A contest, a contest! With a prize!

[Joe C-P]

Why? The other group I tried this in gave me NO RESPONSES!!   I mean, c'mon, no one could come up with a single idea?  

Anyway, that's why I'm letting you nuts have a go; you're more fun and inventive.  I think I posted a photo or two here before, but this time I'll include details for those of you not up on ships.

The photos show the Tirpitz re-armed with Japanese weapons, escorted by two Japanese destroyers. One of the DDs has been rearmed with AA weapons.

The diorama: I stole the main guns from the Tirpitz for a Gneisenau I'm converting to a proposed 15" armed version. The smaller guns were mediocre to terrible, and I had a bunch of leftover Japanese parts from Skywave sets I've used extensively. One DD I built OOB thinking I was building another ship - one that the USS New Jersey fought and sank in WW2 (I found and built the right one eventually, donating it to the BB62 Museum Society). The other is was one of my very first ship models as an adult, so I decided to strip and rebuild it, and being an incorrigible what-iffer, I had to do it elsewhen.

The contest: Why is Tirpitz rearmed with Japanese weapons, sailing with two Japanese DDs, one rearmed with AA weapons?
The rules: I pick my favorite story. Bribes will be taken and promptly ignored. Plausibility might impress me, it might not.
The prize: your choice of an Airfix HMS Fearless or a Monogram 1/48 Vietnam Huey Rescue helicopter. Heck, I may award first and second place to get the models out of the house and let me buy a new one.    (Yeah, I also have an ulterior motive as well.   )
The end date: End of November. You're not building anything, just writing a story. And I don't want this to drag out until we all forget about it.  

The pictures will follow.

JoeP  :ar:  

[Joe C-P]

Links to the pictures (they are a bit large):

Overall from starboard

Overall from port

Overhead

Escort 1

Escort 2

Escort 2 again

[WeeJimmy]

Are they heading for Midway?

[Ollie]

Tirpitz went around the USSR during the summer and arrived in Japan.  As the Kriegsmarine wasn't going to use her, she was transferred to Japan in exchange for uranium and plutonium.

The IJN modified her so she would use most supplies in use with the rest of the navy!

 

[elmayerle]

First cut:

To escape the constant allied bombing and threats of more, the Tirpitz was sent to Japan carrying a large collection of transferred technical information that they'd not managed to transfer otherwise (the "killing two birds with one stone" approach).  The ship had to fight it's way there and, on arrival, was put into drydock for repair and was upgraded at the same time.  It now serves as an element of the Japanese fleet, operating as part of an independent battle group.

[Gary]

Wing Commander "Dutch" Williams noted in his logbook that he was quite surprised that it took only two Tallboy bombs to smash Tirpitz and have her capsize. The battle had been hard fought, and the losses on the RAF had been heavy, but the last of the German raiders was gone. But still, Williams couldn't accept the sight of what appeared to be an only slightly damaged Tirpitz sinking so easily.

No one on the allie's side could have more right. By 1943 the German Navy knew it's days as a surface navy were over. The allies owned the skys and nothing the Germans could do would prevent the last remaining German battleships from ending up as tombs for their sailors. Submarine warfare would be the only chance of stopping the convoys. But what would they do with a ship as powerful as Tirpitz, to prevent her from falling into allied hands, yet show her worth? The answer lay with the Tokyo Conference.

Japan's navy had been taking a mauling in the first few battles with the Americans in the Pacific. But there was still a need for battleships in the eyes of the leaders of the Japanese navy. Japan on the other hand had been doing serious testing with gas and nerve agents in China and had some unconventional weapons many in the SS wanted to get their hands on. A deal was struck between the SS and their Japanese equivalent. The Japanese would trade their nerve gas, Agent Q for the battleship Tirpitz.

In Norway Tirpitz was undergoing repairs and under constant harassment from the RAF. However in late '43 the SS took over the repairs and modifications to the ship. This included extensive reinforcement of mounts for internal engineering systems, the boilers and engines. It also included the removal of all vital systems from the port side of the ship. Dozens of special invertible pumps were installed and additional watertight doors and bulkheads were installed. A joke begins to circulate that Tirpitz will be the next class of U-boat for the Kreigsmarine.

Tirpitz seemly sails next into the very teeth of war. The apparent damage forces her to be moored off an island in Norway as a floating artillery battery. Her port side faces open waters. Several bombing raids produce nothing, but finally the RAF manage to slam two Tallboy bombs into her port side, and 12 minutes after, Wing Commander Williams observes the Tirpitz slowly rolling onto her port side, capsizing and taking much of her crew with her. There is a lot of beer spilled in the officers mess at Hendon that night. The RN break out the extra stock of rum as well. Only Dutch Williams is disturbed, but he just can't place his finger on why. It would be years later that he'd sort out what had bothered him.

