PDA

View Full Version : Condensed History: DKM Gneisenau



FightingSteel1
Feb-10-2016, 05:56
Another ship related post this time...covering one of Germany's battlecruisers and some famous engagements/operations she participated in. This is a little long though:

DKM Gneisenau

http://i397.photobucket.com/albums/pp55/vipe155/CondensedHistory/new.jpg
Gneisenau upon completion - Credit Bundesarchiv.

Battlecruiser Gneisenau(pronounced something like nei-senau, silent g) began life as the planned second ship of the Scharnhorst class. Her construction was awarded to Deutsche Werke, and construction began in 1935. She and her sister would become the German Navies (Kriegsmarine) first major capitol ships and a large part of German fleet buildup prior to the start of World War II. Finished in 1938, Gneisenau displaced 32,000 tons, was 770 ft (234.9m) long, and had a top speed in trials of 31 knots.

Gneisenau was armed with a “upper-middleweight” armament consisting of nine 28cm (11.1 in) main guns in two forward and one rear triple turret, and featured twelve 15cm (5.9in) secondary guns and various large caliber and small caliber AA weapons. Of note was the choice of 28cm guns for the classes main battery. At the time, due to use in other Kriegsmarine vessels and common barrel design/ammunition availability, to complete the vessels on time 28cm guns were decided to be the best option. It was planned to upgrade the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau with six (two per turret) 38cm (15”) guns in the future after the completion of the larger battleships, but due to the start of the war and limited resources, this was never fully completed. In the case of the Gneisenau, those larger guns will be a small part of her story later in life.

Start of War

The beginning of the war placed Gneisenau in port, enduring a Wellington bomber raid (with no damage) in the first few days of hostilities. Gneisenau finally left for war in November 1939 in company with her sister Scharnhorst, the light cruiser Koln and a complement of destroyers. The operation centered between Iceland and the Faroe Islands was meant to draw out Royal Navy ships to divert attention away from Admiral Graf Spee being hunted in the Atlantic.

Gneisenau first action would occur November 23rd, when the British armed merchant cruiser Rawalpindi was, in an unfortunate situation, tasked with investigating an enemy sighting in the area. The ship would find the “ugly sisters” Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. Defiant Captain Edward Kennedy refused a call to surrender and decided to fight with little hope of victory. The Rawalpindi was sunk in a fairly short battle after scoring one hit on Scharnhorst. The ship did manage to broadcast the German fleets position, and Royal Navy titans Hood, Rodney, Nelson and French battleship Dunkerque began pursuit. Even so, the British vessels failed to make contact and chase was called off with the German ships returning to Kiel in late November.

After some uneventful patrols for enemy convoys and time in port, Gneisenau's next major action would occur in Operation Weserburug, the invasion of Norway. Starting in April of 1940, she would sail from Germany as the flagship for Vice-Admiral Gunther Lutjens along with Scharnhorst, tasked with covering the invasion of Narvik. The pair detached from heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper and escorting destroyers providing long cover of their operations in Norway. At 4:30 on April 9th Gneisenau discovered on her radar the approaching British battlecruiser Renown, a 15” gun heavily upgraded WWI veteran. Heavy seas and poor visibility hampered the battle, in which the ships traded fire for several minutes. Gneisenau scored two hits aboard Renown, with the shells failing to explode and cause any real damage. The German flagship than was hit in turn with the heavier shells damaging her forward fire directors and aft turret. The poor conditions continued to hamper the battle, with only sporadic bouts of firing before the Germans increased speed disengaged from the battle. While hardly a decisive battle, the action had diverted the Royal Navies attention and therefore allowed the German invasion around Narvik and Trondheim to continue without interference. Gneisenau and Scharnhorst would join up with Admiral Hipper and return to port afterwards.

Gneisenau would hit a mine in May, forcing her into drydock for repairs. In June she would sail for her next operation, and a wholly unique engagement around Norway.

See next post for part 2.

FightingSteel1
Feb-10-2016, 05:56
Operation Juno and the surprise of HMS Glorious

Gneisenau would again sail with her sister Scharnhorst, cruiser Admiral Hipper and accompanying destroyers in early June. Operation Juno was a planned movement of the fleet to cut off allied resupply and operations to Norway to aid the German forces fighting in the country.

