() was a heavy cruiser (often termed a pocket battleship) which served with the (Navy) of Nazi Germany during World War II. The vessel was named after Admiral Reinhard Scheer, German commander in the Battle of Jutland. She was laid down at the shipyard in Wilhelmshaven in June 1931 and completed by November 1934. Originally classified as an armored ship () by the Reichsmarine, in February 1940 the Germans reclassified the remaining two ships of this class as heavy cruisers.
The ship was nominally under the limitation on warship size imposed by the Treaty of Versailles, though with a full load displacement of , she significantly exceeded it. Armed with six guns in two triple gun turrets, and her sisters were designed to outgun any cruiser fast enough to catch them. Their top speed of left only a handful of ships in the Anglo-French navies able to catch them and powerful enough to sink them.
saw heavy service with the German Navy, including a deployment to Spain during the Spanish Civil War, where she bombarded the port of Almería. Her first operation during World War II was a commerce raiding operation into the southern Atlantic Ocean, with a brief foray into the Indian Ocean. During this operation, she sank of shipping, making her the most successful capital ship surface raider of the war. After returning to Germany, she was deployed to northern Norway to interdict shipping to the Soviet Union. She was part of an abortive attack on Convoy PQ 17 and conducted Operation Wunderland, a sortie into the Kara Sea. After returning to Germany at the end of 1942, she served as a training ship until the end of 1944, when she was used to support ground operations against the Soviet Army. She moved to Kiel for repairs in March 1945, where she was capsized by British bombers in a raid on 9 April 1945. She was partially scrapped and the remainder of the wreck was buried when the inner part of Kiel dockyard was filled in after the war.
Design
was long overall and had a beam of and a maximum draft of . The ship had a design displacement of and a full load displacement of , though the ship was officially stated to be within the limit of the Treaty of Versailles. was powered by four sets of MAN nine-cylinder double-acting two-stroke diesel engines. The ship's top speed was , at . At a cruising speed of , the ship could steam for . As designed, her standard complement consisted of 33 officers and 586 enlisted men, though after 1935 this was significantly increased to 30 officers and 921–1,040 sailors.
s primary armament was six SK C/28 guns mounted in two triple gun turrets, one forward and one aft of the superstructure. The ship carried a secondary battery of eight SK C/28 guns in single turrets grouped amidships. Her heavy anti-aircraft battery consisted of three twin 8.8 cm L/78 guns. These guns were directed by three SL-4 director posts, installed on each side of the funnel and above the signal bridge. Her middle and light anti-aircraft armament consisted of four twin-mounted C/30 guns and ten single Flak 30 guns. During her refit in 1939-40 the 8.8 cm guns were replaced by three twin C/33 guns, two single 2 cm were landed and two quad 2 cm were added. In 1944 her light anti-aircraft armament consisted of five quad and nine single 2 cm guns By 1945, the anti-aircraft battery had again been reorganized and comprised six 4 cm guns, eight 3.7 cm guns, and thirty-three 2 cm guns.
The ship also carried a pair of quadruple deck-mounted torpedo tubes placed on her stern. The ship was equipped with one Heinkel He 60 seaplane and one catapult. s armored belt was thick; her upper deck was thick while the main armored deck was thick. The main battery turrets had thick faces and 80 mm thick sides. Radar initially consisted of a FMG 39 G(gO) set, though in 1941 this was replaced with an FMG 40 G(gO) set and a FuMO 26 system.
Service history
was ordered by the Reichsmarine from the shipyard in Wilhelmshaven. Naval rearmament was not popular with the Social Democrats and the Communists in the German , so it was not until 1931 that a bill was passed to build a second . The money for , which was ordered as , was secured after the Social Democrats abstained to prevent a political crisis. Her keel was laid on 25 June 1931, under construction number 123. The ship was launched on 1 April 1933; at her launching, she was christened by Marianne Besserer, the daughter of Admiral Reinhard Scheer, the ship's namesake. She was completed slightly over a year and a half later on 12 November 1934, the day she was commissioned into the German fleet. The old pre-dreadnought battleship was removed from service and her crew transferred to the newly commissioned .
At her commissioning in November 1934, was placed under the command of (KzS) Wilhelm Marschall. The ship spent the remainder of 1934 conducting sea trials and training her crew. In 1935, she had a new catapult and landing sail system to operate her Heinkel HE 60 seaplanes on heavy seas installed. From 1 October 1935 to 26 July 1937 her first officer was Leopold Bürkner, later to become head of foreign intelligence in the Third Reich. By October 1935, the ship was ready for her first major cruise, when on 25–28 October she visited Madeira, returning to Kiel on 8 November. The following summer, she cruised out through the Skagerrak and the English Channel into the Irish Sea, before visiting Stockholm on the return voyage.
