AHC: improved Deutschland-class cruisers.

I would suggest what the engineers could have build technically from the resources is very different from what could have been built politically?
Exactly, any strategic/operational gains made by building an optimized raiding fleet over a balanced fleet are massively outweighed by the Grand Strategic penalties from doing so. A Balanced fleet keeps the UK happy and delays the point when the UK starts rearming full blast and politically backing France in its attempts to stop/contain Germany

Germany's Grand Strategic goals involve defeating France in a land war in order to reverse Versailles, gain hegemony in Europe, and prepare for long term plans in the east. Their Grand Strategic goals by contrast do not require defeating the UK in a war, it is likely that achieving those goals would require that, but not certain. By going to building an optimized Raiding Fleet they increase the chances that the UK will support France in this war and if that is to be considered inevitable that the UK will, results in the UK making the decision to rearm at full speed even earlier. Given that the war will be won or lost on land within a year, having a suboptimal but Balanced fleet is probably far better than having an optimal fleet but facing a stronger BEF in France with a larger RAF commitment. Reducing your odds of defeating France while only slightly increasing your odds of beating Britain is not a good move for Germany
 
I don't think the ships were poorly conceived given the constraints on Germany in the late 20 when they were designed. With the scuttling of the High Seas Fleet, the restrictions of the ToV, the available technology and the potential opposition and tasks Germanys options were limited. If Germany wanted to do anything other than coastal defense they had to design a ship that didn't match those in service with her potential enemies, because in a like to like battle she would be overwhelmed by superior numbers. That's why I don't have a problem with the 11" guns, they outmatched the common 8" cruisers and make one on one battles with 8" cruisers too much for enemies to handle.

That said there are some details about the ships that could use improvement such as the secondary guns, but I think these could be best incorporated in a mid life refit.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
Is the below what you are talking about, but dare not say? I’m taking Calbears quote to not get kicked to ASB land.



This is the most off topic thread in a long time
Wow. You really tunneled back into the Before Time for this quote.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
If you plan such a fleet, you end up laying down the capital units first, because they take the longest to build.

Only if you know for sure when the war will start. If you don't know when the war will start, you will tend to lay down the cheaper, quicker-to-build ships.
 
Exactly, any strategic/operational gains made by building an optimized raiding fleet over a balanced fleet are massively outweighed by the Grand Strategic penalties from doing so. A Balanced fleet keeps the UK happy and delays the point when the UK starts rearming full blast and politically backing France in its attempts to stop/contain Germany

Germany's Grand Strategic goals involve defeating France in a land war in order to reverse Versailles, gain hegemony in Europe, and prepare for long term plans in the east. Their Grand Strategic goals by contrast do not require defeating the UK in a war, it is likely that achieving those goals would require that, but not certain. By going to building an optimized Raiding Fleet they increase the chances that the UK will support France in this war and if that is to be considered inevitable that the UK will, results in the UK making the decision to rearm at full speed even earlier. Given that the war will be won or lost on land within a year, having a suboptimal but Balanced fleet is probably far better than having an optimal fleet but facing a stronger BEF in France with a larger RAF commitment. Reducing your odds of defeating France while only slightly increasing your odds of beating Britain is not a good move for Germany


This is part of the problem. there was no real strategy.

KM strategy for war in the 1930s was an extension of Wilhelm Groner's TASKS FOR THE WHERMACHT, which was the directing document around German rearmament since 1930 ; and was basically upended by Hitler with his "Four Year Plan" from 1937 on. Prior to Groner direction the best that was planned was how best to exploit "secret rearmament" to improvise the best defence against a combined Franco -Polish attack. Groner solved this by ordering the army to expand to 21 mobilised divisions as secretly and quickly as possible.

The sol aim would to have a reasonable chance of stopping the combined attack. Groner's only real instructions to the KM was to be able to use all warships to interdict and destroy enemy naval forces in the Baltic-protecting Germany. Ultimately Groner instructed all service branches that ANY military action Germany plan to undertake- had to factor in all Germanys neighbour's would not sit idly by and just let Germany rearm. This would inevitably exploding into a wider European war , which Germany had to have a reasonable chance of winning or there was no point starting such a war in the first place. There were no plans to invade & occupy Russia and there were no mention of Britain, however post WW-I strategic thinking agreed that in addition to avoiding a two front war Germany had to cut any European life line American. Commerce warfare against transatlantic shipping.

