Best World war two warships?

[delcyros]

Thanks for Your inputs, wavelength and welcome on board.

I may add that the armoured weatherdeck received a slightly different chemical treatment than the lower ballistic armoured deck in SCHARNHORST, BISMARCK-; and HINDENBURG-class ships. According to post war shooting trials carried out by the british on captured plates from TIRPITZ, the BHN level was about 10% higher for the 50mm thick plates. This had benefitting effects against cruiser fire but also helped to decap enemy projectile caps under difficult conditions. Scaling effects caused by these hard plates prevented the utiliztion of 250 BHN+ plates for the main armour deck. While homogenious, the KM was reluctant to use these treatment for any plates over 50mm thickness, when toughness becomes a more important aspect than hardness.

I think that thickness of the plates generally has a lot to do with plate resistence. The germans, italiens and british were reluctant to use 360mm+ plates for any shipboard application. The japanese and americans were not but their plates suffer from poor scaling effects.

best regards,

 

[parsifal]

Thankyou for the answer, and very comprehensive and informative. However, whilst i agree that the number of times the German surface Navy was engaged in combat are very limited I think that limited dataset is being even more restricted by the approach you are adopting. For example, at Barents Sea there was more to the action than the Hippers shooting. Hipper represents the successful element of the german plan, what about those ships less successful, like the Lutzow and the destroyers?

"To compound Kummetz's dilemma, Admiral Burnett's cruisers Sheffield and Jamaica appeared seemingly out of nowhere. The Sheffield opened fire first, straddling Hipper with several salvos before getting her range and then scoring a damaging hit. Kummetz attempted to swing around and make smoke but before he could do so Hipper took two more hits. Again immobilized by Hitler's restrictive orders, he decided he was already in deep trouble for taking what the Führer would consider an unacceptable risk, so he ordered a cease fire and a speedy withdrawal of all units. But Burnett suffered no such reluctance to engage. At 1133, the German destroyers Friedrich Eckholdt and Richard Beitzen mistook the Sheffield and the Jamaica for the Hipper and Lützow and attempted to link up with them. Before the German commanders could realize their error, every gun on the two British cruisers opened up.

Being closer in, the Friedrich Eckholdt was hit directly amidships and sunk within less than two minutes. The Richard Beitzen escaped unharmed. This distraction had taken the British cruisers to the north of the convoy and caused them to lose contact with the Hipper which was now hustling westward to join the Lützow .

Meanwhile, Captain Stänge aboard the Lützow identified several possible targets in the convoy through the mist and smoke. The nearest was three miles away and the farthest seven. Though the range of his guns was 15 miles he fired 87 11-inch and 75 6-inch rounds without scoring a direct hit. Stänge had missed the sort of opportunity seldom presented to a naval commander"

At North Cape I am certain the the DoY was achieving multiple straddles of the Scharnhorst the same as Scharnhorsts return fire. Despite Scharnhorsts being outnumbered in termsof tubes she could fire, her ROF was superior to the DoYs, so it would be interesting to see who was straddling who more often.

As an ex-naval officer, having been involved in many training shoots, ive never heard of the saying you are quoting. I was wondering who exactly would make that statement. admittedly my experience is postwar, we considered it successful shooting to actually hit the target rather than attempt to straddle, and whilst my knowledge of radar is overshadowed by your own, I can assure you that we relied on radar heavily to achieve those hits as early as possible, and the radars we were using were direct developments of the wartime types (I served initially on a Daring Class destroyer, later I was on an Adams class DDG). And we trained according to the principals laid down in the 1954 US gunnery training manual, as updated, but which itself had been prepared on the basis of lessons learned during the war. Even though there was a world of difference between the environment I trained in and WWII, the links and experiences are still tangible I believe. Achieving a straddle was seen as a positive step, but we could and did make rapid corrections to our azimuth and bearing to achieve a hit as quickly as possible. Radar direction was crucial to achieving that firing solution, so I am at a loss in understanding where this idea that radar could only get you "near enough" or "somewhere near" the target. That is not how we were trained, and we were using essentially wartime technology to learn the traded. We were taught to adjust fire as quickly as possible, and to use the most appropriate target location devices that were available, which invariably meant we spent a lot of time peering at the radar scope to determine the firing solution as quickly as possible. Radar has its limitations, and ought not be relied on as the sole means to verify target position and speed, but it was our prime means of fire control.

