Shipbucket

This is really great work and makes my old attempt look pretty kitbashed (though in my defence we had less accurate parts and skill back in those days!)

Looking at the plan in Groner's 'German Warships 1815/1945' it seems you've done an excellent job as the only difference I can find is two single 20mm rather than the quadruple 20mm mount on B turret (though that seems a retrograde step to me).
Groner says that a new stem would have been fitted without a bulge and sharp almost to the upper deck, so you might want to incorporate that slight change.

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Dammit, got beaten by Hood while writing the post, but still here are my points:

I went through my books and I have a couple of points to add:

-The hull was not simply elongated, the bow was completely cut off and replaced with a new contrustion. The new one had a different shape and no bulge. This was done to dcrease the draft, which had increased significantly over the years. (see picture below)
-The 20mm quads on the 120mm and 380mm turrets were singles (two placed on the turret B)
-The plans did not indicate the placements of 20mm singles on the forecastle and none of the singles seemed to be shielded. Granted, the assumption is not unreasonable.
-The old 37mm twins remained the old model.

If you want to draw a model of 'what could have been done' with the Gneisenau, then yes, you could replace the 37mm twins with the M42, but you could also widen the hull (once again, to drecrease the draft) and replace the 150mm and 105mm guns with 128mm twin turrets (Both modifications were planned but dropped due to time reasons). Regarding the camo paint, I don't think it should be applied to a 'Never-Built' drawing, unless you are absolutely certain that it would have been applied. With these drawings it's always a fine line between actal plans and artist's interpretation and a camo job in this case would move it more to 'Personal Designs'. That's my personal opinion on that matter, though...

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Any help and source material is always welcome.

@Hood & DG_Alpha:

Thank you very much for your valuable and constructive comments!

I have totaly forgotten about the reconstruction of the bow!! :-/

I did use the drawing you provided as a basis for my drawing, but must admit, that I used a little "artistiv license" here and there.
I used pictures of "Scharnhorst" and "Tirpitz" as a sort of guideline for the light AA - the Flakvierling (Quad) 2cm on top of turret "B" for example was mounted on "Tirpitz" in a similar way.

In my opinion it would have been very likely, that the light AA would have been changed (i.e. shielded, more quads...), but I guess a more "puristic" approach (which is actually a good thing!) when it comes to reference drawings is more in line with this forum.

I have modified my drawing accordingly:



Thanks for looking!
Edit: Newest Version

Hmmm,
Your forward-bridge AA sponson (carrying quadruple 20mm mounts) look fragile/overloaded !!!!!
Look carefully at the drawing provided by DG_Alpha above, the sponson seems me strengthened (structurally)...
& Add CAMO !!!

others findings




More info here

I'm inclined to agree with DG_Alpha on the camo...as Gneisenau never completed reconstruction, we have absolutely no idea what (if any) camo scheme she would've had. However, if we want to ponder this, I believe she would've had something similar to what Tirpitz carried about the same time, so let's say reconstruction is complete in July 1944, then this relatively simple scheme is what she would've carried:

http://bismarck-class.dk/tirpitz/paint_ ... rt_big.gif

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MS State Guard - 08 March 2014 - 28 January 2023

The Official IJN Ships & Planes List

#FJB

Superb artwork maomatic.

I see a torpedo but no launcher?

If I'm not mistaken, the torpedo tubes are directly below the aircraft catapult.

Thanks erik...I had assumed they would be mounted similar to the Tirpitz or possibly the Deutscheland class