In heaven there are mechanics, in hell there are policemen. When all nations want to do their best, the Germans do the right thing. They have an exceptional penchant for idealism and for the barbaric distortion of achieved idealism.
It is difficult to write about the victories of fascist weapons, but, fortunately, this will not have to be done. Heavy cruisers of the Admiral Hipper class were dubious in everything: extremely complex, expensive, overloaded with high-tech equipment, and very poorly protected compared to any of their rivals.
An abnormal crew for ships of this class (1400-1600 sailors + additional specialists who were taken on board during the cruise).
Capricious steam turbine power plant.
Modest armament by the standards of its class - high-quality, versatile, but without any frills.
It is striking that, unlike other countries, the Third Reich was spared from the strict "Washington" restrictions that set the bar for the standard displacement of cruisers at around 10 thousand tons. However, the result was questionable. Even in the absence of strict restrictions (standard in / and German cruisers - over 14 thousand tons) and the presence of a highly developed industry, the Germans built very mediocre ships, which became a formidable prophecy for future generations.
The ideas embodied in the Hippers: "electronics - above all", "versatility and multitasking", "advanced means of detection and fire control - at the expense of traditional security and firepower" - one way or another, correspond to the trends in modern shipbuilding.
However, even in this form, with the use of primitive technologies 70 years ago, "Hippers" favorably differed from modern "cans" by the presence of armor protection and their highest survivability.
There were five of them: Admiral Hipper, Blucher, Prince Eugen, Seydlitz (converted into an aircraft carrier, unfinished) and Luttsov (sold to the USSR when 70% ready, unfinished).
The most famous "Prince Eugen" - the only German heavy ship that survived until the end of the war. Undermining on a bottom mine, hitting aerial bombs, torpedo attack, a severe navigation accident, raids by Soviet and British aviation - the cruiser stubbornly "licked" the wounds and continued its combat path.
And then a second sun flashed in the sky, for a second illuminating Bikini Atoll with unbearable light. When all was quiet, the bulk of the cruiser Prince Eugen was still swaying on the surface of the lagoon. The second, underwater explosion "Baker" did not help either - the German ship turned out to be stronger than nuclear fire!
Deactivation
The heavy cruiser Prince Eugen was a legend - a monumental silhouette, a crew of the best volunteers of the Kriegsmarine, and an active combat career throughout the war.
The cruiser immortalized her name by taking part in the battle in the Danish Strait (the sinking of the battle cruiser Hood). Unlike the Bismarck, the Prince managed to elude retaliation from the British fleet and returned safely to base. Then there was a daring transition from Brest to Germany, a short Norwegian cruise and a dull service in the cramped Baltic. At the end of the war, "Prince Eugen" fired 5,000 shells at the advancing Soviet troops and fled to Copenhagen. After the war, he got the reparations of the United States.
In the wake of the "Prince" - the formidable "Bismarck"
During his combat career, the "Prince" did not sink a single enemy ship, but won many moral victories over the enemy - what is his breakthrough across the English Channel, under the noses of all British aviation and His Majesty's fleet.
Whether the decision to build this monster was right, or 109 million Reichsmarks could have been more profitably spent - this rhetoric has the wrong message. Germany was doomed anyway.
The cruiser was built, fought without fear or reproach, and diverted considerable enemy forces. Shot down a dozen planes, damaged a British destroyer, received gratitude from the Waffen-SS ground units.
Of course, during the construction of the cruiser, no one thought that it would be used as "the largest gunboat in the Baltic." "Prince Eugen" was created as part of the fleet of Greater Germany, which, in the near future, was to fight with Great Britain and the United States for control of the oceans!
But everything happened differently - Hitler cracked open an ampoule of poison, and the only surviving cruiser Kriegsmarine was sent to the nuclear weapons test zone.
Technical features
"Prince Eugen" favorably distinguished itself from its peers by its perfect set of detection means (radars, infrared night vision systems, effective sonar systems - capable of distinguishing not only enemy submarines, but even individual torpedoes and mines in the water column!).
Command and rangefinder posts stabilized in three planes, analog computers, PUAO - all posts were duplicated, dispersed and protected by armor. Radio electronics was continuously improved - in the field of means of detection and fire control "Prince" had no equal among other "Europeans"!
The presence of a large number of bulky and complex electronic equipment explains the need for a large crew and such a high cost of the ship itself (the "Prince" in comparable prices was 2.5 times more expensive than the British TKR "County").
Steam turbine power plant with a capacity of 133 600 hp. provided a speed of about 32, 5 knots. With a full reserve of oil (4250 tons), the cruiser's cruising range was 5500 miles at an economic speed of 18 knots.
