Admiral Hipper-class

Summary

Description

The Admiral Hipper class consisted of five heavy cruisers built for Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine in the mid-1930s: Admiral Hipper, Blücher, Prinz Eugen, Seydlitz, and Lützow. Only Admiral Hipper, Blücher, and Prinz Eugen were completed and saw action during World War II. Seydlitz was nearly completed before being repurposed as an aircraft carrier, a conversion which was never finished. Lützow was sold incomplete to the Soviet Union in 1940.

The design of the Admiral Hipper-class ships aimed to comply with the naval restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles and was influenced by the Washington Naval Treaty and the 1930 London Naval Treaty, which Germany initially followed. However, Hitler's rejection of the Treaty of Versailles and the subsequent Anglo-German Naval Agreement allowed Germany to build a stronger navy, paving the way for the Admiral Hipper class. The initial three ships were designed as heavy cruisers with 20.3 cm guns, while Seydlitz and Lützow began as light cruiser designs but were later altered to heavy cruisers.

The heavy anti-aircraft battery of these ships included twelve 10.5 cm SK C/33 guns, and close-range armaments comprised twelve 3.7 cm SK C/30 guns and eight 2 cm Flak 38 guns, which varied later in the war. The ships also had four triple torpedo launchers and were protected by Krupp steel armor, featuring two armored decks and a main armor belt.

Admiral Hipper led the attack on Trondheim during the invasion of Norway and undertook Atlantic raids against merchant shipping, culminating in the Battle of the Barents Sea where she was damaged. Blücher was sunk by Norwegian defenses during the same invasion. Prinz Eugen, most notably paired with the battleship Bismarck during Operation Rheinübung, also faced multiple combat engagements and was among the ships in the Channel Dash back to Germany. After various operations and suffering a torpedo hit, Prinz Eugen served until the end of the war in the Baltic.

Post-war, Admiral Hipper was scuttled in Kiel, and Seydlitz was sunk before potentially being seized by the Soviets. Prinz Eugen was taken by the United States Navy and used for nuclear testing during Operation Crossroads. The ship was not destroyed in the tests but was ultimately capsized and sank after being moved to Kwajalein Atoll. Lützow, renamed Petropavlovsk and later Tallinn, provided artillery support in the Siege of Leningrad and existed in secondary roles until broken up for scrap in the 1950s.

Technical specifications