Was building Bismarck and Tirpitz a mistake?

Discussions on all (non-biographical) aspects of the Kriegsmarine except those dealing with the U-Boat forces.
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LWD
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Re: Was building Bismarck and Tirpitz a mistake?

#211

Post by LWD » 02 Dec 2012, 03:49

RJ55 wrote: ... I disagree. Submarines made sense to Germany because as a continental nation the most obvious threat apart from the USSR was the UK & USA.
Based on recent and not so recent history France was a much bigger threat than the UK. The US was hardly any threat at all during the 30's. What's more building a bunch of subs was likely to turn the British into an enemy as I suggested. Take a look at the the Treaty of Versailes and then the British German naval treaty of the 30's. Note that the former denied Germany the right to build anyting bigger than 10,000 ton "armored" ships and the right to build submarines. The British German naval treaty essentially overturned the treaty of Versailes as it allowed for Germany to build not only battleships but submarines all be it in restricted numbers. If the Germans start building massive numbers of u boats prior to the treaty (which was likely not possible in any case) they are likely to get both the British and the French upset with them and remember the French during this period were willing to take action vs Germany. If they build up a large force after the treaty then it becomes apparent even earlier that Hitler can't be trusted and is almost guaranteed to get the British to start rebuilding their military considerably earlier.
Are you implying here that expensive surface raiders sunk more allied shipping than U-boats? Can I see some data on this?
I was implying no such thing. I meant what I said the merchant raiders were much more cost effective than the uboats. Compare either the tonnage of the merchant raiders to the tonnage sunk or the costs of the merchant raiders to the tonnage sunk then do the same for uboats and you'll see what I mean. In any case this is OT in this thread and has been dealt with a number of times. The search engine can be your friend. I suggest you learn how to use it.

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Re: Was building Bismarck and Tirpitz a mistake?

#212

Post by Nickuru » 05 Dec 2012, 19:27

The value of the Bismarck and the Tirpitz was that distracted the British from figuring out that the era of the battleship was over. Unknown, until the sinking of the Repulse and the Prince of Wales, air power had achieved supremacy on the sea as well as the land. Note the operations of the Condor Legion during the Spanish Civil War. The Bismarck and the Tirpitz kept Britain fixated on battleships.

That said, Lutjens of the Bismarck made two collosal blunders. Not refueling in Trondheim while he had the chance. True that was a lucky shot by the Prince of Wales which hit the fuel tanks. But the Prince of Wales had a quadruple turret jammed, had fires on board, and was fighting a losing battle after the Hood blew up. Lutjens should have gone after the Prince of Wales. This from 'Sink the Bismarck'.


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LWD
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Re: Was building Bismarck and Tirpitz a mistake?

#213

Post by LWD » 05 Dec 2012, 19:51

Nickuru wrote:.... Unknown, until the sinking of the Repulse and the Prince of Wales, air power had achieved supremacy on the sea as well as the land.
Arguably not. Carriers by themselves were quite vulnerable. Operations in northern waters in particular with long periods of darkness and inclimate weather made carrier operations somewhat problematic.
... That said, Lutjens of the Bismarck made two collosal blunders. Not refueling in Trondheim while he had the chance.
There were I believe some oilers at sea taking the time however to refuel would have meant that the British had more time to establish a picket line and get there ships in position. Had she waited Bismarck may have found herself faced by air raids from Victorious then engaging not just PoW and Hood but also KGV and Repulse.
... Lutjens should have gone after the Prince of Wales. ....
PoW was retreating at a speed as good or better than Bismarck could make and laying smoke as well. That makes targeting really difficult and if Bismarck wants to even keep the range then she can only use her forward guns. If it's clear that she's going after PoW then the latter would head for KGV, Repulse, and Victorious and likely could rondevous with her destroyer screen as well.

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bf109 emil
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Re: Was building Bismarck and Tirpitz a mistake?

#214

Post by bf109 emil » 22 Dec 2012, 07:42

The Bismarck and the Tirpitz kept Britain fixated on battleships.
not really as Britain was the first nation to use aircraft carriers and still produced them before, during and after Bismarck was sunk and Tirpitz planted in Norway...can you define fixated and what British ship building program was changed or substituted as a result of Germany having a Bismarck or Tirpitz.

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Re: Was building Bismarck and Tirpitz a mistake?

#215

Post by flyingdoctor » 21 Feb 2013, 19:53

WW2 made it clear battleships became obsolete. It was because they and other big ships could be sunk by airplanes.
After WW2 there havent been built many battleships. So in hindsite all battleships were costly misstakes.

