Not every Siebel is a true Siebel – Schwere Fähre 40 scratchbuilt

[invisible officer]

Another fast miní projet and a lot of dry history.

For most every seagoing German catamaran pontoon ferry is a Siebelfähre, so in most books they all are styled that way. But that is not the full story.

Warlord offers a nice gaming model of a Siebelfähre. Unfortunately the story given on the website is not 100 % accurate. “Dubbed the Kleine Fähre” is the main mistake, it was not the true Siebelfähre that was named that.
The Warlord model shows a Kampffähre of Siebelfähre 40 type.

Siebel was owner of an aircraft factory in Halle. He was sent to France to get a plant near Amiens to work for the Luftwaffe. (He was WW I pilot and so Reserveoffizier, now Oberstleutnant). He flew a lot, winning many prices and was president of German Aeroclub since 1933. And he was close to air ministry and Nazi Luftwaffen high brass. Udet and Göring had been his friends.

The Kriegsmarine started to convert river vessels into landing craft for Seelöwe but had nothing ready soon. With no landing craft available for Heer training Feldmarschall v. Brauchitsch ordered General der Pioniere Jacob to build some Heer vessels. Korps-Pionier-Bataillon 47 got the job. The battalion sent men from Cartaret / Cotentin peninsula all over the occupied area to collect material. At Amiens they found large piles of gasoline containers but they belonged to Siebel’s plant. They had to tell him what they are meant for and Siebel became interested.

The Pi-Bat 47 was eager to do the job as fast as demanded. They collected wine-barrels, gasoline containers and similar as floats. Perhaps useful for a river crossing but not for crossing the channel.

Fortunately at OKH (supreme army command) someone had own thoughts. Pioniere used pontoon ferries for centuries and Wehrmacht had large stocks. In Czech stores they had got some Herbert bridging equipment with pontoons.

Two lines of pontoons connected catamaran style formed a vessel that looked much like the later Siebel ferry. First designed without engines they later got 3 outboard engines between the Pontoons. On each pontoon end a BMW aircraft engine drove a propeller.
The existing pontoons allowed construction of 14 ferries. Styled H Fähre 40 they look like a “Siebel” but had rounded bows and sterns.

But Heer had a German system too, the well designed s.S.(Schweres Schiffsbrückengerät) bridging system.
Siebel contacted Luftwaffe and RLM had given him an order to make a prototype of a LW invasion craft. At Rangsdorfer See (near Berlin) he tried a small ferry made from two s.S. bridging pontoons spaced 6 metres apart and connected by a platform. In the center were two old aircraft engines with air propellers. That small vessel was the Kleine Fähre. The army had done a similar vessel with two outboard motors.

Siebel’s idea to use aircraft engines on deck with air propellers was neither a new invention nor good. The flimsy small ferry was able to transport 3 t on a calm lake with 4 kts. Using it on channel would have been suicide.
Krupp Rheinhausen made a bigger and more sturdy one for LW. It was tested on Ems river.

Pi. Bat 47 was not idle in the meantime. They came with the idea of lorry diesel engines (two each mounted side-by-side in each of the aft pontoons) with marine propellers, Siebel came again with three deck mounted BMW aircraft engines.
Luftwaffe needed the Heer s.S. pontoons so a joint venture was done. 31 August 1940 the new ferry was tested. It reached 8 kts, the aircraft engines were noisy, prevented communication on deck and consumed large amounts of rare high octane fuel. It was decided by Luftwaffe to use them only in the final run to shore and as reserve.

On 4 September, two additional versions of the ferry, one powered by Opel Blitz lorry engines and one powered by Ford V8s were tested on the Ems estuary. Using only water screw propulsion, they achieved a cruising speed of 7 kts.
The Heer decided that that was enough. So the small start series of 27 vessels was divided, the LW ones got the additional aircraft engines and the Heer ones not.
Böndel Pionier-Sonderkommando and perhaps some of Siebel’s LW men made them at Antwerp.

That vessel was named the s.S Fähre 40. But to prevent mistakes with SS it was renamed s. F. 40 for Schwere Fähre. That s.F. causes confusion until today because the next type, built for Luftwaffe alone, was named SF for Siebelfähre.
Heer gained from the venture AA guns. Most of the s.F. went to Heer. How many Heer ones had a 88 mm AA is not clear. Most got two 2 cm.
Most went to 5./Bau Btl. 85 in Northern Africa, a few stayed in Europe as training vessels without AA.

Those for LW served with Flakkorps I and Flakkorps II in preparation of Seelöwe. Each had one 88 mm gun and two 20 mm guns plus their three towing vehicles. On sea the broad vessel was a good firing platform. On reaching the beach the guns should leave the vessel and take AA positions there. But the Seelöwe never jumped. The aircraft deck engines got removed on the LW ones.

Heer made with s.F. 41 a better version. In addition to the four truck engines it got a French outboard motor between the pontoons. It was also more sturdy but looked a lot like the 40 version. Just 4 are finished, the material for six more was lost in Italy.

