German cruiser Admiral Hipper

Admiral Hipper in 1939
History
Nazi Germany
Name:	Admiral Hipper
Namesake:	Admiral Franz von Hipper
Builder:	Blohm & Voss, Hamburg
Laid down:	6 July 1935
Launched:	6 February 1937
Commissioned:	29 April 1939
Fate:	Scuttled, 3 May 1945, raised and scrapped in 1948–1952
General characteristics
Class and type:	Admiral Hipper-class cruiser
Displacement:	16,170 t (15,910 long tons; 17,820 short tons) (design) 18,200 long tons (18,500 t) (full load)
Length:	202.8 m (665 ft 4 in) overall
Beam:	21.3 m (69 ft 11 in)
Draft:	Full load: 7.2 m (24 ft)
Propulsion:	3 × Blohm & Voss steam turbines 3 × three-blade propellers 132,000 shp (98 MW)
Speed:	32 knots (59 km/h; 37 mph)
Complement:	42 officers 1,340 enlisted
Armament:	8 × 20.3 cm (8.0 in) guns 12 × 10.5 cm (4.1 in) guns 12 × 3.7 cm (1.5 in) guns 8 × 2 cm (0.79 in) guns (20 × 1) 6 × 53.3 cm (21 in) torpedo tubes
Armor:	Belt: 70 to 80 mm (2.8 to 3.1 in) Armor deck: 20 to 50 mm (0.79 to 1.97 in) Turret faces: 105 mm (4.1 in)
Aircraft carried:	3 aircraft
Aviation facilities:	1 catapult

Admiral Hipper, the first of five ships of her class, was the lead ship of the Admiral Hipper class of heavy cruisers which served with Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II. The ship was laid down at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg in July 1935 and launched February 1937; Admiral Hipper entered service shortly before the outbreak of war, in April 1939. The ship was named after Admiral Franz von Hipper, commander of the German battlecruiser squadron during the Battle of Jutland in 1916 and later commander-in-chief of the German High Seas Fleet.

Admiral Hipper saw a significant amount of action during the war, notably present during the Battle of the Atlantic. She led the assault on Trondheim during Operation Weserübung; while en route to her objective, she sank the British destroyer HMS Glowworm. In December 1940, she broke out into the Atlantic Ocean to operate against Allied merchant shipping, though this operation ended without significant success. In February 1941, Admiral Hipper sortied again, sinking several merchant vessels before eventually returning to Germany via the Denmark Strait. The ship was then transferred to northern Norway to participate in operations against convoys to the Soviet Union, culminating in the Battle of the Barents Sea on 31 December 1942, where she sank the destroyer Achates and the minesweeper Bramble but was in turn damaged and forced to withdraw by the light cruisers HMS Sheffield and HMS Jamaica.

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