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This is the problem looking at the"MTO" as a single theatre. The distances involved are huge. Winning the war in Libya / Egypt (North Africa) still leaves a huge task before getting your hands on significant quantities of oil.Winning the MTO would have been a major accomplishment for the Axis. They might have been able to access petroleum in the middle east, and prevent the Allies from using the Suez. And with Malta falling, their fleet & air power could concentrate on blocking Allied forces from breaking into the Med from Gibraltar.
The Weimar light cruisers and other light stuff (steam torpedo boats and destroyers) are still going to be very useful. They did a lot of mine laying for one thing. The 3 armored ships also gave the British a lot of heartburn during the 30s and into 1940. Something like 19 ships to chase down the Graf Spee alone. It is in the 30s that they seem to have come off the rails. How many times did they have to refuel the Prinz Eugen during the Operation Rheinübung? Twice after leaving the Bismarck? An ocean raider it was not. And the early bow on the Hipper and Blucher? Again, where were they going to operate it? In the Baltic? And the Machinery was crap. It may have had the most powerful 8in guns of any WW II cruiser (or 2nd) and it may have had the most armor but it couldn't operate in bad weather and need a fleet of tankers to even run around in the North Atlantic? Long range light cruisers with 6-9 15cm guns might have been a better bet. The ugly twins were a better deal. They force the French to reply and they need a lot more attention than simply adding an extra couple of cruisers to the hunters. Is a Hipper worth 2 or 3 Countys if you don't have BC handy? Scharnhorst forced deployment of capital ships. B & T maybe more questionable. Anything past the Tirpitz is a waste. The British can out build the Germans, Forcing them into certain path is one thing. Making the path a little wider or thicker may not give good return on investment.
Easiest thing is to can the carrier before it is laid down. It was more a case of "keeping up the the Jones's " than a real operational need.
forget the idea of blasting your way into a protected convoy. The Hippers were both too expensive and yet not armed and armored well enough to duke it out with even British 8in Cruisers.
British can afford to loose cruisers. The existing Germans cannot.
Germans operated in the early part of the war like submersible torpedo boats. At night they fought on the surface and used their speed to attack the convoys and evade many of the early British escorts (11-12knt trawlers).
The other possibility is that another assault is being prepared to cut access to Crimea through Ukraine once forces are drawn
off to the Kursk area. This would leave a well known bridge as the only way in for Russia.
Germans were building these, some dispute as to actual effectiveness.Mines and torpedo boats are arguably the core of a coastal defense fleet, so even if you forgo a blue water surface fleet you want those.
Problem for the Germans (and any other late comers) is while they were working on the Graf Zeppelin the British were working on the Ark Royal, 4 Illustrious and had laid down the Implacable in March of 1939. This was a building race the Germans had no hope of winning. And building and trying to run one carrier depended on a crap load of luck. Out of the first 4 British carriers lost, 3 were by submarine and one was by surface ship guns. Depending on a single carrier (or even two) for your whole fleet depends on very good luck.Fair enough, however this doesn't save that much resources. Though in addition to the GZ & Seydlitz themselves, you have the all the effort that went into developing naval aircraft etc that could have been spent more usefully.
It kind of depends on the escorts, The Rawalpindi wasn't escorting anything. It was patrolling the area around Iceland. A decent cruiser (or pair) could fight such a ship and break into a convoy. But fighting actual modern British Cruisers even with a Hipper was too dangerous. The Hipper would win a one on one dual but the danger of crippling damage was too great. Graf Spee proved that. The Exeter was one of the two weakest 8in cruisers the British had and the two other cruisers had eight 6 in guns apiece.So what are the surface raiders supposed to do then? Pick off lone merchants, for which something like a fast light cruiser or even an auxiliary cruiser is good enough? Or just function as a force in being?
It was a very good tactic at the time. It also called for slightly different boats than the British were building. The British boats were usually 2-3 kts slower than the German boats on the surface. British boats were 1-2 kts faster underwater.This of course changed with faster escorts and radar, but at the time it wasn't a bad strategy, was it?
The successor class, the TYpe 39 (the Elbings) were a lot more effective for operations in the Baltic, North Sea and Bay of Biscay.Germans were building these, some dispute as to actual effectiveness.
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But not blue water, they would barely make the North Sea on a bad day. But you want some ships that can escort the Narvik ore convoys.
