What if the Germans had their WW1 surface fleet still?

If you look at the pages 259 and 260 in Breyer's book, you will find tables of the capital ships of Germany before 1930 with designed weight from 10 000 tons up to 30 000 tons.
You end up with almost 50 capital ships.
How many ships do you have to build to become experienced?

Give or take a few hundred tons; it's only a few percent and peanuts in the big picture.

RAM

 

On the contrary, it does not support Showell's supposition at all. It clearly shows that the German designers knew they had no chance of qualifying for the WNT standards; "In view of the fact that the prospects of getting away from the Versailles treaty and of being included in the WNT was slender, the best solution seemed to be building a ship which was always superior in one respect to the Washington types," In English, that means the Germans realized any ships they produced would be measured under the Versailles Treaty terms NOT the WNT standards of measurement.

Yes, the diesel engines gave much more range than standard steam turbines would have, but steam turbines would have enabled better speed for these cruisers. In addition, the diesel engines proved unreliable in service which is one reason why the Kreigsmarine didn't get much service out of either the Deutschland or Scheer (Gerhard Koop, "Pocket Battleships of The Deutschland Class"). In fact, the Deutschland was out of commission for 75% of the first three years of the war (Gordon Williamson, "German Pocket Battleships, 1939-1945"). I have also heard that the Deutschland and Scheer suffered severe vibration from the diesel engines and this problem wasn't solved for several years. Suffice it to say that the KM never built another major combatant ship with diesel engines.

In fact, the three Deutschland class ships were not all that useful; their armament was heavier than was really required for a commerce raider (Breyer claims they were not intended specifically for commerce raiding, but were simply design exercises to see how much offensive capability could be had for 10,000 tons). If commerce raiding was the rationale for the Deutschland class, it would have made more sense to build a class of smaller, but more numerous, fast cruisers. Since they could not stand against battleships, or even battle cruisers, they were useless for sea control purposes. Aside form a few commerce raiding cruises, they actually ended up mostly as training ships in the Baltic. The USN also built a class of very large cruisers called the Alaska class with 12" guns and 33 knot speed; they were pretty much regarded as "white elephants" in the US Navy.

Look again. Between 1917 and 1927 (when the decision was made to design the Deutschland class, not a single German warship of any class was designed in Germany. During that decade, warship design, particularly in the US and Britain, was progressing rapidly as a result of experience in WW I. German warship designers did not just hang around for ten years hoping they might get another paycheck some day; they went into other trades and professions so that when it came time to put together a design team for the Deutschland, it was necessary to hire new designers with little experience in warship design.


The noted naval historian Peter Lienau has written on this specific aspect of German warship design and concluded that many of the German warships in WW II suffered from inexperienced design practice; "The Versailles treaty knocked the German navy down to that of a 3rd or 4th rate nation. If you don't want to play this role, but you are saddled by the treaty, then you have to invent something new and upgrade the old things to become the new cutting edge. You cannot just follow what the other nations do – there's no money, no political support and the dictate of Versailles prohibits much of what was formerly done. You must create things that are better than what other navies have. This mindset leads to such things as the comparatively high performance 11" gun, the diesel powered Panzerschiffes and the all-welded hull designs. But the bad news is that the overall design-process is turned upside-down. Now, things look like this: a) No political overview. The dictate was that: "The Fleet must be ready for combat within 8 years." But for the questions of: "For what? Against whom? For how long? Strategy and Tactics?" there are no answers. This results in an absence of political guidance for the MA, thus the directors are free to follow their own ideas.
b) No technical concepts that need to be followed. The major ships were ALL just prototypes. Some good, some bad, none outstanding. Why? We will return to this a little later.
c) The atmosphere inside the MA is poisoned. Ex-military men, with no design experience, are now in charge. No longer was the RMA (now MA) mainly a department of uniformed civilians. It had now morphed into a barracks square, with the iron discipline that implies. You need time-in-rank to get to the next level of command, not technical experience.
d) Starting perhaps as early as 1933, but absolutely after the signing the 1936 London treaty, the engineers were under constant and growing pressure to deliver RESULTS.
What were the effects of this upheaval?
1. Design team leaders who are not able to decide between good and bad ideas, ones who cannot provide guidance in technical questions.
2. Teams whose junior members are not aware of "how a warship must perform," with no ideas about what is really important and what is a trivial concern.
3. Rivalry between the teams, overestimating their individual importance in the design process.
4. Inventions just for having inventions with no one asking if about if they are useful or not."

See:The Working Environment for German Warship design in WWI and WWII.

Maybe so, but the signatories of the Versailles Treaty expected Germany to be bound by the limits. So a warship being overweight by 1,700 tons (17 %), as the Deutschland was, would not be "peanuts" to the US, Britain, or France. The Scheer and Graf Spee were 21 % and 26 % overweight respectively; all three represent, if not incompetence in estimating design weights, serious cases of cheating.

