Why was the Deutschland so ineffective compared to the Admiral Graf Spee and the Admiral Scheer?
score:8
...why was the Deutschland not sent on commerce raiding missions as opposed to larger battles?
Bad timing, and a bit of bad luck. She wasn't "less effective" by any means (other than being somewhat lighter build than her sister ships), she just did not get a chance at that one good raiding sortie that her sister ships had.
I'll mis-use the quotation markup here -- normal text on Deutschland / Lützow, quoted text on her sister ships and general course of the war.
At the outbreak of the war, Admiral Graf Spee was already in the South Atlantic, where she could immediately engage in commerce raiding -- in summer conditions. Admiral Scheer remained at anchor close to Wilhelmshaven.
The Deutschland had a short first stint as commerce raider in the (stormy, at this time of year) North Atlantic, during which she sank two ships and captured a third. She was then (November 1939) recalled for refit, including a new bow section to increase her seaworthiness. (Both the Deutschland class cruisers and the Scharnhorst class battleships had issues with wet foredecks, in part because they were lying so low in the water, in part because their bow section proved to be inappropriate for the North Atlantic.)
Admiral Scheer went directly from anchorage to refit. Admiral Graf Spee would have required refitting as well, plus an overhaul of her engines. After all, she had sailed to Madagascar and back. But in December 1939 she had already met her fate in the Battle of the River Plate, ending her stint after nine ships sunk (if I count correctly).
In March 1940, the refit of Deutschland (and her renaming to Lützow) was done. But Operation Weserübung was up, and Lützow was ordered to participate in the operation.
Admiral Scheer was at that time still undergoing refits, and would not be able to sail again till July.
During the invasion of Norway, Lützow took heavy damage in the Battle of Drøbak Sound, and had to return to port for repairs. Those took until the end of March 1941. In June, she was to sail to Norway, to eventually return to the Atlantic for raiding.
This was the time when Admiral Scheer was conducting her stint raiding in the Atlantic, sinking 17 merchant ships before returning for an overhaul of her engines.
As bad luck would have it, en route to Norway Lützow was hit by a torpedo bomber rendering her dead in the water, so she had to be towed back to Germany and repaired again. This would put her out of action till May 1942.
By summer 1941, raiding in the Atlantic had basically become impossible. The sinking of the Bismarck had proven how dangerous air superiority at sea was for capital ships. The network of supply ships that had kept the Kriegsmarine units fueled, fed, and armed was no more. Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen sat holed up in Brest under frequent air attacks. (The British joked about the "Brest Bomb Target Flotilla".) This led to the decision to recall the capital ships to better defendable waters (Unternehmen Zerberus, the Channel Dash). They would not return to the Atlantic for the rest of the war. Instead, they were relocated to Norway, to attack shipping there.
None of the German capital ships had significant success in the Norwegian Sea. The situation had changed. Instead of scouring the wide open waters of the Atlantic for lone merchants, the mission now was attacking escorted convois under Royal Navy air cover. The days of the lone raider were over -- not that any surface ship ever got a second stint in the Atlantic -- and so, eventually, German capital ships were either sunk, or retreated to the Baltic Sea.
(Sources: A mere reshuffling of the Wikipedia articles linked in the question, based on what I already knew about their timelines.)
Upvote:1
One reason was the quality of the ships' respective Captains.
The Admiral Scheer was commanded by Captain Theodore Krancke, the most capable of the three ship commanders, who was promoted to Admiral, after he sank or captured 17 merchantmen.
The Admiral Graf Spee was commanded by Hans Langsdorff, who managed to sink nine merchantmen, but was "cornered" of the coast of Uruguay, by a small British cruiser flotilla.
Captain Stange, of the Lutzow, was the least capable of these three ship commanders. During the so-called New Years' Eve battle, he gave way to a weaker British force consisting of light cruisers and destroyers. The captain of an opposing ship, the Onslow, was promoted to Rear Admiral for his role in that battle, which did not reflect well on Stange or the Lutzow.
Captain Stange was not a worse captain than the skippers of other German ships such as the cruisers Hipper and Prinz Eugen, the battle cruisers Scharhorst and Gneisenau, and the battleships Bismarck and Tirpitz. But in the company of the other two pocket battleship commanders,* he was the least distinguished.
*For instance, Captain Krancke of the Sheer rose to the second or third ranking Admiral of the navy under Doenitz.
Upvote:4
The Deutschland was sent on a commerce raiding mission at the start of the war. However, she was not allowed to begin raiding until 26th September 1939, because Hitler hoped to make peace with Britain and France after taking Poland.
Deutschland was assigned to the North Atlantic, where the weather in October and November tends to be substantially worse than it is in the South Atlantic at the same time. That was where the Admiral Scheer and Admiral Graf Spee had their raiding successes. The Deutschland's biggest success in raiding was tying down the Allied ships searching for her. She returned to port on 17th November and required refitting.
After Admiral Graf Spee was defeated in the Battle of the River Plate on 13th December, the remaining pocket-battleships were never again sent on long-distance solo commerce raids. Since Admiral Graf Spee had been defeated by two light cruisers and one heavy cruiser, rather than the capital ships that were expected to be needed, it was clear that this mission would simply lead to their loss. The fate of the Bismarck emphasised the point.
