@@goodman4966 none currently, but plenty in the past, and a few friends currently. Last family member in the Navy was a great uncle who found himself in the engine rooms of HMS Royal Oak when U-47 showed up...
Raeder: "Okay, so you want another High Seas Fleet that can challenge the Royal Navy? Hitler: "Yeah." Raeder: "Okay, then just give us until about 1948-ish and we might just be ready." Hitler: "Don't worry. I'm not going to war until then." **The German Reich has declared war on Poland** Raeder: *_"Sigh..._* U-Boats it is." Dönitz: "Somebody said U-Boats?"
What is interesting is that Wilhelm II built his entire battle fleet of dreadnoughts and super-dreadnoughts in eight years, along with doubling the numbers of cruisers and destroyers in the High Seas Fleet. So, it was possible for Germany to build a formidable fleet in less than a decade... in theory. Of course, the real situation is that German industry in general was very poorly run under the Nazis, who were generally ill-educated brutes, or well educated people who were detached from reality. Add to that the material requirements of rebuilding a military fro scratch are very high compared to the stead state of arming of the German Army prior to WWI. That is to say that the Army was already mostly armed and only a few major weapons systems were added. The new Wehrmacht needed a lot of everything and add to that whole new families of weapons systems like tanks, armored vehicles, self-propelled guns, etc. As well as building an air force from scratch. So the material demands on the German economy for re-armament in 1933-1939 was far higher than 1906-1914. All that said, yes, Germany could have built a large fleet quickly had it truly been a priority.
[Eager young aide sticks his head around the door of the naval design department] AIDE: Admiral Doenitz wants more Sparkreuzers [Naval designers sadly shake their heads and begin folding their complicated plans for gigantic battleships into paper boats...]
@@frost9041 Oh absolutely. The Signal men on that bucket are horribly incompetent or hallucinate about torpedo boats. But the spotters might accidentally see the difference if the ship is large enough
@@lok3kobold oh no I don’t think you relise the true horror that ship was it see a pack of fucking seagulls and signal that the whole Luftwaffe and raf are attacking it
I think, beside being a funny comment, it's not quite comparable as in WW1, the German fleet could not break out of the North Sea. The situation was completely different in WW2, with France and Norway occupied and the existance of an airforce.
Well the only reason it didn’t work was because the only bigger fleet in the world was the british who could easily contaminate the high seas fleet in the north sea. Not to mention the lesser supply
@Rauschgenerator except during plan Z, france would probably have had its shit together by then, and Norway would have 100% modernized. Nevermind Poland would have modernized by then
The Germans were stupid to hand their fleet over at the end of WWI. And in WWII the Brits unleashed the World War again, before the Germans could establish a fleet in being. But anyway the Royal Navy is dead like the entire west.
The Z plan had one massive flaw; the British response to actual German building programmes. British survival was based on her merchant fleet and the security of the merchant fleet was dependent on the Royal Navy. Britannia's sword and shield was sea-power; Germany was a continental power and would win or loss on land. Thanks to an intelligence source inside the German Navy design department the Royal Navy had some idea of what the Germans were thinking about. The British were well aware that the Germans, Italian and Japanese were in breach of the Naval treaties but were not in a position to openly or privately protest about it. The pre-war proposed minimum British 1942 fleet was for 20 battleships & battlecruiisers with the 2 Revenge class battleships (that were in the Reserve Fleet in 1939) having been scraped or reduced to training duties. The fleet was to include 12 aircraft carriers (2 as peace time training ships), 70 cruisers and 198 destroyers. There was to be a greatly increased trade defence force with the oldest light cruisers converting to AA cruisers and older destroyers converting from fleet roles to ASW and AA escorts. New designs of versions of types of deep sea and coastal escorts and the increasing tempo in their peacetime construction (but inadequate to the massive wartime needs).
I'm sure there were many smart people doing estimates and analysing the best course of options. 198 ships though, that I can't ignore. You could've just thrown in two destroyers for good measure, but no, the English had to screw it, didn't they?
