While the 2 German BB's seemed to be a waste of resources, their presence affect the deployment of UK warships. Having to counter the Tirpitz for example, require the UK to maintain sufficient naval resources to respond to sortie. The value of a "fleet in being" can impact your opponent's force without every conducting an operation.
Best possible Kriegsmarine for 1940
- Thread starter King_Arthur
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- kriegsmarine plan z ww2
That's true enough but in 1940(before Italy entering the war) the same could be achieved with out any German Capital ships at all. The RN will have to maintain a certain level of protection against a hypothetical invasion meaning that at least five BB will need to remain in home waters.(This would be more a political than tactical requirement.)
While that will allow the RN to re-base the remaining vessel to Alexandria or Singapore. Maybe even inducing the Italians to remain peaceful, which I think we can all agree would be a net benefit to the Nazis. It is not like they will contribute to the war effort against the Germans while based in the Med or Indian Ocean.
In the end Battleships are single purpose vessels take away their targets and they are of no practical use. But these ships will continue to eat up massive amounts of resources even when tied to the dock. And its not that the RN can suddenly stop maintaining their ships even if there are no German targets.
Shadow Master
Banned
Ok, looks like we have the {Appease the UK at the cost of Germany being able to win the war crowd} posting a non-threatening Kriegsmarine. While those folks may honestly believe that that is the BEST KM, I personally do not. I've got things to do, and have been feeling more than a bit under the weather, so I'm not going full blown on this till this weekend (hopefully), but for now...
With respect to an ATL AGNA, were I the Germans, I would prepare three classes of Battleship designs for consideration.
Class one, is the class to build if the UK is feeling reasonable and respects Germany and doesn't try to put unacceptable conditions on Germans first BB (as they did in OTL), post ToV, and this class will only be built in the above case. Class two, is the class to build if the UK attempts to get Germany to accept a fleet smaller than Italy or France, but otherwise is reasonable and respectful, which didn't happen in OTL, but maybe here... Class three is the class to build when the UK refuses to be reasonable and respectful, and makes unreasonable demands for the nature of the BB to be built, just like in OTL.
As class three is, IMO, the most likely to be built if history repeats itself to this point, the third class design would be:
Claim the ships will give Germany back her international prestige, by being as big and powerful as any ships designed under the naval treaties that Germany has been excluded from up to this point, so 45,000 tons, with 8X16" guns. The reality would be that these ships will actually be 20% larger, so their standard displacement will be closer to 54,000 tons.
So, Germany ends up building a pair of Battleships equal to any others in the world, thus restoring her place among the world's top navies, and after achieving parity with the USN/RN/IJN navies 16" gunned ships, will return to the negotiating table, where lesser ships may be the norm for future construction now that Germany has corrected the misperception that her navy is second class and inferior. If anyone objects to Germany having 16" gunned ships, then they must accept that for Germany to be required to scrap her 16" gunned ships, every naval power with 16" gunned ships must scrap theirs, as well. If Germany is requested to limit her main guns in future ships to 14" guns, then Germany will require that the same conditions shall apply to everyone else's fleets, IE; no 15" guns for Germany, then no 15" guns for anyone else.
Here are the three designs, in case anyone was interested...
Class one, Legit 35,000 tons, 8-9 14" guns, 28+ kts. This class only to be built if no attempt to restrict Germany to inferior ships/guns made, else...
Class two, Claim 35,000 tons, really 42,000 tons, 8X15" guns, 30+ kts. This is basically the OTL Bismarck class, built instead of the OTL Scharnhorst class.
Class three, Claim 45,000 tons, really 54,000 tons, 8X16" guns, 30+ kts. Build this class, in 1935, if the UK demands Germany's ships must be inferior {11" guns}.
The final class is a lot like the L 20e a class battleship the Germans were designing in 1914, and were to be built in 1918, but when WWI broke out work on the design was abandoned, but is considerably larger, the smaller guns and larger displacement should give the added speed. For comparison, the H39 class battleships are even a bit larger than this.