Straddles usually preceded hits, because it meant that the enemy's range/speed/course had been found, and there was a better chance of being able to predict its position for the next salvo. Radar (and computers), allowed that firing solution to be found very quickly, so i am at a bit of a loss as to why you would imply that radar does not help, or is of limited help, in achieving hits. That is just contrary to everything I ever saw learned or observed whilst in service

 

[Wavelength]

I'm not saying that radar doesn't improve your shooting. The German Navy, along with The RN and USN proved that during WWII.

The Barents Sea outcome did not boil down to technical capabilities, it was the results of the errors in judgement and good judgement by humans. BTW, its not correct that Luetzow didn't score any hits. It damaged two frieghters and seriously damaged the destroyer Obdurate with radar directed salvoes from 16,000 meters range.

 

[renrich]

The Washington scored more than "several" hits on Kirishima at Guadalcanal.

 

[Wavelength]

I used the term several because nobody knows for sure how many were scored. The official report lists 9. At only 8,400 yards it certainly could have scored many.

 

[Wavelength]

Thanks for Your inputs, wavelength and welcome on board.

I may add that the armoured weatherdeck received a slightly different chemical treatment than the lower ballistic armoured deck in SCHARNHORST, BISMARCK-; and HINDENBURG-class ships. According to post war shooting trials carried out by the british on captured plates from TIRPITZ, the BHN level was about 10% higher for the 50mm thick plates. This had benefitting effects against cruiser fire but also helped to decap enemy projectile caps under difficult conditions. Scaling effects caused by these hard plates prevented the utiliztion of 250 BHN+ plates for the main armour deck. While homogenious, the KM was reluctant to use these treatment for any plates over 50mm thickness, when toughness becomes a more important aspect than hardness.

I think that thickness of the plates generally has a lot to do with plate resistence. The germans, italiens and british were reluctant to use 360mm+ plates for any shipboard application. The japanese and americans were not but their plates suffer from poor scaling effects.

best regards,

I have a copy of the Norwegian metallurgical tests of the Tirpitz plates. The 50mm plates averaged 230 brinell, while the 100mm, 80mm, and 120mm plates from the panzer deck averaged 250 brinell. This equates with a tensile strength of 80kg/mm2 (117,000 psi), for the upper deck, and 90kg/mm2 (130,000 psi) for the panzer deck.

The chemical composition for Tirpitz's Wh was:
C-0.29%
Cr-2.41%
Ni-1.81%
Mo-0.49%
Si-0.32%
Mn-0.0.26%
Cu-0.11%

An advantage of using such chrome/moly material for homogenous armor was that the ductility remained more or less constant (20% elongation) through the strength/hardness range typically used for deck armor. They could manipulate the ballistic resistance of the armor through a certain range without making the armor too brittle or too soft. For example, they could increase the ballistic resistance of the panzer deck slightly higher than standard, or compared to the upper deck, and this could ameliorate a loss of effective thickness by using two plates instead one plate.

Another way to look at the trade off between ductility and strength is by the ratio of yield point to ultimate tensile strength. The yield point is the load that the metal starts to deform and the ultimate tensile strength is the point where it finally tears apart. If the elongation is 20% then the metal will have stretched 20%, before it breaks. If the UTS of Wh was 85kg/mm2 then its YTS was 50kg/mm2. This was by far the best ratio of any WWII homogenous armor. This is a good measure of armor toughness. Increasing tensile strength could result in greater ballistic resistance if the ductility wasn't significantly decreased. For example ( an actual Krupp example provided to the British post war), if the armor's UTS was 80kg/mm2, a projectile may require a velocity of 447 M/s for penetration, but if it was 84kg/mm2 it would require 460 M/s for penetration. There were limits to how much manipulation could be used. Another Krupp example revealed that increasing the strength to significantly more than 150kg/mm2 could result in a decrease of necessary velocity of about 8% compared to 80kg/mm2. Here the elongation would measure about 14% instead of about 20%.

