WI: U556 had torpedoes

The Hood & its fate have become a sort of modern Greek Tragedy, foreordained and inevitable outcome. The will of the Gods will occur whatever the PoD and variations. The intersection of the projectile and the Hood are built into the very structure of the universe.

... very much like the Fall of France in 1940.
 
I think even if we except further good fortune on behalf of the Bismarck, we end up with fit or damaged German ships using Brest or St. Nazaire as their base.
OTL, this was a bomber command/KM battle of attrition which was more or less won by the bomber command. The Bismarck gets even more fortunate does not solve this problem per se, but could it?
Lets assume Bismarck survives and need to go into a brief set of repairs. Soon Tirpitz are ready and S&G. Bomber command wil get a fit, but is there nothing germany can do about it.
What if Hitler in front of all his croonies says that the Luftwaffe couldnt break Britain, but protecting the french bases might yet win the war for Germany. Here lies the Luftwaffe's chance of redeeming its pride.
What would happen of the best radar, a further 1000 flak guns and a further 300 day and night fighters are located around the French ports (and St. Nazaire is well protected at sea).
What happens then (we are in a German getting very lucky scenario and testing follow on effects, but Hood is gone, PoW damaged, Ark Royal gone as per the OP)?
Raeder is beaming like a lit christmas tree..
 

CalBear

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I think even if we except further good fortune on behalf of the Bismarck, we end up with fit or damaged German ships using Brest or St. Nazaire as their base.
OTL, this was a bomber command/KM battle of attrition which was more or less won by the bomber command. The Bismarck gets even more fortunate does not solve this problem per se, but could it?
Lets assume Bismarck survives and need to go into a brief set of repairs. Soon Tirpitz are ready and S&G. Bomber command wil get a fit, but is there nothing germany can do about it.
What if Hitler in front of all his croonies says that the Luftwaffe couldnt break Britain, but protecting the french bases might yet win the war for Germany. Here lies the Luftwaffe's chance of redeeming its pride.
What would happen of the best radar, a further 1000 flak guns and a further 300 day and night fighters are located around the French ports (and St. Nazaire is well protected at sea).
What happens then (we are in a German getting very lucky scenario and testing follow on effects, but Hood is gone, PoW damaged, Ark Royal gone as per the OP)?
Raeder is beaming like a lit christmas tree..
My guess is Harris sends Hitler and Goering Christmas cards since he can now destroy German cities virtually unopposed. Be interesting to see exactly how many firestorms it would take and how many civilian casualties and factories burned to the ground before a small degree of sanity made an appearance. Sooner or later somebody would have to come to the conclusion that Blohm and Voos, along with the rest of unburned Hamburg, Bremen, Berlin, Oschersleben, Rensburg, etc. was more important to protect than one or two warships.
 
My guess is Harris sends Hitler and Goering Christmas cards since he can now destroy German cities virtually unopposed. Be interesting to see exactly how many firestorms it would take and how many civilian casualties and factories burned to the ground before a small degree of sanity made an appearance. Sooner or later somebody would have to come to the conclusion that Blohm and Voos, along with the rest of unburned Hamburg, Bremen, Berlin, Oschersleben, Rensburg, etc. was more important to protect than one or two warships.
You are making it rather black and White. Its not the entire german Home defense. And ironically, you May be right, but Churchill wont agree with you and demand that the ships are sunk no matter the cost. So the fighters will be in the right place
 
Or, and this is as least as likely as the other side of the coin, the hit on Hood does not occur simply because her CO either makes the order to unmask the aft turrets two minutes sooner and that salvo kills water or she has an extra knot of speed on (there is an entire ASB thread predicted on this possibility) and her next salvo puts two shell hits forward on Bismarck, one hit jamming her B Turret the other doing superficial damage to her bows. Bismarck turns away in order to avoid the next salvo and catches four 14" shell from PoW. Her CO decides to open the range a bit, where his guns will have better effect on Hood. As he does so PoW secondary battery finds the range on Prinz Eugen and put fourteen 5.25" shells into her in just over on minute.

Both KM ships decide that they have had a rather rough morning and break off contact. Hood, having been hit earlier and having considerable damage due to the explosion of her ready AAA ammo and resulting fire, and PoW, let them go, pursued by the RN cruisers to provide ongoing location data.

Folks seem to forget that Bismarck was, in fact, quite fortunate to have destroyed the Hood before she and her consorts seriously damaged the German ship.

Hoods first 4 round salvo bracketed Prince Eugen (having misidentified her as Bismarck in assuming that the CC would be leading and both ships profiles are incredibly similar) - how might the battle have gone had that first salvo Bracketed and lets say it or one of the early salvos hit Bismarck?
 
