Weimar

History

According to Art.190 of the Treaty of Versailles, the German Navy was allowed to replace their capital ships after a service life of 20 years. With the six battleships approaching this age, German Naval command started design work on a new ship within the 10,000 ton limit imposed by said Treaty. This tonnage limit, allowing for less than half of the tonnage of contemporary battleships, forced the abandoning of traditional capital ship designs. One of the proposals, Panzerschiff I/10, envisioned a 10,000 ton cruiser with eight 210mm guns, very similar to the treaty cruisers that would soon be built after by numerous navies across the globe. Weimar represents this design, but with an altered main battery and wartime modifications.

Design

Weimar's hull is 176m long and 18.8m wide, displacing 11,482t when at a standard load. For the machinery she would most likely be using wet-steam engines like the light cruisers would be using it, to develop sufficient horsepower for 31-32kn.

For the main battery eight 210mm L/45 guns, identical to those used on older armored ships, were to be used. These have been replaced on Weimar with four 150mm L/60 C/25 triple turrets, similar to those that were installed on the Königsberg-class. These allowed a 45.5kg heavy projectile to be fired at ranges up to 25.7km, at a practical rate of fire of seven rounds per minute. During WW2 modified HE shells with a time fuze were provided to allow these guns to be usedagainst aircraft as well. The secondary armament was planned to consist of four single mounted 88mm dual purpose guns. As it would happen on all other German vessels, these were replaced with four 105mm L/65 C/33 twins in tri-axially stabilized mounts. This weapon fired 15.1 to 15.9kg heavy projectiles against both sea and surface targets, with stabilized mounts to compensate for ship movement. While no medium and late AA armament was initially planned, most German vessels during WW2 would receive substancial AA strenghenings with late 194 marking the beginning of the Barbara-rearmament program. Weimar shows this refit with a wide array of 20mm and 40mm guns. The torpedo armament was initially envisioned to be eight 500mm torpedo tubes in four twin launchers, on Weimar those have been replaced by four modern 533mm triple launchers.

Protection of Weimar followed the scheme used on Emden closely. An 80mm belt was to break up incoming shells, with a 30mm strong plate between the main deck and the bottom edge of the belt catching potential splinters. A 30mm deck would provide limited protection against shellfire and light bombs. The protection for the barbettes and turrets was laid out against light shellire and splinters, with no protection against heavier shells. Strong protection was afforded however for the command posts, with a 150mm strong conning tower.

Historical Inaccuracies

• Weimar carries no ZAG (target designator for the heavy AA batteries), which were present on all ships with the triaxially stabilized AA fire directors
• During wartime nameplates and crests were removed to not give away the identity of the ship, Weimar however carries a nameplate
• The light cruisers had their torpedo armament reduced to one pair of triple launchers at most to compensate for the additional weight during modernizations, Weimar goes the opposite way with a vastly increased torpedo armament