TDM
Kicked
Your clearly assuming it will be anyway. But are we now assuming that these four battleships can not only magically evade damage and destruction, but can now magically find all convoys
Could the Kriegsmarine have assembled a battlefleet for the Atlantic ?
- Thread starter xerex
- Start date
Your clearly assuming it will be anyway. But are we now assuming that these four battleships can not only magically evade damage and destruction, but can now magically find all convoys
That's because there weren't many warship raiders at sea and their orders forbade them from attacking convoys unless they had overwhelming superiority.
E.g. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau orders forbade them from attacking convoys protected by battleships IOTL and they turned away from 3 convoys when British battleships were sighted. But Bismarcks orders in May 1941 did allow it to attack convoys protected by battleships.
No. You are assuming that's what I assume.
They will find some convoys and it's harder for the RN to damage and destroy them than you assume.
TDM
Kicked
Why it's almost like battleships and heavy cruisers don't make very efficient convoy raiders due to the risk vs. reward imbalance of using battleships and heavy cruiser to attack convoys.
Yep, and how many convoys did Bismark (and Prince Eugens) manage to sink?
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TDM
Kicked
Huh? (I'm not seeing the relevance vis a vis battleship vs. battleship/not battleship), Also the decision to disperse PQ17 was not exactly seen as a resounding sucess because of what happened next
Either way someone who read up the list of battleships lost in combat in WW2 might not
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BlackDragon98
Banned
The CLs were treaty ships which automatically limited their potential.
They were doomed to be shitty by the nature of their creation.
Only when the have to refuel. Most of the time the tankers hide away from the shipping lanes and the warships are in the shipping lanes looking for enemy shipping.
That's one of the few sensible points that you have made.
I know you won't agree when I say yes they will. My guess is yes they would be able to have enough tankers to refuel four at once because the OTL Operation Rheinbung was to have been Bismarck, Prinz Eugen, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. I'm sure that Raeder would have sent out Tirpitz if she had been worked up and Hipper if she wasn't refitting. He wouldn't have done that if there weren't enough tankers.
It was dispersed because the Admiralty thought the escort couldn't stop Tirpitz.
And someone who learned the list of battleships lost in combat in WW2 by heart might.
McPherson
Banned
Scatter v.s concentration of convoy/...
a. I was referring to convoys as the target, but in the context of fighting raiders. A scattered convoy has increased the probability of single raiders finding individual ships. (See Illustration.)
Source and work (McPherson). Tactics are from HYPERWAR.
(^^^) USN tactics based on English experience of 1940-1942. If you scatter you create multiple local % events which are additive (Cubed search rule),l but if you stick together, even if the enemy knows where you are, he has a long stern chase and has to fight through stay-behinds to get to you. (The ALAMO part of the tactics.)
Raiders together or as singletons.
b. If the surface raiders are together they will be quicker fighting through the escorts. If they come against a convoy as singletons, they could find out WHY ships like the Samuel D. Roberts carried TORPEDOES. The RN never understood why USN escorts carried torpedo flats. If the RN would consult their Japanese pupils they would have known why.
Refer to the prior map about where the German KM surface ships should have been based to threaten the GIUK and the Arctic convoy routes and to protect Norway against invasion. The German admirals were really dumb. It turns out a viable surface action group with air support can substitute for up to 150,000 coast defense troops.
c. The Fleet in Being just by being where it can be a presence of sea denial makes a lot of WW II sense in terms of the naval geography under discussion. Wasting it by steaming into the teeth of an enemy defense is reckless, dangerous and stupid. THAT IS MAHAN. It is why he noted that the RN used to know that guerre de course is won and lost at the convoy by frigates and not in big showy battles like Cape St. Vincent or Trafalgar. It is also why Mahan argued that bringing a fleet in being to decisive battle was the key to reducing the financial burden of guerre de course on the convoying power. Failing decisive battle, then the next best strategic method was blockade. Not even Julian Corbett ever understood what Mahan meant by decisive battle in the context of sea power, or how blockade was to function either. Mahan was always about use of the sea and trade protection. If mine warfare could do the job of blockade or air patrol of the sortie routes for u-boats, then that is MAHAN. Blasting the German big four into future seabed protected and honored war graves as they attack Convoy HXX whatever, would be a Murphy send to the RN. The RN or the USN would sacrifice a whole escort group for that outcome. On the other hand, look at the trouble Tirpitz caused because she was not neutered by airpower early enough. Never even sank anything and she consumed an entire air farce's and naval task group's attentions for 2 years!
