Thiaria: Other People's ships

Hello again!

Events in the North Atlantic in the Thiarian Universe:
After writing individual ship histories for the last three classes, I've come to the conclusion that I'll go mad if I keep on like that, repeatedly writing about the same engagements over and over again. For further ships, text will be restricted to design history and technical issues. All the operational stuff has been compiled as follows (Danger, lots of text, and very high casualties for everyone involved):

I. Opening Moves
When the war started with Posen shelling Polish positions on the Westerplatte, the German surface fleet, under overall command of the Flottenchef (Chief of the Fleet) Admiral Boehm had an operational fleet of six battleships (Nassau, Westfalen, Posen, Deutschland, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau) and one heavy cruiser (Admiral Graf Spee) under the BdS (Commander of Battleships) Vice Admiral Marschall, plus three heavy (Admiral Scheer, Admiral Hipper and Blücher) and eight light cruisers (Kolberg, Augsburg, Emden, Karlsruhe, Köln, Königsberg, Leipzig and Nürnberg), 24 destroyers (Z1-24) and 24 torpedo boats (Raubvogel- and Raubtier-classes plus eight WW1 survivors of the 1906 (1), 1911 (5) and 1913 (2) types, all officially classed as training ships) under the BdA (Commander of Scouting forces) Vice Admiral Lütjens. At the time of the invasion of Poland, the Deutschland was cruising in the North Atlantic and the Admiral Graf Spee in the South. Both immediately started raiding, with the rate of success varying widely. Both were ordered to observe the prize laws; this meant that every ship they stopped and had to let go would radio their position to every interested party. As there were very many interesting parties in the North Atlantic, Deutschland achieved next to nothing and was on the run from superior allied forces nearly all the time, once only narrowly avoiding an encounter with the French battlecruiser Strasbourg. Graf Spee was vastly more successful because the British were too thinly spread in the South Atlantic. When she was finally cornered by three British cruisers off the River Plate estuary in December 1939, Captain Langsdorff shot his way to Thiaria free by crippling HMS Exeter; when the British - reinforced by HMS Cumberland - followed him into waters claimed as territorial by the Thiarians, the Thiarian heavy cruisers LT Ogleidhras and Rinnfiain engaged the British and sunk HMS Cumberland, chasing the other two British cruisers away. This incident brought Thiaria into the war; the Graf Spee returned to Germany in January 1940 with the new Thiarian Ambassador on board, sinking the French light cruiser Gloire along the way, and Captain Langsdorff took command of the Battleship Gneisenau upon his return. While these events went on, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau intercepted and sank a British AMC on their first sortie in November 1939. They were however intercepted by HMS Hood and Howe and could only escape with some luck and very bad weather after Gneisenau had sustained serious damage, including both forward turrets knocked out.

