Naval History Forums

[quote="Dave Saxton"]
Their mission is against convoys not to fight naval battles if they can help it.[/quote]

It is quite clear from Donitz's assurances to Hitler that he wanted a spectacular success against this convoy in order to impress the Fuhrer and gain a more favourable light for the KM in the competition for resources and in boosting German morale. If the convoy itself can't be destroyed then a victory over a battleship covering force is a second best objective that comes close to achieving Donitz's purpose. It would certainly have been better than the Barents Sea fiasco.

Announcing your position through the transmission of radar pulses could also place the KM warships (or the British warships) at a tactical disadvantage. Radar silence need not create a tactical disadvantage through the skilled use of passive radar detectors in conjuction with the judicious use of active radar. Active radar will give its self away well before its gets close enough to register the echo returns. For example, Burnett through his active radars had already given away his presence and approximate postion to the Scharnhorst at least forty minutes prior to the time and 30km prior to the point his active radars detected the Scharnhorst. The Scharnhorst had radar detection gear capable of detecting all British radars. Had Bey played his cards right, he could of had held a tactical advantage over Burnett by virtue of this fact. The fact that the Germans used passive radar detection equipment indicates that they knew of the advantages and disadvantages of British radar.

My point is that in the Arctic winter not using your radar meant that you were blundering around like a blind man who has lost his cane.
So no matter what ships you have got you are at a tactical disadvantage.
For all the technological might of the Third Reich they under estimated the advantage that radar gave the Allies.

[quote="richtea"]In any scenario at the battle of the North Cape, no matter what combination of surface ships the Kriegsmarine had out there they still
practiced radar silence.
In December in the Arctic this means that they were in almost total 24 hour darkness in a force 10 storm, trying to find a convoy that might be at any position, any distance around them.
The only thing they were using to search with was the Mk 1 eyeball.
So no matter what hypothetical combination of ships you put out there,
unless you completely change the way that the Kriegsmarine operated radar then you will only get one outcome.
.[/quote]
It is a common mispreception that radar silence was KM doctrine. It is not correct. There was no set doctrine concerning radar silence, and in fact not even any guidelines concerning this issue until after Scharnhorst was lost. It was up to the on scene commander-case by case. In the case of North Cape as an anti- commerce mission, Bey's order to practice radar silence was the correct course to take prior to his radar detectors indicating the presence of Burnett's cruisers at about 0800 hours. Bey's error was not switching on his active radars in time. This was simply a mistake by the commander on the scene at one point in time. This should not be projected as KM practice or doctrine in general. It was a mistake Bey did not make again, however. He used the remaining aft radar set from that point on. As Tommy points out had the SH not been alone even with its own forward radars out of action the forward sectors could have been covered by a consort.

One has to weigh in the factor of what would have happened with the second engagement against the cruiser screen had their been Scharnhorst and Tirpitz. Would Bey have stuck it out and fought Burnett's ships, or would he have disengaged and headed for home. With his force discovered he might have chosen to keep his radars on--after all, there would no longer have been a reason to practice radar silence. Between the two of them, they should have been able to keep all sectors reasonably well covered, even if Scharnhorst had her foretop radar knocked out. Under the circumstances, Bey might have been able to out-manouvre the DoY battle group.

In any scenario at the battle of the North Cape, no matter what combination of surface ships the Kriegsmarine had out there they still
practiced radar silence.
In December in the Arctic this means that they were in almost total 24 hour darkness in a force 10 storm, trying to find a convoy that might be at any position, any distance around them.
The only thing they were using to search with was the Mk 1 eyeball.
So no matter what hypothetical combination of ships you put out there,
unless you completely change the way that the Kriegsmarine operated radar then you will only get one outcome.
A nasty surprise and some damage to your fleet.
So what do you do then,put yourselves in Admiral Bey's position,
you have lost tactical advantage, one of your ships is damaged, do you keep the fleet together and risk losing all your ships or do you make a run for it with your undamaged ships to fight another day ?
You also have to factor in the political situation in 1943, another debacle for the Kriegsmarine and Hitler would certainly turn all the ships into scrap steel for tank manufacture.

[quote]What about 9 DDs and 3 CLs[/quote]

The British were able to launch effective torpedo attacks only after Scharnhorst had been slowed down and because much of her secondary armament was useless due to the heavy seas. With the prevailing sea conditions, Scharnhorst (and Tirpitz had she been with her) could have out paced the destroyers and light cruiser with little problem provided nothing happened to slow them up.

[quote]For the ranges at which the battle (North Cape final and second to last phases) was fought (10-20km),........[/quote]

These ranges occured because the Sharnhorst had lost its forward radars to battle damage. Bey was not aware of Duke of York's location and continued to steam southbound at 26 knots. Fraser allowed SH to close range so Sh would be less likely to use its superior speed to escape. Had SH 's radars not been taken out, Bey would have never allowed Fraser to get that close. If Fraser had engaged at the farthest range its radar could be used to develop a firing soultion (23,400 meters) then Sharnhorst would surely have escaped.

With TP and SH together, and likely not being radar blind foreward, the German just keep Fraser at arms length; perhaps the TP and SH engaging DoY and others with radar from long range- before DoY or consort can reply- as they increase range. But the faster German task force is not going to seek out prolonged battle with warships even though they may have fighting advantages. Their mission is against convoys not to fight naval battles if they can help it.

