Plan Z

Discussions on all (non-biographical) aspects of the Kriegsmarine except those dealing with the U-Boat forces.
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Takao
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Re: 149,500 sq. ft. of space

#136

Post by Takao » 10 Apr 2011, 21:35

nebelwerferXXX wrote:
nebelwerferXXX wrote:What's the total cost estimates (roughly) in building the 1,150 ft x 130 ft Dry Dock 'Elbe 17'?
Dry Dock 'Elbe 17': Enough to dry-dock two x 42,000-ton Bismarck-Class battleships at most.
What in the world are you talking about?

If the cost of Elbe 17 is the same as the cost of dry-docking the Bismarck twice, great, but what is the cost of dry docking the Bismarck...

If you mean that you can fit two Bismarcks in Elbe 17. Hardly... The Bismarck was 820 feet 4 inches in length and 118 feet 1 inch wide. To fit two Bismarcks, Elbe 17 would have to be 1,650 feet long or 250 feet wide. about the only way to fit two Bismarcks in Elbe 17 is to cut them up into itty bitty pieces.

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Re: 149,500 sq. ft. of space

#137

Post by nebelwerferXXX » 10 Apr 2011, 23:51

Takao wrote:
nebelwerferXXX wrote:
nebelwerferXXX wrote:What's the total cost estimates (roughly) in building the 1,150 ft x 130 ft Dry Dock 'Elbe 17'?
Dry Dock 'Elbe 17': Enough to dry-dock two x 42,000-ton Bismarck-Class battleships at most.
What in the world are you talking about?

If the cost of Elbe 17 is the same as the cost of dry-docking the Bismarck twice, great, but what is the cost of dry docking the Bismarck...

If you mean that you can fit two Bismarcks in Elbe 17. Hardly... The Bismarck was 820 feet 4 inches in length and 118 feet 1 inch wide. To fit two Bismarcks, Elbe 17 would have to be 1,650 feet long or 250 feet wide. about the only way to fit two Bismarcks in Elbe 17 is to cut them up into itty bitty pieces.
That's why I'm asking it to start a discussion. I know, it's impossible to dry-dock a whole 2 x Bismarck-Class in Elbe 17. Thanks for the reaction anyway.


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Takao
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Re: Plan Z

#138

Post by Takao » 11 Apr 2011, 02:51

Except that square footage really doesn't matter. You could, not that anyone would want to, build a dry dock that is 400ft x 400ft for 160,000 square feet, except you could not fit a Bismarck in it.

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20 submarines

#139

Post by nebelwerferXXX » 11 Apr 2011, 05:16

I believed that the 149,500-sq. ft. 'Elbe 17' can handle the dry-docking of 20 Type IXB submarines simultaneously.

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LWD
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Re: Plan Z

#140

Post by LWD » 11 Apr 2011, 09:01

Why would you want to drydock 20 subs at the same time?

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20 submarines

#141

Post by nebelwerferXXX » 11 Apr 2011, 10:31

Perhaps for preventive maintenance purposes...? or what scope of action plan to be taken...?

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Re: Middle deck details

#142

Post by nebelwerferXXX » 12 Apr 2011, 12:25

nebelwerferXXX wrote: Close-up plan view of the superstructure of the Bismarck...
DSC00197.JPG
DSC00197.JPG (139.62 KiB) Viewed 3006 times

varjag
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Re: Plan Z

#143

Post by varjag » 12 Apr 2011, 13:08

Amongst all the armour, shipyards, guns and numbers - two points about, even the unfinished Z-Plan.
1) Even the limited number of surface ships available to Germany, proved a huge problem to fuel.....from late 1941 there were strict limitations on allocations of fuel-oil to cruisers, destroyers and battle-wagons. The end result, was that most of them spent most of the time in port or at anchor. Any foray, was of short duration - which gave their crews little chance to adjust their inner-ears to seasickness......

2) This factor alone must have affected their operational performance when they on rare occasions - actually went to sea.
Germany had a limited number of ''old salts'' from northern ports, that were far to few to crew Raeder's and Dönitz's fleets - let alone a fully built Z-Plan armada.
The 10-20 days at sea, that is the average for a ''landlubber'' to adjust to the rock-n-roll on the oceans - was freely granted to the sailors in the American & British navies.
With the exception of U-Boat, Hilfzkreuzer and small ships/notably mine-sweeper, crews I claim the operations of German surface ships was severely hampered by greenhorns - whose faces had the same colour.

Varjag

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140 ships and submarines of 532,000 tons

#144

Post by nebelwerferXXX » 27 Jul 2011, 07:00

nebelwerferXXX wrote:The Z-plan schedule of work program:

The 1941 Program:
---2 x 30,000-ton aircraft carriers...60,000 tons

The 1943 Program:
---4 x 10,000-ton heavy cruisers...40,000 tons
---128 x 750-ton submarines...96,000 tons

The 1944 Program:
---6 x 56,000-ton battleships...336,000 tons
My view if completed, these 140 ships and submarines (532,000 tons) by not going to sea and formed as a single naval strategic reserve, these ships might have prevented the D-Day 1944 Normandy landings.

