80th anniversary of the sinking of the KMS Scharnhorst

[Enceladus828]

Since the Scharnhorst Battleship is to be included in the upcoming Dieppe installment, might as well reflect that today marks the 80th anniversary of her sinking during the Battle of the North Cape between herself and the HMS Duke of York, Norfolk, Belfast, Sheffield, Jamaica, and eight destroyers. Out of a crew of 1,969, only 36 survived. The sinking of the Scharnhorst ended the threat of the Arctic Convoys being harassed by German capital ships. This was also the second to last Battleship vs Battleship engagement.

 

 

[jollyjack]

Now i really wish LizLemon's torpedo mod works again, also for the P38 ... oops, this is about clod ..

Edited January 3, 2024 by jollyjack

[Gunfreak]

Only party related but great scene showing the sinking of Blücher 

 

[Buzzsaw]

11 hours ago, Gunfreak said:

Only party related but great scene showing the sinking of Blücher 

 

Big blunder by the Germans in assuming they could sail to Oslo directly and bluff their way through the gauntlet of the coastal guns... and they paid for it with the loss of the heavy cruiser Blucher.

 

They should have landed troops first to overwhelm the batteries... they subsequently did land those forces later, but it was too late to prevent the Norwegian King and Cabinet escaping to the North, and then to Britain with the Government's treasury.

[Enceladus828]

A new in-depth video about the hunt for Scharnhorst and how she got to be known as "The Lucky ship" for the Kriegsmarine.

 

[Buzzsaw]

There is also another little known encounter which involved the Scharnhorst which is covered only in passing in the documentary.

 

As mentioned, she and the Gneisenau, (the unlucky one of the pair) were off the Norwegian coast in April 1940 during the period of the invasion.

 

They had were assigned 'distant cover' role for the invasion at Narvik and Trondheim... with Admiral Hipper and various destroyers performing the actual invasions.

 

The invasion force encountered the British destroyer HMS Glowworm, which was sunk in a heroic fight... in the end attempting to ram Scharnhorst.  Glowworm managed to radio the Admiralty, who dispatched heavy forces to intercept.

 

As the two Battlecruisers continued this patrol off the coast in heavy seas, they encountered one of the British intercepting forces, British Battlecruiser HMS Renown.  Renown had 15 inch guns compared to the 11 inch guns on the two German Battlecruisers... although Renown's armor was not much thicker.  If the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had stayed and fought, the chances on both sides would have been roughly equal... or perhaps a little in the favour of the Germans.

 

However, the German Admiral commanding, Gunther Lutjens elected to run instead, and the Renown pursued.

 

The Gneisenau was hit with two 15 inch shells, one disabling its rear turret, which meant as the German ship was running, none of its turrets could fire back.  In addition, the fire damaged the gunnery radar.  The Renown then switched its fire to the Scharnhorst, but with low visibility and the higher speed of the German Battlecruisers, was unable to get further hits and the Germans disappeared in the poor visibility.   The damage was more serious than detailed in the documentary.

 

In addition, the German ships had used over-pressure in their boilers to generate maximum speed, and with the heavy seas, they had both damaged their engines and caused the heavy seas to ship into the forward turret of the Scharnhorst, disabling it.  Both ships were now limited to 25 knots maximum... both had less than their normal complement of guns, and in a very dangerous situation, with British battleships closing in.

 

However, the poor weather prevented RAF observation aircraft spotting them, and they were able to first sail north along the coast of Norway, then to the west into the North Sea, and then finally south, arriving back in Germany to be repaired.  HMS Warspite, one of the intercepting ships, then sailed into Narvik Fjord, and sank all 10 destroyers of the Kriegsmarine landing force.

 

Following fairly lengthy repairs in Germany, (nearly two months) the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had their finest moment, when they sailed again for Norway at the beginning of June, and encountered the old WWI era British Carrier HMS Glorious, which wa one of the Royal Navy ships evacuating the British aircraft and Land forces after the Germans had defeated the British/French landing forces.  The Captain of Glorious, Guy D'Oyly-Hughes, in a extremely foolish move, had not bothered to launch patrolling aircraft to screen the area around the carrier, and was completely surprised by the two Battlecruisers, and sunk before he could launch Swordfish armed with torpedoes.  If he had a combat patrol up, the two German Battlecruisers would have been subject to torpedo attacks, and potentially could have suffered the same fate as Bismarck did later.

 

As it was, Scharnhorst did not escape unscathed.  One of the two escorting Destroyers for the Furious fired torpedoes as it was also sunk, and one hit the Scharnhorst, blowing a hole in its side, disabling its turret and forcing it once again to return to Germany for repairs.

 

As has been mentioned, TF will be including both the Scharnhorst/Gneisenau and the Renown in the FORTRESSES AND FOCKE-WULFS - DIEPPE DLC.  The two German Battlecruisers are included to allow us to simulate the 'Channel Dash' operation, and Renown is included to provide a British Capital ship for 'What if' scenarios.  (no Battleships or Battlecruisers were used to support the Dieppe landings, only destroyers... one of the flaws in the operational planning)