The Ehrenfels-class freighter is a German vessel.
Description[]
The Ehrenfels-class was a class of nine German merchant ships built in the 1930s. They had an average load capacity of 10,500 dwt, similar to the famous American "Liberty Ships". All of these nine ships were forced into military service, acting as supply transporters and submarine tenders. Two of them, the "Kandelfels" and the "Goldenfels", have been further converted to the auxiliary cruisers "Pinguin" and "Atlantis", which served with some success as merchant raiders in the Atlantic and Indian Ocean. Both were sunk by British cruisers in 1941. There was no much better fate for the rest of the class: All except two ("Neidenfels", "Hohenfels") did not survive the war. The naming ship of the class, the "Ehrenfels", became famous after a British commando raid called Operation Creek: The ship has been interned at Mormugao by the outbreak of WW2, but served further as a secret spy ship, sending home information about allied activities in the Middle East, India and Burma. During the attack the German crew managed to scuttle the ship by themselves, preventing it from fall into enemy hands.
In BattleGroup42, two Ehrenfels-class ships can be found in 4504-Pounding the Rock as objectives for the British to destroy. The ship also appears as a static model in 4202-Tracking the Wolves.
A merchant raider variant is also available in the form of Ehrenfels-class Hilfskreuzer.