Say for a minute that lutjens orders Bismarck to open fire and makes it to Brest what responses would the UK do:

1: Britain increases the building of Vanguard
2: rush the building of the Implacable class
3: Rush the Lion class Battleships
4: Rushes the Audacious class instead of the Implacable class and Vanguard
 

CalBear

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You are making it rather black and White. Its not the entire german Home defense. And ironically, you May be right, but Churchill wont agree with you and demand that the ships are sunk no matter the cost. So the fighters will be in the right place
The thing is that given the range Bomber Command CAN do both. Pound the crap out of whatever Channel Port Bismarck may be in (St. Nazaire is only 235 air miles from Plymouth, Brest 140 miles) Bomber Command can hit either port IN DAYLIGHT with heavy fighter escort (Spit V-B had a combat radius of 410 miles) on Monday, take a day, and blow the pougies out of Bremen on Wednesday /Thursday night, rinse/repeat (or simply send 100 heavies with pathfinders over the port every night, with Beaufighter and/or Mosquito night fighters in the intruder/escort role. Compare this to the range to Trondheim from the Orkney Islands (525 miles).

The French ports were a place for Bismarck and/or Tirpitz to die. Moreover once in those ports they are effectively trapped. Coastal Command (or Bomber Command over the screaming protests of Harris)can simply mine the hell out of the harbors from the air, along with subs dropping them off. It would also be relatively simple to post a couple subs outside the harbors to either provide raid warning or to simply pick the heavies off as they sortied. This scenario is why the KM threw the dice with the Twins and Prinz Eugen in the Channel Dash. Better to take a change of them getting sunk than leave them in Brest and wait for them to certainly be sunk.

In the end its a math problem - how long does it take for 100 aircraft dropping ten 1,000 pound SAP bombs in the same small area to hit a 93,450 square foot rectangle?
 
The thing is that given the range Bomber Command CAN do both. Pound the crap out of whatever Channel Port Bismarck may be in (St. Nazaire is only 235 air miles from Plymouth, Brest 140 miles) ...

That short distance means the attack need not be carried out by only heavy bombers. Medium bombers can be added leaving more of the long range aircraft for Germany.
 
In my opinion...

...Bismarck was an impressive waste of resources as a commerce raider. For the same money, the Third Reich could have constructed/modified a large number of Unterseeboote and Handel-Stor-Kreuze to be prepositioned near global 'sea gates' before the declaration of hostilities. Thankfully, Hitler went for glamour, not efficiency.
 
In my opinion...

...Bismarck was an impressive waste of resources as a commerce raider. For the same money, the Third Reich could have constructed/modified a large number of Unterseeboote and Handel-Stor-Kreuze to be prepositioned near global 'sea gates' before the declaration of hostilities. Thankfully, Hitler went for glamour, not efficiency.


One could cite the achievements of the Emden in World War One. A number of small, elusive commerce raiders could have had an effect out of all proportion to their numbers.
 
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With my limited knowledge of all things naval stuff, I also believe that Brest would not be a longer-term solution.

Apparently Bismarck had a range of some 15,000 km which could be used for a lot of things.

Imagining that Bismarck is not damaged (or not in need of any serious repair) and that Hood and PoW are both off the board, the list of target areas is extensive.

… But the critical question is: after a successful raid in the Atlantic, then what?

Brest is not really an option
A quick run through the English Channel looks good on paper, but …
Back through the Denmark strait?
Back through the Iceland gap?

It starts to look as though that despite everything going Germany's way, Bismarck's raid was a one-way ticket. Or as close as it could get.

It is of course great to sit in Norway (or Brest) and tying down resources, but that is not a winning strategy.

Ivan
 

SsgtC

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Apparently Bismarck had a range of some 15,000 km which could be used for a lot of things.
That range only attainable if she never exceeds her cruising speed of 12 knots. If she increases speed for any reason, it reduces her range exponentially. For example, the same fuel that will last 15,000km at 12 knots, will last only 2,000 at flank speed (30 knots)
 
what else was in location to intercept Bismarck if she had turned back to Norway?

the premise of OP was that the historical u-boat in position was out of torpedoes. if they headed back to Norway what u-boat force might have been able to enact the same scenario? (with, of course, their full capacity of torpedoes)

so both what did the RN have in proximity and hypothetically could the KM move u-boats in time?
 
That range only attainable if she never exceeds her cruising speed of 12 knots. If she increases speed for any reason, it reduces her range exponentially. For example, the same fuel that will last 15,000km at 12 knots, will last only 2,000 at flank speed (30 knots)


Which, IIRC, was a factor in the Ark Royal's last airstrike catching her. Not sure of the source, but it went something like this. Because she didn't top up her tanks the last chance she had in Norway, she had to reduce speed to have a chance of making a French port.
 
In my opinion...

...Bismarck was an impressive waste of resources as a commerce raider. For the same money, the Third Reich could have constructed/modified a large number of Unterseeboote and Handel-Stor-Kreuze to be prepositioned near global 'sea gates' before the declaration of hostilities. Thankfully, Hitler went for glamour, not efficiency.

