KM and the Schlieffen plan.

If it was bought in on the planning in good time what could the German Navy have done to assist with the Schlieffen Plan, or perhaps in addition to it to secure naval objectives?
 

Pangur

Donor
They could had a go at troop ships crossing the channel with u-boats. Thats about as far as I can think of beyond what would be suicide missions for the surface fleet
 
They could had a go at troop ships crossing the channel with u-boats. Thats about as far as I can think of beyond what would be suicide missions for the surface fleet

That's what I do in Commander The Great War. I use it to sink the troop ships and it let's me completely conquer Belgium. It wouldn't happen like that OTL, of course, but it's a start
 

BooNZ

Banned
If it was bought in on the planning in good time what could the German Navy have done to assist with the Schlieffen Plan, or perhaps in addition to it to secure naval objectives?

I recall something about a U-boat scare or similar resulting in the with drawl of British fleets on the eve of an early and significant land battle. The source suggested a German Naval foray towards the English Channel at that point would have seriously disrupted British logistics - sorry, I cannot recall that source or its credibility.

As an aside, the best thing the German Navy could have done was abandon the naval race early, use those resources in the army and salvage the German relationship with the British.
 
Yes, sending the uboats to the Channel upon mobilisation would be a good move. Perhaps a quick sortie to the south by the HSF might also put the frighteners on both the British while transporting the BEF and the French fearing coastal bombardment and perhaps even a landing. I'd also have the Marines march behind Von Kluck, veer off and head to the coast to capture a port.

If the KM tried to interfere with the BEF transport with uboats and a surface demonstration would this slow the BEF deployment? If so would that interfere with the Battle of Mons or any other battles?
 
The BEF started embarking for France on 9th of August, arrived at Mons on 22nd of August and fought the Battle on the 23rd of August. So if uboat attacks and a feint by the HSF can delay the movement by even a single day the entire BEF won't be in position at Mons by the 22nd. The battle with either be undertaken by a smaller portion of the BEF, or the BEF will assemble a bit further back a day or two later. If the British overreact to these naval threats then the delay could stretch to days or even a week.

As for the port, the Marines would not conduct a landing, they would march on foot and would only be a division or so strong and probably weak in artillery. They'd have to take an undefended port and most likely a small one, the further along the channel the better.
 

Pangur

Donor
I did not think that you had a large port in mind and as handy as a grabbing a big one would be for Germany, not worth the effort.

The HSF could cause hassle just by sailing in the direction of the channel and get you the day or even more.

Nasty idea, how about the KM going nuts with mines in the channel?
 
What constitutes a big port though? Dunkirk has 90,000 people today so probably half that a century ago. If the Groupe D'Amade is shepherding Von Kluck miles to the south then perhaps Dunkirk could be the aim of the Marines. In addition if the Marines were in the area the siege of Antwerp might play out differently.
 

Pangur

Donor
What constitutes a big port? You could work by population or by size of the port itself. Grabbing Dunkirk would have been worth the risk and then again even as a feint it would be worth while.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
If it was bought in on the planning in good time what could the German Navy have done to assist with the Schlieffen Plan, or perhaps in addition to it to secure naval objectives?

The problem with the German Navy at the start of WW1 was that they basically did not have a plan. It took them days to get going, just to organize port defenses. The "plan" was to wait for the French or UK Navy to camp off the German coast and slowly wear them down then have a decisive battle on the right day.

So the first thing they need is a planning culture that plans for various scenarios. So lets go thru the process. IMO a certainty that the UK enters a war by High German leaders means the Schlieffen Plan would be so changed as to be unrecognizable.