[quote]Allthough the 2 German battlecruisers had 18 x 283mm guns versus only 6 x 381mm guns, they still did not inflict more damage than they received, and were forced to withdraw][/quote]

Luetjens being forced to withdraw in this case was more the result of the weather/light conditions and the tactical circumstances, more than a matter of relative fighting strength. The Gneisenau's radar picked up the Renown group from 25,000 meters before the dawn. If this hadn't have happened, then there would have been no battle at all as the Germans closing range to investigate the radar contacts brought the opposing enemys together. By the time Luetjens had got close enough to determine what the radar contacts were, the Renown had already sighted them visually against the back drop of the rising sun from 10,000 yards. Although the Germans had the numbers advantage (heavy ships only, as the British also had 9 dds), the Renown held a significant tactical advantage by virtue of the lighting conditions and the heavy weather, unless the German radar (the British had no radar) could equalize the situation. However, Scharnhorst's radar set broke down making Scharnhorst ineffective and essentially making it a 1:1 fight. Gneisenau's radar stayed in the fight allowing GN to quickly score hits. But when a 15" shell passed through GN's foretop, it severed the electrical power supply to the foretop equipment including Gneiesnau's radar set. Now the situation was very dangerous for the Germans sans radar, especially considering the nine destroyers, (although the Germans were unsure of the addtional ship types). Then Luetjens really had no other choice but to seek to disengage.

On paper Scharnhorst had a very powerfull arsenal. In reality however, I don't think it was such a good fighter, especialy on bad seas. [A parrallel could be drawn to the encounter between Schar + Gneisenau and Renown. Allthough the 2 German battlecruisers had 18 x 283mm guns versus only 6 x 381mm guns, they still did not inflict more damage than they received, and were forced to withdraw]. In the Glorious matter, I may be mistaken. But what I wanted to point out first and foremost was that 2 (old) destroyers managed to get within 3km of the heavy ships, and launch 2 spreads of 8 torpedoes each. It's true that both DDs have been sunk, but it's scary to see 2 heavy raiders not being able to keep 2 DDs at arm's length... What about 9 DDs and 3 CLs by a single battlecruiser ... ?

I think these are important questions and the answers can only really be got at by wargaming the situation over and over again - which is likely to come up with a variety of different outcomes. With three 11 inch turrets plus 12 5.9 inch guns Scharnhorst on paper should be able to deal a heavy cruiser (first), a light cruiser (second) plus attendant destroyers. But there again it is in poor conditions. Note with respect to DOY it would have to be slowed down so the German destroyers can catch up and also its 5.25 inch guns would also have to be degraded as well.

As an aside in another thread I did pose the question of an alternative Battle of the River Plate in which AGS is replaced with Scharnhorst and Cumberland is added to the British force. The consensus view was a walkover for Scharnhorst, though this obviously would in clear conditions on a virtual flat calm.

With respect to Glorious, only Scharnhorst was torpedoed by Acasta, and that was because of an error of judgement by Hoffman. I believe the torpedo hit on Gneisenau came some time later courtesy of a British submarine.

But could the German DDs keep up with the heavy ships in such an arctic storm ? And could Scharnhorst tackle so many small ships on its own ? Let's remember that during the sinking of the carrier HMS Glorious, Scharnhorst AND Gneisenau could not keep 2 destroyers out of torpedo range... Both German ships were torpedoed then... And now we're having 9 DDs and 3 CLs AND 1 CA...

Well, if Tirpitz does have a slight edge over DOY then the German Fleet Commander could order Scharnhorst to sink Norfolk, Jamaica and the destroyers in the RN force.. So Tirpitz can get on with the job of tackling DOY without interference from other British ships.

And of course there are the German destroyers as well. If DOY is heavily hit and slowed down by Tirpitz, they could be ordered to make torpedo attacks on DOY....

[quote="lwd"]
You have a two on one as far as battleships go. The Tirpitze and Duke of York are relativly evenly matched (I'd give a slight edge to Tirpitz)[/quote]
I don't know about that. For the ranges at which the battle was fought (10-20km), DoY didn't actualy have ANY immunity zone against 38cm gunfire. All of its sections were vulnerable at normal obliquities... Tirpitz on the other hand had the entire belly beneath the panzer deck, taht could not be hit under any normal circumstances by the 14" shells... Tirpitz was more stable, had higehr rate of fire and much more reliable turrets and guns. It was larger, faster, and more agile. It had RPC, while DoY didn't. The only clear advantage for DoY is the bigger number of main guns... But at 66% output, it's hardly comforting.

[quote] throw in Scharnhorst and the British have to hope for a lucky torpedo or shell hit to have a chance[/quote]
Wait a minute. There were other ships involved - 1 CA, 3 CLs, and a big number of DDs (9 IIRC). Those ships are not to be left out, as they can easily turn the tide with several torpedo spreads and/or disabling radars/directors of the German BBs with their shellfire. And the German BBs did not have enough secondary batteries to keep them all at a distance...

[quote="alecsandros"][quote="lwd"]If there was a good chance of encountering both German battleships wouldn't the British have increased the size of their force as well?[/quote]
That would be another scenario. I would like to see your opinions about this one...[/quote]
You have a two on one as far as battleships go. The Tirpitze and Duke of York are relativly evenly matched (I'd give a slight edge to Tirpitz) throw in Scharnhorst and the British have to hope for a lucky torpedo or shell hit to have a chance. In any case either of these are a big step away from the original and probalby should have their own thread.