Scharnhorst against Force 1 (Belfast, Sheffield, and Norfolk)

[Bill Gormley]

I'm reading John Winton's "Death of the Scharnhorst" as background for building the Dragon kit and I have a general question. After being surprised by Force 1 (Belfast, Sheffield, and Norfolk) on the morning of December 26th the Scharnhorst disengaged to avoid damage and make its way around the cruisers to attack the convoy (JW55B).

Winton writes that, "With hindsight, it is clear that Bey should have tried to force his way past the three cruisers opposing him. They were much smaller, much more lightly-armed, and slower in the sea conditions." Writing of Bey's logic, he continues, "But none of this seems to have impressed Doenitz. In his opinion, the three British cruisers had been in an 'extremely dangerous position when they had encountered Scharnhorst at 0920.' She was 'far superior to them in armour, sea-keeping qualities and, above all, in fire power.' Scharnhorst was so much superior that, in Doenitz's view, 'when contact had been established in the morning, the ensuing gun battle should have been fought out to its conclusion.'"

Speaking purely from a force point of view, is the above criticism valid? What I mean is, when you put aside Bey's reservations about risking his ship in an uncertain situation, Doenitz's desire for results that would justify the fleet's continued existence, and the fact that one of Norfolk's first shells happened to disable Scharnhorst's "Seetakt" radar, was Scharnhorst more than a match for the three cruisers on paper?

I'm no expert on naval matters, but it seems to me the math isn't so convincing. Scharnhorst may have had heavier armor, but I count eight 8-inch guns, 12 6-inch guns, and 12 torpedo tubes across the three cruisers, which would have been able to split Scharnhort's fire. Handled skillfully and assuming even luck, it seems to me the cruisers would have posed a very serious threat to Scharnhorst. And while it was much smaller and less well armored, didn't the Admiral Graf Spee demonstrate this scenario? I'd be interested to hear what others think.

[Timmy C]

An interesting analogy would be the chase of the Goeben in the opening days of WWI, with Admiral Troubridge wondering whether his fleet of armoured cruisers would/should be used to chase down that German battlecruiser. (seems to happen a lot in history, doesn't it?) Troubridge was subject to rather extensive critical examination afterwards as to why he eventually (after some convincing by his flag captain) didn't think his cruisers could take down Goeben and thus broke off the chase. Worth looking into some more for the purposes of answering your question, I think.

[Dan K]

A compelling converse argument is the result of the Battle of the River Platte. Ture, Graf Spee was more lightly armed and armored compared to Scharnhorst but, she clearly had her hands full, and suffered accordingly. In better weather.

[Bill Gormley]

Another thing that comes to mind is the fact that Burnett led Force 1 right at Scharnhorst after picking her up on radar. Knowing as he did that Scharnhorst was at sea, I can't imagine Burnett thought he was closing something other than Scharnhorst. So was he suicidal? Per Doenitz and Winton they didn't stand a chance.

[steviecee]

i'm sure that Burnett remembered Trowbridge, Byng and the River Platte

[Jean-Paul Binot]

Absolutely. SInce Admiral Byng was shot 'pour encourager les autres', british admirals know that they may be pardoned for losing a battle but never for shying away from one.

In a very different strategic situation than their British counterparts, the Kriegsmarine admirals had to preserve their few ships. The Fleet in Being concept is a potent factor in naval strategy. It does not bring glory and epic battles, but it weights out of proportion on a numerically superior enemy.

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

my 2 cents here ...

Fleet in being and get ready to intercept was a succesful strategy, .. Tirpitz during Op. Rosselsprung and PQ 17 is an historical confirmation.

When Tirpitz was ready to set sail no Artic convoy was passing up there anymore.

With Tirpitz out of order ( Sept. 22nd, 1943 --> X-Crafts ) and only Scharnhorst available,... than it was a kid game with Norwegian underground agents help to know what was going on up there ... and prepare a nice trap for Scharnhorst that was simply left alone with 13 warships against one at the end ... and HMS Duke of York being far superior to her gunnery.

Never to forget that Scharnhorst even with her initial working radar was " blind " firing against the Burnett cruiser force into the darkness ... and after against Fraser on DoY was totally blind, ... even without the radar to tell her that she was sailing into the final trap.

Bye Antonio

[Admiral John Byng]

Hi Bill, I think that should be 24 6" guns Belfast and Sheffield had 12 each.

Personally I would not engage such a strong cruiser force, if they are able to fire their torpedoes they can make life very uncomfortable for Scharnhorst plus the amount of shells they can put in the air could cause a lot of damage to the large areas of the ship which are unarmoured. The lesson of Bismarck is that this force will not be the only one in the area so a crippled Scharnhorst would be very lucky to get back to a friendly port.

[Bill Gormley]

Hi Bill, I think that should be 24 6" guns Belfast and Sheffield had 12 each.

