Weird and Wacky German Ships

[@ImportantNavalHistory]

Thanks for watching everyone! Happy new year! I hope to keep making videos in 2025 and beyond, and what a way to kick off 2025 than with a weird and wacky ships video! Edit: Just so everyone is clear, when discussing the length to beam ratio, it is 11:1 and 12:1.

[@Comrade_Tokoloshe]

Offset structures on ships are a feature now heartily embraced on aircraft carriers.

[@laudennis8633]

That's like saying single wing aircraft are now embraced. Midway class was designed in the 40s.

[@jimtaylor294]

Offset structures are still a relative rarity on warships though 😂

[@CaptainSeato]

Offset structures make sense on a carrier 😅😅😅

[@theicmn]

A lot of the pre-Dreadnaughts had off-set turrets to permit cross-deck broadside firing.

[@laudennis8633]

@@theicmn a lot of Dreadnoughts did as well. more of a ship of the line thing

[@CliveN-yr1gv]

Another interesting and thorough doco - I don't know how you do it! That shot of a Wespe class (or was that Siegrfied? sorry, I was cooking) beach was great - one could see very clearly how the hull was shaped below the water-line (obviously, a rarity!). Those K-class remind me of greyhounds in their slender shapes. However, it was the Siegfrieds that made me smile the most, just for how they looked. Thank you =]

[@ImportantNavalHistory]

It was a Siegfried! SMS Hildebrand that was beached, and was subsequently blown up 13 years or something like that after she was initially beached! They are really odd looking vessels, I wish I had more pictures of their aft ends because that single gun back there is something!

[@ronjones1077]

Just subscribed for more obscure naval history !

[@ImportantNavalHistory]

Awesome! I’m currently working on the one for February.

[@BrockRuby]

Very nicely done!! Looking forward to seeing more!!!

[@bjorntorlarsson]

I was just about to post: "What about France?" when you ended this video with the obvious next step! And then there were some round boats. Italians and Austrians were more sane/conservative, is my impression. Swedes boringly optimizing. The Russians might have had some converted yachts worth taking a look at?

[@ImportantNavalHistory]

I’m currently writing the French one, and I have covered some interesting Russian ships in another video!

[@jonathanwalker2499]

Very interesting, thank you. I have studied a number of world navies, but pre-WWII Germany has not really been on the list yet (WWII Germany only as a side project). You have motivated me to seek out some of the source material you cite and get to work!

[@danishballofficiel2176]

Nice vid hope u had a good new year

[@ImportantNavalHistory]

Happy new year!

[@danishballofficiel2176]

@@ImportantNavalHistorythanks what were ur new year resolutions

[@ImportantNavalHistory]

Nothing crazy, trying to think before I speak is probably number 1.

[@danishballofficiel2176]

@@ImportantNavalHistoryintresting u been playing any World of War ships resently

[@stephennewton2223]

I've always found the German Brandenburg class of interest. Sort of the first all big gun battleships, albeit, with the central turret guns being slightly shorter.

[@jimtaylor294]

They don't count IMO, as - like with the Kawachi class - the guns are different lengths. That, and in features they compare poorly to even other Pre-Dreadnoughts.

[@madsaadsa7647]

Greetings and salutations, The Kriegsmarine case of "Is that a crease in my K class cruiser? 😊

[@ImportantNavalHistory]

I do love the K-class, I don't think they were horrible ships and even performed alright considering their situation, Koln especially!

[@max-imal8588]

​@@ImportantNavalHistory In german we dont call them K class, its the Königsberg class, as we always name the classes after the first ship (to beexact its the third Königsberg class). I have never hear anybody call them K class in german, its just incorrectly called that in englisch speaking media, kinda like many english speaking media adding a prefix to german warships post ww1, the Kriegsmarine did not use a prefix. I guess its just done in englisch, because the british sometimes name ship classes with letters and have a prefix.