Yeah sorry. All I have to do now is work out how I did it.Wrong thread!?
Problem for the Germans (and any other late comers) is while they were working on the Graf Zeppelin the British were working on the Ark Royal, 4 Illustrious and had laid down the Implacable in March of 1939. This was a building race the Germans had no hope of winning. And building and trying to run one carrier depended on a crap load of luck. Out of the first 4 British carriers lost, 3 were by submarine and one was by surface ship guns. Depending on a single carrier (or even two) for your whole fleet depends on very good luck.
It kind of depends on the escorts, The Rawalpindi wasn't escorting anything. It was patrolling the area around Iceland. A decent cruiser (or pair) could fight such a ship and break into a convoy. But fighting actual modern British Cruisers even with a Hipper was too dangerous. The Hipper would win a one on one dual but the danger of crippling damage was too great. Graf Spee proved that. The Exeter was one of the two weakest 8in cruisers the British had and the two other cruisers had eight 6 in guns apiece.
It was a very good tactic at the time. It also called for slightly different boats than the British were building. The British boats were usually 2-3 kts slower than the German boats on the surface. British boats were 1-2 kts faster underwater.
The Germans also needed high surface speed to bring the boats together form the wolf packs.
As far as German Maritime patrol aircraft go. The main problem was just building them, The Fw 200 wasn't bad, they just didn't order enough because they were waiting for the He 177, and waiting, and waiting and.............................
If the thing could leave France, fly around Ireland, head towards Iceland and then turn and fly to Norway and then come back a few days later why are you fooling around with in flight refueling? How many hours do you expect the crew to stay in the plane? Order enough planes so you can fly 2 missions a day or more. Not one mission every two-three days.
Don't know about skipping the Iowas but not wasting resources on the Alaskas would've been a good idea.Germany going all-in on u-boats means the UK home fleet can be mostly deployed to the MTO, and the US capital ships can all be deployed to the Pacific. Still, there would be a great demand for escort carriers and corvettes/DEs/frigates/whatever. So sacrifice, say, the Iowas and Alaskas, some Liberty ships, and instead churn out an extra 100 CVE's, 500 corvettes, and deploy B-24's for patrol duties rather than to bombing Europe. Germany might succeed in delaying D-day until 1945, though is the invasion needed by then or are the Soviets already in Paris? And of course with the home fleet supporting the MTO, North Africa collapses and Italy probably drops out of the war sooner.
Don't know about skipping the Iowas
Don't know about skipping the Iowas but not wasting resources on the Alaskas would've been a good idea.
The greatest fast battleships still afloat! But, they never contributed much to WWII, did they?
Of course, they didn't know that when they were ordered. But if a much greater u-boat threat would have prioritized building a million ton of ASW focused hardware before laying them down, by that time they might have seen that the future belongs to aircraft, and subsequently converted the Iowa order to Essexes, or even Midways?
Just quickly (I'm supposed to be working for the man), while the Hippers had range of 6,800 nm @ 20 kn in peace situations (aka running on cruising turbines); that drops to just 3,080 nm @ 21 kn when they're running on main turbines (i.e. prepared to run when you accidentally bump into equal/superior RN forces).Per wiki the Hippers had a range of 6800 nm at 20kn, compared to 8000 nm at 10kn for the Counties and 10000 nm at 15 kn for the Baltimores (later dropping to 7000 nm with later heavier variants). Or 10000 nm at 20 kn for the Deutschlands. So the Hippers do seem short-legged, but not dramatically so (particularly once one takes into account the speed at which those wiki numbers are quoted at). Maybe they were running at high speed to evade Allied warships, which would obviously have eaten up the fuel a lot faster? But yes, something like a light cruiser in the 10000 ton range with long range, reliable machinery, and decent seakeeping would have been better.
They better have the new and improved Ball, Crystal, MkII for that sort of planning.
Everyone remembers the 4 Iowas completed (2 ordered July 1939 & 2 ordered June 1940 that completed Feb 1943 to June 1944)The greatest fast battleships still afloat! But, they never contributed much to WWII, did they?
Of course, they didn't know that when they were ordered. But if a much greater u-boat threat would have prioritized building a million ton of ASW focused hardware before laying them down, by that time they might have seen that the future belongs to aircraft, and subsequently converted the Iowa order to Essexes, or even Midways?
