Coastal Kriegsmarine

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What if Hitler takes a lesson from WW1 and instead of pouring resources into the Kriegsmarine, the Luftwaffe gets over half its historical budget? Lets say that Walther Weaver survives to make it interesting, meaning that Udet doesn't get the chance to make every bomber dive capable. What would the Luftwaffe be capable of and how would the British and French respond? Also the Kriegsmarine consists of its pre-1934 fleet and new destroyers, subs, and light/heavy cruisers.
 
What if Hitler takes a lesson from WW1 and instead of pouring resources into the Kriegsmarine, the Luftwaffe gets over half its historical budget? Lets say that Walther Weaver survives to make it interesting, meaning that Udet doesn't get the chance to make every bomber dive capable. What would the Luftwaffe be capable of and how would the British and French respond? Also the Kriegsmarine consists of its pre-1934 fleet and new destroyers, subs, and light/heavy cruisers.

Udet was a powerful figure, and very popular politically. His ideas and dive bombing enthusiasm can't just be handwaived.... especially when Stuka's in Spain distinguished themselves rather well. The truth of the matter is that Germany via a smarter aircraft production priority schedule, could have had 250 4 engine bombers by 1940 with only minor changes and sacrifices (terminating the DO-17 early, and giving up some stuka's and me-110s)... nothing so severe as cancelling capital ship construction

The Luftwaffe's life long handicap was a shortage of manpower and skilled pilots, and this was only exaccerbated as the war went on. Less goodies being available to the KM doesn't necessarily correct this. There was surplus production capacity and manpower in Germany from 1939-1943, where Goering or whomever could have opened more pilot schools and drew more recruits to serve in the airforce but it never happened. More money doesn't necessarily make them think that way either

otherwise, I know Grimm will chime in that Norway will not happen

technojunk: The Luftwaffe gets a little more fuel reserves... not really a game changer that I can think of
With additional funding and resources you could see the FW-190 come into service maybe 6 months earlier than otl... maybe more depending on when and how the funding and energy was applied... maybe the Germans do better in the BOB if it appears early enough... not decisively but the kill ratios are more favorable
the JU-88 probably enters servies a few months earlier than otl (again the Germans do slightly better in the BOB but not decisively)
the ME-110 corrections appear earlier with the 410 seeing service perhaps by late 1942 (the night bomber offensives and perhaps the first round of us bomber offensives go worse because the 410 can follow them home and disrupt landing cycles and carry a nice bomb load internally) (not decisive, but perhaps a bloodier lip is inflicted in 1943)
 
What if Hitler takes a lesson from WW1 and instead of pouring resources into the Kriegsmarine, the Luftwaffe gets over half its historical budget? Lets say that Walther Weaver survives to make it interesting, meaning that Udet doesn't get the chance to make every bomber dive capable. What would the Luftwaffe be capable of and how would the British and French respond? Also the Kriegsmarine consists of its pre-1934 fleet and new destroyers, subs, and light/heavy cruisers.



In the OTL this already more or less happened, with the all known results. The Navy always was third behind the Luftwaffe and especially the Wehrmacht in getting money for expansionprogramms.

Strategically the Navy made use of the little money available best as it could do in the periodical time of thinking, where most admirals still focussed on big naval riffles and not more modern equipment. None could have known what kind if influence airpower and submarines would have, so the logical consequense of this was the creation of a few powerfull, but costly capital ships, which any navy would have done in its place. These were also wanted by the German Leadership for political reasons, so they would have come anyway, as the demand for this simply was to big from the Politicians.

Strategically, the importance of the few capital ships was not to be underestimated, as they forced the opposition to a reactive planning on its own, by also building capital ships in return, draining away money and reasources from more urgent needs. (like ASW) The few German Battleships were to act as a fleet in beeing, simmilar to the Hochseeflotte in the Great War.

The best way to put more strength in the Navy was to abort the building of the heavy cruisers, who were tactically not very sound and far too expensive. The very large Destroyers could be missed as well, while more smaller coastal destroyers of the 1939 type were better suited for German needs. The money freed should have been directed at its soonest to building larger submarineforces and training more crew.

The building of the few realy big battleships (Bismarck Class) could be doen at a leasure pace, as the mere existence of them being build, was reason for the Opposition to react, draining resources from other needs, as mentioned. The Bismarck's were not to be deployed actively, although they were to threaten Allied shipping, by strategical possitioning in German comtrolled area's, such as Norway in the OTL. Withe the two smaller battleships and the three heavy cruisers of the Deutschland classes already exisitng, they would form the core of the Fleet in Being, by siimply being there as a force.

HSK's would bring the war at sea actively as raiders, while the U-Boote would do the main fighting against the supplylines.

Basically only minor chances thus, compared to the OTL, but a slightly more battleworthy Kriegsmarine would be the result, with more submarines in teh start of the conflict, as the OTL timeframe was to be followed.
 
