Why bring kriegmarine?

[damo74]

To the OP: 

 

As others have already noted the Kaiserliche Marine during the Great War was bluntly put the second most powerful in the world, and it's growth being one of the principal reasons the United Kingdom sided with the Entente rather than the Central Powers. It can be argued their successes were somewhat muted, but that was not due to poor ship design or even lack of skill on part of the officers, but because of the tight rope they had to walk politically. The Army would always have first pick of resources and the Americans were making noises about not liking the submarine warfare the Germans were doing.

 

In World War II they were a lot less important, but still a major player.

 

As opposed to the French who stayed in Port during the Great War and lost most of their fleet in the second war after being Blitzkrieg!

 

Regardless of whether the German high seas fleet was powerful or not. there was never any possibility of Great Britain siding with the central powers. Had Germany not directly challenged British command of the sea, Britain may have remained neutral.

[Olligarchy]

 

Regardless of whether the German high seas fleet was powerful or not. there was never any possibility of Great Britain siding with the central powers. Had Germany not directly challenged British command of the sea, Britain may have remained neutral.

 

I'll concede that Britain joining the Central Powers was quite unlikely, though that would depend on where in history we want to set our PoD (Point of Divergence). It's not like the UK didn't have it's own share of quarrels with France and Russia over colonies in Africa and India, and if they didn't feel so threatened by Wilhelm II's blustering and aggressive construction of the High Seas Fleet, it is possible they'd have stayed out of the war completely.

 

Regardless of if they join CP or choose to be neutral, the Central Powers will win the war, in essence meaning the Brits chose to side with Germany! 

[morti271]

since they got no good boat(historicly speaking)  and french or british boat would have made more sense...?

 

simply put german ship were badly designed (slow unarmored and bad rudder conception) ship not because of illwill but becasue of ressource scarcity they couldn't make good boat because boat are a ressource sink , reason why they failled on sea (add a bit of number disavantage  and kriegsmarine simply is useless.

 

Yeah right, ask why they added the Kriegsmarine, because adding the famous russian navy was obvious

[Olligarchy]

 

Yeah right, ask why they added the Kriegsmarine, because adding the famous russian navy was obvious

 

Hey! 

 

Don't diss on the Russo-Soviet navy! They like.... -almost- managed to blockade Finland, a true naval superpower! 

 

[C4PT41N_0BV10US]

well, they sure as hell kicked German butts at Baltic campaign during WW I. 

[Olligarchy]

well, they sure as hell kicked German butts at Baltic campaign during WW I. 

 

How do you figure? The Baltic campaign of the Great War was pretty static all things considered and the losses came to be just about equal, despite the UK having sent modern submarines to help the Russians?

 

And the single actual battle of said front, Battle of Moon Sound was a decisive German victory... mostly due to larger numbers, but still!

[C4PT41N_0BV10US]

Actually, no. That's what you can read on wikipedia. When you dig more on the subject you will find German loses were a lot heavier. Albatross, Friedrich Carl, Prinz Adalbert, Magdeburg (very heavy loss, as it turned out), whole fleet of fairly new torpedo boats lost on mines, Moltke and Bayern damaged heavily during operation Albion, and a lot of other ships lost on mines or to subs. And actually for two grand prize ships of Russian Fleet - Pallada and Slava. I can give you a headcount later, but it was really a pyrrus victory, if a victory at all. 

 

oh oh! Did you know, that Moon Sound battle was one of the first, if not THE first battle when all three warfare tools were used at once? Army, Aircraft and Fleet? Worth remembering

[Olligarchy]

I'm basing my sourcing on Paul Halpern's "A Naval History of World War 1", @Dropsiq. Wikipedia can be a quick gauge for facts, but it's not an accurate source of information in the long term.

 

Even in his own book where Halpern is rather pro-Russian he even he doesn't pretend that the Moon Sound was anything, but a defeat. We can argue the semantics of what kind of victory it was for quite a long time, but the long and short of it was the Baltic campaign was a sideshow for Germany and the losses there didn't really affect their performance elsewhere overtly much.

 

But yes, I am always open to talking about naval history. 

