How much can the Kaiserliche Marine plausibly be wanked with a POD of 1914?

I was arguing with another person the other day. This person claimed that the leadership of the German navy was lackluster and that they could have plausibly(though admittedly difficult) defeated Britain in the naval theatre in the early stages of the Great War by going all out before the disparity between the the KM and the RN grows too large. I argued that even if the KM won,the RN would have just built more ships, and that KM probably would have been too damaged to exploit much. What do you guys think?
 
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I was arguing with another person the other day. This person claimed that the leadership of the German navy was lackluster and that they could have plausibly(though admittedly difficult) defeated Britain in the naval theatre in the early stages of the Great War by going all out before the disparity between the the KM and the RN grows too large. I argued that even if the KM won,the RN would have just built more ships, and that KM probably would have been too damaged to exploit much. What do you guys think?

The disparity was big enough that germany needed 2-3 big wins to win at sea. They needed situations where a royal navy squadron would be caught on its own and forced to face the entire hsf. The first win or two needed to be complete with minimal losses.

They weren't gonna get that without a massive amount of luck (bcf trapped between 1sg and hsf levels). It's equally likely that the inverse would happen and Britain would get a massive win.

One or two miracle wins like this would have put put Germany in a position where they could face the British on even terms and if they got lucky have a phyric victory where they manage to knock out both navies.

Also given that the difference is big enough that the Germans need two lucky wins I will draw your attention to a phrase I've used re this before. Once is luck twice is asb.
 

Ramontxo

Donor
Well they based their Navy on the risk theory, meaning that the Royal Navy was of such a paramount importance to the British Empire that they would never dare to hazard it against a foe who even if inferior could damage it to the point of putting the Empire itself in peril. The fact is that when the actual war arrived it was the Germans who choose for a "Fleet in Being" strategy while the RN was as aggressive as it has always been. So either they follow the Risk Theory to its logical consequences and go all out against the British at the start of it all. Or they prevent the whole naval race thing and they use the men and money to fund a couple more army corps even if they have to accept the shame of having to use middle class officers for them... But good luck trying to take Kaiser Willy New Toy from him
 
1. The Handelsverkehrsbuch (HVB) is destroyed by the ship's captain prior to entering port, hence before the Australians can snatch it on August 11th, 1914.
2. The Russian Navy fails to recover the jettisoned Signalbuch der Kaiserlichen Marine (SKM) of stranded SMS Magdeburg on August 25th, 1914.
3. The nets of the British trawlers miss the jettisoned box containing the Verkehrsbuch (VB) on December 3rd, 1914.
Leaves the Royal Navy without ability to simply read German radio traffic.
 
Deploy armed merchant cruisers, like SMS Möwe, en masse. Focus on littoral warfare in the channel with light craft. Heavy use of offensive mining, perhaps with air laid mines too, feasible with First World War technology, particularly with Zeppelins.

Use the Hochseeflotte to support the Army operations in the Baltic earlier. Otherwise keep it in port or just to make some threatening forays in order to keep British main destroyer strength deployed with the Grand Fleet instead of making an useful contribution.

Make larger U-boats which operate by cruiser rules in far away theatres.
 
While the KM was likely too small to totally defeat the RN it could certainly have done more than otl and contributed to a German victory. The KM command structure was atrocious, with no professional head to deploy squadrons and flotillas between naval stations and fleets other than the Kaiser. So the ports in Flanders didn't get destroyers until early 1916 while the Baltic was frozen in winter and HSF did little to nothing.

What was needed was something along the lines of the First Sea Lord in the RN to deploy ships and resources to fight the war.
 
1. The Handelsverkehrsbuch (HVB) is destroyed by the ship's captain prior to entering port, hence before the Australians can snatch it on August 11th, 1914.
2. The Russian Navy fails to recover the jettisoned Signalbuch der Kaiserlichen Marine (SKM) of stranded SMS Magdeburg on August 25th, 1914.
3. The nets of the British trawlers miss the jettisoned box containing the Verkehrsbuch (VB) on December 3rd, 1914.
Leaves the Royal Navy without ability to simply read German radio traffic.
These PODs are plausible and would make it easier for the German navy to surprise the Grand Fleet.

Is this enough to actually win the naval war? Do better, yes but win it seems a stretch.
 
These PODs are plausible and would make it easier for the German navy to surprise the Grand Fleet.

Is this enough to actually win the naval war? Do better, yes but win it seems a stretch.

What's the point of having large fleet actions where Germans have, outside series of rolling sixes, more to lose than to win?
 
What's the point of having large fleet actions where Germans have, outside series of rolling sixes, more to lose than to win?
Quite but the PODs give the HSF a chance of getting one battle on favourable terms. Probably just the one though, the RN is unlikely to make the same mistake twice. IMHO obviously.
 
