In the booklets of the German navy WW-11 , SCMOLKE & KOOP report that a post war engineering study of KM warship building was published in the 1950s. This study was conducted by EX wartime members of the KM design service. They concluded that instead of building the 4 battleships [TWINS & BS/TP] and the 5 Hipper cruisers , the KM could have either built 21 smaller Panzerschiffe or 375 TYPE VII U-Boats.
Either option would have been preferable to the wartime KM.
Either option would have been preferable to the wartime KM.