[C4PT41N_0BV10US]

Halpern! Loved that book. Those obscure fights with monitors and literaly "boats", in Serbia was a revelation to me. But, with all respect to Halpern, he doesn't focus on calculating loses. A lot of German loses were due to mines and very active mine operation performed by Russian Fleet - which aren't really highlighted by Halpern. The loss of 10th flotilla in November for example? I don't really remember if such facts are mentioned in Halpern, who tended to look in a wider perspective, not dealing with details. Which is ok, but can be misleading. 

 

Albion operation was a "succesfull" one - in terms German fulfilled their task - taking Moon Islands. But in grand scheme of things - it was just a "muscle flex". It didn't change anything. They applied a lot of force (withdrawing a lot of precious ships from North Sea btw - an important fact, often glossed over). 

 

Now, I'm a great fan of German Navy and I applaud their ship design, pragmatism and tactical genious (same goes for other navies). But you have to give credit when credit is due - and despite having numerous warships available - german campaign at Baltic was very poorly executed (mainly because of incompetent high command), and very proactive and energetic Russian commander. It reminds me of Russian - Finland conflict before WW II. After all Soviets won, but at what cost?

[Olligarchy]

Yeah, Halpern's book does tend to take a pretty wide view of things and I always got the feeling he thought all of the naval commanders of the era were all seeing geniuses who understood the ramifications of every move before even making them... you know as opposed to men with their own foibles and failings! But I've kept it on my reading list for a long time mostly because it's one of the few books on the topic that actually focuses on all the 'fronts'.

 

You're also absolutely right about the ramifications, though I have to sorta disagree with the "outcome."

 

Certainly, the Baltic front expended a lot of Kaiserliche marine resources that could've been spent on the North Sea... but the wider perspective Halpern himself gave us reveals that even if Vice Admiral Erhard Schmidt had been a strategic genius and won the battle without taking a single casualty, it wouldn't have mattered much. The Royal Navy when combined with assistance from the US Navy and French navy was more than a match for the Kaiserliche marine and nothing they could've done could've actually won the war for them.

 

But yeah... both Russian and German fleets did their duty and did it admirably and deserve all the praise they can get for actually making themselves relevant in countries which were principally interested in Land Armies!

[Getzamatic]

The thing is, I don't think the Kaiseliche marine's resources would have been "better spent" in the North sea.  Operation Albion and the occupation of Estonia helped force the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, taking a major combatent out of the war and improving Germanies chances against the Western allies.  It may have been costly, but it was a successful operation that materially effected the outcome of the war.  By contrast, further demonstrations in the North Sea would have achieved nothing.  By 1917 the Grand Fleet would not be drawn out unless they sortied dangerously far north - at which point the Germans were enough far from their bases to risk annihilation - and at lower lattitudes the principle threats were mines and submarines.

[psl_58]

 

Regardless of whether the German high seas fleet was powerful or not. there was never any possibility of Great Britain siding with the central powers. Had Germany not directly challenged British command of the sea, Britain may have remained neutral.

 

 

 Funny thing is that Tirpitz original concept of the Hochseeflotte was to prevent the RN from pulling another Copenhagen attack.

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Copenhagen_(1807)

 

 

 Thus no such enemy would risk an engagement. Privately Tirpitz acknowledged that a second risk existed: that Britain, seeing its growing enemy might choose to strike first, might destroy the German fleet before it grew to a dangerous size. A similar course had been taken before, when Lord Nelson sank Danish ships to prevent them falling into French hands, and would be again in the Second World War when French ships were sunk at Mers-el-Kébir to prevent them falling into German hands. A term, to Copenhagenise, even existed in English for this. Tirpitz calculated this danger period would end in 1904 or 1905. In the event, Britain responded to the increased German building programme by building more ships herself and the theoretical danger period extended itself to beyond the start of the Great War. As a reward for the successful bill Tirpitz was ennobled with the hereditary particle of von before his name in 1900.^[10]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_von_Tirpitz

 

So it takes two saber rattlers to have an arms race.

 

[Tigger3]

 

 

 Funny thing is that Tirpitz original concept of the Hochseeflotte was to prevent the RN from pulling another Copenhagen attack.

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Copenhagen_(1807)

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_von_Tirpitz

 

So it takes two saber rattlers to have an arms race.

