Kriegsmarine: what if Germany managed to surpass the British Navy?

[steamboy]

That or the writers forum.

 

[Cymraeg]

That or the writers forum.

Writer's Forum.

 

[TimTurner]

Let's arm wave a little bit, and say that by magic, Germany isn't limited in how many ships it can build and that it can churn out as many as battleships as it likes as quickly as it likes. Just a bit of magic to simplify things.

The rough (very, very rough) equivalence I have seen used is that one capital ship uses about the same resources as a division for the army.

Let's make the assumption that battleships and divisions are interchangeable, and that one can switch from one to the other without difficulty.

At the start of WWI, Britain had 41 more capital ships than Germany, with more on the slipways. Let's round that to a difference of 40, and then add 50% to take account of the British construction.

That's 60 extra capital ships to find from somewhere.

OK. One capital ship = one division.

That means to match (not exceed, just match) Britain, Germany needs an extra 60 capital ships, which means 60 fewer Divisions.

Germany, at the start of WWI, had 98 Divisions. Reducing that by 60 (one division = one capital ship) leaves Germany with 38 Divisions. Let us also rashly assume that Austria-Hungary can handle Russia and Serbia all by itself (48 divisions against 113 divisions. Good luck with that).

That means that Germany's 38 divisions have to overwhelm the 85 divisions of France, Belgium, and Britain.

Good luck with that.

that math doesn't look very positive for Germany.

 

[David Flin]

that math doesn't look very positive for Germany.

Well, when a Continental power whose existential requirement is for a powerful army, and with next to no need for a navy of any consequence tries going head-to-head with a Maritime Power whose existential requirement is for a powerful Navy at sea, then the Continental Power is not going to come out on top.

It's the old Tiger versus Shark equation; in this proposition, the Tiger is choosing to wander out into the depths of the sea to challenge the Shark.

 

[MadHatter]

Not going to wash I am afraid

The word paranoid was invented to describe the constant state of the British admiralty

During the period you describe Britain maintained a real monopoly on world trade including coal supplies that took 2 world wars to break

As a result it had a navy vastly superior to any other

As Germany expanded its high seas fleet in an attempt to match the Royal Navy the British responded in an arms race that only it could win and out built the Germans in all respects except submarines.

In all other respects the RN was the superior force both in terms of manpower, experience training and technology and tended with a very few exception to kick Germany around the North Sea as well as elsewhere and maintain the distant blockade throughout WW1 that was partially responsible for teh final victory by the Entente

Its intelligence gathering, interpretation and disseminating processes were a league ahead of Germanys.

The reason the RN based itself in Scapa Flow was due to the real fear of a surprise attack on Portland (peacetime base of the Home Fleet) and on the eve of war a certain Winston Churchill then 1st Lord of the Admiralty ordered it to sortie and rebase to Scapa flow - as it was out of range of many of the smaller shorter ranged Torpedo boats (light destroyers) and the chances of being surprise attacked at that anchorage was almost non existent given that it would take the heavy units some time to cover the 800 odd NMs and almost certainly detected and engaged if it had tried.

And any ship badly damaged is unlikely to make it home.

It would take an extraordinarily tall and improbable 'if tree' for you to present an ALT History scenario where the above is not the case.

So the how they did it is deemed very important on this forum.

"Is deemed"
by who?
by you?
The lion, the witch and the audacity of this

 

[David Flin]

"Is deemed"
by who?
by you?
The lion, the witch and the audacity of this

There are, however, countless points of issue that have been raised with regard to your proposed Timeline. I don't know if you intend to answer them.

As it stands, the Timeline consists of handwaving and complete ignoring of the realities of the situation. The Mods have moved TLs that have huge plausibility issues to either the Writers' Forum (and the misplaced apostrophe in the forum title as given annoys the editor in me) or ASB.

 

[Cymraeg]

"Is deemed"
by who?
by you?
The lion, the witch and the audacity of this

No, there are some very real points of realism that your TL does not address. There is quite a high standard of realism in the Pre-1900 forum and especially in the Post-1900 forum. Many posters on this site have a technical background that gives them an astonishing amount of technical knowledge of things like ships, planes and tanks. Even when some of them are unsure of something then they either know someone who does or they vanish off for an hour or so and then come back to quote from a book that they've been happily hunting and perusing.
Saying "And then the Germans built an enormous navy that surpassed the RN without the latter realising a thing (I'm sorry - no) and then went on to fight and win a war that included France being blockaded by Germany (unlikely) and the Unmentionable Sea Mammal that led to Dover being annexed by Germany (say what again?) is going to get severely picked apart.

 

[jlckansas]

"Is deemed"
by who?
by you?
The lion, the witch and the audacity of this

By reality. UK had a law, as previously brought up, that they have to be bigger by x amount than the next largest navy. UK as has been proven has the ability to make capitol ships as easily as the US made CVL's, ok maybe just a little exaggeration make it Essex class in WW2, and have no problems making foreign orders as needed at the same speed as their own ships are made. They would look at what is being made by other countries and react to that by making a new ship class that has bigger guns, more armor, faster speed, more bunkerage, and better power on board. This is institutional for them, the navy is the actual "Walls of England".

 

[CalBear]

"Is deemed"
by who?
by you?
The lion, the witch and the audacity of this

To one and all -

If you ever get Banned and manage to get back under the wire this is NOT how to stay off the radar.