As I already reported the KM discussions about rearmament prioritized large U-Boat fleet, supported by a number of surface raiders to attack convoys and covered by carrier battle groups.

Wagner argued with Raeder that the only way for German navy to win was direct attack on UK, to eliminate "the dead angle". Raeder won the debate by promotion to KM leader and selecting the indirect attack on the UK through commerce warfare. Britain played no role in there strategic thinking.
 
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This is part of the problem. there was no real strategy.

KM strategy for war in the 1930s was an extension of Wilhelm Groner's TASKS FOR THE WHERMACHT, which was the directing document around German rearmament since 1930 ; and was basically upended by Hitler with his "Four Year Plan" from 1937 on. Prior to Groner direction the best that was planned was how best to exploit "secret rearmament" to improvise the best defence against a combined Franco -Polish attack. Groner solved this by ordering the army to expand to 21 mobilised divisions as secretly and quickly as possible.

The sol aim would to have a reasonable chance of stopping the combined attack. Groner's only real instructions to the KM was to be able to use all warships to interdict and destroy enemy naval forces in the Baltic-protecting Germany. Ultimately Groner instructed all service branches that ANY military action Germany plan to undertake- had to factor in all Germanys neighbour's would not sit idly by and just let Germany rearm. This would inevitably exploding into a wider European war , which Germany had to have a reasonable chance of winning or there was no point starting such a war in the first place. There were no plans to invade & occupy Russia and there were no mention of Britain, however post WW-I strategic thinking agreed that in addition to avoiding a two front war Germany had to cut any European life line American. Commerce warfare against transatlantic shipping.

As I already reported the KM discussions about rearmament prioritized large U-Boat fleet, supported by a number of surface raiders to attack convoys and covered by carrier battle groups.

Wagner argued with Raeder that the only way for German navy to win was direct attack on UK, to eliminate "the dead angle". Raeder won the debate by promotion to KM leader and selecting the indirect attack on the UK through commerce warfare. Britain played no role in there strategic thinking.

Lot of meat to chew in one gulp.

Groener operated in a curious trough period of history.

For one thing, some technologists fail to recognize, is the cleave year 1935. Fundamentally this is the year when the four great technological powers of the twentieth century (YMMV.); Britain, Germany, America and Japan; achieve their fundamental tipping points in electronics, aviation and marine engines and automotive drives. Each will stumble in one area or another, but when it comes to those three areas of technology, the path for WW II is set by then. Now understand that Wilhelm Groener (~1928-1932) lays down guidance and the Deutschlands are planned and built (1929-1936) under that guidance before that cleave year, and that the world (as one poster has remarked already, we must see things from the time and not from our present knowledge) is not the one of reliable radios, high capacity diesels (Americans, Japanese and Germans) or robust aviation or marine steam turbine engines (Arguable but the British and Americans have Germans for company on these areas, Japan and Russia are not far behind.). Nor are the maniacs in power yet when this all happens. Essentially, these are "democracies" in straitened economic circumstances trying to contingency plan for wars they do not want to fight.

So when the RKM lays down the Deutschlands, the decision has been made to create a raider/commerce warfare navy that will alarm Great Britian. This the Germans do in the ignorance of the evolving potential of the LRMP force that will become inevitable as soon as the British, Americans and Japanese develop four engine bombers and seaplanes. Radio in Germany should have been a no-brainer and their planners should have seen it coming, but they repeat their WW I mistakes anyway. Since the topic is the improved Deutschland armored cruisers and the Germans operate with 1929 foresight and with the historic hobbles in place?

a. Forget about dual purpose guns in 1930. Not even the USN has them yet. That actually is 1933 when all the Hoover administration initiatives hit the fleet. And no one else gets them pre-war. No-one. That is something some people forget. The Japanese and the British do not design the proper mounts or fire directors until the war hits. Germany is struck with what she has and it is not DP.

b. The only improvements possible are with the arrangement of gun battery and other armament, hull form and powerplant, limited by foreign suspicion, various treaties and how much cheating Weimar, not the maniac, (Chancellors Marx, Muller and Bruning) is going to allow.

