The Story of The Admiral Scheer: Germany's Mighty Pocket Battleship

Hey Everyone thanks for watching! Some important things of note that I failed to catch in editing.

1. The Admiral Scheer achieved a top speed of 28.3 knots.
2. She was initially equipped with 6 88 mm guns, later to be changed to 105 mm guns.
3. I say she heads to Trondheim and then fail to mention where she goes after that. She goes to Bogen in Norway.

Sorry for these mistakes, the sources make things a bit confusing!

I’m always surprised there is not more information or videos done on scheer. One of the most successful kreigsmarine surface units.

Great episode - an overlooked ship, one whose history I didn't know well. Thanks for this I'm learning a lot from this. Keep it up love your channel.

This was an excellent documentary on the Panzerschiff design and their operations. The Battle of the River Plate will always stand out as the peak operations of the Graf Spee. The old movie was excellent and portrayed the entire ruse of the British well. Captain Langsdorf was not fond of the Nazi Party and his allegiances lied with the German Navy. He was chivalrous and courteous to those that he captured and he was a very kind and accommodating captain (which is more than can be said of the captain of the Altmark, Captain Henrich Dau). With the British scheming to deceive the Germans into believing that the majority of the British naval fleet was waiting just outside of the mouth of the River Plate off of Montevideo, Captain Langsdorf chose a skeleton crew, sailed out of Montevideo Harbor, stopped his ship, set the explosives to scuttle his ship, and abandoned ship. A week later he committed suicide on the German flag. In my humble opinion Captain Langsdorf was a proper gentleman, a dedicated captain, and he placed the needs of his crew above his own. He knew that Hitler would personally see to his breaking upon arrival back to Germany, so he did what he had to do. He did not want to see the destruction of his ship, the loss of his crew, or the potential of the enemy getting a hold of his ship, so he did the best that he could do when faced with such a difficult situation.

Before talkinng about the Scheer please evaluate what the Treaty of Versailles was and what it meant. Like the Australian historian Prof. Christopher Clark stated: All of the major European powers had their fair share in the outbreak of WW 1, but Germany was the only country that was held accountable for it. Furthermore Germany´s surrender was a splendid opportunity for the UK and France to weaken Germany so intensely that it wouldn´t be a rival for the foreseeable future. The result - in the end - was quite the opposite. The German population felt like being treated very unfairly and in the end that led to the Nazi barbarians. So - the restrictions of that shameful treaty were massive. In fact you couldn´t build a real capital ship with 10.000 tons. The last Dreadnoughts scratched the 30.000 tons region and the German Navy had to decide whether it would build something like the pocket battleships or something like a heavy coastal monitor with big guns, strong armorment bur slow speed. They preferred the first possibility but had to live with the fact that they had to lie about the real size of these ships that actually was about 14.000 tons.
IMHO Scheer was the only ship of these three that was operating in the way that it was designed for. But with the upcoming RADAR technology and the building programs of fast battleships these ships became obsolete in their role as raiders. Furthermore they were not fast enough to operate like cruisers. So in the end the reamaining two ships were pretty useless.

Against superior forces, however good, destruction is the ending.

'I hope you enjoyed' - as an Englishman who 'feels' for any sailor I feel so much regret that those German sailors died so horribly, even if they were ruled by a monster. Very good video, but 'enjoyed' is the wrong word. 'Informed' would be better.

a prime example of naval race and what state of the art might become obsolete just 1 decade later...

By 1940 with only 3 battlecruisers avaiable for the Royal Navy and with France out of the war... Admiral Scheer and Lutzow should have their prime day...

but not, fast battleships make these "mini battlecruisers" (a much more reasonable name than pocket battleships) completely obsolete.

I never really understood why didn't they sail along in pairs... a 2x Pocket Battleship formation would have required at least 2 heavy and 4 light cruisers to reasonable contest. But judging by River Plate battle and how much the Spee could have sunk the entire british formation, the real number might be twice that. Or a full 1 battlecruiser + 3 cruisers

The Name of the Engine Manufacturer is pronounced M-A-N, not man.

...when entering service there were only 5 ships the Deutschland-class couldn't outrun or outgun: the british Hood, and the japanese Kongo-class...!

An interesting video. I’ve never heard of the term “Panzer Ships”. I’ve only heard of the term as per armour vehicles.

