Germany Builds 6 less BB and adopts Cruiser U boats

I thought we were trying to explore early u-cruisers to explore earlier distant u-cruiser prize blockade?
 
I thought we were trying to explore early u-cruisers to explore earlier distant u-cruiser prize blockade?

Moving away from the Great Torpedo Derail, it would be kind of interesting to see what would happen if there was a big fad for the Croiseur sous-marin like NN Surcouf. She was a submarine with a twin 8" gun turret and a spotter plane/autogyro.
 
If cruiser submarines are built are they also built to follow "cruiser rules" for commerce raiding?
I.e. carrying prize crews, space for officer prisoners, etc.
In which case using steam power would make sense, allowing them to refuel from captured colliers.
Although building actual cruisers for this would probably make more sense.
 

trajen777

Banned
Anyway the tl was about how if someone in the german gov, or navy realized that they had lost the naval race. A war could not be one at sea, and if war broke out it was probable the gb would join. For this reason a choice was made ...
1 reduce building of bob and spending 1/2 on advanced subs would de escalate the tension with gb and increase funding the army
2 if war came them u boats wether the cruiser or u boats like u151 built in 16 or the smaller u 27 which was built in 12 to 14 but in greater numbers .. Would allow for a strike against gb fleet, sinking or damaging part of the fleet and delaying the bef to France
3 if France is defeated and gb stays neutral the all good. If France is not defeated and gb comes to the war then an increased u boat fleet makes life in the channel difficult and merchant attacks more effective withe zeppelin support.
 

trajen777

Banned
If cruiser submarines are built are they also built to follow "cruiser rules" for commerce raiding?
I.e. carrying prize crews, space for officer prisoners, etc.
In which case using steam power would make sense, allowing them to refuel from captured colliers.
Although building actual cruisers for this would probably make more sense.
Yes the carried prize crews however I always felt sinking the ships was more likely
 

trajen777

Banned
Moving away from the Great Torpedo Derail, it would be kind of interesting to see what would happen if there was a big fad for the Croiseur sous-marin like NN Surcouf. She was a submarine with a twin 8" gun turret and a spotter plane/autogyro.


Yes I'm sorry I got distracted
 

trajen777

Banned
You know you have lost track of an argument about submarines when you start discussing PTSD in deer.

Point as you yourself found an example that demonstrates modern battleship were resistant to torpedoes the Gosser Kurfust did not sink despite taking three of them. This brings us back to my original point that a successful submarine attack would be in the realm of 1 maybe 2 capital ships getting sunk, maybe the Germans would have to settle for a number getting damaged which given the strategic picture under your scenario is not a great outcome but might open up opportunities.

After that the effect of the proto U-cruisers goes downhill.

Let us be clear your notion is not completely stupid, technically ambitious yes, completely stupid no. It will not however sweep the British fleet from the seas or cut sea lane communications with the Continent. Submarines are a weapon of risk, people have to be sensible about the threat they pose. They have been used as a means of attrition and that works. What are they were not in this era was a weapon of decision.

So despite your witty reply , u never responded as to why the fleet commanders all felt this was a major threat. And build various support elements to protect against them. Ie destroyers
 

trajen777

Banned
Anti sub work is barely about killing subs in the electric age. It is about driving them under and going around them. Find them, whether by aircraft, HFDF, or the forefoot of a battleship, and the rest is administrative.

Very true in ww2 and beyond. However in this case with planes with little range and german zeppelins for air recon, as well as u boats with decent range and in decent numbers and you have an interesting force .
 
So despite your witty reply , u never responded as to why the fleet commanders all felt this was a major threat. And build various support elements to protect against them. Ie destroyers

Yes, yes I did.

Submarines are a weapon of risk. They pose a threat that must be honoured but that threat is of a specific sort. They may sink older or smaller vessels, they can damage modern capital ships but they will not be sinking them in large numbers.

Let us be clear your notion is not completely stupid, technically ambitious yes, completely stupid no. It will not however sweep the British fleet from the seas or cut sea lane communications with the Continent. Submarines are a weapon of risk, people have to be sensible about the threat they pose. They have been used as a means of attrition and that works. What are they were not in this era was a weapon of decision.

I mean what do you want as a reply, a potted history of the torpedo boat, because submarines were regarded as a kind of submersible torpedo boat? I am not sure if the issue here is lack of reading comprehension or blindness due to confirmation bias but at least twice above we have examples of you citing references which repeat and confirm what I have said or been arguing just more long windedly.

Just to repeat the answer which you clearly do not like, submarines are a threat but they are not likely to buck the trends of OTL and become the decisive weapon by themselves in the period in question.
 
The British were already arming merchant ships defensively before the war as an anti-submarine measure. U-Cruisers as a strategy before the war would be quite obvious and the Brits had some very good intel.
 
I mean what do you want as a reply, a potted history of the torpedo boat, because submarines were regarded as a kind of submersible torpedo boat? I am not sure if the issue here is lack of reading comprehension or blindness due to confirmation bias but at least twice above we have examples of you citing references which repeat and confirm what I have said or been arguing just more long windedly.

Just to repeat the answer which you clearly do not like, submarines are a threat but they are not likely to buck the trends of OTL and become the decisive weapon by themselves in the period in question.

If I'm guessing right, a better question might be WI: Submarines were viewed as submersible (battle)cruisers rather than submersible torpedo boats. Up until the interbellum years, capital ships usually incorporated torpedoes as part of their armament scheme, so there isn't anything intrinsically special about torps.

Now, if we take Surcouf as an example, and this is a much later boat, it has several disadvantages over a heavy cruiser, its single turret notwithstanding:

-Because it sits so much lower, it's hard to sight the gun turret; reducing its range to about 60% of a cruiser installation
-Its guns rely on magazines that need to be reloaded after every 14 shots
-After surfacing, it takes 3-5 minutes to be ready to fire straight ahead, longer if the turret needs traversing- and traversing is limited.
-The guns can only be fired when the sub is at the trough of a roll, reducing rate of fire.

For a 1909-1914 sub, these disadvantages would only be worse. The tech isn't there yet. Gunnery is still quite immature as well in the era in question, with a lot of dead reckoning still used.

The technology for the kind of sub OP wants simply isn't mature enough. Diesels are too immature, torpedoes are too immature, putting steam engines on sprinting subs doesn't work, "wolf pack" doctrine doesn't exist yet and radio communication still is too immature to be fully effective. You also lose the psychological weapon/ fleet-in-being factor that battleships have.

For the raid described, best case scenario, at the cost of heavy losses to weather, collisions and mechanical breakdown, along with an astronomical abort/failure to reach target rate, you might sink a couple protected cruisers and pre-dreads while the Grand Fleet is unaware. Minor tactical victory at best, Pyrrhic victory likeliest, major tactical loss at worst.

Even with an earlier POD, like Tirpitz decided Dreadnought needed to be dealt with a different way, it just wouldn't work.

If you played with a later POD, and had a different Washington, you might be able to work up something like a cruiser sub for WWII, but that;s still a longshot.
 
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