Could the Kriegsmarine have assembled a battlefleet for the Atlantic ?

[McPherson]

???

RIKKO.

(From another thread which explains where the modern land based air farce anti-ship strike package comes. The Japanese invented it.)

What do you do with 1935 American air tech, if you apply Battlefield Interdiction Methods instead of the Douhet theory?

Wello, the two target aircraft are the Zero and the Nell if you are keeping score. These will come as a surprise to the Americans, but upthread I noticed the astute comment that a battlefield interdiction doctrine calls for the evolution of "strike packages" which are platforms and ordnance tailored to a mission target set. In 1935 terms this is KNOWN to exist as the Americans and Japanese, and to a lesser extent the British actually DEVELOP this doctrine and methodology.

It is called "aircraft carrier aviation" at the time and it consists of fighters, bombers and torpedo planes designed to assist a battle-line of battleships with air support during a Tsushima/Jutland style engagement.

By 1935, the USNAS, IJNAS and FAA (partially) had worked out that an aircraft platform to sink ships had to:
a. find the target ships.
b. navigate from base to the target and back to base.
c. sink or mission kill the target.

All three naval air services had reached the same conclusions about the target's characteristics which they had to solve:

d. it would be hard to find.
e. it would be hard to hit and sink, so a mission kill option was necessary.
f. the target would be well defended and it would run away, hide, and SHOOT BACK if it could.++

The American navy will eventually call it target servicing and the tailoring of munitions and platforms to service the target, a strike package, and the staff work to plan the servicing an air tasking order. This is not air farce thinking. It is USN and it is extant around 1938 when it gells as an alpha strike.

It is well known now, but how the torpedo and level bomber, the dive bomber/scout and the air superiority fighter came out of this pre-WWII target servicing thinking is not so obvious.

g. Blow a hole in a ship's deck, you let in air. Dedecking for aircraft carriers means the enemy cannot fly. Cratering a runway amounts to about the same thing, but holes can be plated/planked over and or filled with dirt and concrete or whatever.
h. Opening a hole below the waterline and he sinks or if you blow up the ammo dump, he's out of business for the operational duration.
i. so you want to bomb with precision effects, matched to target characteristics and you want to make the effects last for the duration of the operation, BECAUSE YOU RECOGNIZE THAT HE CAN REPAIR QUICKLY ON LAND.

The torpedo bomber becomes a very important piece of kit from that analysis.. It WILL be a level bomber when it is not sinking ships. Everyone gets this one wrong, except the Japanese in 1935.

What the Japanese get wrong is the dive bomber as the scout plane. The Americans get that one RIGHT and it is that doctrinal difference to make the more agile dive bomber the recon bird that is the difference in locating the target, that and the essential recognition, that nothing matters except to hit first and hit hard when the targets being serviced are NAVAL as in warships.

The thing is that land based aircraft outrange and have a securer base mode than flattops. And if you are doing the RIKKO, then you better get your doctrinal ducks lined up and play that game of BATTLEFIELD INTERDICTION MISSION across the airpower board, both land and sea.

And that means the bomb-bays had better be able to drop

h1. long narrow nose heavy bombs that will not be carried off by a cross wind, that will plonk nose first and go off after they bury to create an earthquake effect to drop bridges or collapse buiidings
h2. torpedoes obviously.
h3. glide bombs that will fly horizontally into a target's side (hangers and ships and barracks.).
h4. Parachute or retarded fall bombs that can be soft landed to sit there and explode when someone passes near or tries to clear them (MINES.)
h5. cluster bombs that will rain bomblets onto enemy area targets, such as massed tanks, a factory (to set it on fire) or infantry or truck columns.
h6. Fire bombs. Never understood why the Hurtgen and Schwartzwald were not bombed and turned into major forest fires.
View attachment 564229

So

Basically the American problem comes down to 1935 engines and types of airframes available in the 1935 to 1938 design period.

Just needs the PROPER analysis.

The Japanese KANJI acronym letters for the G3M and G4M bombers they described in type classification is heard to the European ear as "rik-kou", which is usually spelled as RIKKO in Anglo-script.

The tailored anti-ship land based air force that can sink a surface action group (Force Z for example in the Gulf of Siam.), is called a RIKKO by PACFLT at the time.

 

[Spencersj345.346]

Overall the Kriegsmarine was a waste of money, minus the U-Boots, merchant raiders and some surface raiders.
The Nazis never had enough time or money to make a real navy, as the ships they could have used in WW2 were ironically, sitting at the bottom of Scapa Flow.

