Do you think your life is rough? Try the typical day of your typical French heavy cruiser, the Suffren. The Fine French ship Suffren is sailing around, minding its own business, taking cheap shots at the Bismark (not shown here). Whats this? Another german, hes coming on fast! Sound the collision alarm! That really wasn't very friendly! Damage Control Report! Do you think maybe you could put it in reverse? No, of course not, you're German. Abandon Ship! Still looking good... French ships, Made to Sink Pretty! (tm) Madness and Mayhem brought to you by the friendly folk at the Washington Cascade Column
Thanks. I should probably make a note that while our local club does tend to be a bit aggressive we don't actually condone ramming and that the above shots were the result of an accident by the young (and new) captain of the Scharnhorst.
I don't see any apparent damage at the point of impact in the second to last photo. Guess the deck crew had a bit to much of the wine and women the night before and left to many hatches open! ;-)
Could have had something shift in the ship and keep it listed over. Or open turrets and a bad deck seal. I've seen cruisers completely run over and survive. On another note that Scharny looks really light, too much freeboard.
The pictures are a little misleading in that they appear to show the Suffren as having a competent deck seal. It does not. More damning, the co2 bottle can by itself move out of place and cause a significant list on its own that would make a ram such as the one pictured above unrecoverable from. Like any good french ship the crew believes in the ability to rapidly scuttle rather than risk excess damage.
Yes, for whatever reason that Scharnhorst is far too light - when he's not moving in still water you can actually see under the aft section. Oddly I think it was floating right a month ago. Not sure what he took out or left out to achieve that... Suffren: Open turrets and a very poor seal + shifting co2 bottle. The battery actually probably stayed where it belonged, there's so much junk there it can only really move if the entire stern decking comes off. Being held at the list by the Scharny who opted to not put it in reverse and back off the ram did not help the matter. The picture series timestamps indicate that the Scharny was in contact with the Suffren's side, pushing it over, for 5 seconds, thats a lot of time to let water pour in. The total time from initial ram to the last picture above was 14 seconds.
Guys, I've never Seen Scharnie in those colors, She's my other little girl, in a way!! RIP old Girl!! Did any of you know she was just a baby in a way when she was sank in Dec. 1943! she was on 4-1/2 Years old!!! Nikki
Nikki, Just for clarification; Scharnhorst is NO ONES 'little girl', that is a designation for Allied ships, Scharnhorst is never referred to as a 'baby', that is a designation for Allied ships, and by the way, Axis ships are not cute, cuddly, pretty etc, again those are designations for Allied ships. Hope I have cleared this up for future reference. J OOPS, sorry, wrong thread! :0
There may have been some creative license used on the camo pattern there. It doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things so long as the captain likes it. Please stay relatively close to the topic and avoid thread-crapping. Thanks.
Sorry Guys! I wasnt trying to get anyone mad at me ok!! what i meant on my Little girl is, she's one ship i would love to get!! but at about 5-feet she's the same size as me!!! but she still a cool boat!! and i love the photos!!! Nikki
Open turrets, bad deck seals, and shifting CO2 bottles. OH MY! Sounds like you did a bang-up job of constructing the Frenchy. We Frenchies need to keep in mind that if we make our ships too survivable, then the lilly-livered axis, and allied ship captains may not want to battle against us anymore. Might I suggest adding an over-sized stuffing gland for the rudder , and some over-sized stuffing tubes for the drive-shafts as well. Then the poor devils that are stuck running mere axis, and allied ships will perhaps feel less intimidated by your wonderful little French cruiser, and continue to show up and give you battle. Vive La France! Mikey
Best Post Ever. Alas, As of yesterday I no longer captain a glorious French Cruiser. She has returned to her homeport and a new captain has taken command of her shifting internals.
Nick It was nice having you run a French ship. You have the right attitude.. It is a great idea that you should build, and run some non-French ship, just so that you can experience what those other poor devils have to deal with when running sub-standard ships. It is a lot more work. So do make sure that you follow their advice when it comes to deck-seals, and such. And when you are ready to come back to the French navy, we will be here with open arms to welcome you back. So go spread your wings a little. See the world. But keep this in mind.. Pet the dog, and scratch the cat. Running French ships is where it's at. Vive la France. Mikey
