did the german navy even have a chance

I think the german navy did not even have a chance at wining the war on the seas.

 

Reason? Statistics? Facts?
For example, did the Germans even plan on winning a sea war or did they just want a fleet strong enough to tie up the RN?

 

Nope. The surface fleet was never strong enough to stand up to the Brits, much less the US and Brits. The U-boats were too few before 1942 (and they had torpedo problems) and lacked long range air support and cover throughout the war. Raeder had little interest in (or concept of?) the blockade strategy which is the only meaningful measure of German victory at sea.

 

It´s cos our Kriegsmarine was not ready till 1946 for a war (Z-Plan)

The Z-Plan was Germanys fleet building program started shortly before World War 2.

In the mid 1930s a major discussion about a new fleet program started in Germany. There were two major opinions, what kind of program should have been chosen. One plan was focused on a large submarine fleet and a relatively small surface fleet for coast protection, this plan was preferred by the U-Boat fraction in the Kriegsmarine command. The other alternative was a mixed fleet of various surface ships and a much smaller U-Boat fleet, quite similar to the Imperial Navy in World War I or the British Royal Navy. In the end, this plan was chosen as the new fleet building program, after several modifications it was called the "Z-Plan".

According to this plan, the German Kriegsmarine should have grown to about 800 units, consisting of 13 battleships and battlecruisers, 4 aircraft carriers, 15 Panzerschiffe, 23 cruisers and 22 so called "Spähkreuzer" which were basically large destroyers. In addition to this many smaller vessels should have been build.

Those ships should have been build between 1939 and 1946, in this time, the personal of the Kriegsmarine should have been enlarged to 201.000 men and over 33 billion Reichsmark should have spend for building the new units.

This project never got reality. Its very questionable that the German industry would have had the resources for such a construction program and that the other European Nations would stood still and not react to this program. The realization of the Z-Plan started on January 29th, 1939. Two H-Class battleships were laid down, three months later Germany quit the the fleet treaty with England and the dream "No more war against Britain" was gone.

But only four months later Germany attacked Poland and work on all Z-Plan projects was stopped. During the next months, all incomplete ships of the Z-plan were scrapped and the material was used to build additional submarines.

 

Only ever a pipe dream. Given that the ships that were completed (the Scharnhorsts and the Bismarcks) weren't all that good it was probably as well for Germany that the whole brain fart was cut short when it was.

 

Well, "they were nothing" against the planned H-class (6 units), as an addition to Bismarck/Tirpitz and the O-class (3 units) as a repl. for the Schanhorst-Klasse.

H-Klasse







The six battleships of the H-class were the projected successors of the battleships Bismarck and Tirpitz .

Those ships, which would have been the core of the fleet build according to the Z-Plan, were mainly enlarged and improved versions of their predecessors. In difference to them, those ships were planned with commerce war in mind, therefore diesel engines were selected instead of the usual high pressure steam engine used by the German navy in those days.

Design of these ships started in 1937, and a total construction time of 50 months was projected to complete a ship of this class. All ships were scheduled to be completed by 1944. Only two of the ships were actually started, Schlachtschiff H at Blohm & Voss, Hamburg on June 15th, 1939 and Schlachtschiff J at AG Weser, Bremen on August 15th, 1939. Construction was stopped on October 10th, 1939 as the focus in German naval construction switched to the construction of more U-boats instead of battleships. Up to this day, 1200 tons of steel was already used for the Schlachtschiff H , 3500 tons were in construction and another 12000 tons were already ordered. (Schlachtschiff J was still in an earlier phase of construction). In 1940, the used material was wrecked on the shipyard and used elsewhere.

Size: 62496 t
Length: 277,8 m
Beam: 37,2 m
Draft: 10,2 m
Armament:

8 x 40,6 cm; 12 x 15,5 cm; 16 x 10,5 cm; 16 x 3,7 cm;
24 x 2 cm; 6 x 53,3 cm torpedoes
Performance: 165000 shp, 30 kn




These guns were intended for the "H" class battleships which were laid down in 1939 but never completed. This rifle was a good design but could be said to have had an excessively high muzzle velocity, hence giving it minimal deck penetration even at long ranges.

There were three versions of this weapon; the original prototype for proof and experimental testing; the naval version for the "H" battleships; and the coast artillery version, also known as Adolph. The coast artillery version had a similar construction to the naval version but with a larger chamber. At least some, perhaps all, naval guns were converted over to the coastal artillery version. An interesting feature of the coast artillery version was that, although employed in single BSG mountings, the guns were still produced in left and right versions, showing their naval heritage.