@@klobiforpresident2254 reminds me of MHV's most recent video showing relative timelapse of US vs Japan WWII warships. ... Like someone was just churning out US DDs and DEs.
Do not forget the US 'Two-Ocean Navy' plan of the same time period which would have built an fleet of approximately the same size as mention for the RN with the more elderly units still hanging around for secondary roles. Given economic realities, the Z-plan was a pipe dream as the German economy could not out build the British at all and the US could out build both combined once it got cranked up. So the real problem with the Z-plan was it would antagonize the UK and the US both who could out build you and could build very solid designs if they could avoid idiots like Jackie Fisher (not a problem in WWII as both navies did suffer from another Jackie Fisher). The Japanese building plans would have the same effect, UK and US ramp their building plans. Given the tendency for German and Japanese designs to have some real ly bad design features that the UK and US mostly avoid, both Germany and Japan have fewer and overall inferior ships to the UK and US.
@@felix_halcs123 *After* Hitler invaded Poland on the 1. of september The UK sent an ultimatum to Germany to stop hostilities, which Hitler didn't. On the 3. since Hitler didn't respond, both France and Britain declared war.
To be fair, if Hitler didn’t start World War II, Stalin would’ve done it anyway a year or two later, if not over Poland than possibly over the Baltic countries or Finland, or maybe picking a fight with Japan over Manchuria. Ultimately, it was the Munich Agreement that led Hitler to think he could get away with taking Danzig off of Poland without the UK or France intervening (and he was right - while war was declared, they refused to actually try and counterinvade Germany and help the Poles directly, largely due to the formidable defenses of the Siegfried Line, though the fact that French strategy was pretty much dependent on fighting defensively like in the previous war didn't help, especially when the Germans demonstrated that they weren't going to allow themselves to be bogged down into a war of attrition again if they had any say in the matter). By his own admission, had the UK and France been more firm in opposing the occupation of the Sudetenland, he wouldn't have made a similar ultimatum to take Danzig from Poland, which led to war when Poland refused and the UK and France finally put their foot down.
I feel like he received a cancer diagnosis and went full Walter White so he could see his destruction of the world before it got him, then got bored halfway in amd just intentionally made poor decisions to get it over with quicker...
The Axis did not have enough oil to properly fuel even the Italian battle fleet. If the Plan Z fleet had been built, it would have been forced to stay in port for most of the war, much like the Japanese battle fleet was inactive in the Pacific during much of the war.
Ensign Nemo maybe having designs like the Revenge class battleships which were coal powered and with Poland vast coal supply they may have stood a chance of being useful. But for all the axis navies they suffered through the entire war with a crippling lack of fuel
What most do not know, was that lack of fuel transport was also the ultimate limiting factor for the assault on Japan by the USA. The amount of fuel required to take even a tiny island was mind numbingly stupendous and there simply were not enough tankers till middle of 1945.... @@themadhammer3305
w8stral yeah, the planned invasion force for the invasion of Japan was monstrous, it makes sense that fuel was an issue. Between Britain and the US they maybe could have chucked enough tankers together after VE day but the logistics involved were still mind boggling even for the two largest navies in the world.
Although I agree for the most part, one serious problem is that Stalin was paranoid about the British prior to Operation Barbarossa, and would probably have sold Germany fuel throughout their war with Britain (and by extension Italy, making the Mediterranean even more dangerous); even the possibility of a victory at sea may have convinced the Germans not to attack the Soviets until after a British defeat. There's a reason no one could convince Stalin to prepare for a German attack in 1941 when all signs pointed towards an obvious, imminent invasion.