c. Bulbous bow? Transom stern? (1929?) I believe these would not occur to the German shipwrights. They might adopt a clipper bow and cruiser stern and include a forecastle flare. They are brown water designers for the most part. Might want to bring in some ocean liner designers. (They have them.) Armament? Suppose they opt for the historic 28 cm/52 (11") SK C/28? Guns have poor performance against expected slow dreadnoughts but fair to good against expected WNT cruisers. This means "raider", not any kind of vessel useful for capital ship defense (in the Baltic against Russia or France). So unless Krupp designs a better projectile that kind of demands an effective battery that can split fire. The Germans are not stupid. They know in 1929 that a four shot ladder straddle is the optimum. They know about triple turret shell dispersal problems. The triple turret was a compromise to pack six barrels on 10,000 tonnes. Weimar remember? Cheat. Go to 15,000 tonnes and four twins. Secondary armament 10.5 cm/65 (4.1") SK C/33 but with a weather house (the gun had problems with electrical shorts.). Two separate directors and imput paths (LA for antiship and low flyers and HA for level and dive bombers). As for the 3.7 cm/83 SK C/30 which is the only German FLAK available for the expected British torpedo bomber threat? Better develop a mattress mount (6-8 barrels for 200 RPM discharge rate; good luck with that spray and pray solution.). I would insist on a torpedo battery to give at least a pretense of anti-capital ship defense for Baltic purposes. 53.3 cm (21") G7a T1 (1930) is a bit late. Till then 60 cm (23.6") H8. That will give the British heartburn.

What results? It looks like a mini-Bayern with modernized Flak (amidships centerline "Wurtzburg" organ 8 barrels) and a proto DP battery of 12 (6 twin mounts) secondaries with a main battery double-ended of 8 11'/52s . (4x2). Keep the diesels. Doable? If you stick the single seaplane catapult on C turret, and reduce the ship's boats to a pair of 20 meter longboats, it is on about 15,000 tonnes, with a speed of about 14-15 m/s provided the tank testing allows a 9/1 hull ratio. That means a fine cruiser hull. That is just barely doable in 1929. No armor, but then the WNT cruisers had none either. With what was known and expected in 1930.
 
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NoMommsen

Donor
...

Koop & Schmolke wrote a serious of booklets on KM warship classes. They seem German and presented detail, many of us hade not seen. One of the points they made was that post war engineering papers done by Ex KM warship engineers , vetted by chief engineers from the war.

These engineers argued that the fleet Hitler authorized , didn't help German, but a better fleet could have been built instead. They compared the 4 battleships built plus all five heavy cruisers , and showed that the exact same resources /ship yards & labour could have either produced 375 type VII U-Boats or 21 Deutschland PBS instead. This has been dismissed on internet forums , but ask your self. Who is more likely to understand what was possible or not, some naval engineer who were directly involved during the war [almost primary sources] or post modern armatures schooled in the WALLIE "victors history".
WOW, cool, do you have a title or a link for further search/research of this booklet ?
 

NoMommsen

Donor
...
3. One last word about aircraft carriers.

Germany does not need them. Her strategic and geopolitical position makes them unsustainable, plus she does not know how to begin building them correctly. Now Italy did need aircraft carriers and she had enough modern warship shipbuilding experience (1860s onward) to know how to design a fairly good one. But like France, Britain, and Japan, she has troubles with catapults. Remember what I wrote above about aircraft carriers minimum size, speed and wind over deck? What makes jeep carriers possible? What makes light carriers possible? Catapults. Germany cannot get hers to work. So no carrier for her. Italy was waiting on Germany to figure it out. Nope. No Aquila for her. Britain and the US figure it out. Japan figures out wind over deck surge launch (not recommended, it burns out drive shaft seals) and she has some wonky but workable catapults of her own, but the point is, not being a true seapower with a lot of experience with aviation at sea, unless you have someone show you how (as Britain showed France with Bearn and later the US did with Richelieu, Foch and Charles de Gaulle) one is not going to build a good aircraft carrier.
...
Aha, ...
That the germans didn't get it "right" with catapults was then the reason, why they built catapults to launch 7-8 t flying-boat up in the air in 1933 ... ?

