The Battle between the HMAS Sydney and Kormoran

The Battle Between HMAS Sydney and Kormoran was a WWII naval battle off the coast of Australia which resulted in both of warships being destroyed and all onboard the HMAS Sydney dying. The Kormoran thus became the only German merchant raider to sink an enemy warship in WWII. HMAS Sydney was the single largest Allied ship to be lost will all hands during the war.

This is a recreation of this battle using the game Kerbal Space Program and several of its mods.

Music
Battlefield 1942 OST-Joel Eriksson
Silent Hunter 3 OST-Patrick Giraudi

Special thanks to the members of the KSP Forum for helping to create this work.

[internetstrangerstrangerofweb]

The cunning and skill displayed by the crews and captains of the Auxiliary Cruiser captains was absolutely mind boggling. They were more feared than the German surface fleet at the time.

[farhanatashiga]

This is an impressive recreation using ksp, with the only bad thing about it being the frame rate.

[michaelwackers]

Our revered English teacher, an Afrika Korps tank commander, had been taken pow after his tank was knocked out by Australian troops. He would find himself sharing a pow camp in Australia with survivors of the Kormoran. Recounting their tales never failed to capture our imagination; how they managed to keep the Sydney from opening fire by hoisting confusing flag signals while they were getting into a more favourable, closer position. Also of the dehydrated survivors of Kormoran beginning to hallucinate they were in a lush, green meadow with grazing cows.

[airbusavgeek]

RIP to the sailor that made it onto the Carley float and then died at sea

[gazof-the-north]

Sydney's Captain was complacent.    Got too close to an unknown

[Westyrulz]

I am Aussie and proud of our military present and past but you got to hand it to the Jerries in this instance in that it took some guts to take on a warship knowing full well they were out gunned and outclassed.They could have went to "all stop" and struck a flag of surrender whilst at the same time opening the seacocks to scuttle the Kormoran and spent the rest of the war kicking back in one of our POW camps where they would have been well looked after.Full marks to the Aussies as well for despite the Sydney being mortally wounded they attempted to ram the Kormoran. So I say an Iron Cross to each German and a Victoria Cross to each Australian.

[aussiegod]

A lesson in combat. Never get too close to an unidentified ship. If I was in Sydney’s situation I would more than likely have fired some warning shots at the Komoran. If they fired back then they’re the enemy. The captain was being very careless in this encounter.

[reyganbriggs]

It's always incredible to me how a raider can sink what is essentially a light cruiser.

[ThePilotever]

i didn't even realize this was KSP until I heard the explosions. Excellent video!

[henryganzer]

all you unknown sailors of these two ships - rest in peace now . . .

[Kyleinasailing]

Shows how important it is to have the right man at the top.

[henrik]

Too many comments by people that have not read up on the facts.

1. The captains of the ships of the commonwealth navies were under orders to try and capture axis merchant ship. This included both commerece raiders and blockade runners(I will get back to the blockade runners). It was not believed that lightly armed commerce raider would dare to engage in battle with a warship and that it would try and scuttle itself if it could not escape.

The reason for this order was the merchant lossed during the Battle of the Atlantic. The captured ships were needed to replace allied shipping. Any allied captain stationed so far away from the action in the Atlantic would have taken these orders very seriously.

These order were rescinded just some days after the admiralty received news of the sinking.

2. The Kormoran was not obviously suspicious. There were inconsistencies regarding the information the she gave regarding her cover the "Straat Malakka" as they did not concur with the information in the HMAS Sydney's ship registry. However clerical errors happened all the times regarding these things.

Also the Kormoran did act confusing and weird when approached by the HMAS Sydney. But we should not forget that Kormoran was disguised a civilian ship. That meant that the enemy also was meant to believe it had a civilian crew. A civilian crew could not be expected to be as disciplined and well trained as a navy crew. Also the Kormoran even tried to create the impression that she was suspicious of the HMAS Australia, eventually sending out distress signals.

Confusion and identification incidents happened all the time when naval ships and non-convoy merchants met(the merchants that were sailing convoy's during the Battle of Atlantic would have had a lot better crews, yes), and this was in relatively peaceful waters. To shoot warning shots everytime such things happened would have been way excessive.

3. We should not forget about blockade runners. These would have been unarmed fast axis merchants that tried to evade the allied blockade in order to bring home important materials eg rubber from neutral and friendly nations.

4. The Kormoran had an excellent crew and an excellent captain. The crew of the Kormoran was disciplined Kriegsmarine personell, its captain was obviously excellent who managed to keep his head cool and make intelligent and duty bound decisions. Given previous points the Captain of the HMAS Sydney was at least one step behind already from the beginning and the crew of Kormoran was not going to let him catch up.

5. The Captain of the Kormoran did act almost suicidally. The Kormoran did sink eventually, and if the HMAS Sydney would have had a little more luck with its shots the crew and the Captain of the Kormoran would have followed the ship to the bottom like the crew of HMAS Sydney did. Neither the Admiralty not the Captain of the HMAS Sydney would have expected such a risky move.

[destroyerinazuma]

Thanks for uploading. RIP HMAS Sydney sailors, they fought for freedom

[tomhorn]

yes, captn hindsight here, had they taken the anchor chains off the achor hoist, then drop them out of the hold, they mightve made it back to port.

[trojanthedog]

Jesus! Detmers knew what he was about!

[perparimmedia]

What a waste of a fine warship and so many young men. The Captain of the Sydney was probably lucky that he died or else he probably would have been court-martialed.

[michaelmcclellan]

Sad story ....but the name of hmas Sydney is a glorious name in the entire history of the Australian navy

[jamesrussell]

It was broad daylight, five minutes till four in the afternoon. I hate to say it but the Captain of HMAS Sydney made a huge mistake, closing to only 1, 300 meters (point blank range) of a suspiciously acting vessel. He was very lucky that the initial broadside from the Kormoran missed. His own initial salvo in response should have decimated the Kormoran's he missed!!! That tells me that his crew was poorly trained in gunnery. At just 1, 300 meters, all his gunners had to do was point and shoot, the target would have been as big as a barn door. Well, in the end, he did sink the raider, but at the cost of his entire crew. 645 brave souls lost their lives because their Captain was incompetent. R.I.P.

[vikkimcdonough]

Very well done!

R.I.P., those who lost their lives in this battle...

[hoodoo]

I find it interesting that so many people forget that procedures and such are often not followed due to the variability of human behavior. The Australian Captain might have been fatigued or ill and it might have affected his judgment...or he may have not been a great Captain, he might have been lazy and ineffiicent, a know it all or perhaps he was distracted, or possibly he was arrogant and cocksure and thought he knew more than his superiors. Anything could have come into play, and whatever prompted him to be careless, just came at the wrong time at the wrong place. Of such how tragedies are made. It sometimes isn't what we don't know, but what we think we know but actually don't that gets us in the most trouble.