What if instead of building battleships, the NAZI’s used the steel and the freed up skilled labourers to build 100+ more U Boats that we’re available with fully trained crews by mid 1941 (Bismarck’s crew)and extra tanks/artillery? Could the reich have closed off the Atlantic and isolated the UK? What other benefits would the German wartime economy gain from these ships not been build?
What if NAZI Germany didn’t build battleships?
- Thread starter Lambtotheslaughter
- Start date
Its not that easy. Germany doesn't have 100 unused slipways to build uboats.
You can't just turn off a Bismarck and get uboats.
If Germany doesn't build battleships and builds uboats instead Britain will probably build less KGVs and they will get a lot more escort resources from the savings than the Germans will get uboats as they have a lot more shipyards.
This is a very common question here that comes up regularly.
Maybe if the U.K. sits back and does nothing as Germany starts building ships that are almost certainly aimed at the UK...
I think the U.K. paid good money to intelligence services keep an eye on what other major nations were up to.
Dockyards are large open areas, you can't hide them or what's happening in them.
Looking at how many times both French and British were caught flat-footed before 1942, seems like that money was wasted.
Nobody can hide a battleship.
Submarines, especially if you want to hide production of those?
They're too made in dockyards, and it's not like there's serious op-sec in the 30s, just talk with a worker in a bar, give him a free beer.
Or encourage the French to take action over either the Rhineland or the Sudtenland or join them over it
Then the British build a few hundred more flower corvettes. They were dirt cheap and good enough to face any submarine Germans had produced. 16kt allowed it to match convoys, had a gun to make sure submarines don’t surface and depth charges to finish it off. In fact with 250k pounds a piece you can make 14-15 of them for each type VII Germans can build. Building battleships for Germany did many positive things, for one it at first allowed a detente with Britain. Britain hoped Germans would build a mirror image of RN since that is the easiest thing to deal with. They didn’t want Germans to go full Kreuzerkrieg or Submarine and if they did they’d know it’s aimed at them.
Second only a few ships in British arsenal were capable of matching speed of Bismarck when it came out. They all tied up two British battleships to deal with them. They forced Britain to also modernize and develop their own forces to counter them rather than submarines.
Please remember submarines of the period are pathetic. You have a few days worth of air. If enemy is willing to wait you out they will kill you. You are easily found with Sonar passive and active, hydrophones and more, as long as enemy is watching. Long range patrol aircraft like Catalinas are death. Slow moving escort ships like corvettes are death. The diving depth is shallow. The underwater speed is 6-8 knots and that is making so much noise anything in 20kilometer radius will detect you do you can’t hide while corvettes make 16, destroyers 37. Torpedoes are unguided and slow. Enemy ships changing course almost guarantees a miss. A lot of torpedos were also unreliable. On every side. Germans had issues with magnetic detonators, British with depth keeping, Mark 14 was abysmal for years. Materials that keep submarines quiet, such are rubber are impossible to import to Germany once war starts. Quality of the crew has a massive impact. If they are careless and make a sound when they’re not supposed to everyone dies. If officers are uninspired or non enthusiastic they will not achieve sinkings that are required. U boat aces were rare. Problems go on and on. You can’t base your entire navy around a single thing pre war and hope it doesn’t get countered and hope it works out.
Second only a few ships in British arsenal were capable of matching speed of Bismarck when it came out. They all tied up two British battleships to deal with them. They forced Britain to also modernize and develop their own forces to counter them rather than submarines.
Please remember submarines of the period are pathetic. You have a few days worth of air. If enemy is willing to wait you out they will kill you. You are easily found with Sonar passive and active, hydrophones and more, as long as enemy is watching. Long range patrol aircraft like Catalinas are death. Slow moving escort ships like corvettes are death. The diving depth is shallow. The underwater speed is 6-8 knots and that is making so much noise anything in 20kilometer radius will detect you do you can’t hide while corvettes make 16, destroyers 37. Torpedoes are unguided and slow. Enemy ships changing course almost guarantees a miss. A lot of torpedos were also unreliable. On every side. Germans had issues with magnetic detonators, British with depth keeping, Mark 14 was abysmal for years. Materials that keep submarines quiet, such are rubber are impossible to import to Germany once war starts. Quality of the crew has a massive impact. If they are careless and make a sound when they’re not supposed to everyone dies. If officers are uninspired or non enthusiastic they will not achieve sinkings that are required. U boat aces were rare. Problems go on and on. You can’t base your entire navy around a single thing pre war and hope it doesn’t get countered and hope it works out.
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In this thread, Germany is trying to produce a trump card vs. British. The friendly worker in the bar might be spreading wrong information around.
Bristish 1st need to see the additional U-boats.
1936 is way to early for British to see into future, they don't know how many U-boats Germany is building, let alone how many they will be making in 1937, 38 and 39.
Trying to take action in 1938 (Sudetenland crisis) will see France over-run in 1939.
Well battleships are fairly obvious. The exact stats are fairly easy to hide but the broad strokes are obvious.
The AGNA had requirements that Germany and Britain notify each other of some details. If Germany aren't sending notifications Britain will figure it out.
Germany may be able to hide how many submarines they are building but not that they are focusing on submarines.
Its I teresting to read British discussions from the 1930s about Italian cheating on the naval treaty. The British knew that the Italians were cheating on the naval treaty. They weren't sure how much the Italians were cheating (until an Italian cruiser ended up needing emergency repairs in Gibraltar) and many people were assuming that small scale cheating was due to Italian incompetence in ship building rather than purposeful cheating.
The key thing is that they knew. It was easy to figure out.
If Germany cancel Bismarck and Tirpitz it won't get them 100 submarines. The more they try to hide their construction the less they will actually get.
That would be uncharacteristic for the time, there's thousands working at shipyards and every single one of them walks past that hole in the ground where something is being assembled, mid Cold War you can get that kind of security. In the 30s the whole town is going to know what's being constructed and everyone is proud of it.
Besides, the Brits will certainly have someone working for them inside the company to feed them more reliable and useful info than a drunkard in a bar can provide.
The Royal Navy has to devote less resources to containing the German battleships and can put more resources into the Indian Ocean and Southwest Pacific
Japan will have to deploy forces to counter that, leaving them fewer forces to stop the American naval juggernaut
Japan will have to deploy forces to counter that, leaving them fewer forces to stop the American naval juggernaut
The German BB - S&G and B&T - were probably good investments for the Axis as a whole, as they tied down completely disproportionate RN forces that could have been much better utilized crushing the Italians in the Med, then being available in the Far East.