page_title: Admiral Hipper-class cruiser
section_title: Armament
hierarchical_section_title: Admiral Hipper-class cruiser / Design / Armament
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo of a 10.5cm SK C/33 anti-aircraft mounting on the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen in US Navy service, preparing for the Operation Crossroads nuclear tests in 1946. Photo was taken by the US Navy's Bureau of Ordnance on 17 June 1946 to document the ship before the nuclear tests.
context_page_description: The Admiral Hipper class was a group of five heavy cruisers built by Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine beginning in the mid-1930s. The class comprised Admiral Hipper, the lead ship, Blücher, Prinz Eugen, Seydlitz, and Lützow. Only the first three ships of the class saw action with the German Navy during World War II. Work on Seydlitz stopped when she was approximately 95 percent complete; it was decided to convert her into an aircraft carrier, but this was not completed either. Lützow was sold incomplete to the Soviet Union in 1940.
  Admiral Hipper and Blücher took part in Operation Weserübung, the invasion of Norway in April 1940. Blücher was sunk by Norwegian coastal defenses outside Oslo while Admiral Hipper led the attack on Trondheim. She then conducted sorties into the Atlantic to attack Allied merchant shipping. In 1942, she was deployed to northern Norway to attack shipping to the Soviet Union, culminating in the Battle of the Barents Sea in December 1942, where she was damaged by British cruisers. Prinz Eugen saw her first action during Operation Rheinübung with the battleship Bismarck.
context_section_description: The three completed ships were armed with eight 20.3 cm (8.0 in) SK C/34 guns in four twin turrets. The ships were supplied with between 960 and 1,280 rounds of ammunition, or 120 to 160 rounds per gun. The guns were mounted in Drh LC/34 turrets, which enabled depression to −10° and elevation to 37°. At maximum elevation, the gun could reach out to 33,540 m (110,040 ft). It fired a 122 kg (269 lb) projectile at a muzzle velocity of 925 meters per second (3,030 ft/s). The projectiles included armor-piercing shells, base-fuzed and nose-fuzed high-explosive (HE) warheads. Each ship was also supplied with 40 illumination rounds that weighed 103 kg (227 lb) and had a muzzle velocity of 700 m/s (2,300 ft/s). The four gun turrets built for Seydlitz were emplaced as coastal artillery pieces in the Atlantic Wall. Only the two forward turrets had been installed on Lützow when she was delivered to the Soviet Union.
  The ships' heavy anti-aircraft battery consisted of twelve 10.5 cm (4.1 in) SK C/33 guns in twin mountings. These guns were supplied with a total of 4,800 rounds of ammunition. The mounts were the Dopp LC/31 type, originally designed for earlier 8.8 cm (3.5 in) SK C/31 guns. The LC/31 mounting was triaxially stabilized and capable of elevating to 80°. This enabled the guns to engage targets up to a ceiling of 12,500 m (41,000 ft). Against surface targets, the guns had a maximum range of 17,700 m (58,100 ft). The guns fired fixed ammunition weighing 15.1 kg (33 lb); the guns could fire HE and HE incendiary rounds, as well as illumination shells.
  Close-range anti-aircraft weaponry initially consisted of twelve 3.7 cm (1.5 in) SK C/30 guns and eight 2 cm (0.79 in) Flak 38 guns. The 3.7 cm gun was a single-shot gun, with a rate of fire of around 30 rounds per minute. At its maximum elevation of 85°, the gun had a ceiling of 6,800 m (22,300 ft). The 2 cm gun was a magazine-fed automatic weapon, firing at up to 500 rounds per minute. Twenty and forty-round magazines were supplied for the guns; The guns were supplied with 16,000 rounds of ammunition. Later in the war, the light anti-aircraft batteries for Admiral Hipper and Prinz Eugen were modified. Four 3.7 cm guns were removed and the number of 2 cm guns had increased to twenty-eight. In 1944, Prinz Eugen's 3.7 cm guns were replaced by fifteen 4 cm (1.6 in) Flak 28 guns. By 1945, the ship's light anti-aircraft battery comprised twenty 4 cm guns and eighteen 2 cm guns; Admiral Hipper mounted sixteen 4 cm guns and fourteen 2 cm guns.
  The ships' armament was rounded out by twelve torpedo tubes; they were mounted in four triple launchers on the ships' main deck. The ships carried twenty-four G7a torpedoes, twelve loaded in the tubes and one reload for each. The G7a torpedo carried a 300 kg (660 lb) warhead. It had three-speed settings; in 1939, it could reach 12,500 m (41,000 ft) at 30 kn (56 km/h; 35 mph), 7,500 m (24,600 ft) at 40 kn (74 km/h; 46 mph), and 5,000 m (16,000 ft) at 44 kn (81 km/h; 51 mph), its maximum speed setting. The 340 horsepower (250 kW) radial engine was improved during the war, which improved performance. The ranges increased to 14,000 m (46,000 ft), 8,000 m (26,000 ft), and 6,000 m (20,000 ft), respectively. Admiral Hipper also carried 96 EMC mines; these mines were contact mines and had a 300 kg explosive charge.
caption: One of Prinz Eugen's 10.5 cm gun mounts
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