Either way, had Germany not been run by someone like Hitler, when the UK, informed of Germany's desire to build Class one, politely mentions that Germany needs to refrain from building guns larger than 11", the German team should stand up and say "Thank you ever so much for your time meeting with us today, good day" and walk out of the negotiations. And then proceed as planned with the Class three design. After the mistake of trying to limit the Germans to guns smaller than all other treaty participants has resulted in the clear and unequivocal rejection by the Germans in allowing her navy to be limited to second class status has been driven home, and the Germans make clear that unless she is to be included in the naval treaties, as an equal, further ships designs will not be limited to those treaty standards.
This is about all I have time for today, but I wanted to go on record, as an opposing point of view, to many of the other contributors here posting what amounts to an appeaser fleet, rather than as badass fleet as the Germans can get. Keep in mind what I mentioned upthread, because that is something I hope to be able to flesh out this weekend, health permitting.
With respect to an ATL AGNA, were I the Germans, I would prepare three classes of Battleship designs for consideration.
Class one, is the class to build if the UK is feeling reasonable and respects Germany and doesn't try to put unacceptable conditions on Germans first BB (as they did in OTL), post ToV, and this class will only be built in the above case. Class two, is the class to build if the UK attempts to get Germany to accept a fleet smaller than Italy or France, but otherwise is reasonable and respectful, which didn't happen in OTL, but maybe here... Class three is the class to build when the UK refuses to be reasonable and respectful, and makes unreasonable demands for the nature of the BB to be built, just like in OTL.
As class three is, IMO, the most likely to be built if history repeats itself to this point, the third class design would be:
Claim the ships will give Germany back her international prestige, by being as big and powerful as any ships designed under the naval treaties that Germany has been excluded from up to this point, so 45,000 tons, with 8X16" guns. The reality would be that these ships will actually be 20% larger, so their standard displacement will be closer to 54,000 tons.
So, Germany ends up building a pair of Battleships equal to any others in the world, thus restoring her place among the world's top navies, and after achieving parity with the USN/RN/IJN navies 16" gunned ships, will return to the negotiating table, where lesser ships may be the norm for future construction now that Germany has corrected the misperception that her navy is second class and inferior. If anyone objects to Germany having 16" gunned ships, then they must accept that for Germany to be required to scrap her 16" gunned ships, every naval power with 16" gunned ships must scrap theirs, as well. If Germany is requested to limit her main guns in future ships to 14" guns, then Germany will require that the same conditions shall apply to everyone else's fleets, IE; no 15" guns for Germany, then no 15" guns for anyone else.
Here are the three designs, in case anyone was interested...
Class one, Legit 35,000 tons, 8-9 14" guns, 28+ kts. This class only to be built if no attempt to restrict Germany to inferior ships/guns made, else...
Class two, Claim 35,000 tons, really 42,000 tons, 8X15" guns, 30+ kts. This is basically the OTL Bismarck class, built instead of the OTL Scharnhorst class.
Class three, Claim 45,000 tons, really 54,000 tons, 8X16" guns, 30+ kts. Build this class, in 1935, if the UK demands Germany's ships must be inferior {11" guns}.
The final class is a lot like the L 20e a class battleship the Germans were designing in 1914, and were to be built in 1918, but when WWI broke out work on the design was abandoned, but is considerably larger, the smaller guns and larger displacement should give the added speed. For comparison, the H39 class battleships are even a bit larger than this.
Either way, had Germany not been run by someone like Hitler, when the UK, informed of Germany's desire to build Class one, politely mentions that Germany needs to refrain from building guns larger than 11", the German team should stand up and say "Thank you ever so much for your time meeting with us today, good day" and walk out of the negotiations. And then proceed as planned with the Class three design. After the mistake of trying to limit the Germans to guns smaller than all other treaty participants has resulted in the clear and unequivocal rejection by the Germans in allowing her navy to be limited to second class status has been driven home, and the Germans make clear that unless she is to be included in the naval treaties, as an equal, further ships designs will not be limited to those treaty standards.
This is about all I have time for today, but I wanted to go on record, as an opposing point of view, to many of the other contributors here posting what amounts to an appeaser fleet, rather than as badass fleet as the Germans can get. Keep in mind what I mentioned upthread, because that is something I hope to be able to flesh out this weekend, health permitting.