 

With the three Panzerschiffe Germany built their intention was initially that of building a modern version of a coastal defense battleship. When designed these ships could easily out run any battleship. Their armament was sufficent to deal with smaller ships and probably could have handled most battlecruisers in existance in the early 30's.
The last of the three, Graf Spee represents a change in German thinking. This ship had much greater cruising range than the previous two of the class. This is why she alone was put to commerce raiding. The other two of the class were suitable only for coastal defense lacking the range to operate far out into the Atlantic.
The same holds true for many of the earlier classes of smaller ships too. The few light cruisers built all had very short legs. This made them unsuitable to accompany the larger fleet units built later into the Atlantic too.
By initially building a fleet of ships with the intent of fighting primarily the French and near home, the Germans painted themselves into a corner later when their strategic direction shifted towards the Royal Navy and fighting in the Atlantic. It was a costly mistake.

 

I don't give much for Peter Lienau as a historian.
He uses a lot of words, but he omits the most important issue:

Quote:
"I don't want to pick on the ships commanders or say they should have done things differently."

It was bad leadership from the commanders that ultimately led to the demise of the Tirpitz and the Scharnhorst.
I will deal with this in a separate thread later.

After all, we had the Germans here for more than five years.
Not the British, not the Americans, not the French, but the Germans.
Their actions were watched very closely and we learned to know them quite well..

RAM

 

I would take exception to his description of the Battle of the Lofloten Islands here:

* The seas were very heavy. All three ships were having problems forward shipping water through A turret. The Renown had several forward hatches sprung and flooding occur through them as well.

* The Germans were to the East of the British and the sun had not yet come up when the battle occured. Instead it was in "nautical twilight." That is, there was light on the horizon but no direct sunlight. This sillouetted the German ships while the Renown was still shrouded in darkness (it was just after 4 am).

* The Renown had recently been fitted with a Type 79 radar and could have detected the Germans using this too.

* Most accounts of this battle say that the first warning that the Germans got that the Renown was present was Gneisenau was straddled. The British also got hits on Gneisenau causing the loss of A turret and damage amidships. Given their surprise, the damage to one ship and their apparent inability to hit the Renown, given the poor light conditions, the Germans chose to withdraw. Under the circumstances this was probably a smart decision.

Here's a synopsis from an article I wrote about a year ago:

Lofoten Islands, 9 April 1940. This battle occurred during the German invasion of Norway between the HMS Renown and the KM Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. The battle took place about 80 NM west of the Lofoten Islands. Sea state was full gale with very heavy seas. The battle opened at 0337 with the Renown having increased speed to 20 knots after spotting the two German ships. Renown was steaming west of the German's position giving her the advantage of being against the still dark sky while the German ships were silhouetted against the lightening eastern sky in morning nautical twilight. Neither side had the advantage of radar during this engagement.

At 19,000 yards Renown turned to a new course to expose her full broadside. At 0405 the Renown opened fire on the Gneisenau whose crew was uncertain about the identity of the Renown and taking the Scharnhorst by surprise.

Gneisenau replied at 0411. Both sides turned onto roughly parallel courses. At 0417 the Renown scored her first hit, taking out Gneisenau's main gunnery control station. The Gneisenau turned away onto a north-easterly heading and switched to secondary fire control. Scharnhorst followed laying smoke in an attempt to screen Gneisenau until she could reestablish her fire control ability. Both German ships increased their speed to about 28 knots.

Renown followed the German course change and tried to increase speed but began to take too much water over the bow and was suffering flooding in ‘A' turret and through a hatch forward. The best Renown could manage was 20 knots. However, Renown's continued fire scored two additional hits on Gneisenau. One of these damaged Gneisenau's forward turret putting it out of action. Both German ships also began to take on a lot of water through their A turrets putting them out of action on both ships even if Renown had not made a hit.

In return, the Germans scored three hits on Renown causing very minor damage. The first hit struck the main leg of the foremast severing power connections to various equipment on it. The second passed through the extreme stern while the third struck the top of the forward funnel. None of these shells detonated.

 

Not as well as you think, apparently. You didn't seem to know about the experience issues with their warship designers in the 1920's and 1930's which was the point for which I cited Lienau's article. As for Scharnhorst and Tirpitz, I've never mentioned them, but I believe the RN and RAF also had a major role in their demise.

 

Not at all sure they were up to Repulse or Renown much less Hood, The Kongo class would also have been a bit of a problem for them.

 

I can't wait.

 

The only reason Hitler and his nazi party ever got in power in the first place was the increasingly desperate situation caused by the accumulating effects of ToV and the GD. Before that combination of events the Nazis were treated as luntic fringe in German politics.

Some form of Right wing militaristic regime would eventually take over power especially as their economic situation improved. The economic recovery , welfare system and the credit system exploitied by Hitler for disarmament , were already in place from previous regimes and would have been used by what ever regime took power. Further the simple change from terribly inefficent "cost plus financing" demanded by Hitler , to "fixed price multi year" and "batch" production should result in a much better rearmament build up than the historical reamament. These pressures would mean that a total war economy could be in place about the same time as the UK/USSR were completed ...1940.

Removing Hitler means no micro meddling in strategic direction and armaments programs, so only armaments needed for doctrine would be built. No Bismarck or Z-1934/36 would be built, since they were forced on KM due to Raeder stearing Hitler towards the French threat after Hitler forbad anti RN fleet.

