Another false start

1
March 11th, 1917
General Staff Headquarters
Berlin


Smoke lies heavy in the stuffy room as the most important men in the Kaiserreich crowd around the table. Overall, the men wear the heavily decorated field-gray uniforms of the army high command. Most of them do, at least, as there is one notable in the three men in the dark blue naval uniforms. There is a cough, but other than that, no one dares interrupt the man at the head of the table as he stands and begins to speak. Working over a map of France with a pointer, he begins to outline the plan that the rest of the men are desperately waiting to hear.

"Here, at the hinge of the British and French armies, is Saint-Quentin," he stabs at a black dot on the map, "where their overall control of the battlefield is weakest. This is the objective of Michael. Once we split their armies, we will wheel north and cut off the British. It is at this time when Georgette will commence, driving through the gap and wheeling south to mop up the French." He makes a sweeping motion to the south. "It is imperative that we maintain offensive momentum throughout this entire operation. Finally, in conjunction with our final drive towards Paris, Operation Odyssey will begin." With this, he flips the map of France over, revealing a chart of the North Sea and the English Channel. The man in the naval uniform then stands and takes the pointer from the army officer. He begins to speak.

"Operation Odyssey involves the entirety of our surface fleet, which will assemble here," he stabs at Helgoland, "and sail, hugging the coast." He draws the pointer along the Dutch and Belgian coasts. "It will begin with the diversionary group of three of our old battleships, led by Admiral von Reuter," one of the men in naval uniform raises his hand to identify himself, "with attached light screening forces going ahead of the main fleet to draw off elements of the Grand Fleet. We will ensure this by flooding the lines with discussions of this plan, dubbed Odyssey 1. Odyssey 2 will begin once it is clear that the Grand fleet is split. The main elements of the High Seas Fleet, led by admiral von Hipper," the other man raises his hand, "will approach whatever divided element of their fleet is unengaged and defeat them in detail. What this operation does require, however, is that we continue construction on our new capital ships and sacrifice the U-Boat construction. For this, I ask permission of the Kaiser. Are there any questions?"

No one speaks up. The plan is ambitious, but if it succeeds, it will give the Germans a fighting chance at ending the war before the Americans arrive in force. As the meeting is dismissed and the room clears, orders begin to be drafted up. While there is still much more detail to go over and kinks to work out, the plans are generally sound. The gears of battle begin to grind back into action.
 
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SsgtC

Banned
It's bold, I'll give it that. Definite boom or bust potential. Honestly, either way, the war will be all but over. The only thing to determine is which side is dictating the terms
 
2
March 12th-December 31st, 1917

Preparations for Michael and Odyssey to begin in mid-February 1918 commence. The Kaiser authorizes resumption of construction of Sachsen and Württemberg. Construction on these ships is hurried on these ships and parts are cannibalized from the two other incomplete battlecruisers and the scrapped U-Boats. With the increased effort and resources, they are expected to be completed and worked up by late January, just in time for the operation. In order to get their crews up to some degree of parity with the rest of the fleet, men from Kaiser and Markgraf are earmarked for the cadre of the two battleships. Men are hurried from the east to fill out the German lines, however, they are kept in reserve to be moved to the schwerpunkt closer to the time of operation. The High Seas Fleet begins training and rehearsals in the Baltic and the plans are kept under the utmost secrecy. No information is disseminated over the wires lest Room 40 find out. All messages are delivered by hand. It is slower, but the ruse must not be broken. Hopes are high. As new years comes around, high command begins to hold its' breath. Round the clock work on the two remaining Bayerns resumes in order to get them ready for the coming operation.
 
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SsgtC

Banned
I hate doing this to you, but there is no way you can have the ships completed and worked up that quickly. Sachsen was estimated to still require 9 months of work to complete and Wurttemberg was estimated to need another year of work. Same with the battlecruisers. Mackensen was still 15 months away from completion when work stopped on her and Prinz Eitel Friedrich was nearly 2 years away from completion. Graf Spee was the closest to being done, and she still needed 12 months of work.
 

SsgtC

Banned
Also, for those of you with more knowledge than myself, did the Germans know about Room 40 yet?
AFAIK, Germany never realised that their codes were being broken and read by the British. They assumed it was a leak on their end
 
I hate doing this to you, but there is no way you can have the ships completed and worked up that quickly. Sachsen was estimated to still require 9 months of work to complete and Wurttemberg was estimated to need another year of work. Same with the battlecruisers. Mackensen was still 15 months away from completion when work stopped on her and Prinz Eitel Friedrich was nearly 2 years away from completion. Graf Spee was the closest to being done, and she still needed 12 months of work.
Dammit
 
Well, now you've got me looking up the build status of these ships in late 1917. Hmmmm...