A large chunk of said ships refloated and scrapped between the wars

 

[Sarthak]

Plan Z - or how not to prepare for a naval war with the strongest navy on the planet

 

[Theoretical_TJ]

1. The destroyers do not have the range.
2. The Luftwaffe does not have the equipment, training, desire, or the BRAINS and never will to RIKKO or fight a naval war.
3. German admirals (aside from Marshall) are too inexperienced and clueless (especially Raeder) to know how to properly deploy and logistically support surface action groups.
4. Germans are clueless about naval and air geography.

Battle of the Atlantic sit-rep March 1942.

Source (McPherson's work on subject based on USNI and RN plans and dispositions from HYPERWAR.)

See MAP.

WOW. I knew it was bad for the German navy to even have a prayer. Those are hilariously overlapping spheres of naval death and that's with Nazi Norway. The only thing more absurd is the concept of a Soviet surface battlefleet.

 

[Dorknought]

A large chunk of said ships refloated and scrapped between the wars

Derfflinger was still afloat in 1939, just upside down and remained that way till 1945. Unique ship in that she spent more time afloat upside down than right side up.

 

[Dorknought]

The cost per ton for surface warships and battleships in particular is much lower than submarines. The surface ships and raiders made an economical contribution to the commerce war not just in tonnage sunk but in the limiting of naval deployments that the RN could make.

The PQ-17 convoy is illustrative of the consequences of running convoys without sufficient surface support against an enemy surface group.
Even though the German surface units didn't make contact only 17 ships survived 24 were sunk.
8 Sunk by aircraft
9 Sunk by aircraft and U Boats
7 Sunk by U Boats

The debacle and losses damaged relationships with both the Americans and the Russians.

 

[TDM]

Scharnhorst, Gniesenau and Prinz Eugen literally sailed through the English Channel in broad daylight and survived, Tirpitz sortied 3 times and survived, S&G sortied into the Atlantic multiple time without interception, including a loop that ended up in France before the aforementioned Channel Dash, and claimed an aircraft carrier, Lutzow and Admiral Scheer conducted multiple raids on the Arctic convoys without being sunk, and Hipper sortied into the Atlantic twice and got away clean both times. A large surface force sortieing is by no means guaranteed to be intercepted by the British, much less destroyed

For a fleet in being to work it has to be credible, hence the Germans have to show they are willing to leave port and "try" to break out into the convoy lanes for raiding, lest they be ignored. Of course they should not actually try to do so, but run for home upon sign of danger, to avoid being destroyed/damaged. However they have to be seen by the British to do something

Actually a large fleet like that which is limited by it's slowest/shortest ranged ship is much easier to find and track* and once found since it can be outnumbered and is more likely to be operating out of air cover than the RN/USN is very vulnerable.

Thing is how does concentrating them all in a single vulnerable fleet somewhere in the N/Atlantic (out of range of LW support) get you anything better than OTL?

This whole idea would seem to give you no benefit's and only down sides.

also just because I don't think I've mentioned it yet likely out of Air Support from the LW, that's a massive deal !



*not just by eyeball, radar, intercepted messages etc, etc (remember OTL the British and the US had developed ASW techniques for the N.Atlantic, large surface fleets are somewhat easier to spot than u-boats)

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Was it possible for the Kriegsmarine in WW2 to forgo the piecemeal surface raiding actions they did with only one or two ships and assemble a larger force to break into the Atlantic ?

Specifically could they have combined Bismarck, Gneisenau , Scharnhorst, Scheer, Lützow, Hipper, Prinz Eugen and a number of destroyers into a single fleet and sent that out into the Atlantic ?

With a POD between 1933 and 1935 it's difficult, but not ASB.

Bismarck, Tirpitz, Hipper, Blücher and Prinz Eugen were completed about a year late according to the schedule drawn up in 1935. Seydlitz was due to be completed in December 1939 and the heavy cruiser Lützow was due in July 1940.

The AGNA allowed Germany to have three 35,000 ton capital ships. In October 1935 Battleship "H" was to be laid down in December 1937 and completed in February 1941.
Battleship "J" was added after the British announced the ships that would become Duke of York, Anson and Howe. She was to be laid down in May 1938 for completion in November 1941. However, a shortage of suitable slipways together with an excessively long design process meant that they weren't laid down until the summer of 1939.