 

 

Even then Britain was still looking at France and Russia with their cruiser building programs (thought of as commerce raiders) along with the US which meant the RN required more cruisers for commerce protection, those cruisers (and the later battle cruisers which were almost an offshoot of the heavy armoured cruisers), were built for durability, range and speed with a good rapid fire battery (mostly 6" QF guns but supplemented with 7.5" and 9.2" chasers).

 

It was not just the big ships involved nor Germany 

[psl_58]

 

Even then Britain was still looking at France and Russia with their cruiser building programs (thought of as commerce raiders) along with the US which meant the RN required more cruisers for commerce protection, those cruisers (and the later battle cruisers which were almost an offshoot of the heavy armoured cruisers), were built for durability, range and speed with a good rapid fire battery (mostly 6" QF guns but supplemented with 7.5" and 9.2" chasers).

 

It was not just the big ships involved nor Germany

 

  Sure but what that essentially means is the British Empire was unwilling to coexist with any other naval power -be it US/Russia/France, to say nothing of Germany...that was the real problem. It seems it took a world war to sort that out.

[Getzamatic]

Co

 

  Sure but what that essentially means is the British Empire was unwilling to coexist with any other naval power -be it US/Russia/France, to say nothing of Germany...that was the real problem. It seems it took a world war to sort that out.

 

As an island nation and maritime trade empire, the Royal Navy was the bedrock of the British Empire.  The continental powers all had considereably more potent armies than Britain because they had borderlands to defend (or attack), whereas the Royal Navy was tasked with the protecting the British Isles from invasion and also protecting her overseas trade - it was the very foundation of Britain's wealth and security.  Under such circumstances, it would be absolute folly to allow a potentially hostile empire to build a competitive naval force.

[damo74]

 

 

 Funny thing is that Tirpitz original concept of the Hochseeflotte was to prevent the RN from pulling another Copenhagen attack.

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Copenhagen_(1807)

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_von_Tirpitz

 

So it takes two saber rattlers to have an arms race.

 

 

I have read that Jackie Fisher, the first sea lord at the time did urge such a pre-emptive attack on the high seas fleet, but was strongly rebuked by the King.

[Comrad_StaIin]

Maybe the Kriegsmarine had bad ships

But the ships of the Kaiserliche Marine were great

[psl_58]

Maybe the Kriegsmarine had bad ships

But the ships of the Kaiserliche Marine were great

 

  Most of the critical posts on this form recently refer to German cruisers - and most of those are WW-I models.

[wedgeGTX]

since they got no good boat(historicly speaking)  and french or british boat would have made more sense...?

 

simply put german ship were badly designed (slow unarmored and bad rudder conception) ship not because of illwill but becasue of ressource scarcity they couldn't make good boat because boat are a ressource sink , reason why they failled on sea (add a bit of number disavantage  and kriegsmarine simply is useless.

 

Lol, check Prinz Eugen (Admiral Hipper-class), she took a big part at sinking of the Hood and also heavily damaged Prince of Wales. Next to Nürnberg the only large German ship survived the war. US used the ship for testing 2 A-bombs at Bikini atoll. The result: Prinz Eugen was moored about 1,200 yards (1,100 m) from the epicenter of both blasts and was only lightly damaged by them; the Able blast only bent her foremast and broke the top of her main mast.She suffered no significant structural damage from the explosions but was thoroughly contaminated with radioactive fallout. 

 

[Getzamatic]

 

  Most of the critical posts on this form recently refer to German cruisers - and most of those are WW-I models.

 

There are three WWI ships in the German Cruiser line - Dresden, Kolberg and Karlsruhe.  Of the three, Dresden is good. Kolberg is redundant rather than bad and only Karlsruhe is genuinely dreadful - and I'd argue the Kolberg and Karlsruhe are actually victims of bad tier design rather than anything else.

[psl_58]

Co

 

As an island nation and maritime trade empire, the Royal Navy was the bedrock of the British Empire.  The continental powers all had considereably more potent armies than Britain because they had borderlands to defend (or attack), whereas the Royal Navy was tasked with the protecting the British Isles from invasion and also protecting her overseas trade - it was the very foundation of Britain's wealth and security.  Under such circumstances, it would be absolute folly to allow a potentially hostile empire to build a competitive naval force.

 

But it is equally logical to expect every other sea faring nation not to accept such hegemony and to challenge RN world naval supremacy . I gather even America viewed the problem that way.