A total of ten of the 40.6 cm (16") guns were actually produced. Seven of these guns were employed as coastal artillery in Norway to protect Narvik, with three at "Battery Dietl" and four at Trondenese near Harstad. At the end of the war, the 4 Trondenes guns were taken over by the Norwegian Army along with 1,227 shells. A German gun crew trained the Norwegians in their use, and the guns were actively used for about a decade. The battery was last fired in 1957 and taken out of commission in 1961. They then sat idle and were placed on sale for scrapping in 1968. The three guns at Battery Dietl were scrapped, but the four at Tronenese remain and one of them is open as a museum at Trondenes Fort.

Two of the other three guns were initially used in Poland and later at Hela to protect Danzig. All three guns were eventually used as Battery Lindemann near Sangatte in France where they fired at Dover.

As this gun had a rather thick barrel for its size, during the redesigns of the "H" class battleships during 1941 and 1942 (H-41 and H-42) it was proposed to bore them out and convert them into 42 cm/48 (16.54") weapons. One of the reasons behind this conversion was to give these ships a larger caliber weapon than those planned for any known Allied battleship. None of the guns already built were ever converted and no new guns were started. The SK C/40 model year for this version is my estimate.

Constructed of a loose barrel, which was universally interchangeable between production guns, a loose liner which only fitted a particular gun, B tube, a jacket over the rear end of B tube, a breech end-piece thrust over the jacket and kept in place by a threaded ring, a breech block supporting piece inserted in the breech end-piece and secured by a threaded ring. A retaining ring with two fittings for transmitting rotation forces was screwed onto the rear of the barrel. Used a sliding breech block.

The data that follows is specifically for the 40.6 cm (16") Naval version except where noted. Actual bore diameter of all versions was 40.64 cm (16.0").



O-Klasse



In addition to the battleships of the H-Class, a group of 12 new armored ships (Kreuzer P ), successors to the famous Admiral Graf Spee , Admiral Scheer and Lützow , were part of the Z-Plan. The design studies for the three battlecruisers of the O-class (Schlachtkreuzer O , Schlachtkreuzer P , Schlachtkreuzer Q ) were simultaneous started to those of the new Panzerschiff design (Kreuzer P ) in 1937.

In 1939 it was considered to replace three of the Panzerschiffe with the same number of this new battle cruisers. Construction orders were given to Deutsche Werke, Kiel, the Kriegsmarinewerft in Wilhelmshaven and the Germaniawerft in Kiel in the same year, but none of the ships were started.

Those ships were planed with the idea of commerce war in mind. Therefore, they should get a mixed propulsion system, diesel engines for long range medium speed cruises and additional turbines for high speed combat action.. The main task for this kind of battlecruisers was to engage enemy convoys and destroy transports and cargo ships.

But in difference to the heavy protected H-Class battleships, those battlecruisers had armor protection of a cruiser only. So it's very doubtful that one of this ships would have been able to attack a good protected allied convoy.

Size: 35400 t
Length: 256,0 m
Beam: 30,0 m
Draft: 8,02 m
Armament: 6 x 38 cm; 6 x 15 cm; 8 x 10,5 cm; 8 x 3,7 cm; 20 x 2 cm ;
6 x 53,3 cm torpedoes
Performance: 176000 shp , 35 kn

Additional there would be 12 new Panzerschiffe.



Size: 25689 t
Length: 230,0 m
Beam: 26,0 m
Draft: 8,0 m
Armament: 6 x 28 cm; 4 x 15 cm; 4 x 10,5 cm; 4 x 3,7 cm;
6 x 53,3 cm Torpedoes
Performance: 165000 shp, 33 kn

Regards,
Che.

 

Pipe dreams and floating turkeys. :-?

One thing you can reasonably say is that the British weren't going to sit there twiddling their thumbs while the Germans build a big fleet. They would have responded and if we go by the ships on the boths sides that did see the light of day then we have to say British ships were ton for ton better than German.

 

But germany had a bigger industrial capacity and our artillery crews were much more better trained then the british one, Admiral Sir John Tovey (or Captain Grendell, don´t know) himself noticed this fact, after the fight with the Bismarck.

Regards,
Che.

 

There is no doubt that the Germans did have something’s goings for them. Optics were always a German strength but there are a lot of weaknesses. The Bismarcks despite having 1/3 again more displacement were no better than the British KGV class. Her final battle showed that while hard to sink Bismarck was easy to cripple.

The Germans hadn't built any battleships since 1918 and it did show. Bismarcks armour scheme was basically WW1. Only quiet a modest amount of the ship was actually protected.