The programme was behind schedule because the number of ships being built overloaded the the shipbuilding industry. So reduce the number of ships being built. My candidates are Graff Zeppelin, Aircraft Carrier "B", the first 21 T-boats and the 10 F-boats. The resources released would be concentrated on completing Bismarck and Tirpitz on time.

Bismarck will still be working up in April 1940 and won't take part in the Invasion of Norway, but she will be ready in time to take part in Operation Juno. The destroyer Acasta will be sunk before she can torpedo Scharnhorst and that will butterfly away the torpedoing of Gneisenau by the submarine Clyde.

That makes a sortie by Bismarck, Tirpitz, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in the autumn of 1940 feasible.

And before anyone says the British will speed up construction of the King George V class. No they won't. It can't be done because of the London Treaties and late delivery of the turrets. KGV and PoW should have been completed in July 1940 and the other 3 were scheduled for completion between November 1940 and January 1941. They can't be laid down any earlier because of the London Treaties. They can't do anything to speed up the delivery of the turrets. That's not true. I think they would have been completed on time if the Admiralty had stuck to nine 15" in triple turrets, but I doubt that they would because they were expecting the Germans to complete three 35,000 ton capital ships 1939-41 at the time the decision to give the KGV class 14" guns was made.

 

[Finbarr the Fair]

As other people have stated if a large surface force sorties it sinks and Royal Navy now has no need to keep a large fleet in Scapa. This literally achieves the exact opposite of what you want.

The KM could always assemble this fleet and NOT sortie it.

Though that's not going to do much for its morale or the ability of the KM to extract funding. Plus it would make a nice target for Bomber Command.

 

[Belisarius II]

2 Battleships and a heavy cruiser do not count as in force? They certainly sortied as they did leave port on a mission

The larger formation is actually little if any easier to find than a small formation or a single ship, if the spotters are not in a position to find one ship or 3, they would rarely be in a position to spot say ten in close proximity. That is one of the reasons convoy's work, a big group of vessels is harder to find than a bunch of single ships or small groups

The bigger formation actually finds it easier to run away, as you need a bigger formation to engage it, thus there are fewer formations that can engage it, thus fewer threat vectors, thus it is harder to be boxed in. A large German fleet would only have to worry about home fleet out of Scapa, while singletons or small groups can be dealt with by detachments from home fleet possibly based in multiple locations

If they are ignored then those forces are doing something useful elsewhere. The German navy could not do enough damage to Britain on its own to really effect the course of the war, but it could tie up resources that could say keep Italy in the war longer, or let Japan do a bit better, or simply have the British waste resources on it rather than the more vital portions of the German war machine

As for how it would be ignored? If you think the enemy won't dare risk their ships, then you are more likely to think you can get away with leaving a brief window of vulnerability to do something else, divert some ships for a month or two to smack the Italian fleet before having them come back, or cover a major amphibious attack in the med, or say 3-4 months and hit Japanese logistics off Burma, gambling that the enemy won't realize your vulnerability in time to do something. You might also cut your margin of superiority down further, accept that 50% of the time you won't be able to crush them as some of your ships will be in refit. Whereas if you think you enemy will risk those ships and could sortie at any time, you are much less likely to make that gamble or cut your margins

You points are correct, but the problem is the Germans have no way to carry out such a plan after 1941. The German Fleet has no safe base on the Atlantic. Once the Germans attacked Russia they couldn't provide aircover for their French Bases. That's why they sent the Scharnhorst, and Gneisenau back to Germany, because the RAF kept bombing. them. The Germans just can't keep a fleet 150 miles from RAF home bases.

 

[TDM]

With a POD between 1933 and 1935 it's difficult, but not ASB.

Bismarck, Tirpitz, Hipper, Blücher and Prinz Eugen were completed about a year late according to the schedule drawn up in 1935. Seydlitz was due to be completed in December 1939 and the heavy cruiser Lützow was due in July 1940.

The AGNA allowed Germany to have three 35,000 ton capital ships. In October 1935 Battleship "H" was to be laid down in December 1937 and completed in February 1941.
Battleship "J" was added after the British announced the ships that would become Duke of York, Anson and Howe. She was to be laid down in May 1938 for completion in November 1941. However, a shortage of suitable slipways together with an excessively long design process meant that they weren't laid down until the summer of 1939.

