Surface Fleet or Submarines

[Andy H]

Tim wrote:

Sorry, Andy, but you are nitpicking.

Most German sailors in WWII were young. And the Kreigsmarine managed to field 300+ U-boats later in the war. They found the men to do that even though hundreds of thousands were dying on the Russian front. Suggesting that they somehow couldn't do the same pre-war is silly.

Hi Tim

If those capital ships were not built, you'd have 11300 sailors freed up for the U-boat Service. That's enough to crew 200 Type VII U-boats, and have 1300 men left for command and shore duties.

I dont see this as nitpicking. You have made a claim that 11,300 sailors would be freed up for U-Boat service. I disagree. At the beginning of the war Germany had the luxury of cherry picking its UBoatmen, as the war progressed it took in men that it wouldn't have dreamt of taking in 1939 etc.
I believe that those serving in UBoats at the wars start underwent tests to show they had what it takes to be a UBoatmen. Again not all those serving on Capital ships would have the neccesary X Factor.

So your figure of 200 is a ideal figure, but it could as easily be 100 or 150 or 50.

Andy H

[Lkefct]

I think maybe the thing that needs tobe considered about the Uboat arm. Of course there will be a lower quality of crew. That goes without saying. In the same way that the Luftwaffe and panzer amrs also had a decline in the quality of their troops as thgose arms expanded. That is a necessary evil of that sort of expansion. It is clear from hiundsight, that they simply could not sink enough ships to compete.

Donitzes figure and the often used quote was that any sort of realiztic production schedule would ahve given 300 Uboats when the war started. In light of the mass production techiiques used on the type XXI, those figures could potentially be achieved. Even without them, the additional dock space, and a realistic construction plan might have achieved the same goal.

Given the lower quality of the crews, then there might have been a higher casualty rate, except more boats also means saturating the defenses more efectively, so I think that is a wash.

I also would argue the British navy would resist the escort building. The british where very firmly convienced that submarines would not a problem, after the invention of active sonar. That the germans attacked on the surface at night came as a huge shock (despite the fact that this was standard tactic in 1918 as well). I really don't thin the need for escorts or aircraft carriers was appreciated at the time. Certainly the fact that the RN had never been serious of developing any carrier aircraft before the war hints at that.

[redcoat]

What if the Germans had built a larger submarine force instead of a surface fleet?

It would mean that the British would not have followed an appeasement policy with Germany pre-war.
It may have even meant that as early as 1936 the British would have encouraged the French to resist the militarisation of the Rineland by Germany.
Because while building a small number of battleships was not considered a threat by the British, the building up of a large submarine force would.
After all, what other nation could be threatened by a large German submarine fleet.
Hitler did not want war with Britain, building up a large submarine fleet pre-war would only ensure it. :roll:

[Tim Smith]

Redcoat:

A key aim of appeasement was to buy time for Britain to rearm. The RN was ready for war at any time in the late 1930's - but the RAF and the British Army were not. The effectiveness of mass bombing on cities was vastly overestimated before the war (Britain's civil defence organisation was trained to expect hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties in the first month of war!) and the British government wanted to get the radar defence system operational and modern fighters available in large numbers before the war started.

Fear of the Luftwaffe would prevent Britain from abandoning appeasement until early 1939 in any case, regardless of what the Kreigsmarine was doing.

[Andy H]

The Royal Navy constituted a major review of of its AS warfare capability in 1930. This review indentified a major shortage in coastal escorts. It was concluded that much of thus shortage could be overcome by using converted trawlers, and by 1933 James Ludford was fitted out as a prototype. By 1939 some 39 had been converted to AS & MS roles. By the wars end some 1706 vessels had been converted, of which 209 were AS Trawlers.

Source:Nelson-Vanguard (Warship Design & Development 1923-450 by DK Brown.

It is logical to assume that if a larger UBoat threat had been percieved given the larger proposed UBoat fleet, then the RN would have responded accordingly. And if not with purpose built ships, then with a greater converstion rate of trawlers etc.

Andy H

[Lkefct]

How effective are the converted trawlers?

[Andy H]

The main problem was the lack of stabilty and then defining stabilty. However only one converted Trawler (Shera) was lost to the weather (Icing), this being the only RN craft lost to weather exc Landing Craft during WW2.

Source: as previously stated

I have no specific kill numbers for converted Trawlers but to be effective you sometimes only have to be there, or drop DG's to keep the UBoat from making an attack. How many UBoats were kept away from convoys by converted Trawlers is anyones guess

Andy H

[Hop]

As for the Royal Navy, as I've stated previously the RN had to commit to a capital ship building program in 1936. At that time the Admiralty had to prepare for the worst-case scenario - Britain and France vs Germany, Italy and Japan. With the US remaining neutral. Back in 1936 the USA was very isolationist indeed - China hadn't even been invaded yet - so at that time Britain couldn't afford to assume that the US would definitely help, not even against Japan.

