Sink the Tirpitz - Hunting Germany's Super Battleship

[Music] call of war world war ii is a free online strategy game that gathers millions of players worldwide you fight up to 100 other players in real time in games that can take weeks to complete the games feature world war ii historically accurate maps and units that allows you to create your own path and rewrite history color war world war ii is fully cross-platformed your objective is to take over the world define your own strategy build powerful armies by combining dozens of different unit types and fight for world domination i've set up a special game of call of war for the first viewers who clicked the link in the description go to the website or app and type my name in the search bar and enter the password mark felton mark felton productions viewers are getting a special gift click on the link below to get 13 000 gold and 1 month of premium subscription for free the offer is available for only 30 days so click the link in the description choose a country and fight your way to victory in epic real-time battles she was the heaviest battleship ever built by a european navy a monstrous 52 000 tons when fully loaded built to contain the soviet union's baltic fleet her existence was a direct threat to the allied cause and she had to be sunk her name terpits nazi germany's super battleship sinking the tirpitz was to become an obsession for britain's royal navy the huge vessel's presence anywhere was a massive deterrent against allied action the terpitz's eight 15-inch guns and enormous armor made her a force to be reckoned with the germans used the ship's mere presence to intimidate the allies rather than directly challenging them at sea hitler didn't want to wrist her bits after her sistership the bismarck 2000 tons lighter had been intercepted while on an anti-commerce patrol in the atlantic in 1941 and battered to pieces by the combined firepower of several british battleships battle cruisers and aircraft carriers though not before humiliating the royal navy by sinking its flagship hms hood instead the germans moved the tirpitz to norway in early 1942 her presence and her enormous firepower to become a deterrent against any allied invasion her presence in norway posed a serious threat to the allied convoys bringing supplies to the soviet union should she have sorted from port the damage she could have done did not bear thinking about this also meant that britain was forced to keep many capital ships in northern waters to contain the tirpitz threat the british decided therefore that the tirpitz had to be sunk the question was how following the tirpitzer's bombardment of allied forces on the island of spitzbergen in september 1943 in company with the battleship scharnhorst a raid by the british was planned several bombing raids by fleet air arm aircraft flying off aircraft carriers had proved ineffective so the royal navy tried something novel instead they would use x-craft submarines operations source would see ten x-craft attempt to knock out tirpitz scharnhorst and another german warship the lutzel they would pass under the anti-torpedo nets that protected the ships and lay two ton mines beneath each ship's keel the mines set to explode once the submarines had left eight x-craft actually managed to reach the target area the 22nd of september 1943 three of them got through the defenses protecting tirpitz in car fjord one was spotted and sunk by gunfire and depth charges but x-6 and x-7 managed to drop their minds beneath the great battleship before they too were sunk some of the surviving crew were taken aboard tear pits as prisoners the resulting explosions did a lot of damage a fuel tank was ruptured shell plating was torn and a huge indentation left in the underside of the keel buckling bulkheads and causing some serious flooding one of the massive 15-inch gun turrets was lifted off its bearings jamming it tirpitz underwent repairs until april 1944 and infuriatingly for the british the battleship was returned to service the british attack on the italian fleet at taranto and the japanese on the u.s pacific fleet at pearl harbor had both demonstrated the vulnerability of battleships to aircraft carrier attacks the royal navy decided to kill tirpitz using this method in an operation codenamed tungsten the fleet carriers hms victorious and furious supported by four escort carriers launched 40 barracuda dive bombers escorted by 40 fighters in two waves on the 3rd of april 1944. tirpitz was hit 15 times by 1600 pound or 730 kilo armor-piercing bombs only one barracuda was lost to flak the bombs couldn't penetrate the main armored deck but made a mess of the superstructure killing over 120 crew and wounding around 300 the ship's starboard turbine engine was also knocked out by concussion caused by the constant bomb explosions up above some flooding was also caused partly because of the volume of water used to fight the fires on board repairs were once again made and by