I have seen the British test data comparing the Tirpitz Wh plates to the British non cemented armor (NCA). The Wh required about 10% greater velocity for *' and 15" shells to penetrate than did the British NCA.

It's generally agreed that very thick plates present intractable quality problems because they do not heat treat properly. The USN substituted 16-inch and 17 –inch Class B plates for Class A plates on the new battleships' turret face plates. But they were still brittle. The Naval Research Lab studied the problem and found the heavy Class B plates' ballistic resistance was sub par by about 20%. Krupp always found that thinner plates could be produced to higher quality levels than thicker plates. German practice was that Wh should not exceed 15cm by very much and that 320mm KC was the point of diminishing returns.

After the war the British built a mockup of the Tirpitz deck system to test against and found that it always de-capped their shells. A de-capped 14" shell could defeat the panzer deck if its velocity exceeded 466 M/s. Of course it would never exceed 466 M/s after penetrating the upper deck.

Regards,

 

[renrich]

Wavelength, the wreck of the Kirishima has been found and photos of the wreakage show around twenty major caliber hits. I saw the photo somewhere but can't remember where.

 

[ToughOmbre]

According to combinedfleet.com the KIRISHIMA was hit by over forty (40) 5" shells in addition to nine 16" AP shells.

TO

 

[delcyros]

At ranges under 9000 yards such as were the case for the engagement KRISHIMA / WASHINGTON - the angle of fall for the US 16in/45 was at around 5 deg. Such low aof´s would return a high hit probability, once KRISHIMA is straddled. In addition to this, shells which would be counted as short on the observation (shellsplashes which were identified relying on optical instruments in this engagement), would rather deflect from the watersurface and may end as a hit on KRISHIMA´s side, depending on geometry and distance. Officially, they recognised only nine hits for splashes missing from the salvos. In fact it ws probably significantly higher given the specific circumstances of the action.

Wavelength, can You cite a source for the norwegian metal properties tests of TIRPITZ? I am well aware of the finds from Dave Saxton but have not run across an norwegian source so far.

Thanks in advance,

 

[Wavelength]

Oslo Materialproavanstalt: Panzer fran sk Tirpitz, Oslo, den feb 20, 1948.

 

[Juha]

Hello Wavelenght
According to Garzke Dulin, the 14" from DoY hit Scharnhorst's sbd side abreast of turret Anton not the turret itself. Did the German BB main armament turrets have ready use ammo during WWII? IHO, not being BB specialist, British turrets didn't have. IMHO if flooding was done promptly, some flaming charges would not developed into conflagaration, especially because German charges were more stable and in metal cartridges. So after pumping B magazine dry the firing could continue. It seems that in A magazines there was conflagaration but not in B-magazines, that is according to Garzke Dulin.

As I wrote in my message #670 "On British heavy shells, at least those 15" shells which hit Dunkerque at Mers-el-Kébir worked OK", I didn't claim that those 15" shells did something exeptional, only that they worked as advertised.

Juha

 

[delcyros]

I take it that You have read parts or the whole document. Do You happen to have a copy of this source? I ask deliberately because I have my problems accepting the following issue:

The 50mm plates averaged 230 brinell, while the 100mm, 80mm, and 120mm plates from the panzer deck averaged 250 brinell. This equates with a tensile strength of 80kg/mm2 (117,000 psi), for the upper deck, and 90kg/mm2 (130,000 psi) for the panzer deck.

In fact, this result contradicts the UK tests of the same material which D. Saxton has come across so far. The UK test showed the upper deck to have avg. 250 Brinell (85 to 95 Kg/mm^2) while the lower Panzerdeck had 225 to 235 Brinell (80 kg/mm^2). This is a quite serious point of departure in both sources. From my understanding -and I might be wrong- german Wh if treated to a hardness of 255 Brinell had a strain of 20% (minimum acceptance limit = 18%) while the same material treated for only 225 Brinell got a strain of 25/6% (minimum acceptance limit = 23%).
For the thicker Panzerdeck a material with high strain is the preferable application. Thinner plates could be treated for higher hardness without a significant drop in strain. The 30mm samples from TIRPITZ in UK tests are much harder than the 50mm deck plates too (probably for splinter bulkheads).