Airplanes is best operated from land, because an iland is an unsinkabel aircraft carrier.
But if you want to rule on the open sees far from land, aircraft carriers are nessesary. But Hitler never had that ambition.

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mescal
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Re: Was building Bismarck and Tirpitz a mistake?

#216

Post by mescal » 21 Feb 2013, 20:04

WW2 made it clear battleships became obsolete. It was because they and other big ships could be sunk by airplanes.
What actually made the BB obsolete was partly the aircraft, but alsothe guided missile.
And it's not because they could be sunk that BB became obsolete, but because their weapons did not have the range to hit their targets.
Olivier

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Polar bear
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Re: Was building Bismarck and Tirpitz a mistake?

#217

Post by Polar bear » 21 Feb 2013, 20:24

hi,
flyingdoctor wrote: So in hindsite all battleships were costly misstakes.
Now, that´s true for a lot of other things, as well.
And the same statement came from the French "Jeune École" even before 1900 ...
flyingdoctor wrote: But if you want to rule on the open sees far from land, aircraft carriers are nessesary.
If you want to exercise military power on land from the sea, even more.

greetings, the pb
Peace hath her victories no less renowned than War
(John Milton, the poet, in a letter to the Lord General Cromwell, May 1652)

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LWD
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Re: Was building Bismarck and Tirpitz a mistake?

#218

Post by LWD » 21 Feb 2013, 20:52

flyingdoctor wrote:WW2 made it clear battleships became obsolete.
On the contrary it m ade it clear that they were not at the time. It did indicate that they were no longer cost effective post war.
It was because they and other big ships could be sunk by airplanes.
And they could be sunk by other battleships as could other ships big and small. It was proven a couple of times that definitily didn't want to be in a carrier that came under fire from a battleship.
After WW2 there havent been built many battleships. So in hindsite all battleships were costly misstakes.
While depending on how you count it there have only been one or two post WWIII battleships it does not follow that the WWII ones were costly mistakes. Most nations that had them got some considerable use out of them.
Airplanes is best operated from land, because an iland is an unsinkabel aircraft carrier.
And if your target is 2,000 miles from your nearest land base? It should also be noted that land based air didn't stand up well to US carrier launched raids.
But if you want to rule on the open sees far from land, aircraft carriers are nessesary.
It also helps if you want to force landings outside the range of your land based fighters. Or even want to raid opposing bases.

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vladalex
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Re: Was building Bismarck and Tirpitz a mistake?

#219

Post by vladalex » 22 Feb 2013, 14:11

It was proven a couple of times that definitily didn't want to be in a carrier that came under fire from a battleship.
It is a list with battleships sunk by planes in WWII, at the ship at wich I knew,
in the right of the ship-name I put the number of crew lost :

1. HMS Repulse-436 crew
2. HMS Prince of Wales-327 crew
3. Roma-1353 crew
4. INS Hiei-188 crew
5. INS Musashi-over 1000 crew
6. INS Yamato-2475 men
7. Greek Battleship Kilkis- ?
8. Greek Battleship Limnos-?
9. HNLMS De Zeven Provincien-?
10. USS Oklahoma-?
11. Schleswig-Holstein-?
12. Admiral Hipper-32 crew
13. INS Haruna-65 crew
14. INS Ise-?
15. Danish Battleship Niels Juel-?
16. Soviet Battleship Marat-?
17. Schlesien-?
18. Tirpitz-1204 crew
19. Bismarck-2200 crew

Please, continue with another list of aircraft-carriers sunk by battleship guns ...
Regards.

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mescal
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Re: Was building Bismarck and Tirpitz a mistake?

#220

Post by mescal » 22 Feb 2013, 14:52

Hello vladalex,

it's not to contest your point, but I would delete some ships from your sample :

Kilkis, Limnos, Schleswig Holstein, Schlesien had been battleships, but they were all badly outdated by the time of ww2. They had nowhere near the survivability of modern battleships.

De Zeven Provincien & Niels Juel were rated as coastal defense ship, not battleships.

Hiei would not have been sunk by aircraft - at least not when she was sunk - if she hadn't been severely damaged the night before by cruisers.

OTOH you may want to add Arizona and West Virginia, California and Nevada, as well as Gneisenau and Cavour.
And perhaps Hyuga.

And Admiral Hipper was a heavy cruiser.
Olivier

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Re: Was building Bismarck and Tirpitz a mistake?

#221

Post by Polar bear » 22 Feb 2013, 15:04

hi,
vladalex wrote:[
18. Tirpitz-1204 crew

Please, continue with another list of aircraft-carriers sunk by battleship guns ...
Regards.
losses on Tirpitz were, IIRC, 902

Glorious, 1204
Gambier Bay,

Greetings, the pb
Peace hath her victories no less renowned than War
(John Milton, the poet, in a letter to the Lord General Cromwell, May 1652)

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vladalex
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Re: Was building Bismarck and Tirpitz a mistake?