Cryhavoc101
Donor
The Germans were ultimately allowed 16 inch guns under the AGNA (effectively 15" due to 1LNT) but chose 11 inch because they could make them, they wanted to appease the British and development of the 15" and any larger guns would have added years onto the build time
AGNA imposes 1LNT limits on Germany so until the USA activate the escalator clause and tells everyone that they are going 16" Germany as an effective signatory is also limited to 15" and 35,000 Tons
As it was they too used the Escalator clause for the Bismarck in it being bigger than 35,000 tons - they didn't cheat as such
So at best you are looking at a 15" armed Scharnhorst class of upto 35,000 tons
The ultimate aim of the AGNA was not to build a German version of the Yamato but to effectively get tacit agreement from the UK that Germany was released from the treaty of Versailles - and this was far more important to German's plans for rearmament than 16" guns on Battleships or a 'Badass fleet' that might be able to match the British Fleet by 1948 if the British don't build anything else from 1935!
Shadow Master
Banned
While I like your post, especially as I now have some interesting food for thought, about the escalator clause and the Germans not cheating with the 42,000 ton Bismarck class
, I'm looking at this thread more as an exercise in meeting the threads title/stated goal, rather than looking at keeping things as close to historical as possible. Designing guns larger than allowed under the ToV/Inter-Allied Control commission, really should have been something done right off the bat, like by 1928 or so. I really need to have the time to do this properly, because there are many things I want to mention, and that is going to have to wait till this weekend.my view is a smaller (sized) fleet not to lose but simply think that is better matched to their resources. also think most (or more) of my speculative fleet would be completed prior to war.
my preference would be for 11" guns since they had barrels warehoused, they were able to fabricate new ones, and it is the largest caliber they could use for rail guns. (thus they could confuse the issue of where new guns were to be employed)
they had 25 11" rail guns historically, my view 20-25 more would have advanced their war aims more than a couple of battleships with larger caliber guns.
To expand on this idea?
THIS, above all else, is the "best" way to improve the historical KM, and it could have been done "on the sly" during the re-armament period.
The KM's historical "Hilfskreuzer" fleet obtained results out of all proportion to their operational/conversion costs, particularly when held against the cost of building/operating a Scharnhorst or Bismark Class warship. With the funds dedicated to building just one of these capital ships, dozens of suitable vessels could have been converted and crewed for operations on the high seas. As it was, these historical units proved to only be limited by their ammunition and POW capacity, provisioning and fueling were in most cases sustained by the plundering of the vessels they interdicted.
The historical record shows the magnitude of the operational drain inflicted on the RN by the handful of these vessels in commission during the early years of the war.
The fact that these conversions can "fly under the radar" of any treaty restrictions (as conversion was not an eminently "overt" process) gives great legs to the idea that the RN could have been (realistically) caught with their "pants around their ankles" at the onset of hostilities. When facing an immediate, overwhelming threat to shipping, the only practical response would involve sending numerous individual fleets of DD/CL to sea to try and hunt each one down and this could realistically stretch the RN capacity to influence their dominant control around the British Isles. It could also stretch the (already thin line) of RN Destroyers to the breaking point (when viewed in conjunction with the historical U-Boat offensive) in both the UK Littoral and on the North Atlantic convoy routes.
Huge hindsight is in play here (obviously).
If I was there and had the right "crystal ball"?
It's never going to "win" the war, but the RN will be running "hilly-nilly" over hundreds of thousands of miles of oceans trying to prosecute 60 or 80 such vessels until well into the 1943 period (again, if the historical record is given due consideration). Once the RCN, USN, and the Escort Carriers get in the game in numbers it'll end the same, but it's going to move the goalposts in a significant manner...all for the cost of only ONE capital ship.
Add in the (much mentioned) improvements to Luftwaffe LRP and offensive anti-shipping capability, and the situation on Britain's LOC's becomes a huge mess for an interminable number of years.
That's how I'd "improve" the historical Kreigmarine.
The RN will just covert more liners to AMCs to counter the merchant cruisers and employ convoying across most of the oceans earlier with an AMC as the escort, delays to shipping are preferable to losses of shipping.