best regards,

 

[renrich]

There is a damage analysis online which shows that Kirishima took 20 major caliber shell hits and 17 smaller ones. This seems to correlate with two Japanese officer's who were aboard her reports. If the analysis is correct and Washington obtained 20 hits out of 75 shots fired, all at night, that is pretty good shooting

 

[Wavelength]

I take it that You have read parts or the whole document. Do You happen to have a copy of this source? I ask deliberately because I have my problems accepting the following issue:



In fact, this result contradicts the UK tests of the same material which D. Saxton has come across so far. The UK test showed the upper deck to have avg. 250 Brinell (85 to 95 Kg/mm^2) while the lower Panzerdeck had 225 to 235 Brinell (80 kg/mm^2). This is a quite serious point of departure in both sources. From my understanding -and I might be wrong- german Wh if treated to a hardness of 255 Brinell had a strain of 20% (minimum acceptance limit = 18%) while the same material treated for only 225 Brinell got a strain of 25/6% (minimum acceptance limit = 23%).
For the thicker Panzerdeck a material with high strain is the preferable application. Thinner plates could be treated for higher hardness without a significant drop in strain. The 30mm samples from TIRPITZ in UK tests are much harder than the 50mm deck plates too (probably for splinter bulkheads).

best regards,

Yes I have read the Norwegian analysis. The 50cm plates are about 230 brn. The 100mm and 80cm plates are about 250 brn. This is also what D Saxton's sources indicate . Some how there's mix up there. It is also in keeping with the findings of Krupp's ballistics engineers. The Krupp people observed that if the armor UTS was less than 80kg/mm2 that a de-capped shell would actually have better penetration than a capped shell of equal mass. However, if the armor's UTS exceeded 80kg/mm2 then a decapped shell had significantly less penetration than a capped shell of equal mass. By removing the cap the mass is reduced, and an additional effective thickness gain is attained by presenting the de-capped shell with armor exceeding 80kg/mm2.

 

[Wavelength]

Hello Wavelenght
According to Garzke Dulin, the 14" from DoY hit Scharnhorst's sbd side abreast of turret Anton not the turret itself. Did the German BB main armament turrets have ready use ammo during WWII? IHO, not being BB specialist, British turrets didn't have. IMHO if flooding was done promptly, some flaming charges would not developed into conflagaration, especially because German charges were more stable and in metal cartridges. So after pumping B magazine dry the firing could continue. It seems that in A magazines there was conflagaration but not in B-magazines, that is according to Garzke Dulin.

As I wrote in my message #670 "On British heavy shells, at least those 15" shells which hit Dunkerque at Mers-el-Kébir worked OK", I didn't claim that those 15" shells did something exeptional, only that they worked as advertised.

Juha

There may well have been a conflagaration in the forward magazines, but in my opinion probably not. I don't know for sure though. The Germans did have ready use ammo in the turrets, at least the Hippers did as outlined by Paul Schmalenbach.

Reading up on the various accounts of the battle, it looks like there were possibly two hits forward at that time; one vs the turret and one to the forward section on the tween deck. This is just forward of A-turret The tween deck hit started a nasty cabling fire that was the main source of the smoke. A hull hit high up abreast A turret and passing over the belt, may have penetrated the barbet, because there was no upper belt to de-cap such a shell on the SH. Any penetration of the barbet would place the forward magazines in jeopardy, and probably taken out the turret too. It would have been standard procedure to flood the forward magazine(s).

 

[parsifal]

The Barents Sea outcome did not boil down to technical capabilities, it was the results of the errors in judgement and good judgement by humans. BTW, its not correct that Luetzow didn't score any hits. It damaged two frieghters and seriously damaged the destroyer Obdurate with radar directed salvoes from 16,000 meters range.

Agreed that the barents sea was the result of Human error, though the Germans were severely constrained by hitlers standing orders concerning avoiding escessive risk.

Concerning the attacks by Lutzow, there is no record of the Obdurate suffering "serious damage" . The records that I have access to indicate that she suffered slight splinter damage that had no impact on her fighting efficiency.

