Z-23

History

Design

The destroyers of the Zerstörer 1936A class were the last class of destroyers designed by Germany before the outbreak of World War II. They were slightly larger than the preceding 1936 class, and were designed to be more stable in the seas. The hull was reinforced, and a bulge was installed at the bow to improve seaworthiness. The latter was eventually removed, however, as it proved to have negative side effects on the bow. A double rudder allowed better maneuverability than on the 1934 or 1936 classes.

The result was a 127 meter long and 12 meter wide hull with a draft of up to 4.65m. The displacement ranged between 2,600 and 3,700 tons depending on the loadout, and her engines — with a combined 70,000 shaft horsepower — would allow for a speed of 36 knots (during speed trials, speeds up to 38.5 knots were achieved). The fuel capacity gave these ships a cruising range of up to 2,500 nautical miles. The crew for a single vessel consisted of 11 officers and 320 men.

What made the 1936A class stand out from other destroyers of the era was their main battery armament. The 15cm L/48 was gun was unique to Germany, and the largest main battery rifle to be mounted on a destroyer to date. They were initially tested on the 1934-class destroyer Z-8 Bruno Heinemann, these guns were meant to counter new French and British destroyers, as well as allowing the 1936A class ships to serve as scout units and to compensate for the continual shortage of light cruisers and scouting units. There were two mountings available on the 1934A class, a single mount and a twin turret. Other than the number of guns in these mountings, they also differed in terms of gun elevations: the single mounting allowed for 30° elevations, whereas the twin turret could elevate up to 65°. Each ship of the Z-23 class was slated to receive one twin-barreled mount on the bow and three single-barreled mounts at the stern of the ship, with the sternmost two being superfiring and the central turret facing forward. The only exception for this layout was Z-28, which was used as a fleet command vessel and instead mounted four single mounts in two superfiring pairs, one at the bow and one at the aft. The Torpedo armament did not change from the 1934 series destroyers, with two quadruple 533mm torpedo tubes, and the initial anti-aircraft armament consisted of two twin 37mm Flakzwilling 30's and five single barreled 20mm FlaK 38's.

Availability issues with the 15cm twin turret meant that the first few vessels built only received four 15cm guns in single mountings. However, even the lighter armament showed that the bow was insufficiently designed and that the ships took a tremendous amount of water over the bow in the commonly rough seas of the northern Atlantic. When the twin turret was eventually installed in 1942 the issues with these guns became more noticeable. With the twin turret weighting more than four times that of a single mount, the fore ship was even more prone to being wet. As the turret was not properly designed to be waterproof the electrical systems within would often fail in heavy seas and the fixed ammunition meant that a lot of physical effort was required by the gun crews to reload the gun, which would hamper the ability to maintain a high rate of fire during combat.

With the threat from aircraft rising throughout the war, it was deemed as necessary to increase the anti-air-armament of all destroyers, resulting in the so-called “Barbara-program” which added additional AA guns for almost all ships in 1944. The proposed changes for the 1936A class ships were the removal of a 15cm single mount, and a completely new AA armament of twelve 37mm M42 and eighteen 20mm FlaK 38 guns, with the addition of 8.6cm AA rockets in four single launchers.

In-game historical inaccuracies

• Z-23 never carried 128mm guns, making her entire in-game main armament inaccurate.
• Neither Z-23 nor any of her sister ships had an AA gun platform around the forward funnel.
• The "Barbara-refit" that some of Z-23's sisterships received removed one of the main guns for additional 37mm weaponry. Z-23 in game keeps all of her guns, yet gets an increased 37mm battery.

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  Profile view of Z-23

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  Z-23 at sea.^[1]

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  A forward view of a Zerstörer 1936A at sea. In the foreground is Kapitän zur See Pönitz

See here for links to Update notes.

• Available to supertesters in the game starting from Update 0.5.15.
• Introduced into the game as a researchable ship in Update 0.5.16.
• Update 0.6.6:
  • Improved appearance of the ship using a special technology for high-quality rendering of thin elements (mainly rigging).
• Update 0.6.12:
  • Detectability when firing main guns in smoke changed to 3.38 km.
• Update 0.6.13:
  • Fire extinguishing time now 30 s instead of 60 s.
• Update 0.6.15:
  • Added a bonus to the "Congratulatory" permanent camouflage - a 10% discount to the cost of post-battle maintenance.
• Update 0.7.10:
  • Added a special Steel Rat camouflage.
  • The range of the Hydroacoustic Search consumable was unified - 5 km for detecting ships, 3.5 km for detecting torpedoes.
• Update 0.8.5:
  • Credits earnings increased by +5%.
• Update 0.8.6:
  • The HP of the stock hull was increased from 14,700 to 16,700.
• Update 0.8.7:
  • Fixed the visual display of the "From the bottom of the Ocean" camouflage.
• Update 0.9.5:
  • Armor penetration of 128 mm HE shells was increased from 21 to 32 mm, and penetration of 150 mm HE shells - from 25 to 38 mm.
  • Small changes to geometry and textures.
• Update 0.10.3:
  • The 150 mm/55 Tbts KC/36T guns on an LDrh LC/38 mount were removed from the game. The main battery models were updated.
  • When Hull B is mounted, the artillery configuration will change: the fore turret will become twin-gun.
  • Fixed a bug due to which torpedoes inflicted damage if they had already passed the ship or were moving in the opposite direction to it.
• Update 0.10.4:
  • Fixed the rotation time of the bow turret.