Shipping Losses

SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN sunk in shallow water 18th of December 1944 at Cotenhaven. It was later raised after war and transferred to Tallin.

 

I think this is a prodigal effort simply to decrypt a table-makers intent, but here goes:
Bismarck, Tirpitz
Scharnhorst, Gneisenau
Scheer, Graf Spee (Lutzow was recovered by the Soviets postwar)
Hipper, Blucher
Konigsberg, Karlsruhe
I assume these are the six "battleships" and four cruisers listed in the table.
If we want to include Schleswig-Holstein, what about Schlesien? But obviously neither was included as a battleship in the table.

 

Ultimately I'm not convinced. War time experience doesn't seem to have held them up as great ships. The rise in battleship speed compromised the rational they were based on. I know you can't expect a ship designer to look into the future but a for a fairly substantial piece of kit the Deutschlands really didn't age all that well.

I think they fell into the same catagory as the British Armored Carriers. Interesting and not without their merits but ultimately not the best in their field.

 

Of course wartime experience didn't vindicate Deutschland. The fundamental concept was completely dead by May 1941. That's why we've been calling them obsolescent. In 1932, though, against a French enemy (Britain wasn't pegged as a potential foe until some years later), she looks pretty good.

 

I could be said that a lot of the German ship of that period weren't that great. The few that did look good it was mostly due to having a displacement greater than that stated.

By the way anyone know if they ever fixed the problems with their heavy shells?

 

German ships also required huge crew complements, which partly explains the extra size of the designs.
My impression is that German shells have a worse reputation than they deserve--though they did deserve a bad one. The problem was that the designs did not progress much from WWI standards. To the best of my knowledge, official proofing requirements did not change at all. Maybe this was because German shells were so good in the first war that no improvment was thought necessary. In contrast, American shells went from proofing at 15deg to proofing at well past 30deg.
However, every navy produced its share of dud shells. For whatever reason, Eugen's duds at Denmark Strait and Bismarck's alleged duds in that same battle have come to seem the rule rather than the exception. I am not familiar with any reforms that would have corrected the shortcomings that did exist.

 

German ship losses WWII

2 BBs: Bismarck and Tirpitz
2 obsolete BBs: Schelwig-Holstein and Schlesien
2 BCs: Gneisenau and Scharnhorst
3 CB (large cruisers): Graf Spee, Admiral Scheer, and Lutzow
2 CA: Blucher and Admiral Hipper
4 CL: Karlschue, Konigsberg, Koln and Emden
27 DDs
18 Escorts
16 Corvettes
51 Torpedo boats
7 Raiders

I believe Blucher had the honor of being the largest ship sunk by shore defenses and Konigsburg the first warship lost to air attack (RAF Skuas).

 

Thank you, Notmi.

 

This might be entitled "Death of a surface fleet". Only the IJN loss table would surpass this one for sheer annihilation. British losses were higher than the German ones, but theirs were replaced.

 

The Canadian Merchant Navy

Here is a great link for the Merchant Navy of Canada.

http://members.tripod.com/~merchantships/

Cheers!

 

Heres a list of all DDs lost during WW2.


American: 99
British: 169
Dutch: 9
French: 60
German: 25
Italian: 134
Japanese: 134
Soviet: 33

Excluding 33 French DDs scuttled in 1942, a total of 87 percent of these DDs were sunk in action.

 

Unsurprising. Destroyers were, and are, in many ways the workhorses of the surface combatant fleet; it's only logical that they would suffer the most losses. BTW, does your combat loss percentage figure allow for the three American DDs sunk in a typhoon in December of 1944?

 

If ur reffering to the DDs sunk in the typhoon in the pacific that also damaged some escort carriers, then the answer is yes

 

Very good. 8)