 

BTW since several of the German top tier cruisers are fictions and I can't find any references to Hermelin. So that leaves 3 WW-II cruisers and 3-WW-I cruiser. Most of the complaints are about the WW-I type. That is 1/2 of the types.

[ReinhardVonUhlig]

Maybe the Kriegsmarine had bad ships

But the ships of the Kaiserliche Marine were great

 

Considering the Germans had to start new in a dramatically changing time frame, where air power was introduced, their ships did more than well....if anyone, the RN ships were shown to be overrated.....

 

[Getzamatic]

 

Considering the Germans had to start new in a dramatically changing time frame, where air power was introduced, their ships did more than well....if anyone, the RN ships were shown to be overrated.....

 

 

Which Royal Navy ships were shown to "overrated" in WW2?  The ships that didn't perform well were known to have weaknesses.  The rest either did exactly what was expected of them or actually over-performed.  Pretty much the only ship you reasonably point this accusation at was HMS Hood, but you can thank the contemporary media for that - the Royal Navy was well aware of her weaknesses which is why they had such a comprehensive rebuild planned for her.

 

Now, some of the US and Japanese ships like the Iowas and Yamatos were "overrated" because they carry reputations that they didn't do much to achieve.

[ReinhardVonUhlig]

 

Which Royal Navy ships were shown to "overrated" in WW2?  The ships that didn't perform well were known to have weaknesses.  The rest either did exactly what was expected of them or actually over-performed.  Pretty much the only ship you reasonably point this accusation at was HMS Hood, but you can thank the contemporary media for that - the Royal Navy was well aware of her weaknesses which is why they had such a comprehensive rebuild planned for her.

 

Now, some of the US and Japanese ships like the Iowas and Yamatos were "overrated" because they carry reputations that they didn't do much to achieve.

 

Excuses, they got mauled left and right by enemy ships and fleets they should have wiped out, considering the historical reputation they like to boast with.

 

The Royal navy in all of its wisdom decided to send PoW and HOOD vs the newer Bismarck and Prinz Eugen, and the Hood sank...they thought their ships were still more than able to defeat the German ones...they werent.

 

Performed well vs whom, the Italians.....what a joke.

 

RN had 3 big advantages over the Kriegsmarine

 

Raw number of ships

Geography and ports

and when everything started to crumble...the US

 

At the end of the day they scored a pyhric victory, and thats one of the reasons why GB lost its superpower status after ww2.

 

 

Iowa and Yamato  were born at the end of the line, and judging them the same way you do ships just 3 years earlier is unfair.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[piritskenyer]

The amount of stupid in this thread is astonishing...

 

 

Excuses, they got mauled left and right by enemy ships and fleets they should have wiped out, considering the historical reputation they like to boast with.

 

The Royal navy in all of its wisdom decided to send PoW and HOOD vs the newer Bismarck and Prinz Eugen, and the Hood sank...they thought their ships were still more than able to defeat the German ones...they werent.

 

Performed well vs whom, the Italians.....what a joke.

 

RN had 3 big advantages over the Kriegsmarine

 

Raw number of ships

Geography and ports

and when everything started to crumble...the US

 

At the end of the day they scored a pyhric victory, and thats one of the reasons why GB lost its superpower status after ww2.

 

 

Iowa and Yamato  were born at the end of the line, and judging them the same way you do ships just 3 years earlier is unfair.

 

Mauled left and right? Oh right. The only opponent which truly mauled them were the Japanese. The Germans? Not so much. The U-boats kicked off the war pretty effectively, but I'd hardly call a submarine campaign with a 75% loss ratio successful.

 

Why are you even complaining about the decisions the RN made? They were perfectly logical. They sent what they had available against Bismarck (FYI Prince of Wales finished fitting out almost a year after Bismarck - who's the old ship now?). Did they sink Bismarck? They did. Did they lose a ship (that was at risk of being sunk anyway - because that's the nature of a naval engagement, dummy! - and was scheduled for a complete overhaul)? They did.

They sent older ships along for the too, why may that be? Oh right. Because they had older ships. Because they had already beaten the Germans once on sea. 

 

Something you don't seem to grasp here: Ships aren't selected for engagements based on their age. They are selected based on capabilities.