BlairWitch; There's not really any reason to assume the Germans will produce aircraft and pursuit R&D more efficiently then OTL.
Also, 250 heavy bombers are peanuts. The British had a multitude of that in '39/40 and look at what they achieved with Bomber Command; hardly anything.

Back to the OP:
Without Udet there won't be the 350ish dirt cheap Ju-87 Stuka's ready for the Polish campaign which were of enormous value, (source: Len Deighton's "Blitzkrieg")
Instead the Germans probably have some 150ish or less extra conventional twinengined bombers, which won't be as much use to them.

Despite the extra resources by culling the Kriegsmarine, you might have the Germans end up with a more difficult campaign in both Poland in '39 and the West in '40.
 
BlairWitch; There's not really any reason to assume the Germans will produce aircraft and pursuit R&D more efficiently then OTL.
Also, 250 heavy bombers are peanuts. The British had a multitude of that in '39/40 and look at what they achieved with Bomber Command; hardly anything.

Back to the OP:
Without Udet there won't be the 350ish dirt cheap Ju-87 Stuka's ready for the Polish campaign which were of enormous value, (source: Len Deighton's "Blitzkrieg")
Instead the Germans probably have some 150ish or less extra conventional twinengined bombers, which won't be as much use to them.

Despite the extra resources by culling the Kriegsmarine, you might have the Germans end up with a more difficult campaign in both Poland in '39 and the West in '40.

250 bombers isn't decisive at all. But a realistic estimate of what could be had by 1940 if weaver lives and the ju-89 is selected for production at the expense of the KM and some other air projects

The maritime recon for the u-boats in the atlantic would be exponentionally better since the Kondor was unservicable, and not available in the sort of numbers required (although without norweigan bases, their access to the atlantic will be more problematic since the British will get to concentrate their air and ASW surface assets on a single line of approach

without udet you have the JU-88 in service and in serious numbers by the battle of france... it was not only faster than many of the fighters of its day but it could carry a good bombload at that speed (without the dive bombing strengthening it was a good 45 mph faster than otl) and the French and Polish had little or no AA forces. (France's main weapon was an 8mm machine gun) so even if they lack the pinpoint accuracy and propaganda of the stuka; they would still have air superiority with their bf 109's and the bombers would be able to come in very low (5000 ft or less) to ensure accuracy was acceptable
 
250 bombers isn't decisive at all. But a realistic estimate of what could be had by 1940 if weaver lives and the ju-89 is selected for production at the expense of the KM and some other air projects

The maritime recon for the u-boats in the atlantic would be exponentionally better since the Kondor was unservicable, and not available in the sort of numbers required (although without norweigan bases, their access to the atlantic will be more problematic since the British will get to concentrate their air and ASW surface assets on a single line of approach

without udet you have the JU-88 in service and in serious numbers by the battle of france... it was not only faster than many of the fighters of its day but it could carry a good bombload at that speed (without the dive bombing strengthening it was a good 45 mph faster than otl) and the French and Polish had little or no AA forces. (France's main weapon was an 8mm machine gun) so even if they lack the pinpoint accuracy and propaganda of the stuka; they would still have air superiority with their bf 109's and the bombers would be able to come in very low (5000 ft or less) to ensure accuracy was acceptable

I agree that 250 heavy bombers utilised like Coastal Command did later in the war would be very usefull.
However, that doesn't take into account at least 50 of those would be in Fliegerschule.
That will leave you with 200ish left, of which possibly but unlikely the majority could be dedicated towards naval reconnaissance.
Of course, just like with the Fw-200, you'll lose an additional few to flying the Fuhrer around and when Stalingrad and other calamities happen, you'll lose several dozens of them.
Anyways, with attrition those 250 bombers will be gone in several months.

Lastly, to get all 250 of these precious machines dedicated to naval recon and providing the Kriegsmarine with more success, you'll probably have to kill Goring too. :D

To put numbers into perspective:
Historically, the Germans built around 2000ish Fw-200s and He-177s, which failed to make much of a lasting difference to WWII, so I don't understand why you think a mere 250 will make much of difference.



But at first you said:
BlairWitch749 said:
The truth of the matter is that Germany via a smarter aircraft production priority schedule, could have had 250 4 engine bombers by 1940 with only minor changes and sacrifices (terminating the DO-17 early, and giving up some stuka's and me-110s)

To which my answer was that there's no reason whatsoever to assume the Germans magically start producing aircraft efficiently and conduct their R&D in a sensible way.

My previous point still remains; without the 350 Ju-87's you'll at most have a little over a hundred conventional twinengined bombers, be they JU-88's or He-111 or Do-17's.
The German army needs close air support badly due to:
a) it's lack of artillery;
b) as support for it's fast, mobile forces for which regular artillery isn't fast enough untill you obtain large amounts of selfpropelled artillery.

b) isn't a problem in Poland, where the Germans fought pretty much a standard campaign.
Not building the Ju-87 is going to give a huge problem if the Germans choose the Manstein-plan in '40 for Fall Gelb; conventional horizontal bombing just isn't going to give the close air support the Germans desperately need which the much cheaper Ju-87 would give.