How would you get the OIL to Germany from Russia at the time? Would have to do a crash course build in tankers which did not exist for going from the Caspian to Black sea and then up the Danube. Hrmm... When was the Caspian connected to the Black sea again? When was the Danube connected to the Rhine again? ... Yea, wouldn't work. Timing is wrong. But a Railroad transport for quite a bit of it... There is a reason the Persian and Texas were so important. All that oil is right next to the coast. @@BrigadierBill
The Yamamoto of naval TH-cam channels. Destroys all competitors. Top work this one. I been watching for a long time to back when we had no human voice. I don't have a question more a request. With your skills would you please do a decent video on the British pacific fleet of WW2. Too often overlooked and its a big interest of mine and I reckon would make a great vid. Although I'm a little bias! Not enough vids on the subject in my opinion.
Agreed. Drach's videos are always excellent. My favorite aspect is how he's able to compare ships, doctrines, etc. He doesn't just wank to statistics like too many people (and most naval documentaries, for that matter); he gives context and comparisons that allow for a deeper understanding of the subject matter. Every video I watch excites my interest and drives me to learn more, and for that I'm grateful. (Also, as a side nitpick, I'd say he's the Cunningham, Nimitz, or, if you want to go Japanese, Togo of naval TH-camrs rather than Yamamoto. Yamamoto made way too many colossal blunders to be considered a great admiral; Pearl Harbor, Midway, Solomons, etc.)
Because a treaty Soviet entered after ww1 forbids any aircraft carrier from passing through the Dardanelles. Some cruisers do carry recognizance aircraft/s, ehum...
@@igoryst3049 "Kuznetsov" is the same hybrid with the ramp... Soviet admirals have been prepared to win the past war in the maximal scale. They improvised with idea of the lone aircraft carrier/raider
You're being too generous to Plan Z by comparing it to the High Seas Fleet. The HSF consisted of ships that were comparable or in some cases superior to their closest Royal Navy counterparts. That's not really the case for Plan Z.
RedXlV for Battlecruisers? Sure, but the actual Battleships of the high seas fleet were pretty bad until the Bayern class in comparison to the Royal Navy Battleships, the German guns were consistently of a smaller calibre and thus more limited in capability than the British, and the layout of such guns was often horrendous(Hexagonal turret layout is gross)
Not sure I can agree there. Call me bias and I guess I could be. But apart from the outlying terrible designs on both sides (I'm looking at you, so called "Invincible" class)... The British ships were ahead of the German classes. Can hardly blame the Germans. The British ship building industry was the thing of legand. They started the race for Dreadnaughts and never really lost the lead. German armour was excellent. British was arguably as good. British power plants were much better in every respect, especially overall efficiency. Guns were of larger caliber. Obviously I'm talking about capital ships. As a purely qualitative argument. I think the British ships had a technical lead of a couple of years at least. Before factoring in the size and quantity of British ships. That said. I'm no expert (my knowledge is much more 30s and 40s and geo-political rather than technical). So any good source on the subject is one id enjoy reading. Also *Whisper's* The German ships were cooler. Especially Von-Derr Tann, Sydlitz and Baden.... Other than Warspite. Because. Warspite.
@@deeznoots6241 Calibre isn't everything - 18" of Yamato wasn't that superior to 16" of Iowas, Bismarck's 15" wasn't overwhelming to British 14" from KGV which itself (can be argued) was quite comparable, if not better, than Rodney's 16". Sorry to break it to you, but British shipbuilding SUCKED - compared to other powers their ships were overengineered and obsolete at the same time. Quadruple turrets like those on PoW were constant cause of trouble and British battleships were just about slowest of the bunch. Only the Soviets trailed behind by significant margin.
what he is totally missing is how germany always builds ships that (even today) on paper look bigger than other countries ships of the same class and with smaller caliber guns, but in reality these ships are well balanced and just worked. they can take enormous damage and they can accurately hit the enemy unlike british ships which somehow always end up exploding from being hit by a single shell or rocket (ww1, ww2, falklands), rolling over when taking in a bit of water eg. from a torpedo hit, to outright sinking because they hit a single mine and can't stop the flooding. german ships just work better than that, maybe because they are better balanced. just looking at the datasheet doesn't tell you that but reality proved them right.
