WI: The Wegener thesis became the basis of the Kriegsmarine strategy in WW2?

[thaddeus]

my speculative scenario is always for more FW-200s, as a long distance transport was also needed or useful. equipped with an earlier Fritz-X or "little Fritz-X" SC-250 guided version? (even wire guided if radio control could not be made to work)
guided munitions would allow the Condor to operate without the maneuvers that caused problems (or lessen the maneuvers)

I've always thought the JU-488 or version thereof would have been best candidate for bomber.

 

[Deleted member 94680]

The DO-217 would have belonged to the KM like the Privateer eventually belonged to the USN. Bomber barons, what are you going to do? The Focke Wulfe FW200s could carry radar and make contact reports. They also had range and loiter. Use them as eyes.

Make sure it belonged to the Luftwaffe, like OTL?

Who said anything about the Germans?

Literally everyone else on this thread. Mainly because this thread is about the Germans.

A proper British naval plan for war with Germany starts as soon as the Berlin maniac comes to power.

It did. Well, it had been in place well before the Nazis came to power actually as it was mainly driven by Britain’s geographic position and economic situation. Generally, it was successful. It may have escaped your notice, but the Royal Navy was, largely speaking, successful in the Atlantic and North Sea once politically driven impediments had been overcome.

 

[Belisarius II]

Do you think it's effective against anything bigger than a destroyer?
I believe cruisers and battleships would be more resistant to this kind of attack.

If you mean skip bombing then yes. If you hit a cruiser, forward, aft, under, or over the main belt it can penetrate the hull. The Battleship Warspite was hit by a guided bomb that passed though the ship, and exploded underneath. The damage was serious enough that Warspite was never fully operational for the rest of the war. A number of ships suffered similar damage. A bomb in, or under the hull can ruin your whole day.

 

[BlackDragon98]

If you mean skip bombing then yes. If you hit a cruiser, forward, aft, under, or over the main belt it can penetrate the hull. The Battleship Warspite was hit by a guided bomb that passed though the ship, and exploded underneath. The damage was serious enough that Warspite was never fully operational for the rest of the war. A number of ships suffered similar damage. A bomb in, or under the hull can ruin your whole day.

But that's a rocket bomb and I think it was intended to penetrate the armored deck and explode in the ship, not under it.
A fire or magazine explosion is far more effective and does way more damage than an attempted keel break

 

[Belisarius II]

But that's a rocket bomb and I think it was intended to penetrate the armored deck and explode in the ship, not under it.
A fire or magazine explosion is far more effective and does way more damage than an attempted keel break

I think what your thinking of is the Fritz X Bomb. That was a guided bomb, it wasn't rocket powered. It's the fuse on a bomb that makes it armor piercing or not. Yes you'd love to get a magazine explosion, but it's hard to be so precise, it's sort of luck of the draw. I wasn't suggesting anyone intended to pass a bomb through the hull of a ship, and have it explode underneath it, it was just a lucky hit. USS Philadelphia was hit by a Fritz X on top of a 6" Turret. The bomb passed through the magazine, and would have blow up the ship, but the magazine flooded before it could explode. The bomb passed through the bottom of the ship, and exploded under the keel. Philadelphia spent about a year in a shipyard, from all that damage. Generally short of a magazine explosion, a broken keel is the worst damage a ship can suffer.

 

[King Augeas]

The Bastion Defense was RN cobbled together in 1923 as a combination of bluff and deterrent plan. As an actual war-fighting plan it was never viable. It was fleet centered and not combined services/arms. The RAF and the British army were not integrated into it. As such it was founded upon the false premises that the Japanese could be bluffed, that the British would go it alone, and the war would be Anglo-Japanese over influence in southern China, that the war would fleet vs. fleet. It was completely idiotic on so many levels it would take a book. (Andrew Boyd's "The Royal Navy in Eastern Waters") to describe how idiotic it was.

By contrast... PLAN ORANGE looked at the real situation in the Pacific, factored in who was where with what and WROTE OFF THE PHILIPPINES as a nonviable outpost, opted for fallback and counterstroke after the Japanese over-extended.

What absolute nonsense. Take a look at where Japanese forces and bases are in 1923, and where Malaya is (draw some of your circles, maybe?) and you'll understand why 1923 planning was purely naval - because that was reality on the ground.

If you want to do this semi-properly, reframe in a late 1930s context. But you'll still find Malaya and Singapore 1000 miles from Hainan and surrounded by friendly allies.

