Shipbucket

Thx for the correction.

After the URSS got sure Germany had (alledgedly) no interest in the Baltic region, the reasons of which were already explained on a previous post (the "background" of which I took from the invasion of Kuwait from the part of iraq in Gulf War I...), on November 30, 1939, the Soviet troops started an invasion of Finland and on three fronts. We are not going here into great details, what we will focus on is the part DKM took action in.

This event changed the entire scenario of the time and it must be said that it did not take Germany by surprise. More than one source of the region of Leningrad reported a massive military concentration had been spotted some days before in the region south-east of the city, on the southern shores of Lake Ladoga. Even inside the city itself a strange intense movement of military vehicles were seen some days in late November, giving the German informants the certainity that something big must be planned for soon. Obviously, Berlin gave this information to the Finnish embassy and von Witzleben told his leaders of the German armed forces to declare "orange alert" (which means the immediate readiness of pre-determined forces, as well as of the Reichsbahn, without giving these latter any details).

The DKM "Ostseeflotte", with base in Kiel, but with a small fleet in tne "advanced post" at Rostock, was immediately put under "red alert", comprising the following ships: BB "Gneisenau, CA "Graf Spee, CE "Köln" (recently coming out of a refit at "Deutsche Schiffswerft") and six destroyer, two oiler and several auxiliary ships. The next day, December 1, 1939, at dusk they left Kiel, or Rostock, to travel during the night to reach Helsinki, Graf Spee and two destroyers travelling on to Viborg, all ships with the task to use their AA artillery to protect the cities against Soviet air attacks. Between December 2nd and 4th all the ships had reached their determined positions

One of some of the German destroyers in action on the eastern Baltic sea in December 1939, the Z17 which was one of the most successful units of its class in that area.



On the Soviet side, at the naval base of Kronstadt the following ships were ready for action:

2 old "Kangut" class dreadnought battleships, one Kirov class cruiser, two new "Leningrad-class" destroyer and 7 old "Izyaslav class" destroyer from the Imperial Russian Navy plus more than 35 submarines and more than 50 mine laying boats and fast torpedo boats. This total amount of warships though most outdated were a real threat to the German KM deployed to the area, so twelve more destroyers were deployed as well in the first half of December, before the winter ice began to difficult seafare. 2 Ju 87 Stuka and three Ju 88 bomber wings (Geschwader) were deployed from East Prussia via the Baltic States to Finland, to be put under the overall command of the air fleet commander on board of the German aircraft carrier, although they were operating from land bases.

From 1939, December the 1st, Germany was at war with the USSR, invoking the bilateral treaty signed with Finland, in case of an attack.

One of the measures taken immediately by the High Command of the DKM was to tell Blohm & Voss to speed up the finishing of BB Bismarck, then in the final stages of completion. Several future crewmember mainly of the electronics and the engines and propulsion areas, but also communications and "liveaboard" areas were sent to the shipyard to help out the technicians to install the items and finetune them, which in 12/1939 were not yet installed. Even before leaving the drydock, BB Bismarck had the boilers fired up as well as all the electrical systems tested. The third party suppliers were asked to anticipate the deliveries of all ordered items and by taking these measures, the first sea trials could be made with almost six months in advance. When needed, the ship returned to the yard to fine tune something needing it and in late March the ship could be handed over to the DKM.

Another step taken by the DKM was to unify the destroyer classes DE 1936 A and B, and to get them finished as quickly as possible, so that the yards building them worked 24/24h in three shifts. Twelve of these destroyers were unified in a separate class, called the Freiherren-Klasse ("Baron class" because they were to bear all the names of German barons of the past). These destroyers were multi-purpose (sea artillery, AA artillery, torpedo launchers and depth charge launchers and in the Baltic were to be deployed in flotillas incorporating Torpedo-Schnellboote" (torpedo fast boats) plus the respective tenders.