SMS Sachsen (via Wiki): By the time work stopped in 1917, Sachsen had received six of her eight main guns, and the remaining pair had been diverted to be converted into railway guns or fixed batteries in Flanders. Approximately 76 percent of the hull had been assembled and 13 percent of her armor had been fitted, with much of the rest in the workshop alongside, being prepared to be installed. The ship was complete up to the battery deck—one deck below the main deck—and 50 percent of her upper deck was in place. Her boilers had been installed and both of her turbines and the diesel engine had been almost completely assembled in the workshop, requiring trials before they could be fitted. Both of her funnels had been erected.

Given that having a working ship by February is going to require some time even at round-the-clock tempo, am I to assume that the order to finish these ships was given much earlier in the year? Because less than three months is hardly enough time to work up a crew, let alone finish fitting 87% of the armor, 24% of the hull, and 2 of the main guns.

EDIT: Sorta ninja'd by @SsgtC.
 
I hate doing this to you, but there is no way you can have the ships completed and worked up that quickly. Sachsen was estimated to still require 9 months of work to complete and Wurttemberg was estimated to need another year of work. Same with the battlecruisers. Mackensen was still 15 months away from completion when work stopped on her and Prinz Eitel Friedrich was nearly 2 years away from completion. Graf Spee was the closest to being done, and she still needed 12 months of work.

Yeah, that's what I'm making out, too. (Actually, a couple of these were slightly farther along than I had remembered, which is not saying much.)

My backdoor way around this would be a POD at the beginning of 1917, where secret orders were cut to finish at least the two Bayerns as quickly as possible, with top priority for resources. (I suspect that they simply will not get Württemberg ready in time. Perhaps better just to throw everything at just Sachsen?) Problem is, that would still leave almost no time to work the crews up, even if you round up picked men from around the HSF. I think we would need some clarification about why such a dramatic change in naval policy would be made at that point, well before the spring offensive planning had really crystalized.

I don't really see any hope for the Mackensens. Too much lead time required, no matter how many shipyard workers you put on the job. But I suppose even adding just one or two Bayerns to the battle line, worked up or not, would be a sizable benefit.

Of course, the other thing with moving the POD back to the beginning of the year is that you'd basically be butterflying away the entire unrestricted submarine warfare decision, which is just about a big enough change to win the war, or at least a draw, for Germany all by itself.
 
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SsgtC

Banned
Well, now you've got me looking up the build status of these ships in late 1917. Hmmmm...

SMS Sachsen (via Wiki): By the time work stopped in 1917, Sachsen had received six of her eight main guns, and the remaining pair had been diverted to be converted into railway guns or fixed batteries in Flanders. Approximately 76 percent of the hull had been assembled and 13 percent of her armor had been fitted, with much of the rest in the workshop alongside, being prepared to be installed. The ship was complete up to the battery deck—one deck below the main deck—and 50 percent of her upper deck was in place. Her boilers had been installed and both of her turbines and the diesel engine had been almost completely assembled in the workshop, requiring trials before they could be fitted. Both of her funnels had been erected.

Given that having a working ship by February is going to require some time even at round-the-clock tempo, am I to assume that the order to finish these ships was given much earlier in the year? Because less than three months is hardly enough time to work up a crew, let alone finish fitting 87% of the armor, 24% of the hull, and 2 of the main guns.

EDIT: Sorta ninja'd by @SsgtC.
The only way I'm seeing any of the ships being ready is if von Scheer had disobeyed the Kaiser and never stopped construction of the ships in the first place. If that's the case, then Sachsen could possibly be completed in a month of round the clock labor with larger shifts made up of work crew s diverted from other tasks. Wurttenberg and von Scheer could probably be completed in 2-3 months with round the clock work and Mackensen probably in 4?

Edit: you could also possibility use a minor POD where work isn't slowed as much after 1914, allowing the ships to be much farther along by early 1917
 
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Yeah, that's what I'm making out, too. (Actually, a couple of these were slightly farther along than I had remembered, which is not saying much.)