II. Weserübung
The rest of the German fleet had little to do during the Polish campaign and the Phoney War; their first major offensive was Operation Weserübung. By that time, Lütjens had become BdS and Marschall Chief of the Fleet; the scouting forces now were headed by Vice Admiral Schmundt. Weserübung turned out to be a very successful but also very costly affair. Nearly the whole German fleet was participating, but only few of them escaped unscathed. Only very few forces were allocated to taking Copenhagen; Nassau, Nürnberg and four torpedo boats, who did not meet resistance. The Fleet headed for Norway was divided into six battlegroups: Group 1 (Nassau and eight destroyers) invaded Narvik; the objective was taken, but only four of the destroyers survived (also see above). Group 2 (Deutschland, Leipzig and four destroyers) went to Trondheim. On her way, they encountered the lone British destroyer HMS Glowworm, which managed to ram the battlecruiser before succumbing to the heavy damage dealt to her by Deutschland's 150mm and 105mm secondaries. The rest of the mission went better; Deutschland managed to sneak past the Norwegian fortifications in heavy fog, and they were captured by mountain troops. She then had to return for repairs after the flooding from the collision with Glowworm could not be properly contained, and was torpedoed by HM Submarine Spearfish on the return leg. The detonation disabled her port shaft, and the concussion caused the port 533mm quad torpedo mount to detonate, tearing a huge hole into her side and breaking her keel. Deutschland's stern between turrets X and Y nearly broke off, she was rendered unable to maneuver and had to be taken in tow; luckily, Spearfish had no torpedoes left and could not finish her off. Deutschland only barely made it back to port, her upper deck aft completely awash. Group 3 (Köln, Königsberg and four torpedo boats) invaded Bergen and Stavanger against little resistance; Königsberg however was lost to a British airstrike. Group 4 (Karlsruhe and four torpedo boats) took Kristiansand; Karlsruhe was sunk by a British submarine on the return leg. Group 5 (Posen, Scheer, Hipper, Emden and eight torpedo boats) went to Oslo, where Posen was lost (see above). Scheer and Hipper silenced the Norwegian fortifications after these had destroyed the flagship, and the objective was eventually taken by ground forces. Group 6 (Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Blücher and four destroyers) provided the distant cover. Their first engagement locked them against the french battlecruisers Dunkerque and Agosta, resulting in a surprisingly lopsided fight and a resounding German victory. They sank the old Agosta within 15 minutes and chased the Dunkerque away, damaging her with nine 350mm hits. Only Gneisenau was hit in return (three times) before Dunkerque could no longer bring her all-forward armament to bear, and Gneisenau's armour did what it had been designed for, beating the French projectiles. Although they were faster than Dunkerque and would have been able to run her down, Vice Admiral Lütjens called off the chase because he was under orders to proceed northward and act as distant cover for the Narvik detachment. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau nevertheless came too late to save the Westfalen at Narvik, and Lütjens was reprimanded by Raeder for not taking the opportunity to sink Dunkerque. They sortied again during the final phase of the battle, and Group 6 was reinforced by the heavy cruisers Scheer and Hipper and four additional brand-new destroyers. The Allies were already evacuating Norway, and Group 6 ran into the aircraft carrier HMS Glorious and sank her at extreme range. Admiral Scheer sunk the destroyer HMS Ardent during her heroic defense of Glorious. Scharnhorst was torpedoed in the process, and both battlecruisers needed repairs again, as the gunnery hits scored by Dunkerque on Gneisenau had only been patched up provisionally. Only Scheer made it home unscathed.

III. Into the Atlantic
The German fleet licked its wounds for most of the rest of 1940. They also received substantial reinforcements, particularly the battleships Bismarck and Tirpitz (the latter early in 1941) and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen. Naval operations were re-started only slowly. Admiral Scheer went on a solo raiding mission into the North Atlantic with moderate success in October 1940 and returned to Kiel in November after managing to evade several British heavy units. In January 1941, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau broke into the Atlantic under personal command of Admiral Lütjens. Scheer and Hipper accompanied them, but the German fleet was sighted by a British submarine, and Hipper was heavily damaged by a torpedo. Scheer had to escort her sister home; in the Skagerrak, Scheer accidentally hit a German mine and both ships needed several months of repairs. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau however proceeded into the Atlantic. They sank 22 enemy merchants between them and entered Brest harbour in late March after evading HMS Rodney and King George V. On the run, Scharnhorst's engines broke down shortly before Brest, and she was repaired till July. Despite this, the mission was considered a huge success; Lütjens was made Chief of the Fleet instead of Marschall after the latter had fallen into disfavour for repeatedly advising subordinates not to take Raeder's orders too seriously, and Gneisenau's CO Langsdorff was made Rear Admiral for his exploits and replaced Lütjens as BdS. Gneisenau was hit by a British airstrike soon afterwards, and both German battleships in Brest were out of action for several months.

Reinforcements were on the way, however. Chief of the Fleet Vice Admiral Lütjens planned to assemble a powerful fleet of both new battleships, the carrier Graf Zeppelin and the heavy cruisers Blücher and Prinz Eugen and lead it into the Atlantic, but Raeder insisted that assembling this force would take too long - Graf Zeppelin in particular was still at least half a year shy of IOC - and Bismarck and the cruisers should go at the earliest opportunity. Bismarck, Blücher and Prinz Eugen left Norway on May 22nd. On May 24th, the German ships were intercepted by HMS Hood and Prince of Wales, the former insufficiently protected to engage an enemy with 406mm guns, the latter not yet fully operational. It became the Kriegsmarine's finest day. Bismarck blew up Hood with her seventh salvo, then turned upon Prince of Wales and silenced Turret Y with a direct hit; one of the forward turrets malfunctioned as well and she laid a smoke screen and tried to retreat. Although he was under orders to avoid combat with British heavy forces unless forced to, Lütjens vividly remembered the scathing reprimand he had received from Raeder after letting the Dunkerque escape off Norway a year earlier; this time, he would snatch the opportunity. Bismarck poured another 37 salvoes in Prince of Wales' direction against desperate resistance. Refusing to strike her colours despite being hit by 23 heavy shells of 1.030 kilograms each, Prince of Wales eventually sank under heavy loss of life. The British heavy cruisers Norfolk and Suffolk tried to assist the crippled battleship, but were engaged by Prinz Eugen and Blücher. Although the British got the better of this engagement, heavily damaging Blücher, they had to break off when Bismarck was finished with Prince of Wales and turned on them. The German flagship fired another twenty salvoes over maximum distance, which however did little harm because Bismarck's radar was broken down and the firing was inaccurate. With Bismarck hit ten times by Prince of Wales and Blücher badly shot up, and the ammunition stores of all three ships dangerously depleted, continuing the mission was out of the question, and Bismarck and Blücher returned to Germany while Prinz Eugen reached Brest on her own. HMS Norfolk, Suffolk and the battleships King George V and Rodney did not fall for the ruse and made a dead run to catch the Germans, but failed to come into range before they were in range of German land-based aircraft themselves, and Bismarck and Blücher were back in Germany on June 14th. Lütjens was made full admiral, and Bismarck's CO Lindemann was promoted to Rear Admiral.