Perhaps I didn't explain myself clearly. My argument was that churning out a million tons worth of CVE's and DE's would take some time, even with the immense industrial resources of the USA. By the time that is done and the Iowas are next in line to be laid down, sufficient time might have passed for the USN to have second thoughts whether they really need them or would it be more useful to build, say, 4 Midways instead.
Then again, CVE's and DE's were built mostly in civilian yards, so they might not be competing with the Iowas for slipway space? In which case the above argument is invalid?
The Midways were controversial ships even within the USN. The design was approved by SecNav in March 1942, with 4 included in the Max War Programme of Aug 1942. They were the only item in that Programme that FDR refused to authorise as he thought that they would take to long to build - ships for the next war as he saw them. By allocating ships 2 & 4 to the New York Navy Yard it was then thought possible to complete them quicker. They had capacity because the Montana class battleships had been suspended but that still required the new dry docks intended for that purpose to be completed. FDR finally approved construction of the first pair at Newport News and the NY Navy Yard on 29 Dec 1942 and a third at Newport News in May 1943. Ship 4 had been cancelled in Jan 1943. It was late 1943 however before the first pair could be laid down.Perhaps I didn't explain myself clearly. My argument was that churning out a million tons worth of CVE's and DE's would take some time, even with the immense industrial resources of the USA. By the time that is done and the Iowas are next in line to be laid down, sufficient time might have passed for the USN to have second thoughts whether they really need them or would it be more useful to build, say, 4 Midways instead.
Then again, CVE's and DE's were built mostly in civilian yards, so they might not be competing with the Iowas for slipway space? In which case the above argument is invalid?
Germany had several maritime types besides the Fw200, such as the Do217, Ju290, BV222, etc.Chris from MAH seems to think the FW 200 did have several quite major flaws:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=831kbAyx3I4
That being said, having more planes, albeit flawed, beats waiting for the successor that never arrives.
British could and did out build the Germans and the Germans (some of them) seemed to forget that.Well, this applies to battleships as well. Or cruisers. Or destroyers. The British could outbuild the Germans, and given the importance of sea power to the existence of UK as a nation, would make sure to do it as well. And of course Britain had a head start, not having to scrap her navy due to the Versailles treaty.
Well, there are only so many subs you can put into the Baltic seaOnly in u-boats did the Germans manage to outbuild the British, and that's probably largely due to the UK not needing such a huge number of submarines for her needs.
Well, the Germans did have 4 baskets (or 4 + 3 half baskets) instead of 1. Even before radar skewing your navy to operate best in good weather in the NA doesn't seem to be a good plan. The Guns ships could (before radar) take advantage of poor weather/visibility to elude pursuit. Maybe not a great plan but sending out 1 (2?) carriers to face 5-6 Modern (newer than the Furious and sisters) carriers in good weather does not seem like a good plan.But yes, if you do go for carriers you need to build a bunch of them so as not to have all your sea power disappear in one stroke if you lose one of them. Though arguably the same applies to gun-based ships as well.
This is probably a better plan. It forces the British to spread out their Cruisers even more. British had a crap load of old WW I cruisers which had problems in the NA. Short range, wet, slow and the main battery was light and short ranged. They may have been better than the armed merchant cruisers but they were a large step below even the Leanders. (fire control, exposed gun crews, slow rate of fire in long gun action, etc)Maybe a better option indeed is the fast light cruiser mentioned previously in the thread? Enough armament and armor to fight destroyers, ASW escorts, and merchant cruisers, run away from anything else including enemy light cruisers.
A streamlined conning tower only bought so much. Both the British and Americans did several refit/rebuild programs on their WW II subs. Extending to new motors and new battery packs and sometimes cutting the hull in two and adding in extra length to fit in much higher Battery capacity.While the Type XXI was evidently a bridge too far, it seems they could have made a significantly simpler and cheaper boat than XXI that was still better than the VII. Something inbetween the VII and XXI? Take the streamlined hull and conning tower approach of the XXI with the turreted 30mm AA guns, lose the deck gun, and even without the massive battery pack and huge electric motors of the XXI it should be possible to get a significant submerged speed boost?
It did have some major flaws, they also did minimal changes because the He 177 was just around the corner, or the next corner, we can't to improve the Fw 200 now as the He 177 is surely on the next block and then...............................................Chris from MAH seems to think the FW 200 did have several quite major flaws: