WI: no high seas fleet?

[Driftless]

The Germans would have some level of capital ships and potential raiders, just to keep their neighbors honest. If they're not going to press the British, they're still going to want to be able to jab at the French and the Russian Baltic fleet, and to potentially use the fleet to intimidate lever the Dutch, Belgians, Danes, Swedes, Poles, and maybe the Norwegians. Maybe some long-legged cruisers to support foreign policy, more than fight battles?

 

[AdA]

The limitation on the size and combat capability of the army was human ressources both in the numbers that could be trained without an excessive impact on the economy (length of service removing people from the workforce at a time when women still played a very limited role) and having enough qualified officers and NCO. All major armies of 1914 were well equipped according to their doctrine and what they didn't have was more because they didn't know they needed it than because they couldn't afford it.

And while warships were expensive, they also lasted a long time and since Germany only really started to up the ante after the RN built HMS dreadnought they were not going to be obsolete fast.

Submarines were only really an option when reliable enough and powerful enough diesels started being used, which was about 1912/3, so any money spent on subs before is going to useful mostly for training.

Basically, the greatest gain of not building a large HSF and investing on a fleet comparable in size to the French navy would be to give diplomacy more chances when dealing with Britain. But that would also require dealing with British fears of Germany as a rival colonial power, and critically, as a rival economical power.
It was the raising power of the fast growing German economy that scared Britain, and the naval race was just an expression of that larger rivalry.

 

[Veiovis]

And while warships were expensive, they also lasted a long time

uhm...no? Ships became obsolete junks fit for no more then third-rate duty (where it was arguably no longer economical to even continue running them) in less then 10 years (sometimes in much less then that). Thats not "lasting a long time" at all.

 

[GOU Limiting Factor]

Because so much of the decisionmaking that went into the OTL Hochseeflotte was contingent on Willy II's personality, it's pretty trivial to imagine a smaller fleet that's more of a spoiler force; a couple later, shorter-legged dreadnoughts and a fleet strategy that amounts to closing up the Baltic against Russia or giving the Marine Nationale one hell of a bloody nose.

Other stuff is harder to envision plausibly because we're used to thinking about these things in the context of a modern economy where inputs and outputs are tabulated more extensively than in the pre-1914 European states - in part because of the experience of 1914-15 showing how ill-suited and ill-prepared those states were for large-scale industrial warfare. So we could expect what to modern eyes is massive inefficiency in reallocating resources around new priorities. As well, building up the industrial potential to have a world-class fleet has certain sunk costs in establishing the physical plant - to produce armor plate of sufficient quality and quantity, to build the engines and guns and rangefinders and other complex machinery required, so on and so forth - which means that building a smaller fleet may not be as much cheaper as you hope, and the knock-on effects of not investing in that industry will also be felt.

But, let's say so; let's propose a German monarch circa 1900 who looks at the prospect of a navy that could compete with the RN and goes 'no thank you'. More u-boats, maybe a detour of those same funds into into torpedo boats and shore batteries, but an overall reduction; main battery caliber capped around 350mm; fewer, smaller hulls; no battlecruisers.

One gimme; more machine guns for the army. The German Army was historically well-supplied with the MG 08 compared to other European armies (a decision based on lessons learned by their military observers in 1904-05), but they still only had about 4,800 machine guns on the eve of war in 1914. Let's wave a wand and say that our hypothetical new Kaiser is an Army man and bump that number up. We could do the same with field guns; let's propose an alternate 77mm FK 9X with a French-style hydro-pneumatic recoil system, perhaps slightly better artillery tractors for the big guns, and slightly larger stockpiles of shells. We might not get lucky; horse cavalry is still seen as viable, so the cavalry arm could get an expansion that, with hindsight, would be wasted effort come a *1914.

