Operation Rheinübung

Hitler signs the German-Japanese Alliance on March 5th 1934. In latte 1934 the Japanese give the design for the 40 cm/45 Type 94 naval gun to Germany in return for Krupp Cemented Armour. Hitler orders a new battleship built around the 40 cm/45 Type 94 naval gun. The first to ships of what will become the Bismarck class a laded in 1936. like the Japanese are able with the Yamato-class, the Bismarck class are capped secret. In December 1939 the British learn of the Bismarck class believing that they are 40000 tonnes and armed with 15 inch guns.
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Bismarck class
Displacement: 70,027 tonnes
73,659 tonnes (full load)
Length: 282metres
Beam: 39.9metres
Draft: 11metres
Propulsion: 14 × MAN 9-cylinder diesel engines
• Four 4-bladed propellers.
Speed: 32 knots
Range: 16,200 nmi at 19 knots
Complement: 2,500–2,800
Armament:
8 × 40 cm/45 Type 94 naval guns twin turrets
14 × 15 cm (5.9 in) guns
12 × 10.5 cm (4.1in) guns
30 × 3.7cm (1.5in)
12 × 2cm (0.79in) guns
6 × 53.3cm (21.in) torpedo tubes
Armour:
609.6 mm (24in) on face of main turrets
508 mm (20 in) side armour
200 mm (7.9 in) central(75%) armoured deck
226.5 mm (8.9 in) outer(25%) armoured deck

Grand Admiral Reader in February of 1941 convinces Hitler to delay Operation Rheinübung until July 1941. 22 March 1941 Scharnhorst and Gneisenau enter begin a refit in Brest where they are upgraded to 15 inch guns. June 19 1941 Scharnhorst and Gneisenau begin refit trials. May 1941 the British come to believe that the Bismarck class are 50000 tonnes and armed with 15 inch guns. July 1 1941 Scharnhorst and Gneisenau seal undetected for the Denmark Strait, Operation Rheinübung has begin. July 3 1941 Tirpitz seals undetected for the Atlantic Ocean . At 2:00 am on July 5 1941 bismarck seals for a join with Tirpitz, Prinz Eugen, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. Bismarck and Prinz Eugen are sited by British spy’s when they enter the North Sea. July 8th Scharnhorst and Gneisenau resupplies from a tanker south of Iceland. Later that day Tirpitz, Prinz Eugen and Bismarck meet. July 9th Scharnhorst and Gneisenau Joins Bismarck, Tirpitz, and Prinz Eugen, the German fleet seals for the Denmark Strait. Later that night Norfolk and Suffolk began shadowing the Germans but fall to report the sizes and strength of the fleet. Hood and Prince of Wales seal in to the Denmark Strait. 5:52 AM on July 10th 1941 the British high command revises a radio massage Hood and Prince of Wales have engaged bismarck. Hood is hit by Bismarck, the hit penetrate her deck and explodes the main powder magazine at 5: 58 Am. At 6:15 Lütjens orders Scharnhorst and Gneisenau to get reed of there uninvited gust in Norfolk and Suffolk. The next and last massage the British get is from Norfolk at 6:25 am and is garbled. The massage reads, Hood and Prince of Wal sunk by Bismarck and T, Suffolk sinking, taking fire from Scharnhorst and Gneise, rule Britannia. The Admiralty is furies that the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau where not know to be at sea.


John Cronyn "Jack" Tovey makes what some have calls the lucky guess in history and other have call the most unlucky. Tovey takes HMS King George V, HMS Nelson, HMS Rodney, HMS Renown, HMS Repulse, HMS Dorsetshire to weary he guessed Bismarck might be. At 11:25 on the 14th of 1941 Tovey sees Tirpitz dead ahead, but to his dismay the Germans are crossing his T. At 11:26 Tirpitz opens fair on the HMS King George V. how bad of a surprise are the British in for and what will happen . If some one would like to make a more detailed story best on this and what happens that would be cool.
 
