Talk:German cruiser Admiral Scheer

Info

Added some WW2 history from "Defiance at Sea" by Jon Guttman (ISBN 0-304-35085-0). Wiki-Ed 00:16, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Armament

There seems to be some dispute over the armament. The source I have in front of me ("The Illustrated Directory of Warships from 1860 to the Present Day", David Miller, Salamander Books Ltd, London 2004, ISBN 0-86288-677-5) states that the Scheer had the following: 6 x 280mm, 8 x 150mm, 6 x 88mm, 8 x 37mm AA, 8 x 533mm TT

I suggest the two of you cite your sources and we can work out which is correct. Wiki-Ed 10:08, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I've corrected the armament information, the 88mm AA were replaced with 105mm AA before the war. Source: German-Navy.de Admiral Scheer. I assume it started with someone accidently mistyping the 105 as 150 and then people started believing this to be correct -- Nevfennas 11:09, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

That is correct. My Father was a gunner at the 105 mm AA.--87.184.192.218 (talk) 13:50, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Tag & Assess 2008

Article reassessed and graded as start class. --dashiellx (talk) 17:38, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Changing the masculine pronouns to feminine

Though it may very well be the case that the sailors on board considered the Admiral Scheer to be male, I suggest that the masculine pronouns in this article be changed to feminine to follow standard English language usage relating to ships. As it is now, the masculine pronouns serve mainly to confuse and distract readers used to seeing ships referred to as "she," thereby detracting from the article. Furthermore, precedent on the English Wikipedia when dealing with ships that are male in their native tongue (e.g. those of the Russian navy) is to use female pronouns. There is no reason the Admiral Scheer should be treated any differently. Jrt989 (talk) 23:20, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree. It's good to know that the ship's crew referred to the ship as "he", but the article should call the ship "it" or "she".Ettormo (talk) 14:50, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Since there's been no dissent in the nearly three months since I posted, I have changed the pronouns to feminine. Jrt989 (talk) 03:09, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

A better solution would be to follow the original common use. When the ship was called "he", it was only "the Scheer" without the "Admiral"-prefix.

saving text during rewrite

Just to note, I'm overhauling this article (and will do Deutscland/Lutzow, Admiral Graf Spee, and the class article as well). I've got Williamson's book on the way, so it'll be a few days before I can finish the rewrite. If anyone wants to help out, please do, and please cite reliable sources when adding material. I'm saving some text here during the rewrite for possible reuse. Thanks. Parsecboy (talk) 13:50, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Towards the end of its Spanish deployments, Admiral Scheer served in April 1938 as a polling booth for the extraterritorial vote of German and Austrian clerics, studying at the German college of Santa Maria dell'Anima, on the question of the German annexation of Austria (Anschluss). For this purpose, she anchored in the harbour of Gaeta. Contrary to the overall German result, these clerical votes rejected the Anschluss with over 90%, an incident which was coined as "Shame of Gaeta" (Vergogna di Gaeta, Schande von Gaeta) at the time.

Reichsmarine & Kriegsmarine and more

Please note that the Reichsmarine was renamed to Kriegsmarine in 1935. Also noteworthy is that Ernst Lindemann was first gunnery officer durig the Spaish Civil War. MisterBee1966 (talk) 20:36, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Fixed the first part and grabbed the citation from Lindemann's bio. Thanks for pointing those out. Parsecboy (talk) 22:24, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Ersatz Lothringen

Suspect that this in fact is Elsaß Lothringen (the German name for Alsace-Lorraine)

DeGency (talk) 21:21, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Nope, "Ersatz" means replacement - SMS Elsass and SMS Lothringen were two different ships. Admiral Scheer was ordered as a replacement for Lothringen, while Elsass was replaced by Scharnhorst. Parsecboy (talk) 21:34, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

photos

In regard to some of the photos on the main page: Unless I am ignorant of alterations to SCHEER, three of the photos appear to be of the GRAF SPEE, not the SCHEER.

Joseph CoutureMoosemin (talk) 23:45, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, you are mistaken. These are all photos of Admiral Scheer, which received the same mast as Admiral Graf Spee - it was Deutschland that had the smaller pole mast. One easy way to check is to look at the bow ornaments - it's somewhat hard with these low-res photos, but see for instance this one of Admiral Scheer and this one of Admiral Graf Spee (and for reference, here's this one of Deutschland). Parsecboy (talk) 00:26, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Units

Hello gents, POV I prefer the metric ton (t) as the base unit with long and short in parentheses if we feel the need to clarify. I personally don't, despite the historical perspective. See List of obsolete units of measurement for more options. Please consider changes to: "The ship had a design displacement of 13,660 t (13,440 long tons; 15,060 short tons) and a full load displacement of 15,180 long tons (15,420 t),[2] though the ship was officially stated to be within the 10,000 long tons (10,000 t) limit of the Treaty of Versailles." Leaving aside POV, this "10,000 long tons (10,000 t)" is inconsistent with the preceding. I see you're still around and thanks for the great work Parsecboy. Cheers. Doug (talk) 07:15, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

Generally for ships of the post-WNT era, long tons are the default unit of measure, and units should always be converted - we are an international encyclopedia, after all.