SS Westfalen did so in late summer and autumn 1933 (see the german site) for the first time. Later this procedures became standard with some more catapult-ships.
... Yep definitly a lack of catapult-technology ...

Also it seems to me, that your perception of what carriers can/should do and can/should not do is IMO
heavily biased by OTL.
Much depends on what purpose a carrier is build to and you look at this topic only from a POV due the decisions taken IOTL (due to the specific situations militarily as well as political AT THAT BY for the "great" naval powers) in middle to late WW2 (maybe even rel. shortly before if you wish).
 
Westfalen_mit_Wal.jpg


THAT won't work on an aircraft carrier. Reasons?

a. Combat cycle time between cat shots is too slow. (time to build up pressure between shots takes MINUTES.
b. Too big. Drum and sheave system... See below;

022422c.jpg


See here.
 
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NoMommsen

Donor
Westfalen_mit_Wal.jpg


THAT won't work on an aircraft carrier.
:noexpression:Somehow I almost expected this ...

Ofc I id NOT mean, that exactly these catatulps should be used on any potential aircraft-carrier. It should only show you, that Germany at that time actually was leading edge in catapult technology.

Other than that : I would like to know your sources of these "catapult-difficulties" you mention.
Given the use of on-board catapults on i.e. the K-class cruisers I somehow doubt your claim.
 
Brief explanation.

The Germans used pressurized rechargeable air bottle air cannon shot catapults. Even on the K Class cruisers these took minutes to recharge. The USN used GUNPOWDER cats to launch seaplanes. Mere seconds between shots. I believe the upper throw mass on a German type catapult for a 20 meter run was about 2500-2,700 kg. It was similar for a US gunpowder type. For a carrier, the throw mass starts at 3,000 kg post 1935 and it has to operate as fast as 30 seconds between shots. The US decided on drum and sheaves because that thing is fast, can be clutched in operation and the weights can be adjusted immediately between shots. Fighter, dive bomber, torpedo plane in sequence, dial it in at the clutch. The Germans couldn't do that. The British could, the Japanese had to use surge wind over the deck to do it because their cats were too weak for their heavier birds. I've explained it above. Did you miss it?
 
Brief explanation.

The Germans used pressurized rechargeable air bottle air cannon shot catapults. Even on the K Class cruisers these took minutes to recharge. The USN used GUNPOWDER cats to launch seaplanes. Mere seconds between shots. I believe the upper throw mass on a German type catapult for a 20 meter run was about 2500-2,700 kg. It was similar for a US gunpowder type. For a carrier, the throw mass starts at 3,000 kg post 1935 and it has to operate as fast as 30 seconds between shots. The US decided on drum and sheaves because that thing is fast, can be clutched in operation and the weights can be adjusted immediately between shots. Fighter, dive bomber, torpedo plane in sequence, dial it in at the clutch. The Germans couldn't do that. The British could, the Japanese had to use surge wind over the deck to do it because their cats were too weak for their heavier birds. I've explained it above. Did you miss it?

Incidentally you can read all about it in Norman Friedman's book about aircraft carriers;
 

NoMommsen

Donor
Groner operated in a curious trough period of history.
What definitly should be taken into consideration in discussing possible changes to a design of a ship, that was started to be discussed (in more seriousness) in 1923 ... to be put on ice by then, because it was rendered an impossible task to create anything usable withing the ToV limits.

For one thing, some technologists fail to recognize, is the cleave year 1935.
And for that I thank you @McPherson to lead this discussion back well before that date and forget about any discussions leading eventually to Z-plan or any sea-mammalesque operations.

... though I might not agree to some of your conclusions/statements.
Essentially, these are "democracies" in straitened economic circumstances trying to contingency plan for wars they do not want to fight.
Nnnnot fully true. Groener ordered the military to prepare for fights, with some expectation to earn success - how limited these occasions might ever be.
To increase this range of operations was the reason, why Groener not only backed the Reichswehrs publis as well as secret rearmament, but actually induced their enlargement and the reforms of the 1932/1933.
... as well as not only backing but strongly fighting (politically) for the "Deutschlands" in 1928, even though the RM itself wasn't convinced of their design.