#222

Post by vladalex » 22 Feb 2013, 19:07

Thank you mescal and Polar bear,
Really this data's from you I do not know.
Best Regards,
VladAlex.


P.S. I write for you my primary source for the data that I posted.
Is possibly to interest you all.

Battleships sunk by country:
Imperial Japanese Navy: 10
Royal Navy: 7
Kriegsmarine: 6
United States Navy: 4
Italian Navy: 2
Norwegian Navy: 2
Greek Navy: 2
French Navy: 1
Finnish Navy: 1
Danish Navy: 1
Royal Dutch Navy: 1
Soviet Navy: 1

Total number of battleships serving: 96

Sunk by air attack, in port: 11
Sunk by air attack, in open water: 9
Sunk in surface combat: 8
Sunk by submarine: 3
Sunk by combination of surface and air attack: 2
Sunk by other: 5
Total sunk: 38

Battleships sunk as percentage of total battleship force:

Norwegian Navy: 2/2, 100%
Greek Navy: 2/2, 100%
Danish Navy: 1/1, 100%
Royal Dutch Navy: 1/1, 100%
Imperial Japanese Navy: 10/12, 83%
Kriegsmarine: 6/9, 66%
Finnish Navy: 1/2, 50%
Royal Navy: 7/20, 35%
Italian Navy: 2/7, 29%
Soviet Navy: 1/4, 25%
United States Navy: 4/27, 15%
French Navy: 1/10, 10%

Sources:
http://www.forcez-survivors.org.uk/
http://www.battleships-cruisers.co.uk/
http://www.history.navy.mil/
http://www.nps.gov/archive/usar/PHcas.html
http://www.hazegray.org/navhist/battleships/russ_dr.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_War_II_ships

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Terry Duncan
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Re: Was building Bismarck and Tirpitz a mistake?

#223

Post by Terry Duncan » 20 Mar 2013, 17:57

I am not too sure where you get to the total of seven battleships lost by the Royal Navy during WWII?

The Royal Navy lost 5 battleships in WWII. The losses were;

Royal Oak, 4th Oct 1939. Torpedoed by submarine.
Hood, 24th May 1941. Sunk by gunfire.
Barham, 25th Nov 1941. Torpedoed by submarine.
Repulse, 10th Dec 1941. Sunk by aircraft.
Prince of Wales, 10th Dec 1941. Sunk by aircraft.

Two forgotten battleships would make the total 22 during WWII, though they were not serving as major combat units in this time they did see action and active service, Iron Duke (training and depot ship) was beached to avoid sinking, but did not sink, and Centurion (decoy for Anson) went through the war until scuttled as a breakwater off Normandy. Even counting the conversions, Eagle, Courageous, Glorious as 'battleships' will not give the number of 7 lost, though only the first of these was a true battleship design, the other two being over-grown light cruisers.

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LWD
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Re: Was building Bismarck and Tirpitz a mistake?

#224

Post by LWD » 20 Mar 2013, 18:41

One could also argue that they only lost 3 as Hood and Repulse were battlecruisers.
The KM only had 4 battleships that I can think of the Twins, Bismarck and Tirpitz. The holdover WWI coastal battleships whouldn't count nor should the heavy cruisers/panzershiffe. That looks to me like it should apply to other countries as well.
Wasn't one of the Italian battleships sunk twice? How do you count that?

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Re: Was building Bismarck and Tirpitz a mistake?

#225

Post by Terry Duncan » 20 Mar 2013, 20:35

Battleships may well have been obsolete by 1939, but a force with one had little to fear from an enemy surface force that lacked one. Glorious would certainly have done better if she had had a battleship escort at the time of her loss. Fisher thought the battleships and battlecruisers obsolete in 1919 (if not far earlier) but there was little or no evidence to support this, and the airplanes of the time struggled to sink tied up targets in less than fair tests. Even by 1939 nobody had really demonstrated a battleship was not able to hold its own at sea against aircraft, and if you look at the US and British battleships in the Pacific in 1945 they were still safe as part of an integrated force. The role they performed had been taken over by other craft though, and it was in this that their doom was sealed as they played no role another less expensive ship could not fulfill. Add to that the fact that only three nations had credible battleships by 1946 and therefore there were no enemy battleships to defend against and there is little case for keeping them in service, they have become a luxury from the past.

Having said that, the Bismarck and Tirpitz were intended for use in the North Sea and nearby areas such as the Arctic seas where carriers tend to be useless due to darkness and bad weather.

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