As for the pocket battleships the first three were damn near obsolete by the start of WW2 on account of their speed. Any follow up would have run into the problem that in a world of air recon and universal fitting to merchant ships of radio that the age of the surface raider had come and gone.

O-Klasse sound like the worst of all worlds. Big expensive ships that can't fight other big expensive ships. A single elderly R class would be enough to keep them at bay.

 

A ship without maneuverability and what would you expect if two Battleships(10x 35cms and 9x 40 cms) firing from a short distance, no doubt that it was easy to cripple. Even from this distance it took two hours to fight her down and it didn´t help so the Dorsetshire had to fire three torpedos, cos the gunfire "achieved nothing" and she was already floatable.

Thats why she took several torpedo hits without any effect to her speed and her readiness.
Thats why she took nearly the whole ammuntion of KGV and Rod and being still floatable.

Agreed, I wonder what they´ve thought when they developed this class :-?

Regards,
Che.

 

Okay first off lets all accept that Bismarcks final battle proves nothing about her ability to deal out the hurt. No battleship of any nation would shoot well if it couldn't hold a steady course.

On the other hand it should be accepted that Bismarcks final battle turned into a giant live fire exercise for the RN after less than twenty minutes. Gun fire achieved nothing? Sorry I have to reject that argument. Gun fire basically shredded everything above the water line. While the British might not have achieved a single knock out blow they did turn her into a water logged wreck.

As for the scuttling business if the order to abandon ship got down to the engineering crew then as I understand it firing scuttling charges is standard procedure. But let put it this way after the Battle of Midway USS Yorktown was put down by an American destroyer. Does this mean that the Japanese didn't sink her?

WOO WHO! I won a bit of the argument!

But seriously yes you do have to wonder where that brainfart came from. The German had some bright idea but they also had some major turkeys.

 

I've seen some writers question the British tactics against the Bismarck. The contention being that the close range, flat fire was was exactly what the Bismarck's armor was best designed against. it has been suggested that a better tactic may have been to stand off and hit him with plunging fire.

 

Couple of things in mitigation.

1) Plunging fire means longer range. Meaning harder to hit.
2) Rough sea on the day again reducing accuracy
3) The British didn't know a great deal about Bismarcks armour scheme until after the battle when they seized documentation from a POW.
4) KGV did hang back bit while Rodney got in really close. They might have been better off the other way round.
5) Bismarck was sunk so it's all good.

 

Nope, it was toooooooooo bad that she was scuttled

Regards,
Che.

 

From: http://www.kbismarck.com/histoperi.html

Seems a stretching the point a bit in addition to all the previous damage she'd recieved to say that she was scuttled not sank. Were the demo-charges even set off deliberately?

 

I guess they were planted in the heck, thats why it broke off

Regards,
Che.

 

i have a question. did the axis fleet (both germany and italy) had any chanche if they would combine their forces? at the start of WW2, the italians could do some major dammage to force H when it came to a gun duel. and what would the situation be if the germans claimed the french fleet? we are talking about two french battelecruisers, two big (but unfinished) BB's and several CA's, CL's, DD's and subs. would they had a change on beating the RN?

 

As did the RN's rebuilding program, the only area the Z-plan had something over what the RN was planning was in submarines.

And remember, this is the response to what the RN actually knew about the world situation in 1936/37 let alone when true German plans became clearer.


http://www.phpbbplanet.com/forum/viewto ... ipprojects

http://www.phpbbplanet.com/forum/index. ... ipprojects


There was more on here but the board had a major problem and a lot of the seperate posts detailing specifics on carrier, battleships and cruisers has been lost.

 

This is another one of those 'geography is not Germanys friend' problems. There are basically alot of choke points between Germany start of war ports and the Med. Endless potential for JUTLAND 2! This time it's personal.

French / Italian ship combo more of a possible but frankly I'd want to put German crews into them. Reduce the possibility of:

The historical Italian fleet should have caused more problems than it did. Frankly warships was the one area where Italian stuff was reasonable competitive.

Still since I'm a Brit I'm not complaining.

 

The overall impressions I have gained about the Italian Navy was that their ships were basically good, but sacrificed armour for speed.

Also, and quite tellingly, they did not have radar, which gave us Brits a big advantage, especially at night.


A few rather nasty encounters with the British (including Taranto) appear to have convinced the Italians that Fleet actions = Fleet losses, and we don't really want to be sunk thank you very much.


Although apparently they did have some excellent vessels at the ower end of the scale (VAS boats?) which performed great works in the MTB/MGB arena.