[1250ships]

The Graf Spee suffered a lot more than just "superficial damage" in the battle. There were two areas of damage that were critical. Hits in the unarmored bow area compromised the ships ability to sail in any sort of heavy weather. Worse one of Exeter's 8 inch shells had wrecked a boiler room aft of the funnel. Though the Graf Spee was diesel powered the raw fuel carried had to be treated below it could be burned by her engines. The separators that did the cleaning required high pressure steam to work. The loss of the boiler room ment that the ship only had enough treated fuel for 16 hours of sailing. That hit doomed the ship as there was no way for the Germans to repair the ship in the 72 hours available to her under international law.

This was in the end a design flaw because the critical machinery was carried above the ship's armored deck.


Admiral Graf Spee


HMS Exeter

HMS Ajax

HMS Achilles