[@ImportantNavalHistory]

@max-imal8588 Well I don't know how much it matters really. Either K-class or Königsberg class we know what is being discussed. But, I'm always interested to see what different nations refer to their own ships as so thanks for the comment! Have a great week :)

[@bjorntorlarsson]

​@max-imal8588 I too never heard them being called K-class. Sounds like a class of submarines. They were always the Königsbergs. Maybe in the Royal or the French Navy they wouldn't have been very impressive. But they were the pride of the German Navy in the 19202/30s. They wouldn't call them 'K'.

[@ralph-h2y]

I want to know more…how about the emblem on the bow of the K class ? Love it

[@ImportantNavalHistory]

If I remember correctly, the emblems on the bows of each k-class was the emblem of each city the ship was named for.

[@level98bearhuntingarmor]

NGL while casemate torpedoes sorta make sense, that's super unique

[@FrostyThundertrod]

Have you already talked about the American dynamite cruisers those thing where dam odd but had a surprising good side effect in the Spanish American war

[@Kaiserzeit1871]

I don't find any of the ships shown here weird or wacky. The warships became important for the German Empire, as foreign nations were fishing in German waters and forcibly expelling German fishermen. It really is a shame that none of these ships have survived the test of time. Why does the SMS Hildebrandt have a Star of David painted on the bow?

[@ImportantNavalHistory]

It’s just the name of the series, it’s really not meant to be taken seriously. As for Hildebrand I tried looking for answers on it, and what I came up with was the Star of David was seen as a good luck symbol and since they were trying to free and then scrap her maybe they wanted some more luck🤷, but honestly I really couldn’t figure it out.

[@riverraven7359]

While i doubt anyone in the 1930's was impressed by a pre dreadnought visit, that is not to say they were bad ships, many were stable and reliable vessels (for their time) and the main battery was nothing to laugh at even in ww2, as both the Deutschland and Scharnhorst class used 11" / 28cm guns.

[@teakebootsma4779]

For odd ships: try the Dutch coastdefence ships

[@kevinpresley3136]

An Army General in charge of the Navy?.O boy.

[@bjorntorlarsson]

It was always like that in antiquity! Greek and Roman history up to some point in time when the Admiral was invented. A Roman General 2000 years ago was presumed to manage his army onboard ships at sea just as well as on their feet. During the 2nd Punic war, the Romans hadn't yet left their peninsula and were no good sailors. Ships of the time weren't any good for open sea cruises either. They lost two huge fleets in storms, 10,000+ men in each of them. Although they suddenly won the battle of Ecnomus, brilliantly! Triangular battle formation at sea, I've never heard of anything similar to it. There's the story by a guy swimming home to tell about one of those total disaster storms, that the commander, the Consul, addressed the sailors' fear for those strange black thingies turning up at the horizont, by calling for the priests with the hens. If the hens eat the seads thrown before them, then there's nothing to worry about. But they refused to eat. So the Consul threw the hens' cage overboard shouting: "- If you don't wanna eat, you may drink!" Then the storm arrived.

[@leroysgamesandmore2226]

Maybe a future video on the "eco-battleship" MY Steve Irwin?

[@13stalag13]

The turrets are not A, B, C. They are A, X, and Y, with X super firing over Y.

[@ImportantNavalHistory]

They are A, B, and C turrets. Maybe for Royal Navy naming conventions, but I can assure you that I was correct in the video.

[@bjorntorlarsson]

​@@ImportantNavalHistory Weren't they called ü, fau, ß-eszett?

[@ImportantNavalHistory]

From what I’ve read (especially in Koop and Schmolke) and from other sources, in these cruisers the turrets were A, B, and C at least in English translations. I can give you the pages where I get B to port and C to starboard in German Light Cruisers of World War Two Warships of the Kriegsmarine. Also it is Anton, Bruno, Caesar, and Dora.

[@kaseko6549]

turrets in the german navys were named after the german Spelling-Alphabet.

[@SamwiseOutdoors]

Listening to a lecture on German warships and waiting for a mention of noted horse poop enthusiast Herr Krupp.