Subs + surface ships.
d. Refer to illustration. Naval combined arms does not even help the Germans that much.
e. A sub, or even a wolfpack, in WWII platform operating characteristics is too slow for classic surface torpedo boat tactics above 10 m/s in the North Atlantic. It cannot even protect itself by singles or in a group. It can only dive and then is neutered. Also German torpedo defense in the construction of their ships and in the torpedoes themselves was almost USN early war awful. Against the RN, well trained in surface battle, well the RN had bad luck at Denmark Strait. The exception does not prove the rule. The end of Bismarck actually DOES prove the rule for Doenitz pulled U-boats off convoy hunts to try to support Lutjens against Tovey. The U-boats could not even make contact. The speeds of the warships involved and the distances were too great for them to make it in time, and when the U-boats arrived it was all over. British torpedoes...
Subs + aircraft
f. The lessons learned is that LRMPs are non-persistent and subs should stay off the radio. The Germans tried everything from kits to balloons to supply their U-boats with over the horizon self search capability. It was comical. Their LRMP effort placed more emphasis on anti-ship and less on recon. The communication of LRMPs to bulletin contacts to subs was almost non-existent. This Luftwaffe mistake was compounded by Doenitz' mistake in command and control. He loved to yak on the radio to issue orders in real time and he demanded his subs yak back at him on their status too often. IDIOT. British, French, Italian and American practice was to assign patrol areas and to issue pre-sortie mission orders via secure message and provide target opportunity notifications by aircraft and from positive shore control as radioed one way bulletin traffic. Their subs would listen and stay SILENT until and unless they were safe enough to report contact results and or had "interesting news" of their own. (Hey; the Japanese are in the Palawan Passage headed for the Sibuyan Sea. Might want to pay them a visit with TF38?)
Convoy defense as the cube versus the square.
Battle of the Bismarck Sea.
g. It is an example of RIKKO and "barge war" or how Mahan's observations apply in contested seas and brown water operations. The Lesson Learned and applied by the Indians and Israelis is that you can use small craft and an air force (patrol boats and fighter bombers for example) to wipe out convoys, even convoys with a STRONG escort and their own powerful air cover, or to wreck a heavily defended port toward which that convoy heads.
In the case of the Norway fleet in being, it is the sardonic observation that a SAG built around cruisers and ocean going torpedo craft and supported by land based naval air forces properly equipped, "could" have been most cost effective to achieve actual results. Attrition warfare which is what guerre de course is, means that the navy which spends more to build a raid force than the convoy defender is not doing it right. If one is going to have a surface fleet, and one raids, then geography and EFFECTIVE platform characteristics ='s what is coming down the weighs. Ocean-going E-boats and Ju-88s are what is wanted, but then Raeder wanted his HSF 2.0. If one wants to know where the surface fighting was serious and dangerous, look to the Med and to SWPOA. Most combat was night brawls by destroyers and torpedo boats; dozens of engagements with disastrous consequences for the Allies early until they got with the program and learned the italian and Japanese games. Blue water operations would have to be restricted to attrition units, too, and for the Germans that was U-boats and properly employed Condors as EYES only.
Fleet in being as opposed to fleet in use.
h. It does. The point is to be ASYMMETRIC, or lopsided in the manner that forces the enemy to invest more than you do into the fight. Once the Americans figured out the "barge war" they made the Japanese pay 2x as much to fight it as they did. This happened in spite of the fact that the barge war was PT boat against Daihatsu and aircraft against aircraft, and the IJN was on defense. In those brawls, the Americans were willing to close and kill and the Japanese were not. In the Med, it turns out the Regia Marina was willing at the small craft scale in the air and the sea to fight to the knife to maintain their North African SLOCs even against efforts like Pedestal. This is why I have a LOT OF RESPECT for the Regia Marina. They did not risk their capital ships more than they did, because they knew what "fleet in being" meant, and what their resources limits were. But they also knew their naval geography and within their technical and resource means they put up one hell of a fight with their small fry against very long odds.
i. Or Ingersoll kills them. or you get Operation Rheinberg or you know... Tallboys.
j. Battleships make sense until they do not. The cusp year is 1940.
a. I was referring to convoys as the target, but in the context of fighting raiders. A scattered convoy has increased the probability of single raiders finding individual ships. (See Illustration.)
Source and work (McPherson). Tactics are from HYPERWAR.
(^^^) USN tactics based on English experience of 1940-1942. If you scatter you create multiple local % events which are additive (Cubed search rule),l but if you stick together, even if the enemy knows where you are, he has a long stern chase and has to fight through stay-behinds to get to you. (The ALAMO part of the tactics.)