It only breaks down in summer 1940 - at which point it's flat bottom of the strategic priority list.

 

[BlackDragon98]

I think what your thinking of is the Fritz X Bomb. That was a guided bomb, it wasn't rocket powered. It's the fuse on a bomb that makes it armor piercing or not. Yes you'd love to get a magazine explosion, but it's hard to be so precise, it's sort of luck of the draw. I wasn't suggesting anyone intended to pass a bomb through the hull of a ship, and have it explode underneath it, it was just a lucky hit. USS Philadelphia was hit by a Fritz X on top of a 6" Turret. The bomb passed through the magazine, and would have blow up the ship, but the magazine flooded before it could explode. The bomb passed through the bottom of the ship, and exploded under the keel. Philadelphia spent about a year in a shipyard, from all that damage. Generally short of a magazine explosion, a broken keel is the worst damage a ship can suffer.

That actually depends.
If you have a bad damage control system then you will hate/fear fires.
A fire can effectively knockout all of the ship's capabilities and once it spreads to the magazine, KABOOM.

 

[Stephanus Meteu]

why not build a balanced fleet

Given it was exactly what their rivals all wanted them to build and believed would be most easily defeated/contained... I guess the best answer would be “so as not to play into the enemy’s hands”.

the fuse on a bomb that makes it armor piercing

That is true to a point (delay fuses are a necessary component, and fusing was changeable on many bombs), however the design of the casing is rather important, and if needing to penetrate very heavy armor an AP cap/nose of some sort is required. Generally a bomb designed to be AP or semi penetrating will have a stronger and thicker casing and carry a smaller fraction of explosive. Many bombs could be changed by fuse swap, but a lot of bombs had only nose fuses and those won’t do for penetration of very heavy armor, instead a delay fuse in the tail is needed for that as the nose fuse is too likely to be crushed. At the other end high capacity high explosive bombs with thin and light casing and maximum filler existed that were unsuitable to penetrating.

 

[Belisarius II]

Given it was exactly what their rivals all wanted them to build and believed would be most easily defeated/contained... I guess the best answer would be “so as not to play into the enemy’s hands”.

That is true to a point (delay fuses are a necessary component, and fusing was changeable on many bombs), however the design of the casing is rather important, and if needing to penetrate very heavy armor an AP cap/nose of some sort is required. Generally a bomb designed to be AP or semi penetrating will have a stronger and thicker casing and carry a smaller fraction of explosive. Many bombs could be changed by fuse swap, but a lot of bombs had only nose fuses and those won’t do for penetration of very heavy armor, instead a delay fuse in the tail is needed for that as the nose fuse is too likely to be crushed. At the other end high capacity high explosive bombs with thin and light casing and maximum filler existed that were unsuitable to penetrating.

Germany's rivals may have expected them to build a balanced fleet, but they didn't fear the alternative would be raider groups. This whole discussion of GRG's is completely unrealistic. German Destroyers couldn't reach the Atlantic, and there is no tanker support for them. Germany started the war with 22 destroyers, so there are no ASW escorts for these imaginary groups. They had 6 Light Cruisers, with 6 building, with none completed, so there are no packs of cruisers to overwhelm convoys. They had 2 Heavy Cruisers, with 1 building. There is no class of large long-range raiders, capable of 35kts, the technology wasn't there. Tying packs of U-Boats to surface ships is grossly inefficient. These groups, if they existed would be unsustainable at sea, and big targets in French Ports.

The bottom line is there was no money, resources, or shipyard capacity to build all these ships, or even the fuel for such a fleet. In the 1930's Germany was running on an over heated economy, with 40% of the defense budget allocated to the Luftwaffe. Germany didn't even fully mobilize the economy till 1942, and by then the army had to get top priority. At a great stretch they might have managed to complete 1 or 2 more capital units, but that would have been at the price of deferring something else, or going into full mobilization sooner, which would have been a good idea anyway. Focusing on the U-Boat War was the most realistic option.

My mentioning of bomb fuses was part of a discussion of bombs passing though ships, and exploding under them. It wasn't intended as an exhaustive discourse on AP Bombs. Thanks for giving the board a fuller understanding of the subject. As an aside Germany started the war with no AP Bombs, which is more proof of their unpreparedness for a naval war in 1939/40. That they effectively ran out of bombs by the end of the Polish Campaign is proof that they started the war on a bluff. If only the French had had the will to attack the West Wall in mid September 1939, they would have had little trouble reaching the Rhine.