Oops!

Math aside, I agree it would have been very risky to engage Force 1. Even if Bey had been confident there wasn't a covering force in the area, he would have been fighting in low light conditions that did not favor the Scharnhorst and facing the prospect of guiding a damaged ship home through an Arctic gale.

Interestingly, Winton suggests that Bey should have "tried to force his way past the three cruisers opposing him" but doesn't say how Bey could have accomplished that. Winton can't seriously have expected Force 1 to stand aside, so I take his words to mean that he agrees with Doenitz. Possibly Winton meant Scharnhorst should have fought its way past Force 1 and then used its higher top speed in the heavy seas to find and destroy the convoy ... but Bey was still searching for the convoy at that point and didn't know exactly where it was.

As for the effect the 8-inch and 6-inch shells would have had on Scharnhorst, I guess I'll get a better idea once I read further.

[Olaf Held]

As for the effect the 8-inch and 6-inch shells would have had on Scharnhorst, I guess I'll get a better idea once I read further.

Well, think about what PG's 8-inchers did with their APs (?) on Hood and PoW... it's not about really doing great damage to weaponry or machinery, but munching off bits and pieces here and there can be very effective. Rangefinders and radar sets can be very vulnerable to enemy fire. Or a lucky hit in the more or less unprotected foreship, maybe similar to Bismarck, can cause many problems, speedwise.

Happy discussing ~ Olaf!

[Filipe Ramires]

Not to speak of the high possibility that a shell hit can start a fire aboard.

[EJFoeth]

You can wonder what would have happened if Scharnhorst would have opened beyond the range of an 8" gun and place a few feeler salvos. If you hit one cruiser and drop its speed, the odds increase. If not, that's too bad, but Scharnhorst has the advantage of speed and firepower that is difficult to counter with cruisers (unlike the lightly armoured Graf Spee) so it can always disengage (in flames or otherwise). The destroyers to the south may have attempted an attack. Acast & Ardent managed to score a torpedo hit against two Scharnhorst. Anyway, I always had the idea that the British force without DoY might be able to finish her off, especially after Scharnhorst sent her destroyers home.

[IainS]

As I recall Bey was explicitly told not to endanger the ship so his avoidance of Force 1 was actually in compliance with his orders.

It would have helped if the intelligence the Germans had about the Force 2 (Fraser) had made its was to Bey who no doubt would have returned to base.

As to whether the cruisers would have made a good showing against the Scharnhorst surely much would have depended on luck. Certainly three cruisers would have presented the Germans with a challenging fire control solution. But would they have accepted the battle? Their role was to shepherd the Scharnhorst into range of the Duke of York. Surely they would have attempted to avoid and delay until Fraser arrived.

Iain

[Bill Gormley]

On the last page of the book, the author notes that Captain Russell Grenfell, the naval correspondent of the Sunday Times wrote the following on January 2nd: "By comparison with this masterly British performance, the Scharnhorst's conduct seems extraordinarily vacillating and irresolute. She should have been quite strong enough to break through the British cruiser screen and play havoc with the convoy. Yet she wasted about three vital hours between two half-hearted and ineffectual advances, and finally went down with great loss of life without achieving anything at all."

That's three knowledgeable observers (Winton, Doenitz, and Grenfell) who believed Scharnhorst would have been able to deal with Force 1 on its own. And after reading the second half of the book I find myself agreeing with them. For one, the damage the cruisers received from their brief encounters with the Scharnhorst underscores their vulnerability had the fight gone on longer. In contrast, the terrific amount of damage the Scharnhorst absorbed shows how tough an opponent she would have been. For example, Winton writes, "Despite her 80 broadsides, Duke of York had yet to land a really damaging blow (indeed, Scharnhorst's survivors said they could have withstood that sort of fire 'for two days')." That might be the survivors' pride speaking, but I don't think you can write that comment off completely. So to answer my own original question, I do believe Scharnhorst would be a match for Force 1 by itself.

[Admiral John Byng]

As I recall Bey was explicitly told not to endanger the ship so his avoidance of Force 1 was actually in compliance with his orders.

Iain

This situation reminds me of the case of Admiral Matthews in 1744 when he engaged a French fleet of similar force. By following the Fighting Instructions, issued by the Admiralty, he should destroy the enemy fleet without endangering his own.
Of course he engaged the enemy without a decisive outcome and was courtmartialled.

It seems to me that Bey is also "damned if you do and damned if you don't".

[sirpaul]

The Scharnhorst faced 24 6 inch guns not 12. Thats a lot of shells per minute, it would be like rain. The Hipper also ran when faced with this battery.

[Bill Gormley]

The Scharnhorst faced 24 6 inch guns not 12. Thats a lot of shells per minute, it would be like rain. The Hipper also ran when faced with this battery.