The programme was behind schedule because the number of ships being built overloaded the the shipbuilding industry. So reduce the number of ships being built. My candidates are Graff Zeppelin, Aircraft Carrier "B", the first 21 T-boats and the 10 F-boats. The resources released would be concentrated on completing Bismarck and Tirpitz on time.

Bismarck will still be working up in April 1940 and won't take part in the Invasion of Norway, but she will be ready in time to take part in Operation Juno. The destroyer Acasta will be sunk before she can torpedo Scharnhorst and that will butterfly away the torpedoing of Gneisenau by the submarine Clyde.

That makes a sortie by Bismarck, Tirpitz, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in the autumn of 1940 feasible.

And before anyone says the British will speed up construction of the King George V class. No they won't. It can't be done because of the London Treaties and late delivery of the turrets. KGV and PoW should have been completed in July 1940 and the other 3 were scheduled for completion between November 1940 and January 1941. They can't be laid down any earlier because of the London Treaties. They can't do anything to speed up the delivery of the turrets. That's not true. I think they would have been completed on time if the Admiralty had stuck to nine 15" in triple turrets, but I doubt that they would because they were expecting the Germans to complete three 35,000 ton capital ships 1939-41 at the time the decision to give the KGV class 14" guns was made.

I think the problem with this is it's very much a retroactive POD driven only by the end goal proposed in this thread, I.e. it's based around changing the whole German's marine production and naval warfare plan with the specific intention of getting those four ships together in one place in 1940 by sacrificing a bunch of other ships. This presupposes a couple of big things

1). the Germans like the idea of a just sending off 4 battleships as a fleet by themselves (and I don't think they will and even if they did they'll what one of those aircraft carriers), I'm still not sure what the benefit of doing this is and I think the KM will also wonder?

2). in the mid 30's the Germans think they're going to be doing this in 1940. which would be ahead of their long term naval plans and production schedule

Also while OK even if we accept that the KGV's can't be ready sooner, there will be some ripples of this POD outside of German naval yards
Plus on top of that it's not just floating and finishing the ship, but manning them, sea trialling them training on board them etc, etc (and your going to be doing the last three at the same time as opposed to OTL)

Plus there's the point that operational POD's needed to get all four ships unscathed to where you want hem to be don't automatically only favour the German ships. For isnatcne yes OK maybe the Acasta is sunk prior to torpedoing Schanhorst during Juno, but you know what maybe Renown's 15 inch shell doesn't pass through Gneisenau without exploding during Wesereubung, maybe the Renown has some destroyer escorts or decides to pursue anyway, etc, etc i.e POD's can go in both directions here they don't just immunise German ships.

(sorry just in the last I'm not saying it's impossible for Schanhorst and Gneisenau to escape their OTL damage, just that all the POD luck only gong in one direction is unlikely)

 

[MUC]

With several minor PODs it is possible for the KM to skip damage to its ships, thus allowing a sortie sometime in early 1941 with Bismark, Prinz Eugen and the Twins.

If that operation will go well for the KM is another question.

My personal impression is that the heavy surface fleet of the KM, once built, would serve two tasks with most results for the Germans best:
a) tying down RN / USN resources (as done in OTL)
b) make a better show in the Baltic. More success there would be possible and Leningrad could fall early if the KM pushed the Russians harder in the summer of 1941.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

1). the Germans like the idea of a just sending off 4 battleships as a fleet by themselves (and I don't think they will and even if they did they'll what one of those aircraft carriers), I'm still not sure what the benefit of doing this is and I think the KM will also wonder?

They sent Scharnhorst and Gneisenau out on their own in January 1941. They sent Bismarck with only Prinz Eugen to support it in May 1941.

Therefore, of course they would send all 4 battleships as a fleet in the second half of 1940 if they had the opportunity!

It will give Raeder, Lutjens and even Donitz multiple orgasms! It's their wildest wet dream! It's exactly what they wanted to do!

The benefit of this is that they can annihilate a convoy even if it is escorted by a slow battleship. Bismarck and Tirpitz divert the escort while Scharnhorst and Gneisenau sink the convoy.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Plus there's the point that operational POD's needed to get all four ships unscathed to where you want hem to be don't automatically only favour the German ships. For instance yes OK maybe the Acasta is sunk prior to torpedoing Schanhorst during Juno, but you know what maybe Renown's 15 inch shell doesn't pass through Gneisenau without exploding during Weserbung, maybe the Renown has some destroyer escorts or decides to pursue anyway, etc, etc i.e POD's can go in both directions here they don't just immunise German ships.

