Tarnanstrich Schlachtschiff „Scharnhorst“

[Baunummer 509]

Hi,

i also wondered why Langfjord was chosen. Seems far from ideal for protecting the valuable ships.
I've red in a book about Panzerschiff Deutschland, that after Scharnhorst was sunk and the then called Lützow was engaged in fighting back the red army in the baltic sea, they sent a ship to grab the last rounds of 28cm shells from Langfjord to keep Lützows Main guns firing and supplied with 28cm shells.

Does that mean that there was at least an ammunition bunker or dump In Langfjord?

Bye
Sebastian

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ Teddy Suhren,

you are making some very interesting points, but only knowing perfectly the area, the infrastructures in there and the story behind all this one can realize why they did it in that way.

First of all you have to keep in consideration that Tirpitz was the main British target, Scharnhorst and Lutzow were a lot less important, in fact once the X-Craft's attacking were reduced from 6 to only 3, ... they all went toward Tirpitz and none targeted anymore Scharnhorst or Lutzow on September 22nd, 1943 during Op. Source.

This assumed now you have to realize that if the Scharnhorst and Lutzow had been kept into the KaaFjord anchorage, they were going to be potential target too and also utilize the netz protected anchorages that instead could have been used, as they did, by the anti-aircraft flakships and support ships used by Tirpitz.

So the objective on using the LangFjord anchorages was double, ... remove a target from the area subject to sure air attacks, ... and reinforce Tirpitz protections too.

They did the same in Trondehim using Faettenfjord and Lofjord anchorages, ... and also in Narvik using Bogen and Skjomen fjord too.

@ JotDora,

I am sure there was one bunker to store ammunitions in LangFjord too, ... in the area of Sopnes/Frankebukta, ... where Scharnhorst and Lutzow were usually anchored.
Thanks for your information about the 280 mm shells .... as I never read about it yet.

        Bye / Gruss Antonio 

 

 

 

[Teddy Suhren]

Maybe it's not such a bad choice to chose Langfjord and the other Norwegian Fjords for hiding the ships. They are often small tubes with high Mountains along both sides.
To me it seems to be difficult to drop bombs to a small target somewhere in this tube.

Kind of fatal or rational thinking:
If they hit and damage or sank Tirpitz we still had Scharnhorst to attack convoys.

[Urs Heßling]

hi,

To me it seems to be difficult to drop bombs to a small target somewhere in this tube.

I don't think that too difficult with modern bomb-sights, BUT
you have to "fly in" on a straight (and only one available) course ...
which makes things rather easy for the AA batteries on the heights around the fjord.

Ich glaube nicht, daß es zu schwierig ist, ein Ziel im Fjord mit Bomben zu treffen ...
Aber der Anflug aufs Ziel muß auf einem (und nur einem) geraden Kurs erfolgen ...
was es der auf den Höhen ringsherum stationierten Flak etwas leichter macht.

Gruß, Urs

[kalli]

Von meinem Freund Jürgen erhielt ich nachfolgende Zeilen als Reaktion auf diese Threaddiskussion:

Liebe Freunde der Scharnhorst-Tarnung,
über die vielen Stellungnahmen habe ich mich sehr gefreut. Für mich ergab sich ein Überblick über den Tarnungs-Kenntnisstand zu Scharnhorst im Forum. Jetzt mehr beruhigt, kann ich mich demnächst um meinen Bausatz 1:350 kümmern.
Also nochmals vielen Dank ans Forum!
Die Bilder zeigen ein Fernost-Modell im Maßstab 1:1250 mit Tarnversuch.