The Argentine company that had been breaking up and recovering the Graff Spree make a bid to recover the remains of Tirpitz and her crew. The deal is agreed to by Germany as there are almost 1000 internees from the Spree in Argentina awaiting the end of the war for repatriation. The British agree to not impede the recovery so long as they get right of first purchase of the steel recovered. The company makes it's first survey and discovers that it can re-float the hull with some work. Only four weeks after they begin working on Tirptiz she rises from the mud and is refloated. The main guns fell off when she capsized, but otherwise she's able to be towed to Argentina to be cut up. The dead crew are removed and given proper military burial. Germany files a protest stating that the Tirpitz is still German property, but the Allies provide air and naval cover for the tugs as they tow the hulk out to the mid Atlantic. They want to prevent the Germans from grabbing her.

And a hulk she is. Her main guns are gone, and a lot of her secondary armament is missing or destroyed. Her bridge has been crushed and the funnel is ripped apart like cardboard. Plates of steel cover the holes in the upper deck where the two Tallboy bombs struck.

Around two weeks out a distress signal reaches the allied command. The tugs towing Tirpitz have run into a sudden storm about 300 miles south, or south east of the Azores. Rogue waves have struck Tirpitz and water rushing in through the smashed superstructure has swamped the former battleship. Pumps cannot keep up with the flooding. Could the allies dispatch flying boats with pumps to help prevent loosing the ship. Two Sunderlands are sent the next day, but only find the tugs. The Argentines report that at 1:44 hours Greenwich, Tirpitz slipped below the waves of the Atlantic in waters slightly over a mile deep. The lawsuit against Coastal Command for not responding quickly enough to prevent the commercial loss of millions of dollars of high grade steel is settled out of court to the tune of one million dollars US.

However, this wasn't exactly how things happened. Recently declassified documents from the files of Norway's Secret Service indicated that the Nazis had made modifications to the Tirpitz that would counter the Tallboy bombs. The deck plating and lower decks had been modified to deflect the bomb and redirect the explosive force of large bombs and or heavy ship guns. In the Sept 44 attack the Tallboy that struck the forecastle did little damage, however the appearance of damage was made to put Tirpitz next to Haaköy Island with her port side exposed to the sea. The Germans expected a torpedo attack or bombers to come sweeping in from this direction and stripe Tirpitz on her port side. However, all her vital systems on the port side had been moved. As well, the ammunition magazines were emptied and filled with water, limiting the guns aboard Tirpitz to only what could be stored in the gun mounts. When the Nov, raid came and two Tallboy bombs appeared to strike Tirpitz, the SS masters on board kicked in the pumps and flooded the port side of the ship. It took only 12 minutes for her to appear to capsize. The 900 plus crew were sacrificed to make the sinking appear real.

The Argentine company, Reo Able was a front company set up by the Germans some years before the war. They had been in the fortunate position to recover the secret gunlaying gear aboard the Graff Spree when she was scuttled. They were the perfect cover to re-float the sunken Tirpitz and fulfill the agreement with Japan. Meanwhile Japan had been given complete drawings for the Tirpitz in order to remake the main guns and build components for what was expected to be damaged in the capsizing. The Germans didn't expect the allies to allow the guns to be recovered and in the capsizing the main turrets would simply slide out.

By the time the Tirpitz was south of the Azores, her engines were already fully functioning. Crews and supplies had been secreted aboard her from U-boats at night. When the call came that she was taking on water, Tirpitz was already around the Cape of Good Hope and steaming at full speed towards Japan. A month before the end of the war the new turrets were installed, the new bridge and superstructure built and all her repairs completed. She was conducting sea trials with her supporting flotilla of destroyers and picket ships north of Japan when the surrender was announced.

She was moored in Tokyo Bay less than half a mile from the American battle fleet during the signing of the surrender papers. The battle fleet that her captain hoped he would have the chance to engage in battle. She was eventually sunk as a test target for an atomic torpedo the US navy had been developing. As for the nerve gas Agent Q, no one really knows for sure. Testing had been completed on Chinese prisoners but actual production records show stockpile of the raw materials being gathered, but the end product seems to have disappeared. Some in the spy service hold to the hope that Japan never honoured their end of the agreement. Others think the shipment may have been destroyed or hijacked. And yet others think that the nerve gas had been delivered but the Nazis refused to use it on the battlefield. We may never know. To avoid panic over the missing nerve gas the whole issue of the Tirpitz and the schemes that allowed her to escape to Japan, the allies decided to never reveal the story. The Tirpitz would be melted down in an atomic cauldron, never to be seen again.

In his memoirs Dutch Williams wrote that the lack of secondary explosions had been only part of what had bothered him at the time. What really got to him was how they had been able to attack Tirpitz again and again using almost the exact same tactics. To him it seemed that the Germans had been waiting for something. It was finally when the two Tallboys hit that the Germans could finally act on their secret plan. Dutch Williams died in 1976 never knowing the truth.

[Joe C-P]

Bumping it up to the top, so everyone has a chance.

