Hi all shipbuilders!

I've recently thought of joining the Drednaught's campaigne, but didn't quite knew what ship to biuld. Then I thought about a picture I saw in My book "Gdynia", which is about the city i live in. There's an old photograph of Gneisenau battlecruser sunk at the entrance to the harbour. Now I suppose most of you experts in this forum know the story but it's short and I just wanted to share it anyway, so here goes.

Just prior the liberation of gdynia, at night 27/ 28th march 1945 two tug boats of dying Kriegsmarine towed the giant to the entrance of the harbour basin where it was to be torpedoed to block the harbour. Sheer madness. Gneisenau was so huge that even laying on the bottom its deck was above the waterline.

The ship was raised from the bottom in 1951 which required making of the new concrete port side where the torpedoes hit, sealing all bottom valves which germans also destroyed and pumping out the water to tow the ship away so it could be scraped.

Well this is the story that inspired me to join the campaign whit the intention of building the Gneisenau for it



Cheers
Pedro

Hi Grzegorz, Pedro

Welcome to the Salty part of Armorama!
Are you going to make the Gneisenau as in the picture?
It would be a real challenge and unusual dio!

Keep us posted, please!

Skipper

That's a very interesting story Grzegorz. I knew the Gneisenau was out of commission while they were refitting her to carry 15" guns, but hadn't heard she was to be used as a block ship. Seems the Kriegsmarine was active in Gdynia at the beginning and ending of WWII. You probably know how it was a German pre-dreadnought battleship that opened WWII with a shore bombardment there.

By the way, I only get the dreaded Red X for the photo you posted. Can you try again? I'd love to see that photo.

Great bit of history there Grzegorz! Like Skipper mentioned, that would make a most interesting diorama!

Welcome!

Swabbing the deck...
Steve

Hi Rodger!

Here is the link for the pic:
http://www.gdynia.mm.pl/~g_ziecina/gneisenau.jpg

Strange, because I can see it...

Skipper

If I live to be a hundred I'll never understand computers, and I've sold them for a living. Now it's showing up just fine.

Boy, she looks a real wreck. Was the entire superstructure sticking out of the harbor up until 1951?

It's too bad she was scrapped, what a wonderful museum piece she would have made Oh that reminds me. I heard that the force from Katrina was so strong that the Alabama which is concreted and buried in mud got shifted. I think my friend said a 9 degree list

Which (I know there were more than one..but most notable) German warship was used for the Able/Baker tests? Up until today, I've always had it in the back of my mind that it was Gneisenau...obvioulsy not..

It was the Prinz Eugen. She survived both tests, then was towed to Kawalijen (sp) where she later capsized. The guns from one of her turrets was removed prior to the test, for testing in the US, and at least one of her screws have been removed from the wreck and sent to Germany.

The USN seemed to treat the German ship entirely differently than the Japanese ships. The IJN ships were sent there to die, the German ship was kept quite a ways from the center of both tests.

Prinz Eugen even had the honour of being commissioned to the US Navy thing that neither Sakawa or Nagato received as far as I can tell. Prinz Eugen escaped much damage during the final stage of WWII and even playing havoc with his main guns against incoming soviet armour columns. He probably survived Bikini tests because she was too far away. I have a big poster of the explosion and ships can be identified easily...I must say that Prinz Eugen is the one more far away from the nuke explosion. Being closer to it he would have sunk probably.

Thanks for replies guys!

Skipper, as for the dio I don't think I'd be able to go with
this kind of project, as I've never tried to replicate water, like clear resin or anything. I only have thought of building the ship as when it was fully operational, preferably in camo if it was aplied in any period.

Rodger, I think that superstructure was sticking above like in the photo until they picked her up but I cant be sure. The pre-drednaught battleship you mention was "Schleswig Holstein" that was visiting then free city of Gdańsk as a training ship. It opened the war with the bobarding of polish garrison on Westerplatte which is a district of Gdansk.
Well as the distance between Gdynia and Gdańsk is about 25 kilometers so I belive that Kriegsmarine did operated pretty heavily in the area. Theres even now something near the shore that I belive could be some submarine refitting station in WWII.

Cheers
Pedro

ps. I'll try to make my mind about the dio cause I kinda like the idea, maybe I'll make two entries: the dio and the ship itself, if the time allows me to...

Last minute info: I've just noticed on some czech site about warships that according to them Gneisenau was picked up in 1947. Now I dont know which is closer: 1951or 1947 but for now i would belive more to wahats written in my book...

BTW
What kit of Gneisenau would be the best? At first I settled in my mind for tamiyas 1:700 model, but then i found that revell also have one listed and its in 1:570.
The price on the revell offering is almost double to that of the tamiya make. Now I know it is considerably larger, but is it worth the price, or maybe there is some other alternative ?

Tamiya's Gneisenau is very nice (yet another model I've had for ages without building) and may be newer than the Revell one. I'm surprised the Revell one is more expensive as most of their 1/570 stuff is even older than the Tamiya waterline models (which are mostly mid1970s).

Anyway, neither is totally suited to the final appearance of the Gneisenau which was undergoing conversion to 380mm armament when Hitler gave up on the Kriegsmarine and stopped the work. That's why the ship lacks turrets in the first photograph. According to 'List of ship kits', both represent early-war versions of the ship, with the exact version modelled by Revell being a bit of a mystery...

Plenty of Gneisenau here, including the reuse of the turrets as coastal batteries

http://www.scharnhorst-class.dk/gneisenau/gneisenau_menu.html

EDIT - looks like the scuttled Gneisenau at the start of this thread is iced in, looks like there are people walking around the ship on the ice.

Thanks for info David, and the site is just great, loads of useful photos there.
As for the price I'll have to go check my LHS for comparison, till now I only checked internet vendors for the prices.

Early war version should be no problem as I want to make one model with camo which I belive was used then. Also I think that tamiya kit would be nicer because there is some selection of etched rails for 1:700 scale and none I think for the 1:570

The ice in the photo is quite common on the shallow and peaceful (comapred to open sea) waters of the Zatoka Gdańska (Gdańsk Bay). Especially when some harder winters occour

EDIT: Just discovered there's also a Fujimi kit of 1:700 Gneisenau available How ist that kit compared to tamiyas offering?

Cheers
Pedro