As great as this victory was, the planned far-reaching raids deep into the Atlantic were still impossible. In July 1941, a very heavy airstrike against Brest damaged Scharnhorst seriously, and she needed additional repairs. Gneisenau went on two sweeps into the Atlantic via the Bay of Biscay in July and August, but had to come back running both times without achieving anything, pursued by superior RN forces. In late September 1941, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen sortied again. This time, the British managed to cut them off from Brest while they operated in the central Atlantic and sank six merchants. Rear Admiral Langsdorff decided to divide his force up, send Prinz Eugen back and continue south with Gneisenau in order to draw the British with him. Only Gneisenau had sufficient range to reach Thiaria, where she arrived in October. After accompanying a Thiarian fleet to the battle of Ponc an t-Aibhirseoir - Gneisenau did not engage because Germany and Brazil were not yet at war - Langsdorff headed back to Brest in late November, this time succeeding to sneak past the British, which had their hands full off Faroer. Lütjens had got his way after the victory in the Denmark Strait, and in November 1941, Germany sortied one of her most powerful fleets of the entire war for another breakthrough attempt. The flagship Tirpitz was followed by Bismarck, Graf Zeppelin, Blücher and Graf Spee. This time, however, things turned out much different. The fleet ran into the free Dutch submarine O14, which fired all four forward torpedoes and scored two hits on Graf Zeppelin, which suffered severe flooding and was slowed down to 20 knots maximum. Lütjens released her for return to Germany, accompanied by Graf Spee, but then the fleet came under attack by British carrier airplanes from Ark Royal and Audacius, which scored three torpedo hits on Bismarck and one on Tirpitz; the former suffered critical flooding and was unable to continue the mission. With the knowledge that HMS King George V, Duke of York and Rodney were coming for him and he had only Tirpitz to fight them, Lütjens abandoned the mission. On the return leg, the German fleet was unable to maintain coherence, because both Bismarck and - especially - Graf Zeppelin became slower and slower; Graf Spee engaged the British cruisers HMS Berwick and Shropshire, who led the British pursuit, and let herself be drawn away from Graf Zeppelin. When HMS Rodney closed in to kill the carrier, Tirpitz and Blücher turned arund and attacked her, driving the British battlecruiser away. Tirpitz briefly pursued, drawing the British main fleet towards her, then turned around again and took heel. Bismarck made it home, if only barely, due to this feint, and Tirpitz and Blücher managed to evade the British with a prolonged 30-knot dash. Another airstrike scored a torpedo hit amidships on Tirpitz, which however did not do much damage. Graf Zeppelin however was beyond rescue; she had to be scuttled after her speed had dropped to 10 knots and Tirpitz could no longer protect her.

This was the last attempt to bring a fleet sized German surface force into the Atlantic. By that time, the war against the Soviet Union was raging, and the first British/US convoys with Lend/Lease equipment were making their way through the Arctic. Raeder and Hitler decided to cancel all further attempts to raid in the North Atlantic and send every available asset to Norway in order to interdict the allied convoys. As soon as Scharnhorst was ready to go again, the entire Brest detachment was recalled to Germany. Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen managed to escape through the channel in February 1942, but both heavies were mined in the process. In addition, Gneisenau was bombed a few days after her return and damaged so badly that she was initially considered beyond economic repair. Although the channel dash was a grievous strategic reverse for Germany, Langsdorff was promoted to Vice Admiral, remaining BdS.