The group would find a handful of allied vessels in the area, destroying a trawler and oil tanker before Hipper and the destroyers detached to Trondheim on June 8th. At 17:45 an incredible set of circumstances would provide the sisters with an equally incredible target. Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Glorious, with two escorting destroyers (Ardent and Acasta), was spotted at a range of 50,000m/55,000 yards steaming West back to England.

http://i397.photobucket.com/albums/pp55/vipe155/CondensedHistory/HMSGlorious.jpg
Last known photo of HMS Glorious - U.S. Naval Historical Photograph #NH60793

The situation was inexplicable because the vessels commander had been given permission to proceed home with a small escort to Scapa Flow (the primary Royal Navy base). At the time of engagement, the carrier had no CAP flying, no aircraft ready on deck, and in fact didn't even see the Gneisenau and Scharnhorst until fifteen minutes after they themselves had been sighted. The hopelessly outmatched destroyers moved to engage, and Gneisenau opened fire at a range of 16,000 yards. The withering fire forced the escorts to make smoke in an (unsuccessful) attempt to mask their carrier.

Fire was then shifted to the Glorious itself, in which Scharnhorst promptly scored a hit at a range of 26,000 yards. This shell wrecked the forward flight deck and decimated a pair of Swordfish biplanes being scrambled for action. After being hit again in the bridge section, wounding or killing most of the commander officers of the ship, the smoke screen finally concealed the Glorious for the next 20 minutes. This was only a small reprieve, as conditions allowed the twin battlecruisers to reopen fire which soon wrecked the ships engine room, started a list to port, and reduced the ship to a burning wreck. HMS Glorious would soon sink, while the German shells shifted to Acasta and Ardent. They would soon succumb as well. The only small victory scored by the British would be a torpedo fired from Acasta that found the Scharnhorst near her rear main turret.

http://i397.photobucket.com/albums/pp55/vipe155/CondensedHistory/firing.jpg
Gneisenau firing on Glorious, taken from Scharnhorst - credit Bundesarchiv

The ships would return to Trondheim, with emergency repairs provided to Scharnhorst. Gneisenau and the destroyers moved out towards Iceland as a diversion for Scharnhorst to return home damaged, but a few days later Gneisenau would be torpedoed herself by the Royal Navy submarine HMS Clyde. The ship would return to Trondheim before limping home to Kiel for extensive repairs herself.

Stay tuned for Part 3 Operation Berlin and a mad dash

FightingSteel1
Feb-10-2016, 05:57
Operation Berlin and Cerberus

After months of repair, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were prepared for Operation Berlin, the planned breakout of the battlecruisers to the Atlantic to wreak havoc on the allied shipping lanes. The pair left port January 22, 1941 heading for passage between Iceland and the Faroes Islands. Discovered earlier in the breakout, Royal Navy units were deployed to intercept, but the German ships radar allowed Admiral Lutjen's to evade the patrols and slip past into open sea.

The vessels would soon contact an enemy convoy in early February, but found the merchant ships accompanied by HMS Ramilles. An WWI Revenge class battleship, Ramilles was regulated to convoy duty due to it's age and now obsolete speed. This was enough though, as Kriegsmarine naval doctrine in WWII was very protective of it's capital ships. German command was apprehensive of engaging equal or larger vessels unless absolutely forced to. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau would disengage.

Later, the ships came upon a wholly unescorted convoy in the North Atlantic. The convoy broke apart, but Gneisenau took three vessels, while Scharnhorst was credited with one sunk (a total of ~25,000 tons). After moving south to intercept the Gibraltar convoy route, and encountering another convoy escorted by HMS Malaya, the German admiral finally found unquestionable success. Finding another fleeing convoy, Gneisenau captured three tankers and destroyed another. The next morning, the sisters would destroy thirteen ships totaling over 60,000 tons between them.

After frantic distress calls from the merchants, Royal Navy battleships King George V and Rodney would give chase, but the Gneisenau and her companion would use their superior speed to distance themselves and return to the port of Brest, France. Operation Berlin had ended with one of the Kriegsmarine's greatest successes of the war.