And even if it does win what then? Their surface fleet doesn't have the ability to cut the British off from it's imports especially since it would probably have taken losses itself. What it needs for an early victory at sea is an entirely different view on it's goals. The kaiser also has to be convinced to allow them to take risks which he forbid them too. Having said that I think they would need to concentrate on submarine warfare as surface raiders are just too few to have a long term impact.
 
It's like Pearl Harbor: the losses from a single major defeat do not matter when one side can outbuild the other by over a factor of three
 
The aim of the KM should have been;
  1. Interdict the supply line to the BEF, for obvious reasons
  2. Interdict through-shipping of the channel, as supply chains were dependant on direct delivery of food to London docks
  3. Disrupt Entente trade/shipping globally
The fleet as built to 1914, when combined with the capture of the forward position in Belgium and the war emergency building programme, was sufficient to attempt all three tasks. The Flanders bases were proven to be able to be able to handle 23 destroyers in late 1916, deployed from the HSF in a single night, yet despite being well defended by March 1915 it took until Feb 1916 to permanently base a (so named) half-flotilla of destroyers at Flanders, June 16 for a full flotilla to deploy temporarily and Oct 16 for two flotilla to deploy to Flanders for several months.

A better strategy would have been to deploy light units to Flanders to fight the small war in the narrow seas, threatening the BEF supply lines and through channel traffic and when things got too hot redeploy these back to the North Sea Station and do a sortie or two with the HSF to remind the RN of the Riskflotte. This is not going to smash the RN, but the RN doesn't exist to smash or be smashed, it exists to defend Britain from invasion, to support the deployment of her armies and protect her lifeblood trade, particularly vital imports such as food.

This person claimed that the leadership of the German navy was lackluster

On this particular point the other person was dead right. This sums it up:

Highest Level of Leadership and Organisation - Kaiser Wilhelm II was the Commander-in-Chief of the Kaiserliche Marine. All power and authority was in his hands. All decisions and orders were made and issued by him and not just in his name. There was no single senior component of the KM to either advise or challenge his authority.

The administration of the KM was not a coherent unified body capable of either advising or carrying out his orders. The KM was divided in to a number of components, all of which were in a direct line of command to the Kaiser. There was no admiral in overall command of the KM. There was no equivalent of the First Sea Lord or the US Chief of Naval Operations. This was a recipe for bureaucratic rivalry, and confusion in the implementation of policies.

These bodies were:

1. The Naval Cabinet
2. The Admiralty Staff
3. The Imperial Naval Administration
4. The Inspector-General of the Navy
5. The Baltic Naval Station
6. The North Sea Naval Station
7. The High Seas Fleet
8. The Overseas Squadrons


In contrast the RN command structure in 1914 was vested in the Board of the Admiralty.

The chairman of the Board was the First Lord of the Admiralty. He was a member of the Cabinet and responsible to the Parliament for all aspects of the naval service: including policy, senior appointments, budgets and ship building programmes.

The four naval officers were:
  • the First Sea Lord whose duty was to ensure the 'fighting and seagoing efficiency of the fleet;
  • the Second Sea Lord for manpower and training;
  • the Third Sea Lord for the design and construction of ships and weapons; and
  • the Fourth Sea Lord for supplies and transport.
Two other politicians were the Civil Lord, responsible for works and buildings, and the Political and Financial Secretary, responsible for the budget.

A second Civil Lord was appointed in 1912 to look after contracts and the dockyards.
  • Finally, the Permanent Secretary was the lone civil servant.
A major aspect of this organisation, which was created by Sir John Fisher when he became First Sea Lord was the absence of any naval staff or machinery for planning naval strategy and for the conduct of naval operations. This was the prime task of the First Sea Lord who, without any staff or advisers, evolved a naval strategy which remained hidden in his head. To counteract that, a Naval War Staff was created on 8th January 1912. Formed by the enlargement of the Directorate of Naval Intelligence, its Chief supervised directorates on:

operations,
intelligence,
mobilisation and
trade.

The role of the Chief of the War Staff was to advise the Board on all the matters relevant to the staff. He could not make decisions on the conduct of operations. The relationship between him and the First Sea Lord was ill-defined both by role and by rank.


During the war this organisation was proven to be deficient and in 1917 was changed.

The War Staff was developed into a properly organised naval staff and placed under the command of the First Sea Lord who became First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff. As such he had the executive authority - free from the Board - to conduct naval operations.

To balance this change of role, the Admiralty was effectively divided into two bodies. The operations staff was the naval staff while the administrative staff dealt with non-operational matters.


In practice these command structures were like chalk and cheese. While Fisher moved ships, squadrons and flotillas around to put his strategy into action the Baltic and High Sea Fleet commanders would not release a handful of destroyers or uboats to the Marine Korps Flanders despite them doing nothing in order not to diminish their own commands. The KM needed an Admiral between these 2 fleets and 3 naval stations to allocate resources between them as requirements changed, this Admiral would know that the Baltic was frozen in winter and that the HSF had no operations planned, and could send ships and flotillas elsewhere as a result.
 
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