So, the first plan you draw up works on the assumption the UK is neutral even if a bit pro-French. It is pretty easy to see you can't send a large fleet thru the channel without a great risk of the UK entering. There are no troop ships to intercept. The land war plan calls for a war under 1 year. So what do you do with the fleet? You turn your focus to the east. You have to keep enough ships in the North Sea ports to be able to stop the French Navy from attacking. You have more ships in the Baltic. Assuming you are a senior Admiral and can't change the budgeting, you lack the forces for major land operations. But you can help. You seek a decisive battle with the Russian Navy. If they refuse to come out of port which IMO is a likely, then you bombard ports, railroad bridges near coast lines, and the like. You try to conduct raids with your limited land forces to try to distract the Russians and have them hold more troops near the coast line. Things like the Alan Islands, the Islands near Riga are tempting and lightly defended targets. If you are more aggressive, then you might do something like try to take a port (Riga or the like.) And if you want a big win and are willing to bet the farm, you would look for weaknesses near St. Petersburg. Is there somewhere that you can take that will cause Russian panic. Things like assaulting Kronshtadt will really, really get the Russian's attention. I have not done TL type research, so not sure that it is possible at start of war, but something such as bombarding the island will get the Russians attention. If you can get some land forces there or on the coastline of Russia, it might slow down things enough to help a lot in the east. Or to be fair, it might butterfly the other way.

So if this plan is run, and we assume likely butterflies. The Germans are very aggressive in the Baltic for a week or two, then they pull back the ships because of the UK threat. The Russian Navy does not offer decisive battle. There is some heavy damage to cities along the Baltic coast. And then we get to the part of the TL which is less fun. We debate do the Russians significantly change troop deployments from OTL. If the Russians hold a couple corp back thru January, then we see a series of butterflies such as helping the Ottomans, Austrians or slower transfer of German units east. Or maybe the Russians ignore the pretty obvious diversionary attacks, and it goes much like OTL,
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Now if we make the next leap. A plan for war involving the UK, that is a serious plan approved by the Kaiser prewar. The planning process does not cause major butterflies. Here is my best guess.

You will still have the plan in the previous post. But it will have a UK joins war option. Instead of basing ships at Danzig which to me is the logical location, you have more of ships near Kiel. You know you can't defeat the Royal Navy early in the war. At this time, you probably will assume Portsmouth is the main base in the war. So what can you do?

You will send the U-boats out on patrol at the first of the war, about half of them. While many will be in the North Sea, you will send quite a few to the channel. You will send a bait squadron to harass Antwerp Area if you are aggressive, well off the coast of the Neatherlands if not aggressive. You will assemble the main fleet behind them off the German Coast. You will seek battle that the odds favor you with the Royal Navy. Once the UK is organized (week 2 of war), you will be back to OTL strategy or running TTL Baltic plan. The Baltic plan in this type of scenario will be more conservative than some options listed in the previous post.


So what happens here. You likely run the Baltic plan for a few days. Do things such as bombard Riga. Maybe land on the islands around Riga. Then you get a quick pullback to the North Sea. You have a lot of action in North Sea, which can go a lot of ways. The big impact on the war is the U-boats in the channel combined with the potential German surface raid will greatly slow troop transport for a few days. Then you have to see how the slower arrival of the BEF impacts the war. The Germans may hold the Marne or at least closer to it. And if that fails, they get a better result by holding more of the French coast.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
That's what I do in Commander The Great War. I use it to sink the troop ships and it let's me completely conquer Belgium. It wouldn't happen like that OTL, of course, but it's a start

Actually it can easily. I have written a Great War TL, written a partial one, and looked a writing a few others. If you say merely delay the arrival of the BEF, you have a huge impact. You don't even need to sink the ships. What happens is that the Germans are racing to the sea. If the UK units are merely a week or two late, the battles where the Germans are held near Ypres simply become "Overstretch German units with poor supplies advance merely 5 miles per day not whatever the logistical charts show." The Germans will not only take Ypres, they likely take Calais.
 
The German naval command structure was butchered on 1 April 1899 and I've read that this move was detrimental to KM war planning, but I don't know how much.

As for stuff in the Baltic, given the assumption that the French would mobilise first and thus would have to be dealt with first I'd suggest that actions in the Baltic could be planed to occur in a similar manner as Army actions were planned. A feint, demonstration or whatever sortie toward the south, Antwerp of whatever, could occur to have an effect on the British and French and then the ships could move into the Baltic to take action against the Russians.

Against the British days count, any sort of reaction will take time, that time will effect the movement of the BEF which as we know did some good work on the French left flank. I don't want to go so far as say that without the BEF the French 5th Army would have been surrounded and destroyed perhaps by the 25th of August, but its an idea worth thinking about.
 
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