JoeP

[Hobbes]

With continuing Allied attempts at sinking the Tirpitz, it became clear the ship had outlived its usefulness for the Kriegsmarine.
An agreement was reached with the Japanese: they could have the Tirpitz, but would have to come and get it. In exchange, the Japanese would build a number of U-boats for the Germans. The date for the move is set in November 1943. Preparations for this cruise include removing the front main gun turrets and temporarily welding the holes shut; this made the bow hundreds of tons lighter to compensate for the ice breaker bow that had been placed over the original. The deck space was filled with 20 mm, 37 mm and 88 mm AA guns, some 40 tubes in total. The 88 mm gun battery even had a radar director.
With the Tirpitz in apparent disrepair, the Allies don't pay close attention until one day the Norwegian resistance sends the message that the Tirpitz is gone from its fjord. Despite a massive air search (based on a Westbound course) it isn't found before it passes Murmansk. Several air attacks are repelled easily by Tirpitz' now massive AAA. The Allies respond by flying Lancasters from England to bases in the USSR. Two squadrons are to drop Tallboys onto the Tirpitz, but the atrocious weather grounds the Lancasters until it's too late.
It's no plain sailing for the Tirpitz, though. The Japanese crew had a hard time getting used to the new ship. The few shipmates who could speak German were forever running around, translating the unfamiliar markings and sometimes, whole manuals at a time. The cold and the noise (from the ship breaking through the ice) made for hard living aboard, with more than one air attack beginning with the gun crews putting a steam hose to their guns to remove the ice.
Finally, with its bunkers almost empty, the Tirpitz emerged from the ice fields at Wrangel island, where a supply ship and escorts were waiting for the final leg of the journey: through the Bering Strait and past the Aleutians. The Japanese expected the Americans to try and sink the Tirpitz from the air during the passage through the Strait, so they sent escorts with heavy AA armament, with one destroyer having an experimental armament consisting only of AA guns, more than a hundred of them!
The Americans attacked the Tirpitz only once. A force of torpedo bombers was met with such a blizzard of shells that none survived long enough to launch. In some circles it has been suggested that the Americans were convinced the Tirpitz was unsinkable except by another battleship, so they didn't see the point in an aircraft raid, and only organized one after an impolite telegram from Churchill.
The Tirpitz arrived in Japan in January 1944. It had new front turrets installed, and the rear main gun turret was replaced as well to provide commonality in munitions. The Japanese tried using it against the American carriers, but quickly found out what it's like to go up against a carrier battle group. Despite the effective AA armament, the Tirpitz battle group began sustaining hits from the moment they came within 300 miles of the Essex/Yorktown battle group, the cumulative damage crippling Tirpitz before getting into gun range. A torpedo attack from a US submarine finished the job. The Japanese lost their new toy only three months after they'd finished refitting it.  

[Hawkman]

Here's my attempt...

The Japanese bought the Tirpitz on eBay for a mere £15,300 and it is shown being escorted to it's new home, the beer garden of new German theme pub, "Fritz' Stein Lodge" in downtown Tokyo.

The new owner did contact the current incarnation of the original makers, "Vorsprung Durch 22 Inch Guns" to ask for help in moving the aforementioned battleship to its' new resting place, but they declined on the grounds that:

1. For you, the war is over.
2. They no longer support legacy products.
3. They are currently engaged in a project to help a Mancunian publican convert a Vulcan bomber into a catamaran to sail up the Manchester ship canal.

The addition of Japanese armaments was to deter angry Greenpeace activists (Who were rival bidders in the eBay auction), the Royal Navy (who are a bit twitchy about the fact that a German pocket battleship is once again being let loose near the Atlantic convoy lines), not to mention the outside possibility of Ork Pirates (Who have a pechant for hijacking former Nazi kit just off the Isle of Wight and turning it to their own evil ends)!

If you look carefully, in the background you can see the Bizmark!

Mine's a pint,

Rob M.

[Joe C-P]

OK, the deadline has passed, I'll read the entries and give my verdicts this weekend.

I hope everyone had fun with this.

JoeP

[Ollie]

The Tirpitz a pocket battleship?

Whoa!  Can't wait to see the full size ones!

 :dum:  

[Hawkman]

The Tirpitz a pocket battleship?

Whoa!  Can't wait to see the full size ones!

 :dum:

:ar: Sorry, if it doesn't have wings I'm generally clueless!



Rob.

[Ollie]

No problems!

 

I know the size, because she's a potential target for my planes!

 

[Joe C-P]

Well, I see there are only two really long offerings  B) , plus elmayerle's and Ollie's little ones   , and Hawkman's apparently pint-induced raving     .

Both If My Wife Finds Out... and Hobbes came up with excellent stories. After reading through them a few times, in the end First prize goes to Hobbes, because he explained both the Tirpitz and the escorts, and Second prize to IMWFO.

Hobbes gets to choose from the Airfix Fearless and the Monogram Huey - I'll need your shipping address. IMWFO gets the other, since I enjoyed his story, too - I have your address.

Hawkman gets a pint at the nearest establishment if we ever chance to meet, just because I want to hear what other stories I can get out of him in the proper state.

Thank you all for your entries!

JoeP

[Hobbes]

<takes bow> I'm glad you liked the story.
I'd like the Huey, I'll send you my address in a private mail.