German capture French fleet?

German captured the entire French fleet by the end of 1940.

This could happen had German been more flexible on the armistice table. An offer of 'damage reparation'(with Reich mark of course) and release of POW..etc, Vichy would likely consider letting German/Italian help 'protecting' its fleet from falling into UK hands, and a subsequent capture becomes possible.
The French navy tonnage ranked 4th in the world, combined with kriegmarine and Regina Marina, and likely Graf Zepplins joining later, Axis navy would seriously challenge the royal navy; securing safer passage to Africa; much more deadly commerce raid by both surface and uboat fleet; isolation of Britain and perhaps even a successful operation Sealion...

any thoughts?

 

Unfortunately I think we have discussed this subject earlier.

Don´t be discouraged by this lebovski and if you can find things to discuss after reading the other thread you can come back with those.

Use the search system if not sure whether something has or has not been discussed.

http://www.ww2f.com/what-if/12073-fully-intact-french-navy-germans.html

 

I read somewhere on a senario just like this that the Vichy French Fleet and Italian Fleet could send a sizable armada of about 400 ships, many of the destroyer/torpedo boats & submarines would not be used as anti invasion fleet interdictors but as armed tug mainly due to their poor open ocean performance but could handle the confines of the Channel especially the Dover Straits.

Logistics would not be a major problem as all those French ports would home those vessels.

The Italians and French could provide a good blocking force of up to 5 battleships, and up to 14 heavy to light cruisers and included in this are the heavy destroyers.

The senario plays out that the RN Home Fleet is overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers, this is in conjunction with the Italians sending in a large force of torpedo bombers assigned to Luftflotte 2.

v.R

 

The problem with that is the Italian ships have short legs. Many of the smaller ones can't make it to the Atlantic coast of France without refueling. Even if you combine the Italian and French fleets the British at least in BB's still seriously out class them. There's also a good chance the British can intercept them on the way to the Atlantic French ports. Another factor is the Italian ships were to a large part not designed for Atlantic service.

 

Its worse than that. The Italian fleet was starved for fuel. The French fleet would be too in the hands of the Germans. Germany simply does not have access to sufficent fuel supplies to keep a large fleet of ships at sea. A single battleship can gulp down the equivalent in fuel to keep several squadrons of aircraft flying.
When the Italians are running tankers to North Africa half full or less as that is all the fuel available to support German / Italian operations there they have problems.
In addition, the French and Italian ships don't have radar and other up-to-date combat systems aboard.
The Graf Zeppelin as demonstrated elsewhere on this board was a true dog as an aircraft carrier. Its aircraft complement was limited in size, it used an unwieldy and likely unworkable trolly / catapult system to launch aircraft that was slow, prone to failures and accidents, and just really overly complex in design. Aside from that, a single carrier brings little to a fleet; particularly when the other fleet has several much better ones in service.

 

I did not know that Italian ships ran on avgas. I always thought they ran on oil.

The fuel supply problem was more than you indicate, failure to eradicate Malta out of the equastion was a terminal mistake, had the Germans and Italians had taken Malta then those Axis ships would not have suffered the catastrophic losses. Period.

The Graf Zeppelin was a dog you say, correct me if i am wrong but no aircraft were assigned to the Graf Zeppelin and as far as i know it's catapult system was never tested, but if it was you can ellaborate, one carrier might not be much but in the right place and in the right time it could prove the ballance of any action, remember the Bismarck, it was doomed the moment a Swordfish put a torp into one of it's rudders and where did that swordfish come from, it came from the Ark Royal a carrier, it was in the right place and at the right time, result 45,000 tonnes of German pride sunk.

v.R

 

You have a choice with crude oil. It can be refined into a number of products including avgas and fuel for ships. It isn't quite one for one but the limitation is still there.

No not period. One reason for the losses was Ultra. Malta falling means they have to be a bit more circumspect but Axis losses will still be high. In any case this has little to do with the fuel problem the fleet would experiance.

So what use is a CV without AC? Oh you need to produce more AC for it and fuel for them as well.

