Plan Z

[nebelwerferXXX]

Hamburg (Blohm and Voss)

Slip # Dimensions in Feet: Ship: Laid Down: Launched: Completed:

Slip 7 690 x 90 PS-2 May 01, 1940 May 01, 1942 October 01, 1943
Slip 8 770 x 85 SS Vaterland October 29, 1938 August, 24, 1940 ?
Slip 8 770 x 85 PS-5 May 01, 1942 May 01, 1944 October 01, 1945
Slip 8 770 x 85 PS-11 June 01, 1944 May 01, 1946 October 01, 1947
Slip 9 900 x 120 Hipper July 06, 1935 February 06, 1937 April 29, 1939
Slip 9 900 x 120 Bismarck July 01, 1936 February 14, 1939 August 24, 1940
Slip 9 900 x 120 BB "H" September 01, 1939 July 15, 1941 December 01, 1942
Dry Dock "Elbe 17" 1150 x 130 BB "M" October 01, 1940 October 01, 1942 April 01, 1944

...In the 3-stages of shipbuilding, only 4 slipways were used for the 8 ships. The 13,900-ton Hipper took 3 years and 9 months to complete and the 42,000-ton Bismarck took 4 years and 1 month...So, the 5 ships of the Hipper-class each took 3 years and 9 months to complete ? Was that the standard time-frame in building heavy cruisers ?

[LWD]

Different countries seam to have varried in how long it took them to build ships and it could varry over time as well. For instance Dreadnaught took only a year from when her keel was layed to when she was launched and commissioned a couple of months later. South Carolina on the other hand was launched after a year and a half but wasn't completed for almost another 2 years. Germany from what I've seen typically took a bit more time to get her major vessels in commission than either Britain or the US did. For instance look at the dates of the USS Baltimore:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Baltimore_(CA-68)

Laid down: 26 May 1941
Launched: 28 July 1942
Commissioned: 15 April 1943

[Haratio Fales]

Plan Z was Germany's fantasy fleet, and I don't wish to argue the same arguments that are on the preceding 12 pages. It wasn't practical and unlikely that the Germans could have ever realized it in entirety. They did however start construction on 5 of the ships for plan Z. (Kriegsmarine.DE) and were building power plants for 3 of the Spähkreuzer that they didn't start. The engines were used for a few of the last Destroyers that were built. The steel that was being used for the 2 M class cruisers was diverted to submarine and Tank construction when Plan Z was halted.

What I do wish to talk about here is the design aspects of the ships them selves. The P class Panzership, and the O class Battle Cruisers were both designs that came about from the D class Panzership class that was what also spawned the Scheers. The M class light cruisers were a design that was loosely copied from the British Town class Cruiser design, and was large for a light cruiser. This was due to the projected mission use as a commerce raider. There were several designs submitted for all of these ships, however there doesn't seem to be a lot of information that is obtainable for some of them like alternate plans, or even good line drawings in some cases. I have been studying this subject for about ten years now and have amassed line drawings for about 6 of the Plan Z ships. I am Drafting plans for the ships that I haven't been able to get any plans, or line drawings for based on stats and logic of construction, and arrangement at the era of projected construction.

I am currently working on a 1/72 scale version of the M class cruiser and it is posted in the model section of this forum. I am also writing a book about the Designs of the Plan Z ships. I hope to publish the book within a years time however I will not move to publish it until it is complete with the chapters on each ship along with the illustrations. I have been learning Blender to accomplish this. Let me know what You think about the design study, and or model project, and if any of You have blue prints to one of these ships hid in your basement (LOL) let me know as it would be very valuable to my work. Smooth Sailing. Haratio.

