German KM heavies stay in Baltic for Barbarossa

Admiral Beez

Banned
In OTL, about 30 days after Lutjens leaves port for his one way trip to the Atlantic, Germany invades Russia. Instead of using their heavy warships for convoy interception, let's have Germany keep Bismarck, Tirpitz, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau out of the Atlantic and use them to support Barbarossa.

So, what can these four ships accomplish? Presumably NGFS or supporting amphibious ops (assuming troop barges are available)
 

Deleted member 1487

About what the Baltic Fleet accomplished IOTL:keeping the Soviet fleet from breaking out and achieving basically noting beyond that for fear of mines and subs. After that they spend their time lounging in Norway and save a lot of wasted fuel and force the Brits to spend huge resources trying to sink them while terrifying Arctic convoys to Murmansk.
 

aktarian

Baltic is small enough so that heavy ships don't have significant edge over smaler ones. And anything heavy ships could do Luftwaffe or smaller ships could do as well.
 

thaddeus

Donor
always thought they could have bombarded Murmansk, then base there, but have never received anything but negative response to that, not sure the technical (if any?) reasons for that?

could serve as fleet in being there, (further) out of reach of British?
 

aktarian

thaddeus said:
always thought they could have bombarded Murmansk, then base there, but have never received anything but negative response to that, not sure the technical (if any?) reasons for that?

could serve as fleet in being there, (further) out of reach of British?
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure operating them there would be problematic due to weather.
 

Gudestein

wiking said:
After that they spend their time lounging in Norway and save a lot of wasted fuel and force the Brits to spend huge resources trying to sink them while terrifying Arctic convoys to Murmansk.
Click to expand...

When considering what Tirpitz (passively) did to the convoys in OTL, its a bit chilling to think how the Brits could have handled 4 BB's. Would there be any arctic convoys at all?
 

Gudestein

thaddeus said:
always thought they could have bombarded Murmansk, then base there, but have never received anything but negative response to that, not sure the technical (if any?) reasons for that?

could serve as fleet in being there, (further) out of reach of British?
Click to expand...

I guess if the Germans had taken Murmansk its a different thing, but bombardment alone doesn't cut it.

The Germans based Tirpitz as far south as Trondheim for supply and repair reasons and I'm not sure (read skeptical) that T&B could have done anything important on land to turn the tide.
 

thaddeus

Donor
aktarian said:
I'm pretty sure operating them there would be problematic due to weather.
Click to expand...

thanks

thought Murmansk was year round port?

but that might well be the answer.

still operating Bismarck and Tirpitz together in Norway would provoke an outsized response.
 
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