Admiral Graf Spee in 19361028 viewsThe most famous of the three 'Deutschland' class 'pocket battleships', the Admiral Graf Spee was launched in June 1934 and completed in January 1936, and was scuttled off Montevideo in December 1939 after suffering only modest damage in the Battle of the River Plate, against a force of three British cruisers, at the end of a commerce-raiding cruise in which the German ship had sunk or captured nine British merchant ships.
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Deutschland or Lützow1286 viewsDeutschland, later re-named Lützow, was the first German large armoured ship built after World War I.
Its keel was laid down in February 1929, at the Deutsche Werke shipyard in Kiel, and launched in May 1931. It completed fitting out in late 1932 and took its maiden voyage in May 1932.
Its size and characteristics where severely limited by the Treaty of Versailles, which limited Germany to ships of no more than 10,000 tons displacement. A number of technical innovations (including large scale use of welding to make the hull lighter) used by the Germans to build a formidable warship within this restricted weight. Even so, the Deutschland was 600 tons overweight, although for political reasons its announced displacement was always given as the 10,000 tons of the treaty limit.
Two other very similar (but not identical) ships were built in its class, the Admiral Graf Spee and the Admiral Scheer. The class was termed Panzerschiff ("armoured ship"); they were designated "pocket battleships" by the British because of their characteristics: their guns (6 x 28 cm in two turrets) were substantially bigger than those of the heavy cruisers of her time, but they were much smaller (and much less armoured), but faster than the standard battleships.
After the start of World War II, she was renamed Lützow in November 1939 because Adolf Hitler feared that the loss a ship with the name "Germany" would have a significant negative psychological and propaganda effect.
In February 1940 she and her sisterships were re-classified as heavy cruisers, and in April of that year she participated in the invasion of Norway. Lützow was then to return to Germany to refit for an extended raiding cruise into the Atlantic, but was torpedoed by the British submarine Spearfish in the Skagerrak north of Jutland. The hit nearly tore off the entire stern of the ship and repairs were not finished until late 1941.
She participated in various minor events during the next years, but her only other significant service came starting in September 1944 in the Baltic Sea when she fired on land targets in support of the retreating German army, a service she would continue to provide in the subsequent months.
The ship was badly damaged by three 6-ton Tallboy bombs dropped by the Royal Air Force in April 1945 as it lay off Swinemünde, and it came to rest on the bottom. It was repaired, and then did further support of the army; it was finally scuttled by its crew on 4 May 1945.
After the war, the Sovie
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German pocket battleship Admiral Scheer 19331799 viewsAdmiral Scheer, a pocket battleship, was built in 1933 and named after Admiral Reinhard Scheer. Its designation as a "Pocket" battleship was by the British in 1939. In German it is called a Panzerschiff (Armoured Ship) or a Deutschland class battleship. Of the Kriegsmarine's Capital Ships, the Admiral Scheer, under Captain Theodor Krancke, was by far the most successful commerce raider of WW2. Her longest raid took her as far as the Indian Ocean. Bombed by the RAF while docked in Kiel in 1945 she capsized and sank. After the war her upturned hulk was partially scrapped, with what remained being buried under rubble as the dock was filled in to make a parking lot.
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