Likely all this is nice, but with perfect hindsight, nothing really outweighs the benefits package of not pissing off the UK... except that competition with the RN is only part of the story. Remember, the colonial empires of 1914 are closed systems and German thirst for 'a place in the sun' wasn't about prestige alone; it was about securing a bright economic future for Germany by rearranging the European map. Britain can and will be drawn in to prevent that even without a Hochseeflotte threatening the Royal Navy, because this is the era of beggar-thy-neighbor policy and economic nationalism with high tariffs, because Britain is leery of continental hegemons, and threat assessments can always be pushed out a level and get even less certain and more malleable to short-term political goals.

My guess is that you could tip the scales enough to get an expensive peace of exhaustion; there are problems with the operational tempo of the Schlieffen Plan that you can't just fund and equip your way through, so if you don't knock France out in the opening phase of a war with France and Russia both, it's going to get messy as all hell.

 

[Deleted member 94680]

One of the issues is that ground forces need officers, and they did not have sufficient nobles to do so,

This comes up all the time, but is there any evidence for it? That the Heer was limited by the numbers of nobles? That the Great General Staff, who demanded that appointees pass their course including two examinations regardless of who they were before joining the Staff would refuse applicants on the basis of not being posh enough?

An extra Army or two for the East would mean more captains, major and colonels but relatively fewer generals - enough posts to fill that existing nobles (if it really matters that much) could be spread around.

 

[AdA]

uhm...no? Ships became obsolete junks fit for no more then third-rate duty (where it was arguably no longer economical to even continue running them) in less then 10 years (sometimes in much less then that). Thats not "lasting a long time" at all.

Not in that time frame. Germany only really started to build in large numbers after the critical technologies had matured. German ships built btw 1905 and 1914 served in other navies well into WW2.
All German BC could have served until the 1940s.
The Kaisers and Konigs could have served until the 1940s with minor modernizations in a non WW1, non WNT world.
The light cruisers could have served until the 1940 (their British equivalents did)
The earlier destroyers would probably have to revert to other roles, but the ships built after 1910 once given 105mm rather than 88mm guns as done during the war would have been front line capable until the 30s.
Check out the service life of comparable warships in other navies.

 

[tomo pauk]

Guns also lasted a long time. See many British guns, from 1.5 pdr guns upwards that served 30-40 years, Russian guns of 1902 still in use in ww2, French 75 from before 20th century and still in use in ww2, MGs, let alone rifles and pistols.

Not embarking on the HSF train from 1905 (give or take) leaves a lot of resources and a lot of time for Germany to reshuffle before ww1.

 

[Driftless]

USS Arkansas - laid down 1910
Served in WW1 and WW2
Sunk 1946 - A-bomb tests

 

[tomo pauk]

USS Arkansas - laid down 1910
Served in WW1 and WW2
Sunk 1946 - A-bomb tests

US 8in howitzer, made in early 1940s, served in Croatian army firing the shells in 1995. Italian 90mm AA gun - about the same. Hispano II cannons, taken from Mosquitoes, still listed as AA guns in 1990s.

 

[Aghasverov]

This comes up all the time, but is there any evidence for it? That the Heer was limited by the numbers of nobles? That the Great General Staff, who demanded that appointees pass their course including two examinations regardless of who they were before joining the Staff would refuse applicants on the basis of not being posh enough?

An extra Army or two for the East would mean more captains, major and colonels but relatively fewer generals - enough posts to fill that existing nobles (if it really matters that much) could be spread around.

Hoffman eventually made Generalmajor, and he was the son of a judge, definitely with no "von" in front of his name... Ludendorff was of (very) minor nobility, more what would be called "landed gentry" in other places. I'm sure there are other examples... I really doubt if being a non-noble was that much of a hindrance to a talented War Academy graduate as late as 1914....

 

[Spencersj345.346]

USS Arkansas - laid down 1910
Served in WW1 and WW2
Sunk 1946 - A-bomb tests

You forgot to mention that it was cannon fodder for ships laid down a mere two years later.

 

[Mister Mister]

France had second navy in the World and Russia third. Before the Germans started to build HSF. That needs to be solved somehow.

 

[Spencersj345.346]

France had second navy in the World and Russia third. Before the Germans started to build HSF. That needs to be solved somehow.

And they also had fairly ambitious building plans that the Germans have to counter as well

 

[Tibi088]

Ok.