My backdoor way around this would be a POD at the beginning of 1917, where secret orders were cut to finish at least the two Bayerns as quickly as possible, with top priority for resources. Problem is, that would still leave almost no time to work the crews up, even if you round up picked men from around the HSF.

I don't really see any hope for the Mackensens. Too much lead time required, no matter how many shipyard workers you put on the job. But I suppose even adding two Bayerns to the battle line, worked up or not, would be a sizable benefit.

Of course, the other thing with moving the POD back to the beginning of the year is that you'd basically be butterflying away the entire unrestricted submarine warfare decision, which is just about a big enough change to win the war, or at least a draw, for Germany all by itself.
Now I hate to do this but I'm going to retcon the meeting POD to March 1917 so the Bayerns can be completed. IOTL unrestricted submarine warfare resumed on February 1st, 1917.
 
Now I hate to do this but I'm going to retcon the meeting POD to March 1917 so the Bayerns can be completed. IOTL unrestricted submarine warfare resumed on February 1st, 1917.

So America is still coming into the war, then?

That's another problem with U.S. belligerency, of course. Among the many other enormous advantages it gave to the Entente, it also provided the Grand Fleet with the Sixth Battle Squadron, tilting a heavy British advantage in capital ships into something approaching overwhelming, even if you finish out the Bayerns. (Yes, they weren't up to Royal Navy standards until war's end, but five extra dreadnoughts is five extra dreadnoughts.) German leadership so badly, badly misread American intentions and perspective.

Problem is, it is a struggle to come up with an easy and plausible point of departure to reject the unrestricted submarine warfare decision. The Admiralty was pretty well in favor of. it all around. So was Bethmann-Hollweg. So was Hindenburg. The only major figure I know of who opposed it was von Jagow, who was on the way out anyway by late 1916. To overcome that kind of consensus by switching out just one decision-maker (say) or even putting the Kaiser in a dramatically different mood is pretty difficult. Likewise, in the alternative, changing the winner of the 1916 U.S. presidential election is not likely to alter America's response much.
 
So America is still coming into the war, then?

That's another problem with U.S. belligerency, of course. Among the many other enormous advantages it gave to the Entente, it also provided the Grand Fleet with the Sixth Battle Squadron, tilting a heavy British advantage in capital ships into something approaching overwhelming, even if you finish out the Bayerns. (Yes, they weren't up to Royal Navy standards until war's end, but five extra dreadnoughts is five extra dreadnoughts.) German leadership so badly, badly misread American intentions and perspective.

Problem is, it is a struggle to come up with an easy and plausible point of departure to reject the unrestricted submarine warfare decision. The Admiralty was pretty well in favor of. it all around. So was Bethmann-Hollweg. So was Hindenburg. The only major figure I know of who opposed it was von Jagow, who was on the way out anyway by late 1916. To overcome that kind of consensus by switching out just one decision-maker (say) or even putting the Kaiser in a dramatically different mood is pretty difficult. Likewise, in the alternative, changing the winner of the 1916 U.S. presidential election is not likely to alter America's response much.
My objective was never to reverse the submarine warfare decision, it was rather to put the HSF in a position where it could have some kind of local parity/superiority with the Grand Fleet and defeat it to such an extent and in combination with the 1918 offensive that the Allies have to sue for peace.
 
My objective was never to reverse the submarine warfare decision, it was rather to put the HSF in a position where it could have some kind of local parity/superiority with the Grand Fleet and defeat it to such an extent and in combination with the 1918 offensive that the Allies have to sue for peace.

Oh, I get that, that much was clear.

You just starting my head churning. I was thinking, "Hey, I can think of one obvious way to reduce the German dreadnought deficit by five ships."

I am not sure that just inflicting disproportionate losses on the Grand Fleet is enough by itself to break the Allies here, especially with America in the war. Now, in combination with a greater advance on the Western Front, by using the HSF to hammer into the Channel (and thus disrupt British Army logistics for a limited period of time), there might be a possibility there, maybe.
 
Oh, I get that, that much was clear.

You just starting my head churning. I was thinking, "Hey, I can think of one obvious way to reduce the German dreadnought deficit by five ships."

I am not sure that just inflicting disproportionate losses on the Grand Fleet is enough by itself to break the Allies here, especially with America in the war. Now, in combination with a greater advance on the Western Front, by using the HSF to hammer into the Channel (and thus disrupt British Army logistics for a limited period of time), there might be a possibility there, maybe.
I’m thinking about giving up on trying to write timelines completely as I am clearly not fit to do so.
 
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