Regarding the damage to the two freighters, do you know which ones, and the extent of the damage sustained. I can then check the convoy manifests to determine the veracity of those claims. The general consensus in western histories is that the Luzow had no tangible effect on the battle, despite being given the opportunity to do so....and her gunnery, in contrast to that of the hipper, was quite poor in the engagement. and Hippers gunnery, despite being markedly better than Lutzows, was, in my opinion inferior to that achieved by the two British Light Cruisers also engaged. To me, and to the people that trained me, the measure of success is not the number straddles, but the number of hits over the total number of salvoes fired.

 

[Wavelength]

Bekker working from both German and British primary sources (He was given full access by the Admiralty) wrote:

"at 11:40 hours Luetzow opened fire at last. An hour earlier she had a defenceless convoy right in front of her guns…..now the range had extended to 16 km….Above all when Luetzow opened fire at last the Hipper had already been hit and had disengaged. Though the formers 28-cm shells were seen to register, and the British destroyer Obdurate was in fact seriously damaged, at 12:03 hours as darkness began to fall, Admiral Kummetz finally ordered the Luetzow force to withdraw to the west."

What seems at the heart of your questions seem to be the comparative performance of the radars though. An in depth West German study of this battle done by the West German Navy in 1983 is most instructive to this question. They relied on primary documents almost exclusively, but noted some of the popular western secondary sources such as Pope and Roskill. Another, important source on Luetzow's performance was Hans Prager's account that hardly deviates from the Luetzow KTB.

The Luetzow had approached the battle zone from the south. It was following a practice of switching on its Seetakt radar and scanning for a few minutes at intervals. This practice was so that it would not give away its position to British radar detectors before it could come into radar detection range and thereby allow the British to effect evasive action. All radar transmissions can be detected at a greater range than the radar itself can locate targets. The visibility was 300 meters.

As Luetzow approached, its own radar detectors began picking up British radar transmissions. When at about 10:40 hours it had received several intercepted radar transmissions of higher signal strength and with PRFs of 500 and 3000, so Stange ordered the Seetakt switched on for good. The Seetakt located several ships from the convoy. The Luetzow's gunnery officers begged Stange to open fire but Stange demurred. He could not be sure if the targets (that were hardly visible much less identifiable) were friend or foe. The radar transmissions of 500PRF had introduced serious doubts into his mind. Both the Germans and the British used radar with 500 PRF, and although the radar transmissions obviously came from British and German radar still quite some distance away, passive detectors can not determine range. The radar returns from the convoy ships would not give any indication of friend or foe because they would of course not be carrying German IFF transponders. With no IFF indication and PRFs of 500 being detected Stange was in a conundrum. When at 11:16 hours, the Luetzow and Hipper exchanged IFF signals at about 25km range, Stange realized his error.

Stange reversed course and sought redemption. The Luetzow's radar located several targets. It tracked two firm targets to the North at an initial range of 29,000 meters. These were Sheffield and Jamaica, but Stange considered the range extreme and sought closer targets. Right after opening fire the target was shrouded in a snow storm but Luetzow continued accurate blind fire under full radar control. However, observing the fall of shot was difficult for the radar operator because of a faulty vacuum tube that caused the radar indication to jump every time Luetzow fired a 28cm salvo. They decided to shut the radar down and repair it. Without the radar, Luetzow had to cease fire after only firing 7 salvoes. A few minutes later with the radar back up and running, the Luetzow tracked shells being fired at it, but falling well short. These were from Obdurate. The radar ranged Obdurate at 15,400 meters and Stange ordered it brought under fire. Strikes were observed, but it was a crushing disappointment (noted as such by Stange) that after only firing a comparative handful of salvoes overall they received the order to disengage. Most British accounts credit the Hipper for the Obdurate damage, but it was Luetzow.


this is getting bit long so I'll address the British performance below........

(I don't recall the names of the convoy ships damaged now although I was given them once and the British sources for that a few years ago.)

 

[Wavelength]

The performance of the British radars during this battle was rather mixed. Tovey wrote in his official report that none of the British destroyer's radars proved capable of detecting and tracking the German cruisers on their own. Only the type 271 radars on the destroyers were capable of holding the German cruisers after being "put on" the target after spotting visually the German gun flashes. It could not hold contact for long though, because the Hipper was operating at the extreme edge of 271's detection range to cruisers. Kummetz was trying (successfully) to lure the British destroyers away to the north with episodic firing and then jinking away to the north. He achieved his objective of forcing the convoy to turn into the Luetzow group to the southward, while damaging multiple British destroyers, and also keeping his own group's ships at a relatively safe distance.