Raiders together or as singletons.
b. If the surface raiders are together they will be quicker fighting through the escorts. If they come against a convoy as singletons, they could find out WHY ships like the Samuel D. Roberts carried TORPEDOES. The RN never understood why USN escorts carried torpedo flats. If the RN would consult their Japanese pupils they would have known why.
Refer to the prior map about where the German KM surface ships should have been based to threaten the GIUK and the Arctic convoy routes and to protect Norway against invasion. The German admirals were really dumb. It turns out a viable surface action group with air support can substitute for up to 150,000 coast defense troops.
c. The Fleet in Being just by being where it can be a presence of sea denial makes a lot of WW II sense in terms of the naval geography under discussion. Wasting it by steaming into the teeth of an enemy defense is reckless, dangerous and stupid. THAT IS MAHAN. It is why he noted that the RN used to know that guerre de course is won and lost at the convoy by frigates and not in big showy battles like Cape St. Vincent or Trafalgar. It is also why Mahan argued that bringing a fleet in being to decisive battle was the key to reducing the financial burden of guerre de course on the convoying power. Failing decisive battle, then the next best strategic method was blockade. Not even Julian Corbett ever understood what Mahan meant by decisive battle in the context of sea power, or how blockade was to function either. Mahan was always about use of the sea and trade protection. If mine warfare could do the job of blockade or air patrol of the sortie routes for u-boats, then that is MAHAN. Blasting the German big four into future seabed protected and honored war graves as they attack Convoy HXX whatever, would be a Murphy send to the RN. The RN or the USN would sacrifice a whole escort group for that outcome. On the other hand, look at the trouble Tirpitz caused because she was not neutered by airpower early enough. Never even sank anything and she consumed an entire air farce's and naval task group's attentions for 2 years!
Subs + surface ships.
d. Refer to illustration. Naval combined arms does not even help the Germans that much.
e. A sub, or even a wolfpack, in WWII platform operating characteristics is too slow for classic surface torpedo boat tactics above 10 m/s in the North Atlantic. It cannot even protect itself by singles or in a group. It can only dive and then is neutered. Also German torpedo defense in the construction of their ships and in the torpedoes themselves was almost USN early war awful. Against the RN, well trained in surface battle, well the RN had bad luck at Denmark Strait. The exception does not prove the rule. The end of Bismarck actually DOES prove the rule for Doenitz pulled U-boats off convoy hunts to try to support Lutjens against Tovey. The U-boats could not even make contact. The speeds of the warships involved and the distances were too great for them to make it in time, and when the U-boats arrived it was all over. British torpedoes...
Subs + aircraft
f. The lessons learned is that LRMPs are non-persistent and subs should stay off the radio. The Germans tried everything from kits to balloons to supply their U-boats with over the horizon self search capability. It was comical. Their LRMP effort placed more emphasis on anti-ship and less on recon. The communication of LRMPs to bulletin contacts to subs was almost non-existent. This Luftwaffe mistake was compounded by Doenitz' mistake in command and control. He loved to yak on the radio to issue orders in real time and he demanded his subs yak back at him on their status too often. IDIOT. British, French, Italian and American practice was to assign patrol areas and to issue pre-sortie mission orders via secure message and provide target opportunity notifications by aircraft and from positive shore control as radioed one way bulletin traffic. Their subs would listen and stay SILENT until and unless they were safe enough to report contact results and or had "interesting news" of their own. (Hey; the Japanese are in the Palawan Passage headed for the Sibuyan Sea. Might want to pay them a visit with TF38?)
Convoy defense as the cube versus the square.
Battle of the Bismarck Sea.
g. It is an example of RIKKO and "barge war" or how Mahan's observations apply in contested seas and brown water operations. The Lesson Learned and applied by the Indians and Israelis is that you can use small craft and an air force (patrol boats and fighter bombers for example) to wipe out convoys, even convoys with a STRONG escort and their own powerful air cover, or to wreck a heavily defended port toward which that convoy heads.
In the case of the Norway fleet in being, it is the sardonic observation that a SAG built around cruisers and ocean going torpedo craft and supported by land based naval air forces properly equipped, "could" have been most cost effective to achieve actual results. Attrition warfare which is what guerre de course is, means that the navy which spends more to build a raid force than the convoy defender is not doing it right. If one is going to have a surface fleet, and one raids, then geography and EFFECTIVE platform characteristics ='s what is coming down the weighs. Ocean-going E-boats and Ju-88s are what is wanted, but then Raeder wanted his HSF 2.0. If one wants to know where the surface fighting was serious and dangerous, look to the Med and to SWPOA. Most combat was night brawls by destroyers and torpedo boats; dozens of engagements with disastrous consequences for the Allies early until they got with the program and learned the italian and Japanese games. Blue water operations would have to be restricted to attrition units, too, and for the Germans that was U-boats and properly employed Condors as EYES only.
