What if: 1939: how to better equip German raiders (HSK)?

[Paul Lakowski]

Through out the 1930s Lufthansa had an extensive service of trans-Atlantic flights with some small hops to link up with luxury liners. It seems it was mostly about air mail delivery.

While the warships and HSK all utilised a couple of short range seaplanes , the sea plane tenders all seemed to have operated a couple of bigger float planes/flying boats, with much longer ranges. So yes its odd they did not make better use of these ships.

[kfbr392]

The Germans already had several large seaplane tenders for service in the mid-Atlantic in the mid 1930's as refueling stations at sea for flying boats flying between Europe and Brazil. They could have easily armed these and had one or more at sea with flying boats aboard when the war started. Paired with a raider, this tender could have had flying boats ranging far and wide in the Atlantic.
The tenders, as the video notes, stayed at sea for up to a year at a time performing their tender duties. It's clear that Germany had the expertise, ships, aircraft, and crews to make something like this possible, and it was already all in place and available.

The FRIESENLAND (16kn, 5434GRT) was suitable and available, able to hold, lauch and retrieve a couple of Do 18.

http://www.luftwaffe-zur-see.de/Kdo.Sch ... enland.htm

[maltesefalcon]

Raiders harken back to the sailing days of corsairs and privateers preying on enemy merchantmen. The advent of radio, air support and more modern weapons meant that WWII era solitary raiders lived on the edge. They could make short work of solitary merchantmen or smaller warships. They could not survive vs serious air attack or a group of warships.

If their predations became too serious IMHO the British would have started convoys earlier in the war. Perhaps earlier escort carriers too?

[Paul Lakowski]

If their predations became too serious IMHO the British would have started convoys earlier in the war. Perhaps earlier escort carriers too?

I suspect that reading the link below that the KM would like nothing better than a RN reaction described above.

https://archive.org/stream/ReviewOfGerm ... 1/mode/2up

This is worth posting again since it explores the back ground reasoning behind the KM employment of HSK based on WW-I experience.

http://www.bismarck-class.dk/hilfskreuz ... _menu.html

This link explores the effectiveness of the WW-II raiders over time...some lasted into 1942/43, roughly 109 MV sunk and another 31 captured and reused in support of more raider missions.

Sinking or capturing more than one enemy MV per month at sea , which is Not bad for a programme of asset fitted out for couple million RM total and mobilized for another 5-6 million RM total.

Combined that suggests the 10 HSK program cost as much of ONE type 1935 torpedo boot or two Flottenbegleiter !!!!

http://www.german-navy.de/kriegsmarine/ ... index.html
http://www.german-navy.de/kriegsmarine/ ... index.html

KM had almost 20 large diesel powered MV with top speeds 15-16 knots and endurance of 30-60,000nm cruise speed. So for the cost of one Zerstroer, the KM could have mobilized about 19 HSK raiders early in the war.

[maltesefalcon]

I didn't read the whole document as its quite long. The title does refer to Cruiser warfare in WWI, however. I would grant that escort carriers would have been fairly ineffective at that time, due to more primtive aircraft at least.

[Paul Lakowski]

The point I was getting to is that this type of WW-I experience was exactly what the Germans hoped for in WW-II. Reportedly in WW-1 each raider Germany deployed, sunk 10 enemy vessels and took 10 allied warships to hunt down and stop.

Not sure how many allied warships hunted HSK in WW-II , but each German HSK raider sunk or captured 13 enemy vessels, so it looks like they did better than expected from their WW-I experiences.

Admiral Raeder believed that if he had enough surface raiders overseas=- he could distract Commonwealth forces enough to win local battles in home waters.

[kfbr392]

KM had almost 20 large diesel powered MV with top speeds 15-16 knots and endurance of 30-60,000nm cruise speed.

do you have the list of those ships with names and technical details? I suppose some of them are Begleitschiffe?

because in OTL, the KM requisitioned civilian freighters for conversion to HSK; they did not use pre-war KM motor vessels.