Why would plan z be completed with battleships and battlecruisers? It takes up to 1948 to get completed,weren't battleships and battlecruiser obsolete by 1944?
"Hey guys, you know how Britain has the literal best navy in the world?" "Yes, we are well aware, did you have a way for us to beat them?" "Yes I did" "well, tell me!" "BIG boat, REALLY BIG boat"
Hitler: "Enough really big boat?" "... probably not..." *Hitler looks displeased and reaches for the 'send for the Gestapo' button" "...BUT!...Wait...err..." *Hitler hesitates* "... U-Boats!...yes, erm. *cough* Yes! U-Boats.....lots of them!" *Hitler looks unsure* ... "Annnddddd" "...And... Goering will supply the planes!?!." *Even Hitler face palms*
You should do some research of your own. Not so much. At one time yes. By world war 2 british gunnery standards and training had fallen pretty badly. And many of thier battleships were poorly maintained antiques.
@Shonono Yeetus Biggest? Maybe, bit not the best. Their Battleships were shit. Nelson and Rodney were only decent. The Prince of Wales, King George V were jokes, quad 356mm? Many others would go for others, their own treaty was the death of their Navy. France while new had began building far more Modern Navy ships, quad 380mms were experimental, but were better than anything Britain's quad 356mm.
@Shonono Yeetus The only reason they won was by numbers, most of their ships were all either outdated or crap. Aircraft Carrier wise, they were in the game for a while and had to dish everything out from the Prototype Aircraft Carrier to work out everything. Germany was still oudated on armor, using Turtleback Armor against Convoys and smaller ships. Italy is Italy, both were not aspiring Naval Powers and never were. Germany even by WW1 only had one good class of Battleship, the Bayern, others were shit designs. I'd say, Britain won only by numbers and every ship they had were quite shit.
@@matthewang8934 Utter crap. Tribal Class destroyers were amongst the best gun Destroyers of the war, Town Class Cruisers ranked amongst the finest Light Cruiser design of the War. The only real issue with the King George V Class were the 14 inch guns, 9 15 inch in triple turrets would have been a better choice, otherwise they were well armoured and fast. While not the best BB's of the war they were more than adequate. Most of the modern British Destroyers were good all round fleet destroyers. As for the British Carriers, they were designed the way they were because they were designed to operate in seas covered by hostile land based aircraft, which neither the Japanese or US Carriers were. Show me a US or IJN Carrier that would have survived multiple 1000Kg bomb hits.... Don't worry, I'll wait, though I won't hold my breath as you WONT find one.... You WILL however find several British Carriers that did just that..... This is what those such as yourself do not seem to understand. Many of these ships were designed for specific roles. The Arathusa and Leander Class Light Cruisers were NOT designed for Fleet Roles, that was the job of the Towns. Instead they were Trade Route protection vessels. That is the job they were DESIGNED for. A factor people like you never take into account. Real war, is not a game of Trumps. A Leander Class does not have to be able to sink a German Surface Raider, it simply has to damage it enough to send it back to Port for repairs, that is STILL a Mission Kill..... WWII came earlier than any Navy really wanted, the build plan for the Royal Navy from 1935 - 1944 (when they were expecting war) included a complete modernisation of the Navy, with virtually EVERY pre 1930's ship being replaced, including the Battleships, with both the Lions and KGV's replacing the Queen Elizabeths and Revenges.
