Thumpalumpacus
Major
Distance, mainly. A WWII army has a much larger logistics train, even if the Heer is still using half-a-million horses.
Better German naval strategy 1930-1945?
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Distance, mainly. A WWII army has a much larger logistics train, even if the Heer is still using half-a-million horses.
Shortround6
Major General
Use Russian horses ?
Logistics are above a corporal's paygrade, They should have appointed a Sargent to be supreme leader.
SaparotRob
Unter Gemeine Geschwader Murmeltier XIII
That is an attractive little ship. I'm having trouble reading her name. A little help?
Shortround6
Major General
King Edward
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Of course. My parents house, like many other houses in my country, had an oil burning boiler for hot tap water as well as for pumping through radiators. Since replaced by a heat pump, but anyway. It used light fuel oil, which except for a lower tax rate, is (or at least a few decades ago, was) identical to road diesel.
My understanding is that the problems the IJN encountered were due to using raw crude oil, after the Allies destroyed their refineries. Crude oil contains all the light volatile fractions that are refined to petrol, (LPG even?), so that's an entirely different kettle of fish than using diesel oil.
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- #346
Sure, I was thinking of the time when they laid down the Hippers, when the AGNA was in effect.
I understand the motivation for scrapping the D's was that they thought they were too weak against the Dunkerques, and they wished to get started with the Scharnhorsts ASAP. In retrospect, a couple of D's could have been useful in WWII, even if that would have meant the Scharnhorsts and Bismarcks were delayed. But I guess they couldn't foresee that at the time.
Thumpalumpacus
Major
I seem to remember reading that part of the scorched-earth retreats was the killing of livestock.
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- #348
Yes, i know. But that was somewhat mature technology at the time, since heating the fuel was also required for spraying it into steam boilers. So whatever the challenges with running diesel engines on HFO were, figuring out that you need to heat the fuel so you can pump it wasn't one of them.
That's of course true. It's easy to say which approach works in retrospect.
Not all crude oil is the same. Some of the oilfields in the DEI produced crude that, while not ideal, could be used in ships' boilers.
Japanese use of crude pre-dated the damage to their oil refineries in the DEI. They started using it before the Battle of the Philippine Sea in June 1944. It was the end of that year before the bombing campaigns against DEI facilities really got going. In early 1944 they moved most of their fleet down to the Singapore area to be near their oil supplies. But come mid-1944 the problem seems to have been accumulating enough fuel oil in time for the major battles they knew were coming up. The oilfields were still producing and the refineries were refining all that they could, but it still wasn't enough. Then add in the fact that the IJA & IJN didn't pool their reserves most of the time.
The story of Japan's oil woes in WW2 is not easy to follow and their are a number of myths about what went on. This study is the best I've thus far found on the subject. Reasons for using crude start about p70
don4331
Senior Airman
The Hippers were ordered before the AGNA; technically, they could have been built under Versailles as Panzerschiffe D & E (instead of Kreuzer G & H).
I still don't understand scrapping "D". If they hadn't started, i.e. Panzerschiffe "E", then there is an argument, but with all the material ordered (guns, boilers, turbines); knowing redesign to Schlachtschiff would set both the 'treaty cruisers' and the battleships back 18-24 months, and that the 28cm guns might not be able to penetrate Dunkerques armour (basically round may penetrate caliber so rumours of 280 mm belt would have required perfect hit; actual armour was 240mm, so 28cm gun turns out to be OK) it seems like dumb decision.
That Z-plan included P class
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- #351
Well, they were clearly designed to fit within the treaty framework in anticipation of the signing of the AGNA. Why otherwise go for a 10kton & 20cm gun design, there's nothing particularly magic about that particular size? Although, the Hippers went so far beyond the treaty tonnage limits that one wonders, it was quite a brazen violation of the treaty they had just signed..
In retrospect, it might have made sense to finish the D&E, and use the time while they are under construction to design a "proper" battleship to build instead of the Scharnhorsts. Do it "properly" and there's no need to do yet another design for the historical Bismarcks. Say, for the same tonnage as the historical S, G, B, and T they could have built two 20kton D-class ships and three 35kton battleships, and probably have them all ready before the historical Tirpitz was finished.
The Z-plan was always a fantasy. Instead of P and O class (battle)cruisers for surface raiding, as suggested by S Shortround6 earlier in the thread it might have been better to build a batch of fast long range light cruisers. Powerful enough to comfortably beat the typical convoy escorts like destroyers, corvettes, auxiliary cruisers, and fast enough to run away from bigger warships. Cheap enough that they could build more of them. Would probably have been more useful and cheaper than the historical Hippers.
maybe from our position but .... in all 1941the UK was alone (and literally harmless to Germany), and the intelligence (wrong) assessment was that they were in Moscow by winter. (and there we can discuss for a long time how wrongly Halder went head on to Smolensk for example) Bottom line without Germany's dangerous eastern enemy and potential (and later actual) ally, and America neutral and turned to itself - what options are left for the UK but a separate peace?
