Military Development Absent Great War
- Thread starter Carl Schwamberger
- Start date
RegNorth
Banned
Ivan Bloch' theories on the impenetrability of defensive weapons would get serious study.
You would see accelerated development of track laying equipment, mobile rail bridges, personal body armour, armoured battlefield transport.
Deleted member 1487
Highly doubtful, he was a banker, Jewish too, both of which were marks against him in the minds of the serious professional soldiers on all sides. No one took him seriously, its only in retrospect that people resurrected his works and marked him as a prophet, because he was right. Otherwise he'd likely remain obscure and ignored until his analysis was superseded by technology.
RegNorth
Banned
Probably right...
His theories would have been resurrected as a military study under a different name, with the aim of using technology to return mobility to warfare.
The pre WWI military establishment saw him as a serious - gadfly
they forgot the lesson of the American civil war set piece battles.
His theories would have been resurrected as a military study under a different name, with the aim of using technology to return mobility to warfare.
The pre WWI military establishment saw him as a serious - gadfly
they forgot the lesson of the American civil war set piece battles.
Deleted member 1487
They didn't forget, they just consider the American experience irrelevant to the European one; they did the same thing with the Russo-Japanese war and the Balkan wars. Its almost as if early 20th century Europeans were highly ethnocentric
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Gotlib_Bloch
RegNorth
Banned
They didn't forget, they just consider the American experience irrelevant to the European one; they did the same thing with the Russo-Japanese war and the Balkan wars. Its almost as if early 20th century Europeans were highly ethnocentric
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Gotlib_Bloch
One o f Bloch' forgotten theories was that dense rail nets, such as Northern France, returned the power to the defensive because they could shuttle men and equipment rapidly form Front to front, and that rail destruction as a defending army withdrew reduced the attackers to a horse drawn crawl...
something that German rapid mobilising in 1914, errr, 'forgot'.
BlondieBC
Banned
Don't see subs going this way. Prewar, subs were seen as Daytime Torpedo Boats useful for coastal defense. While subs were coming out with true long ranges, the doctrine did not think that men could stay in such small space for long combat trips as happened in WW1 and WW2.
Interestingly, there was a proposal. They wanted them to fight in the big battle. Subs were too slow to catch battleships at speed. They were too cramped for people to live in for many weeks at the time. So what is the solution? You will love this one. Sub carriers. Just like aircraft carriers carry planes to a battle, a ship would carry small subs to a battle zone and lower them into the water with a crane the day of the battle. Think Japanese midget subs on steroids.
So I see subs used within a few hundred miles of a port, despite much longer travel ranges. And work on these sub carrying ships that is never quite worked out right, at for a decade or so it takes to figure out they don't work so well.
Deleted member 1487
I think it was more a matter of not expecting the level of successful sabotage of the Belgian rail network by the Belgians during the invasion, which seriously disadvantaged the German advance. It would have mattered less what the French had available in terms of rail if the Germans had not had to deal with months worth of rail repairs, which forced them to rely on horse carts. Without a few strategic tunnel demolitions the Germans could have keep their rail transport pretty damn close to the front, minimizing the need to rely on horse transport. So its more arrogance on their part, plus wishful thinking that they ignored this threat as a potential derailer of their plan; if anything it wasn't forgotten, but rather purposely ignored, as it would debunk the Moltke plan for invasion of France from the conceptual standpoint, leaving Germany unable to win a two front war, which was anathma to the ideology of the time.
BlondieBC
Banned
Largely Agreed.
A lot of things we see as obvious, are only obvious in hindsight. And we are basically taking the die roll of fate (things that can't be known before hand), and then use the result to draw the "indisputable facts of history". I think this is one of them. It is pretty clear to me the underlying assumption of the German War Plan was that the Belgians would either permit the Germans to cross or they would not offer effective resistance. And if we do just a rational analysis, the Belgians should have let the Germans through. If the Belgians say yes to Germany, instead of 4 years of occupation and the Germans demetalizing Belgium, we get a much shorter war with Belgium on the winning side. And likely no WW2 in the west since Germany will likely be strong enough to keep France down. And the UK army is clearly too weak to save Belgium. The best the Belgians could expect is a long war on Belgian, not French soil.
Just think about the POD. The Belgium government allows the Germans to pass through. Or the Belgian join the CP. Belgium may lose the money losing Congo which they were repeatedly bailing out. But they might keep it. But they could easily be in for a larger slice of Flanders. The Germans have a much better chance of capturing a French army. Even if this does not happen, they Germans likely take Calais if we have a race to the Sea like event. While the war could stretch easily into 1916, none of it will be fought on Belgian soil. And it will not last until 1918.
Or to a more broad subject. We condemn the High Seas Fleet as wasteful, but only because the CP lost on land. The naval battles of dreads were a draw. UK was unable to hold the German coast. Same for Germany. North Sea was a no man's land. If the Austrians do better in the East in 1914, the CP will win the war, and we will have a huge number of books condemning the wasteful RN spending for starting a pointless rivalry with Germany that leads to the loss of India.
Or if it is a quick war such as we could see if both Belgian allows the Germans and A-H goes WarPlan Russia, say a 12 month war, I doubt Germany ever really gets around to using submarines in serious merchant warfare. Before WW1, Germany was a lesser submarine power. In a loss, we probably see France remain the country most associated with subs, with UK the second most likely due to its very large naval budget.
