The Twins v The Twins on 9th April 1940

This is inspired by the Invasion of Norway Fails thread and my Alternative Battle of the Denmark Strait thread.

With hindsight it's a great pity that the whole Battlecruiser Squadron (Repulse and Renown) wasn't sent out to cover the minelaying operation. IIRC Roskill devotes several paragraphs to why this wasn't done.

Would they have sunk Scharnhorst and Gneisenau on 9th April 1940?
 

Driftless

Donor
With the S&G North of the Arctic Circle on the 9th, they are a much longer way from home than the R&R, so I'd guess the former would be likely to either decline a fight, or try to make as hasty an exit as they could.

In the 1943 Battle of the North Cape, the Scharnhorst took a terrible pounding from the Duke of York and cohorts before being sunk - and that was helped along by the DoY connecting several early hits, catching the Scharnhorst flat-footed. If the four ships in the OP get into a slug fest, I'd guess all four are seriously damaged. As noted, the Brits have a much shorter run back to safe harbor and more reason to finish the fight. While the loss of either or both the R's would have been a terrible blow, if they sink the S&G, or severely damage them, it's likely seen as a useful trade off. The S&G would need to transit the Norwegian Sea, part of the North Sea and the Skaggerak to get to a repair yard; and that would be on the minds of the German commanders; plus their loss would be a staggering blow to the surface Kriegsmarine at that point in the war.
 

Driftless

Donor
Critical damage to either or both the S&G; requiring significant repair time takes them out of consideration for Sea Lion (regardless of how dubious the threat was); or other actions. That absence would carry significant knock-on effects
 

SsgtC

Banned
Might this butterfly away the Battle of Denmark Straight? With the Twins sunk or heavily damaged, would the KM risk the Bismarck? More importantly, would Hitler let them?
 

Ramontxo

Donor
On the other hand, Í have read here that OTL, the nasty twins lost both their front turrets due to the hard seas slaming against them and they (the turrets) being electric operated.... If so with twelve 15 inch guns against them maybe this time one of them gets unlucky...
 

SwampTiger

Banned
Twelve 11" v Twelve 15"! Even with thin armor, my money is on Repair & Refit at point blank in the fog.

The British ships are expendable in this scenario.
 
Twelve 11" v Twelve 15"! Even with thin armor, my money is on Repair & Refit at point blank in the fog.

The British ships are expendable in this scenario.
As it's going to be a chase battle, i.e. Refit and Repair chasing the Twins will it effectively be eight 15-inch v six 11-inch?

According to Naval Weapons the German 11-inch AP shell weighed 727.5lbs and the British 15-inch AP shell weighed 1,938lbs. However, it also says that the German gun has a rate of fire of 3.5 rounds a minute and the British gun only 2 rounds per minute.
 

SsgtC

Banned
However, it also says that the German gun has a rate of fire of 3.5 rounds a minute and the British gun only 2 rounds per minute.
I would take both those numbers with a huge grain of salt. Those are in ideal conditions. Actual rate of fire is probably 1-1.5 rounds per minute for R&R and 1.5-2 rounds per minute for the Twins
 
Critical damage to either or both the S&G; requiring significant repair time takes them out of consideration for Sea Lion (regardless of how dubious the threat was); or other actions. That absence would carry significant knock-on effects
They were out of action anyway due to the damage received in June due to Scharnhorst being torpedoed by a the destroyer Acasta in the action with Glorious and the Gneisenau being torpedoed by a British submarine in the operation to get Scharnhorst back to Germany.

If the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau are more heavily damaged rather than sunk in April 1940 the result could actually be an earlier Operation Berlin. E.g. breaking out into the Atlantic with Hipper at the end of November 1940. If they arrive at Brest in January 1941 instead of March 1941 the result could be that they are able to support Bismarck and Prinz Eugen at the end of May 1941.
 
I would bet my future gender recognition certificate that the twins will be either sunk or damaged enough to mission kill them
 
All ships take some damage, Germans come off worse, one of the Twins gets finished off by a submarine on the way home and the other one is the body and fender shop for a long time.
 
