Naval History Forums

The KGV class had excellent seakeeping capabilities which were certainly the best of any treaty limited battleship. If this wasn't the case, then how did DoY run down and sink Scharnhorst in a raging gale?

how would you assess the seakeeping capabilities of Scharnhorst?

paulcadogan wrote:

Dave Saxton wrote:But even the Prinz Eugen reported that sea spray made identifying the enemy warships difficult.

Where was this reported? Can't find it in the KTB. The only time spray affected Prinz Eugen was when the splash from Hood's nearest shell collapsed over the ship putting the decks awash (reported in the KTB by Jasper) and I think it was Busch who described the RF/spotting lenses having to be wiped off in the aftermath of that.

The wind direction was responsible for the spray fogging Hood & PoW's optics. That same wind would have blow any spray away from BS & PG, so it would not have fogged theirs.

BTW - remember we have video footage of KGV ships in heavy seas: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=6708

It comes from Schmalenbach's personal KTB as watch officer at the time. It identifies both sea spray and own stack smoke.

Thorsten Wahl wrote:

The KGV class had excellent seakeeping capabilities which were certainly the best of any treaty limited battleship. If this wasn't the case, then how did DoY run down and sink Scharnhorst in a raging gale?

how would you assess the seakeeping capabilities of Scharnhorst?

S&G were badly overweight and consequently had very low freeboard (~6ft less than the KGV's). S&G lost forward turret function on several occasions, due to weather, and IIRC were mission killed by weather damage on at least one occasion. Scharnhorst was modified to improve turret weather sealing but low freeboard was always a problem for them.

KGV class were rated at 28knots but could be forced to 29.25knots, while Scharnhorst could manage over 31 knots if forced. It did reach 31.65 during trails but those are usually at standard displacement.

So the advantage would be at most 2 knots.

BTW at DS the seas were 'moderate' swell according to O'Hara.

S&G were badly overweight and consequently had very low freeboard (~6ft less than the KGV's).

Are you sure about that?

Anson at 46,000 metric tons had 5.6m freeboard at stern and 5.2m freeboard amid ship with 7.44m freeboard at bow. That's an average of about 6.08m free board .

Scharnhorst had depth of 15.6m stern 14m amid ship and 17m bow. Max draft at 38,700tons was 9.9m, while standard draft would have been about 8.3m. So normal draft should be 9.1m.

Thus at max displacement the Scharnhorst free board should be [5.7+4.1+ 7.1m] /3 = average of 5.6m free board. At Normal displacement this average should be 6.4m.

doesn't look like 6 feet.

Paul L wrote:KGV class were rated at 28knots but could be forced to 29.25knots, while Scharnhorst could manage over 31 knots if forced. It did reach 31.65 during trails but those are usually at standard displacement.

So the advantage would be at most 2 knots.

BTW at DS the seas were 'moderate' swell according to O'Hara.

S&G were badly overweight and consequently had very low freeboard (~6ft less than the KGV's).

Are you sure about that?

Anson at 46,000 metric tons had 5.6m freeboard at stern and 5.2m freeboard amid ship with 7.44m freeboard at bow. That's an average of about 6.08m free board .

Scharnhorst had depth of 15.6m stern 14m amid ship and 17m bow. Max draft at 38,700tons was 9.9m, while standard draft would have been about 8.3m. So normal draft should be 9.1m.

Thus at max displacement the Scharnhorst free board should be [5.7+4.1+ 7.1m] /3 = average of 5.6m free board. At Normal displacement this average should be 6.4m.

doesn't look like 6 feet.

You've taken extreme, mid 1945, displacement for a KGV class (KGV herself = 44500 tons max in 1945 while Howe inclined in May 1944 = 44500 tons extreme deep) ship and compared it to Scharnhorst, prewar. By late 1943 Scharnhorst deep displacement = ~40000 tonnes. Using realistic 1943 displacements DoY would have an average ~1.8m advantage, especially since midships freeboard represented a greater part of ship length. Even in April 1940, Scharnhorst was reporting flooding into "Bruno" turret during her engagement with Renown.

Only because of the higher speed they were maintaining, in the heavy seas encountered.

What was the draft at standard displacement for the DoY in 1943?

The mean draft at 44,790 tons was 10.47m while the 'depth at side' was 15.5m- leaving just 5 meters freeboard.

... It was Scharnhorst that reported 31.6kts as maximum speed.

Gneisenau reported up to 32.5kts during the hunt for HMS Glorious.

But speeds vary by quite a bit depending on load, bottom fouling, sea temperature, salinity, etc.

From the hunt of Scharnhorst we know Duke of York was 3.5kts to 4kts slower than the German battlecruiser in the conditions of battle for North Cape.

Paul L wrote:Only because of the higher speed they were maintaining, in the heavy seas encountered.

What was the draft at standard displacement for the DoY in 1943?

The mean draft at 44,790 tons was 10.47m while the 'depth at side' was 15.5m- leaving just 5 meters freeboard.

Looking very carefully at the numbers, 44790 tons was DoY's displacement after her late 1944 refit. Full load in Dec 1943 was about 44000 tons giving a draft of 10.33m and a freeboard at the side of 5.18m. Scharnhorst's full load in Dec 1943 was ~40,000 tonnes giving a draft of 10.2m and a freeboard at the side of 3.85m giving Doy a ~1.5m advantage, which is quite considerable.