So when the RKM lays down the Deutschlands, the decision has been made to create a raider/commerce warfare navy that will alarm Great Britian.
Sry, but ... wrong. You should read more about the processes of discussion, that lead to the lay down of the "Deutschland" and "Adm. Scheer".
They were political ships :
  • domestically to actually committ the goverment to (also) naval rearmament ... anything to be started to be build was needed, otherwise Groener saw the sdanger, that there would nevr ever been anything built bigger than the K-class cruisers.
  • navy internal, as the navy itself needed anything of whatever use to be kept alive
  • foreign. These ships were actually designed to "upset" the Brits, due to their not-fitting into any existing category of "vessels-of-war" as defined not at least by the Wahington naval treaty. ... what they actually did as planned. Reason was the "hope" - also backed by the german foreign office - to bring the Entente-powers to make germany part of the Washington treaties and thereby eliminating a first part of the ToV.
And there was only a decision for two ships, which designs should be - already while built - been reconsidered again. That at least were the orders and comments of the then acting Chief of the RM Admiral Zenker in late 1927/early 1928.

This the Germans do in the ignorance of the evolving potential of the LRMP force that will become inevitable as soon as the British, Americans and Japanese develop four engine bombers and seaplanes.
... something due to treaties and supervision the germans could only start to think and search about well after 1927, when the InterAllied Military Control Mission ended.

Radio in Germany should have been a no-brainer and their planners should have seen it coming, but they repeat their WW I mistakes anyway..
HUH ?!
Why "no-brainer ? ... and why "should have been"
What "mistakes" are you referring to ?

a. Forget about dual purpose guns in 1930. Not even the USN has them yet. That actually is 1933 when all the Hoover administration initiatives hit the fleet. And no one else gets them pre-war. No-one. That is something some people forget. The Japanese and the British do not design the proper mounts or fire directors until the war hits. Germany is struck with what she has and it is not DP.
Sry, but ... with that only by you set ... "rule", you would make this forum as a whole almost moot.
FYI : high-angle 10.5 cm as well as 7.7 cm guns were already tried in WW 1. So : concept on "dual usage" was know.
ITTL would only need some ... "pushing".

b. The only improvements possible are with the arrangement of gun battery and other armament, hull form and powerplant, limited by foreign suspicion, various treaties and how much cheating Weimar, not the maniac, (Chancellors Marx, Muller and Bruning) is going to allow.
Again a quite arbitrary condition you set up there.

About what the politicians would allow ...
After the Lohmann-affair about the navys secret activities, which eventuelly lead to Admiral Zenkers dismission (and Raeder comming in charge of the RM) there was a "defens council" declared to be set up to actually inform the ministers and the chancellor about all of the armys and navys armaments programs - including the secret ones. However, it was also decided, that this council, after having met only once in its "full" complement shortly, to be continuied by some lesser state secretaries ... if there would be some need.
In other words : there never WAS any political supervision ... with full aprreciation by the politicians, as they now could hide - in case - behind unknowledge.

c. Bulbous bow? Transom stern? (1929?) I believe these would not occur to the German shipwrights.
Actually the Deutschlands HAD a bulbous bow - though not as "extreme" (for its time) as Yamato and todays ships.

There was - also - a hydrodynamic reason, why the Deutschlands did NOT have a transom stern :
the positiv effect of a transom stern on speed and with that fuel consumptions begins at about 19-20 knots.
I might remember you of the K-class cruisers ... laid down 1926 ? ... WITH TRANSOM STERN ?
(No time to discuss the design-history of the K-class here, only that :
the "mixed" propulsion was a veery late addition into the design, too late to change the hull design. ... what was done with the following Leipzig and Nürnberg cruisers)

The "Deutschlands" task profile was : cruising most of the time well below that speed

They might adopt a clipper bow and cruiser stern and include a forecastle flare. They are brown water designers for the most part. Might want to bring in some ocean liner designers. (They have them.) Armament? Suppose they opt for the historic 28 cm/52 (11") SK C/28? Guns have poor performance against expected slow dreadnoughts but fair to good against expected WNT cruisers.
The first they were never meant to engage but to flee.
The second was "proved" at the Spees last battle. ... exactly as thought and planned for .... mission accomplished (in terms of tactical operation, I know, that overall the Spee "lost" the battle).