Under attack and Operation Cerberus

Despite the successes, the rest of 1941 would not be a happy one for Gneisenau. In port at Brest, she first endured a torpedo attack by Bristol Beauforts in April. A single torpedo hit, ripping into the starboard propulsion area. Three days later she was attacked in a bomber raid, taking four bomb hits in the forward superstructure and killing 72 of her crew. This damage ensured she would spend the rest of the year under repair, in which multiple upgrades were made to her AA batteries and torpedo tubes added. The real result of the bombing raids? Her damage prevented the ship from joining battleship Bismarck in the fateful Operation Rheinubung, a history altering ramification.

Gneisenau sat into 1942 in repair, coming under repeated British attack but without any real further damage. On January 12, 1942 German naval command and Hitler decided Gneisenau, Scharnhorst and heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen needed to return to Germany. The ships were needed in the North to help interdict convoys to the Soviet Union to ease pressure on the Eastern Front. After deliberating over different strategies, the decision was made to make a risky but shorter run through the English Channel in what would become the famous “Channel Dash.”

Late on February 11, 1942, the three ships left Brest at 27 knots hugging the French coast towards Germany. Accompanied by six Z-Class destroyers and meeting up with several E type torpedo boats, a large escorting force was amassed. General de Jagdflieger Adolf Galland personally supervised air power during the dash, known as Operation Donnerkeil. The British failed to detect the departure of the Kriegsmarine vessels, and the race was on.

Under a constant umbrella of at least sixteen Luftwaffe fighters, with a myriad of diversionary air operations happening simultaneously, the ships cleared the Cliffs of Dover at 13:00 on February 12th. Various air attacks were mounted over and over, but the Luftwaffe repulsed all of them, for example decimating six Swordfish biplanes attempting torpedo runs (which were oddly unescorted on their flight). Five British destroyers mounted their torpedo attack as well, only to be battered by the German squads 11in and 8in gunfire. Outside of a mine detonation on Gneisenau with minor damage, she along with Scharnhorst and Prinz Eugen arrived the next day in Germany. Overall, Operation Cerberus was a success with only minor damage to the Kriegsmarine participants, 22 aircraft lost to the RAF's 40.

http://i397.photobucket.com/albums/pp55/vipe155/CondensedHistory/110.jpg
Bf-110s supporting the Kriegsmarine group in the channel - credit Bundesarchiv

In a stunning twist of fate, the trip back to Germany would be the final deployment of Gneisenau. After repair work was completed and her departure for Norway set, a nighttime raid by the RAF planted a bomb near her 1st (Anton) turret, setting off propellant charges. The turret was thrown off it's mounting, the entire bow destroyed and 112 men were killed. The damage was so extensive that the ship was put into repair with the intention of upgrading her to original design specifications. The original plan 38cm guns would replace the 28cm current armament. The bowless ship was transferred to Gotenhafen, Poland and decommissioned for the extensive work.

In early 1943, the ship had been repaired and work on installing it's new upgrades prepared to commence. But it was not to be, as the failure of the surface fleet in the Battle of Barents Sea (perhaps a story for another time in the future) angered Hitler to the point of decommissioning the entire fleet. Things never went that far, but no more work would commence on Gneisenau. Her current guns were removed and transferred to coastal batteries in Norway.

The End

Gneisenau ended it's life in Gotenhafen. As the Red Army approached, a decision was made to move the ship out and sink it to block the port entrance. She sadly spent the next couple of years postwar rusting, partially submerged, before Poland ordered the ship removed and salvaged.

http://i397.photobucket.com/albums/pp55/vipe155/CondensedHistory/wreck1.jpg
Wrecked and destroyed - credit unknown

Gneisenau suffered an exciting life in war for a few years, but relentless air attack on her would doom her to years of inactivity. Surprisingly, her fate would be preferred to her sister Scharnhorst, who was chased down and lost near Norway in a foolish 1943 operation with only 36 survivors. Today an original 28cm turret still exists in Trondheim and is available to visit. Check back next month for another article.

http://i397.photobucket.com/albums/pp55/vipe155/CondensedHistory/norwaygun1.jpg
Turret Caesar in Norway - credit Lars Erik Brattås 2004

VO101_Kurfurst
Feb-12-2016, 08:38
There is an excellent shot in the inside of this main turret on this site. Gotta visit this thing some day...

http://bunkersite.com/panzer/guns/28-34.php


20585

FightingSteel1
Feb-12-2016, 15:23
Yeah, I have to agree visiting the turret would be very cool. All her 28cm guns and at least some of the secondary 15cm guns were used in shore batteries, but I believe Caesar is the only one that survived.