Phear the mighty German Navy!

[BeBMan]

I'm wondering if Arnie will become US pres one day, and if that will lead to an aircraft carrier USS Ahnold (ship's motto "Hasta la vista, baby!" off course)

[Dinner]

No talk of the German Navy is complete with out pictures of U-boats. These are state of the art (circula 1945) Type XXI U-Boats.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
And of course all we know, that nobody outside of HoI titled them "KMS".

I believe that was the official designation during the Nazi period meaning Kriegsmarine Ship. Not sure what SMS means but I imagine it was the Kaiser's Imperial designation.

[BeBMan]

Yup, SMS would be "Seiner Majestät Schiff" - the German form of the British "His Majesty’s Ship" HMS, used in WWI, also in Austria-Hungary.

[Riesstiu IV]

Here's a picture of the German captain who was later relieved of duty:

[Dinner]

As long as we're talking about Austria-Hungary... This was their flag ship the Battleship SMS Prinz Eugen.

[Patroklos]

Germany's WWII version, the KMS Prinz Eugen (heavy cruiser).

[Asher]

WW1/WW2 warships.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Oerdin
I believe that was the official designation during the Nazi period meaning Kriegsmarine Ship. Not sure what SMS means but I imagine it was the Kaiser's Imperial designation.

Nah, the Nazis titled the ships by their class:

Schlachtschiff Tirpitz (Battleship, includes battlecruisers)
Linienschiff Schleswig-Holstein (ship of the line, old models)
Panzerschiff Deutschland (armored ship, comparable heavy cruiser)
Schwerer Kreuzer Admiral Hipper (heavy cruiser)
Leichter Kreuzer Nürnberg (light cruiser)

I'm not sure how the allied called the German ships, but the Germans definitely did not use KMS.

And SMS means what Bebro said.

[Patroklos]

Well we do the same thing Ralph. The DDG McFaul. The FFG Nicholas. The CG Port Royal. But the official name of every ship is USS as an identifier of who it belongs to, not what type of ship it was.

EDIT: You know what, I really can't find any official use of the KMS tag anywhere. It would make sense if they did, but it seems you are correct

[Harovan]

This was in Germany until the end of WWI too. Not so after.

As I said, how the allies called the German ships, I don't know. You actually get a lot of hits when you google "KMS Bismarck", but pretty much all of them are not German sites. You won't find any serious historical German site that uses this abbreviation (and there are a lot of them). The English Wiki has an entry for HMS (of course), SMS and KMS. The German Wiki has only HMS and SMS (KMS too but not ship related).

[Patroklos]

I edited it, I think you are right.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Patroklos
She was finished off with torpedoes, but the HMS Duke of York did the heavy lifting with her guns in the Battle of the Norht Cape.

Wiki agrees. Scharnhorst was badly damaged by the Battleship HMS Duke of York during the battle of the North Cape. It was later sunk by British seaplanes.

HMS Duke of York in 1942:

[Dinner]

The Ugly sisters - Scharnhorst and Gneisenau

On September 9, 1939, six days after war was declared, she was attacked by Royal Air Force aircraft at Brunsbüttelkoog with no damage. On 8 October, she sailed with the cruiser Köln and 9 destroyers to create a diversion for the Allied forces searching for the Deutschland. Gneisenau was often seen in company with her sistership the Scharnhorst, and the two ships became known as the "ugly sisters" due to their prowling together, and the amount of havoc they caused to British shipping. In late 1939 the sisters operating in the North Atlantic sank the Armed Merchant Cruiser HMS Rawalpindi, but Gneisenau suffered severe sea damage in a storm.

In 1940 she covered the invasion of Norway and fought with HMS Renown (a World War I battlecruiser) to no conclusion, but suffered damage to her forward turret and main gun director. On 5 May, she set off a magnetic mine about 21 meters off the port quarter, and suffered shock damage, flooding, and a loss of steering for 18 minutes. The damage was repaired by 21 May at Kiel. In the British withdrawal on 8 June, she and Scharnhorst surprised and sank the British aircraft carrier HMS Glorious, a converted battlecruiser, and her two escorts, the destroyers HMS Acasta and Ardent. She was torpedoed in the North Atlantic in June by HMS Clyde and forced to return to Trondheim for repairs.

After repairs, she joined Scharnhorst in their most successful commerce raiding campaign from January to March, 1941 (Operation Berlin), Gneisenau sinking 14 ships, Scharnhorst sinking 8, mostly from unescorted convoys but avoiding British battleships operating on convoy escorts.

The two ships returned to Brest, and started preperations for their next operation. Gneisenau went into dry dock for minor repairs. In early April 1941 an unexploded bomb, dropped by Bomber Command aircraft during near constant air-raids on the ships, forced Gneisenau out of drydock and she was anchored in the inner harbour. 22 Squadron, a Coastal Command unit based at RAF St Eval was ordered to attack the battlecruiser. As a result Gneisenau was torpedoed on 6 April 1941 by F/O Kenneth Campbell. The damage was heavy and Gneiseau was put back into drydock only to be further damaged by four bombs on the night of April 9-10 April. She was repaired at Brest through December, 1941.

In 1942, Gneisenau and Scharnhorst, accompanied by the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen and a covering screen of destroyers and torpedo boats, executed a daring daylight run to Germany (Operation Cerberus, known in Britain as the "Channel Dash"). All three ships escaped damage in the furious air and sea battles that ensued, but Gneisenau struck a mine off Terschelling and required repairs at Kiel.

[Dinner]

What video game is this?