Scharnhorst ammo hoists for 105mm's.

[rtwpsom2]

I have a question and need some input from you guys. I am working on a CAD model of the Scharnhorst and ran into this dilemma.

This is from the best set of Scharnhorst drawings I can find:


This is the deck below Scharnhorst's main boat racks on each side of the funnel. My question is about the rows of circles just outside the funnel area. What are these? I had no clue until I saw Steve Wiper's Tirpitz book and found some images of the 105mm ammo hoists. Are the circles in the drawing meant to be ammo hoists? From navweaps.com:



At first I thought so, so I did some models that I thought would best represent the hoists in that configuration:



Now I am not so sure. There are two sets of circles, one in front of the rangefinder tower and one behind, and both of them are in outside of intake vents (big red x's in drawing), leaving no real room for hoist hardware behind them. Also, according to the Koop and Schmolke drawings of the deck arrangements, the areas below them are crew bathrooms and boat hardware storage. So if they are not ammo hoists, what are they?

[marcelo_malara]

May be ready-use lockers.

[Bgile]

He is referring to the circles, not the rectangles. I think they are much too small to be ammo hoists. I think you almost have to find a photo of that area.

[rtwpsom2]

I do not think I am being fascetious when I say there aren't any. At least not available to me. If anyone else can find some and scan them, great, but I am not holding my breath, she is a very hard ship to find pictures of.

[Tiornu]

May be ready-use lockers.

That's what I was thinking.

[rtwpsom2]

Something else I will point out is that the circles scale out to .25 meters diameter, but the smallest diameter plate that 5 105mm shells would fit on is .44 meters, nearly double the size. But now that I know what ready use racks (I am a tank modeller normally, ships are new for me) I think three of the boxes around the area I am talking about might be ready use boxes for the 105's, they are just about the perfect length to be.

***EDIT***

I have found the 105mm magazines on the koop schmolke drawings, they are five decks below and 50 meters aft of the 105's. There appear to be some shafts 50m forward of the magazine that go from that lower deck up into the gun crew shelter (the big box towards the inside of the rangefinder tower and between the two circlular patterns). I think these are the ammo hoists.

[marcelo_malara]

I have taken some photos of the areas concerned of my copy of Battleship Scharnhorst by Koop and Schmolke (Conway´s Maritime Modeller´s Series).

Shelter Deck:



Upper Deck:



Main Deck:



Armoured Deck:



Tranversal section IX:



There isn´t anything definitive that looks like an ammo hoist going thru all decks. The shaft you mentioned finishes in the boiler rooms.

Regards

[rtwpsom2]

So while we are in agreement that they are not ammo hoists, the question remains, what are they? They do not correspond to anything below decks. They are too big to be ready use lockers for individual rounds and there would only be 14 rounds to divide between six barrels. They are too small to be turntables for more than three rounds, which kind of makes them a waste of space as ready use lockers all together, and I think there are rectangles that represent those in the area. They aren't vents or vent caps since they don't connect to anything below. What does that leave, dodge ball storage?

[marcelo_malara]

Well, as they are in your set of plans and not in mine, we can even ask if they really exist.

[rtwpsom2]

I have been trying to think of how to anser this question before you even asked it. Without sounding like I am saying I know more than anyone ( cuz I don't) I will say I have been researching the scharnhorst everyday for the better part of a year now. One of the biggest problems I have had is knowing which references are accurate and which aren't. I will put it this way, I trust these drawings a lot more than I trust the koop schmolke drawings. And by "a lot" I mean I didn't even reference the KS drawings until I was desparate to figure out what they were, because "my" set doesn't show the below deck areas. While I have little reason to doubt the accuracy of the below decks areas on the KS drawings, I have every reason to trust the above deck drawings in "my" set.

And for the record, I can't even tell you who drew this set, I got them on ebay from a guy in Poland who had no idea where he got them. But they have proven themselves accurate time and time again. I will refer to them as the polish set, because they aren't really mine in that I didn't draw them. They are in 1/100 scale and are three sheets comprising a waterline set, a side view with several cross sections and a top view with several deck views. Between these and the drawinngs of Waldemar Kascmerzyk in "Pancernikie typu Scharnorst" I have been able to validate them for the most part.

[tommy303]

Off hand I would say they were probably air ducts going down to the engineering spaces.

[marcelo_malara]

May be the plans are not the original construction ones, and they are racks added later. On the other hand, it doesn´t mak sense to put ammo near a shaft leading to the boiler room, an explosion there could send splinters down, why risk that?

[rtwpsom2]

I don't think they have anything to do with ammo storage any more.

The polish dwg's are of a late 1943 ship. All the text, what little of it there is, is in German.

I have got to say, I have been posting to the wrong forum. Before this week all my questions were posted to the Scharnhorst forum at bismarck-class-forum.dk and I was lucky to get any response at all. Here I get people willing to throw out an answer and do a little conjecturing. It's a little refreshing after waiting for weeks to get nothing over there.

[marcelo_malara]

Hi, I found this picture in German Capital Ships (Whitley):



It looks like the ammo was supplied via an overhead rail system. As you are working with the deck plans, may be you can recognize the ladder and find where the rail leads to.

Hope this wll help.

Regards

[rtwpsom2]

Okay, if what I am seeing is correct, the rail dips down in the back to go through the open hatch (white rectangle) behind the two crewmen. Or it has a pass through above the hatch. I am pretty certain this is the back of the bridge superstructure. The black thing that angles away above the stairs is part of the intake vents for the boilers. Here is a render of the area on the opposite side. Does this look about right to you? It was great of you to find this for me. I think it is pretty safe to say that the area we were previously talking about didn't have anything to do with ammo.