How would you improve the Kriegsmarine

[Terje Langoy]

G´day all

What a pleasant surprise to see you back at the forums, Richard. Long time, no see...

By January 1933 the Ersatz Programme still motored German reconstruction plans, steering the course set by the treaty. The long term strategy laid by Admiral Erich Raeder and Defence Minister Kurt von Schleicher only months earlier acted as compass when the first discussions were to commence on their fourth and fifth replacement ships, the Elsass and Hessen. As depicted by their recent agreement it was to build further on the current design.

Seeing this is a hypothetical proposition I can of course choose not to continue that programme and drop the Schleicher plan altogether but Im still not free to design and order whatever ship the heart desire. A new naval treaty has to be negotiated first. However the Deutschland is a nontraditional design significant well beyond its fighting abilities and has managed to upset the fragile fleet balance set by various international naval agreements. So forth a renewed naval agreement is likely to be made in order to save the idea of diplomatic armaments control, especially if I opt to continue the construction of these ships. While the treaty is in effect Im confined to its limits and therefore would probably continue with this type of ships until a new agreement can be made. If we set deadline for a new naval treaty in 1935 we will have the choice to either add two Deutschland designs (Gröners “D-class”) or cause the same delay as historical by upgrading the existing designs D and E.

That being said Im not gonna bother to make any alternative reconstruction strategy or for that matter specify any desirable ship types to be built. Instead I will permit the navy to be rebuilt as it was - seeing Im of the opinion the navy itself is not the problem. It is the overall strategy and command structure in need of improvement.


Best regards

[José M. Rico]

Hello Terje,
You always post very interesting comments here.
I think now it would be more appropriate to set the starting date for this hypothetical scenario to June 1935 when Anglo-German Naval Agreement was signed, thus allowing the German Navy to build a surface fleet of up to 35 per cent of that of Britain and up to 45 per cent in the case of submarines.

[Tiornu]

Thanks, good to be back
Maybe it's best to articulate what the navy's role is before we start building ships for the sake of building ships.
1. Coast Defense
2. Command of the Baltic
3. Amphibious operations in the Baltic
4. Jeune ecole in the Atlantic
What do you think?

[José M. Rico]

Richard, that sounds reasonable to me. In fact, except for amphibious operations in the Baltic, the German Navy performed roles #1 #2 and #4 historically.

[lwd]

.... Don't start a war unless you can finish it. And you can only finish Britain and the US with naval power and naval supremacy.

Of course this could lead to the conclusion that it isn't a good idea to start a war with the above and so build a navy for other pruposes and rely on diplomacy to avoid a hopeless battle for the KM.

Firstly - U-boats are the most obvious and potent weapon. But concentrating all efforts on that by mass production would be noticed abroad, seen as a hostile act, so countermeasures are taken before the war can start. That U-boats only strategy won't work. Instead it would be better to concentrate resources on developing a true submersible, a sub that can move fast underwater and stay submerged for at least twice as long as the then conventional submarines, all done in utmost secrecy.

A combination of working on advanced boats and the means to produce them would be a good idea. The produciton facilities might be disguiseable as something else.

Secondly, in 1934 the British agreed to Germany building to 35% of the strength of the RN and 45% in submarines. This must be the Fuhrer's trump card, the agreement Nazi Germany sticks too.
Starting in 1935 - the year Hitler reintroduced military conscription - the Fuhrer instructs Raeder to submit a detailed plan for KM construction right up to the treaty limit, with a six year time scale. Raeder is also told the the British must be consulted about German construction so that they approve the plans - to prevent British countermeasures.

Just because the British are well aware of what's going on doesn't mean they won't react to it. Indeed 3 Bismarck class vessels and a deteriating international situation isn't going to make the RN feel all that comfortable.

.... They are there not only to sink merchant ships, but also to lure patrolling enemy cruisers to destruction Sydney style.

That was a fluke and if there are more of them out there that are more dangerous it is unlikly to happen.

... With such a force, the Fuhrer can start his war at the end of 1941 instead of 1939. And the extra two years waiting will allow the Luftwaffe to develop strategic heavy bombers and the Heer beefed up Panzer divisions.

If he can hold off for two years then why not avoid fighting Britain at all like he wanted to? Afterall his long term goal is defeating the USSR and controlling the Ukraine. He doesn't need strategic bombers or a much stronger navy to do this if he can avoid war in the west.

[RF]

The 6" guns you describe would have to be fully automatic to achive that rate of fire. The USN and the RN finally were able to field fully automatic 6" guns post war. IMO you might as well give them nuclear submarines and modern jet aircraft, and they sure wouldn't put them on expendable ships, considering the huge development cost and the weight involved.

Well, not quite.

Both hilfskreuzer Thor and Kormoran achieved firing rates of six seconds per salvo with WW1 or earlier guns which of course had to be hand loaded. Therefore development of a mechanism to load shells and eject shell casings in a cycle of four seconds should be within the realms of possibility.

The thread was about improving the Kriegsmarine. I have offered a detailed prognosis of doing so. If people wish to debate specific narrow points so be it, it simply causes the thread to head off in a tangent in the direction of ''off topic''. But nobody so far has actually addressed my proposals as a whole.

[RF]

.... Don't start a war unless you can finish it. And you can only finish Britain and the US with naval power and naval supremacy.

Of course this could lead to the conclusion that it isn't a good idea to start a war with the above and so build a navy for other pruposes and rely on diplomacy to avoid a hopeless battle for the KM.

That of course is the failsafe strategy. The thread after all was about improving the KM. it didn't acyually specify winning a world war although that was implied.

[RF]

Just because the British are well aware of what's going on doesn't mean they won't react to it. Indeed 3 Bismarck class vessels and a deteriating international situation isn't going to make the RN feel all that comfortable.

The British reacted anyway - by constructing the KGV class.

In reality the British were aware of Bismarck and Tirpitz, and after Hitler cancelled the Anglo-German naval agreement in April 1939 because of the British guarantee to Poland, the British would have expected even bigger battleships to be constructed. If under my hypothesis they knew only one more of that class was to be built I think there would be less alarm, particulary if Hitler had delayed his moves on Czechoslovakia to after 1938. The British indeed might be more concerned about the Japanese.

[RF]

That was a fluke and if there are more of them out there that are more dangerous it is unlikly to happen.

It was a fluke which happened once.....and there were several instances before and after it where an Allied ship passed very close to an enemy merchant ship, which if it had been armed as Kormoran was would very likely have seen a repeat performance. Two such instances involved the minelayer Doggerbank in early 1942, just after Sydney was sunk, when Allied captains would be expected to be alert to such danger....

The British intelligence assessments of the hilfskreuzer during WW2 actually overstated their capabilities, not realising that they were not purpose built ships and that they carried old guns. It wasn't until after WW2 that the Heath-Robinson nature of these ships came out.

In WW1 the Germans knew about the British Q-ships out to trap U-boats. The U-boat captains still managed to get caught out, some of them more than once, and U-boats continued to be lost. One U-boat captain went on to be a hilfskreuzer commander.

Unlikely to happen? In war one must always be ready for the unexpected.

[lwd]

Firing rates of hand loaded weapons actually seem to have been a little faster than machine loaded ones in some ranges. The US 5/38 for instance achieved rates of 20 rds/minute or greater in a few cases (that's 3 seconds per salvo). The question is how long the crew can keep it up and can you keep the ammo available. The 5.9" gun has projectiles and cases about twice the weight of a 5" 38 with the projectile weighing in at almost 100 lbs. A well trained crew should be able to handle such rounds for a little while but will tire quickly. The German 128mm gun might provide a better solution if a high rate of fire is desired. It also could serve as an AA weapon. The fixed ammo might allow for mechanical loading at fairly high rates as well.

[RF]

... With such a force, the Fuhrer can start his war at the end of 1941 instead of 1939. And the extra two years waiting will allow the Luftwaffe to develop strategic heavy bombers and the Heer beefed up Panzer divisions.

If he can hold off for two years then why not avoid fighting Britain at all like he wanted to? Afterall his long term goal is defeating the USSR and controlling the Ukraine. He doesn't need strategic bombers or a much stronger navy to do this if he can avoid war in the west.

The war in the West could never be avoided forever - because Hitler in Mein Kampf specifically said that defeat of France and recovery of Alsace-Lorraine was one of his objectives.

Defeating the USSR - Hitler needed long range heavy bombers to attack the Soviet munitions industry in the Urals - and he didn't have them.
If you fight a continental scale of war, then you need a continental reach.

[RF]

Firing rates of hand loaded weapons actually seem to have been a little faster than machine loaded ones in some ranges. The US 5/38 for instance achieved rates of 20 rds/minute or greater in a few cases (that's 3 seconds per salvo). The question is how long the crew can keep it up and can you keep the ammo available. The 5.9" gun has projectiles and cases about twice the weight of a 5" 38 with the projectile weighing in at almost 100 lbs. A well trained crew should be able to handle such rounds for a little while but will tire quickly. The German 128mm gun might provide a better solution if a high rate of fire is desired. It also could serve as an AA weapon. The fixed ammo might allow for mechanical loading at fairly high rates as well.

The issue of 12.8 cm versus 15 cm is one of penetration and not just rapid firing rates. The guns need to disable armoured cruisers at very close range, or at least knock out the command and firing posts.

[lwd]

... The thread after all was about improving the KM. it didn't acyually specify winning a world war although that was implied.

But if it doesn't affect the war how do we really judge it as improved? Indeed one argument I've seen proposed is that there wasn't a well developed plan of just what was desired out of the KM. Tiornu's post above is an attempt to define what the KM's role would be in such a conflict so that one can decide whether any changes are really improvements. For instance if you are going to use the German heavy curisers in the Baltic then there tempermental propulsion systems and short range are not signigicant factors. If you are going to use them as raiders in the Atlantic then they are very significant.

That was a fluke and if there are more of them out there that are more dangerous it is unlikly to happen.

It was a fluke which happened once.....and there were several instances before and after it where an Allied ship passed very close to an enemy merchant ship, which if it had been armed as Kormoran was would very likely have seen a repeat performance. ....

That doesn't mean that hunting warships is an efficient use of such ships. Indeed it's likely to mean they are sunk much faster and don't have as much of an impact on merchant vessels.

[lwd]

Firing rates of hand loaded weapons actually seem to have been a little faster than machine loaded ones in some ranges. The US 5/38 for instance achieved rates of 20 rds/minute or greater in a few cases (that's 3 seconds per salvo). The question is how long the crew can keep it up and can you keep the ammo available. The 5.9" gun has projectiles and cases about twice the weight of a 5" 38 with the projectile weighing in at almost 100 lbs. A well trained crew should be able to handle such rounds for a little while but will tire quickly. The German 128mm gun might provide a better solution if a high rate of fire is desired. It also could serve as an AA weapon. The fixed ammo might allow for mechanical loading at fairly high rates as well.

The issue of 12.8 cm versus 15 cm is one of penetration and not just rapid firing rates. The guns need to disable armoured cruisers at very close range, or at least knock out the command and firing posts.

But aren't 128mm guns capable of such? Indeed just a quick look at the wiki page at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12.8_cm_Pak_44
Shows the 128mm PAK 44 as capable of penetrating 5.8" of armor at 2,000 yards where
http://www.navweaps.com/index_nathan/Pe ... ermany.htm
inidicates the 5.9" gun as having 6" to just under 10" of effective penetration at that range. Looks to me like the 128mm gun has enough penetration to take on at least British cruisers at "very close range".

[Tiornu]

The rapid-fire 15cm gun is a dead-end. Let's say it's feasible--so what? It won't make one bit of difference in the war.
As for the merits of the idea, look at the guns that actually served in WWII. Wouldn't someone have built the gun if it was possible? It's not like people weren't looking for rapid fire in their 6in guns. It's just that "rapid" turned out to be a sustainable 10 rpm. Postwar, the Worcester class mega-CLs managed 12 rpm with guns intended for AA fire.