Third Reich's Navy Plans

So I caught battleship fever (again) and was going through all of my old material about the Bismarck and the HMS Hood. In one reference I read that Hitler promised Raeder that Germany would not to war with Britain until 1948 at which times the new High Seas Fleet would be ready.

I have searched and cannot find a concrete list of what this navy would actually consist of and I was wondering if you fine folks here at AH.com could assist me at all.
 
What you are referring to was Plan Z

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Z


Kind of like the Soviet Navy of the 50s-80s. When you build a fleet from the ground up, you'll make a lot of breakthroughs, a lot of mediocrities, and a lot of rank white elephants.
 
A more logical Kriegsmarine would be the one actually developped in the OTL, with the skipping of the Plan Z as mentioned and concentrating on light forces and submarines, as these were easy to build in a short time, while the few larger ships were mostly there for political reasons of having a "Fleet in being".

So the theoretical most logical Kriegsmarine built from scratch would look like this more or less:

2x BB's of large dimension, like the OTL Bismarck Class, or something like that. Skip the smaller Scharnhorst Class
6x CA's, like the Deutschland and Hipper Classes.
5x CL's as in OTL (no other construction, to free money and resources)
±24x large DD's (more or less as in OTL type 1934 and 1936)
>60x small DD's (like type 1939 and simmilar looking vessels.)
>300x U-Boote of various types, all of whom are easy to produce. (Type II for training, Type VII, IX, XXI and so on, depending on period of technological development.)
>100x Coastal Non combattants, such as minesweepers, escorts and so on, excluding small craft like R-Boote and S-Boote.
>200x S-Boote
>200x R-Boote
Various number of Auxilliaries for support and logistics

Depending on who was the enemy, HSK's could be purchased as well.
 

Pangur

Donor
Good Point

As I understand it Plan Z was for all intents and purposes abandoned quite early in the war in favour of U-Boats. One thing which I have wondered about was what were they planning to do with this fleet? The Royal Navy would still be several time bigger and then if you add the US Navy in then just cant see how they could have hoped to fight and win
 
The problem with Plan Z is that it did not take into account what the British and French reaction to it would be, or the bottlenecks and opportunity costs such a construction program would result in.

The RN response can be gauged by the mid-late 30s Tentative Fleet Plan, among other sources.

Like the HSF, it was an unnecessary luxury and prestige project that would only heighten tension and make conflict more likely.
 
The High Seas Fleet was a necessity and not a luxury for the Germans.

Necessity for what?

Germany did not have significant overseas territories justifying the investment in building a navy strong enough to threaten the Royal Navy. If it was intended to protect German merchant ships, why so much effort at building a fleet tailored to fight in the North Sea?

If Germany was intending a war with England, it made some sort of sense, to the extent that declaring war on England would be a sensible thing to do (which is to say, not very much).
 
I fear I must disagree that it was a necessity, either of the highest order or otherwise. It was a contributing factor to tensions with the British Empire, along with a number of others, and represented a great expenditure of men and treasure for no gainful return.

This is not to say that the Germany of the pre-WW1 period had no need for a fleet, but the High Sea Fleet was ultimately a prestige project and political instrument rather than a useful tool. In this sense, it was like many other dreadnought fleets.

The Hitlerian HSF redux encounters the same issues, but even more pronounced. In building a fleet from nothing, it was always doomed to be behind. Half a dozen capital ships is an improvement on 15-0, but matters little if the other side also engages in a major build up.
 
Considering that some the ships were out once and then destroyed or out then bottled up (Bismarck and Tirpitz) Then a number were binned before completion (Graf Zepplin Class) it was a waste completely, the Submarine fleet may have been necessary in WW2 due to the fact it did a lot more damage than a surface fleet.

As a whole the majority of the German Naval forces were useless in WW2 bar the UBoat fleet.
 