Actually, that counts as a win for Britain, the German fleet remains bottled up, unwilling to risk another beating to try to hurt Britain.
Um, what? How does Russia losing mean that Britain loses India?
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It made sense at the time, given the size of smaller subs. Some large warships were already carrying torpedo boats.
Deleted member 1487
The world wars IOTL weakened the British empire to the point that India was able to get independence; here a loss in WW1 could/would weaken Britain more than IOTL, so would result in the eventual loss of India due to inability to tamp down dissent there. So their loss in WW1 would get blamed for the loss of India, rather than the loss of India being a direct result of the peace deal.
In a way this is akin to large ships carrying aircraft for launching torpedos. The torpedo bomber being a torpedo boat with more speed, less endurance, and a better view for searching.
Cranes for deploying torpedo boats sounds like a temporary measure. A specialized cruiser with a well deck and ballast tanks, like the amphib. transports from the 1940s might be better.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kégresse_track
something like that, notice that development started pre-war
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Things such as well decks were a bit high tech around ww1. Large ships carried small torpedo boats the way ships carried landing craft in ww2.
BlondieBC
Banned
It counts for a win, only in at TL (OTL) where the central powers lose in the east in the first year of the war. Or put another way, if Conrad runs War Plan Russia, then keeping the UK off the German coast as Germany guts France and Russia counts for a win for Germany, not the UK. When the UK starts/reacts to the naval race with Germany, the fact the weaker land powers in Europe would win because of a series of mistakes was unknowable. Or put another way, it is only based on unknownable events to the decision makers that we talk about how the naval race was a German, not UK mistake.
Or lets try this another way. Only if we assume the decision makers in the UK in the 1898 to 1913 time frame KNEW with CERTAINTY that Germany would lose a land war does the decision to seek a rivalry not an understanding with Germany make sense. The UK simply had little need for a 2-1 advantage over the Germans at sea, and the UK could not afford both the 2-1 naval advantage and a large standing army. So instead of focusing on allying with the stronger land power coalition with few natural conflicts on colonies, it chose to ally with two weaker powers who both had many more colonial issues with the UK than Germany. IMO, foolish.
I know some people think I bash the English too much, but this is because I do not believe the fall of the British Empire was inevitable. It was a self inflicted gun shot wound to the head, metaphorically speaking. The sun still could be shining on the British Empire. The UK and its allies (Dominions) might still be more powerful than Russia or Germany or the USA.
The UK eventually accepted a major land power as its ally. The USA. It accept this land power having a major navy. However, there were downsides such as this landpower seeking to end the colonial era. IMO, imperial Germany would not have tried to end the era, but merely gain additional colonies.
Now lets think about a generic TL where the CP win on land and the UK joins. It is hard for the CP to win before Christmas. The UK will bankrupt itself within about 3 years of the war starting. Serious problems develop in OTL in India even in a CP loss. It will be worse in a CP win. In many ways, the UK traded an empire built over a few centuries for demoting Germany from the overwhelming land power in Europe to merely the economic powerhouse of Europe. IMO, it was a horrible trade.
BlondieBC
Banned
Agreed.
yea, sadly that is true. I was shocked at how many times when trying to design post war navies for my TL and looking at the writings and tech of the time, I ended up with ships that closely matched various failed ships of various navies from OTL. Sometimes, it is just so easy to go down the wrong path and end up with some horrible hybrid that clearly is unwise in hindsight. The concept of half seaplane carrier, half cruiser made sense to me. As did midget subs.
IMO, sub carriers fall into this category, if we avoid WW1. You take existing merchant ships or cruiser type hulls. Add a few guns. Add existing short range subs, and on paper, it works great. Even works pretty well with torpedo boats. And has added benefit that if you simply sail ship to a anchorage with a freighter for supplies, you have the instant cheap naval base with sub tender plus supplies. And in some case it will work, but it will always have issues. It is cheap, uses proven technology, will work in exercises. And it will be so hard to do in battle, since you will need to drop the subs in front of the path of the enemy fleet. Outside of gun range, but close enough the fleet does not simply change course. And it will be very vulnerable to either enemy fleet subs or airplanes or enemy cruisers. The admiral who can make it work in a major battle is very talented.
BlondieBC
Banned
You may be right that it would go this way, but I have not seen it in the proposal. Using the words cranes may be bit deceptive since it is not the ships stopping at sea and using a crane similar to what unloads a merchant ship at a port. The sketches I have seen look more like a specialized ship with either 6 or 8 subs attached to the side of the ships. High enough to be out of the waves, but each submarine having an odd looking mechanism to lower them to the water. The closest item that comes to mind in shape is a PT boat where the torpedo tubes are actually almost entire outside of the frame of the boat and are lowered to the water by chains. Just make it bigger and make the torpedo into small subs. I guess you have to lower in a pairs to keep the ship balanced. And I guess there is some way to pick the ships up at speed, at least a low single digit knots.
To be fair, not sure how much was Napkinwaffe and how much had serious engineering into it, but it did seem to be the popular idea among admirals of how to get subs to a naval battle in open ocean, and with generous funding, it could be made to work.
"Napkinwaffe" Theres a term I will be looking to use
Torpedo boat carriers would have some utillity in littoral waters, think of the Solomons campaign in 1942-43. I can see applications in Mediterranean ect.. but every objection described here applies to make blue water ops difficult & unsucessful.