IV. Arctic Battles
German surface forces arrived in Norway in a rather piecemeal fashion, as most available units had been damaged to various extent during the Atlantic operations of 1941. The first task force reached Trondheim in October 1941, consisting of the heavy cruisers Admiral Scheer and Admiral Hipper under BdA Vice Admiral Schmundt. They sortied and made contact with PQ3 in November 1941, but turned back after the Canadian heavy cruiser HMCS Quebec scored a long range 203mm hit on the Hipper that destroyed one of her forward 210mm turrets. Scheer and Hipper sortied again in January 1942 against PQ8, but turned away after sighting the escorting battleship HMS Royal Sovereign. Reinforced by Moltke (ex Deutschland) in February 1942, Scheer and Hipper attempted to intercept the convoy PQ 13 which was only protected by the light cruiser HMS Trinidad and two destroyers. The battleship King George V was thought to be close, however, and the Germans were convinced that British reinforcements were close when the three British ships charged them. Moltke was torpedoed by HMS Eclipse, which deftly dodged her 280mm shells, before even a single merchant was in range, and Trinidad sunk the destroyer Z26 and did some damage to Admiral Scheer. Although the damage to Moltke was nowhere near as bad as two years before, Vice Admiral Schmundt cancelled the mission minutes before the Trinidad came into range of Scheer and Hipper. All three British ships escaped completely unscathed. This humiliating defeat resulted in Rear Admiral Kummetz - who had unnecessarily lost the Posen at Oslo and was not widely known for particularly sound judgment - replacing Vice Admiral Schmundt as BdA. He arrived on Prinz Eugen in early April and scored a near instant success when Prinz Eugen and Admiral Hipper sank the British large light cruiser HMS Edinburgh in April 1942; they also had to turn back from PQ 15 due to the presence of the battleship HMS Ramillies near the convoy. On the retreat, Prinz Eugen was torpedoed by HM submarine Trident and had to return to Germany minus her stern.

So far, nothing had been achieved against the Arctic convoys. Quite obviously, some heavier gunnery was needed. The decision to scrap Gneisenau was reversed in March 1942, and her repair was made top priority. The carrier Piter Strasser, who had been renamed Graf Zeppelin in December 1941 in order to cover up the loss of her sister, also resumed construction, and the first four 'Handelszerstörer' armoured cruisers (successor to the P-class cruisers) were to be completed as additional fleet carriers. Repairs to Bismarck and Tirpitz were effected with maximum haste; they deployed to Norway in April 1942. A few weeks later, Lütjens sortied Bismarck, Tirpitz, Moltke, Blücher, Scheer and Hipper to go after PQ16. Warned by Ultra, the British had assembled the most powerful distant cover group so far attached to a Murmansk convoy: The Battleships Duke of York, Rodney, Anson and Canada, the carriers Victorious, Irresistible and Audacious, and the cruisers London, Kent, Norfolk, Quebec, Ontario, Nigeria and Liverpool. A strong US battlegroup was also nearby, but failed to make contact. The German and British fleets met on May 27th, 1942 in the first battle of Bear Island, where the Royal Navy avenged the loss of Hood and Prince of Wales nearly exactly a year earlier. Again, a free Dutch submarine gave the Germans the first shove downhill; O10 torpedoed Tirpitz twice, creating some flooding and enough loss of speed for Lütjens to move his flag to Bismarck and release Tirpitz to RTB. As the Germans proceeded, they met the British vanguard consisting of Anson, Canada, Quebec and Ontario. Bismarck concentrated her fire on Anson, which was hit eight times, but went lucky, as none of the hits was critical. The damage was substantial nevertheless, and she eventually veered away; her own return fire was not very effective, as she had just been re-commissioned after a lengthy refit and her crew was still somewhat raw. While Bismarck did her job, the rest of the German fleet came apart. Moltke was hammered by Canada - her crew was as green as Anson's, but they just happened to have a good day - and severely damaged without being able to deliver significant damage herself, while Scheer was damaged by Quebec and Ontario. Blücher and Scheer did some damage to the latter, and Hipper tried to aid Moltke against Canada, which then turned on the cruiser and sank her. Just as Bismarck came to the aid of the cruisers, a British airstrike from Victorious and Irresistible hit the Germans. One torpedo hit Blücher aft, severely damaging her and forcing her to disengage. Bismarck was hit three times: One in the bow, creating significant flooding, one amidships, ineffectual, and one aft, jamming the rudder and rendering her unable to maneuver. Bismarck came to a full stop, all the while firing at Canada, driving her to safe distance without hitting her; the other German ships retreated, although neither Moltke nor Blücher were able to make more than 20 knots. The British main body then appeared on the scene, and Bismarck, whose crew was still furiously working to get the rudder free, began to fire at Duke of York. While she and Bismarck hammered each other, Rodney closed in from the other side and hit Bismarck with impunity. The result was predictable: Duke of York was hit eleven times and considerably damaged; Bismarck was hit 55 times and reduced to a wreck, most of the hits being 381mm shells from Rodney. Due to her tight internal compartmentalization, she petulantly refused to sink even when she was completely shot up above the waterline, so Canada was ordered back to participate. Bismarck eventually went down with nearly 2.000 casualties including Admiral Lütjens after Norfolk and Kent had closed in too and launched a total of six torpedoes at her, all of which hit her starboard; despite persistent German claims, she was not scuttled. Her last achievement was buying the other German ships, two of which would have been quite helpless sitting ducks, enough time to escape the wrath of the Home Fleet and escape to Norway. Another airstrike from the British carriers hit them and further damaged the battered Moltke with a torpedo hit, but no more casualties were inflicted.

