GERMAN NAVY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 September 1941, Page 6

GERMAN NAVY

SLOWING UP IN CONSTRUCTION

BIG WARSHIPS MAY NEVER BE FINISHED. SPECULATION ABOUT BISMARCK’S TONNAGE. A notable fact about the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen which has so far passed without comment is that they are the only large ships figuring in the German programme of naval construction in hand at the beginning of the war which have so far ventured to sea, writes Francis McMurtrie, naval correspondent of the London “Daily Telegraph.” This suggests that there has been a slowing-up in the Nazis’ big ship construction schedule; and it may be found that the importance of concentrating on the building of smaller naval units has become, in their view, paramount. Indeed, 'it seems probable that the rest of the big ships will never be completed.

The Bismarck is supposed to have been completed last November, but it is probable that that was the monthin which she commissioned for trials, which were doubtless run in the Baltic. As she was the biggest warship which Germany had ever built, and had a variety of novel features, including guns of a new calibre, her trials probably occupied three or four months.

BISMARCK'S TONNAGE.

Suggestions that the Bismarck was of a much greater displacement than 35,000 tons have gained wide currency. They had their origin in remarks dropped by a British naval officer who took part in the chase that resulted in the German battleship’s destruction. He is said to have declared that the Bismarck “looked to be” about 50,000 tons. Since it is obviously impossible to gauge the displacement of a ship with any exactness from her mere appearance at sea, the calculation would not be accepted as evidence by a jury of naval architects.

Some figures which help to contrast 1 the Bismarck’s dimensions with those of other 35,000-ton battleships, as well as those of the lost Hood of 42,100 tons, and the new battleship Lion of 40,000 tons, may be instructive: — Length. Beam. Draught.

A very exact comparison is not possible, since the length of the Bismarck and Littorio is taken on the water-line and that of the King George V and Hood between perpendiculars, which is a smaller measurement. These figures afford no support for a tonnage of 50,000; but they do suggest the possibility that the Bismarck may have been of rather more than 35.000 tons, and perhaps as much as 40,000 tons, “standard” displacement (that is. exclusive of fuel and reserve feed water). It is believed that the third and fourth ships of the Bismarck class are to be 40.000-tonners, designed as a reply to our four ships of the Lion class laid down in 1939. Were the Bismarck and Tirpitz built to this design? PERSONNEL MYSTERY. If it be assumed that the Bismarck was of more than 35,000 tons the question at once arises to what purpose the extra tonnage was applied. It certainly was not expended in engine power, because from all accounts the Bismarck’s speed seems to have been the same as that of Britain’s new 35,000-ton Prince of Wales. Neither did it figure as offensive equipment, her main armament being of eight 15inch guns, as in the French Richelieu and Italian Littorio types. It is to be presumed, therefore, that it was devoted to defence in the shape of thicker armour over the more vital afeas of the ship’s hull, and exceptionally extensive subdivision into watertight compartments. From the severity of the punishment which the Bismarck withstood from the British guns of 14-inch and 16-inch calibre this assumption may be accepted. —A report has been published that the complement of the Bismarck when she was lost included some 700 members of the ship’s company of the Tirpitz, carried supposedly with the object of familiarising them with the operation of this new type of ship under sea conditions. This may possibly be true.

A second report which sounds even more probable is that there were on board a proportion of officers and men who were in the Admiral Graf Spee at the Battle of the Plate in December, 1939. Though interned in Argentina, they contrived to get back to Germany by way of Japan and Vladivostok, and had since taken part in the cruise of the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau which ended when those ships took refuge in Brest in March. Their experience in Atlantic commerce raiding would have been valuable if the Bismarck had succeeded in stationing herself on the trade routes instead of being intercepted. BISMARCK’S SISTER SHIP. So far as the Tirpitz, sister ship of the Bismarck, is concerned, it is by no means certain that she is yet ready for sea, though she may have reached the trial stage. Every effort may have been made to rush the completion of the Bismarck in order to gain experience which could be utilised in making any necessary modifications in the Tirpitz. The Prinz Eugen was the first launched of three 10,000-ton cruisers which were completing when the war began in September, 1939. She was put into the water as long ago as August, 1938, and her two sister ships followed in January and July, 1939, respectively. In an aerial photograph of Kiel taken by the Royal Air Force last July and issued for publication she was identified, apparently fitting out alongside a quay at the Germania shipyard in Kiel. It is possible that neither of her sisters building at Bremen has yet been completed.

Four cruisers armed with 5.9 in. guns, and referred fo officially as M, N, O and P, were also being built, one of them at Kiel and the others at Wilhelmshaven, Bremen, and Hamburg. They have been credited with a displacement of either 7300 or 8000 tons, though the second figure is the one now generally accepted. The first pair may have been begun in 1938, but there is no indication that they have yet been delivered. One of them was revealed in the same Kiel aerial photograph as still on the building slip. All the indications, therefore, seem to point to the fact that Germany is

concentrating most of her shipbuilding resources on the construction of her submarines, destroyers, torpedoboats, and minesweepers, with the result that the delivery of certain bigger units has been, as in the last war, retarded or suspended.

Bismarck 792 118 26 King George V 740 103 27 2-3 Littorio 762 106 28 Richelieu 794 1081 261 Washington 750 108 281 Hood 810 105 281 Lion 781 105 30 (These figures are in feet.)