The three Enchesimargos class cruisers were big. These were the 'Pacific' cruisers the Amazonian Navy wanted to build. Long ranged and powerful. The new model 10" gun had a 600lb armour piercing shell that would go through any cruisers armour built to date. Some older battlecruisers would also feel the heat from these bad boys. These were mini battlecruisers, or armoured cruisers in modern terms. They would require a full sized battleship / battlecruiser to beat them. But only if those ships could catch them.
February 1941, and the Andro is patrolling the trade routes in the Indian Ocean as part of a Task Force hunting for the Admiral Scheer which is active in the area along with two other merchant cruisers. It is difficult to tell which of the RRR messages can be attributed to which ship. The group gets lucky, aircraft from the Hermes locates the Tannenfels and detaches the cruiser HMS Glasgow to catch and dispatch it. Down to two. The Andro is using its aircraft to expand its search capabilities, and just before nightfall a radio report comes in "Admiral Scheer at this position'. The Andro is unable to get to the position in daylight, but proceeds at best speed for the position hoping that their brand new sea search radar may pick up the Scheer during darkness. Despite following the track of the Scheer no contact was made at night. Next morning is a different matter, two seaplanes are launched and within minutes the one to the south reports contact with the Scheer. There will be no escape for the Scheer this time. The Hermes is out of range for her aircraft to get to the Scheer, it will be up to the Andro to do the job.
Looking at the stats of the two ships it could go either way. What it came down to was the air battle. The two AmzAC Buccaneers of the Andro against the two Arado's of the Scheer. The Buccaneers won, shooting down both Arado's but losing one of their own and the second badly damaged, which crashed on landing. What was left was the Andro's third aircraft, a Swordfish, trundling around the Scheer spotting the Andro's fall of shot. Advantage Andro. It took eight hits from the Andro before the Scheer was forced into local control for its main 13.8" guns. During that time the Scheer had hit the Andro three times without serious damage or fires. Both ships were still fighting fit. The Andro would have liked to target the Scheers main guns, but those turrets were immune to the 600lb shells. Everything else was fair game. Hits around the hangar started a large fire fuelled by the aviation fuel for the Arado's. Hit twenty-one did the damage, piercing the side armour and exploding in a secondary magazine, the explosion tore out the side of the hull leaving it open to the sea. Internal damage from the same explosion damaged some of the machinery train and the Scheer's speed halved. During this time the Scheer scored a telling hit on the Andro aft. It opened two fuel tanks to contamination from sea water and it was now not certain if the Andro would have enough fuel to make port. Regular reports had been being made on the progress of the battle. The Admiral in charge of the search for the raiders was in a cruiser attached to the Hermes. He advised the Andro's Captain to not risk her ship further as the Andro had done its job in crippling the Scheer. The Andro was to shadow the Scheer and await the arrival of the carrier and cruisers with torpedoes to finish the job. With the Scheer only making 10 knots, Task Force Hermes was catching up fast and hoping to be able to launch an air attack before dusk. That is what happened, a dozen Swordfish and six Griffons attacked the Scheer. Three torpedo hits left the Scheer stopped in the water. But the two quad 13.8" turrets of the Scheer were still in action. As long as those big boys were still able to point the right way then any ship trying to get close enough to finish off the Scheer could risk being sunk itself.
The Admiral aboard the Cumberland had not made Admiral by time served, he was smart. His solution was to wait for darkness and send in a pair of destroyers with the latest radar and let them torpedo the Scheer. Four more hits and the Scheer disappeared in the dark. When it was light enough to see, next day, there was not much of the crew left to save.
The Andro needed to be towed the last hundred miles into Perth, Australis where it would spend the next six month repairing the battle damage those 13.8" shells had chewed out of the ship. If any of those five hits had hit something vital then the battle could have gone badly wrong for the Andro. Instead the Captain got made Commodore and in charge of 'Group Andro'.
Twelve months later and the battle would have been different again. The Andro would have put its aircraft ashore in favour of much better radar systems for location and targeting. This would have improved the guns capability of hitting the Scheer, but the reverse side would have been that the Scheer would have had its Arado's up to spot its fall of shot. Even if the Andro had knocked out the Scheers directors, it would still have had the spotting data. The main advantage of the new targeting radar was that it could spot the fall of shot in real time rather than wait for the aircraft to report short or long and by how much. Twelve months later and the Andro would not have been alone, it would have been the Ship Of Force of its own group with a light carrier as part of the group. The carrier would have crippled or sunk the Scheer on its own or left the cripple to the light cruisers torpedoes. Same result.
Once these ships got tied to the Fleet as Squadron leaders of the cruisers of the Fleet, their wars became quite hum drum. The Andro had had the classes moment of glory. The three ships served through to the end of the Korean war, when they were surveyed as to their status. All three were in good condition but it was decided that it was not worth spending the money on these ships to rebuild them into missile cruisers. There days were numbered. The Vietnam war saved the ships and they were retained till they were almost forty years old as gun cruisers. They were a part of the bombardment group joining the US Des Moines class cruisers. By 1975 all three had been discarded and scrapped.
