German Carriers, British Battleships?

The UK was not right, not even close to totally right. While the UK happened to win WW1,
Except they chose right and, oh, yeah, only WON TWICE against those impossible monsters you keep overrating, UBoats. Even AFTER the technology had got nonlame in WW2. The way I remember it going down was the only problem was that NOBODY wanted to go escorted, and after that it became annoying but nonfatal. After all, RN wasn't TOTALLY destroyerless. Granted, more destroyers and fewer of something else would've been better, but two W're still two wins.


Shadow Master, I warn you that the thread shows it won't be easy. Can I suggest reading it carefully and thinking about your ideas to make sure it's not something already shown infeasible inthread? I apologize if you already have - too many of us don't.
 
A couple of the parts of my POD will definately work.

First, the Germans spend money on bigger ship building capacity (and all that this entails), so that they no longer have absolute limitits imposed on the size of their Dreadnoughts.

Second, they don't build any of the 'useless' 11" gunned ships once HMS dreadnought hits the water.

Third, their first response shipwise will be to up the anty over the all 12" gun, and the 21 kt speed, and the 20K ship size.

For these three things, as Germany still cannot build as many as the UK, the one thing they CANNOT afford to due is waste time building inferior ships. As far as this goes (in this thread) we are hoping to get to a place where Germany ends up with carriers and the UK does not. I don't see any way the RN isn't going to build some carriers, but I do hope to have the Germans building more. We'll see how things go.:)

My idea is that the Germans will look at three chararistics of their warships; tonnage, main armament size, and speed, and set their national policy to require their ships to be better than anything aflot (or building) in the RN at the time they lay them down. Their goal will be to do onto the RN, what the RN did onto the rest of the world, and that was to make everyone else's best ships inferior, and thus forcing the world to either accept that Germany's ships will be bigger and better, or spend heavily on one-ups-manship.

Gun size:
Germany historically thought that the faster firing 11" gun was the way to go. My POD will have them abandon this immediately. In my POD, the Germans don't have any idea how big the guns are going to get, but they do know they cannot afford to get left behind. So lets say that they mandate that 1.5" diameter is the minimum to up-gun between classes, and that only if no one else is building such at the time.

Speed:
Germany is going to forgo the idea that their ships don't have to be as fast or faster than their enemies ships. To this end, and to keep things simple, let us assume that they mandate a 1.5 kt speed increase between classes, identical with the up-gunning, such that each new class of German SuperDreadnoughts will have larger guns & higher speed that the previous class, and they make these requirements law.

Ship size:
Germany must prepare herself to build the infrastructure needed to build and sustain such ships, and not get cought short by shallow harbhors and cramped dry-docks etc...

I even just now got an idea about how the Germans can claim that they need to have airpower above and beyond any thing a potential foe can bring to bear.:)

Now, will Germany be able to get to what the thread OP asked for?

In the sense that Germany is going to have carriers, then definately a yes.
In the sense that Germany is going to have more carriers than the UK, who knows.

All i can say is, I'll try my best to deliver as plusable a POD as I can that still leads to what the OP requires.
 
Last edited:

BlondieBC

Banned
Except they chose right and, oh, yeah, only WON TWICE against those impossible monsters you keep overrating, UBoats. Even AFTER the technology had got nonlame in WW2. The way I remember it going down was the only problem was that NOBODY wanted to go escorted, and after that it became annoying but nonfatal. After all, RN wasn't TOTALLY destroyerless. Granted, more destroyers and fewer of something else would've been better, but two W're still two wins.


Shadow Master, I warn you that the thread shows it won't be easy. Can I suggest reading it carefully and thinking about your ideas to make sure it's not something already shown infeasible inthread? I apologize if you already have - too many of us don't.

They won for reasons other than the RN good performance in the war. Just like the USA won despite MacArthur defense of PI not because of it in WW2. The Entente won because of Central power mistakes, USA entry to war, Italy entering war, good code breaking, good diplomacy. To the extent the RN helped win the war, the credit goes mostly to size of RN (massive budget), excellent port system (lot of credit goes to pre-1820 UK foreign policy), and the adhoc collection of ships that enforced the blockade. While it is difficult for many UK/RN enthusiast to accept, the war was won one land. With slightly different strategic decisions, we would be on some alt history board writing about "Could the RN be saved from certain defeat?"

When you do "impossible monsters", you miss understand my position. U-boats are important because the war was so close on land, and could have provided an easy tipping point through reduced supplies to Entente. Or by simply not angering the USA enough to enter the war. Both are easy POD's. The Germans had WW1 won by late 1915. All they had to do was keep the navy in port. There performance was a net that bad since the USA entering war counter acted any possible gain from USW IOTL. The reason it is so easy to write German wins POD in WW1 is they made so many dumb mistakes. Unlike say where if I wrote a "Japan has much better submarine force in WW2" POD. Japan still gets killed, but it might take a few months longer. Likely shortens war here by forcing USA to take Central Pacific strategy.

You comment on U-boat technology is misguided. It is not the absolute performance of the U-boat that determines who wins. Obviously any U-boat from the future wins. Soviets curb stomp 1950 USN with 1985 Red sub fleet. It is how the U-boat compares to countermeasures. WW1 is largely a peak of U-boat relative performance IF (and it is a big if) the Germans understood how to use the technology. Some interesting helping factors.

1) 1/3 of merchant ships had no radios. 10% are sail by tonnage.

2) It was 10-12 hour average response time to calls for help of the 2/3.

3) For most of war, the U-boat was effectively immune once it dived.

4) RN admirals did not take seriously until it was almost too late.

5) Airplanes are largely non factor in hunting U-boats.

6) German could have started war with overseas bases.

7) USA is not in war in early days.


Now on the destroyers, the UK had them, but they were of limited value. At start of war, they only had guns and harpoons to deal with U-boats. It took a few years to get better counter measures. Sonar was non-existent to extremely low usability. Many of these ships are coal powered, which makes easier to avoid. (Coal smoke trail)
 

JAG88

Banned
Since no one had any idea about what the KM was doing here, the sketch of the Ausonia, the KM's first carrier conversion:

11ax1jm.jpg


http://www.german-navy.de/hochseeflotte/ships/misc/ausonia/history.html
 
The real problem is the pathetic performance of aircraft until WW1. It was the war that advanced them to the point that one would be useful at sea. Now its reasonable to posit that Germany might investigate earlier, but the available technology restricts that to similar times to the RN, who didn't have anything ready to work until 1919. Which is too late.

After that, you have Versailles, so you are still stuck.

The only way I can see around it is better aircraft and engines earlier, but then why would it only be Germany who see the potential? The RN always have an advantage here, they have more money and resources (and more political backing) to be able to afford possible unlikely ideas while still retaining their naval power.
 

JAG88

Banned
Nothing can change without the CPs winning WW1 as someone said, you correctly point out that aircraft performance just wasnt there, but if the Germans can continue their research after WW1 they were already looking in the right direction, plus they also had land-based torpedo squadrons by then.

Quite different form the oft-stated position here that the Germans didnt care about it.
 
Last edited:
Top