The Kreigsmarine Appendix is now up at the
Drake’s Drum website.
These images are Photoshopped
What if the French fleet had fallen into German hands? What if that fleet was much more powerful than that of our time, because the talks to establish the London Naval Treaty had collapsed in 1934?
This is the battleship
Moltke, from the Drake’s Drum timeline. Built by the Marine National, she was running trials in June 1940 and was surrendered to the Kreigsmarine as part of the terms of the French capitulation. In design terms she is based on OTL projects; the French Type 2 and Type 3 design studies of 1939-40. There are two crucial differences from these studies. Firstly, the failure of the London Naval Conference means that the naval arms race has started early, so
Moltke and her sister ship
Blucher are laid down in 1934 and 1935 respectively. Secondly, instead of the twelve 15 inch guns planned in OTL, she ships nine 16.5 inch guns. In Drake's Drum she and her sister undergo reconstructions to help them conform to Kreigsmarine procedures and make them look more German.
In OTL, to follow the Kreuzer M design, K-amt (the Kreigsmarine's design office) produced four designs known as
Seeadler,
Wehr Dich, Trotz Alledem and
Motor Kreuzer. Although originally rejected for having only two shafts and being too large, if the
Motor Kreuzer design had been built in the Drake’s Drum timeline, she might have looked like this.