WI: The Kaiserliche Marine Not Scuttled at Scapa Flow

I was thinking, what if Admiral von Reuter decided not to destroy his 70+ ships at Scapa Flow. What if he decided to make a run for it to continue the war on the seas? I could see this being like TL's where General Lee accepts the guerrilla war plan after the North defeated the South. What do you guys think? Could they have turned to piracy in S. America or something? I'm sure the Allied navy wouldn't just sit on their rears and let them roam free, though.
 
The High Seas Fleet was disarmed before it sailed for Scapa Flow. Breechblocks were taken out of the guns and warheads were removed from the torpedoes. The ships had no offensive capability at all.

These are the same sailors who mutinied in October 1918 rather that go to sea and face the enemy. Discipline was poor. Even if the officers supported a plan to "turn pirate," I very much doubt if the crews would cooperate.
 
How far would they get? I doubt that the British fully refuelled or coaled the fleet once it arrived at Scapa Flow so they're going to have fairly short legs and if they did do a runner how far can they go before they run dry and become sitting ducks, short of sticking people up at naval gunpoint they've got no money to pay for it. All whilst the combined Entente navies chase after them. And that's assuming that the regular sailors decide to go along with this death charge. Considering the Kiel mutiny has already happened I don't think they would be any more receptive after hostilities have ended.
 

Cook

Banned
The war was over; Germany had signed the armistice before the German fleet was interned. The reason Rear Admiral von Reuter chose to scuttle was because he’d been informed of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, requiring the handing over of the fleet the allies. By this time the fleet had been at Scapa Flow for seven months and von reuter had none of the things required for the ships to put to sea, least of all crews; of the 20,000 officers and crew that had sailed into Scapa Flow in November 1918, fewer than 4,500 remained on board by June 1919, the mere skeleton crews required to prevent the ships from sinking.

Besides which, a fleet is not a guerrilla army; it cannot roam the countryside living off the land. Fleets need resupply of vitals and fuel, especially fuel. In 1919 that meant coal and a lot of it or the fleet would very rapidly have become nothing but floating navigation obstacles.

They were also guarded by the Royal Navy’s First Battle Squadron, who would have had several hours warning that the Germans were going to try to make a run, this being the time required to heat the boilers.

Ironically the scuttling of the fleet ended an argument between two of the allies and made things worse for Germany. The intention had been to scrap the German ships, this had resulted in an argument between Britain and the United States as to whose shipyards would profit from the scrapping of the German fleet. The revenue raised from the scrapping of the fleet would have been deducted from the reparations demanded of Germany, when the fleet scuttled this very large sum of money went to the bottom of the harbour. Not that that really mattered because the Weimer republic only ever paid a tenth of what was asked of it and dragged that out over fifteen years.
 
Wow, lots of replies. :D

How did they scuttle the ships if the guns didn't work? Mind, I only just started reading about SF, so I'm not an expert on early 20th century scuttling, only that I thought you shoot the other ship.

I didn't think they'd make it to turn pirate, but I was also wondering about the effects of them being destroyed/re-captured in an engagement. Would it inspire resistance in Germany or make things harder for them? Or both?
 
Wow, lots of replies. :D

How did they scuttle the ships if the guns didn't work? Mind, I only just started reading about SF, so I'm not an expert on early 20th century scuttling, only that I thought you shoot the other ship.

I didn't think they'd make it to turn pirate, but I was also wondering about the effects of them being destroyed/re-captured in an engagement. Would it inspire resistance in Germany or make things harder for them? Or both?
They opened the seacocks in the bottom of the ship and let the water in through them

Shooting the ship is done when you cannot access the seacocks
 
They opened the seacocks in the bottom of the ship and let the water in through them

Shooting the ship is done when you cannot access the seacocks

Thanks for the info! That sounds much more orderly and quick, and makes sense. It'd take a looonggg time to shoot one of those ships to the point of sinking.
 
Thanks for the info! That sounds much more orderly and quick, and makes sense. It'd take a looonggg time to shoot one of those ships to the point of sinking.
It still takes time to let the water in, if time is really of the essence and they are available you can use explosives or fire a torpedo

3 of 4 Japanese carriers at Midway for instance were scuttled with Torpedoes and the French Fleet at Toulon was mostly scuttled with explosives
 
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