 

[McPherson]

What absolute nonsense. Take a look at where Japanese forces and bases are in 1923, and where Malaya is (draw some of your circles, maybe?) and you'll understand why 1923 planning was purely naval - because that was reality on the ground.

If you want to do this semi-properly, reframe in a late 1930s context. But you'll still find Malaya and Singapore 1000 miles from Hainan and surrounded by friendly allies.

It only breaks down in summer 1940 - at which point it's flat bottom of the strategic priority list.

About Force Z.

Spoiler: Misuse of existing assets; eample 1, again.

Agreed. No flattop, keep Force Z back as a counterforce to deter IJN power projection into the Indian Ocean. By 1935, the competent admirals in the RN considered Singapore and Malaya an outpost write off to be retaken in a counterstroke once the IJN/IJA overextended.

Spoiler: Proper use of resources: example 1.

Why keep Force Z in the Indian Ocean?

The point of keeping Force Z back is to put it out of IJN reach and to keep it as a fleet in being until the counterforce move is possible. This is what eventually happens only it is the Americans who execute it after they screw up and put their own fleet within IJN tactical sortie radius reach at Pearl Harbor. This was the episode that taught Roosevelt to keep his hands off most of the operational execution of his political policies.

Spoiler: Another misuse of assets in example 1.

How about using Force Z as a bluff fleet?

Sink-ex Java Sea. Even bigger ABDA disaster.

Spoiler: Why some RN units were not wanted by the USN.

PoW is the South Dakota of the RN. Don't want her at all.

The point of "lessons learned" is to take what is navally contemporary (1935), see what is teachable, noticeable and applicable.

1. PLAN ORANGE contained the bombing, mining and submarine blockade elements of an island nation adjacent to a continent. This was first promulgated in 1906 and continuously updated.
2. First iteration of the Singapore Bastion Defense was 1923. The British knew then it was not going to work.
3. British plans for the Germans (distant blockade) was first proposed around 1910.
4. WWI the British tried 3. and earned an instant submarine war. Note Plan Orange predicted this would happen in a similar setting?
5. Round 2 of WWI was coming and many people with at least two neurons to rub together knew it.

View attachment 528157
1935 warplans, Orange, Black, Red. USN

Spoiler: What one can learn from Mahan. Rebuttal to Cryhavoc about the British approach to Pre-WWII planning ~1935

The DO-217 would have belonged to the KM like the Privateer eventually belonged to the USN. Bomber barons, what are you going to do? The Focke Wulfe FW200s could carry radar and make contact reports. They also had range and loiter. Use them as eyes.

Spoiler: Example 2.

Why the British? Because there are two to a wrestling match and one already has read my assessment of Plan Cuckoo For Cocoa Puffs; AKA Plan Zed from Outer Space.

Who said anything about the Germans? They were off in their little dream-world. They would have to come up with their own version of Red. I may work one up for them, but don't be surprised if it looks a lot like what the Russians planned to do to NATO during the cold war.

Spoiler: What was wrong with RN counterplanning?

The British needed a competent planning staff all across the board. They did not have one. Granted the American army got two whole years to cobble one together, but the American navy had staffed up and been doing war-plans since the Virginius Incident. That is since the 1870s! They had two goes at it in the Spanish American War and in WWI (North Sea ASW mine barrage was their idea.), and they were fairly successful at the practice. This is not to say the RN could not have done better *(Lyster and Operation Judgement proves they had the people and could plan.) but for a naval campaign, one has to be a bit Mahanic and Clauswitzian. Dennis (US Army, father) and Alfred (US Navy, son) taught the Americans how it was done. One two whammy at West Point and Annapolis. And that is why you have the Victory Program and PLAN ORANGE.

Spoiler: How to stretch inadequate resources; example 2.

Features of a good plan for example 2.

A proper British naval plan for war with Germany starts as soon as the Berlin maniac comes to power. It will feature asymmetric naval warfare options early (mines and bombing of naval bases.) and it will have to rely on geography and AIRPOWER. (See all the maps I drew above?)

Spoiler: Planning RN vs. Black and Orange and USN vs. Black and Orange. and USN versus

Back to example 1 and why it never could work.