The armament of the "Prince" did not look so impressive against the background of American and, moreover, Japanese cruisers:
- 8 main caliber guns (203 mm) in four turrets - a mandatory minimum for the TKr of those years. For comparison: the standard for American TKr was nine 203 mm guns; for Japanese - 10;
- 12 universal guns (105 mm) in six twin installations - solid. In terms of the number of heavy anti-aircraft guns, only “Italians” and “Americans” could compete with the “Prince”;
- small-caliber anti-aircraft artillery: automatic cannons of 20 and 37 mm caliber, incl. five quadruple Flak 38 installations. Since the fall of 1944, the anti-aircraft armament has been reinforced with 40 mm Bofors anti-aircraft guns. The general verdict is positive, the cruiser's air defense was at a decent level.
- 4 three-pipe torpedo tubes, ammunition for 12 torpedoes. According to this parameter, the "Prince" was surpassed only by the Japanese with their "long lances". For comparison - the British heavy cruisers carried half as many torpedoes, the American ones did not have torpedo armament at all.
- air group: pneumatic catapult, two under-deck hangars, up to five reconnaissance seaplanes "Arado-196".
In general, the Prince's armament was typical of that era, but it can shock the shipbuilders of the XXI century, accustomed to the compactness of modern launchers and the placement of weapons below deck (which, of course, helps to improve the stability of the ship).
Unlike the cells of modern UVP, "Prince Eugen" was forced to carry powerful rotating towers, weighing from 249 ("A" and "D") to 262 tons ("B" and "C"). And this is without taking into account barbets, mechanization of cellars and an ammunition supply system! No less troublesome were the installations of universal artillery - each of them weighed 27 tons.
The old German cruiser is a silent reproach to modern shipbuilders who build high-tech shells that die from unexploded missiles.
In this sense, the "Prince" was in complete order - the problems with its security (in comparison with peers) pale against the background of the current situation, when one close surface explosion is enough for a super-ship worth a billion dollars to be completely out of order.
The Germans were different - they managed to cover every inch of the warship!
In short, the Prince's booking scheme looked like this:
From the 26th to the 164th frame, the main armor belt with a thickness of 80 mm and a height of 2, 75 to 3, 75 meters, which had an inclination of 12, 5 ° to the outside, extended; the belt was overlapped at the ends with 80 mm armored traverses, perpendicularly located to the center plane of the ship.
The hull booking did not end there - a thinner belt 70 mm thick, equal in height to the main b / p, went into the stern. On the sixth frame, it was closed by a 70 mm traverse bulkhead (in the German fleet, the numbering of the frames was carried out from the stern side). The bow was also covered by a belt 40 mm thick (at the last three meters from the stem - 20 mm), while it had a greater height than the main b / p.
The horizontal protection system consisted of two armored decks:
- the upper armored deck, 25 mm thick (above the boiler rooms) and thinned up to 12 mm in the bow and stern parts of the ship;
- the main armored deck, also extending along the entire length of the cruiser. Its thickness was 30 mm, only in the area of the aft towers did it locally increase to 40 mm, and in the bow it decreased to 20 mm. The deck passed about 1 m below the upper edge of the armor belt, and its bevels were connected to its lower edge.
Of course, this is not all - the cruiser had a strong local reservation. Most of the combat posts and rooms in the superstructure were covered with armor:
- conning tower - walls 150 mm, roof 50 mm;
- running bridge - 20 mm anti-splinter armor;
- communication pipe with cables - 60 mm;
- the admiral's bridge, the main command and rangefinder post and all rooms below it - 20 mm;
- chimneys above the armored deck - 20 mm.
Finally, the barbets of the turrets of the main caliber (80 mm) and the protection of the turrets themselves - from 160 mm (frontal plate) to 70 mm (side walls).
How correct was the decision of the German designers to carry out the full booking of the ship?
The already small load reserve allocated for the installation of armor was aggravated by its "smearing" throughout the cruiser structure - what was the point of the bow "armor belt" with a thickness of only 20 mm? Why did you need to protect the chain box and windlass rooms?
It should not be forgotten here that the Germans designed their ships for the specific conditions of the Second World War: naval artillery duels, in which speed played the most important role. Numerous shrapnel holes could provoke flooding of the bow compartments - thereby leading to the "burying" of the nose into the water and reducing the speed of the cruiser with all the ensuing consequences.
The result of a torpedo hit from the submarine "Trident"
In general, in terms of "security", the German cruisers looked like complete outsiders against the background of other heavy cruisers of that era - the leader was undoubtedly the Italian Zara, with a 100 … 150 mm thick armor belt and a total horizontal protection of 85 … 90 mm!
However, the German was not easy either! Even such a primitive horizontal protection (25 + 30 mm) was able to provide worthy resistance to enemy air attacks.
For the first time, the "Prince" became acquainted with the destructive power of bombs a month before its official entry into service. On July 2, 1940, he came under attack from British aviation and received 227 kg of "fugasca" in the area of the LB engine room.
