The recent thread on
Best Fleet of WW II got me thinking. Some of thread rationally documented the relative ineffectiveness in many areas of the world's largest navy, the Royal Navy, in the early days of WW II. (Something rarely able to be raised in this forum before the crowd shouts down the idea.)
One early war failing of the Royal Navy not really explored was the RN's difficulties in dealing with the KM's commerce raiding auxiliary cruisers. These were basically armed merchants disguised to look like harmless ships of another nation and used to hunt merchant ships.
While Germany only deployed just nine of these ships between 1939 and 1942, these ships managed to sink over 750,000 gross registered tons of shipping, as well as one light cruiser, the HMAS Sydney.
One way to understand how effective these ships were is to compare their exploits with those of RN's submarine fleet during the same period of time. The RN started the war with 60 submarines (and 9 building, plus foreign subs under it command), the largest fleet in Europe at the start of WW II. During the time period that the KM auxiliary cruisers operated--1939 to 1942--the entire fleet of RN submarines (and those submarines of navies under it's command) sank about the same tonnage as the KM auxiliary cruisers--though warships made a higher percentage of the tonnage sunk by the RN subs.
The success of these German auxiliary cruisers was not without a cost. Of these nine auxiliary cruisers that sailed as merchant raiders, 6 were sunk, one was destroyed in a fire while in port, and two retired.
On the other hand, during this same period, the Royal Navy lost 55 submarines.
The question that I have is this: What would be the effect of more the KM deploying more auxiliary cruisers (and supply ships)? I think that this would strained the RN even more, particularly if these ships were deployed in the months leading up to the war and through the first 6 months of the war, as the RN may be forced to deploy more resources to trying to interdict the KM auxiliary cruisers. This reallocation of resources may in turn may result and the Norwegian campaign and the early U-boat campaign to be even more successful for the Germans. Obviously, resources would have to be reallocated, but if the return on the rate of return is anywhere close, this seems to be a good investment for the KM.
Edited multiple times to:
(1) Correct the number of auxiliary cruisers deployed by the KM, which was just nine and not ten as I had stated;
(2) Corrected to give a more exact number of RN submarines sunk from 1939 through 1942, which I originally listed as more than thirty but according the figures I have seen was actually a surprisingly high 55; and
(3) Make other corrections for typos, spelling, elisions, etc.