(sorry just in the last I'm not saying it's impossible for Schanhorst and Gneisenau to escape their OTL damage, just that all the POD luck only gong in one direction is unlikely).

I half-take these points.

Renown was escorted by 9 destroyers IOTL which didn't get into range because of the bad weather. I did start a thread where I suggested that Repulse was sent out with Renown and the consensus was that it wouldn't have made much difference because both sides were lucky to score the hits that they did because of the bad weather.

Re the 15" shell that hit Renown and didn't explode. I can match that with the 11" shell that hit Renown and didn't explode and raise you the 15" shells that hit Prince of Wales and didn't explode in her action with Bismarck.

However, they'd send Bismarck and Tirpitz out on their own in the autumn of 1940 if Schanhorst and Gneisenau weren't available to sail with them.

 

[alspug]

My personal opinion is that the Kriegsmarine suffered more from being deployed in penny packets and also suffered from being a Baltic Navy with some ability to go into the North Sea. Now my reason for saying this is the range of the escorts is woeful. The longest range escort had a range of 2600nm at 19 knots. This is enough for the North Sea but not enough for a meaningful Atlantic foray. The British had as an average amongst the different classes 5500nm with one class of war emergency destroyer having a range of 3800nm. This means the Kriegsmarine could potentially be stripped of it's escorts simply by forcing high speed travel. Heck a Carrier would only need to make feints for several days without losing aircraft to make the escorts forced to low speed and or out of fuel. It is worth noting that all of the major units had great range and if provided with decent escorts could have held off significant portions of the British Fleet for an extended time.

In reality the Germans would have been better off building 3 15 inch Scharnhorst designs instead of the 2 Bismarck class ships. And putting the extra resources into finishing the Graf Zeppelin class carriers and embarking ME 109 and Ju-87 for an Atlantic Cruise. This would force even more British Units kept in Home waters and allow a fighting chance in a fleet battle. The presence of ME-109 fighters would of course increase the speed at which the RN adopts decent fighters.

 

[TDM]

They sent Scharnhorst and Gneisenau out on their own in January 1941. They sent Bismarck with only Prinz Eugen to support it in May 1941.

Those operations were commercial shipping raids, that was their whole plan. Small forces allowing them to spread that force as much as possible in oceans populated by much larger enemy navies and avoiding those navies as mush as possible.

Therefore, of course they would send all 4 battleships as a fleet in the second half of 1940 if they had the opportunity!

why? It's against their overall surface fleet strategy as above but seriously why what is teh benefit to doing this? Yes 4 battle ships sink pretty much any convoy but so can teh one or two ship shipping raids as well. Plus if you got your four battle ships in one place then their not anywhere else causing problems or tying up RN assets as a threat.

It will give Raeder, Lutjens and even Donitz multiple orgasms! It's their wildest wet dream! It's exactly what they wanted to do!

I think it will given then nightmares because it puts all their heavy eggs in one basket, and puts that basket in the middle of the N.Atlantic outside of air cover. and frankly once those four are gone then they're gone. Their wet dream is a large multi faceted navy, 4 battleships in one place at one time is not that.

The benefit of this is that they can annihilate a convoy even if it is escorted by a slow battleship. Bismarck and Tirpitz divert the escort while Scharnhorst and Gneisenau sink the convoy.

OK so we're re fighting HX106 that's cool, so you destroy one well protected convey and a WW1 era battleship, so what? Not every convoy has a Ramillies attached to it, so it's massive overkill for many convoys and you still have all the issues stated above. Also what are they going to do just hang out in the N.Atlanic picking of convoys with impunity? The RN is going to to do something about that.

For a navy 4 battleships are the core of o fleet that's trying to achieve some big military goal (take the various actions in the pacific of fleets with that many capital ships) not a suped up commerce raid

 

[MUC]

OK so we're re fighting HX106 that's cool, so you destroy one well protected convey and a WW1 era battleship, so what? Not every convoy has a Ramillies attached to it, so it's massive overkill for many convoys and you still have all the issues stated above. Also what are they going to do just hang out in the N.Atlanic picking of convoys with impunity? The RN is going to to do something about that.