So Britain could not have afforded to scale back her capital ship program and build escorts instead pre-war.

I find that a strange argument.

The RN were building to face a 3 different surface fleets, the Italians, Japanese and Germans. If one of those, the Germans, were to drastically scale back their surface fleet, then why can the RN not scale down their counter? Not cut out the new battleships entirely, but scale down the counter to match the scaled down threat.

Germany was of course the most threatening, due to it's proximity to Britain, and a vast expansion of the German U Boat programme would have been quickly percieved as the most serious threat to the RN. That means not only does the need for battleships reduce, but the need for escorts drastically increases. t's folly to assume changed circumstances would have no impact on RN desicion making.

[Madsen]

The German surface fleet would still be a potent threat to Britain even without Bismarck, Tirpitz, Graf Zeppelin and the Hipper class cruisers. She'd still have the three Deutschland class pocket battleships. And also Scharnhorst and Gneisenau - which, if Bismarck and Tirpitz were cancelled, would have been equipped with 6 x 15" guns instead of 9 x 11" guns. (That's because they'd be Germany's only battleships.) With 6 x 15" guns, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau would be nearly as dangerous as Bismarck and Tirpitz - admittedly with slightly less armour and one less turret, but faster

Scharnhorst was fast enough. she nearly escaped Duke of York and Jamaica during the North cape battle in 43. it was torpedoes from the S- class destroyers that slowed her down and sinked her.

[Tim Smith]

Let's look at the pre-war capital ship line-up between the opposing powers for this what-if (not counting the USA.)

Britain:

5 x Revenge class dreadnaughts (8x15" guns, 21 kts, none modernised)
5 x Queen Elizabeth class battleships (8x15" guns, 22 kts, 3 modernised)
2 x Renown class WWI battlecruisers (6x15" guns, 28 kts, 1 modernised)
1 x Hood class 1920's battlecruiser (8x15" guns, 30 kts, not modernised)
2 x Nelson class 1920's battleships (9x16" guns, 23 kts)

5 x King George V class fast battleships


France:

2 x Courbet class dreadnaughts (totally obselete with 12x12" guns - only good for coastal bombardment & convoy escort)
3 x Provence class dreadnaughts (10x13.5" guns, 21 kts, none modernised)

2 x Dunkerque class fast battlecruisers (8x13.5" guns, 29 kts)
3 x Richelieu class fast battleships (8x15" guns, 30 kts)


Axis ships with Allied opponents:

Germany:

3 x Deutschland class pocket battleships (6x11" guns, 27 kts, commerce raiders) vs 1 x Dunkerque class battlecruiser (plus 6 heavy cruisers)
2 x Scharnhorst class fast battleships (6x15" guns, 31.5 kts) vs 2 King George V class battleships
(Note: Scharnhorst class main armament changed in this 'What If' due to cancellation of Bismarck class)

Italy:

4 x Ceasare/Doria class fast battleships (10x12.6" guns, 28 kts, all modernised) vs 2 Courbet class, 3 Provence class and 2 Revenge class dreadnaughts, and 1 modernised Queen Elizabeth class battleship.
Note: Allies need superior numbers to compensate for unmodernised dreadnaughts

3 x Littorio class fast battleships (9x15" guns, 30 kts) vs 3 x Richelieu class fast battleships


Japan

4 x Kongo class WWI battlecruisers (8x14" guns, 30 kts, all modernised) vs 3 x Renown and Hood class battlecruisers, and 1 Dunkerque class battlecruiser
2 x Fuso class battleships (12x14" guns, 24 kts, modernised) vs 2 x Queen Elizabeth class battleships (1 modernised, 1 not) and 1 Revenge class dreadnaught.
2 x Ise class battleships (12x14" guns, 25 kts, modernised) vs 2 x Queen Elizabeth class battleships (1 modernised, 1 not) and 1 Revenge class dreadnaught.
Note: British need superior numbers to compensate for unmodernised ships.
2 x Nagato class battleships (8x16" guns, 25 kts, modernised) vs 2 x Rodney class battleships

3 x Yamato class battleships (9x18.1" guns, 27 kts, 1 converted to carrier) vs 3 x King George V class battleships

(Note: No-one outside Japan knew Yamato's specification pre-war. The US and UK thought she was 42,000 tons, 9x16" guns - in fact she was 63,000 tons, 9x18.1" guns! The King George V class ships wouldn't have stood much chance against Yamato 1 on 1.)


Carriers:

Britain:
Fleet Carriers:
Pre-1939: Furious, Glorious, Courageous, Ark Royal

Building:
4 x Illustrious class (started 1937, completed 1940-41)
2 x Implacable class (started 1939, completed 1944)

(Note: Britain also has 4 small, slow, old carriers for training and for use in the Atlantic and Mediterranean).