You forgot the Graf Zeppelin's best feature: Her catapults! The Graf was to be a catapult carrier who launched all her craft via compressed air catapults. Had she been completed, she would've been able to launch 18 aircraft before her catapults needed to recharge...for about 50 minutes. So not only did the Graf carry a really small number of planes for her weight, but she couldn't even launch half of them within an hour! Truly she was a masterpiece of Nazi German engineering! Jokes aside, the Germans had no idea how to design or operate a carrier effectively. This isn't surprising: Every navy that builds and operates carriers goes through that awkward first few ships where they're just trying to figure out what works and what doesn't. China's going through the same thing right now. And once you have a workable carrier design and aircraft for it, you're only halfway done. You still have to figure out how to operate a carrier so it can be a decisive force in battle, then build the organizational framework and institutions to train crews and produce ships, planes, and equipment to support a carrier. This takes a lot of time, resources, and serious organizational effort to develop; just look at what the IJN and USN had to go through to get effective carrier forces, and how long it took the RN to get close to their level because for a long time they weren't willing to put in the same effort to learn "how to carrier". Graf Zeppelin was a terrible carrier design (though in fairness she wasn't an awful first attempt for a navy that had no carrier experience), but it didn't really matter since, again, the Germans had no idea how to use carriers in the first place. They could've been handed a brand new Shokaku-class ship with a full compliment of Japanese carrier planes and probably would've gotten it sunk on its first mission. (Funnily enough, Graf Zeppelin is one of my favorite German ships of WW2. Maybe it's her interesting story. Maybe it's because I like pointing and laughing at Nazi incompetence. Maybe it's because her humanized version in Azur Lane is humorously grumpy and stupidly hot. Probably all of the above.) *EDIT 4/18/20* - About a year ago I added to this comment a reply I wrote to someone else (which you can find below) that was chock full of errors, which many commenters have pointed out. I was a new naval history fan and something of a know-nothing know-it-all, and I apologize for my arrogance and touting wrong information. To keep someone else from stumbling on this post and getting fed bad info, and as an apology for my screw-ups, I’ll go over the correct info about the Graf Zeppelin as best I can, as well as address a few things people keep bringing up. Note that I don’t speak German, so I’m limited to English sources for this, though most of them draw on the works of German historians and seem to be largely the same minus a lot of details about the technology planned for the Graf Zeppelin. The sources I have with info about Nazi Germany’s unborn carrier program on hand are: -Conway’s All The World’s Fighting Ships, 1922-1946 (1980) -The German Aircraft Carrier Graf Zeppelin by Siegfried Breyer (1989) -Without Wings: The Story Of Hitler’s Aircraft Carrier by Stephen Burke (2008) -Fleets of World War II Revised Edition by Richard Worth (2015) -Aircraft Carrier Impero by Davide F. Jabes and Stefano Sappino (2018) All displacements listed are in metric tons unless specified. Here we go: *Part 1: Comparison to other carriers* In my initial post I compared the Graf to various contemporary carriers to show how she would’ve matched up, but I switched up the standard and full displacements for some of the ships. Here’s an accurate, more thorough (though by no means comprehensive since this is already going to be enough of an essay) comparison of overall length (L), beam or width (B), standard displacement (SD), full load displacement (FD), and aircraft compliment (AC). Graf Zeppelin class: L - 262.5 m (861 ft 3 in) B - 31.5 m (103 ft 4 in) SD - 23,200 tons initially: ~24,500 tons after bulges were added in 1942 to compensate a 4-degree list the ship developed as its topweight increased) FD - 29,720 tons initially: 33,550 tons with bulges) AC - 42-43 (planned, no German plans for deck parking) Yorktown class (United States): L - 246.8 m (809 ft 9 in) B - 33.4 m (109ft 6 in) SD - 19,875 tons FD - 25,484 tons AC - 90-96 with a deck park (~63 without a deck park, but the USN used deck parking for the entire war) Illustrious class (Britain): L - 229.6 m (753 ft 3 in) B - 29.2 m (95 ft 9 in) SD - 23,000 tons FD - 28,620 tons designed: 29,110 - 29,240 in service AC - 36, later 52-57 when the Royal Navy adopted deck parking in 1944 Shokaku class (Imperial Japan): L - 257.5 m (844 ft 10 in) B - 29 m (95 ft 2 in) SD - 25,675 tons FD - 32,105 tons AC - 72 + 12 disassembled spares (no deck park; the Japanese didn’t use them) Bear in mind, the weight of the ships actually completed increased significantly as the war went on and they received more AA, sensors, crew, and better, heavier planes. Plane size also affects how many aircraft can be stowed in a carrier, but the numbers are still good for giving us a general idea. Note also how much smaller the Illustrious is than the other carriers - nearly 100 ft shorter than the Graf. That hugely limits her hangar size, so her smaller air wing is understandable. Her weight comes largely from her heavy armor and larger AA battery, especially her armored flight deck which none of the other carriers have.