During the summer, the German fleet could do no more than feint; these short sorties were however very successful, as one of them resulted in the scattering and piecemeal destruction of convoy PQ17 by airplanes and submarines. The British however learned their lesson and brought PQ18 through despite some losses from aircraft before suspending further convoys for some months till winter weather provided better cover from German land-based air. Scharnhorst was ready for action again in July 1942 and tried to get to Norway in August; she however ran over a German submarine in the North Sea and lost a rudder, requiring her to return to Germany for repairs. It took till December before the German fleet made its next serious sortie. Rear Admiral Kummetz led the heavy cruisers Admiral Graf Spee, Admiral Scheer and Blücher (flag) against the convoy JW 51B. Tirpitz and the new heavy cruiser Lützow also sortied to draw out the distant covering force if necessary. Both task forces were accompanied by four destroyers each. The operation started well; Tirpitz and Lützow were sighted and pursued, and the other three cruisers descended upon the convoy. Although the British close cover group of two Canadian heavy cruisers and six destroyers was quite outgunned, Kummetz had drawn out his ships too widely, resulting Admiral Graf Spee and two destroyers having to face the whole canadian detachment. All three German ships were sunk, and Scheer and Blücher abandoned their attack after Blücher and a third German destroyer were damaged. Canadian casualties were virtually nil. Remarkably, Kummetz kept his job; the blame for this failure was laid down two storeys higher. In a fit of rage, Hitler sacked the Chief of the Fleet Admiral Schniewind and ordered all surface ships to be scrapped; Raeder stepped down in protest. When Hitler's rage faded, he soon reversed the decision to scrap the fleet, but construction of all major warships not yet completed was put on hold infinitely. This spelled the end for Graf Zeppelin (although she was over 90% complete), both remaining L-class light cruisers and all four Handelszerstörers. Rather surprisingly, Vice Admiral Langsdorff was made Chief of the Fleet, bypassing many older officers; both his BdS Bey and his BdA Kummetz were considerably more senior.

His force was also replenished. Scharnhorst finally reached Bergen in January 1943 together with the new heavy cruiser Seydlitz and the former Dutch battleship Claus von Bevern (ex Willem de Zwijger). That month, Langsdorff tried to repair the reputation of the surface fleet and engaged the next convoy JW52 with Tirpitz, Scharnhorst, Seydlitz, Lützow, Scheer and Blücher. He achieved a smashing success; it was the first and only time German surface forces actually managed to get inside a convoy and sink ten merchants, then slip away before the cover group could close in. A furious British air strike scored a torpedo hit on Tirpitz on the return leg, but due to heavy seas, the torpedo struck her abreast turret B just as she buried her bow in the water and detonated harmlessly on the main belt. Langsdorff tried the same coup against JW53 in February 1943, further reinforced by the freshly repaired Moltke. This time, he was intercepted by the British distant cover group consisting of the battleships Duke of York, Rodney, Canada and Commonwealth, the carriers Audacious, Unicorn and Pegasus, and six cruisers, resulting in the second battle of Bear Island. It was a qualified German success; weather did not allow flight operations, and in the battleship engagement, Tirpitz sank HMS Commonwealth with 17 406mm hits. Tirpitz herself was severely damaged by gunfire from Duke of York and Rodney, but could disengage and retreat during the night. Scharnhorst considerably damaged Duke of York with no damage received in return, because all British capital ships concentrated their fire on Tirpitz. HMCS Canada and two cruisers chased Seydlitz and Lützow, who tried to get into the convoy in the general confusion, but did not catch them; Lützow was damaged by gunfire from HMS London and HMCS Quebec. The convoy escaped unharmed, and Tirpitz was again forced to return to Germany for repairs, accompanied by Admiral Scheer, which was due for overhaul and refit. The British suspended further convoys for the rest of the summer. Admiral Scheer escorted Tirpitz back to Germany for repairs. A further setback occurred in March 1943; Claus von Bevern was torpedoed by the Russian submarine L15 and was under repair till July.