Burnette first located the Hipper at about 11:05 hours from a range of 21km with the Sheffield's Type 273 radar. WWII radar expert Louis Brown reports that the British 50 cm radars that equipped the British ships during this battle were not capable of blind fire, because these were the older model Types 284/5 without lobe switching and not the newer pattern Type 284/5M models with lobe switching. This seems to be why Burnette was obliged to wait until he closed range to 12,000 yards and obtained visual bearing data before opening fire on Hipper. Tovey noted that an experimental British IFF system failed completely to operate as well. This didn't matter so much, because at the time of the British cruiser's timely arrival, the Hipper was highlighted by the artic twilight on the southern horizon and clearly identifiable from seven miles, while they remained hidden in the artic gloom to the northward. The Hipper's radar was preoccupied with the tasks of sinking the Achates and damaging the Obedient at the time.

The Jamaica's 273 radar was knocked out by the shock of its opening salvo, but Tovey noted that the ranging by the Types 284/5 50 cm radars were crucial to the British shooting, despite their limitations in bearing accuracy. Radar ranging was required due to the extreme weather conditions that rendered the optics mostly useless. They scored two, perhaps three hits on the Hipper. The German destroyer was sunk at point blank range as it mistook the British cruiser for the Hipper in the soup, and tried to join the British formation. Burnette must have gasped with relief when the German destroyer didn't launch torpedoes. In my opinion the German radar directed shooting was comparatively much more impressive thoughout. It had to perform in mostly blind conditions, at greater ranges, and against much more difficult to hit targets.

 

[delcyros]

Interesting account on Barent Sea, thanks for the informative post, wavelength.

Regarding the Scharnhorst account, there was kind of an upper belt armour abreast the turrets. Even if it was only 45mm Wh, it was heavily contured (~20 to 30 deg abreast the forward turrets, depending locally) and thus it was in fact thick enough to decap typical US and RN major calibre shells. While not intended to do so (it would fail to decap german Krupp APC and italian APC as well) it is very likely to decap the RN 14in APC. With the shell decapped, the impact on the barbette would then result in full shatter, which might still cause significant local damage (up to including damage behind the barbette) but not a classical textbook penetration of the whole projectile in a condition fit to burst.

To me, and to the people that trained me, the measure of success is not the number straddles, but the number of hits over the total number of salvoes fired.

That´s explainable by the increased accuracy and the different environment of firecontroll post war. I can assure You that the closest you could come with ww2 era firecontroll is hitting at direct fire only (no FC required, only point blanc range) or -most usual- straddling at anything else involving FC. With a mean salvo deviation of +-200 yards and more in range (68% of all falls are in within this distance to the MPI), there is simply no possibility to ask for a hit. You either straddle a target or You adjust the MPI acordingly to straddle. The hit on the other hand is a random event in within the probability limits of the straddle itselve. You may manipulate the probabilities a bit (that´s why half salvos are preferable to full salvos), but You can´t tighten the dispersion pattern beyond the limits of the gun / turret / projectile / propellant combination. The dispersion pattern for major calibre projectiles at realistic fighting range, however, is always much larger than any ship buildt in ww2.

 

[parsifal]

Bekkers account is seriously at odds with multiple sources. To cite just one HMS Obdurate, destroyer (prepared by Lcdr Mason RNVR), "the Obdurate was Sighted German cruiser HIPPER and Armoured ship LUTZOW (Ex DEUTSCHLAND) and their escorting destroyers. Took part in action against German ships. Sustained slight splinter damage during this engagement".

It is also hard to reconcile Bekkers account with Stanges diary entries, where he notes "As we withdrew from the battle scene, it was hard to escape the feeling that, even though the situation appeared to be in our favor, we were unable to get at the convoy and scored no successes whatsoever"......