* So defending the Graf’s tiny air wing by pointing to Illustrious’s smaller one (like some commenters have done) doesn’t hold up. Illustrious is limited by her size and made reasonable tradeoffs for having a smaller airwing. She’s a solid design; she just has different strengths than a typical CV. *(Actually, while it’s not as important as her other issues, the Graf has arguably the poorest protection of the group, with all the other carriers having thicker belt armor and Illustrious and Shokaku having thicker deck armor. I won’t go through listing more numbers, so I’ll just point you to Wikipedia, which seems to take its armor numbers from Conway’s. Overall, not great for a CV trying to double as a bloated light cruiser.) It's best to compare the Graf Zeppelin to the Shokakus: Both are purpose-built CVs, they’re actually close in size (Graf is longer and wider) and displacement once the Graf got her bulges, and neither navy planned or implemented deck parks for their carriers, so we don’t have to factor them into any comparison. Suffice to say, it’s really not good for the Graf. And that’s not even getting into other factors like flight-handling facilities, AVGAS storage, protection, and more. Moving on. *NOTE: TH-cam keeps eating my changes when I try to add everything I wrote so I'm adding the other 3 parts plus this one as separate posts below. They're around post #90, so you'll have to dig for them. (As stated, it took me a year to come back to this.) Sorry for the inconvenience.*
1Korlash Not to mention that Germany’s poor (i.e. nigh nonexistent) troop rotation system meant that their navy pilots would be fighting until killed or captured, meaning very few, if any, veteran pilots staying behind to help train. In the already unlikely scenario that a German carrier fleet would survive a good way into the war, they’d be facing the same problem as the Japanese did with their training deficit to the Allies. Imagine having a bunch of novice pilots having to take off and land *109’s* of all things on carriers in the Atlantic. I feel accident rates would do half the Allies’ work for them!
I think the other planes after the first 18 could takr of confentional, moreover her planes are counted without deck cariing, meaning that she could have roughly comparable plane numbers
@bh5496 Agreed, but "navy pilots"? I think you mean "the dregs Goering and the Luftwaffe threw our way"! Yeah, that's another problem with any potential German carriers: If it flies, it's Goering's. The carrier pilots would answer to a separate Luftwaffe chain of command aboard the ship, not the navy. As the inter-war Royal Navy could tell you, having your carrier pilots controlled by a separate air force (the RAF) and not the navy is very bad for rapid and seamless operations. And given how relations between the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe were worse than they were between the RN and RAF (to the point where the Graf might have had separate mess halls for the different services to prevent fraternization), that doesn't bode well for the cohesiveness of German carrier crews.
@@krisk4613 The surviving plans for the Graf tell us EVERYTHING was to be catapult-launched. That would affect pilot training, flight crew training, standard operational procedures, etc. It might be possible to fly planes off the Graf Zeppelin's deck, but without the doctrine and training to do that, it wouldn't be an option for her. With enough carrier experience, the Germans would likely realize that the catapult-only launch was really dumb. Whether or not the Graf Zeppelin would even live long enough for them to figure this out is another question entirely.
The issue I have with the Z plan is that it plays against Germany’s strengths. Germany is a continental power with powerful enemies on two sides, possibly even three given Mussolini’s support wasn’t certain. Not only is Germany not a naval power, it is in a horrible position from which to conduct naval war, with one of the world’s dominant naval powers plonked right athwart its approaches. Germany is a continental, not a naval, power. If you’re a continental power, rule 1 is to avoid symmetric naval confrontation with a naval power. Granted Germany needs some form of naval power: she imports too many raw materials from overseas to avoid this, but an asymmetric strategy of using U-boats and maybe fast torpedo boats, minefields and aircraft could have contained the Royal Navy. Ultimately, it can be argued that the decision to pursue symmetric naval competition led to Germany’s failure in both World Wars.