These twelve Freiherren Klasse destroyer were officially classified as "Z30-Klasse" and went into ship Z42. The next batch was designed Z43. The Z30-batch (formerly known as belonging to the "1936A (Mob.)" category) were closer to light cruisers than the typical destroyer. The use of 15 cm guns was atypical of destroyers which tended to have guns around 120–127 mm in calibre. They were idesigned to carry four forward guns in twin turrets, plus another twin turret in the rear, together with a double 10,5cm AA artillery turret, plus three 8,8 AA guns, one on each side and another one at the rear.

The ships had an overall length of 137 metres, a beam of 12,85 metres, and a maximum draught of 4.38–4.65 metres. They displaced 2,584–2,700 t at standard load and 3,575–3,750 t at deep load. The ship's hulls were divided into 16 watertight compartments and they were fitted with a double bottom that covered 47% of their length amidships. They were powered by three Wagner geared steam turbine sets, each driving a three-bladed controllable pitch 3.35-metre screw, using steam provided by nine high-pressure Wagner water-tube boilers with superheaters that operated at a pressure of 70 atm (1,029 psi) and a temperature of 450–480 °C. The turbines were designed to produce 89,000 shp for a speed of 38 knots (68,4 km/h), although this high speed was only reached in more or less calm waters. The massive power was more useful for quick accelerations and sharp manoevers to avoid torpedos or air launched bombs.

The ships carried twelve above-water 533-millimetre torpedo tubes in six double power-operated mounts. The standard torpedo for the Type 36B destroyers was the G7a torpedo. It had a 300-kilogram warhead and three speed range settings: 14,000 metres at 30 knots (56 km/h); 8,000 metres at 40 knots (74 km/h) and 6,000 metres at 44 knots (81 km/h). Torpedo station 1 (forward one, port and starboard) could be reloaded twice, station 2 could be reloaded three times, also port and starboard, the reload torpedos being sheltered inside a compartment with an upwards sliding door containing also an upload electrical device.

The ships were equipped with several detection radar sets as well as two brand new "FuMO 213 Würzburg-D" to track specifically airborne targets and their respective altitudes. They also carried passive radar sets (FuMB-3 Bali" and 'GHG' (Gruppenhorchgerät) passive hydrophones were fitted to detect submarines as well as a S-Gerät sonar (from Wikipedia).

These ships had mostly all been launched between March and September 1939 and were to be commissioned between October 1941 and April 1942, but due to the circumstances they were also finished in shorter periods. But, to the general "chagrin" of their crews they missed the action in the Gulf of Finland which was a keystone in the famous Winter War.

Danzig was a Free City under League of Nations protection. IRL Marinestation der Ostsee was placed in Kiel, Danzig was too small and too close (literally next corner) to Poland to put there a navy base.

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Nobody expects the Imperial Inquisition!

Oh... I know how close to Poland Danzig is... but in my "AU" that would not be a problem, diplomaticallywise... And Königsberg, could that town have space for a naval base? Kiel is too far away... if nothing else goes, than I must choose Rostock, right?

Kiel was safe port with large infrastructure, important military command centre for naval operation in Baltic before German even exist as unified country. Danzig was important for region commercial port, but it did lack a military infrastructure to support naval forces. Shipyards there had been rather small and I think they did lack dry docks (not sure about that... I saw photos of slipways but no docks) and the only docks I did notice had been floating ones (at least 2) but no bigger than small to medium freighter and that means infrastructure up to destroyer. Other ports, Elbing and Königsberg are small ports with narrow single route entry that could be easy blocked so they also are not the best pick.

To get better base IRL Reich annexed Klaipėda and then operate from ports of Baltic States.

Rostock is not that far from Kiel, don't make much difference. But place of HQ don't mean all your ships are in the same place, heavy ships can be in Kiel, Lubeck, Rostock and small are spread thru many smaller ports all along the cost.

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Nobody expects the Imperial Inquisition!

Awesome job on both DDs! Especially like the sleek lines of the Z-30-class!

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MS State Guard - 08 March 2014 - 28 January 2023

The Official IJN Ships & Planes List

#FJB

Thanks for the inputs, both Rhade and Andreas. And the pageview jumped quite a lot during these last 24 hours! Thanks to all for the interest shown.