For a navy 4 battleships are the core of o fleet that's trying to achieve some big military goal (take the various actions in the pacific of fleets with that many capital ships) not a suped up commerce raid

The political impact will be there. In January 1941, Britain was alone in the war and retreating, only the Battle of Britain had gone well and the invasion cancelled.
"Killing" a convoy will put pressure on the British side. Will they throw in the towel and seek terms? No, we know they wont. But the Germans thought that pushing the British on all fronts as long as they are alone in the fight may make them to sue for peace. That was their thinking.
Once again: I do not think that killing a convoy with KM heavy units is going to make Britain sue for peace. But the Germans thought they could "starve off" Great Britain, so an attempt is plausible.

 

[TDM]

I half-take these points.

Renown was escorted by 9 destroyers IOTL which didn't get into range because of the bad weather. I did start a thread where I suggested that Repulse was sent out with Renown and the consensus was that it wouldn't have made much difference because both sides were lucky to score the hits that they did because of the bad weather.

Re the 15" shell that hit Renown and didn't explode. I can match that with the 11" shell that hit Renown and didn't explode and raise you the 15" shells that hit Prince of Wales and didn't explode in her action with Bismarck.

and that's fair, the point being assuming combined PODs only work one way isn't realistic even if the individual POD's are individually realistic in their own right.

However, they'd send Bismarck and Tirpitz out on their own in the autumn of 1940 if Schanhorst and Gneisenau weren't available to sail with them.

OK so same questions about the 4 battleship raid, only now it's 2 battle ships.

There also one other big point. For a chunk of 1940 Germany in planing on an invasion of Britain, it knows that to do this as well as many other things needing to be in place they're going to need the KM on hand in force.

 

[TDM]

The political impact will be there. In January 1941, Britain was alone in the war and retreating, only the Battle of Britain had gone well and the invasion cancelled.
"Killing" a convoy will put pressure on the British side. Will they throw in the towel and seek terms? No, we know they wont. But the Germans thought that pushing the British on all fronts as long as they are alone in the fight may make them to sue for peace. That was their thinking.
Once again: I do not think that killing a convoy with KM heavy units is going to make Britain sue for peace. But the Germans thought they could "starve off" Great Britain.

Convoys were lost OTL.

I actually think your point will be reversed, because what's going to happen is if all four KM Battleships are operating alone and out of air cover in the N.Atlantic the RN and RAF will find them hunt them down and destroy them. That will be a big PR boost for Britain, and once those Battleships are gone the RN will have more options.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

I think the problem with this is it's very much a retroactive POD driven only by the end goal proposed in this thread, I.e. it's based around changing the whole German's marine production and naval warfare plan with the specific intention of getting those four ships together in one place in 1940 by sacrificing a bunch of other ships. This presupposes a couple of big things.

1). the Germans like the idea of a just sending off 4 battleships as a fleet by themselves (and I don't think they will and even if they did they'll what one of those aircraft carriers), I'm still not sure what the benefit of doing this is and I think the KM will also wonder?

2). in the mid 30's the Germans think they're going to be doing this in 1940. which would be ahead of their long term naval plans and production schedule.

That is not the specific intention. The goal is to complete Bismarck, Tirpitz and the Hipper class heavy cruisers on schedule by sacrificing a group of useless ships. Getting them together in one place in 1940 is the unexpected result.

The Graff Zeppelin class would have been very bad ships so they wouldn't have been of much use had they been completed in 1939, which was the plan in 1935. As Hitler told his admirals to plan for a war in 1945 the correct course of action would have been a quick conversion of suitable merchant ship into a prototype aircraft carrier as soon as possible after the AGNA was signed and then build proper aircraft carriers in the first half of the 1940s which would have had the benefit of the lessons learned from the prototype. I wanted the prototype to be the Hannover but she wasn't launched until 1939.

The resources released should have been put into building a third Bismarck instead of Graff Zeppelin or used to avoid the late completion of Bismarck and Tirpitz.

T-1 to T-21 and the 10 F-boats were a waste or resources. My preferred solution is to build more Type 26 torpedo boats. That is they should have stuck to proven designs while new technology like high pressure machinery was perfected. However, not building any ships at all would have released steel and shipyard workers that could have been put into the battleships and heavy cruisers.

The torpedoing of the Liepzig and Nurenburg in 1939, followed by sinking of the Karlsure and torpedoing of the panzerschiffe Lutzow in April 1940 and possibly the torpedoing of Gneisenau were all for want of adequate destroyer screens. If more small destroyers of the Type 1926 had been built instead of the first 21 T-boats and 10 F-boats some of that would have been prevented.