You are of course 100% correct But your reasoning is irrelevant... Think of it this way... The stratigic situation is irrelevant to the Z plan. Nazi Germany was a dictatorship and Hitler wanted a big powerful navy and that was that. So he got the Z plan. Ok. Over simplified a bit. You could argue that what he wanted was to *say* he wanted a big powerful navy. To bang his bathtub. maybe he just wanted to ruffle a few feathers internationally (especially in Britain) *mayyybeee* he was just drumming up support amoung the populace and the (militaristic) party faithful. My thinking is that given he was ( if nothing else ) a political mastermind. It's likely this was a case of all the above and more (he was very good at accomplishing many positives out of any one action). But the point is. He wanted a plan for this big navy. He got the Z plan. The actual reality of the situation from a geo-political point of view is irrelevant to the how and why the plan came about. The plan doesn't ignore the theory you stated. It's just that your theory (reality) isn't a factor. Hope that makes sense. It's a different way of looking at history and my favourite. Especially when it comes to Nazi Germany. So much of what happened goes against anything that we see as being rational and logical. So it's always interesting to work out the Nazis "reason" behind the action taken.
@@AdamMGTF True, the actual reality of the situation is irrelevant to the request for and development of ... a plan. Kind of like Operation Sea Lion. Orders were given and the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine made a great show of making preparations while finding ways to blame each other for it not being able to actually proceed with an invasion of Britain. Plans don't depend on reality. Only actual implementation and potential for success depends on reality.
"If you’re a continental power, rule 1 is to avoid symmetric naval confrontation with a naval power." Or be the United States or China and get big and powerful enough to out-navy even a dedicated naval power.
@@vikkimcdonough6153 the usa isn't really a continental power, they have weak or friendly neighbours north and south and have done since the early 1800s, they might as well be an island, it wouldn't make much of a strategic difference, so most of their focus is on having a strong navy and its been like that since ww1, they are just as much a dedicated naval power as the British empire was. China on the other hand seems to just be going down the same road as the German empire, they won't be able to fully compete with the USA unless there is a massive decline in the US navy
The Germans really were stuck on their fixation for surface commerce raiders. I agree that virtually all of the Plan Z ships intended for that role would have simply been too specialized to be very useful. Those designs just ignore the historical reality that the ship types which tended to do the most commerce raiding were generalist ships that did many other things besides attacking merchant ships. Even all the way back into the age of sail, the frigates and smaller ships that often raided enemy commerce had numerous other roles as well, such as friendly convoy escort, battlefleet reconnaissance, repeating command signals, and a number of other independent missions that took advantage of their long range (in terms of provisions) and relative self-sufficiency. Those sailing frigates were the spiritual ancestors of world war-era cruisers (and the independent "cruises" they routinely undertook gave the later ships their name), and standard light and heavy cruisers could function well as commerce raiders, provided they had a strong enough force to overwhelm the escort. The difference was that those standard cruisers were equally adept at the myriad other roles for a medium-sized surface combatant. So many of these Plan Z ships, though, focused so much of their design on commerce raiding that they kept growing in size and cost, while at the same time sacrificing most of their ability to fight enemy warships of comparable size and cost.
Well, mostly it was the German politicians, admirals, and the industrialists who wanted large capital ships for greater profits and phallus contests. Commerce raiding was just the only practical use for them.
It's even crazier when you remember that Germany's U-boats had already shown that they were far and away the best commerce raiders Germany could field against Britain.
@@1Korlash To be fair a mix of surface and subsurface raiders is absolutely necesary to keep your enemies on guard. IMO you should also throw in some air power for good measure.