I think getting this thing to 32 knots is implausible without an major increase in freeboard and thus displacement.
 
Since such a ship is far bigger than existing treaties allow, and a clear breach of the Anglo-German naval agreement, Britain starts laying down Lion class battleships as sson as the keel is laid, using the fact as teh reason the Washington treaty is now obsolete. The US folows with 45,000 ton BB designs. The Japanese master plan is in ruins...:)

The new ship will take much longer to build than it takes Britain to build a Lion, and gets to meet 2-3 of them in the North Atlantic....

Your suggestion that somehow Britain doesnt learn about them until 1939 and then thinks they are half the size simply wont work, RN inteligence had the German building programs and capabilities pwnd... and in any case building a ship in secret is yet another treaty breach.

As a result of buidling such a monster, far less armour plate is available for tanks.

The only people who thought a ship of such size made sense were the IJN, and they had specific reasons for it (the limitations of the Panama canal for US warships). Even so its a highly dubious theory.
In this case, you get for the same price 8 16" verses 18 in 2 Lions (and I doubt very much you can get that speed with 20" armour belts. in fact, the technology of the time was struggling to make 15" armour...)
Oh, and its too big to use the Kiel canal as well...
 
Hate to ask this, but where are you building it in secret? Blom & Voss the historical yard that constructed Bismark is in the middle of Hamburg, I think people visiting Hamburg will realise pretty quick that she and her sister are twice the reported displacement.
 
There are a few difficulties with this scenario:

-As mentioned, the British have to not find out about the new design, and otherwise do everything according to OTL, which strains credibility.

-Hood was due for a major overhaul in 1941 and, if B&T are nowhere near completion, she'll most likely go for it, emerging in better condition for battle or simply not being available for one.

-The scenario involves a lot of luck on the part of Germany, which strains credibility. Lots of undetected sorties and rendezvouses, failure to infer the larger size of the battleship (a single successful aerial photo will do it).

-OTL Bismarck was pushing the limits on what size (and draught) German ports could handle. The larger unit will require a lot of dreding and such. This will be noticeable activity for allied spies.

-One has to question whether the 38 cm guns would even be developed, given that B&T were not going to use them. Hence S&G may not be upgunned.

-The availability of S&G at this time is in doubt, as the British were able to hit them both regularly with airstrikes in the early part of 1941. You could stage an early Channel Dash, but they're still likely to take damage and be unavailable.

-Being ~40% larger than historical, B&T will take longer to complete, and the historical year or so of design work that has taken place prior to the deal with Japan is now useless. With a new design from scratch and the larger hull, I think you're looking at a minimum of one to two year's delay in commissioning the units. If you're really lucky, you're out and about in late 1942. More likely 1943. At that point, the British have all five KGVs completed, along with additional carriers, and the Americans are involved.

-The resources required to build these two larger ships will, as noted elsewhere, pull away other resources from programs such as panzer or u-boat production, likely leaving Germany in a worse strategic state than OTL.

If you want a more likely scenario involving an RN/KM slug-out, build B&T as historical, delay Rheinubung until T is available, and then assume an updated, credible British response including aircraft carriers and destroyer flotillas.
 
A question is why the Germans would take a design of a foreign gun and calliber, when they themselves already had a better design (40,6cm/52 SK C-36) weapon under development, expected to be ready before the final commissioning of the new battleships themselves? The german 40,6 cm had a much longer barrel and higher musclevelocity, resulting in a theoretically longer range at lower elevations. The IJN 41 cm gun also needed a revised turretdesign, with a deeper recoiltub, to allow the guns to elevate up to 43 degrees, compared to the normal German practice of having the vertical turningmechanism of the guns more aft in the barrel.
 
And of course the army is going to go ballistic...

2 70kt ships instead of 2 40kt ships is 60kt of high-quality steel.
thats around 3500 tanks.
Congratulations, you just gutted (if not completely eliminated) the Panzer force.
 
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