Merchant cruisers are only successful against individual ships, cut off the source of targets and you more or less negate the need to hunt them, as they have to come to the convoys to attack them, Prince David style minor rebuilds might be a bit more common to counter the threat.
Merchant cruisers are only successful against individual ships, cut off the source of targets and you more or less negate the need to hunt them, as they have to come to the convoys to attack them, Prince David style minor rebuilds might be a bit more common to counter the threat.
A thing to remember about convoying is that it's a major reduction in cargo carrying ability. Just by forcing the Allies to go to convoying means you have just reduced the effective shipping tonnage by as much as 20%.
And while convoying is possible on high intensity trade routes, such as the trans Atlantic or the Indian-UK route. It becomes a lot harder to manage for something like the South Atlantic trade between Africa and South America, both due to the lack of good harbors in which to collect the convoy and the fact a ship leaving from West-Africa for Argentina might as well be on a different planet from the ship leaving Cape Town for Brazil in regards to convoying. Its those kind of routes that make up the target list for the Merchant Raider.
Build bigger versions of this:
Like this:
Which class is this?
The top one is the Swedish Gotland aircraft cruiser built in the early 30’s
The second is a USN design for a hybrid cruiser. The 1930 London Naval Treaty specifically allowed for some CA tonnage to be used for this purpose but the USN built the New Orleans class instead.
The second is a USN design for a hybrid cruiser. The 1930 London Naval Treaty specifically allowed for some CA tonnage to be used for this purpose but the USN built the New Orleans class instead.
Shadow Master
Banned
Well, I done goofed!
In post #43, I showed just how much I thought I knew about the naval treaties and how the EVIL Germans were cheating on stuff and...
It turns out I didn't really have a firm grasp on what the naval treaties of the day really did, and when, and because of this, I'm going to be posting a thread over in chat, where I attempt to get all of the naval treaties information straight and all in one place, before making a bigger fool of myself here, lol. For instance, I didn't even realise that the AGNA predated the 2LNT!!! DOH!
In post #43, I showed just how much I thought I knew about the naval treaties and how the EVIL Germans were cheating on stuff and...
It turns out I didn't really have a firm grasp on what the naval treaties of the day really did, and when, and because of this, I'm going to be posting a thread over in chat, where I attempt to get all of the naval treaties information straight and all in one place, before making a bigger fool of myself here, lol. For instance, I didn't even realise that the AGNA predated the 2LNT!!! DOH!
Cryhavoc101
Donor
Well, I done goofed!
In post #43, I showed just how much I thought I knew about the naval treaties and how the EVIL Germans were cheating on stuff and...
It turns out I didn't really have a firm grasp on what the naval treaties of the day really did, and when, and because of this, I'm going to be posting a thread over in chat, where I attempt to get all of the naval treaties information straight and all in one place, before making a bigger fool of myself here, lol. For instance, I didn't even realise that the AGNA predated the 2LNT!!! DOH!
We have all been there but go easy on yourself it is very complicated and ultimately sort of didn't work in the end anyway!
Before last year I thought the intention of the 2nd LNT was to restrict the number of ships and total tonnage but all it tried to do was limit weapons size and individual ship tonnage
And ultimately this got massively ignored by everyone or they invoked the escelator clause or did whatever they wanted!
wait 'til you get older!! what I did know I'm now forgetting! (of course I have the joy of rereading some history books again, and rediscovering some facts or pictures again!)
would say some of your theories on KM building program are more coherent than some of what they pursued historically, even while I largely disagree.
my speculative fleet of 5 Admiral Hipper-class ships armed with 11" guns might not have been accepted by UK either though? and/or their effectiveness found lacking.
my plan to convert their fleet of (Dithmarschen-class) supply ships to seaplane tenders in wartime found a poor man's carrier and eliminated quickly?
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Shadow Master
Banned
Ok, so in an effort to actually learn something, and thus be able to "know what I'm talking about" here in this thread, I made a thread over in NPC, that you can find HERE. Please go there, vote in the poll, and check out the linked wiki pages and let me know if any other info should be included. I want to get that thread/information down pat, before I post more stuff here. Plus, some things I learned while working on that thread are going to help me here and in an ATL naval treaties thread, where more treaties, starting earlier than in OTL, and some new and hopefully interesting twists that I have been toying with for some time, can be examined in light of the actual naval treaties attempted historically.