And naturally the British build exactly what they build OTL and the sudden increase of Uboats and raiders (which have but one principle enemy) creates not a ripple at the Admiralty - the same people that invented the word 'Paranoid'

But still you are not wrong - only that the British would react
 
You mistake me...

... Cryhavoc101, the whole thing would be done clandestinely, with U-boat kits assembled elsewhere and new merchantmen passed off as a civil fleet expansion. Like the 'Luftwaffe gliders' business. A fleet of fifty HSK would be feasible and so would a lot of U-boats. By all means build more destroyers and a few monitors to menace Russia in the Baltic, but capital ships could be restricted to five Deutschland class heavy cruisers. The real threats are unseen and very difficult to prove. In a corner of a hold are cases of weapons and ammunition ready for the admittedly numerous crews to emplace on the reinforced decks of each HSK. In general, hard to detect and to prove.
 

SsgtC

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You mistake me...

... Cryhavoc101, the whole thing would be done clandestinely, with U-boat kits assembled elsewhere and new merchantmen passed off as a civil fleet expansion. Like the 'Luftwaffe gliders' business. A fleet of fifty HSK would be feasible and so would a lot of U-boats. By all means build more destroyers and a few monitors to menace Russia in the Baltic, but capital ships could be restricted to five Deutschland class heavy cruisers. The real threats are unseen and very difficult to prove. In a corner of a hold are cases of weapons and ammunition ready for the admittedly numerous crews to emplace on the reinforced decks of each HSK. In general, hard to detect and to prove.
I can't tell if you're serious or joking...
 
I don't like steel coffin battleships...

...I'm more 'Jeune Ecole' in strategy. HSK plus U-boats could have devastated the Merchant and Commonwealth Navies. I'm just glad Raeder and Hitler never took that route.
 
You mistake me...

... Cryhavoc101, the whole thing would be done clandestinely, with U-boat kits assembled elsewhere and new merchantmen passed off as a civil fleet expansion. Like the 'Luftwaffe gliders' business. A fleet of fifty HSK would be feasible and so would a lot of U-boats. By all means build more destroyers and a few monitors to menace Russia in the Baltic, but capital ships could be restricted to five Deutschland class heavy cruisers. The real threats are unseen and very difficult to prove. In a corner of a hold are cases of weapons and ammunition ready for the admittedly numerous crews to emplace on the reinforced decks of each HSK. In general, hard to detect and to prove.

No no no - I totally understand but this idea presents the old unintended consequences shenanigans

Let me explain.....

When Germany and the UK entered into the OTL Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 18 June 1935 it allowed the German Navy to build a balanced fleet that matched the RN in a 35:100 ratio (if memory serves U Boats were allowed to be 45:100 and later parity? Notably Germany started WW2 with just 59 Submarines (UK had 59!) ) - this agreement was important to Germany because it satisfied the UK and kept them from seeking earlier methods for opposing Germany's rearmament as well as rearming themselves and also drove a wedge between the UK and France as the British went ahead with the agreement in spite of French resistance. It also appealed to Hitler's long term hopes of either aligning with the UK or having the UK give Germany a free hand on the continent to achieve their long term goals.

So without building a balanced fleet and entering into an agreement of this type which the British thought would take Germany till 1942 before they reached this 35:100 limit (other than U-boats they never reached it) - the British are not placated and are therefore far less sympathetic to Germany's rearmament.

So sure - build up a mighty 'Jeune Ecole' fleet - and yes this would be far more effective vs the British/Allied Merchant fleets - but don't expect to be able to keep it a secret (you have more chance of farting your way in to low orbit around Jupiter) and given that it has but one target (the British Merchant Fleet) expect a far far different reaction by the UK to Germany's rearmament and subsequent Hitler Brinkmanship during the late 30s.

Also expect Britain's ship building priorities to be different in the face of a 'Jeune Ecole' fleet strategy and with a real or perceived threat from such a fleet hot in the minds of their nibs in Whitehall expect the treasury to have been taken by cutlass wielding blue jackets and the pursestrings prised open far earlier than it was.

Even a percentage or 2 increase allocation of the Budget earlier than OTL is going to make a massive improvement to the British Rearmament program. Remember that the British Military Budget in 1938 was just a 4% slice of the entire budget rising to a mighty 8% in 1939 - and this pre-war was paying for the world's largest Navy (including the laying down of numerous capital ships from 1937), expansion of the Army including mechanisation and the lions share on the RAF and associated industries (Shadow factory schemes).

Britain thought it could make deal's with Hitler and so they did, and a large part of that was driven by Germany's agreement to the AGNA to build a balanced fleet (and therefore have a fleet that could not threaten the UK's domination of the seas) - which prevented Germany from building the fleet you have suggested and the one that the British feared most.
 
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