The bomb, as expected, pierced the upper armored deck and exploded in the cockpit. The consequences of life are as follows: a hole in the deck with a diameter of 30 cm, a dent of 4x8 meters, the galley, chimney, electrical cables and bulkheads of the cockpits were damaged. On the upper deck, a motor boat was thrown from its place and destroyed, a catapult, a boat crane was damaged, and one of the 105 mm artillery mounts was scratched. Some fire control devices are out of order (from the direct impact of explosion products or strong shaking of the hull - there are no data on this).
Nevertheless, the nature of the damage indicates that the bomb could not penetrate the main armored deck: the engine rooms remained intact. Avoid damage below the waterline. The functionality of the main and universal artillery has been preserved. The armor saved the ship and its crew from serious consequences.
If this episode took place on the high seas, the heavy cruiser would retain its speed, power supply and most of its combat capability - which would allow it to continue its combat mission (or return to base on its own).
Shifting the steering wheel to manual
The next hit of an aerial bomb on "Prince Eugen" resulted in a whole detective story with an unexpected outcome. The plot is simple - the description of the damage in the official Russian-language sources is at variance with common sense.
In 1942, during her imprisonment in Brest, the cruiser was once again subjected to a raid by British bombers. A series of six bombs "covered" the dock in which the "Prince Eugen" was stationed, while one of them - a semi-armor-piercing 500-pounder - hit directly into the ship. The blow hit the very edge of the deck, at a distance of 0.2 m from the port side. The bomb pierced the thin upper deck and rushed down with a terrible crash, breaking the oncoming bulkheads. Sliding along the side plating, it reached a 30 mm bevel of the main armor deck, and, breaking through another layer of armor, exploded in the lower rooms.
The explosion destroyed or partially damaged some of the premises, the second bottom and the outer skin of the bottom. Two compartments were flooded, one of which housed power station No. 3. Some of the units suffered from shrapnel damage. The mechanical installation was not damaged. As a result of the failure of the artillery post, the artillery of the Main Command was partially damaged. Located at a distance of 5-8 m from the center of the explosion 203 mm charges and 105 mm cartridges were not affected … A fire broke out in the explosion zone, which was soon liquidated by personnel. Losses in the crew amounted to over 80 people.
- THEM. Korotkin "Combat damage of surface ships" (L. 1960)
In general, it is terrible - only one 227 kg bomb caused a fire, flooding, created a threat of detonation of ammunition and led to the death of a large number of sailors. But was it really so?
The first question is, how did you manage to avoid the detonation of the b / c - when the epicenter of the explosion was only 5-8 meters from the cellar? It is scary to imagine what an explosion of 50 … 100 kg of a powerful brizant would look like in a confined space! The shock wave and thousands of incandescent shrapnel should have demolished and riddled all the bulkheads within a radius of several tens of meters (the thickness of the bulkheads under the main armor deck does not exceed 6-8 mm).
And if the danger of detonation of shells from a nearby explosion looks unconvincing (they are almost impossible to activate without a fuse), then the ignition of powder charges is a prerequisite in the above situation.
If we assume that the bomb pierced the armor and did not explode, then what caused the death of 80 people?
Also, it is highly questionable whether such a number of people are in the main artillery post and the premises of the ship's generators - while they are docked, when electricity is supplied from the shore.
And, finally, the mention of the flooding of two compartments - which could not have happened in principle: it is reliably known that the "Prince" was at that moment in the dock.
It seems that given the lack of primary sources, the author of the book misinterpreted (or falsified) the facts of combat damage to the cruiser "Prince Eugen".
According to Russian researcher Oleg Teslenko, everything happened much simpler: the bomb could not penetrate the main armored deck and exploded in the crew quarters. This explains the large losses among the crew and automatically removes the question of the "miraculous rescue" of the powder magazine.
Thin 30 mm armored deck perfectly served its purpose, avoiding much more serious consequences.
As for the serious damage to the interior and the death of a large number of sailors, this is already the fault of the German engineers who designed the ship with such weak protection.
The heavy cruiser "Prince Eugen" is a good example of a warship, designed taking into account the traditional attributes of ships of the past (firepower, high speed, security), and taking into account a number of modern trends (multifunctionality, information support, perfect detection and MSA).
The German experience was not the most successful, but it proved the feasibility of such projects in practice. Each of the elements of the heavy cruiser proved to be useful in real combat conditions. The only problem was that the Germans wanted too much from the ship, based on technology from the 30s.
It is not hard to imagine what heights can be achieved today, 80 years after the laying of the Prince Eugen cruiser!
This is what the fascists need! Collision of the TKR "Prince Eugen" with the light cruiser "Leipzig"
… by this time the steel hull had become so radioactive that it seemed impossible to decontaminate it for several months. On December 21, the remaining pumps were no longer able to handle the incoming water, the hull tilted, and the windows were below the surface of the sea. The Americans tried to save the ship by throwing it ashore, but the next day the last of the German heavy cruisers capsized and sank on the reefs of Kwajelin Island
