Admiral Hipper Klasse - Kriegsmarine: Bücher - Geschichte und Technik

The 'ShipCraft' series provides in-depth information about building and modifying model kits of famous warship types. Lavishly illustrated, each book takes the modeller through a brief history of the subject class, highlighting differences between sister-ships and changes in their appearance over their careers. This includes paint schemes and camouflage, featuring colour profiles and highly detailed line drawings and scale plans.
The modelling section reviews the strengths and weaknesses of available kits, lists commercial accessory sets for super-detailing of the ships, and provides hints on modifying and improving the basic kit. This is followed by an extensive photographic survey of selected high-quality models in a variety of scales, and the book concludes with a section on research references - books, monographs, large-scale plans and websites.

The subject of this volume is the largest and most sophisticated German cruiser class of WW2. The five ships suffered very different fates. Blucher was sunk during the invasion of Norway in 1940, whereas Admiral Hipper fought right through the war. The most famous, Prinz Eugen, escaped when Bismarck was sunk and survived to be expended in a postwar Atomic bomb test. Seydlitz was intended to be converted to an aircraft carrier, but never finished, while Lutzow was sold to Russia and sunk by her erstwhile owners.

Covers the Admiral Hipper class, among the largest heavy cruisers to serve in World War II. Intended to be a class of five, they enjoyed contrasting fortunes: Seydlitz and Lützow were never completed; Blücher was the first major German warship sunk in action; Admiral Hipper became one of the most successful commerce raiders of the war; while the Prinz Eugen survived to be expended as a target in one of the first American nuclear tests in 1946.

This book belongs to a series of six volumes "Warships of the Kriegsmarine", written by Gerhard Koop and illustrated by Klaus-Peter Schmolke. Each contains an account of the development of a particular class, a detailed description of the ships, with full technical details, and an outline of their service, heavily illustrated with plans, battle maps and a substantial collection of photographs.

The development of this excellent and successful class of warship only became possible after the Anglo-German naval agreement of 1935 eased restrictions on the types of ship Germany could build; even then only five of the class were permitted: the Admiral Hipper, the Blücher, the Prinz Eugen, the Seydlitz and the Lützow.
These Cruisers were designed for Atlantic operations and had eight 8 inch guns, 12 10.5 cm heavy anti-aircraft guns and 17 smaller calibre anti aircraft guns as well as twelve torpedo tubes and their own compliment of up to six aircraft.

This title covers the design, development and operational history of the Heavy Cruisers of the Admiral Hipper class.

Contents: Introduction - Design and Development - Operational History - The Variants - Further Reading - Colour plate commentary - Index.

Die "Prinz Eugen" war einer der drei schweren Kreuzer der Kriegsmarine und das einzige deutsche Grosskampfschiff, das den Zweiten Weltkrieg überlebte. Die "Eugen" sank im Sommer 1946 bei den amerikanischen Atombombentests und liegt beim Kwajalein-Atoll.

Ingo Bauernfeind beschreibt in dieser Monografie Entwicklung, Geschichte, Technik und Einsätze der "Eugen"; vor allem aber widmet er sich auch dem Schicksal des Schiffes nach 1945.
Aktuelle Bilder des Wracks im heutigen Zustand, Hinweise, Erkenntnisse und Bewertungen im Zusammenhang mit den Kernwaffentests gehen weit über die übliche Geschichtsschreibung hinaus.