Aircraft Carriers would be built from 1932 on based on "HMS Courageous" as planned prior to Nazi take over. If there was left over Battleship hulls these could very well have been modified into Carriers. To escort these capital ships on long range missions , two dozen of the WW-I light cruisers could be overhauled with modern turbines and join the 1/2 dozen Koln cruisers produced in 1920s plus another 1/2 dozen improved versions in the 1930s.

Further ~ 50 of the older TB-1916 would have joined the dozen improved TB 1923/1924 in the 1920s and probably another 50-60 improved versions in the 1930s, along with a overhaul programe for the earlier warships. These were compariable to WW-I /1920s RN destroyers , which constitued 2/3 of their start war fleet.

The 50 WW-I Mboot would be joined by another 50 modern MBoot built in the 1930s.

A batch of modern battleships based on improved Scharnhorst design with 15" guns could be built through the late 1930s. To replace some of the older WW-I capital ships.Looking at the WW-I capital ships the battle cruisers could be adapted to modern warfare with improved turbines and thicker deck armor plus modernised guns, but the WW-I battleships look too slow to fit with doctrine. These could be recommissioned as fleet tenders and seaplane tenders, to be later used as armed transports if war arose , while their big guns could be used as coastal defense turrets.

 

O'hara has a different take implying Renown was probably lucky the Twins had left. He also points out that Twins scored two main gun hits with 249 shells while Renown only managed one hit with 230 shells. Whitworth is lucky the main German shell hits were duds.

 

Renown scored three hits on Gnesineau. The loss of the main fire control director means that for all intents this ship is worthless for continued fire at the ranges involved. There is not one single case in WW 2 where a battleship after losing its primary fire control insturments managed to hit anything. Turret range finders were worthless (see Second Savo Island for a proof of that). The secondary fire control station is much lower to the water, usually manned by less well trained and qualified personnel and as a result is going to be much worse at directing fire.

The loss of Anton turrets on both German ships (due to a glancing shell hit that locked it in train in Gnesienau and flooding in both) the Germans were down to a dozen guns and only 6 that had good fire control.

The hits on Renown as noted did little damage and hit nothing that would have set them off. Aside from that, German heavy naval shells have a history in WW 2 of not detonating even when they do hit something substancial.

Given the confusion on Scharnhorst initially and the damage to Gneisenau the Germans were probably better off leaving the scene. When you add that the damage to Gneisneau was known to them and their opponet appeared undamaged (and could possibly have been misidentified as Hood this is all the more likely the reason to run. Hindsight is 20/20. Second guessing the captains at the time is difficult to do.

 

Maybe I'm allowed to post a comment here too, since some of my earlier work was cited by some of you.

@ RAM
you don't give that much for me as a historian. I'd like to add that the cited article of 1999 had nothing to do with subject of this threat here. So accusing me to omit the "most important issue" isn't quite fair, don't you think?
I invite you letting me know what the important issue is and if I can contribute something substantial, I'm willing to do so.

@T.A.GARDNER
you're talking about the confusion onboard SCHARNHORST. In my humble opinion it was Adm. Lütjens who was paralized and unable to respond properly to the sudden threat of RENOWN.

I think we both are right, using different words for the same thing. While you're pointing out that the seastate was heavy, I said it was normal for that region. Be assured I've been there - in bad weather of course...


@eeek

Quote: "The only reason Hitler and his nazi party ever got in power in the first place was the increasingly desperate situation caused by the accumulating effects of ToV and the GD. Before that combination of events the Nazis were treated as luntic fringe in German politics"

I strongly disagree. The last elections held in Germany were those of March 1933. Even at this time (already two month of terror, left wing parties forbidden) less than 45 % voted for the Nazis.
He came to power because the democracy was buried BEFOREHAND by the conservative parties (the "Deutschnationale" under Hugenberg and "Zentrum" under Kaas). Together with President Paul von Hindenburg they formed a rightwing government that was not supported by the Parliament. They wanted back to something like the old imperial german Reich (of course without the Kaiser). But they were unable to establish something new. That was Hitlers chance. During the time were Democracy in Germany was intact (until 1929) he was an absolute nobody. Votes ranging at 5 %. After the death of Stresemann the trouble started. And Hitler benefitted from this. The great depression added some 10 % votes for Hitler not more. In 1933 he just took over the power of less successful Dictators and turned it into his success.
Highly recommend book on this issue: "Defying Hitler" by Sebastian Haffner.



Regarding the intial "what if" question of this thread I would like to say the following:

The German Admiralty positioned itself in early 1919. They came to very interesting conclusions which were way ahead of their time.

1. Most important weapon in futurely naval warfare: The Aircraft and their Carriers
2. France would be the perfect political and military partner for Germany
3. The most demanding futurely task in worldwide politics: China

I wonder what happened to these smart gentleman...

 

We have a long winter ahead of us.
Stay tuned.

RAM

 

Hey RAM, don't you think winter is over now?

Peter.

 

The Tirpitz was lost because the Brits had enough of it scaring of their convoys. The 10,000pd Talboy bombs put a swift and bloody end to her.