Now then:
On a further DOH! moment, I was talking with the guy I served with back in Berlin 30+ years ago, and while sharing my screen in skype, he noticed how I was doing my version of spell checking.
I had two browser windows open, one to AH.com, and the other just the google startup page, and I was cutting and pasting any suspect words from my posts in progress, pasting them into the google window, making sure the word really was the word I wanted, and then cutting and pasting it back into my post in progress. I was rather pleased with myself, and my cleverness in working out such a simple and easy to use system to avoid making embarrassing spelling mistakes.
Until my friend asked, straight faced, and with only a slight smile on his face, why I was doing all of that, instead of, you know, just right-clicking on the underlined word, and directly correcting the spelling from the pop-up listed suggestions...
Now then:
I'm gonna ask for your help with the above thread, not having any luck so far in finding out about the 11" gun decision, IE; did the Germans do it to themselves, or did the UK do it to them, lol. Ever see that movie "The Witches of Eastwick", I loved that line, where Jack Nicholson's character gets blown away, and had to use it here.We have all been there but go easy on yourself it is very complicated and ultimately sort of didn't work in the end anyway!
Before last year I thought the intention of the 2nd LNT was to restrict the number of ships and total tonnage but all it tried to do was limit weapons size and individual ship tonnage
And ultimately this got massively ignored by everyone or they invoked the escalator clause or did whatever they wanted!
On a further DOH! moment, I was talking with the guy I served with back in Berlin 30+ years ago, and while sharing my screen in skype, he noticed how I was doing my version of spell checking.
I had two browser windows open, one to AH.com, and the other just the google startup page, and I was cutting and pasting any suspect words from my posts in progress, pasting them into the google window, making sure the word really was the word I wanted, and then cutting and pasting it back into my post in progress. I was rather pleased with myself, and my cleverness in working out such a simple and easy to use system to avoid making embarrassing spelling mistakes.
Until my friend asked, straight faced, and with only a slight smile on his face, why I was doing all of that, instead of, you know, just right-clicking on the underlined word, and directly correcting the spelling from the pop-up listed suggestions...
mentioned this in passing but the KM designed a purpose built minesweeper, but only in 1943, after huge losses of their valuable transport ships http://www.navypedia.org/ships/germany/ger_mine_ksb.htm (approx. 1,600t ships coal-fired)
if built pre-war the Kriegs-Sperrbrecher would have spared sailing the historical Sperrbrecher or British term Heavy Flak Ships https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sperrbrecher
to what end? not suggesting they could convert 5,000t and up merchant ships into proper warships but they were always starved for escorts, and would be effective against any British ships below destroyers.
if built pre-war the Kriegs-Sperrbrecher would have spared sailing the historical Sperrbrecher or British term Heavy Flak Ships https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sperrbrecher
to what end? not suggesting they could convert 5,000t and up merchant ships into proper warships but they were always starved for escorts, and would be effective against any British ships below destroyers.
Shadow Master
Banned
Interesting pair of links. That makes for some interesting thoughts for battle in the baltic/soviet fleet. Hmmmm.
they needed escorts, one proposal was to carry the small Flettner helicopter http://german-navy.de/kriegsmarine/ships/misc/kanonenboot1941/index.html but that class of vessels remained unrealized.
that project was focused on a submarine hunter but the larger (historical) Sperrbrecher could easily have deployed the helicopters to perform recon for the S-boat flotillas (as they did not have radar) while the larger ship provides (some) flak defense.
to my view the Baltic (and further north at Murmansk) was the greatest upside potential of KM. there were no Lend-Lease ships coming to replace Soviet losses. if the Soviets had been cleared from Baltic in 1941, rather than bottled up at Leningrad/Kronstadt it would have been of immediate AND long term benefit.
Shadow Master
Banned
I have to wholeheartedly agree with you there. The Baltic is the only sea that I can see Germany being able to really hope to dominate realistically, and yet they fell far short.