The nazis and the Z-plan.

[Tiornu]

Given the giant, neon example of the First World War, in which the German navy not only failed to advance German strategic goals but also caused monumental strategic setbacks, the decision to pursue another major naval program seems laughably foolish. In fairness, the decision looks foolish only in context with a war against Britain. Even after war broke out with Britain, I wonder if the Germans might have made good use of their big ships by directing them eastward in 1941.

[sid guttridge]

Hi Guys,

You are forgetting that the Z-Plan was a long term one and the navy was led by Hitler to believe that there would be no war before 1944 at the earliest. The Z-plan only looks so foolish because Hitler sprung his war on his navy at least five years earlier than he had told it to prepare for.

Nor had Germany lost as much ground in naval design under the Versailles Treaty as one might assume, because the Washington Naval Treaty had prevented the UK from undertaken much major battleship production in the 1920s and early 1930s. From memory, I think Nelson and Rodney were just about the only new battleships completed in those years and both were drastically truncated to meet the treaty requirements. The evidence that Germany had lost little lies in the fact that the Bismarck and Tirpitz were superior to the contemporary British KGV Class of battleships.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Enrico Cernuschi]

Hello Gentlemen,

I agree with Sid. Think only one of the two first "H" BBs would have been completed in 1941 or 1942, simply staying in being somewhere in Norway? What would have been her influence on the Atlantic strategy?

German single ship building capacity was huge in comparison of British one. The Blohm und Voss possesed 250-ton cranes tested to 300 tons. The common British practice was for cranes of 3-5 tons capacity (Correlli barnett, The Audit of War, Ed. Macmillan 1986, pg. 117). To built big sections working night and day three shafts inside a covered hangar and be able to fit them 250 tons a time halved the building times fince the forties. It was all a new generations. As my friend Franco Bandini wrote in his Tecnica della sconfitta more than 40 years ago in Feb. 1939, when Britain knew about the Z plan, it was no more a matter of years, but of monthes or even weeks.

Bye

EC

[Andy H]

You are forgetting that the Z-Plan was a long term one and the navy was led by Hitler to believe that there would be no war before 1944 at the earliest. The Z-plan only looks so foolish because Hitler sprung his war on his navy at least five years earlier than he had told it to prepare for

Agreed but this British were also in the midst of a rebuilding programme when the war started. The 16" Lion class BB's were due to join the fleet (2 in 1943 and 2 in 1944).

Regards

[Troy Tempest]

Somehow these idealogues thought that they could stretch their limited shipbuilding capacity by rapidly building Germany a blue water high-seas battleship navy that would challange the naval dominance of The Royal Navy.

Wasn't the German civil shipbuilding program during the late 20's and 30's quite large? I remember watching that series on 'The Liners' or something like that, and Germany was competing with England and France with cross atlantic passenger liners, and doing well. I think Germany was the first country to build four-stack liners, and they were big and fast. Surely it wouldn't have been a giant leap from constructing huge liners to naval ships?

So thank you Admiral Raeder and Adolf Hitler for wating all those resources on those ultimately useless battleships, instead of Uboats and ZBoats. Thank you for leading the Kriegmarine to overconfidence that led to disaster in Norway. You did the allies a HUGE favour!

Well, I don't know that the Bismarck was a waste, despite my thinking it could have done different things, it still represented a real threat to the RN and the atlantic convoys. If it had broken through it could have caused a lot of carnage. The Tirpitz, while doing bugger all, still tied up large resources of the RN, though perhaps it could have done at least one kick-arse sortie. As for the U-boots, sure, you could probably build 200 U-boats with the resources of the Bismarck, but then once the English got wind of a HUGE U-boat construction programme, they surely would have stepped up their own destroyer programme? The Z-boots could have been handy, for sure, but once again, even if you could build 20+ Z-boats for the price of the Bismarck, the RN wouldn't have taken that lying down. As for the disaster in Norway, yes it was costly for the Kriegsmarine, but Raeder said he thought it was worth the cost. Norway was Germanys for the rest of the war, and those Z-boats that were lost played a major role in that success.

Troy