Redbeard

Banned
When studying Plan Z we often compare the planned strength to the OTL one of Kriegsmarine and are impressed. What is usually forgotten is, that the RN in the late 30's had started an expansion programme that actually dwarfed the one previous to WWI! So if the Kriegsmarine after Plan Z would have been big, the RN would have been even bigger.

Plan Z was playing the British ballgame, and for once Hitler showed a little strategic sense by dropping Plan Z. By shifting naval focus to U-boats he actually caught the British on the wrong leg, as they had to cancell or put on standby a lot of the planned big ships and instead use the resources on an emergency programme for escorts.

Had Hitler by stickling to Plan Z (and not the U-boats) allowed the British to carry on with the pre-war expansion plan, the real victims would have been the Japanese. With a RN on steroids their schemes for South East Asia become even more risky than they already were.

Regards

Steffen Redbeard
 
I want to make a Cavaet to my post, the construction of the surface fleet was useful to an extent because it forced a sizable part of the Home fleet to stay in port in case of a breakout keeping ships away from Convoy escort and the other naval fronts.
 
Necessity for what?

Germany did not have significant overseas territories justifying the investment in building a navy strong enough to threaten the Royal Navy. If it was intended to protect German merchant ships, why so much effort at building a fleet tailored to fight in the North Sea?

If Germany was intending a war with England, it made some sort of sense, to the extent that declaring war on England would be a sensible thing to do (which is to say, not very much).

First off all the Great Powers of the time built navies. Secondly, you don't need 'significant overseas territories' in order to build a large navy. The Germans only have to concentrate their strength in the North and Baltic Seas in order to keep their ports open to trade, and the importation of food stuffs, in the eventuality of war. The two inital powers that Germans were face with was the Dual Entente and it would have had to deal with the combined fleets of France and Russia.

The non-aligned Britain, at the time in 1900, is a wild card which is basically unfriendly to Germany. The great weapon of intervention for the British is the Royal Navy and the only way to keep the British from striking like a bolt out of the blue is to build a force to repulse them and at least level the playing field. A similar situation could be seen in the rumored 'carrier killer' missile the Chinese may be developing which will give pause to where the US deploys its carrier groups.
 
First off all the Great Powers of the time built navies.

Which proves absolutely nothing except that the Great Powers at the time were as capable of stupid decisions as at any other point.

Germany's strategic interests are not served by building a navy just to show they, too, can waste resources.

Secondly, you don't need 'significant overseas territories' in order to build a large navy. The Germans only have to concentrate their strength in the North and Baltic Seas in order to keep their ports open to trade, and the importation of food stuffs, in the eventuality of war. The two inital powers that Germans were face with was the Dual Entente and it would have had to deal with the combined fleets of France and Russia.
Which does not require a navy that can threaten the Royal Navy, which they built. The idea of coming up with a compromise so that the British didn't feel it was aimed at them (assuming, for the sake of discussion, that it wasn't) was rejected. If all this was was a fleet needing to keep up with the French & Russian navy, it should have been pursued for all it was worth.

Germany didn't need a navy to beat France the first time, why will it need one here? And vs. Russia...Russian naval power is not something that requires something that threatens and worries Britain.

The non-aligned Britain, at the time in 1900, is a wild card which is basically unfriendly to Germany. The great weapon of intervention for the British is the Royal Navy and the only way to keep the British from striking like a bolt out of the blue is to build a force to repulse them and at least level the playing field. A similar situation could be seen in the rumored 'carrier killer' missile the Chinese may be developing which will give pause to where the US deploys its carrier groups.
Apparently, diplomacy is for suckers. Can't come up with a reason for the British to be friendly or neutral. Oh no. We (Germany) have to come up with a reason for them to be hostile. :rolleyes: Bad enough for Wilhelm to think that without hindsight...

Very different situation to China & the US. Germany has a history of at least lukewarm relations with Britain. If Wilhelm is expecting that to change, spending half the effort he spent building battleships on diplomats would have been a better investment.
 
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