[@ImportantNavalHistory]

Alfried was certainly an interesting man. The cannon king was also quite the interesting architect with Villa Hügel.

[@threegoldmartlets]

0:30 Protect its "lengthy coastline"? The German North Sea coast was only 1,600 kilometres compared with the coasts of the British Isles at 15,600 km and France's Atlantic coast at 2,500 km. The German Baltic coast was 3,000 km, but was really threatened only by the Russian Navy, and then not in the Winter months when the latter was impeded by ice. Both Denmark and Sweden had small navies, but designed only for coast defence.

[@jimtaylor294]

Yup. A bit like the "proven longitudinal bulkheads" statement, it doesn't make much sense 😅

[@ImportantNavalHistory]

Ill grant you I could’ve used a different adjective, but I don’t think it changes the fact that for a while, the German objectives were to protect trade and or their coastline.

[@ImportantNavalHistory]

The statement was:”following the proven system of longitudinal bulkheads.” Which is a factual statement that does make sense.

[@bjorntorlarsson]

Ice is not much of a problem at the south coast of the Baltic Sea. Only The Sea Lord Churchill (kind of the Senator chair of the Navy committee) argued for the Royal Navy to enter the Baltic Sea and bombard Germany's northern coast. A particularly bad idea as the Kiel Canal had been widened in 1914 for German capital ships to by their shortcut pick and choose in which sea they wanted to meet the Royal Navy on such an escapade. And Denmark's neutrality might come into question, to be occupied by Germany. So that never happened. Churchill figured out a somewhat less catastrophical, but much more famous, plan in the Dardanells instead.

[@sejtam]

"beam to length ratio" ... "11 to 12" would look much like the infamous russian round battleships? Did you mean 'between 1:11 and 1:12" ?

[@ImportantNavalHistory]

Yes you are correct, 1:11 and 1:12 as they are relatively skinny ships. With the later ships being a bit longer. I used the phrasing Koop and Schmolke used in their book so it might come across as a little beamer than intended :) I'll put it in the pinned comment.

[@sejtam]

@@ImportantNavalHistory but you said 'Beam to length' not 'length-to-beam'!! a B:L or 11:1 would be short and very wide, one of 11:12 woiud be almost square (either way)

[@ImportantNavalHistory]

Yes, I am fully aware with what I said. I have edited my answer before seeing your response. In any case, thanks for the comment. I went back and reread my script and I misspoke, what I had was correct. Have a great week :)

[@ImportantNavalHistory]

I have made a community post as well to let more people know. I am rather embarrassed by this error, thanks again for pointing this out.

[@gumpyoldbugger6944]

You were really repeating yourself with the K-Class light cruisers.....that's not like you, what's up?

[@jimtaylor294]

Sounds rather morose too 🤔

[@ImportantNavalHistory]

What do you mean? Repeating the quote from German Light Cruisers? I just wanted to emphasize the quote a bit more. Or if we’re talking about repeating the K-class as a whole, I haven’t covered the development of the ships since last February so I felt as though we could discuss it again.

[@gumpyoldbugger6944]

@@ImportantNavalHistory You went over the spec's of the K-class, size, weight, guns types about two or three times. Review that section to see what I mean. The video on the whole was very good, informative and enjoyable, and you only did the repeatition thing on the K-class, which is not something you usual do.

[@gumpyoldbugger6944]

@@jimtaylor294 nah, that just his normal narration voice, I'll take sounding a bit morose any day over that godawful overly used voice bot so many so-called content providers use, at least our man here is and is keeping it real.

[@ImportantNavalHistory]

@ I definitely see what you mean. I would tell you that it was intentional, but it really wasn’t. Just kind of happened naturally. Maybe as I was writing it I wanted to emphasize those points and it might’ve been too much. Something to avoid for the future.

[@draconian6692]

Versilles was a joke

[@jimtaylor294]

Nah; it's enforcement [or lack thereof] however was. The treaties against Hungary, Austria and Bulgaria were also objectively harsher, with Germany simply whining louder and being more determined to not keep to it.