The Battleship that was Buried

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Admiral Scheer ([ˌatmiˈʁaːl ʃeːɐ̯]) was a Deutschland-class heavy cruiser (often termed a pocket battleship) which served with the Kriegsmarine (Navy) of Nazi Germany during World War II. The vessel was named after Admiral Reinhard Scheer, German commander in the Battle of Jutland. She was laid down at the Reichsmarinewerft shipyard in Wilhelmshaven in June 1931 and completed by November 1934. Originally classified as an armored ship (Panzerschiff) by the Reichsmarine, in February 1940 the Germans reclassified the remaining two ships of this class as heavy cruisers.[a]

The ship was nominally under the 10,000 long tons (10,000 t) limitation on warship size imposed by the Treaty of Versailles, though with a full load displacement of 15,180 long tons (15,420 t), she significantly exceeded it. Armed with six 28 cm (11 in) guns in two triple gun turrets, Admiral Scheer and her sisters were designed to outgun any cruiser fast enough to catch them. Their top speed of 28 knots (52 km/h; 32 mph) left only a handful of ships in the Anglo-French navies able to catch them and powerful enough to sink them.[1]

Admiral Scheer saw heavy service with the German Navy, including a deployment to Spain during the Spanish Civil War, where she bombarded the port of Almería. Her first operation during World War II was a commerce raiding operation into the southern Atlantic Ocean; she also made a brief foray into the Indian Ocean. During the operation, she sank 113,223 gross register tons (GRT) of shipping, making her the most successful capital ship surface raider of the war. Following her return to Germany, she was deployed to northern Norway to interdict shipping to the Soviet Union. She was part of the abortive attack on Convoy PQ 17 and conducted Operation Wunderland, a sortie into the Kara Sea. After returning to Germany at the end of 1942, the ship served as a training ship until the end of 1944, when she was used to support ground operations against the Soviet Army. She moved to Kiel for repairs in March 1945, where she was capsized by British bombers in a raid on 9 April 1945 and partially scrapped; the remainder of the wreck was buried when the inner part of Kiel dockyard was filled in after the war.

#warships #navy #ww2 #wwii #history

[stephenfarthing]

And according to the book on the incident. Langsdorf shot himself wrapped in the Flag of the Imperial German Navy and NOT in the flag of the Nazi Movement! He was of the old school of German Naval Officers. Unlike Lutyens he was honourable. Treated Officer Prisoners with respect and dignity - even when Graf Spee was under 8" and 6" fire! He obeyed International Maritime law and the law itself. Lutyens did not!

[geronimo]

Came for a buried ship Stayed for the legend of a tactical mastermind.

[dougscott]

What a surprise! I was expecting the Scheer to have been scuttled, but she was indeed buried beneath a parking lot.

[TheBrettWay]

best 54 minutes ive ever spent.. so fascinating i DID NOT expect that ending wow different times

[seniorturtle]

I really enjoyed watching your video and I learned a lot. The photos you included are very much appreciated. Thank you for sharing this video.

[PhilipFear]

Those of the German Commerce Raiders were old school German Navy instead of NAZI'S and treated the seamen they took prisoner within the rules of war....
The target ships were given the chance to surrender and leave their ships in lifeboats....
And even when they tried to send out their SOS and position Langdorf targeted the radio shack or weapons mounts and not to sink the crews with the ships....
More allied seamen prisoners were killed by British guns firing on Graff Spee then by German guns firing on the merchant ships....

[rolanddunk]

As far as I know the Graf Spee was sunk by self rigged scuttling charges, NOT torpedoes.

[kirkstinson]

The Graf Spee was NOT torpedoed!!! She was scuttled by her own (skeleton) crew. HUGE error right off

[grantenhodges]

speaking of buried, my eyes are buried so hard into your content. pls give me MORE

[Ouch.]

My Great, great uncle Fred Billinge was on board the Jervis Bay when she was attacked by Admiral Scheer. He was lucky to be rescued after the Scheer sunk the ship. The Jervis Bay had a few 6 inch guns installed and was then named a "Cruiser" Just a patched up merchant ship. Very very barve actions.

[bwilliams]

I wish we would talk and write as much about the people who were killed on those cargo ships as we do about tonnage sunk. This vid is much more balanced in that direction than most that I have watched.

[normhowes]

Anyone wanting to see a buried ship watch the last 8 seconds for a picture of where it's buried.

[derekheeps]

She was not commanded to be scuttled ; that was Langsdorf's choice to save his crew ; his masters wanted him to go down fighting .

[AnimatedWarMapper]

Another interesting, informative episode. Super cool had no idea!

[dr.wolfgangstrott]

I am sorry, but I feel obliged to rectify two misconseptions in the comment. The inro of the film does not show one of Admiral Zenker`s ships, it is either the Scharnhorst or the Gneisenau.A further misconseption is, that Captain Langsdorff has been baffled by missightings of British battle cruisers and berlin ordered the self destruction. Hitler expeced the attempt of a breakthrough to Germany and in case of mess, the doom of Graf Spee in battle. The real cause, why captain Langsdorff decided to sink Graf Spee was that the diesel filters had been desperately damaged during the battle of the La Plata River by splitters impossible to repair in Montevideo in time time of ultimatum set by government of Uruguay.So Langsdorff decided to sink Graf Spee himself ( like he has klearnt as young officer in he battle of Jutland) saving the life of his subordinates. keep in mind please Admiral Graf Spee fired nearly 40% of her 28cm calibre armour penetrating shells,

[chrisvenus]

she was NOT torpedoed and sunk at the battle of the river plate she was scuttled by her own crew....

[derekheeps]

The Talboy, which was an earthquake bomb, like its bigger brother, the Grand Slam, was not designed to directly hit its target, but to explode close by and create a destructive shock wave ; besides destroying multiple fortified German bunkers, which were supposedly bomb proof, this weapon was also employed to sink the Tirpitz .

The bouncing bombs ( Highball ) used by The Dambusters, worked on a similar principle .

[mudcrab]

The interesting part of the Graf Spee and the decision not to fight the way back to Germany was that one of the British hits during Plate destroyed the ship's bakery.

Now in nearly all other situations this would be a 'So??' situation. In the context of being alone and half the world away with no supporting facilities suddenly turned this into a significant problem and, it is claimed, one of the more significant reasons for not attempting breakout back to Germany.

[cameronsienkiewicz]

The captain of this ship was very good at anticipating the allied responses to his actions, but he was also extremely lucky..
Throughout this whole vid, I kept thinking “man, this ship did a LOT of damage to allied shipping”, but then I’d remember that the U.S. alone produced 2700, 14, 000 ton liberty ships, and over 500 victory ships.. that’s just the U.S., not including ships built by the Royal Navy, Canadian navy, Australian navy and so on ..
this ship barely made a dent.. all the tonnage it either sunk or repatriated was but a drop in the bucket..
I know if you add the tonnage this ship sunk, along with all the tonnage sunk by U-boats and other surface ships, it is DEFINITELY a sizeable chunk, but like Dom says in the first fast and furious movie (the only good one imho), “it doesn’t matter if you win by an inch, or a mile.. winning is winning” .. the Germans were close, but close wasn’t good enough lol

[tsuaririndoku]

It’s kinda funny that these ships were designated as Armored Cruiser (Panzerschiff) and British calling it Pocket Battleships despite that they are the one who used the concept of Armored Cruiser before.

Armored Cruisers were pretty much Generation Zero of Battlecruisers. They were Cruisers design to fight other Cruisers. Acting like a small Battleship.