During the summer of 1943, the German fleet was mostly inactive, as the British suspended their arctic convoys till winter; the time was however used well to rotate most of the ships home to Germany for overhauling and refitting. Only few sorties were made, but all thwarted by ever increasing allied air surveillance. In fall, Moltke twice tried to reach the North Atlantic in the last substantial German attempt to raid this area with surface ships. Scharnhorst covered her, but failed to effect a breakthrough. The first attempt was cancelled when Moltke had nearly reached Iceland, but the engines of the accompanying heavy cruiser Lützow made trouble and she barely made it home. The second attempt was cut short by the British battleship HMS Royal Sovereign which detected Moltke with radar and tried to direct reinforcements towards her; due to her superior speed, Moltke managed to escape. In early September, the battleship Claus von Bevern led a successful raid on Spitzbergen and bombarded Soviet ground installations there. She was covered by Scharnhorst, Seydlitz and Lützow. On the return leg, they had to evade British forces, running from HMS King George V and HMCS Canada at 30 knots for four hours, again overtaxing Scharnhorst's unreliable engines and forcing her out of action for three months. Lützow was hit by two 381mm shells from HMS King George V and a dozen 152mm shells from HMS Uganda during the retreat; both German heavy cruisers scored a total of 12 hits on the Battleship without significantly damaging her. The British eventually retreated after submarine alert was sounded. In October, Claus von Bevern and Augsburg embarked upon Operation Wunderland 2 in an attempt to sink Soviet icebreakers, which however failed due to inept leadership by Vice Admiral Kummetz and resulted in the loss of the accompanying cruiser Augsburg (more details see there) and torpedo damage to Bevern. To add insult to injury, the heavy cruiser Seydlitz who tried to aid the Augsburg hit a small iceberg in the dead of the night and needed to be patched up. Kummetz was finally sacked as BdA and replaced with Rear Admiral Lindemann. In October 1943, the new ex-Dutch light cruiser Wiesbaden arrived in Norway together with the freshly repaired Admiral Scheer. In November, Scharnhorst, Prinz Eugen, Seydlitz, Scheer and Wiesbaden tried to intercept the convoy JW 54B, but turned away when they were spotted by British escort carrier planes. Scharnhorst's Bridge was strafed by a FAA Martlet on the return leg and Langsdorff was wounded.

While Langsdorff was recovering, his BdS Rear Admiral Bey took Scharnhorst, Blücher, Scheer and Wiesbaden on a raid against the convoy JW 55B in late December. Seydlitz also sortied with the fleet, but suffered flooding because her leak from hitting the iceberg two months before had not been repaired thoroughly enough and she had to return, which was her good fortune. Bey was intercepted by HMS Duke of York, HMCS Canada and several cruisers in the battle of the North Cape. In heavy seas and very bad visibility, Scharnhorst was outshot by Duke of York with four hits for every one she scored due to the better radar and better seakeeping of the British, who eventually had her revenge for the damage suffered second Battle of Bear Island, with interest. Scharnhorst went down into the freezing water with nearly all hands. Blücher was sunk by Canada with seven 356mm hits in as many minutes; there were no survivors. Scheer escaped in a damaged state and was recalled for repairs and upgrades. Wiesbaden scored several hits on HMS Belfast without being hit in return; she was the only German ship that escaped undamaged. It was a clear defeat, but it happened at a time when several damaged ships returned, and the Germans remained aggressive. Wiesbaden and four destroyers brought a small convoy carrying swedish ball-bearings and other fittings to the Skagerrak in January. They were intercepted by two British cruisers and four destroyers and managed to damage HMS Royalist and sink one destroyer, bringing the convoy through. Gneisenau had finally been repaired in December 1943, and Tirpitz was also back in service in January 1944 after she was twice struck by bombs while docked in the Kriegsmarinewerft at Kiel. While en route to Norway, she and Gneisenau were bombed by British land-based aircraft. Gneisenau was missed and Tirpitz hit, but not significantly damaged; then they were attacked by HM Submarine Taku, which was however sunk by the accompanying Fleet Torpedo Boats T44 and T45. In February 1944, Vice Admiral Langsdorff sent them against the convoy JW58, together with Claus von Bevern, Seydlitz, Lützow, Prinz Eugen and Wiesbaden. It was the last major attempt to get into an allied convoy with a powerful surface task force, but the Royal Navy intercepted the Germans with a strong task force including four fleet carriers in the Battle of Senja. Tirpitz was hit by three bombs and a torpedo, Claus von Beveren was damaged by two bombs, Lützow was sunk by four torpedoes scored by carrier planes from HMS Irresistible and Furious and Prinz Eugen had both aft turrets disabled by bombs; two of the ten escorting destroyers and torpedo boats were also torpedoed and sunk. No German ship came within radar range of the enemy, and Langsdorff retreated to lick his wounds.