Anyone here got idea how much a battleship/cruiser/destroyer cost at that time and what could be bought for that money/

And without Hochseeflotte would the British even enter ww1?

Good and much dbated question.

Short answer: I think they would join the Entente for sure (very like OTL) and if the germans still go through Belgium than yes again, they would enter WWI.

Long answer: the fundamental problem for the british was to secure the empire. Before the russo-french alliance they were strong enough not to have to really fear anyone. But the russo-french alliance was a huge challenge for London: you just have to imagine a war between them. That would have been a real world war - fought from Africa to South East Asia, to China, Persia and london feared India. With the building of the railways there was the fear that the time would come when Russia could send troops faster to India than the british. Add in the incredible growth and even more scary potential of growth Russia had before WWI - which was than vastly inflated for some reason in all european capitals - and it's not hard to conclude that the french and russians together were a challenge to the british they had to find an answer for. They first tried to ally the germans - around 1900 - but it turned out this didn't work. The german were completly unwilling to even risk a war with France and Russia for british colonial inerests (which is understandable I think) - and the british were no more keen to face a serious conflict for austrian Balkan entanglements. So if opposing them is problematic the best you can do is join them - and point them to their other joint enemy: Germany. Note that this whole happened before the naval arms race betweeen the british and german even started. The latter was vastly owerblown in the media: the Admiralty needed a reason to justify the building of ever more and ever more expensive ships for the navy. Look at the rethoric used sometimes in the debates - "we need to actually build more ships than the germans possibly could (but arent)" - and they did. The ratio of ships was through out the race much more in favour to the british than the ratio of ships had been before 1900 compared to the french and russians.

In the end the whole affair with the naval arms race contributed greatly to making the animosity between the 2 countries understandable and felt for the common people but at the end I dont think it mattered or was a deciding factor of british policy making at this time. The germans would have done well to use at least some of the resources on their army instead (IMO they did need a stronger navy but not nearly as strong as they ended up building).

 

[Jellico]

Kaiser Bill was a fool, but not for quite that reason. He wanted a fleet to indulge his daydreams of being a great admiral and naval architect, and Tirpitz managed to convince him that a fleet big enough to threaten the RN would convince the UK to ally with him. It was a combination of an oversized ego, something of an inferiority complex, and being easily steered by strong personalities. What on earth Tirpitz thought he was doing is anyone's guess - the man was intelligent enough to realise that the "risk fleet" theory he was peddling was garbage.

Over the past few decades the RN had neutralised a couple of different European nations overseas adventures. If you want to enforce your will outside of Europe you need a navy and that navy needs a strategy to neutralise the RN. There aren't many options to do that.

 

[AdA]

Guns also lasted a long time. See many British guns, from 1.5 pdr guns upwards that served 30-40 years, Russian guns of 1902 still in use in ww2, French 75 from before 20th century and still in use in ww2, MGs, let alone rifles and pistols.

Not embarking on the HSF train from 1905 (give or take) leaves a lot of resources and a lot of time for Germany to reshuffle before ww1.

After certain landmarks have been reachead
Guns designed after the Model 1897 75mm would last (with minor changes to allow for motor traction) until the 40s. I've read that the french delayed the introduction of their new 75 until the germans had introduced their new 77, that then had to be expensively modified into the "neuer Art" version to keep up with the French.
The thing with weapons is that if you buy them after an evolutionary "jump" they last for a long time. An evolutionary jump his therefore a great place to strat a weapons race, and when Fisher introduced more or less at the same time Dreadnough Battleships (replacing Pre Dreadnoughs), Battle Cruisers (Replacing Armoured Cruisers), Light Cruisers (replacing Scouts) and larger Destroyers (replacing the earlier 300 to 600t TBDs) the playing feld was leveled and the time to buy new ships was ideal. A well designed ship conceived in 1906 could, with minor upgrades (converting to all oil fuel, increased elevation for the main guns) serve until the end of WW2, and in South American navies they did.
So after 1897 a race to renovate artillery was inevitable, in the same way that after the model Gewehr 88 hit the market everyone had to buy new rifles.

