However, those names had already been used for German warships. There were armoured cruisers called Bismarck and Roon, a battlecruiser called Moltke and one of the Mackensen class battlecruisers was to be named Bismarck.
Germany builds another battleship instead of Graf Zeppelin
- Thread starter SealTheRealDeal
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The navy wouldn't object to those names in and of themselves, what they would specifically object to would be their man Tirpitz being shafted in favour of army personnel.
North Sea operations none at all.
It's probably the same as Tirpitz IOTL. She's not completed in time to sortie with Bismarck and Prinz Eugen in May 1941 and spends the rest of the year in the Baltic. She goes to Norway in early 1942 and due to the OTL fuel shortage spends the next 2½ forming a fleet-in-being with Tirpitz and after numerous attempts by the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force to sink her she's finally sunk with Tirpitz on 12th November 1944.
Point taken. Would it help if they were promised that Battleship J would be named Tirptiz? It could be assigned to one of the Hipper class but they might think that naming a heavy cruiser after Tirpitz would be a comedown. OTOH they accepted Hipper for a heavy cruiser and I thought they'd want to reserve that name for a capital ship.
Another operational Battleship by January 42 is interesting.
You could keep the S+G in Brest, as a fleet in being threat, and the new Battleship plus Tirpitz could be in Norway as a fleet in being. The 4 fast Battleship threat, ties down alot of Allied ships to counter.
The S+G at the very least continue to be a bomb sump, instead of bombs on Germany. Hitler still has a credible threat in Norway.
You could keep the S+G in Brest, as a fleet in being threat, and the new Battleship plus Tirpitz could be in Norway as a fleet in being. The 4 fast Battleship threat, ties down alot of Allied ships to counter.
The S+G at the very least continue to be a bomb sump, instead of bombs on Germany. Hitler still has a credible threat in Norway.
What about keeping it in the Baltic and forming a squadron around it and aggressively going after the Baltic red banner fleet
I mean even though the Soviet heavy ships were blockaded they still were able to contribute to the defense of Leningrad if they could be lured out into the sea and sunk in a naval battle that would definitely help
I mean even though the Soviet heavy ships were blockaded they still were able to contribute to the defense of Leningrad if they could be lured out into the sea and sunk in a naval battle that would definitely help
The Baltic (especially the Gulf of Finland) became minefield central. It'd be hard to force any major surface action, let alone a truely decisive battle.
Right but that was done very early in the war in fact right before the start of major land operations to keep the Soviet navy bottled up since KM had no significant surface forces in the Baltic.The Downside of this was that there were two old battleships and two heavy cruisers that could lend their guns to the defense of Soviet cities. If They had been sunk by German fleet in a surface action that Threat would have been removedThe Baltic (especially the Gulf of Finland) became minefield central. It'd be hard to force any major surface action, let alone a truely decisive battle.
If there was a surface fleet available then I’m sure the Germans would have used it like they did in World War I
But I do get your point that the shallowness of the Baltic Sea and the chokepoints made it an ideal environment for mine warfare and submarines
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Most of the Soviet crews were ashore fighting to save Leningrad, and the ships had been under artillery and air attack as well, not sure the Baltic Fleet could sortie if it wanted to.
Best money the Reich ever spent.
British put an utterly insane amount of time and effort into containing/killing Tirpitz. They scattered PQ 17 and stopped sending Lend-Lease via Murmansk for three months after that debacle.
PQ-17 had two covering forces, one consisted of FOUR heavy Cruisers (two RN, London and Norfolk and two USN, Tuscaloosa and Wichita) along with four destroyers. The other force (and this is the thing that REALLY gets me) had HMS Victorious, HMS Duke of York, USS Washington, along with the heavy cruiser Cumberland, light cruiser Nigeria, and NINE destroyers (the light cruiser Manchester and a destroyer joined the formation en route to what would have been the engagement area. So that is a full size carrier, two fast battleships (including one that a few months later would manage to do something that no other modern BB ever did, actually SINK an enemy battleship (the Kirishima) exclusively with gunfire, three cruiser and 10 DD coming from one direction, and four heavy cruisers, including the Wichita (all 13,500 tons of her, she was somewhat overbuilt for a Treaty Cruiser, the U.S. had to omit all but two of here planned 5" battery when she was launched to stay inside LNT limits, they were added after the Japanese abrogated the Treaty in 1936) coming from the other. All told a CV (likely with 36 aircraft - 18 Albacore and 18 Fulmar/Martlet, two fast BB 5 CA, 3 CL, 14 DD
What did the KM have? Tirpitz, Sheer, Lutzow and Hipper along with 12 destroyers. So one fast BB, two heavy cruisers with delusions of grandeur and a max 26 knots on tap, and one good conventional CA and a dozen destroyers.