The British had by that time taken to constantly harass the German fleet with air and midget submarine attacks, mainly aimed at Tirpitz. During March, the British launched a port attack against the German fleet with planes from eight escort carriers. Tirpitz was torpedoed again, but the damage was not critical. Prinz Eugen however was nearly sunk and had to undergo emergency repairs. Langsdorff then dispersed the fleet, but the British relentlessly continued their attacks during an unusually long period of good flying weather in the spring of 1944. The German fleet was unable to sortie and had to hide in the Norwegian Fjords to prevent being decimated by air strikes, which were conducted by the British with ever increasing frequency. Gneisenau twice weathered heavy British carrierborne airstrikes during April and June. An attempt by Norwegian resistance fighters to hit Seydlitz with a remote-controlled boat loaded with a mine warhead could be thwarted in the last moment in May. Also in May, Tirpitz was targeted twice by air strikes and once by midget submarines. Although all the midgets could be intercepted before they could do any damage, the air strikes further damaged Tirpitz, and after having taken a total of five torpedo hits since her return to Norway, all of which were only provisionally patched up, she was no longer considered oceangoing. She urgently needed repairs in Germany, but to get her there, a full fleet sortie would have been needed, essentially abandoning Norway; this was vetoed by Dönitz.

Admiral Langsdorff lashed out for a final time in June 1944 in the Battle of the Lofotes. Gneisenau, Scheer and Seydlitz managed to get four British escort carriers, whose planes were just then attacking the Tirpitz, into their sights, sinking two of them and escaping before the British surface cover group could close in. Scheer's guns scored several hits on HMS Nabob, which also was hit by Gneisenau before she went down. Seydlitz sunk HMS Ranee, and Wiesbaden sank the escorting Canadian Tribal-class destroyer HMCS Mohican with gunfire. Only one German destroyer was lost. This reverse prompted the British to hunt Tirpitz with land-based heavy bombers dropping 5-ton Tallboy bombs. The escort carriers were still there, providing fighter cover. Another airstrike hit Tirpitz in early August, rendering her unable to maneuver. Langsdorff sortied again a few days later to intercept the carriers. Target was a British force consisting of eight escort carriers and two Canadian light fleet carriers, but this time, the British had ample warning and launched a devastating air strike. Gneisenau was torpedoed by British Barracuda airplanes. Scheer was torpedoed three times and rendered adrift. She was scuttled with another torpedo from the escorting destroyer Z34 after her crew had been taken off. Prinz Eugen also was heavily damaged and barely made it home; Wiesbaden had to take her into tow on the return leg and was slightly damaged when they made port as Prinz Eugen drifted into her. Only Seydlitz escaped undamaged. After this disaster, the German fleet was effectively disabled. To add a completely homemade complication, Langsdorff was arrested by the Gestapo two days after the fleet's return for his purported involvement in the Valkyrie bomb plot (unlike Rommel, Langsdorff was actually 'guilty'; he was fully informed about the plot and supposed to replace Dönitz in case the coup succeeded. He was sentenced to death in a show trial and executed rather cruelly in January 1945). Many members of his staff were also under suspicion to be parts of Operation Valkyrie; the fleet was paralyzed for several weeks, all the while suffering air attacks from the British. The new Chief of the Fleet Vice Admiral Lindemann (the positions of BdS and BdK were disestablished in August 1944) needed till late October to get the demoralized fleet back into shape for another sortie, but no suitable target presented itself. That month Tirpitz was completely immobilized by another air raid, and the series of airstrikes did not cease. Gneisenau was provisionally patched up till October, but allied air superiority had become so overwhelming that there were no further sorties of the surface fleet. After the loss of Tirpitz in November to three hits of 5.400kg Tallboy bombs dropped by RAF Lancasters, Hitler and Dönitz had enough and ordered what was left of the fleet back to Germany.