2 light cruisers with 12-6in guns each & 1 heavy cruiser with 8-8in guns.

Yes, I realized my math error above. But then Scharnhorst carried 12 5.9" guns and 14 4.1" guns.

I went back through Winton's book and took a close look at his description of the two encounters between Scharnhorst and Force 1. The first lasted roughly 45 minutes from 9.30 when Burnett ordered Force 1 to open fire to roughly 10.14 when both sides turned away. The damage seems to have been entirely to Scharnhorst: one of Norfolk's 8" shells destroyed the Seetakt radar on Scharnhorst's foremast while another penetrated (but did not explode) between the port side 5.9" gun and torpedo tubes.

The second encounter lasted roughly 20 minutes from 12.21 when Force 1 opened fire to 12.41 when Burnett ceased fire and decided to shadow Scharnhorst and wait for Force 2 to come up. According to survivor Wilhelm Godde, Scharnhorst suffered no damage during this second battle. Winton seems to accept the British account that Norfolk and Sheffield both scored one or two hits although he does not suggest they caused significant damage. Scharnhorst focused on Norfolk (due to its lack of flashless cordite) and scored a hit at 12.33 that put Turret X out of action and prompted the crew to flood the magazine as a precaution. A second hit amidships affected the engine room. Norfolk's Type 273 surface warning set was put out of action and its Type 284 8" gunnery control set was damaged (later repaired).

According to Doenitz: "'This time the Scharnhorst was tactically in a much more favourable position, and it was the enemy who were silhouetted against the brighter south-western horizon, while Scharnhorst had the dark, northern sector behind her. The correct thing to have done now would have been to continue the fight and finish off the weaker British forces, particularly as it was plain that they had already been hit hard.'"

Winton provides more information about the state of Force 1 later on. Norfolk "had kept up well with the rest of Force 1, in spite of her damage" but at 15.45 signaled that she had a fire over an oil fuel tank which could not be controlled unless the ship altered course to reduce rolling. At 16.10 Sheffield's port inner set of main turbine gearing failed and the shaft had to be stopped and locked to prevent excessive vibration. Norfolk rejoined Force 1 at 17.00. Sheffield rejoined Force 1 at 21.00 - well after the battle was over. This left Belfast alone to shadow Scharnhorst for a period of time.

According to Belfast's captain, F.R. Parham, ""Belfast's amazing immunity was a constant source of wonder (as well as profound relief) to Parham, who could not understand why Scharnhorst did not turn and attack, especially when her radar must have disclosed that Belfast was alone. 'Norfolk had damage,' said Parham, 'and Sheffield's engines had gone funny. We were alone, shadowing that great ship. She was a much bigger ship than us. She'd only got to turn around for ten minutes and she could have blown us clean out of the water!'" (Italics original)

We'll never know for sure who would have won an all out battle, but the results of the second encounter are eye opening. Two hits from Scharnhorst's 11" guns were enough to knock Norfolk out of the picture for roughly four hours. In return, the four hits on Scharnhorst seem to have had little effect. And luck was running about even up to that point: Norfolk knocked out Scharnhorst's forward radar with one of its first shells but Sheffield developed engine trouble at the worst possible moment. So 24 6" guns or not I'd put my money on Scharnhorst. None of the contemporary sources cited by Winton seems to disagree.

[Thoddy]

The general german strategy was to avoid fight with even forces as the general order wich was given "Zur�ckhaltung �ben bei gleichstarkem Gegner"

definition of "gleichstarker Gegner" for Scharnhorst: one ww1 battleship or two heavy cruiser
ther are 3 cruiser and the cruiser force was also reinforced by the 4 destroyers of the 36th divsion, wich operate for torpedo attack. Weather was supporting such attacks and Scharnhorst had to avoid pincer attacks at all costs. The weather/and also the loss of the main radar set also prevents the superior weapons(compared to the cruisers) of the Scharnhorst to came to optimal effect.

from the pers�pective of Scharnhorst it was not recogniszable that a a significant impairment of the cruisers strenght was present.

shortly after 1200 the return of Scharnhorst was postponed by force II

[maxim]

The superior firepower of Scharnhorst could be only used in good visibility. The inferior fire control control, especially inferior radar, of Scharnhorst favoured the British cruisers.

[Thoddy]

From what documentation or book do you derive that Scharnhorst had an inferior firecontrol and radar, respectively what were the effects expected from this inferiority. During that engagment SH did not use lightning shells so detection and targeting of british warships must have been based on data from the secondary set.

Maybe an inadequate use of existing radar and radar detecting equipment plays an important role at the sinking.
And early damage to the primary radar set had of course impact on the ability to detect and track multiple targets.
but from this event of of course you can not be derive, that the capabilities were generally inferior compared to foreign counterparts.