The wrecks of the scuttled German Grand Fleet in Scapa Flow include two Dresden II class cruisers, the Koln and the Dresden. On the Koln local skippers maintain a buoy attached to a boat davit just forward of the break in the hull.
Immediately below the line is one of the 3.4-inch secondary antiaircraft guns mounted high on a pillar above deck. Originally the gunners would have stood on an open platform attached to the pillar from which they could work the gun, but this has long gone.
Forward from this gun are the flues from the funnels. The funnels have broken off, but some parts are still recognisable amongst debris on the seabed beneath. As usual with warships, the flues are blocked by armoured grills to protect the boilers below from falling shells.
Next comes the bridge and main mast. The mast is spectacularly intact with supporting cables home to dangling arrays of plumose anemones. Two spotting platforms are located a short way up the mast. Beneath the mast the main bridge area retains its overall structure, but the sides have rotted away to leave a crosshatched array of supporting beams.
Forward of the bridge is the armoured conning tower a solid looking cylindrical structure with slit windows. On the roof is a "T" shaped device that on a modern ship could be a radar scanner, but is in fact the range finder for the ship's guns.
An arrangement of lenses and prisms would be used to calculate range from the parallax between images viewed through opposite ends of the range finder. The optics from the range finder were removed in Germany before the Koln was surrendered to the British. Apparently the Germans regarded the secrets of their range finder optics as something worth keeping to themselves when the fleet was interred.
The Koln originally mounted two bow turrets side by side on the forward deck, but all that now remains are two debris filled holes in the decking where the turrets used to be and an armoured locker just behind them, perhaps used to store ready ammunition.
The last feature before the bow is a pair of capstans with anchor chain dangling between them. Beneath the starboard bow a length of chain runs out across the seabed, but I have never swum to the end of it to look for an anchor.
Back towards the conning tower on the port side of the hull, several missing plates and a gouge in the deck provide easy access to the spaces below the deck, with turret mechanisms and drives for the capstans easily accessible.
Behind the davits and gun pillar the hull has been broken open for salvage. Over a number of years the weakened structure has collapsed further leaving a tangled mess of debris including the aft mast and superstructure.
Crossing the debris the wreck soon regains its structure, with a raised decks supporting one of the rear turrets. This turret is intact, showing the full armoured shield covering the front, top and sides of the turret, but leaving the rear open. The 5.9-inch gun barrel points about 20 degrees to port of aft. Further back and on the main deck, the other rear turret is also intact.
A few plates have broken free of the deck, leaving holes too small to enter. At the stern a single capstan and chain hold the kedge anchor in place against the rear of the hull.