Spanish Civil War s first overseas deployment began in July 1936 when she was sent to Spain to evacuate German civilians caught in the midst of the Spanish Civil War. From 8 August 1936 she served together with her sister ship on non-intervention patrols off the Republican-held coast of Spain. She served four tours of duty with the non-intervention patrol through June 1937. Her official objective was to control the influx of war materiel into Spain, though she also recorded Soviet ships carrying supplies to the Republicans and protected ships delivering German weapons to Nationalist forces. During the deployment to Spain, Ernst Lindemann served as the ship's first gunnery officer. After was attacked on 29 May 1937 by Spanish Republican Air Force aircraft off Ibiza, was ordered to bombard the Republican-held port of Almería in reprisal. On 31 May 1937, the anniversary of the Battle of Jutland, , flying the Imperial War Flag, arrived off Almería at 07:29 and opened fire on shore batteries, naval installations and ships in the harbor. On 26 June 1937, she was relieved by her sister ship , allowing her to return to Wilhelmshaven on 1 July. She returned to the Mediterranean between August and October, however. In September 1936 KzS Otto Ciliax had replaced Marschall as the ship's commanding officer.
World War II At the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, remained at anchor in the Schillig roadstead outside Wilhelmshaven, with the heavy cruiser . On 4 September, two groups of five Bristol Blenheim bombers attacked the ships. The first group surprised the anti-aircraft gunners aboard , who nevertheless managed to shoot down one of the five Blenheims. One bomb struck the ship's deck and failed to explode, and two detonated in the water near the ship. The remaining bombs also failed to explode. The second group of five Blenheims were confronted by the alerted German defenses, which shot down four of the five bombers. emerged from the attack undamaged. In November 1939, KzS Theodor Krancke became the ship's commanding officer.
underwent a refit while her sister ships set out on commerce raiding operations in the Atlantic. Around this time the ship received two of its Arado Ar 196 floatplanes. was modified during the early months of 1940, including the installation of a new, raked clipper bow. The heavy command tower was replaced with a lighter structure, and she was reclassified as a heavy cruiser. Additional anti-aircraft guns were also installed, along with updated radar equipment. On 19–20 July RAF bombers attacked and the battleship , though they failed to score any hits. On 27 July, the ship was pronounced ready for service.
Atlantic sortie
sailed in October 1940 on her first combat sortie. On the night of 31 October she slipped through the Denmark Strait and broke into the open Atlantic. Her radio intercept equipment identified the convoy HX 84, sailing from Halifax, Nova Scotia. s Arado seaplane located the convoy on 5 November 1940. The armed merchant cruiser , the sole escort for the convoy, issued a report of the German raider and attempted to prevent her from attacking the convoy, which was ordered to scatter under cover of a smoke screen. s first salvo scored hits on Jervis Bay, disabling her wireless equipment and steering gear. Shells from her second salvo struck the bridge and killed her commander, Edward Fegen. sank Jervis Bay within 22 minutes, but the engagement delayed the German ship long enough for most of the convoy to escape. sank only 5 of the convoy's 37 ships, though a 6th was sunk by the Luftwaffe following the convoy's dispersal.
On 18 December, encountered the refrigerator ship Duquesa, . The ship sent off a distress signal, which the German raider deliberately allowed, to draw British naval forces to the area. Krancke wanted to lure British warships to the area to draw attention away from , which had just exited the Denmark Strait. The aircraft carriers and , the cruisers , , and , and the armed merchant cruiser converged to hunt down the German raider, but she eluded the British.
Between 26 December and 7 January, rendezvoused with the supply ships Nordmark and , the auxiliary cruiser , and the prizes Duquesa and Storstad. The raiders transferred some 600 prisoners to Storstad while they refueled from and . Between 18 and 20 January captured three Allied merchant ships totalling , including the Norwegian oil tanker . She spent Christmas 1940 at sea in the mid-Atlantic, several hundred miles from Tristan da Cunha, before making a foray into the Indian Ocean in February 1941.
On 14 February, rendezvoused with the auxiliary cruiser and the supply ship about east of Madagascar. The raiders resupplied from and exchanged information on Allied merchant traffic in the area, parting company on 17 February. then steamed to the Seychelles north of Madagascar, where she found two merchant vessels with her Arado floatplanes. She took the oil tanker British Advocate as a prize and sank the Greek-flagged Grigorios. A third ship, the Canadian Cruiser, managed to send a distress signal before sank her on 21 February. The raider encountered and sank a fourth ship the following day, the Dutch steamer Rantaupandjang, though she too was able to send a distress signal before she sank.
The British cruiser , which was patrolling in the area, received both messages from s victims. Glasgow launched reconnaissance aircraft that spotted on 22 February. Vice Admiral Ralph Leatham, the commander of the East Indies Station, deployed the carrier Hermes and cruisers , , , , and the Australian to join the hunt. Krancke turned to the south-east to evade his pursuers, reaching the South Atlantic by 3 March. The British, meanwhile, had abandoned the hunt on 25 February when it became clear that had withdrawn from the area.