I will review the part of the location of the main ships of the "Ostseeflotte" in the text and will add some more designs of ships belonging to it, before describing a bit more the role this fleet played in the "Winter War". This theme interests me for years now and I admire the bravery of the Finish men and women (the "Lotte"...) who fought the Soviets in a way never thought before.

In Rostock were stationed in beginning of December 1939 the following units:

- First Motor Torpedo Boat Flotilla: Carl Peters (tender), Torpedo-Schnellboot 14, Torpedo-Schnellboot 15, Torpedo-Schnellboot 16, Torpedo-Schnellboot 17, all of the 1934-class; Torpedo-Schnellboot 18, Torpedo-Schnellboot 19, Torpedo-Schnellboot 20, Torpedo-Schnellboot 21 and Torpedo-Schnellboot 24, all of the 1937-class; and Torpedo-Schnellboot 32 plus Torpedo-Schnellboot 33 from the new 1939-class

- First S-Boot 110-class Flotilla: Gustav Nachtigall (tender), S-Boot 10 to S-Boot 25

- 1934A destroyer Z6 Theodor Riedel, Z10 Hans Lody and Z15 Erich Steinbrink

These units sailed from Rostock on December 2nd to Helsinki first, staying until the rest of the German fleet units arrived on December 5th, and then in the night from 7th to 8th to the proximities of Viborg. The plan of the DKM command was to launch a surprise heavy attack on the Soviet naval base at Krohnstadt, taking profit of the long dawn and dusk periods together with bad meteorologic conditions.

The Finnish navy had provided the Germans detailed sea maps of the entire Gulf of Finland, and the German vessels having all radar installed they could navigate at night and in bad weather. The traditional navigation by radio direction finder using radio signal antennae to tune to the radio stations of Helsinki, Tallin and Viborg (a perfect triangle) made the task even more accurate.

One of the leading flotilla ships since their 1938 refit, was Z10 Hans Lody, a 1934A destroyer. She had had an overall length of 119 meters, a beam of 11.30 meters and a maximum draft of 4.23 meters. She displaced 2,206 t at standard load and 3,160 t at deep load. The two Wagner geared steam turbine sets, each driving one propeller shaft, were designed to produce 69,000 shp using steam provided by six high-pressure Wagner boilers. The ship had a designed speed of 36 knots and she reached a maximum speed of 37.8 knots during her sea trials.

Originally the ship carried five 12.7-centimeter SK C/34 guns in single mounts with gun shields, weighing more than 3,6 tons each but as sea trials proved the design top heavy in difficult sea conditions, the German Admiralty took the decision to replace the guns with 8,8cm DP guns which were lighter. Overall the lighter artillery after the 1938 conversion included seven twin 3.7 cm SK M/42 mounts and three twin 2 cm mounts making her and her sister ships of the same class redoutable sea vessels with AA capabilities. Hans Lody carried eight above-water 53.3-centimeter torpedo tubes in two quadruple power-operated mounts. A pair of reload torpedoes were provided for each mount. Four depth charge throwers were mounted on the sides of the rear deckhouse and they were supplemented by six racks for individual depth charges on the sides of the stern. Enough depth charges were carried for either two or four patterns of 16 charges each.

At the deep refit in 1938, radar sets were also installed, which were being replaced by new units when these became available. This way the not so popular 1934A destroyers became very efficient ships especially in the Baltic Sea. Given their fast speed they were ideal for accompanying the Schnellboote as well as the Torpedo-Schnellboote. As soon as a submarine was detected by a ship of the flotilla equipped with passive GHG and with sonar, the Schnellboote began an immediate hunt, operating by pairs or even two pairs, launching depth charges of slightly different depth calibration for the detonation.

This was part of the plan for Unternehmen Krone (Operation Crown), the destruction of the soviet naval base at Krohnstadt and their ships (trying to avoid destructing the fuel depots).