I also managed to track down some source material on the composition of the convoy. It consisted of the following

14 merchantmen:
Empire Archer, (British), 141 vehicles, 18 tanks, 21 fighters, 4,376 tons general cargo; Commodore of Convoy Captain Melhuish
Daldorch (British), 264 vehicles, 1,744 tons general cargo
Empire Emerald (British), 2,580 tons oil fuel, 7,400 tons aviation fuel
Pontfield (British), 5,500 tons oil fuel, 5,280 tons aviation fuel
Chester Valley (US), 2 vehicles, 25 tanks, 10 fighters, 4 bombers, 250 tons fuel, 4,371 tons general cargo
Puerto Rican (US), 14 vehicles, 23 tanks, 15 fighters, 8 bombers, 100 tons fuel, 5,345 tons general cargo
Executive (US), 139 vehicles, 4 bombers, 450 tons fuel, 450 tons fuel, 4,210 tons general cargo
R.W. Emerson, (US), 160 vehicles, 45 tanks, 13 fighters, 5 bombers, 780 tons fuel, general cargo
Ballot (US), 115 vehicles, 25 tanks, 18 fighters, 0 tons fuel, 5,534 tons general cargo
Jefferson Meyers (US), 376 vehicles, 4 bombers, 500 tons fuel, 5,336 tons general cargo
Vermont (US), 299 vehicles, 4 bombers, 300 tons fuel, 4,048 tons general cargo
Yorkmar (US), 188 vehicles, 150 tons fuel, 5,326 tons general cargo
John H. LaTrobe (US), 191 vehicles, 58 tanks, 10 fighters, 4 bombers, 640 tons fuel, 4,397 tons general cargo
Calobre (Panamanian), 166 vehicles, 8 tanks, 250 tons fuel, 4,534 tons general cargo

Total cargo:
2046 vehicles, 202 tanks, 87 fighters, 33 bombers, 11,500 tons fuel, 12,650 tons aviation fuel, 54,321 tons general cargo.

Note: no rescue ship was provided, probably because the convoy was small, and equally possibly because none were available

From another source, None of the merchantmen were more than lightly damaged and all 14 reached Kola on the 3rd January. Because the damage was slight, this suggests to me it was the result of further near misses.....

The timeline of events for this battle in that critical 11 to 12 time period (author David Saxon Naval History Forums) was

1106-Sheffield detects and begins tracking Hipper with Type 273 radar at 21,000 meters.
1109-Hipper turns southwest, leaving the scene of the Bramble sinking.
1116- Hipper and Luetzow exchange radar IFF signals. Kapt Stange realizes he has made a huge mistake by holding fire on radar located targets during the previous 1/2 hour.
1117-Hipper engages Achates from 18,000+ meters
1123- Hipper shifts fire to Obedient.
1125 -Obedient is hit and turns away.
1125-Hipper and destroyers suddenly turn west by northwest (this must have been when the first British cruiser salvoes arrived) range from cruisers to Hipper was ~11,000 meters.
1125-Jamaica's 273 radar is knocked out by first salvo's shock.
1132-Luetzow has completed 180* turn and is increasing speed to 26 knots.
1133-Hipper is in high speed turn, turning first to north then to east.
1135-Luetzow has detected and began tracking Sheffield and Jamaica on radar at 29,000 meters. Kapt Stange considers the range too far.
~1136-Hipper opens fire on British cruisers but then stops per request from Eckoldt, which is being blown out of the water as it tries to join British formation confusing Sheffield for Hipper.
~1138-Kummetz recieves another "no unecessary risks" reminder.
1140-Hipper turns toward southwest.
1142-Luetzow opens fire on convoy, partially then fully, hidden in snow storm from 16,700 meters.
1147-Hipper turns west and Kummetz gives first orders to Stange to break off attack.
~1151- Luetzow ceases fire to re-set radar.
`1155-Luetzow recieves follow up order to withdraw.
1200-Obdurate opens fire on Luetzow (thinks its Hipper) but shots fall well short.
1202 -Luetzow tracks Obdurate on radar at 15,400 meters and Stange orders it brought under fire with nose fuse ammo. Obdurate thinks it has been hit by Hipper.
However Obdurate had previously been engaged from 0930 by the hippers escort, with no results.