This episode examines Germany's auxiliary cruisers and the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper as they carried the commerce war into distant shipping lanes during 1940 and early 1941. It follows the disguised merchant raiders that forced the Royal Navy to disperse its strength around the globe, then traces the Hipper's design limitations, encounters with convoys WS-5A and SLS-64, and repeated mechanical setbacks. Together, their operations reveal both the reach and the limitations of Germany's surface-raiding strategy before the battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau entered the Atlantic. Credit Episode Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/state_library_south_australia/3331881750/in/album-72157623232407924 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices