German Navy was concentrated in Med at start of the war

I have read the Spanish Joining the Axis and the Med a side show thread and it got me thinking.

I have always been curious as to why the German Navy did not put up a better fight, other threads, in summary stated that the German Navay was out numbered by the RN and scattered.

What if the German Navy was not scattered at the out break of World war 2, but poised to enter the Med. and together with with the capturing of Gibralar, and working with the Italian Navy would this not have closed off North Africa to British Reinforcements and ended the North African Campaign quicker, before America entered the war.

Ships like Scharnhorst, Gniesenau, Tripitz, Bismark, Graf Spree, Deutcshland etc, in some cases these were cornered and destroyed or left isolated for the majority of the war.

Would this not have secured the Med sufficiently to allow the Axis open up a second front south of Stalingrad in 1941 and secure the soviet oil fields.

What do people think?

 

By putting all their ships in the Med. would'nt they be easy prey for Brit.bombers?

 

Hi FramerT,

I could be corrected on this but would high altitude bombers been effective against relatively small targets? Successful attacks on Battleships from the air were by low range torpedo planes.

 

There was probably not much of a reason for the Kreigsmarine to enter the med at the start of the war as italy was still technically neutral and thus not fighting was occuring in this theatre. And ewven if germany had entered the med in 1939 she would have had to deal with not only the Med flet of the RN but the French Fleet, which contained some of the world best battleships. It quite simpley would have been blown out of the water.

There wasn't much of a strategic reason to do this sought of operation. it wasn't inline with german strategy. The med was a sideshow to hitler something akin to Napoleons spanish 'ulcer' and then to then throw away the kreigmarine would have been lunacy.

 

But the scattering of the Kreigmarine effectively wasted it as a resource, building and maintatining a battleship is expensive, to0 expensive to have it sitting in Brest or a fjord in Norway. One of the basic of military tactics is to concentrate your forces.

What was the point of Germany building all these battle ships if they were never going to compete with the RN?


In the med with Gibralater in Axis hands would they not have ruled the med and potentially with Indian ocean (once they took the Suez Canal).

1939 would have been too early agreed but with a defeated France they could have taken the French Fleet aswell (prior to the Royal Navy sending it to the bottom).

 

But Hiter never considered the med important. I agree 1939 is too early. Reader didn't expect to go to war until 43 at the earliest. By the point the 'Z' plan would have been in full swing and the german navy could have concentrated in the North sea where it may have had an effect on british sea power.

 

Plus you gotta get Gibralter first...

Operation Felix, I believe...

But their aint no way the Spanish are ever gonna get involved in another war, their country was a wreck after the Civil War...

 

There may be small logistical issues also such as supplies and maintenance, not to mention defence of the German coast/Baltic, etc. The Graf Spee was an example of what the German navy could achieve, but it ended up being a one-way mission. Bringing ships back to German ports is also no minor issue as exeplified by the "Channel Dash" which seems to have been the only occaision of capital ships successfully returning to Germany from the Atlantic.

 

Logistically could they not use the Italian ports for supply, and with the Med closed to the Brits there would be nothing stopping the Germans from taking the Suez Canal and therefore a route into the Indian Ocean?

But I suppose the real stumbling block, like any what ifs, regarding Germany is: Hitler, Russia was his focus and although the Med was a proving ground to the Allies and important to the Italians, to Hitler it was a distraction, but a costly one in the end!

( I would have closed off the Med taken out North Africa, took the Suez, Palastine, Arabia and joined up with Japanese had siped Schnapps in India, and went on to rule the world, that would have been the plan anyway!)

 

Ahhhhh... The benefit of hindsight!

Hitler was going East... Nothing was gonna change his mind... But then he was bonkers!

But you gotta get the German ships to the Med in the first place... Round GB some way and a tussle with the RN in the North Sea or, god forbid, the Channel!

 

They did tussle with the RN, the Hood! Graf Spree Damaged a battleship badly, can't remember its name, weight of numbers and being cornered got it in the end.

I looking to some navy buffs out there but was the RN as 'invinicble as it thought' ie. Prince of Wales sunk by the Japanese springs to mind)

Was it practical to run the gauntlet of the Channel (Escape from Brest by 3 German Warships in broad daylight springs to mind) Get to the Med box it off from Atlantic approach and concentrate on defeating Allies in North Africa.

 

Not sure about this, But wasnt the Channel the most mined stretch of sea in the war???

Just bought Middlebrooks book on the sinking of the Prince of Wales AND Repulse...

Not too sure of the Kriegsmarine capability... I have to admit to knowing very little on Naval matters, Im a landlubber, but the Kriegsmarine always seems a little amatuerish to me, apart from those boys in the U-Boots. I mean they didnt get on too well in Norway... They had some nice ships but they didnt achieve much. Ok the Bismarck got a lucky hit on the Hood, but they seem to have been a pointless asset. How many tanks could you get out of a pocket battleship???

But I have to say I know very little, Im a track-head...

-

 

Red Baron thats my point, if you are going to invest in assets like:
Bismark
Tirptiz
Graff Spree Scu

 

Sorry something went seriously wrong there,

What I was saying was: If you invest in something like:

Bismark (sunk 1941)
Tripitz (sunk 1944)
Scharhorst(sunk)
Gneisenau (Scuttled March 1945)
Deutcshland (Scuttled 1945)
Graff Spree (scuttled 1939)

Why have them taken out piece meal, or scuttled to avoid capture. A complete waste, you are right you would be better putting that into tanks, but if you decide to build a Naval arm, use it.

Even though the channel was the most mined stretch of sea three German Warships dashed to Germany from Brestin daylight.