Fleet in being as opposed to fleet in use.
h. It does. The point is to be ASYMMETRIC, or lopsided in the manner that forces the enemy to invest more than you do into the fight. Once the Americans figured out the "barge war" they made the Japanese pay 2x as much to fight it as they did. This happened in spite of the fact that the barge war was PT boat against Daihatsu and aircraft against aircraft, and the IJN was on defense. In those brawls, the Americans were willing to close and kill and the Japanese were not. In the Med, it turns out the Regia Marina was willing at the small craft scale in the air and the sea to fight to the knife to maintain their North African SLOCs even against efforts like Pedestal. This is why I have a LOT OF RESPECT for the Regia Marina. They did not risk their capital ships more than they did, because they knew what "fleet in being" meant, and what their resources limits were. But they also knew their naval geography and within their technical and resource means they put up one hell of a fight with their small fry against very long odds.
i. Or Ingersoll kills them. or you get Operation Rheinberg or you know... Tallboys.
j. Battleships make sense until they do not. The cusp year is 1940.
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It's a very bad idea to fight battleships with other warships unless it's with a lot of them.
3 British Commonwealth cruisers managed to mission kill Graff Spee at the River Plate. However, I wouldn't fancy the chances of a squadron of British cruisers against Bismarck, Tirptiz, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau.
Vian's destroyers harassed Bismarck, but AFAIK they didn't do any physical damage.
Victorious and Ark Royal slowed down Bismarck, but they didn't sink her. King George V and Rodney had to render Bismarck incapable of firing back before Dorsetshire was sent to finish her off with torpedoes.
BlackDragon98
Banned
Graf Spee could have sunk the 3 cruisers if it exerted itself but at the cost of the Graf Spee herself for sure.
However, her cowardly captain decided to take the easy way out and scuttle his ship.
The whole thing should never had happened, if only the Arado onboard the Graf Spee hadn't broke down.
TDM
Kicked
Only the tankers and the big ships will have to coordinate with each other, and will have to meet. This gives you two ways to find the big ships. The tankers are part of the supply chain for them. And the problem with supply chains is that it's something else you can find and disrupt that will effect combat units ability to operate. The tankers are a weak link here.
1). they make it easier to find the big ships
2). if you mess with tankers you mess with the big ships
I have no doubt that the Germans will have enough tankers to fuel all four big ships at once (although there's a point to be made about the ever present German fuel issues in general of course), But that's not my point. My point is if the allies find a tanker fleet that is big enough to do this there only one target they're going to be heading for! Plus if they're fuelling these big ships they not fuelling anything else (U-boats etc)
Which makes the opposite point about battleship vs. battleship fights right? The convoy escort were not there to hunt down and destroy Battleships. (There's actually more to it than that there were some political aspects to this one as well)
You do know that the vast majority of battleship lost in WW2 were not lost in combat with enemy battleships right?
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McPherson
Banned
In the absence of naval airpower, this is dependent on...
a. How good are your torpedoes?
b. Can you fight in the weather and the sea state?
c. Can you "see" in the dark?
The answers to those questions means that the side which can do a, b, and c.; better than the other side CAN fight battleships with PT boats and destroyers if necessary; because it was done. Battleships are just a piece of the naval combined ARMS puzzle which is a major fleet action.
TDM
Kicked
Yep I pretty much agree with all that, (Truth to tell I think at times you think I'm disagreeing with you though!
)The British were stronger in May 1941 than they had been in January to March 1941 and a lot stronger than they were between October and December 1940. Off the top of my head.
- More British ships had radar in May 1941 than 6 months earlier.
- More British aircraft had radar in May 1941 than 6 months earlier.
- In both cases the radar wasn't as good as it would be in May 1941 and the RN and RAF weren't as good at using it.
- Coastal Command had fewer aircraft 6 months earlier. This included no Catalinas like that one that found Bismarck and the PRU was smaller so it couldn't keep as thorough a watch on the German Naval bases in the Baltic and off Norway.
- Victorious was still fitting out 6 months earlier. However, I concede that Illustrious won't be sent to the Mediterranean in the summer of 1940 and Formidable won't be sent to the Mediterranean in early 1941.
- Prince of Wales was still fitting out 6 months earlier and King George V was working up.
- And they were keeping a guard on the Denmark Strait in May 1941.
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