Elbing

History

The lack of oceangoing destroyers forced the Kriegsmarine to design a class of ships capable of Atlantic operations with a cruising range suited for that task. Their intended field of operations would be to act as merchant raider and escorts in the Atlantic, to be suited for tropical conditions as well as counter the French destroyer leaders.

The first stage of this thinking was the 1936A type, however experience with those ships showed an insufficient cruising range, preventing any sort of Atlantic operation. Furthermore, the seakeeping of those destroyers left much to be desired and so a new set of designs was drafted, the 1937 type destroyers. These were much enlarged designs with better seakeeping, but would still not have the cruising range desired for open ocean operations. As they were almost the size of light cruisers at that point while not matching either the protection of a cruiser or the speed of a destroyer, they were discontinued. Instead the 1938 type destroyers were drafted, with 1938A being the ocean going destroyer while 1938B would be a smaller design for service in Northern and Baltic waters. What set the 1938A apart from preceeding designs was the usage of a third shaft with Diesel propulsion for increased range. This design would eventually evolve into the Spähkreuzer 1938 design, on which Elbing is based.

Design

The Spähkreuzer 1938 design called for a 152.2m long and 14.6m wide hull to provide the necessary seakeeping. The empty ship alone would displace 4,589 tons, growing to 5,037 and 5,900 tons standard and fully loaded respectively. 520 enlisted men and 18 officers would crew the ship.

In terms of protection the Spähkreuzer 1938 design only accounted for splinter damage. 15mm Ww plates acting as longitudal bulkheads would provide some protection to vital areas, with a 10mm Wh deck connecting to the upper edge of the bulkhead. The bridge area received a similarly thin protection with only 10-15mm strong Wh plates. The strongest protection would be on the turrets, with 30mm Wh faceplates. A double bottom providing some anti-mine protection covered 81% of the ship's length.

The main armament was designed with six 150mm L/48 C/36 cannons, mounted in three twin turrets on the centerline with one turret fore and a superfiring pair aft. These guns would fire a 45kg heavy projectile at ranges up to 23.5km, reloading within at best 7.5 seconds. The auxiliary armament was initially planned to consist of five 37mm L/83 C/30 twin mounts and three 20mm Flakvierling 38 mounts, arranged around the superstructure. Unlike most German destroyers the torpedo armament grew to ten tubes, mounted in two quintuple torpedo launchers.

For machinery the Spähkreuzer 1938 design carried two independent steam turbine sets and one set of four diesel motors geared down via a gearbox to drive the shaft. The turbines, manufactured by Wagner, were supplied with 450°C hot steam at 70atü pressure steam by two Wagner-boilers. The Diesel motors were to be built by MAN and provide roughly 3,650hp each, which after the gearbox would result in 14,500shp on the central shaft. Each wingshaft would be driven by 38,750shp, for a total of 92,000shp to permit the 35.5kn max speed. With a fuel capacity of 820 tons the cruising range was calculated to be 8,000nm at a speed of 17kn.

Historical Inaccuracies

• The Spähkreuzer 1938 design called for the 150mm L/48 C/36 gun to be used. In-game however she carries the 150mm L/60 C/25 gun in twin turrets that were never designed.
• The Spähkreuzer 1938 design planned to use standard 3m rangefinders for fire control. The in-game model however carried M/42 Flak directors for dual purpose armament.

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  Blueprint showing the internal layout as well as the view from the top

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  Blueprint showing the internal layout of the upper decks and the superstructure