For a mutant design, she get away w/ being fairly attractive

Well described but you need to add the year when referring to dates.

what a disaster. Mighty mouse minow maybe. But mighty ship that never achieved anything

Commenting to boost your algorithm 👍

A bit of effort to learn basic German pronunciation wouldn't go amiss.

Having rayal navy connection s, you did a good job of this history.

In 1940 or 41 there were 3 pocket battleships loose in english channel. I believe it was sharnhorst, bismark geneissenau. They blasted english costal towns and cities from plymouth to dover and included portsmouth home of the Royal Navy. The R n had nothing that could catch them in speed or firepower at the time. They were tigers of the sea. Turpitz they called the beast. It wZ sunk in norway, busmark off vreenland in the denmark straights.

My mother cousin served on hms hood, he was lucky he got taken off 2 days before she went after bismark the rest they say is history. Hms hood was blown up of iceland. My mother s cousin left the navy as a commander in the 1950s.

Very powerfull ships all of them the rn had nothing in their class to match tbem, in speed armament or gunnery.

The Graf speed was the first warship to be built of high strength steel. It's Diesel engines were vastly more efficient than steam turbines. It was faster than equally equipped potential enemies. Also not the Radar equipment.
Beautiful lines....

Great video, interesting ship ! It seems that Graf Spee's famous battle at River Plate outshone the Scheer's career though...

And what is this magnificent iron bridge we can see in the left corner of some photos ?

Good lecture, but the photos of her post reconstruction appear occasionally in the early part, and photos of her pre-reconstruction are peppered throughout the tale of her latter career. You should sort that out.

Stop with the " Pocket Battleship " rubbish. There is no such thing. Scheer was a heavy cruiser. So was Graf Spee.

stayed idle for months - sounds like the German navy alright . . .

Nicely done.
PanzerSchiff were a hybrid that worked out about as well as can be expected.
Early war, before allied air patrols, they were rather successful as raiders.
Once allied resources reached the remote areas the Raiders thrived in, their day was over.

Top speed was a liability as British cruisers could run them down. Diesel engines offered extensive range, but were never super reliable.

Excellent job ! just a little detail : please check the prononciation of "Scheer" as a German word

I have subscribed, purely on the basis of the effectiveness of this video. I am knowledgeable, a sucker for detail--and picky! I like your narrative style and your clean spare presentation. I learned quite a lot. Thank you. Good job. I hope to see more and to see you get the subscriber growth you apparently deserve.

Enjoyed this, thanks.

😊

This ship is the hero of WW2.

Scheer was a fine ship but somewhat underemployed during WW2. Like Tirpitz she spent far too long hiding and idle in Norwegian waters instead of striking quickly and often in the manner for which she was designed.
Thanks for posting!

You got to hand it to the Germans,they had great technology and design.

6.10 - two engines 'each providing 250 hp'. Eh? Actually total power was near 40,000 KW

A tip to nail the most commonly colloquial Australian pronunciation of Canberra is to say it as - can-bra. 😉

Most interesting

Gdandz, not danzig

I have always thought that Germany would have been better served with more pocket battleships and no ships like Bismarck.

Blew the hell out of my grandfathers ship the San Demetrio when she attacked convoy HX 84 in November 1940, grandad survived the attack.

Why not 3 turrets 2 guns each

If getmany had a few aircraft carrier they could have tsken iceland before the British or the United States, aircraft carriers could have won the battle of the Atlantic for the Germans along with their U-boats!

I can do the math on the 28cm barrels myself, and from prior studies I do know the barrel size, but to an American audience, as sad as you might think it is, the comparable inches would assist greatly most novice watchers of your channel, unless you only acknowledge viewers from across the pond. In that case......go Drachinifel!!

Pronounced shayer. German phonetics are easy.

Good job .
Kind of sad she ended up buried under a parking lot .

Seem to be two different ships in the video unless the Scheer had a new bridge/superstructure refit.

Remarkable that the Kriegsmarine never hesitated to come out and fight, even though any German ship was liable to encounter a superior force at any moment.

A Parking lot,

Admiral Scheer had to be the record holder for hits by duds - incredible - I never knew that - a real fighter, well done video, will look forward to more.

Probably the only battlewagon to survive the entire WW2 and finish up as the under-pinnings of a car park. "To such ill use doth destiny bring us..."

And the remains were left as base for a new parking lot! Apt perhaps. Remarkable run this ship had though. I did not know it survived till the closing chapter of the 3rd Reich. Fascinating.

Very good video!