If one or both the S or G are crippled then then they are not making it home as the DDs would close and torpedo them

Their best course would be to do what they did OTL - and run like hell

Ultimately the UK would chose to swap the 2 BCs for the S+T without having to think about it
 
Consensus seems to be that for the German ships to be sunk ITTL they have to be damaged early on in the action to prevent them disengaging as they did IOTL. So that damage needs to be of a type that reduces their speed.

I had a look at the account of the battle in Whitley's German Capital Ships of World War Two. It says that Renown spotted the Twins 23 minutes before the Twins spotted her, which allowed Renown, "to gain position to advantage" and that she was firing at the Germans for 5 minutes before the Scharnhorst fired back and 6 minutes before Gneisenau fired back. She opened fire at 0405 and scored her first hit (on Gneisenau) at 0416 with he sixteenth salvo and scored another 2 hits before switching to Scharnhorst at 0420 after firing 23 salvoes.

If Repulse had been with her sister would the two ships have concentrated their fire on Gneisenau or would she have engaged Scharnhorst from the beginning? If the two ships had been there would their gunnery have been more accurate through being able to spot each others fall of shot? Or would that not have been possible due to the foul weather and the need to maintain surprise?
 

SwampTiger

Banned
Renown would have remained on Gneisenau. Repulse can go find her own target. XD

It makes tactical sense to disrupt the fire of both German ships by separating fire. If you only see one of them, sink it before looking for the other.

If Renown had not switched targets, Scharnhorst would be able to fire undisturbed, improving her chances to hit Renown.

Ships spot for themselves except with air spotters or in extraordinary circumstance.
 
Given that the seas were terrible on the day of the battle , very few actual main battery hits actually were achieved on either side and these heavy seas also prevented the RN DD from keeping up with the battle cruisers, who could not keep up with the TWINS...which is why they finally escaped. With out torpedoes the RN has zero chance of sinking either or both of the TWINS.

In the exchange that happened - the TWINS got two hits on 249 shells fired or 0.8% hit rate. The Renown got 1 hit on 230 shells fired for 0.4% hit rate. Even with a second royal navy BC they are still going to only exchange a few more hits , which could not meaningfully change the out come.

The chances of either side sinking anything in these battles was slim to none existent.
 
Last edited:
A lot is going to depend on crew quality, and for that I give the nod to the RN...


Most naval clashes were determined by command decision. In the first few years of the war- the KM appears to have 'bested' the WALLIES more often than not, although they had their noticeable failures. In battle results analysed by O]Hara - the KM warships inflicted twice as much damage as they received.
 
Given that the seas were terrible on the day of the battle , very few actual main battery hits actually were achieved on either side and these heavy seas also prevented the RN DD from keeping up with the battle cruisers, who could not keep up with the TWINS...which is why they finally escaped. With out torpedoes the RN has zero chance of sinking either or both of the TWINS.

In the exchange that happened - the TWINS got two hits on 249 shells fired or 0.8% hit rate. The Renown got 1 hit on 230 shells fired for 0.4% hit rate. Even with a second royal navy BC they are still going to only exchange a few more hits , which could not meaningfully change the out come.

The chances of either side sinking anything in these battles was slim to none existent.
I'm now inclined to agree with the above. Repulse scores a trio of hits on Scharnhorst to compliment the hits Renown scored on Gneisenau IOTL, but it doesn't do enough damage to prevent the Twins escaping and taking part in Operation Juno.

The next bit is an academic question because she was refitting when the battle took place and according to her Wikipaedia entry her maximum speed was limited to 26.5 knots before her refit. Having written that, how well would Hood have done? My uneducated thinking is that with her larger and AFAIK more seaworthy hull she would have been able to go faster than Repulse and Renown in the foul weather conditions and maintain contact with the Twins. However, she might attempt to shadow the German ships rather than engage them.
 
Top