Kriegsmarine: Merchant Raider Seeteufel II, September 1940

[nönöbär]

Introduction:

The auxiliary cruisers of the Kriegsmarine were converted merchant, equipped with guns and torpedoes to attack Allied merchant shipping. The military equipment on board was camouflaged in a way that those ships still appeared to be "normal" merchant ships.

They carried enough material and paint to change their outer appearance often, like adding a second funnel, modifying the superstructure and repaint the whole ship. They often gave themselves the look of an existing allied merchant to deceive other allied ships.

During World War I, the German Navy also used auxiliary cruisers, and one of them was unique, the Seeadler, a sailing ship, operating in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific where it sunk 16 allied ships.

The ship:
Because on this success, the Kriegsmaine decided to use a sailing ship as a merchant raider again. In early 1940, search for a suitable ship started and soon a possible candidate was found: The Pamir. Originally build in Hamburg in 1905, the ship was now owned by a Finnish shipping line, but because of the German support to Finnland, the ship was transferred to Germany again and modified as a merchant raider.

Armament consisted of two 15 cm guns, both mounted under a camouflage structures, plus two 53,3cm torpedo tubes. The ship was equipped with various boats, and a small float plane for reconnaissance. A 1200 hp diesel engine was added and the former cargo space was converted to ammo storage and additional crew quarters.
All this made the Pamir – or as it was unofficially called "Seeteufel II" – to the lightest armed merchant raider n the Kriegsmarine.

The ship left Germany in September 1940 and headed for the South Atlantic first. In the following three months four allied merchant ships, three steamers and one sailing ship were captured. One of them, the British steamer "Highland" was sent to France with German personal on board, the other three ships were sunk.
In 1941, the Seeteufel sailed into the Indian Ocean where it was able to sink another three ships until late May. As an effect of the sinking of the Bismarck in the same month, British forces were able to take out most of the supply network in the North Atlantic, therefore it was seen too dangerous to send the ship back to Germany. Instead, it was ordered to sail to Japan, where it arrived in mid-august of 1941.

Refitted and repaired, the ship was ready to leave Japan again in December 1941, but Japans attack on Pearl Harbour prevented this. It took until August of 1942 until a final attempt was made to send the ship back to Germany. Loaded with strategic cargo, it left Japan heading for the Pacific and Cape Horn. The ship was able to arrive in the South Atlantic undetected but while closing to the Falkland Islands, the Seeteufel was approached by an older British gunboat for inspection. When the gunboat closed by the Seeteufel fired a torpedo at very short range, the detonation blew up the gunboats ammo storage and it sunk within a few minutes. 12 crew members could be rescued by the Seeteufel, and British sources indicated that the gunboat was sunk by a German U-boat.

In mid-December, the Seeteufel finally arrived in France where the ship was decommissioned. It did not see any further operations during the war and was used as a floating barrack.

After the war, the ship was renamed to its original name Pamir and as used as a combined transport/cadet training ship until it sunk during a storm on 21.09.1957.

The model shows the Seeteufel in September 1940.







The model:
This is a 1/750 scale Heller model of the Pamir. The guns are 3D printed, aircraft and torpedoes are from the spare part box. Some parts of the superstructure were removed and replaced with custom build ones, the crew is made fomr PE parts.

[NARSES2]

I like that sir 

[Dizzyfugu]

Nice! The sails look very good. 

[Joe C-P]

Nice build and back story.   

[zenrat]

Good job mate.  And so small.

[Joe C-P]

   I like the idea and the story.

Wondering if the USN or RN might have done the same.