Duel 027 - German Commerce Raider vs British Cruiser. The Atlantic & The Pacific 1941 (2010).pdf

(6872 KB) Pobierz
GERMAN COMMERCE RAIDER
BRITISH CRUISER
The Atlantic & The Pacific 1941
ROBERT FORCZYK
© Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
GERMAN COMMERCE RAIDER
BRITISH CRUISER
The Atlantic & The Pacific 1941
ROBERT FORCZYK
© Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
First published in Great Britain in 2010 by Osprey Publishing,
Midland House, West Way, Botley, Oxford, OX2 0PH, UK
44–02 23rd St, Suite 219, Long Island City, NY 11101, USA
E-mail: info@ospreypublishing.com
© 2010 Osprey Publishing Ltd.
All rights reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study,
research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act, 1988, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrical, chemical,
mechanical, optical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior
written permission of the copyright owner. Inquiries should be addressed to the
Publishers.
A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library
Print ISBN: 978 1 84603 918 8
PDF e-book ISBN: 978 1 84908 284 6
Page layout by: Ken Vail Graphic Design, Cambridge, UK
Index by Alan Thatcher
Typeset in ITC Conduit and Adobe Garamond
Maps by Bounford.com
3D BEVs by Ian Palmer
Originated by PDQ Digital Media Solutions, Suffolk, UK
Printed in China through Bookbuilders
10 11 12 13 14 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Osprey Publishing is supporting the Woodland Trust, the UK’s leading woodland
conservation charity, by funding the dedication of trees.
Imperial War Museum Collections
Many of the photos in this book come from the Imperial War
Museum’s huge collections which cover all aspects of conflict
involving Britain and the Commonwealth since the start of the
twentieth century. These rich resources are available online to
search, browse and buy at www.iwmcollections.org.uk. In addition
to Collections Online, you can visit the Visitor Rooms where you
can explore over 8 million photographs, thousands of hours of
moving images, the largest sound archive of its kind in the world,
thousands of diaries and letters written by people in wartime, and a
huge reference library. To make an appointment, call (020) 7416
5320, or e-mail mail@iwm.org.uk. Imperial War Museum
www.iwm.org.uk
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Commodore Bob Trotter, OAM RAN (ret’d),
director of the Finding Sydney Foundation, as well as the staffs of
the Bundesarchiv, the Australian War Memorial, the National
Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and the Imperial
War Museum (IWM) for their help in pulling together
photographs and other materials for this project.
Dedication
This volume is dedicated to 1st Lt David T. Wright II, 2-1 IN, 2nd
Infantry Division, KIA September 14, 2009, Helmand Province,
Afghanistan.
Editor’s note
Technical specifications for British and German ships are given in
imperial and metric respectively, according to contemporary
national systems of measurement. The following chart provides
metric/imperial conversion factors:
1 mile = 1.6km
1lb = 0.45kg
1yd = 0.9m
1ft = 0.3m
1in = 2.54cm/25.4mm
1gal = 4.5 liters
1 ton (US) = 0.9 tonnes
For a catalog of all books published by Osprey Publishing please contact:
NORTH AMERICA
Osprey Direct, c/o Random House Distribution Center, 400 Hahn Road,
Westminster, MD 21157
E-mail: uscustomerservice@ospreypublishing.com
ALL OTHER REGIONS
Osprey Direct, The Book Service Ltd, Distribution Centre,
Colchester Road, Frating Green, Colchester, Essex, CO7 7DW
E-mail: customerservice@ospreypublishing.com
www.ospreypublishing.com
© Osprey Publishing. Access to this book is not digitally restricted.
In return, we ask you that you use it for personal, non-commercial
purposes only. Please don’t upload this pdf to a peer-to-peer site, email
it to everyone you know, or resell it. Osprey Publishing reserves all
rights to its digital content and no part of these products may be copied,
stored in a retrieval system or transmitte in any form by any means,
electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise (except as permitted
here), without the written permission of the publisher. Please support
our continuing book publishing programme by using this pdf
responsibly.
© Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
CONTENTS
Introduction
Chronology
Design and Development
Technical specifications
Strategic Situation
Combatants
Combat
Statistics and Analysis
Aftermath
Further Reading
Index
4
10
12
24
33
39
47
73
75
78
80
© Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
INTRODUCTION
“…in action with British cruiser. Fighting for the glory and honor of Germany. A last greeting
to our relatives.”
Last message from
Hilfskreuzer Leopard,
sunk March 16, 1917, by British cruiser
HMS
Achilles
4
At the beginning of the 20th century, it was no secret that Great Britain’s center of
gravity was its immense economic power, fueled by its control of nearly half the world’s
international shipping and trade. Consequently, Britain’s greatest vulnerability was its
merchant fleet, which consisted of more than 20,000 ships. In order to protect this
shipping from potential adversaries, Britain used its wealth to create and maintain
the world’s most powerful navy. While Britain relied on its battle fleets based in home
waters and the Mediterranean to contain direct threats to its naval dominance, the
Royal Navy’s numerous cruiser squadrons were the backbone of commerce
protection overseas.
Imperial Germany also recognized the vulnerability of British maritime trade, and
as early as 1895 began experimenting with converting suitable passenger liners into
commerce raiders. The Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) believed that large, fast
ocean liners would be ideal for conducting commerce raiding against Britain’s distant
shipping lanes, and they developed elaborate plans to convert a wide variety of civilian
shipping into
Hilfskreuzer
(auxiliary cruisers) when the need arose. The sudden start
of the war in August 1914, however, caught the Kaiserliche Marine flat-footed, and
the only forces initially available for commerce raiding were Vizeadmiral Graf
Maximilian von Spee’s cruiser squadron in the Far East, the independent cruisers
Karlsruhe
in the Caribbean and
Königsberg
in German East Africa, and three large
German passenger liners in the North Atlantic.
© Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika:

Zgłoś jeśli naruszono regulamin