Admiral Hipper class cruiser
The
Admiral Hipper class was a series of five
heavy cruisers of which three served with the
Kriegsmarine of
Germany in
World War II, one was sold unfinished to the
Soviet Union in 1939, and one was converted to an
aircraft carrier but never completed. The lead ship, and thus the class, was named after Admiral
Franz von Hipper.
Designed as a treaty cruiser, Germany nonetheless gave little consideration to the treaty limit of 10,000 tons displacement. The design for the
Hipper class began at 12,500 tons and increased steadily during development. To some degree, the ships were a German response to the French
Algérie class, armed with 8 inch guns. Several calibers were considered, but finally a battery of eight 8 inch guns was selected for the
Hipper. This gave them comparable firepower to a British
County class cruiser, despite being considerably larger. Troublesome propulsion limited cruising range to 5,000 miles at 15 knots - far less than the original design goal of 6,500 miles at 17 knots. After construction of
Hipper and
Blücher, the design was slightly enlarged, although major features remained similar. Of this new design, only one was completed,
Prinz Eugen.
The Admiral Hipper class ships, while comparable to heavy cruisers of other navies and considered beautiful ships, suffered from problems and were thus less suited for the circumstances of World War II. Designed as part of a larger Kriegsmarine, they were required to perform either as support for ground forces or as commerce raiders. As ground support (artillery fire and evacuation), they were effective although expensive and suffered the loss of the
Blücher at Oslo in 1940 and collision damage to the
Prinz Eugen in the Baltic in 1944. As commerce raiders, their range was rather short, lacking the cruising diesel engines of the
Gneisenau class battlecruiser and the
pocket battleships. Additionally, their power plants were quite unreliable.
Admiral Hipper was affected by machinery breakdowns off Scandinavia and in the Atlantic, restricting its effectiveness.
Prinz Eugen suffered engine problems after separating from
Bismarck, forcing her to terminate her anti-commerce cruise.
*
List of World War II ship classes*
List of naval ship classes of Germany*
Operational history of Lützow/ Petropavlovsk