A 3D shot of M class in blender

[Haratio Fales]

One of the common things about Plan Z that I have come across in the forums is the confusion about the classes of the ships that the Germans were planning. This is because of the letter classifications for them such as the light cruiser P, and the Panzership P that is also sometimes refered to to as cruiser P, not to mention Battle cruiser P from the O class. what can make it more confusing is that we are call all these ships cruiser in English and not specifically light, armored, or battle in front of them all the time. To understand this though it is just simply that the Germans used the alphabet instead of numbers when planning ships. so the first light cruiser for the M class was planned in that alphabetical sequence, so it would be Light cruiser M followed by N, O, and P, until they were actually named. There was a debate as to light cruisers Q, and R to call them the Q class light cruisers or to call them modified M class light cruisers. I would vote for the latter as they were ten meters longer and 3 meters wider, however they were suppose to fix the short comings that were noticed in the M class design. I think since they already designed a better ship to fix the design flaws of the M's they should have just built those, as they had both sets of plans before they even started on M. This is a side view of M and Q from Kriegsmarine.DE

kreuzerm.gif (3.93 KiB) Viewed 16084 times

Ill have to find a comparable version of Q and ill post it.

kreuzerq.gif (3.85 KiB) Viewed 16083 times

As you can see the Q is larger and has improved AA range finders and a few more AA gun sets on her.

[Haratio Fales]

Now keep in mind that all 3 classes of these ships had a P and a Q in the letter sequencing and 2 of them had an O in the sequence however they were 3 different classed of ships, with the Light Cruiser having a subclass variant.

First of the true blue water light cruisers in the Washington treaty era for Germany. 2 hulls were laid down then the steel was reallocated for subs and tanks when Plan Z was scraped.

kreuzerm.gif (3.93 KiB) Viewed 16083 times

The Improved design of the M class. Had armor that was resistant to 8 inch shells which would have made her heavy for a Light Cruiser. They might have been also armed with 6.7 inch guns instead of the 5.9 inch on the M class which would allow them to be still classified as light cruisers but would have had them hit a bit harder.

kreuzerq.gif (3.85 KiB) Viewed 16083 times

An improved Deutchland class ship design. 6/11 inch guns and 6/5.9 inch guns. armored against 8 inch cruiser shells as to enable speed, and mission of commerce raiding. Both designs for P class Armored Cruiser and O class Battle Cruiser were derived from the D class armored cruiser design that was passed over for the 3 Deutchlands that were built. the last 9 ships were planned to be armed with 12 inch guns.

kreuzerp1.gif (3.54 KiB) Viewed 16083 times

Battle Cruiser design to kill 8 inch cruisers, and merchant ships while battleships were fighting heavy convoy escorts, would have been armed with 6/15 inch guns and 6/5.9 inch guns as main and secondary artillery. Would have been thinly armored against 8 inch shells. Speed should have been 34 knots.

schlachtkreuzero.gif (3.71 KiB) Viewed 16083 times

What also confuses things is that the light cruisers were M, N, O, P, Q, and R. Then if they built more of a new design they would have been the S class. The Battle Cruisers were O, P and Q. so unless they built more of the same class the next one in design would have been the R class. Easy enough until You consider the P class Panzershife (Armored Cruiser ), they were designated P1 through P12, so in the unlikely situation that they built these, and then built a new design for this type of ship they would have been the Q class Armored Cruisers. ( LOL ) hope that You caught all of that. It took me a bit to understand how it works, and just for the record, I think this system has been adopted to be a model for Obama care.

One thing that is noticeable also on all of these ships is that they all had 2 stacks in the design, instead of one like most of the capitol ships that were built by Germany at the time ended up with. This is because all of these ships were designed to be propelled with Diesel engines for cruising and have high temp steam turbines for combat and speed. This also explains why all of these designs were large, to accommodate fuel for separate systems and the weight of the 2 systems. They all had 3 screws designed into the propulsion even though for the O class 4 had been considered. The 3 screw system allowed for saving weight, and tended to produce as much power as a 4 screw design. One drawback to the 3 screw design though was evident when Bismarck was hit in the rudder by torpedo and couldn't use the screws to turn with like a ship with 4 screws could have. The Deutchland class only used 2 large screws in their design and could have easily in peril if for any reason they lost the use of one screw. It would have not cut their speed in half, It would have been more like cutting them down to 10 knots or so. Anyway these would have been interesting ships if any or a few would have even been built. I believe that they would most have likely ended up with the same fate as most of the Capitol ships Germany did build and have been sunk by air bombing or along with Scharnhorst.

