Shipbucket

Awesome!

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MS State Guard - 08 March 2014 - 28 January 2023

The Official IJN Ships & Planes List

#FJB

1917 and the ex-Greek battleship Salamis is commissioned into the German Navy as the SMS Brandenburg. The ship to be completed had had to have a new set of turrets and guns built for it as the 14" guns designed for it were sold by the US supplier to Britain in 1914 and those subsequently became four monitors. To keep the ship standard with other German vessels being built or in commission the guns were to be the 13.8" (35cm) SK L/45 guns. The Brandenburg like the other High Seas Fleet vessels swung at anchor 1917-18 and endured the indignity of the sailors revolts and then the surrender to the Allies. The Greeks were fast to put in an injunction to have the Brandenburg returned to Greek control. The Brandenburg remained in German waters during 1919-1920 and missed the scuttling of the High Seas Fleet in Scapa Flow. Because of the scuttling the Allies tried to retain the Brandenburg in replacement for the sunken ships but the Court ruled in the Greeks favour and for the Allies to retain Brandenburg they would have had to pay for it or replace it with a ship of equivalent size and value. None of the Allies wanted to do either of those things and the Brandenburg was returned to Greece. Once the ship arrived at Piraeus a ceremony was held to re-commission the ship into the navy as the Salamis.

For once the Greek Navy had a ship that was better than its long time enemy in the Turkish Navy. The Salamis was much superior to the Yavuz. Interesting that they were both ex-German built units.

The Greek Navy ran the ship without any major updates through till the summer of 1938 when the ship sailed for Germany for a major refit to engines, have the gun barrels relined and replaced and various other work that could not be carried out by the Greek yards. The refit work was due for completion in late 1939 and the German Navy instructed the shipyard involved to go slow as war was considered to be not far away and the German Navy wanted to seize the ship. September 1939 and the outbreak of war. The Greek government try to get the Germans to release the Salamis to sea but the Germans said that the engine work had not yet been completed and then the Germans doubled the cost of the work, the Greeks refused to pay and the Germans used that as the pretext to seize the ship. Having had several months to revisit the refit work to be carried out the Germans increased the amount of work, to include, new Atlantic bow, better AA armament, better radar and gun control equipment. Re-commissioned into the German Navy as the Brandenburg in 1940, the ship had had nothing done to increase speed or armour.

That conning tower makes me think of a bigger Admiral Scheer, and combined with the tall funnel and the stylish cap makes me think of a one-stack, four-turret, smaller North Carolina. Excellent work...can't wait to see her in camo!

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MS State Guard - 08 March 2014 - 28 January 2023

The Official IJN Ships & Planes List

#FJB

KM Moltke Class Battlecruisers.


With the three Deutschland's under construction and the Treaty abrogated (early for this in 1930) the Germans signed a new treaty specifically with Britain allowing them to build ships up to 60% of the size of the 35,000 ton limit (21,000 tons). The new design made no pretension to battleship rank. These two ships were built soley to destroy treaty cruisers either singly or in groups. To do this the ships had a slightly more than the new limit at 24,000 tons standard. Speed was to be 31 knots, while this might be 1 or 2 knots slower than most treaty cruisers, unless the sea state was a flat calm the bigger and more sea friendly ship would catch the smaller cruisers. Eight 12" and Sixteen of the new dual purpose guns were fitted in eight twin turrets, with 12x37mm and a handful of the new 20mm guns to finish out the gun armament. Six 21" torpedoes and one/two aircraft with one catapult (no hangar) were also fitted. It was the armour that was to make them cruiser proof. With 230mm of side armour and 90mm of deck armour, the 8" and 6" of the Allied cruisers these ships were most likely to meet, would not penetrate the armoured regions. To increase the range the ships were fitted with cruising turbines that could push the speed along at 10 knots. The main turbines only being used for pursuit speeds.





I have also been in contact with Syzmo and asked to use his Schlachtkreuzer series for the DP KM.

This looks like a German South Dakota, and I like it.

I have redone the lower hull of the Goeben to match the colour palette that has been used on the latest German ship drawings.

Signal:

You do not need to 'quote' the whole comment to add your comment to. Could you pleas edit your comment and remove the 'quote' please. If you could replace it with something like:

That KM Brandenburg looks like a German South Dakota, and I like it.

Thank you.

Nice additions, the Brandenburg indeed looks quite interesting.

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Hood's Worklist
English Electric Canberra FD
Interwar RN Capital Ships
Super-Darings
Never-Were British Aircraft

Love the Moltkes!

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MS State Guard - 08 March 2014 - 28 January 2023

The Official IJN Ships & Planes List

#FJB

The big Zerstorers.

From 1930 the Kriegsmarine looked for a larger destroyer type that could accompany the Capital Ships and act as small cruisers, something the German Navy was woefully short of. The production of the new dual purpose 5" gun helped. A design for a 390 foot Zerstorer armed with 5 of the new weapons was put into production with sixteen units being constructed (Z1-Z16). They were replaced in production by the Z17 class.




The next Z17 class was to be the standard destroyer class built from just before and through the war years. It was a well balanced 416 foot set of ships that armed with 3 of the new twin 5" dual purpose turrets, they were as well armed as any of their competitors.

ZM-17 is a real beauty!