V. Trapped in the Baltic
When the Red Army lifted the siege of Leningrad and advanced into the Baltic states in late 1944, the Germans needed to deploy all remaining naval units in the Baltic. Gneisenau, Claus van Bevern, Seydlitz, Prinz Eugen and Wiesbaden, accompanied by fourteen destroyers and eight torpedo boats, departed Norway on December 19th, 1944, never to come back. They came under intense air attack in the Skagerrak by British escort carriers and land-based bombers. Claus van Beveren and was torpedoed forward, just in the area where the Tallboy had smashed her in three months before. She suffered uncontrollable flooding and capsized in the Skagerrak on December 13th, 1944, with the loss of 580 of her crew. This time, Wiesbaden's luck did not hold and she caught a bomb into the forecastle. Prinz Eugen was also damaged, but the fleet reached Gotenhafen in January 1945 without further total losses.

Seydlitz, Wiesbaden and Nürnberg covered the retreat of German forces from Finland in February and March. In April, Moltke, Seydlitz, Wiesbaden and Nürnberg went on a ground strike mission against the Soviets off Latvia. On April 7th, 1945 they came under massive night attack of two dozen Soviet MTBs, whose wooden hulls did not register on German radar and surprised the German squadron. Moltke received two torpedo hits abreast Turret X - right where she had been heavily damaged twice before. This time, her back broke for good, and she sank after several hours of frantic attempts to bring her in, which were disrupted by Soviet air attacks. Seydlitz sank two MTBs and shot down 22 airplanes during this mission. Most of Moltke's crew could be taken off. Despite this disaster, the German fleet kept operating in the Baltic, not only conducting ground strikes, but also evacuating refugees ever more frequently. Gneisenau as the last operational fast capital ship was repeatedly called upon to cover other German ships on both kinds of missions. In June 1945, Stalin ordered his Baltic fleet - what was left of it after three and a half years of siege in Leningrad - to take out the German fire support Group consisting of Nassau, Leipzig and Köln. Two Soviet battlecruisers and two heavy cruisers with strong destroyer escort put to sea. It was the largest display of Soviet naval power in the whole war and resulted in abject disaster. The Soviets, without radar and with poorly trained crews which had fought as infantry for several years before being herded back on their ships, bore down on the bombardment group, but completely overlooked the German covering group of Gneisenau, Seydlitz and six destroyers under Vice Admiral Lindemann. On June 7th, 1945, the Germans met the Soviets in the Batte of Dagö, Germany's last naval victory of the war. Seydlitz started the very one-sided engagement by blowing up the Soviet heavy cruiser Kirov with her third salvo, then turned upon the Soviet flagship Tretij Internatsional and hit her 14 times; together with seven hits from Gneisenau, this was enough to sink her. The German destroyers sank two of their Soviet counterparts and damaged a third. Gneisenau then proceeded to damage the battlecruiser Krazniy Oktyabr with five more hits before the Soviets disengaged. It was a completely unnecessary disaster for the Russians, who had badly hurt the Germans with MTBs in April and should have stuck with using light forces only, because at this point they really did not need to commit their surface fleet to win the war.

After this belated triumph, which did absolutely nothing to turn the tide of the war back in Germany's favour, lack of fuel became so severe that the German fleet was pretty much immobilized, and British and Soviet airstrikes continually decimated them. In August, Wiesbaden was bombed in Danzig by Soviet airplanes and missed by six aerial torpedoes despite being stationary. Gneisenau was bombed in August 1945 by the British and heavily damaged, but remained afloat; she barely managed to limp to Copenhagen when Germany's ground forces started to crumble after the Nuke attack on Dresden that month. Nassau also fell victim to British bombs. On October 23rd, Vice Admiral Lindemann surrendered the rest of the German fleet to the British. At that time, it consisted of the battlecruiser Gneisenau, the heavy cruisers Seydlitz and Prinz Eugen, the light cruisers Wiesbaden, Leipzig and Nürnberg, fifteen destroyers and eighteen torpedo boats. Of the larger ships, only Seydlitz and Wiesbaden were fully operational.

Whereever I've written utter bullshit or have continuity issues, please tell me.

Greetings
GD

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