So, here the Allies have what shapes up to be a golden opportunity to destroy pretty much the remaining units of the KM (in actual fact the Tirpitz only left port of a few hours), but the Tirpitz is involved. First Sea Lord order PQ 17 to scatter and for the covering forces to withdraw at best speed.
Such was the aura of the Tirpitz. Simply amazing
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Both the Germans and the Finns laid several mine barrages in the Gulf of Finland already by the end of June. Some of this work was done even before the beginning of actual hostilities, and then there were already the defensive minefields both the Finns and the Soviets had been laying in their own waters since the fall of 1939.
The Soviets were also active in laying mines those days. On 24 June the destroyer Gnevny, protecting the Soviet minelaying effort in the mouth of the Gulf of Finland, ran into a German minefield and was eventually sunk on 26 June, and at the same time the cruiser Maxim Gorky hit a mine and was heavily damaged (though she managed to make it to port).
The Soviets did understand in June-July that the Gulf of Finland was already dangerous due to mines, as well as other things, for a major force led by the Ganguts to sortie out to engage potential German heavies in the Gulf of Finland. If the Soviets know that major German forces are in the area, in June-July they would be rather more likely to send their submarines out in force to try to surprise the German task force. That would have been an effort with a smaller risk of signficant losses, even if you would expect some of those submarines not returning from the attack. 47 Soviet submarines were ready for action in the early part of the war, at least in theory, and a major part of them had been stationed in forward-facing bases (like Libau and Hanko) to operate in the central Baltic and in the mouth of the Gulf of Finland.
Remember that in June-July the Soviets were still in shock due to the Nazi attack, and were withdrawing in the Baltic area: on 26 June the naval bases in Libau, Ventspils ans Riga were ordered to be evacuated, and this evacuation was not even entirely completed before the German attack reached these port towns by early July. As the Red Banner Baltic Fleet was reeling from the attack, it was rather more interested in pulling back its units to first Tallinn in June-July and then Kronstadt in July-August than going on an offensive with its main forces.
In September 1941, the Germans formed the temporary Baltenflotte, made of Tirpitz, Admiral Scheer, Emden, Köln, Leipzig and Nürnberg, with a couple of destroyers and a squadron of torpedo boats, to do just what you are proposing: lure the Soviets out of Kronstadt to duke it out in the Gulf of Finland. The Soviets didn't go for it, and the Baltenflotte was disbanded by October.
Given the above, and given that this idea was tried out IOTL, without success, I don't believe it would be likely that the Soviets would go for it, and risk their bigger vessels, even in June-July.
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As pointed out previously on this subject by - I believe - @NOMISYRRUC - two Bismarcks in Norway will probably make a headache more than twice as big as Tirpitz. So the third battleship, no matter the flaws in her design, is definitely a better investment than the GZ.
OTOH, the threat of a German CV did also cause the British problems - they were still planning to fight GZ as late as 1942. So it would be nice to keep that option open. Perhaps a merchant ship or tanker conversion should suffice, along with a few leaked blueprints here and there?
Which begs the question of whether the Gangut modernisations were worth the huge amount of money! Poor Frunze/Poltava may have actually had the best of the class's luck.
Unless the thing is close to completion when the war starts I doubt it ever gets finished as Germany would have much greater priorities, such as tanks and submarines. Also Hitler was always lukewarm about the surface fleet so is unlikely to force the issue.
The Dithmarschen class oilers would make good aircraft carriers. They're about the same size as the Sangamon and Commencement Bay class CVEs (which were conversions of the Neosho class and based on the Neosho class respectively) and are a few knots faster. The problem is that they only built five of them and they're too valuable as tankers to spare for conversion to aircraft carriers.
If Germany did build another battleship maybe Prince of Wales would have been kept at home and not sent to the Far East.
My other idea is that they do a quick and simple merchant ship conversion as soon as the Anglo-German Naval Agreement was signed to get some design and operating experience before building "proper" aircraft carriers. I wanted it to be the MV Hannover, but she wasn't launched until March 1939.