The Bastion Defense was RN cobbled together in 1923 as a combination of bluff and deterrent plan. As an actual war-fighting plan it was never viable. It was fleet centered and not combined services/arms. The RAF and the British army were not integrated into it. As such it was founded upon the false premises that the Japanese could be bluffed, that the British would go it alone, and the war would be Anglo-Japanese over influence in southern China, that the war would fleet vs. fleet. It was completely idiotic on so many levels it would take a book. (Andrew Boyd's "The Royal Navy in Eastern Waters") to describe how idiotic it was.

Spoiler: Naval geography versus decisive battle.

Might want to compare example 1 with example 3 (Singapore Bastion Defense with Plan Orange

By contrast... PLAN ORANGE looked at the real situation in the Pacific, factored in who was where with what and WROTE OFF THE PHILIPPINES as a nonviable outpost, opted for fallback and counterstroke after the Japanese over-extended.

Spoiler: How a proper naval plan is executed. Example 1.

The British meanwhile...

Instead of falling back, writing off the Malay Settlements and planning their own stop lines in East India/Burma and the Indian Ocean...

with everything else on their plate...

sent another 50,000 troops and an entire SAG to be destroyed in Southeast Asia IN ADDITION to what they deployed in theater.

I doubt it would have mattered much...

BTW. A better executed convoy defense plan including LRMP air cover out of Scotland would have helped those arctic convoys.

Example 2.

View attachment 528217
[/QUOTE]

Make sure it belonged to the Luftwaffe, like OTL?

RIKKOS have to be under positive naval control.

Literally everyone else on this thread. Mainly because this thread is about the Germans.

I repudiated Wegener and Raeder. It comes down to what the worst the Germans should have expected the British to do and what KM could do about it. LRMPS and subs. Surface Action Groups if built have to operate to support those efforts. What the Germans built and how they used those assets did not, so it can be demonstrated that insofar as the Germans tried a Battle of the Atlantic, they were incompetent.

The RN had a plan?

It did. Well, it had been in place well before the Nazis came to power actually as it was mainly driven by Britain’s geographic position and economic situation. Generally, it was successful. It may have escaped your notice, but the Royal Navy was, largely speaking, successful in the Atlantic and North Sea once politically driven impediments had been overcome.

1939 September to 1943 March. They went through a torpedo crisis, managed to botch "Berlin", managed to botch "The Channel Dash", managed to botch Norway. lost Force Z. could not break Italian sea lines of communication to North Africa, were thoroughly trounced in the Indian Ocean, RAN out of Java Sea. and were embarrassed at MADAGASCAR and humiliated at DAKAR and in ALEXANDRIA and GIBRALTAR. The USN taking their own defeats in DRUMBEAT and at PEARL, had their own torpedo crisis, took numerous surface action group beatings December 1942 to March 1943, but...

After 18 months figured out the torpedoes, was (with CONSIDERABLE ANZAC help) using Rikkos to disrupt the Japanese in eastern Indonesia and New Guinea and the Admiralties and the Solomons, had added new tools to the ASW kit is the form of sonobuoys and homing torpedoes, and had not lost an aircraft carrier duel that mattered. They executed ORANGE as planned. They even executed BLACK more or less as planned in the form of RAINBOW.

What absolute nonsense. Take a look at where Japanese forces and bases are in 1923, and where Malaya is (draw some of your circles, maybe?) and you'll understand why 1923 planning was purely naval - because that was reality on the ground.

If you want to do this semi-properly, reframe in a late 1930s context. But you'll still find Malaya and Singapore 1000 miles from Hainan and surrounded by friendly allies.

It only breaks down in summer 1940 - at which point it's flat bottom of the strategic priority list.

My rebuttal in terms of geography is as valid in 1923 as 1941. If the British bluff fleet is to halt the Japanese in 1923, they have to operate from Cam Ranh Bay or MANILA. Otherwise the Japanese can advance unmolested as far as Hainan Island and Indochina. The British have no tactical reach from Singapore. (SEE MAPS.)

 

[Stephanus Meteu]

Focusing on the U-Boat War was the most realistic option.

Indeed so, with attention to the necessary force multipliers and enablers for that. However, even the U-boat war was unrealistic in the grander scheme, it simply was never a path to victory in the context of actual historical events and realistically the only German naval action that was anything other than a useless waste of resources was probably the early actions in the Baltic and against Norway.

their unpreparedness for a naval war in 1939/40

Or ever, really. They had an idea they could be ready for one in 44 or so, but there are too many issues from operational art to doctrine and tactics, to efficient ship design that realistically couldn’t be ready even by then.