The Deutschland (renamed Lützow) and Admiral Scheer did the remainder of their war service in Norway, attempting to attack convoys to Russia. Since those were always escorted by ships with good radar, surprise attacks were not possible.
So Deutschland had one chance at raiding success, but was frustrated by bad weather, in an area and time of year when that was to be expected. After that, raiding in the form expected pre-war wasn't considered practical and wasn't attempted.
More post
- 📝 Is it legit to say that allied forces in Market Garden were: USA, British and Polish?
- 📝 Is there a citable reference of druids using curved swords?
- 📝 Why were the Marines so badly outnumbered at the critical point at Guadalcanal?
- 📝 When did the Roman empire start to hire Anglo-Saxon mercenary troops to protect Britain?
- 📝 Why did Anwar Sadat establish diplomatic relationship with Israel and did that decision pay off?
- 📝 Was there a case where a king died while the heir to the throne was unborn?
- 📝 In exchange for forbidding strikes, did Napoleon guarantee high wages?
- 📝 What happened to these buildings near the Seine?
- 📝 Changes to the school leaving dates in Scotland and Northern Ireland
- 📝 What was the average US unemployment rate for Democrat and Republican presidents?
- 📝 Trying to identify this famous person. Young Johnny Unitas?
- 📝 Did Sparta give citizenship to the helots who participated on its side in the Battle of Plataea?
- 📝 What led Guderian as far south as Gomel, in August, 1941?
- 📝 Why did Italian immigration to the US decrease from 1900s to 1920s?
- 📝 When was the American War of Independence first called a 'Revolution'?
- 📝 How much did brigs of 200 tons vary in 1800?
- 📝 Were the lands of the Teutonic Knights part of the Holy Roman Empire?
- 📝 Why did Hitler meet with Subash Chandra Bose in 1942?
- 📝 Why and how were east Brandenburg, Pomerania and Silesia taken away from Germany after WW2?
- 📝 Identify the circa 1920 uniform in this photo
- 📝 Absolute rulers who voluntarily resigned their power
- 📝 Crown Matrimonial
- 📝 Are there any famous people who died from cancer before 1800?
- 📝 Can anyone render this passage from Lorenzo Valla's original Latin translation of Herodotus into modern text?
- 📝 Who voted against German reunification, and why?
- 📝 State budget spending of Roman Empire
- 📝 What was life like for an adult Victorian chimney sweep?
- 📝 Can you identify this US Army uniform?
- 📝 Why didn't Saudi unification include the coastal states of Qatar, the UAE, Oman, Yemen, and Kuwait?
- 📝 What kind of missile flew with such speed in 1st century BCE?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Why was the Deutschland so ineffective compared to the Admiral Graf Spee and the Admiral Scheer?
- 📝 Why were the drawings of Colossus burnt after WW2 and why was its very existence "of course" kept secret?
- 📝 When and why was the samurai class abolished?
- 📝 How and why was the boundary between West and East Berlin decided to be where it was?
- 📝 Why was the US so pro-China and so anti-Japan before WW2?
- 📝 Why was the Red Army successful against the Japanese in 1939 but perform poorly against Finland 1939-40 and early part of WW2?
- 📝 Why was the Cold War carried out over the whole world instead of between Siberia and Alaska?
- 📝 Why was slavery profitable in the Southern colonies and not New England?
- 📝 Why did Japan not withdraw from China as its pacific front was crumbling and the threat of US invasion imminent?
- 📝 Why was an SS commander dismissed and charged for the mistreatment of Jewish prisoners?
- 📝 Why was ancient Christianity more successful than the Roman pantheon and Judaism in gaining followers?
- 📝 Why was the government expenditures of the Roman Empire very low compared to modern governments?
- 📝 Why was Bulgaria at war with both the Allied and the Axis at the end of WWII?
- 📝 Why did antique guns and swords from the Franco-Prussian War make part of the demilitarization program to which Germany was subjected?
- 📝 Why was Italy unified under the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia and not under a stronger state?
- 📝 Why was the first production PzKpfw V (Panther) called the Ausf.D, and the second production version called the Ausf.A?
- 📝 Why was the spread of Christianity scattered compared to other major religions?
- 📝 Why was it necessary to maintain a balance of power between the Slave and Free states?
- 📝 Why in the 70s and 80s was the United Kingdom called Great Britain in the international naming conventions?
- 📝 When and why was the Shinkolobwe Mine flooded and re-opened?
- 📝 Why was the Tea Horse Route through Tibet less prevalent than the Silk Road route through Tarim Basin, for contact between China and India?
- 📝 When and why was the 55th parallel established as an administrative boundary in Quebec?
- 📝 Did the Balkans campaign delay Operation Barbarossa for the Nazis and was it therefore an important reason why they lost against the Soviets in WWII?
- 📝 Why was there such tension between the Ottoman Empire and Russia during the Armenian genocide?
- 📝 Why was James II and VII (same person), the last Roman Catholic monarch of Britain, not forced to convert to Anglicanism?
- 📝 Why was North and South America less developed than other parts of the world?
- 📝 What was the main driver of conquest and wars in ancient times? Why were they so frequent?
- 📝 Why was Roman painting so inferior to the sculpture and architecture of the same period?
- 📝 Why did Hitler attack the Soviet Union when he was still busy fighting the United Kingdom?
- 📝 Why did archery not make a comeback when armor was phased out in the 18th century?