[Marcus]

An off-topic post by nebelwerferxxx was removed.

/Marcus

[Paul Lakowski]

As a Point of information the D class Panzerschiffe refers to Panzerschiffe D & E which were the precursors to the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau battle cruisers. These were the designations for the improved Panzerschiffe designs dated from 1932-1935. The Sheer pocket battle cruisers were in fact Panzerschiffe A B & C and were designed in 1926 -1928 after much debate within the German admiralty.

Groner lists the armor for the M & N class kreuzer's as 50mm belts backed up by 35mm slopes at what looks like 45o. There is no evidence of a torpedo bulk head so this combination of armor is unlikely to offer more than 4 inches of protection against 4-5" shells. 8". Cruisers should have no problems with this armor . The deck armor looks like 2 x 20mm plates which will offer maybe 1.5" deck protection. It will make it difficult for destroyer plunging fire to penetrate , but again cruisers should have no problems with this armor.

Box armor protection would have been better.


NOTE Actually the 20mm +20mm deck protection should offer 1.6-1.7" deck protection. The British 6" and 8" cruisers gun plunging fire would have difficulty getting through this armor at less than 20,000 yards when top range for 6" guns is 25000yards region. So it should offer good deck protection.

[SpicyJuan]

A Plan Z before the onset of World War II is dubious, and as stated, self-defeating, as it uses up too many resources from other branches to justify its construction. From what I've found, the Plan Z was intended to combat the United States in their "final and titanic clash" as Hitler intended. In this regard (where Germany has won the war in Europe and has the power of the fleets of the Regia Marina, IJN, and perhaps the RN merged with it), the Plan Z makes a surprising amount of sense.

[Paul Lakowski]

I have come to understand that Raeder -to the last days prior to war -REALLY DIDN"T THINK WAR WAS COMING. He actually trusted Hitler. Therefore all of the "Z Plan" has to be seen -not in the context of prepping for WW-II- but prepping for the Cold war that followed.

Against that back drop its small wonder that the navy made any impression at all initially.

Looking at Raeder's prewar fleet discussions- three main goals were articulated. Coastal defense fleet ; a U-boat fleet and a fleet of surface raiders to augment the U-boat war. Later carrier groups were added as nice to have. Raeder wanted a number of large super battleships and formalised all this into Z plan to be completed by late 40s.

" Coastal defense fleet" needs little further explanation and was well underway when war began.

- Admiral Donitz proposed fleet of 300 Uboats; which in context of naval industry seems doable by early war....except it would probably need 400 Uboats since the number needed for training was 1/2 total numbers.

- Admiral Heye proposed a fleet of a dozen surface raiders to support any U-boat war.

None of this would be attemptable unless Raeder gets his dozen battleships to play with, which seem impossible to even contemplate once war begins.

All this seems dubious until we recognise that up until 1939 the Germans had laid down 21 large warship type vessels anyway . Only 7 of these vessels were completed by war time and another 5 competed during the war with 2 others virtually completed only to be abandoned for political reasons. So a dozen surface raiders seems possible if they are not too big.


The tonnage invested in Raeder's balanced fleet up to 1939 was something like 400 000 tons . If we average that figure over 21 warships that's 19,000 tons each by 1939 . In other words they had nearly twice the tonnage needed to fill this requirement. So this also seems doable. Taking this further 1/2 dozen of the above mentioned 21 warships were only begun in last years of the 1930s and could not be launched until 1940/41 and completed later....



The late proposal for Carriers came from Admiral Carls who pushed for 4 carrier battle groups ; each with a CV plus a BC plus a CA and over a dozen Zerstroers. The aim was 'sea control' to allow Uboats to attack without worry of surface or aircraft attack. At first glance this seems impossible to contemplate either. However the planned 'Seydlitz/Weser' conversion suggests a possible avenue to explore- once war begins. The Hipper cruisers were clearly not going to work as surface raiders so conversion to short range high speed CVLs might make more sense. Going back to the 21 surface raiders the last 1/2 dozen could be completed as CVLs later.

