Naval History Forums

Death of Scharnhorst: With its radar out, Scharnhorst was caught by surprise as the British attack developed. Using radar-directed fire, Duke of York scored hits on the German ship with its first salvo. As the fighting continued, Scharnhorst's forward turret was put out of action and Bey turned nor...

Although I'm sure you meant battle cruiser, the Scharnhorst, with the exception of under sized guns, was a full on battleship. The level of armour protection was heavy. It was not a traditional battle cruiser at all. Ah yes, of course :) This extra armour would no doubt be an important factor had s...

Very interesting thread! Have been wondering the same myself :) I've always wondered what would've happened had a Scharnhorst class heavy cruiser accompanied the Bismarck instead. At distances of up to 18,000 km I'd imagine that the Scharnhorst's guns would've had little trouble penetrating the PoW...

Very interesting thread! Have been wondering the same myself :) I've always wondered what would've happened had a Scharnhorst class heavy cruiser accompanied the Bismarck instead. At distances of up to 18,000 km I'd imagine that the Scharnhorst's guns would've had little trouble penetrating the PoWs...

I've always been of the opinion that the German 11" gun was a great design, was very deadly for its size and IIRC featured the smallest salvo spread of any naval gun in the world.

But the 40.6cm C/34 fired at a velocity just a mere 10 m/s slower than the 38 cm C/34, thus I'd expect the 40.6 cm to feature a similar trajectory? The 1030kg weight vs 800kg weight means that the heavier shell will lose less velocity per range. This means that the lighter shell will start getting ...

Excellent info guys, many thanks!

The 38cm gun was used largely because it was thought, circa 1935, since only the Nelson class were equipped with 16" guns in Europe, a 16" Bismarck would antagonize the British. The Italians and the French (the preceived most likely opponant at the time) had already decided to go with 15&...

Would it have been possible to mount the 40.6cm SK C/34 guns on the Bismarck class BBs?

If you are comparing all around ship capability, Baltimore had a more reliable power plant and a better AA battery. Edit: As the range decreases, PE has an additional advantage of faster firing main battery guns. Yeah the PE was overall the better in a ship on ship battle, esp. at long ranges, but ...

Good sum up Alecsandros, I have to agree.

Prinz Eugen wins at long range, but the Baltimore catches up at medium range due to its larger amount of guns (esp. secondary).

Based on the information I've been able to gather from various books and experts on this forum, it seems to me that the Prinz Eugen probably was the best heavy cruiser of the war. I certainly can't see where it would come second best to any other cruiser of the war. It featured state of the art fire...

Many thanks Byron, I'll have to check out that book :) It would make sense if the Bayern class fielded an improved variant of the Petravic system, and it would probably be mentioned in documents concerning the live fire exercises conducted with this class, of which I don't know if any have survived ...

Thanks Byron, makes sense :) FWIW, Gary Staff's excellent new book on German battlecruisers places an AG/Petravic system also aboard Lutzow, where it displayed a similar susceptibility to failure through shock from own gunfire. Considering that it was fitted aboard all three ships of the class, I n...

Thanks Byron, makes sense :)