WW1 Breakout into the north sea?

Been doing a bit of reading on the naval aspect of WW1, and I was a little surprised to discover the British blockade of the German coast wasn't as complete as I had thought. Occasional raiders did slip through, and you had things like the shelling of Yarmouth and Scarsborough.

So clearly, the Germans did have the capacity to get a couple of capital ships out and about. What I'm wondering is what would have happened if they weren't so wedded to Mahanian doctrine, if they used the occasional opportunity to slip up north, round over Scotland, and break into the Faeroes Gap and into the northern atlantic, and just try to slash at merchant shipping, do something like the proposed Cruiserkrieg that you had proponents for in WW2.

Could they have done significant damage? Could they have forced a British redeploy away from the tight blockade of the German coast? I doubt any naval action would be completely war changing in WW1, but how much of an impact would a possibly more realistic strategic doctrine for the High Seas Fleet have had?
 
This discussion had been here many time. The German captial ships were too short legged and had no oversea bases to rely on, so a breakout was suicidal at best, sicne the ships would simply run out of fuel somewhere in the mid Atlantic. The only units the Kaiserliche Marine had oversea were the ones send there in peacetime, bunkering in foreign ports as most warships do in peactime. In wartime, this is not a possibility.
 

sharlin

Banned
Nope, lack of water, the German ships were built with an eye towards the North Sea, even their cruisers. Their onboard accomodation was not that great as most of the crews would be barracked ashore before sailing out to go do something.

Whilst they had the coal aboard to actually pootle around in the atlantic thats at cruising speed and not having to do a sprint to get through the blockade etc or disengage from someone chasing you.
 
The British imposed a distant blockade in WW1 by blocking the exits from the North Sea. They did not blockade the German coast.

This distant blockade rather annoyed the Germans as they had hoped that the British dreadnoughts would sail up and down in the bight Nelson style and get sunk by subs or mines.

If the High Seas Fleet or a part of it were to try and break out into the Atlantic they would most likely find the Grand Fleet in their way as it must be remembered that the RN was reading the German Navy's mail.

Also, as reported the HSF was designed for fighting in the north sea, outside of their north sea/baltic ports they have nowhere to go for their enormous coal needs.
 

sharlin

Banned
Yep :) Don't forget that coal is quite inefficient and re-coaling at sea is an absolute nightmare. If a German wanted to refuel she'd have to either pull into iceland or greenland and meet a ship there with the coal onboard to transfer it across.
 
Inadequate water, limited storage tanks, no desalination gear, no galleys.

Basically these are designed for a few days cruising around the North sea of Baltic on thermos flasks of goulash and ready made sandwiches. Hammocks in the work areas and salt water bathing.
 
Inadequate water, limited storage tanks, no desalination gear, no galleys.

Basically these are designed for a few days cruising around the North sea of Baltic on thermos flasks of goulash and ready made sandwiches. Hammocks in the work areas and salt water bathing.

basically C_____ Cruise Lines?
 
Stop, back up.

I was under the impression that most of the German battlecruisers had operational ranges of a tad over 4,000 nm, with the dreadnoughts actually being a bit higher (around 5,000 or so) and the lighter cruisers being more similar to the dreads.

Considering the North sea is only 521 nautical miles or so across from north to south, and you've got maybe another 200 to round Scotland, and of course you'd want to get back, that still gives you around 2,400 nautical miles of patrolling capability, assuming you don't run into trouble anywhere. So even if you do, short jaunts around the western coast of England and some of the approaches should e theoretically feasible.
 
Stop, back up.

I was under the impression that most of the German battlecruisers had operational ranges of a tad over 4,000 nm, with the dreadnoughts actually being a bit higher (around 5,000 or so) and the lighter cruisers being more similar to the dreads.

Considering the North sea is only 521 nautical miles or so across from north to south, and you've got maybe another 200 to round Scotland, and of course you'd want to get back, that still gives you around 2,400 nautical miles of patrolling capability, assuming you don't run into trouble anywhere. So even if you do, short jaunts around the western coast of England and some of the approaches should e theoretically feasible.

As others have said, the problem isn't the nominal range/automony, it's that effective range is limited by provisions for the sailors.
 
Yes, this would be an interesting strategy

Had the KM started shaping its force structure around it starting in oh, say, 1905.

After 1914, however, raiding would have to be limited to submarines.
 
One thing that has been touched on but not expressed is that battleships and battlecruisers are absolutely not designed for commerce raiding: it's a waste of resources and would serve to underline the futility of having built the fleet in the first place. To paraphrase George W Bush, you don't want to send a 45,000,000 goldmark battleship into the North Atlantic and sink a tramp steamer with a 3.5in gun.
 
effective range is limited by provisions for the sailors.

Mmm... The Germans had a Pacific Squardron and were part of the Relief Force during the Boxer Rebellion. In the after action reports the captains send to the pacific complained over the restrictions put on them by the limetid provesions and berthing space. In 1905/06 These problems came to an head as captains refused to accept some classes of ships for duty in the pacific. A commission was set up to develop a different set of guidelines for colonial duty warships. The result was an class of cruiser with extra long sea legs and high speed. In 1914 as the first batch was launched the colonies had fallen and the cruisers were sent raiding.

Duckie
 
As others have said, the problem isn't the nominal range/automony, it's that effective range is limited by provisions for the sailors.


Really? Because I mean, I can see the difference between oil fuel and coal as fuel between the two wars, but those heavy German cruisers of WW2 managed to go quite far without resupplying for sailor provisions. I mean, were there significant advances in refrigeration or otherwise packing things in? I would have thought fuel would be the real limiting factor.

4000 nm sounds a lot but that's at crushing speed, crank up to 20 kts and you get maybe 1300 nm for the same fuel load.


Point: Do you (or anyone really) have a conversion table for range at various speeds? That would be something very handy.

Had the KM started shaping its force structure around it starting in oh, say, 1905.

After 1914, however, raiding would have to be limited to submarines.


Well, yes, but I was more interested if there was any realistic use of the fleet the Germans had in 1914 than exploring a further digression. Building it just to sit in port for most of the war is just such a waste.



One thing that has been touched on but not expressed is that battleships and battlecruisers are absolutely not designed for commerce raiding: it's a waste of resources and would serve to underline the futility of having built the fleet in the first place. To paraphrase George W Bush, you don't want to send a 45,000,000 goldmark battleship into the North Atlantic and sink a tramp steamer with a 3.5in gun.

Oh, I don't disagree. But the German navy of WW1 was, to be blunt, a total failure. It didn't achieve any of the strategic goals envisioned and used as a justification for the resources spent on its construction. But the British blockade was crippling, and Jutland showed that brute force wasn't breaking it. You've got to try something that will force the British to commit elsewhere, and I admit, I was mostly looking at scaling WW2 to WW1, where a German fleet that was even more inferior vis a vis their British adversaries was able to keep the UK on the back foot for a long period of time. But that is predicated on being able to sortie out and hit the little merchant ships, which forces the British in turn to guard large swathes of area: The threat is far more powerful than the execution.
 
Inadequate water, limited storage tanks, no desalination gear, no galleys.

Basically these are designed for a few days cruising around the North sea of Baltic on thermos flasks of goulash and ready made sandwiches. Hammocks in the work areas and salt water bathing.

This is one of the things that set the RN and USN apart, crews were expected to be able to live on the ship.

From design, it was easy to see that the HSF dreadnoughts were made to do only one thing, fight a battle in the North Sea
 
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