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[invisible officer]

The Luftwaffe liked the design and now the true Siebelfähre 40 was developed by Siebel. Main difference was the rounded stern . The two end pontoons had converted aircraft engines with a water propeller. The deck engines are no longer fitted.

That Siebelfähre 40 reached 7 – 8 kts. It was used in many configurations. Like the schwere Flakkampffähre with thre 88 mm guns used as escort, similar Kampffähre with two 88 mm and the Leichte Flakkampffähre with four 37 mm AA at the Deck corners. Or the Minenfähre used as minelayer.

The next was the Siebelfähre 41. It was able to run up to 10 kts. The Kampffähre had two 88 mm and two 37 mm, four 20 mm and RAG rocket launchers. The rounded end got a better design. It had a bigger deck and could transport up to 100 t.
The Siebelfähre 43 was built in 18 examples. It was no longer made from s.S. pontoons, so construction was more difficult.
Siebelfähre 44 prototype got a normal ship bow. It had converted aircraft engines that consumed normal fuel.

Luftwaffen-Fährenflotillen I – V used the Fähren for LW service, others went to Heer units or are run with combined crews. The main disadvantage of the Luftwaffe built Siebelfähre was that it needed the rare aircraft fuel.
Heer and Kriegsmarine disliked it for that reason. They dubbed the 88 mm AA versions “Ersatzzerstörer” / replacement destroyers. In German “Ersatz” sounds bad, indicating low quality.

In Palermo Luftwaffen Einsatzstab Fähre Süd controled 97 Siebelfähren that supplied the Africa Corps. In 5.43 EFS got disbanded and the flotillas were absorbed by the Kriegsmarine 4th and 10th Landungs-Flotillen. A mixed blessing.

To add to the historian’s problems the front units normally gave the Siebelfähren unit numbers. In most cases a F with a digit. Like the Marinefährprahm “F-lighter” ones. With same number. So a vessel named in a report may be a Fähre or a MFP of same number.

Siebel was a salesman with best connections and so he was able to claim that all the improvements came from him. Göring helped a lot in this. In fact it was the opposite. The water propeller came from Heer. They did the original H Fähre design. And had the s.S. pontoon. Worse, the Diesel s.F was much better than the air petrol Siebelfähre. But myths die hard.

And Siebel had a good reason to insist that on all plans Siebel Flugzeugwerke GmbH was to be stamped on. Regular Heer officers got a “Well done” and perhaps a promotion. But a LW Reserveoffizier, that managed to give the impression that his company did the design, got cash for every vessel built following that plan.

He even managed that later the s.F. plans got that stamp. (May be the change to s.F., so similar to SF, was no coincidence) In fact the Siebel company did little to nothing in connection with Siebelfähren. The Halle factory built Dornier and Junkers bombers in license and Siebel training and communication plane designs are built in occupied France. But it was enough to have a few Siebel men in his Sonderstab. Being a “Wehrwirtschaftsführer” he had the key to money.

(He survived the war and formed a new company post war. The Siebel men in Halle and their families ended in Russia as forced labor scientists. Siebel not, honi soit……)

[invisible officer]

I decided to scratch a s.S 40 / sF 40 for my gaming collection.

I gave it a 88 and 20mm guns but no deck aircraft engines. So it’s a LW one post taking the air propellers out or a Heer one with LW armament and 2 cm platform. The “Baukasten” system made repairs easy and the front units did many conversions.

Heer Vessels in North Africa with 5/ Bau-Btl 85 got local nicknames. All the vessels there got lost until 1943. Serviceable pontoons got reused.

The fate of the ferries of that type in Europe is only partly recorded. I doubt that the LW ones kept the 88 mm but that is a ??? And for Africa the 88 is even more ?????

My model is totally built from scratch, the only difficult part was the 88 mm.

For the gamer it is of little to no importance that s.F. and SF had different engines. But for the nerd ….

• This reply was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by invisible officer.

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[elcee]

I always have to smile reading about Siebel and his obsession with aircraft engines. I envision him, wandering about always looking for stuff to put aircraft engines in.

Was there anything (except aircraft), where this worked…? (in connetion with Siebel at least)

[invisible officer]

May be on Propeller race cars. High speed for short range work.

One of the common public misconceptions is that everything with an air propeller was driven by an airplane engine.

But most cars had normal octane car engines.

The idea to use worn out aircraft engines was not bad. But they burned too much high octane, that made it a bad replacement for “normal” engines.
To gain 1 – 2 knots was not enough.

And that stuff was explosive, Diesel was much safer. The conversion of the aircraft engines was possible but just one Siebel got them, finished in 45. They even tried to make them run with wood gas.

In the moment I do part two of the thread. About the Pionier – Landungfähren. Pi LF or just LF. Looking like a Siebel but Diesel engines and 100 % Heer. Two variants building on desk.

[Author]

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