I used the figures as provided by Gröner, in the units he presented them. The Germans generally used metric tons, and Germany had not been admitted to the treaty system when the ships were designed, which is probably why Gröner, who was working with original documents, used metric tons for the designed displacement figure. I have no problem flipping the numbers, however. Parsecboy (talk) 13:04, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Requested move 16 May 2018

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: request retracted by submitter. 114.75.99.193 (talk) 05:39, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

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German cruiser Admiral Scheer → Admiral Scheer (cruiser) – Article title does not follow WP:TITLE. 114.75.99.193 (talk) 02:52, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose – The rationale is unclear. What aspect of WP:TITLE is not being followed? Dicklyon (talk) 03:08, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
  • I apologise, I thought that it was obvious: the aspect of WP:TITLE that is not being followed is the fact that, unless the subject is explicitly named otherwise, ambiguous titles should have the bare title applied to the most common definition of the title (in this case, Reinhard Scheer, to which the "Admiral Scheer" redirect points), while other articles are generally called "[title] ([disambiguating title])". For example, Hogan is an article about a type of Navajo dwelling, but there are several articles that share the same name, such as Hogan (surname), Hogan (given name), Hogan (band), etc.. Unless the Admiral Scheer was officially designated as "German cruiser Admiral Scheer" by the Nazi German government of the time, the title should be changed to reflect similar ambiguous titles. 114.75.99.193 (talk) 04:13, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
• After reviewing other articles about Nazi-era German warships, it is apparent that all such articles are named as "German [warship type] [ship name]", indicating that this is a generally accepted naming convention, and I therefore retract my request. Thank you anyway to those who participated in the discussion. 114.75.99.193 (talk) 05:39, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Here's the actuality of the sinking of the Admiral Scheer

As it happens my father Jack (Ted) Lubran DFC MRIN Assoc MRINA (1924 to 2014) was the Master Navigator of a flight of RAF Avro Lancaster bombers sent to 'sow mines' in the entrance waters of the Kiel Canal. I have his personal account, including on film, and his operational log books. Their mission was to drop mines as a part of the British tactic of hemming the Admiral Scheer in port. They were not supposed to attack the ship itself because both the ship and port defences presented a formidable anti aircraft capability. They arrived over the target to find it covered in low cloud with no visibility below the cloud. Knowing they were very close to the target area they circled in the hope of getting a visual reference. Whilst carrying out that maneuver the clouds opened up and they found themselves immediately above the Admiral Scheer, at the same time every AAA gun below opened up on them. The Lancasters immediately dropped their mines and moments later a huge explosion erupted from the ship sending columns of smoke and shrapnel high enough to rock the aircraft and make holes. The differing physics of mines compared with bombs is significant. A mine falling on to an armoured ship like the Admiral Scheer would not normally be expected to cause such an explosion. It was thought most likely that by a caprice of fate either a mine fell through an open hatch, fell through a smoke stack or lit up munitions being loaded into the ship.

So many myths and half truths relied upon by commentators and historians. 'Ted' Lubran has testified on film, as yet to be released as a part of any documentary, a number of experiences he had during nearly 40 missions over Nazi occupied Europe that conflict with so much asserted statements that suggest propaganda distortions providing many false narratives with regard to the modern history of World War Two 2.96.30.119 (talk) 12:41, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Location of the buried wreck of Admiral Scheer

Most published sources are inexact over the location of the wreck, often said to have been 'buried under a quay'. However, the exact location is shown on the official Allied Strategic Bombing Survey map, now published in Dodson and Cant, Spoils of War (2020), p. 165, top, and when overlaid on a modern map of Kiel it shows that the whole inner dock complex, including the place she was sunk, was filled-in post-war, leaving the wreck well inland, under a now-grassed area, at position 54° 19' 13.57"N, 10° 9' 50.46"E. The area is partly used as a heli-pad, with the 'H' directly above the location of the ship's remains. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AMDC (talk • contribs) 16:58, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Landing sail

Hi, would anyone happen to have any definite info on the floatplane 'landing sail' mentioned in the 'Operational history' section? I haven't been able to find very much about it. According these US patent designs from 1936, [1] and [2], it appears to have been a large canvas sheet which somehow slipped under the floats and allowed the aircraft to be hauled out out of the water in something like a giant hammock. I might have got the wrong idea. I always imagined the planes were recovered with a crane, like in the photo of an Arado Ar 196A-3 on the Graf Spee, or this one on the Prinz Eugen. Cheers, MinorProphet (talk) 14:10, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

So, I found another patent for improvements to a landing sail, assigned to a German firm in Bremen. The text on the web page is OCR 2-column gobbledygook, but the downloadable PDF shows the original printed page. The drawings show the sail being towed underneath the floats, as I thought: but I still don't quite understand what the sail actually achieves. Is it meant to bring the aircraft alongside the ship, a bit like a submersible flexible pontoon, so that the plane is travelling at the same speed as the ship, effectively being towed, and can then reduce or cut the power? And then the crane jib can be swung out to haul it out of the water without fouling the prop? MinorProphet (talk) 07:22, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

And another US patent, Apparatus for recovering seaplanes from the water filed in 1938 which references the patents previously reffed above. The text explains the principle fairly clearly. Almost worth its own little article... MinorProphet (talk) 07:42, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Why do you think the minutiae of a minor piece of rarely used equipment need to be expounded upon in an encyclopedia article about a ship? The purpose of the sail is explained, we don't need further technical details here. If you want to create an article and link it here, be my guest. Parsecboy (talk) 10:06, 30 October 2020 (UTC)