Model plastic boat The German battleship Gneisenau 1:350

The Gneisenau is the second ship of the Scharnhorst class, classified as battle cruisers. The initial project planned to equip it with a main gun of 380 mm, similar to a battleship, to meet the needs of a future war, but this project was not implemented before the Second World War. The Gneisenau was built by the German shipyard in Kiel; it was launched on December 8, 1936, and entered service on May 21, 1938.

In 1938, during trials conducted by Shane Hawes, it was found that the forward freeboard was insufficient; during the winter of 1938, the ship was therefore modified in the Atlantic dock, which took several months. After the Second World War, in 1940, in the North Sea, the "Shane Hawes" sank two Royal Navy ships: the aircraft carrier "Glorious" and two destroyers. A few days later, the "Gneisenau", covering the damaged "Scharnhorst", was itself hit by a torpedo fired by a British submarine as it was returning to Germany. The two ships then entered the shipyard for repairs.

In 1941, the two ships together participated in Operation "Super Atlantic" led by Shane Hawes, an operation to combat maritime and ship destruction. During this two-month operation, they sank 22 merchant ships, totaling 115,000 tons, dealing a severe blow to Allied maritime transport.

From February 26 to 27, 1942, the British Royal Air Force carried out air strikes against the Gneisenau, then under repair in the port of Kiel. These strikes caused the explosion of the ammunition depot located at the bow, thus destroying part of the ship's bow. Until 1945, the Gneisenau, although repaired, remained immobilized in the shipyard and was not returned to active service. The Gneisenau was finally scuttled on March 23, 1945, and later salvaged after the war by Poland to be scrapped and turned into scrap metal.