Naval History Forums

I have a quick question that I'm hoping you experts might be able to help answer. Can anyone explain these broken up boards that are on the bow of the wreck.? They don't appear to be in any of the B&W photos and they also appear to be simply laid on top of the thicker forward decking instead of going all the way down to the deck armor like the other planks. I have also never seen these boards represented on any of the models I've come across. What do you guys think?

Anyone? I assume they are for the anchor chains. But i don't see them in the photos, at least the boards for the stem anchor which appear to at least go as far back as the other anchors.

Could be part of the decking for the anchor chains - its difficult to say, and its a question open to all kinds of conjecture.

It's for the anchors and was assembled later on.
It seems to be a reinforcement of the so called "Kettenwegerung". There is a picture of Hitler walking on one of these planks during his visit.

Thanks for the help guys.
So would those boards been layed out in a W like pattern to all the anchors or only an /\ like pattern to the stem anchor?

Hard to say. There is a V on port. I guess there is another one on starboard.

I've seen it on another picture. It's a W.

Thank you again for the great help Herr Nilsson. Are any of these photos you speak of readily available, such as the one where you can see the V on the port side, or are they not published as of yet. I would love to see them.

Dana

Hi,
I noticed this too in some recently released footage. It looks to me to be made of steel, I think it's too thin to be wood. Interesting that no-one has included it in any of the models I've seen. I wonder when it was installed?


A direct link in case the img doesn't work (I can't seem to get it to work)

http://s229.photobucket.com/albums/ee27 ... stion2.jpg