Japan:
Carriers:
Pre-1939: Akagi, Kaga, Soryu, Hiryu

Building:
Shokaku, Zuikaku (completed 1941)
Taiho, Shinano (completed 1943-44)

British carriers have armoured decks giving them better protection from dive-bombing, but carry only 50-75% as many aircraft as the Japanese carriers. Plus the Japanese have 4-6 light carriers as well. So the British need at least 8 fleet carriers to equal Japan's carrier fleet.


Conclusion:

So, as you can see from the above lists, Britain and France would need all their historical strength to match Germany, Italy and Japan at sea, even with the German surface fleet reduced by 50%. And that's assuming that France won't be defeated!

The Royal Navy COULD cancel 2 King George V class battleships, 2 Illustrious class carriers, and 2 Implacable class carriers to build more escorts pre-war - but the price would be letting the Japanese get the upper hand in the Far East. Britain will have no new battleships to counter the Yamato class, and her carrier fleet would be outnumbered and outclassed by the Japanese. Britain would have to accept that after 1941 it won't be able to fight the German, Italian and Japanese surface fleets at once and win, not even with French help. (Imagine Yamato, Nagato and Mutsu vs Nelson and Rodney - the British wouldn't stand a chance.)

Basically, Britain would have to gamble that America would immediately enter the war on her side if Japan attacked the British Empire. And if America did NOT enter the war immediately, the Japanese Navy would likely gain near-complete control of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and there would be little that Britain could do about it except go on the defensive, call Washington and beg for help! The British Empire in the Far East would fall, and only the Americans could liberate it. And if the Americans did that, after the war they would encourage the local subject populations to bid for independence from Britain - the Americans were quite anti-imperialist in the 1930's, even opposing British imperialism as a matter of principle. So America would control the Far East after a victory over Japan, not Britain - the British Empire would gradually fall apart anyway after an American victory.

As you can imagine, it would be very difficult politically for the Admiralty to make such a far-reaching and potentially catastrophic decision in the late 1930's, given US isolationism in that period. And it would be very humiliating indeed for the Royal Navy, which had dominated the world for so long, to accept that situation. Which is why I can't see them doing it, not before the war started.

[Andy H]

In April 1937 the Defence Requirements Commitee and Ministers had accepted in principle that Navy should be strong enough to send a fleet to the Far East, which would 'cover' the Japanese fleet while retaining enough strength in home waters to prevent the strongest European power from commanding vital sea lanes.

Now given the geography from which the German fleet would have to sail, it was hoped that large mine barrages would severely inhibit German access to the North Sea and that British submarines on posted patrol area's could inflict damage before the main British fleet had to engage. In regards to Italy it was hoped again to constrian any actions using mines and French/British co-operation.

The British proposed to build some 28 6"Cruisers between 1936-1939, some of this build space could have been changed to Escort build.
Also the Admiralty had plans from 1932 to convert ships of 20,000tons into Escort carriers, and 5 suitable vessels were identified. The transformation would take around9-10months.

Though the British yards were historically busy implementing the 1936 build programme, there's nothing to say that RN wouldn't farm out other build requirements to other countries such as the US.

I just fail to see how with the Germany Navy having say 300subs, that the RN would not respond in kind to counter it.

Andy H

[Tim Smith]

Fair enough Andy - I hadn't considered the cruiser situation.

Maybe the British could get away with cancelling the 11 Fiji and Ceylon class light cruisers (8500+ tons each) in 1938, and build about 90 more Flower class corvettes instead during 1938-40. That should still leave Britain and France together with just enough cruisers to cope with the Japanese and Italian cruiser fleets, while saving some to hunt down German auxiliary cruisers (converted merchant raiders). Britain and Australia would have 15 heavy and 22 light cruisers in 1939, with 6 light and 16 small AA cruisers built during the war.

British Cruiser details here:

http://www.btinternet.com/~a.c.walton/navy/rn-cr4.html

[Andy H]

Hi Tim

Whilst answering the What If concerning the Queens as troopships, I read that the Admiralty were giving serious thought to scrapping the QE.

As we are both aware the British shipbuilding programme was full, but the 83,000t QE held within her, formed a strategic resource that could be used for warship construction. This idea was given alot of thought before it was finnaly dispensed with, but 83,000t could build a fair few escorts.

Andy H

[Tim Smith]

I thought you said the QE was almost complete in 1939? Scrapping a 83,000 ton liner takes a fair amount of time, you know....and wouldn't the workers normally employed by the breaker's yards in peacetime be fully employed by shipbuilders, building new warships, in wartime?

I doubt whether any shipbreaking at all went on during the war.

[Andy H]

Hi Tim

You raise some interesting points. I can only presume about what time it would take and how they would utilise the metal etc, and I will have to look into the breakers question

Andy H