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Takao
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Re: Plan Z

#145

Post by Takao » 27 Jul 2011, 12:27

nebelwerferXXX,

First off, it would be nice if you would actually think about your post before you type it. That being said, your most recent post shows what little thought went into it.

Even had these ships been built, and there construction not delayed or permanently stopped by allied air raids, there is nowhere near Normandy where these ships could be safely kept. If they had not been obliterated from Neptune's realm in 1943, the Allied pre-invasion bombardment effort would most certainly have left their steel pieces littering whatever harbor floor where they had been berthed.

If, these ships had somehow managed to survive the massive air campaign that would have surely been launched against them. You could be certain, that with a powerful German surface force within striking distance of the Invasion beaches, the Allies would have taken this into account and in return, have provided a much stronger naval force the the old battleships, cruisers, and destroyers that were used for shore bombardment. After all, the Normandy invasion, as it was, faced a minute threat from the German Navy.

So, no, this feeble justification for the "Z-Plan" fails on all levels, and most importantly, lacks any "common sense".

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Re: Plan Z

#146

Post by nebelwerferXXX » 28 Jul 2011, 03:50

Takao,

That's why I am posting a scenario to be discussed and to know the views of the experts like you. If no scenarios, no arguments either. Arguing something adds more thoughts to the discussions. My purpose is to start something to be argued here.

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Terry Duncan
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Re: Plan Z

#147

Post by Terry Duncan » 28 Jul 2011, 04:41

I would add that the Z Plan concept only gets close to working if the British - and everyone else - fail to notice these large German ships being built and do not respond with their own programs. For example Britain has the Lion class as ordered, or even the Lion II design from the early war years, which are both about as likely as the Z Plan ships to see service during the historical war dates - by that I mean almost totally improbable.

Takao has summed up the problem of trying to interupt the landings with a fleet, and there were quite a few spare allied ships that were not employed to cover the landings anyhow. There were somewhere over 4,000 fighter bombers looking for missions over Normandy at the time of the landings, and similar numbers of other planes that could be directed onto a target to make its life very miserable. Whilst these may not sink the large battleships, they will scrape off the escort and maybe even damage the soft but critical systems on a battleship.

The closest mission to your proposal would by the suicide mission of Yamato, and we all know how that ended, and against somewhat smaller opposition.

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Re: Plan Z

#148

Post by nebelwerferXXX » 03 Aug 2011, 09:57

mescal wrote:The Kriegsmarine would have swelled to 800+ warships, the most notable being:

BB & BC:
2 Bismarck.
6 H-class battleships (62,000 tons, 8 x 16").
2 Scharnhorst.
3 O-class battle-cruisers (35,000 tons, 6 x 15").
Total: 13 ships

4 Aircraft carriers.

3 Deutschland.
12 P-class Panzerschiffe (25,000 tons, 6 x 11").
Total: 15 Panzerschiffe

5 Hipper.
3 K-class, Emden, Leipzig, Nürnberg.
6 M-class cruisers (10,500 tons, 8 x 5.9") in two sub-classes.

6 (or 12? or 22?) Spähkreuzer.
I only counted 71 warships of the 800 you mentioned. What's the breakdown of the remaining 729 other warships from your sources ? And because I wanted to know from other sources for comparison purposes. Thanks !

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mescal
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Re: Plan Z

#149

Post by mescal » 16 Aug 2011, 15:17

I've never found a precise breakdown, and I'm not sure that a definitive breakdown for smaller warships & craft of the Z-plan ever existed.

From memory, there were ~60-80 destroyers planned, with a similar number of Torpedo Boats.

Much of the rest were really only small crafts, not blue-water capable.
Olivier

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Carriers and smaller vessels

#150

Post by nebelwerferXXX » 03 Dec 2011, 08:27

mescal wrote:Note that on the other side, the Royal Navy would probably not have remained idle if Germany went on with this plan. It's difficult to guess what precisely would have been built, but it would probably have been a variation around the 1936 Tentative Fleet Plan. According to Brown, this plan envisioned a fleet of:
---18 Battleships (probably 3 rebuilt QE, Renown, Repulse, Hood, 5 KGV and 13 new BBs)
---8 fleet carriers (Ark Royal and 7 new ships)
---5 light carriers ("trade protection carriers")
---8 CA
---55 CL
---120 DD ...

On the other side of the Atlantic, the successive Navy bills from 1937 to 1940 called for 17 new battleships (2 North Carolina, 4 South Dakota, 6 Iowa, 5 Montana) and a horde of carriers (Essex-class) and smaller vessels.

Thus the Z-plan was only a trigger to a renewed naval arms race - a race Germany was bound to lose.
As far as I know, In carriers and smaller vessels, the US Navy in 1943 have 23 Essex-class carriers, 100+ cruisers and 300+ destroyers. Correct me if I'm wrong...

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