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Monday 11 December 2017

The projected strength of the German fleet in 1942 according to the Dutch magazine Marineblad dated 1938 no. 6

battleship Tirpitz

battle cruiser Scharnhorst

pocket battleship/heavy cruiser Admiral Graf Spee

An item referred to the Revista Marittime dated June 1938 reporting that in 1942 the German fleet was to consist of 2-35.000 ton battleships (1) armed with 38,1cm/15” guns, 2-26.000 ton battle cruisers(2)  armed with 28cm/11” guns, 3-10.000 armoured ships (3) armed with 28cm/11” guns, 2-10.000 cruisers (4) armed with 20,3cm/8” guns, 3-10.000 cruisers armed with 15,2cm/6” guns, 8 cruisers varying between 6.000-7.000 ton armed with 15,2cm/6” guns, 2-19.250 ton aircraft carriers (4), 22 destroyers varying between 1.625-1.800 ton, 30 smaller destroyers and 61 submarines.

Notes
1. Bismarck and Tirpitz.
2. Schanhorst and Gneisenau,
3. Admiral Graf Spee, Admiraal Scheer and Deutschland (renamed Lützow in 1940) of the Deutschland-class panzerschiffe, well known as the pocket battleships later reclassified as heavy cruisers.
4. The Admiral Hipper class heavy cruisers which were under the Anglo-German Naval Agreement to have a displacement of 10.000 tons, but which was actually varying between 18.492 and 20.118 tons and a main armament of 9-20,3cm guns. In the Kriegsmarine served the Admiral Hipper, Blücher and Prinz Eugen, the Lützow was sold to the Soviet Union in 1940 and the Seydlitz still uncompleted ceded to the Soviet Union.
5. The Graf Zeppelin never completed and the Flugzeugträger B which was laid down in 1938 but still on the slipway broken up in 1940.