtesy at first and from then onwards by tradition.   But there is no way she could be confused for any sort of real battleship at all.   If we cut through all the hype and all the attempts at obscuring basic truths with contrived definitions, then we find that we are left with the following:  a battleship is a ship that is fit to fight a sustained gunnery battle with other contempoary battleships.    As such a battleship must have armor that affords very serious degrees of protection from the big guns of other contemporary battelships, and she must also have guns heavy enough to afford a real chance of penetrating the armored citadal of other contempoary battleships.    At battle ranges the main guns of any other contemporary battleship can pierce the thickest of Graf Spee's armor like it wasn't there.     At likely battle ranges Graf Spee 11" guns stands a poor chance of penetratng the citadal armor of any contemporary battleships.     If she lingers in the presence of any enemy battleship, the Graf Spee is likely to become a chunky oil slick in very little time without having done much to her opponent in return.   She was no battleship.   Treating her like any sort of battleship is a sick joke on her crew.  

Gneisenau was called a battlecruiser also by tradition.  But she did not fit the definition of the classical battlecruiser, which was a large, battleship sized warship that retains battleship fire power, but achieves speed considerably in excess of most contempoary battleships by trading armor for engine power.    Gneisenau did not trade armor for engine power.   She had good engine power, making her marginally faster than most, but not all, contemporary battleships.   But she also had good armor, close to being the equal of half of the contempoary battleships.

She was not quite fully battleship sized, but she was not far off either.    With some charity, she could be said to possess minimal battleship firepower.   Her guns stands a modest chance of penetrating the citadal of some contemporary battleships on the short side of normal battle range.    So Gneisenau does seem to fit the concept of a pocket battleship - a smallish battleship - but a real battleship - very well indeed.