Combined with couple of surface raiders these CVLs could coordinate strikes on convoys from Norway with U-boat fleet and LW.

[thestor]

Frankly, Planz Z sounds to me like most plans of Nazi Germany, incredibly ambitions and grandiose, but when one starts to crunch the numbers and figure out what all that fancy hardware would cost to procure or even just to maintain, reality sets in, one way or the other.

[Plain Old Dave]

A Plan Z before the onset of World War II is dubious, and as stated, self-defeating, as it uses up too many resources from other branches to justify its construction. From what I've found, the Plan Z was intended to combat the United States in their "final and titanic clash" as Hitler intended. In this regard (where Germany has won the war in Europe and has the power of the fleets of the Regia Marina, IJN, and perhaps the RN merged with it), the Plan Z makes a surprising amount of sense.

Well, there's the fact that FDR was a Navy man "stem to stern." And the Iowa class BBs were his pet project. Put that together with the Alaska class heavy cruisers and the KM's chances in a straight surface engagement are dire at best. Add the Essex-class Fleet carriers with their accompanying battle groups (including the Gato and Balao submarines; USN sub commanders regularly engaged Japanese combatants) and Hitler's "final and titanic clash" would make the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot look like target practice. The only type of naval vessels the KM was even remotely in the same class as the USN were submersibles. American surface combatants were better armed, more survivable and had better fire control than anything the KM had and almost everything on the Continent.

As to the IJN, we demolished them every time we encountered them. The Japanese Navy wasn't a real threat to the Allies after Savo Island, thanks to the enterprising efforts of USN submarine commanders. The Japanese "Bulge" was the Battle of Leyte Gulf, and USN carrier aviation destroyed the operational power of the Imperial Japanese Navy for all intents and purposes in that fight.

Fuller, in The Decisive Battles Of The Western World speaking on the outcome of the Battle of Leyte Gulf:

The Japanese fleet had [effectively] ceased to exist, and, except by land-based aircraft, their opponents had won undisputed command of the sea.

Carrier based aviation, as best I can tell, the KM never took seriously. Even the British Fleet Air Arm mostly went to war in products of the Grumman Ironworks (Vought Corsairs excepted).

[Paul Lakowski]

From what I've read IJN won most of the surface engagements in 1942, with USN airpower redressing some of this, while in 1943 the surface exchanges were more even and the American air power made up the difference. By 1944 USN had learned to fight and mopped the floor with the IJN.

As to USN vs KM...the KM was a miniscule fleet that was expended by 1942/43 and by the time the USN got involved it was pretty much U-Boats only. Besides these warships you mention were late war products [1943/44]. There was little or no KM surface fleet then.

[Polar bear]

hi,

American surface combatants were better armed, more survivable and had better fire control than anything the KM had and almost everything on the Continent.

If you imagine an engagement between, e.g. Massachussets and Tirpitz in early 1942 in the Arctic Sea ... I wouldn't be too sure of that.

Even the British Fleet Air Arm mostly went to war in products of the Grumman Ironworks (Vought Corsairs excepted).

Historically, that's wrong. The FAA went to war in 1939 with British aircraft, Fairey Swordfish, Blackburn Skua and Gloster Gladiator.

greetings, the pb

[Plain Old Dave]

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/naz ... 172?page=2

You give up a little maximum range with the Massachusetts ' 16"/45 caliber rifles, but given the USN's radar fire control, she can still score accurate hits before Tirpitz can do no more than spray and pray.

[Paul Lakowski]

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/naz ... 172?page=2

You give up a little maximum range with the Massachusetts ' 16"/45 caliber rifles, but given the USN's radar fire control, she can still score accurate hits before Tirpitz can do no more than spray and pray.

When I first read it I thought that article was a spoof/parody !!!!