Blohm + Voss
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On April 5, 1877, Hermann Blohm and Ernst Voss founded the Blohm + Voss Schiffswerft und Maschinenfabrik shipbuilding and engineering works as a general partnership. A shipyard was built on the island of Kuhwerder, near the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, covering 15,000 m² with 250 m of water frontage and three building berths, two suitable for ships of up to 100 metres length.
The company has continued to build ships and other large machines for 125 years. Despite being almost completely demolished after the end of World War II, it now builds warships both for the Deutsche Marine and for export (see MEKO), as well as oil drilling equipment and ships for numerous commercial customers.
From about 1930 to 1945 Blohm & Voss also designed and built aircraft for use by both the German state airline, Lufthansa, and the air-force, Luftwaffe. Particularly noteworthy were the large flying boats the company produced, as well as ingenious approaches to aircraft building that often featured asymmetric designs. Although the aviation arm was originally known as Hamburger Flugzeugbau and their aircraft bore the designation "Ha", this quickly fell from use and newer designs received "BV" instead.
The company's name is often found spelled Blohm + Voß in German (and occasionally English) sourcesSee ß for an explanation of the use of this letter and changes in German spelling that have taken place over the last century with regard to its use.. Today Blohm + Voss is (along with Howaldtswerke at Kiel and Nordseewerke at Emden) a subsidiary of ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems.
Ships and submarines
Famous ships built by Blohm + Voss include:- Peking, Pamir, Passat and other Flying P-Liners
- The three-mast barques and school ships of the Gorch Fock class
- SS Europa
- SS Cap Arcona sunk with great loss of life near the end of World War II
- Wilhelm Gustloff, world's first purpose-built cruise ship and also world's worst maritime disaster so far when she was sunk near the end of WWII
- M/V Explorer, the ship currently used by the Semester at Sea university study abroad program
- Savarona - built for an American heiress in 1931. Later the Turkish Presidential yacht and now a charter yacht. Still among the largest few yachts in the world at 446 feet long.
- Enigma - a modern yacht
- SMS Scharnhorst, an armoured cruiser
- SMS Seydlitz and SMS Derfflinger, two battlecruisers that both got heavily damaged in the Battle of Jutland, but stayed afloat and brought their sailors home
- Admiral Hipper, a heavy cruiser
- Bismarck, a battleship
- many Type VII, Type XVII, Type XXI and Type XXVI U-boats
- F209 Rheinland-Pfalz, a Bremen class frigate
- F215 Brandenburg, the first Brandenburg class frigate
- F219 Sachsen, the first Sachsen class frigate
- 4 Almirante Brown MEKO 360H2 class destroyers for Argentine Navy
Aircraft
From 1933 to 1945, Blom & Voss also operated the Hamburger Flugzeugbau aircraft company. Although initially given the factory code Ha (for the factory's official name), the link with Blom & Voss shipyards proved too strong and therefore the early aircraft designs were called "Blom & Voss, type Ha..." followed by the design number. To end this confusion, in 1938 the Reichsluftfartministerium gave in to the unavoidable and changed the company code to BV.Aircraft designed under the Ha and BV designations include:
- Blohm + Voss BV 40, glider interceptor
- Blohm + Voss Ha 137, prototype dive bomber
- Blohm + Voss BV 138, military patrol flying-boat (early versions designated as Ha 138)
- Blohm + Voss Ha 139, long-range seaplane
- Blohm + Voss Ha 140, torpedo bomber flying-boat (prototype)
- Blohm + Voss BV 141, reconnaissance (asymmetric)
- Blohm + Voss BV 142, reconnaissance + transport
- Blohm + Voss BV 143, glide bomb (prototype)
- Blohm + Voss BV 144, transport
- Blohm + Voss BV 155, high-altitude interceptor (formerly Me 155)
- Blohm + Voss BV 222 Wiking (Viking), transport flying-boat
- Blohm + Voss BV 238, flying-boat (prototype
- Blohm + Voss BV 246 Hagelkorn (Hailstone), long-range radar-homing glide bomb
A more detailed description of Hamburger Flugzeugbau and its aircraft can be found in the Wikipedia article for that company
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External links
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