Again I am a land lubber and don't know anything about the German Navy Capabilities who is the resident Naval expert?

As a track-head, if you had a few tigers in 1940 would you have dispersed them along the western front against a Franco-British army that had superior amount of tanks or would you have concentrated your tigers into 1 fighting force and punched your way to Paris!

 

If I had Tiger Is in 1940 I would have laughed all the way to Paris!

 

Perhaps we need to examine German naval doctrine...

They seemed to have preferred the raider concept, a kinda hit and run naval force???

But group up all those ships and you get an impressive fleet, but were they all operational at the same time? and the other major failing is the lack of an aircraft carrier...

That suggests to me that the Germans never really took the idea of naval supremacy seriously. Just hoped to rely on U-Boats after the WW1 experience.

 

They wouldn't need an aircraft carrier in the Med and with Suez in German hands could raid out through the Indian Ocean.

I think you are right they didn't take Naval supremacy seriously and over relid on the U-boats. Was it the RN reputation that affected their strategy and was this reputation justified. At the out break of the war. The Mighty Hood was the best battleship in the world! Maybe it was the Royal Navies Reputation that dictated Germanies Raider strategy. Again any Navy guys out there that can put me on the straight and narrow on this one!

 

But i guess you dont need a navy to fight the Soviets... wonder if it all comes back to that...

But you would need an aircraft carrier once out of range of land based air cover, otherwise you would be in a very sticky situation for fleet battles...

 

OK RedBaron,

There is only one way to settle this! We have to refight the battle for the North Atlantic/Med in Miniature, Kreigsmarine V Royal Navy........another project is born!

I will see you on the open seas, land lubber!

 

The expansion of the German Navy until a point in which it could have successfully challenge the Royal Navy on the surface, the 'Z Plan' was to be completed in 1947 and Grand Admiral Raeder didn't expect war until the 1943. When it broke out in 1939 he said that with their matériel at the time they could only show how to go down with honour.

The Germans had 2 battleships in WWII and no carriers at all.

The Royal Navy had 17 battleships, 3 battle cruisers and 23 aircraft carriers.

Only the the sheer of numbers there was no way the Kriegsmarine could challenge British supremacy on the surface. And the Royal Navy was not strong because of numbers, it was strong because 300 years of naval tradition, having the best admirals, officers and sailors.

Raeder knew it, Hitler knew it, Göring knew it. The Royal Navy was no game, no wooden titan. To defeat it they had to play smarter, as they learned from WWI with their auxiliar cruisers, submarines and raiding warships.

It would have been idiotic to concentrate German naval forces. What for? Destroy the RN? Impossible. Even if it could have been destroyed, what for? Invasion? No way. The only way to starve Great Britain: using auxiliar cruisers, raiding battleships and unrestricted submarine warfare.

A common what-if of WWII is "what if the Bismarck would have joined the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen at Brest in 1941?" Simple: once they went out into the Atlantic they would have faced the entire British Home Fleet and all the German capital ships would have been destroyed all at once.

This is not true. The Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau returned to Brest after their Atlantic raid in which they sunk approximately 120.000 tons of British merchant shipping and whose hunting overextended the RN's resources.

The raids had two very important objectives: one tactical, one strategical. The tactical was to sink merchant ships and their escorts. The strategic was to pull capital ships away from other tasks and disrupt the RN's deployments. Example: the Bismarck hunt took aircraft carriers, battleships, cruisers and many destroyers away from protecting the convoys —April 1941 was the month of that year in which the U-boats sunk more ships—and from the Mediterranean —which at the time was trying to prevent a débâcle at Greece and Crete, trying to keep Malta supplied— and watching the Middle East against each time more agressive Japanese.

The Bismarck was sunk, but the strategical objective was achieved.

No. The armistice agreement clearly included that French warships were going to remain in French hands and not even one was to be given to the Germans. And in case the Germans would have tried to seize the ships, they would have been scuttled as they were scuttled at Toulon when Vichy was invaded in November 1942.

No, it didn't. It damaged a heavy cruiser, the HMS Exeter. But the Graf Spee also took severe damage because of her lack of armour.

Gibraltar? If it wasn't by land, there wasn't anyway the Germans could possibly take it. How would the much inferior German Navy could have travelled from German of French ports all the way down to Gibraltar without being seen? Unless the Italian Fleet would have got out of port at exactly the same time to keep the RN Mediterranean Fleet occupied, then all the British capital ships would have cut the German ships. Not to mention that a powerful British force was at Gibraltar and the Atlantic and Home fleets would have been sent there as well. And some one is forgetting that the strait is 8 km wide, is full of RN ships, airplanes and submarines… This is like saying, why not all the Japanese battleships went and bombed San Diego?

It was a lucky hit. The supership Bismarck was another creation of that little genious called Joseph Goebbels. At the time the Bismarck and the Prinz of Wales faced the Hood and the Prince of Wales, the Germans were under terrible inferiority, Germans: 8x15" and 8x8" against British 10x 14" and 8x15". The Bismarck was in fact not extremely superior to the King George V class or the Richelieu class battleships.

Again I think Goebbels is working again when you are talking about The Suez Canal, the Middle East and a link-up with the Japanese in India. All are forgetting that the Mediterranean was not decisive for German general strategy and that it all depended of the outcome of things in the USSR.

Without neutralising Malta, there are not enough supplies for Rommel in North Africa, without these supplies there is no victory parade in Alexandria, Cairo or Suez. And even in this case, there are not tanks nor lorries, nor men, nor anything to seize Haiffa, Jerusalem, Syria, Iraq, let alone India, 5.000 km away… and who says the Japanese could get into India?