One last point; I'm not sure if the minor sacrifices you propose are actually as minor as you think they are.
IIRC the Do-17 was used for strategic recon during Fall Gelb. Without those to monitor the movement of the French armygroups, the Germans might have a lot less success then they did OTL. At the very least I'd expect a lot more timeconsuming panic-moments like the one Rommel had at Arras.
 
I agree that 250 heavy bombers utilised like Coastal Command did later in the war would be very usefull.
However, that doesn't take into account at least 50 of those would be in Fliegerschule.
That will leave you with 200ish left, of which possibly but unlikely the majority could be dedicated towards naval reconnaissance.
Of course, just like with the Fw-200, you'll lose an additional few to flying the Fuhrer around and when Stalingrad and other calamities happen, you'll lose several dozens of them.
Anyways, with attrition those 250 bombers will be gone in several months.

Lastly, to get all 250 of these precious machines dedicated to naval recon and providing the Kriegsmarine with more success, you'll probably have to kill Goring too. :D

To put numbers into perspective:
Historically, the Germans built around 2000ish Fw-200s and He-177s, which failed to make much of a lasting difference to WWII, so I don't understand why you think a mere 250 will make much of difference.



But at first you said:


To which my answer was that there's no reason whatsoever to assume the Germans magically start producing aircraft efficiently and conduct their R&D in a sensible way.

My previous point still remains; without the 350 Ju-87's you'll at most have a little over a hundred conventional twinengined bombers, be they JU-88's or He-111 or Do-17's.
The German army needs close air support badly due to:
a) it's lack of artillery;
b) as support for it's fast, mobile forces for which regular artillery isn't fast enough untill you obtain large amounts of selfpropelled artillery.

b) isn't a problem in Poland, where the Germans fought pretty much a standard campaign.
Not building the Ju-87 is going to give a huge problem if the Germans choose the Manstein-plan in '40 for Fall Gelb; conventional horizontal bombing just isn't going to give the close air support the Germans desperately need which the much cheaper Ju-87 would give.

One last point; I'm not sure if the minor sacrifices you propose are actually as minor as you think they are.
IIRC the Do-17 was used for strategic recon during Fall Gelb. Without those to monitor the movement of the French armygroups, the Germans might have a lot less success then they did OTL. At the very least I'd expect a lot more timeconsuming panic-moments like the one Rommel had at Arras.

my suggestion of 250 bombers is what they could have at the battle of britain... the model would still be in production and continue to see service if selected... if goering donated the kondors, and the ju-89 can perform the same mission profile better, it might be outside his control and be a hitler order

the op suggested eliminating udet or his ideas... although the stuka gets all the newsreal footage, close air support was handled by a number of models even in poland and france... including but not limited to the HS-123 (which knocked out numerous tanks in France) the ME-109 configured as a Jabo, the ME-110 configured as a Jabo, hell even the HE-51 could have been dusted off and performed the exact same mission profile as the HS-123

not having Udet interfere with the JU-88 brings it into squadron service many months earlier in superior design... not only could it handle all recon duties on the continent (with its superior speed if not touched by Udet) but Germany's air superiority, and the good sights on the JU-88 would let it bomb with exceptional accuracy (ie 5000 ft or below it it going to hit most regular targets)

there is no mission in france or poland that the stuka's did (including covering Guderian's crossing of the meuse) that couldn't have been accomplished by other aircraft in the German arsenal
 
Not sure about any of this but:
- Wouldn't this mean a much reduced submarine threat? Might mean more supplies getting to the UK, and faster. Probably not a game changer... might have more impact post war with less inspiration/tech for the sub fleets of the Cold War.
- With the threat of naval action and other shennanigans against the British mainland, would this release more ships for use in the Med and for Singapore?
- If the added funding for the Luftwaffe goes in too early what might happen isn't better development, but more production of designs that quickly became redundant. In effect, rather than getting a better Luftwaffe, you get one that firmly digs itself into a hole.
- Would a coastal defence fleet have been better employed against the Allied channel invasion of 1944? IIRC there was no naval presence there OTL for a range of other reasons, but perhaps a shift in focus means a shift in strategy?
 
Actually the main beneficiary wouldn't be the LW it would be the Heer.
A smaller Kriegsmarine would free up two scarce resources, manpower and steel plate. More free manpower which would overwhelmingly aid the Army as the LW had first pick in OTL anyway and was never that short of men, it was short of well trained pilots but this isn't going to solve that.
Second steel plate, you can't use any old piece of Steel inorder to make tank or warship armour, it is special high quality, expensive stuff. Now in OTL the majority of Rolled Cement Steel went to the Army for the Panzerwaffe but it was still a major bottleneck early in the war when you had the Tirpitz taking up 15,000 tons of the stuff. Without the big ships there is going to be a lot more available for tanks, bunkers etc. However two extra Panzer Division's aren't going to solve the Army's problems, but they can't hurt.
 
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