Not likely to happen when all of Sydney's crew met their destiny at sea.

Since the Kormoran survivors said the Sidney was on fire fore and aft when she disengaged,my guess would be that one of her magazines went off.

We'll know more when they start taking photos (or film) of her.

There's a pretty cool documentary (part of the Battlefront or somesuch series) that focuses on the German Commerce Raiders - even shows actual footage of Pinguin in action with the Norwegian Whaling fleet.

Highly recommended for those interested in this somewhat overlooked aspect of the sea war.

After finding the Kormoran I knew it would only be a short matter of time.

This is great to hear...but sad to hear at the same time. Still, a lot of closure for a lot of families.

Some sonar scan images of both "Kormoran" and "Sydney" can be found here:

http://www.findingsydney.com/

Photos of the wrecks will probably be published at a later date.

SH3-GWX. I still can't play SH4.

Re-reading this I can't believe I didn't remember it before. It was the only time in modern warfare that this happened, but two hundred years ago there was the converted merchant Bonhomme Richard vs the Frigate HMS Serapis; John Paul Jones vs Richard Pearson; "I have not yet begun to fight!"

Looking at the Sydney scans, the wreck seems relatively intact, wouldn't a magazine explosion tear the ship to pieces, like HMS Hood?

Sonar does indicate Sydney is in one piece and on her side.

Yeah. The article said that they think the bow may have come off and it may have been the reason why she finally went down.

The article said the large piece of debri in front the ship could be the bow. That being the case, the magazine hold may have been in that part of the ship and ignited, blowing the piece of the bow off. I imagine it wouldn't take long after that for the ship to sink.

We'll just have to wait for the ROV photos/videos to be sure, A magazine explosion on the front might explain why there are no survivors, but would also have probably vaporized the front section of the ship...

How long were the two ships slugging it out before the Sydney disengaged? Maybe there was only enough ammo left to blow the bow off or ammo in the forward turret exploded. If German crews said they saw the boat ablaze fore and aft, then a magazine or forward turret explosion would be the most plausible cause.

Sydney's A and B turrets we're reportadly disabled shortly after the battle begun, so there should've been a considerable amount of shells still left in the forward magazine after the battle...

Whatever happened,had to have happened fast for a ship of that size to go down with no survivors.

X turret was the one that caused the damage to the Kormoran in the battle. The others did't really get a look in.

Thats awesome that they finally found her. Maybe now they can finally solve all the misteries surrounding her.