It's convenient to be happy when you win in gambling but you can also lose. And Hitler had a long period of obtained 6 (wins)....
Thumpalumpacus
Major
The UK had American Lend-Lease from Mar 1941, and cash-and-carry for almost a year before that. They had hundreds (if not thousands) of aircraft on order, a Navy the Germans could never hope to match, and the world's biggest moat guarding them.
As soon as Germany invades USSR, they lose access to Soviet oil, rubber, grain, and other resources. They'd best hope they capture the Soviet government, not just Moscow, because iirc the CCCP was decided to keep fighting even after the fall of Moscow -- hence the removal of the seat of government to Kuibyshev. Meanwhile, the Brits have access to American foodstuffs, oil, and other resources so long as the Battle of the Atlantic allows enough to get through.
I think the UK had a good possibility of watching the two dictators chew each other up until at least the spring of 1943 (assuming that Stalingrad happens as historically) while it builds its own strength. They may be able to knock Italy out of the war on their own.
Well, that's more or less what happened.
But....
The Battle of the Atlantic was (mostly) won by the Allies only in late 1942. The Western Allies did not land in Europe until three years after the beginning of Barbarossa. After the defeat of the CCCP (or at least the pacification of the eastern front) they would land... when? It's convenient to say this or that should have been done from the armchair after we know what happened. How long could the Germany-CCCP pact last? Would Stalin have considered it convenient to attack from the rear (some have written books that his preparing that in 1940 but fall of France prevented it) in '41 or '42 or after Germany got into trouble in North Africa/Italy? Or would he only continue to pressure, for example, critical Romania with oil? And let's say one question - why Germany spent more steel 41-42 for the production of Coal liquefaction plants for the production of (mainly) aviation gasoline than on tanks and ammunition for the war with the CCCP ? The answer - that they wrongly estimated that they would remove the CCCP from the equation and come to a stalemate with the Western allies (that is, neither side can invade other). And that is also the answer to the declaration of war on USA (and that there was a fairly accurate assessment that by 1943 the USA would not be able to threaten Germany). Without the focus (and all the army/air force) in the east that would probably be true.
Of course we can say... but there is an atomic bomb, Russia would never surrender, but who knows... and if it wasn't a historical fact, would anyone have predicted the fall of France in 1940, or would they say it's impossible?
But....
The Battle of the Atlantic was (mostly) won by the Allies only in late 1942. The Western Allies did not land in Europe until three years after the beginning of Barbarossa. After the defeat of the CCCP (or at least the pacification of the eastern front) they would land... when? It's convenient to say this or that should have been done from the armchair after we know what happened. How long could the Germany-CCCP pact last? Would Stalin have considered it convenient to attack from the rear (some have written books that his preparing that in 1940 but fall of France prevented it) in '41 or '42 or after Germany got into trouble in North Africa/Italy? Or would he only continue to pressure, for example, critical Romania with oil? And let's say one question - why Germany spent more steel 41-42 for the production of Coal liquefaction plants for the production of (mainly) aviation gasoline than on tanks and ammunition for the war with the CCCP ? The answer - that they wrongly estimated that they would remove the CCCP from the equation and come to a stalemate with the Western allies (that is, neither side can invade other). And that is also the answer to the declaration of war on USA (and that there was a fairly accurate assessment that by 1943 the USA would not be able to threaten Germany). Without the focus (and all the army/air force) in the east that would probably be true.
Of course we can say... but there is an atomic bomb, Russia would never surrender, but who knows... and if it wasn't a historical fact, would anyone have predicted the fall of France in 1940, or would they say it's impossible?
Thumpalumpacus
Major
Of course counterfactuals are rife with possibilities and the further down the timeline we go the more wild are the butterflies. I'm simply pointing out that the UK wasn't in nearly such dire straits as was painted.
Don't think that I would quite agree here ... after the fall of France, and before Barbarossa there was an episode in the Balkans, Greece, Crete, Rommel started Sunflower in Africa ... I would say that Churchill's radio speech showed it best (and even more that part off the record).
UK islands were no longer under the threat of the invasion in 1941 but they didn't know that for shure.
Thumpalumpacus
Major
I think the near-impossibility of invading the UK was amply demonstrated in 1940.
Except it wasn't until about Aug / Sept 1941 that the British Chiefs of Staff were confident enough that an invasion of Britain would not happen at least that year. As a result they could begin to plan to release forces to be redeployed to the region that then had priority - the Middle East. For example the 18th Div and 2 Hurricane fighter wings (7 squadrons).
Thumpalumpacus
Major
Had it happened even before then, I don't doubt that between them the RN and the RAF would have seen it off.
SaparotRob
Unter Gemeine Geschwader Murmeltier XIII
Doubt if they'd make it past the Channel Islands.