This means "raider", not any kind of vessel useful for capital ship defense (in the Baltic against Russia or France). So unless Krupp designs a better projectile that kind of demands ...
What the "deutschlands" were never really planned for. But hey , they actually could not use any larger guns due to treaty/Entente-decisions post WW1 (ambassadors conferences). 18 cm was the largest they had and even Krupp would not be able to defeat the physics, that make it impossible for ANY 28 cm projectile to endanger interwar BS or other capital ships.
 
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Only if you know for sure when the war will start. If you don't know when the war will start, you will tend to lay down the cheaper, quicker-to-build ships.

Nobody knows when the war will start. The purpose of having a fleet plan is to say that you expect to be able to achieve goal X at date Y. Otherwise, why are you building this particular fleet?

First you must have enough U-boats. Then once this number is high enough, you start thinking about how to break up convoys.

Your strategy is incoherent. You acknowledge the need to break up a convoy, yet do nothing to achieve it, wasting years of expenditure on U-boats which, by your own strategic plan, are incapable of fulfilling the purpose for which they were built! Crazy!

A coherent plan would have U-boats and surface units being commissioned to a schedule where batches would become available at similar times, to enable one, then two, then three etc. convoy attacks to be mounted over a defined time period. And because heavy surface units take longer to build, they have to be laid down at the start, alongside your first batch of U-boats. The only way out of this is to decide that you don't actually need surface units to scatter the convoys at all. Whereupon people like Heye and Raeder pop up to point out that WW1 had shown that U-boats were incapable of defeating a convoy, that you need heavy surface units to defeat the surface escort and scatter the convoy.

(The problem with this, as I'm sure you appreciate, is that you just slide into a doctrine of a having a balanced fleet and needing a battle line engagement so you can actually engage the convoy!)
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Nobody knows when the war will start. The purpose of having a fleet plan is to say that you expect to be able to achieve goal X at date Y. Otherwise, why are you building this particular fleet?



Your strategy is incoherent. You acknowledge the need to break up a convoy, yet do nothing to achieve it, wasting years of expenditure on U-boats which, by your own strategic plan, are incapable of fulfilling the purpose for which they were built! Crazy!

A coherent plan would have U-boats and surface units being commissioned to a schedule where batches would become available at similar times, to enable one, then two, then three etc. convoy attacks to be mounted over a defined time period. And because heavy surface units take longer to build, they have to be laid down at the start, alongside your first batch of U-boats. The only way out of this is to decide that you don't actually need surface units to scatter the convoys at all. Whereupon people like Heye and Raeder pop up to point out that WW1 had shown that U-boats were incapable of defeating a convoy, that you need heavy surface units to defeat the surface escort and scatter the convoy.

(The problem with this, as I'm sure you appreciate, is that you just slide into a doctrine of a having a balanced fleet and needing a battle line engagement so you can actually engage the convoy!)

You are missing the cost element. I can build 4-5 U boats for each surface ship able to bust up convoy. And each U-boat will be more effective than the cruiser size ship. Even on a one to one comparison. If not the UK reaction, I would basically build a U-boat fleet with naval aviation for power projection. And just enough surface ships to keep you out of my minefields around my coast line. The Soviet naval strategy is basically what you are looking at here. It is doctrinally correct if you just want to stop freighters from sailing Atlantic. Most bang for the buck. The main difference is that in 1935, you have diesel not nuclear subs. And you have seaboats plus two engine piston planes, not backfires.

While you seem to find it unappealing, if you are primarily a land power where the Army hogs the budget, and you are competing against a naval power where the army gets funded second, you have to live with budget. You need to efficiently spend your money. Being poorer is a harsh god to serve in war.
 

NoMommsen

Donor
What results? It looks like a mini-Bayern with modernized Flak (amidships centerline "Wurtzburg" organ 8 barrels) and a proto DP battery of 12 (6 twin mounts) secondaries with a main battery double-ended of 8 11'/52s . (4x2). Keep the diesels. Doable? If you stick the single seaplane catapult on C turret, and reduce the ship's boats to a pair of 20 meter longboats, it is on about 15,000 tonnes, with a speed of about 14-15 m/s provided the tank testing allows a 9/1 hull ratio. That means a fine cruiser hull. That is just barely doable in 1929. No armor, but then the WNT cruisers had none either. With what was known and expected in 1930.
Btw :
not the worst "variation" of an alternative "Deutschland" IMO, you've drawn up there.

Whoever demanded to make it "war winner" ?
 
You are missing the cost element. I can build 4-5 U boats for each surface ship able to bust up convoy. And each U-boat will be more effective than the cruiser size ship. Even on a one to one comparison. If not the UK reaction, I would basically build a U-boat fleet with naval aviation for power projection. And just enough surface ships to keep you out of my minefields around my coast line.

It's wrong to compare a U-boat with a surface unit like this. You acknowledged that you need both U-boats and surface units to defeat a convoy. If cost is important, which it is, then U-boats only are a waste of money because they can't scatter a convoy. So you end up with a U-boat fleet and lots of criticism that it can't fulfil the purpose for which it was expensively built. Or, as you stated, you need the surface units after all.

Given the limitations of finance and industry, and the logical flow that U-boats need surface support which ultimately leads to fleet engagements that don't need U-boats, German planning options are rather strange:

a) Plan a navy of U-boats supported by surface units. You will hope to steal a march on RN construction and deployment via treaty cheating and diplomacy, then defeat the convoy escorts in fleet engagement, so you can then destroy the convoys. But this is expensive and, as a surface strategy, doesn't actually need the U-boats at all! ("Once the RN is defeated, there is no need to invade!")

b) Build lots of U-boats only, hope that everyone was wrong about the failure of the U-boats in the last war and you don't get fired for planning an expensive, distorted fleet that your rivals for your job say, plausibly, won't work.

c) Give up and plan a small cheap navy intended to defend the coast and merely harass enemy shipping. Hope that your political master doesn't listen to your fellow naval officers and their ambitious plans for a new surface fleet. This seems to be your favoured "U-boat fleet with naval aviation" plan, if by "naval aviation" you mean land-based air and not carriers (no need in the southern North Sea, no surface escorts to get them into the Atlantic) and by "U-boat fleet" you mean a few dozen, because you don't need many more to defend Germany's limited, easily mined, coastline, and many more takes us into the realm of (b).
 
What definitly should be taken into consideration in discussing possible changes to a design of a ship, that was started to be discussed (in more seriousness) in 1923 ... to be put on ice by then, because it was rendered an impossible task to create anything usable withing the ToV limits.

Like the Deutschlands?

And for that I thank you @McPherson to lead this discussion back well before that date and forget about any discussions leading eventually to Z-plan or any sea-mammalesque operations.

... though I might not agree to some of your conclusions/statements.

Considering that one might have missed a lot of what I wrote previously, I can understand why that might be the case. I can only urge that the readers read everything I've written in this thread.

Nnnnot fully true. Groener ordered the military to prepare for fights, with some expectation to earn success - how limited these occasions might ever be.

21 division mobilization plans might slow down Poland. For France that is a speedbump. I think I can analyze the intents.

To increase this range of operations was the reason, why Groener not only backed the Reichswehrs publis as well as secret
rearmament, but actually induced their enlargement and the reforms of the 1932/1933.

... as well as not only backing but strongly fighting (politically) for the "Deutschlands" in 1928, even though the RM itself wasn't convinced of their design.

Groener wanted to do more, but I suggest that the Weimar gov't. could not afford it. That is on the land side. Wegener/Raeder was KM politics and was as much about jockeying for leadership as for what kind of navy to build. I do not care about those operants. The result is what matters. (Note the bold.)

Sry, but ... wrong. You should read more about the processes of discussion, that lead to the lay down of the "Deutschland" and "Adm. Scheer".

They were political ships : (Your words. I said what the decision result was. And you disagree?)
  • domestically to actually committ the goverment to (also) naval rearmament ... anything to be started to be build was needed, otherwise Groener saw the sdanger, that there would nevr ever been anything built bigger than the K-class cruisers.
  • navy internal, as the navy itself needed anything of whatever use to be kept alive
  • foreign. These ships were actually designed to "upset" the Brits, due to their not-fitting into any existing category of "vessels-of-war" as defined not at least by the Wahington naval treaty^1. ... what they actually did as planned. Reason was the "hope" - also backed by the german foreign office - to bring the Entente-powers to make germany part of the Washington treaties and thereby eliminating a first part of the ToV.
^1 A variation on the Pommerns. Defined by the Versailles Treaty.

And there was only a decision for two ships, which designs should be - already while built - been reconsidered again. That at least were the orders and comments of the then acting Chief of the RM Admiral Zenker in late 1927/early 1928.

Zenker was worried about the things I mentioned above. He also was squeezed in the German version of the Japanese Fleet faction / Treaty faction debare.

... something due to treaties and supervision the germans could only start to think and search about well after 1927, when the InterAllied Military Control Mission ended.

Meaning when the French took their eyes off. ONI and the RN were still looking hard. Cref the Astorias.

About radio (electronic warfare actually)


Why "no-brainer ? ... and why "should have been"
What "mistakes" are you referring to ?[/quote]

I suppose I have to spell it out. Postwar WWI the Germans figured out that they had their signals traffic analyzed and their crypto broken. Radio direction finding and crypto is not a WW II invention. It is British WW I. Having been burned, it amazes me that either the British or the Germans fell for it again. Of course the US had its comms broken in Vietnam, and during the 80s; so that is a triple whammy. The point is not huh? but "stay off the radio and change the encryption schemes at least once every five years".

Sry, but ... with that only by you set ... "rule", you would make this forum as a whole almost moot.

You cannot build what you do not know. And I* did not set the rule. I abided by another poster's reasonable suggestion of a limit to the wank.

FYI : high-angle 10.5 cm as well as 7.7 cm guns were already tried in WW 1. So : concept on "dual usage" was know.
ITTL would only need some ... "pushing".

AAA/antiship? Flat out no. The directors did not exist. Neither did the corrective stabilized 2 axis mounts for ship roll and yaw. Why do you think I wrote spray and pray for the "Wurzburg" organ?

Again a quite arbitrary condition you set up there.

You mean what the technological limits were? Why are those suddenly "my arbitrary conditions?"

About what the politicians would allow ...

After the Lohmann-affair about the navys secret activities, which eventuelly lead to Admiral Zenkers dismission (and Raeder comming in charge of the RM) there was a "defens council" declared to be set up to actually inform the ministers and the chancellor about all of the armys and navys armaments programs - including the secret ones. However, it was also decided, that this council, after having met only once in its "full" complement shortly, to be continuied by some lesser state secretaries ... if there would be some need.
In other words : there never WAS any political supervision ... with full aprreciation by the politicians, as they now could hide - in case - behind unknowledge.

Okay then, what can be afforded, although the "under four eyes" would never fly either in London or Washington. The naval consuls could see metal being bent you know?

\Actually the Deutschlands HAD a bulbous bow - though not as "extreme" (for its time) as Yamato and todays ships.

technical_drawings__kms_lutzow_by_bwan69-d5dpkg8.jpg


There was - also - a hydrodynamic reason, why the Deutschlands did NOT have a transom stern : the positiv effect of a transom stern on speed and with that fuel consumptions begins at about 19-20 knots. I might remember you of the K-class cruisers ... laid down 1926 ? ... WITH TRANSOM STERN ? (No time to discuss the design-history of the K-class here, only that :
the "mixed" propulsion was a veery late addition into the design, too late to change the hull design. ... what was done with the following Leipzig and Nürnberg cruisers)

The "Deutschlands" task profile was : cruising most of the time well below that speed.

1. Wettage and spoiler effect.
2. If they cannot pace a County, they have no business outside the Baltic.

The first they were never meant to engage but to flee.

3. They have to survive to flee.

The second was "proved" at the Spees last battle. ... exactly as thought and planned for .... mission accomplished (in terms of tactical operation, I know, that overall the Spee "lost" the battle).

What did I write about split fires, shell ladders and the dispersion problem again?

What the "deutschlands" were never really planned for. But hey , they actually could not use any larger guns due to treaty/Entente-decisions post WW1 (ambassadors conferences). 18 cm was the largest they had and even Krupp would not be able to defeat the physics, that make it impossible for ANY 28 cm projectile to endanger interwar BS or other capital ships.

One means 28 cm? And you would be surprised by what long rod composite rigid or superheavyweight shells can do.
 
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