early june terpitz was ready once again for action her huge main guns were modified so they could now fire massive anti-aircraft shells to add weight to her many flat guns the british decided to launch more of the same dive bomber attacks but all failed either due to bad weather or simply failed to inflict much damage on the mighty ship in turn the fleet air arm lost many planes clearly the royal navy couldn't eliminate tirpitz so the problem was transferred over to the royal air force and the raf had the answer the tall boy bomb her tall boy was a six-ton free-fall weapon one of the largest conventional bombs of world war ii and could only be carried by the avro lancaster such bombs would be able to penetrate tirpitz's armor the problem was the distances involved the lancaster could not fly from britain to hit tirpitz in norway and back again so it was decided to make the attack from the soviet union codenamed operation paravein a force of lancasters would surprise the tirpitz by approaching carfiord from the landward side hopefully not giving german air defenses time to react as all their radar coverage was facing the sea approaches in total 39 lancasters would attack tirpitz 26 armed with tallboys and the rest with a new experimental mine the johnny walker flying via the shetland islands the british bombers illegally crossed neutral swedish airspace passing over finnish territory and then the ussr being fired on by flak batteries from all three nations though only one aircraft was damaged and one turned back it was a difficult flight only 26 lancasters found the airbase at urgotnick thirteen others made emergency landings or crashed at other soviet bases or in the countryside the next stage was an attack on the tirpitz refuelling by soviet ground crews was complete on the 13th of september on the morning of the 14th 26 lancasters were ready 20 armed with tall boys the rest with johnny walkers but reconnaissance by an raf mosquito revealed the target to be obscured by cloud the next morning the mosquito again carried out a reconnaissance of car fjord conditions were much improved 27 bombers now took off another having been repaired by the soviets the germans detected the raf force 10 minutes before they reached the target area the tirpitz was protected by several methods including giant smoke generators that could blanket the fjord in dense smoke to obscure bomb aimer's view of the ship these machines were immediately started one group of lancasters did bomb before the target was completely obscured one bomb hit the tirpitz one of 17 dropped over the area the johnny walker mines were dropped blind and did no damage anti-aircraft fire was intense though fortunately only four lancasters were damaged all aircraft made it back to yorgotnik that evening the bomb that struck tirpitz went through the hull and exploded in the water next to the ship the bow was completely wrecked and several compartments were flooded and repairs were expected to last at least nine months on the 16th of september 1944 the lancasters returned to britain one crashed into a mountain in norway on the way killing all 11 crewmen the decision was taken to attack tirpitz again with tall boys terpis was moved to tromso for repairs mooring off hakoya island in operation obviate 32 lancasters attacked tirpitz in bad weather seeing only one near-miss following this the germans built a sandbank under and around the battleship to prevent her capsizing and anti-torpedo nets were strung her crew was reduced to 1600 men on the 12th of november 1944 the raf came on again in a big raid codenamed operation catechism including also 617 squadron the famous dambusters unit like a massive cloud was the smokescreen thrown out by the german battleship as the attacking aircraft approached the norwegian fjord in which she was lying through the billowing smoke the tirpitz opened up with every gun she had then the twelve thousand pound bombs began to take effect at least three direct hits were registered near-misses destroyed the sandbanks that would have kept the ship upright if severely damaged the firing stopped and a great cloud of smoke rose from the shattered vessel now lying on her side so ended the inglorious career of germany's most powerful warship in the hours that followed emergency crews cut through the ship's bottom and managed to rescue 82 men but between 950 and 1200 men died with the ship hitler's mighty battleship was no more after the war terpitz was scrapped where she lay this job not being completed until 1957. thanks for watching please subscribe and share and also visit my audiobook channel war stories with mark felton you can also help to support both of my channels at paypal and patreon details in the description box below

Channel: Mark Felton Productions

Views: 789,931

Keywords: Mark Felton, Tirpitz, Bismarck, Operation Catechism, RAF, 617 Squadron, Norway, Dambusters

Id: T_QE8oPPZE4

Length: 12min 21sec (741 seconds)

Published: Wed May 19 2021