 

[Dorknought]

Every couple of months this comes up.

The navy took the conscripts the army didn’t want, besides, the army was regional, the navy was federal. The navy was a nation building exercise and a way of uniting the German diaspora across the world that numbered in the millions. You need a German brand promise for the new nation to buy into not a Prussian one. Eschewing a navy means Germany places all it's foreign investment, imports and exports at the trust of GB. Treitschke would roll in his grave.

Building the HSF also demonstrated German efficiency and political will as Germany spent less on the navy than the French and yet managed to overtake the French navy.

Army vs Navy industrial benefits
Artillery manufacturing: pipe making and some peasants learn maths.

Naval ship building: bigger pipe making and a business case for computers.
Also: extensive electrical systems, motors, hydraulics, engineering pressure vessels, boiler making, fuel systems, pumps, turbines, internal combustion engines, batteries, electric motors, riveting, welding, forgings, castings, advanced metallurgy, high tensile steel, plate bending, precision optics, mechanical analogue computers, communication systems, wireless, furniture making, refrigeration, woodwork and decking, galvanised fittings, painting, cutting edge engineering, advanced chemicals in anti fouling paint, drafting, project management, industrial scale organisation etc. All usable in the wider marine and broader economy. 40% of warship costs go into the pockets of yard workers who pay taxes and so the whole thing goes around again.

More tanks, what tanks? No army invented the tank - it took a navy to do that. It required brains, insight, planning, high engineering skills and a mature military industrial complex to achieve. To an army, tanks just frighten the horses and detract from the 'spirit of the bayonet'. The genesis of the heavy bomber also came from the navy with the spec for 'a bloody paralyser of an aircraft' - the Handley Page Type 0 coming from the RNAS.

Taking the money from the Navy and diverting to the Army would probably result in just conscripts with more money - and consequently higher incidents of VD. You'd shrink Krupp so it would just be a Skoda rival. A bigger German army sooner and the bombastic rhetoric that would follow would probably result in a cold war of Europe united against Germany with GB aloof of it all. Perhaps even the Austrians as they had also been a target in the German wars of unification just like all it's other neighbors except Russia.

In terms of shifting capabilities within the navy, long term lifecycle costs make battleships and battlecruisers more cost effective. Based on RN figures, German probably similar. For each BB or BC you may get 10 subs.

Same figures post ww1:

 

[tomo pauk]

As before and above - there is really no need to go into extremes. It is not a case of either-or. IOW: Germany still can have a fleet without going into a HSF blind alley.
Same thing with money saved. It does not need to go all for the army, there is a lot of industrialization left to do in Germany that can use part of the money that is now available. Majority of pre-ww1 Germany was agricultural, with people emigrating in the USA in thousands because there was no job for them.

 

[steamboy]

I saw folks touting subs and folks rightly naysaying them, the problem with subs in the early 1900's is that they're slow, very short ranged, as are their weapons, The torpedoes of the early 1900's might only have a speed of about 25 knots at most, and the usual solution to a torpedo boat attack was to simply turn away and go to full speed. A pre-dread running at 18 knots means the torpedo has a 7 knot closing speed, and if the range is good enough, they can simply out run them until their battery runs out and the torpedo sinks. Subs with a max speed of 4 - 6 knots submerged means they're basically immobile and are more like a very slow moving minefield.

What the early subs did was stop a close blockade as they were viewed as being a torpedo boat that was very very hard to detect, and if you've got ships cruising 10 - 15 miles off the enemy harbor, then a slow moving sub might get into position to try and sink you. So the answer was a distant blockade.

Even in WW1 subs were not good at intercepting modern warships, because unless you can get close due to weather and they sail at you, you're not going to catch them. And if you fire at long range, they can turn and run and again try out running the torpedo that might now have a 10 - 15 knot closing speed.

 

[Deleted member 94680]

France had second navy in the World and Russia third. Before the Germans started to build HSF. That needs to be solved somehow.

The French and Russian navies help them against Germany no more than the German navy would help Berlin against the Entente