Tirpitz was the largest of four great battleships built for the Kriegsmarine, all of them constructed in the period leading up to the Second World War. The ships, Scharhorst, Gneisenau, Bismark and her sister ship Tirpitz, enjoyed superior armour and firepower to any Royal Navy ship at that time, having violated a treaty agreement on the maximum displacement of capital ships to achieve this. By comparison HMS Hood, which had been the pride of the British navy at the time it was dealt a death blow by the Bismark, had been laid down in 1916 and commissioned in 1920, so was already decades old by the time these modern battleships entered service with Hitler's navy. Tirpitz was commissioned in February 1941, and after working up in the Baltic was sent to Trondheim in January 1942, to help repel an invasion Hitler was convinced the Allies were planning for Norway, and to attack the Arctic convoys bound for Russia. Its presence there alone compelled the Royal Navy to hold a large element of the Home Fleet in reserve at Scapa Flow as cover in the event it should take to sea. The fear instilled in the Admiralty by a ship like the Tirpitz was understandable when viewed in the context of the military technology of the time, as although the era of the large battleship was effectively drawing to a close as advances in airbourne weaponery steadily eroded their advantage, the threat in 1942 to convoys and their escorts from a ship of this size, remained considerable.
Nothing would paralyse our supply system and seabourne trade so successfully as attack by surface raiders. Lord Sir Dudley Pound, First Sea Lord
Prime Minister Winston Churchill, was deeply concerned by the Kriegsmarine's capabilities, and on learning Tirpitz had been been discovered by air reconnaissance in Faettenfjord in January 1942 was to impress on Chiefs of Staff that “the destruction or even crippling of this ship” was of the utmost importance.
The whole strategy of the war turns at this period on this ship, which is holding four times the number of British capital ships paralysed, to say nothing of the American battleships retained in the Atlantic. I regard the matter as of the highest urgency and importance.Winston Churchill, The Second World War, vol IV, Cassell, 1951, p.98.
| Displacement | Water Line Length | Overall Length | Beam | Draught | Maximum Speed | Crusing Speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 38,900 tons | 226 m | 235 m | 30 m | 9.9 m | 31.5 knots | 17 knots |
| Range | Crew | Deck Armour | Side Armour | Armamaent | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10,000 nautical miles | 1,800 men | 50 - 105 mm | 45 - 350 mm |
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In July 1942, she was indirectly responsible for the destruction of convoy PQ-17 without firing a single shot. In September 1943, while anchored in Kåfjord/Altafjord, she was attacked by British midget submarines and put out of action for the first time. Later subjected to continuous aerial bombings, the Tirpitz was finally sunk off Håkøy Island near Tromsø on 12 November 1944 after being hit by 5.4-ton ‘Tallboy’ bombs