The Ship Model Forum

It was doors. It appears they may have been removable.

The Aftermarket 15cm guns that I have in 1/400 and 1/350 scale, do not have these doors included but I have a photo reference from Wolfgang Harnack (copyrighted), that shows doors on the forward guns too.
There are some "builds" by other modelers that do show PE doors added to these mounts on their Graf Spee models.

I suspect my fabric reference may have been based on some other photo I remembered.

Thanks to all who set the record straight.

Nino

I'm thinking it was more likely that the canvas covered opening was pre-war, and the metal doors were added right before hostilities started.

There are very clear photos of the backs of the mounts in Koop & Schmolke that show the canvas rolled up & tied above the openings of the mounts and no doors, but they are all dated 1938 or earlier.

Drastic's photo clearly shows the metal doors during the river Platte action, so we know they were there then.

Bob

Are you not thinking of the armored covers on the torpedo launchers? They had a roll-up canvas cover over the rear end.

This shot of the forward gun shields at Montevideo also shows open doors - you can just see a shadow line of the edge of the door:
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/wp-con ... spee41.jpg

[quote="drasticplastic]Are you not thinking of the armored covers on the torpedo launchers? They had a roll-up canvas cover over the rear end.[/quote]

Nope...

I apologize if the pics aren't very good quality. I'm downstairs and my scanner is upstairs, and I don't feel like dragging it down. So I took these pics with my iPhone.

Pictures are from Pocket Battleships of the Deutschland Class by Gerhard Koop and Klaus-Peter Schmolke.

The first pic is an undated photo of Deutschland/Lutzow, pre war:



Rolled canvas, no doors.

The second pic is Deutschland/Lutzow in '45:



The doors are clearly present now.

This last pic is Graf Spee in '38. No doors. You can't really see any canvas, either, but there clearly aren't any doors.



That's why I think they were added just prior to the war....

Bob

Thank you. Those photos were more than clear enough to resolve the great mystery for me.

I appreciate the effort!!!

I know the question is now settled, but I just thought I would muddy the waters a bit with this pic of one of Gneisenau's 5.9" guns, later in the war, on the Eastern Front!

file:///C:/Users/Joe/Pictures/secondary%20armament.jpg

Moose, you're linking to your computer's harddrive so we can't see it

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De quoi s'agit-il?

Well I think that you solved the metal or canvas issue related to the secondary armament to the Graf Spee. They were all metal during the war, don’t know when they installed them. Eduard PE for Trumpeter Graf Spee provides the doors.

Marco

Couple pictures of the 150mm cannons turrets metal doors, Graf Spee. The one from Alamy is a pre-war shot, staged, I can´t confirm if it was Graf Spee or not. The other one is Graf Spee, South Atlantic, during WWII, not usual to see the doors closed. Metal doors only purpose must have been only to keep weather out, as the cannons could not be operated with the doors closed, and they were too flimsy to shield the gunners from nothing.





Marco