I believe it was tested but not on the CV. However it if you check the other thread you will see a number of operational problems that exist because of it.

But CVs are fragile and it's going to have to run a gauntlet of RAF and RN planes and ships to even get close to the fighting. Then it's outnumbered by the RN CVs. It would be lucky to launch a single strike.

 

How about this senario, Germany knows it can't cope with those ships, and so it decides to keep the capital ships (BB, CA, CL and Large Destroyers) but decides to scrap the rest converting the steel into U-Boats or divert the Steel towards the Panzerwaffe, that would equate to an extra several hundred thousand tonnes of steel, which could provide and extra several thousand tanks/trucks, whatever.

But i can see that it could be considered a more of a hinderance that anything, all those ships and not knowing what to do with them, then again Germany could sell them to South American countries.

 

Scrapping isn't straight forward either. First you have to removed alot of various materials from the inside of the vessel: Insulation, wiring, machinery, flooring, etc. Once this is done you can begin to cut up the vessel. Now, you have to seperate bronze, brass, and copper from aluminum and from steel. Then the material must be shipped to a smelter and remade into new material. In the case of steel, it is actually just as cheap to mine new ore and smelt it as to use recycled material. Aluminum and copper could be economically done but these are a minor portion of the ships.

As already pointed out, even just the larger ships take alot of manpower and would require extensive refitting to make them ready for sea under German hands.

 

Then they could have produced the P 1000 Rattte, the 1,000 ton super tank !!!



Achtung Panzer! - P 1000/1500 / PzKpfw IX/X

The crummy subtitles are rather apropos, after all...

 

Is that before or after Stalin gets his land battleships on the go?

I would add that if you added the new Richeleu(sp!) and Jean Bart (which was very almost completed and could be so if not sabotaged before it being captured and the Bearn (which was VERY obsolete but it has catapults and could be used as research) Germany already enhances its capability. But as you said it still lacks manpower, fuel and the rest to accommodate its newly acquired assets. Im sure the French Subs would help though.

 

that's a good target for the tallboys, am sure it would be just as easy to penetrate as a battleship deck not to mention no aa support. It is incapable of cross any bridge, and would damage any road it steps on...

i think the best German option for that fleet is to prevent it from falling into alllied hands, and maintain a friendly Vichy as long as possible.

 

Oh what the hell, Germany scuttles the whole fraggin lot in the middle of the Mediterannean sending over a million tonnes worth of steel and other resources to the bottom.

Now i have that off my chest i can't seriously believe you guys when it comes to the Kriegsmarine, i have read many posts that the main fault of the Kriegsmarine was it lacked ships, now we have a situation that it takes charge of 60% to 70% of what was regarded as at the time the 4th biggest navy in the world and all of a sudden it becomes a catastrophic burden, what it seems to me is that under no circumstances can the Kriegsmarine win.

v.R

 

Good idea but lousy idea in the same idea.

v.R

 

I could see the Germans selectively scrapping French vessels for certain components and using them elsewhere. They did do this historically. For example, the Germans might strip off the guns and even many of the turrets to remount them ashore as coast defense batteries. The same could be done with the rangefinders and even the fire control computers etc.
Diesel generators might be stripped off for use elsewhere along with many specific engineering components. Some of the armor might be readily removed for use in shore defenses too.
But, wholesale scrapping? Probably not.

 

If it were up to me, i would look at keeping the larger ships, such as the Battleships, Large Cruisers, Light Cruisers and Large Destroyers.

I would then put into prcatice a criteria to what was needed by the Kriegsmarine in as much of destroyers, Torpedo Boats and Submarines.

And after all that those ships/vessels that don't make the grade they would be scrapped. Or sold off.

v.R

 

One of the major problems that German faced with Operation Sealion was a shortage of trained sailors to man the invasion barges. If they can't find enough men to man the barges, where are they going to find the men to man the French vessels ??????

 

You are absolutely correct.

The other main problem is once the Germans do have these ships then if we can eliminate the manning problems, then we are left with the major problem of their eventual lack of use, Hitler would eventually forbid their deployment, you would have all those ships bottled up in harbours.

v.R