Private venture designs for Kriegsmarine cruisers and capital ships

[PT Dockyard]

Here is a drawing  of a German light cruiser design with 15-6" guns. It was from a 1/700 kit and was of a design prepared by a German private shipyard, not a formal KM design.

http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z206/ptdockyard/German%20cl%20berlin-kl.2.jpg

Can anyone provide the name of the kit and details of the design?

Are there other private venture designs out there that were prepared for possible build for the Kriegsmarine? I am aware of the KW45 battlecruiser design but were there other designs for cruisers or battlecruisers?


Thank you,
Dave G
The PT Dockyard

[Urs Heßling]

hi, Dave,

http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z206/ptdockyard/German%20cl%20berlin-kl.2.jpg

I harbour the suspicion that this might be a fake.
This looks like a "extended Nürnberg" with a little bit of Dido (5 turrets) thrown in ..
But why two catapults ?
Additionally, I've never heard of a private German dockyard providing a Kriegsmarine design.

greetings, Urs

[PT Dockyard]

Hello Urs,
The other one I have heard of is the Battlecruiser Projeckt KW45.

I found the following on the page below:

http://www.navyfield.com/Community/Forum/Old/View.aspx?num=155904&category=D08&v_page=3


"Design plan KW45 was a private shipyard schematic independently produced by the
Kriegsmarinewerft Wilhelmshaven yard, hence the "KW" designation - official capital ship
blueprints were labeled "L" for linienschiffe (battleship) or "GK" for grossekampfschiffe
(battlecruiser). They were somewhat similar in concept to the officially accepted OPQ
battlecruiser designs, but considerably more ambitious in scope. The KW45 class would have
been very large, exceptionally fast at 37 knots (!) projected speed, armed with a main
battery consisting of eight 15"/42 guns in four twin turrets and an unusually heavy mixed
secondary battery, and with only slightly more armor than the criminally thin protection
of the OPQ design. The KW45 design, as well as an enlarged design KW50 with improved armor
and torpedo protection, were presented to the Kreigsmarine shipbuilding committee in 1939,
but apparently did not meet with approval - although the blueprints were archived together
with the official "Z Project" ships that were planned for construction."

I know this is a game site but Alnavco/Superior also make a 1/1200 model of the KW45 as well.

The light cruiser was one of at least two shipyard designs that were made into 1/700 kits a few years back. It could be a fake but there was some explanation behind them that unfortunately I did not save.

Dave

[ufo]

I think with some of these documents we have to keep in mind that especially the Kriegsmarinewerft was also a large training yard. Naval engineering officers of the specification ship- and harbour-building did spend the fifth teaching block, the last one before going to university, at the Kriegsmarinewerft Wilhelmshaven (Lehrordnung fuer den Offiziernachwuchs).

They may well have spend time on the design floors, learning every stage of plan drawing. I always thought that especially KW45 / 50 looks like something out of the pen of a bunch of exuberant ensigns let loose; adding everything and anything one might through into a proper Ueberschlachtschiff.

Such teaching projects might well have survived, properly labelled and marked and then collected with all the rest by the victors sweeping the shelves. The superfiring three turret design looks peculiar un-german but might well have been the exercise class "Let's upgrade a Panzerschiff thinking of alternatives to the Scharnhorst idea with its third triple turret".       

I think we know of most plan material captured by the allies. But there might yet well be designs, ideas and plans out there that ensigns were allowed to take with them to ship building university and that subsequently got lost in private hands.

Just my two pence worth ...
Ufo

[Thoddy]

Ich habe KW 45 in den Akten gefunden.
Machbarkeits Studie
BA-MA-RM-20-1913 Schiffbauplan Typen 1939-40
Akten AV
es wurden bereits Schleppversuche im Modellversuch 30 - 40 kn durchgeführt
definitiv kein Projekt eines privaten Unternehmens

[torpedo mixer]

5 Wellen - Schiff - so schnell die Gäule laufen konnten!

[Peter K.]

KW 45 sollte bereits zu diesem Zeitpunkt (September 1939) ein Tunnelheck erhalten, das widerstandsmäßig durchaus positiv beurteilt wurde. Derartige Überlegungen begannen also nicht erst nach dem verhängnisvollen Rudertreffer auf BS, wie manchmal zu lesen ist ...
Daneben gab es auch noch die Projekt KW 30 und KW 50.