Kriegsmarine Ships Completed

I haven't posted for a while, mainly because I have been totally immersed in the WWII naval project and have managed to finish nearly two hundred vessels in the past two months, with just over a hundred left to go. Rather than bore everyone with endless photos every time I complete half a dozen or so, especially as WWII naval is not everyone's cup of tea, I'll limit it to completed fleets from now on so at least I can record my progress and can return to the summaries from time to time to see what I have actually done.

First up is the now completed Kriegsmarine fleet:

The final additions include three more destroyers; Z26, Z27 and Z29:

The light cruisers Leipzig and Nurnberg:

And a second aircraft carrier, which was laid down as the cruiser Seydlitz but earmarked for conversion into the Weser, but never actually completed:

I also completed the supply ship Altmark, an oil tanker which spent the first part of the war shadowing the Graf Spee and ended up transporting 299 British sailors from ships the Graf Spee had sunk back to Germany. Langsdorff, the Captain of the Graf Spee, sought assurances from the captain of the Altmark that the prisoners would be treated well, but the Altmark's captain was apparently something of a Nazi fanatic and the prisoners were fed little and kept in appalling conditions. Although Norway was still neutral at that time, the ship was detained three times by Norwegian authorities at the request of the British who on each occasion failed to find any of the close to 300 prisoners detained below decks. It was subsequently boarded by sailors from the destroyer HMS Cossack, apparently some with cutlasses, who freed the prisoners and transported them back to Britain.

I also completed the Pinguin, a German raider which masqueraded as a Greek merchantman  to pounce on unsuspecting allied shipping, even having concealed gun compartments fore and aft which could be flung open at the last minute. It sank or captured 28 Allied ships before it was finally sunk by HMS Cornwall in May 1941, the Pinguin exploding when a compartment containing mines it was carrying suffered a direct hit and killing not only the majority of its 400 crew but also most of 200 merchant seamen prisoners on board:

Finally, five U-boats in U-47, U-48, U-96, U-99 and U-100, all of them among the most successful U-boats of the war:

Plus a submerged U-87, which I did mainly to amuse myself:

There are rules for submarines, supply tankers and merchant ships in Nimitz, so I plan to do similar vessels for each of the other navies.

That is the German contingent now completed, with a total of 32 vessels (not counting the "submerged" U-87). Next up, the recently completed Japanese fleet, nearly twice the size with 62 vessels.