If only the French had had the will to attack the West Wall in mid September 1939, they would have had little trouble reaching the Rhine.

That would have been a terrible gamble (though perhaps the right one) because it would require entirely abandoning the defense plans but more importantly the mobilization plan was structured such that the French Army could either fight offensively (with their standing forces) or mobilize (reserves) for defense but it really could not do both. So, even if the French had somehow pulled off an invasion that they were not prepared for, it would have been stopped cold at the Rhine by exhaustion of logistics and by having disrupted their own mobilization and replacement system. In hindsight it absolutely could not have turned out any worse than actual history, but at the time the French believed their plan provided a very high probability of victory in a long war.

RIKKOS

What mission / role do you have in mind?

 

[McPherson]

McPherson said:

RIKKOS

What mission / role do you have in mind?

British RIKKOs can slam the door in the North Sea and prevent Wegener or Castex at the German ports of origin. British RIKKOs in Iceland (GIUK) can slam the door into the North Atlantic. The Channel Dash shows that a lack of dedicated RIKKOs for anti-ship strike can be disastrous.

 

[thaddeus]

The air power who sits at the hub of the wagon wheel dominates the wagon wheel. (See map.)

View attachment 527684

The guy who holds the UK slams the door to NW Europe. The guy who holds Iceland slams the door to the Atlantic. Germany is more screwed by her air geography than her naval geography.

What If the Nazi regime decided to contest this? what kind of asymmetrical warfare could they wage? what improvements in submarine warfare plausible?

my view Iceland was a too close in proximity to UK for them to occupy under any scenario but maybe something could have been done on and around Greenland (it was hard to evict their weather stations for a time)

 

[McPherson]

What If the Nazi regime decided to contest this? what kind of asymmetrical warfare could they wage? what improvements in submarine warfare plausible?

my view Iceland was a too close in proximity to UK for them to occupy under any scenario but maybe something could have been done on and around Greenland (it was hard to evict their weather stations for a time)

Good luck with Greenland.

Crashed short of the USAAF base at Thule.

 

[CV(N)-6]

What If the Nazi regime decided to contest this? what kind of asymmetrical warfare could they wage? what improvements in submarine warfare plausible?

my view Iceland was a too close in proximity to UK for them to occupy under any scenario but maybe something could have been done on and around Greenland (it was hard to evict their weather stations for a time)

Saboteurs? Although taking an airbase out of commission takes a lot of explosives, and it can be repaired fairly soon, so it'd have to be timed right with a SAG heading out into the Atlantic

 

[McPherson]

Saboteurs? Although taking an airbase out of commission takes a lot of explosives, and it can be repaired fairly soon, so it'd have to be timed right with a SAG heading out into the Atlantic

In Greenland? I give the sabotage team about the same chance as they have in the Aleutians... slim followed by none.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

What If the Nazi regime decided to contest this? what kind of asymmetrical warfare could they wage? what improvements in submarine warfare plausible?

my view Iceland was a too close in proximity to UK for them to occupy under any scenario but maybe something could have been done on and around Greenland (it was hard to evict their weather stations for a time)

While they did have a couple of insane special forces types the Germans did not generally manage many special forces long distance style raids in comparison to the Allies.

They had the Brandenburgers (sp?) groups but I am not sure if they are up to any such missions - the ability for Abwehr to support them is virtually nil and in fact likely to expose such a mission before it can start given that organisations track record verse the British.

While the idea is not without merit - certainly the British would be attempting it had the roles been reversed - I cannot see the Germans pulling it off.

 

[McPherson]

While the idea is not without merit - certainly the British would be attempting it had the roles been reversed - I cannot see the Germans pulling it off.

The only competent Axis special forces raiders were the ITALIANS. They pulled off a series of operations in the Med and Black Sea that embarrassed the Wallies and Russians to no end. I could actually see Alpini blowing up Thule.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

The only competent Axis special forces raiders were the ITALIANS. They pulled off a series of operations in the Med and Black Sea that embarrassed the Wallies and Russians to no end. I could actually see Alpini blowing up Thule.

But 'Greenland' ?

Really?

 

[McPherson]

But 'Greenland' ?

Really?

If Italo Balbo can fly to Chicago in the CRAP airplanes he used, yes GREENLAND.