The German plans were quite modest. 2 x Scharnhorst class, 2 x Bismarck class, 6 x H-class. In addition a small number of aircraft carriers. The Germans had to protect their own commerce as well or at least make it unpalatable for the British to run roughshod over German commerce without paying a hefty price. In reality they recognised the limitations and the two H-class keels (with about 10,000 tons down between them) were scrapped and turned into U-boats. Had the two H classes been built they would have been ready about the same time as Iowa.
@@1Korlash I dunno. The seeadler did rather well for a sailing ship! Lol But yes. If you can make one sweeping statement about Germany* in the run up to and during ww2 that's totally accurate, it's this. "Did not learn lesson of ww1" *I of course, actually mean Hitler. A man so determined to avoid a war in the east and west. That he managed to end up fighting a war in the west. The east. The south. The north AND in the skies over Germany. (Insert back to the future "your just not thinking 3 [sic] dimensionally" quote here)
I remember reading somewhere that the Graf Zeppelin's design was based on the design of Akagi, I just don't know WHICH version of Akagi it was designed from.
Great video The biggest flaw of the Z plan was it required the British and French to do absolutely nothing about expanding and modernizing their Navies. It bears frightening similarity to Tirpitz's Risk-flotte theory which ultimately proved a failure and a disaster for Germany. Strangely teh H-39's had even thinner belt armour than Bismarck and the inclusion of underwater torpedo tubes is strange considering all the problems encountered with them in WW1. It also weakens the hull and reduces watertight integrity. The 'fantasy' H-44 design was to have 20 inch guns and considering all the problems Yamato had with blast effect from her guns, I shudder to think what the effects of these monsters would have. Not to mention the very slow firing rate. With your redesigned German ships Drach, another thing to get rid of is the German obsession with the Triple screw propulsion system. It has been proved that either a twin or quad screw is better as the quad allows steering with the engines in case of rudder damage *cough Bismarck cough* Navies prefer a quad for larger ships as it provides redundency, which the military loves.
Great post. Small nitpick: Yamato's blast damage problem has been badly overstated and may not have existed at all. The only thing it MIGHT have done is some minor damage to her wooden deck face, but that was purely cosmetic and, again, may not have even been a thing.
@@1Korlash Sorry for not being clearer but the blast problem I was thinking about is the effect it would have on the crew. All the light AA guns on Yamato were shielded as the blast effect would have a very high chance of concussing any exposed personal. I can't recall the figures I read but the difference between even 16 inch guns and 18.1 inch is massive. While some say AA guns would not be manned during a surface action, the Japanese developed main gun ammo for the long range AA role. Yamato firing her big guns would cripple the light AA crews just as an air attack was incoming. So I can only imagine the pressure wave from 20 inch guns on any exposed crew.
John Fisher See, I've heard that, but I've never found any primary sources that support it (or secondary sources that present a relevant primary source). Do you have a source?
@@1Korlash It's something I readmany years ago and, of course, now i go looking I can't find it :( One excellent book I have is "Conway's All the world's Battleships 1906 to present. Edited by Ian Sturton. This states the Blast effects from Yamato's main guns was so severe that all light AA had to be shielded and the ships boats stored below deck. Another lesser evidence is one of the reasons the British did not go for superfiring turrets in their first dreadnoughts was the guns would concuss the crew of the lower turret due to the sighting hoods when fired on certain bearings. The turrets were later redesigned to correct this. Considering these were 12inch guns, the effect of the Yamato's 18.1 inch guns on unprotected crew would be devastating, perhaps even fatal. And the Germans were thinking of 20inch for their fantasy H-44 class.
Just a stunningly well done series. Unlike many TH-cam presenters, you don’t seem addicted to the sound of your own voice. Had I den told someone could talk about a class of ship in 5 minutes, I would have politely asked when they last saw their therapist. But, you do it. Very impressive, keep it up. Not normally a Patreon supporter, but you forced me. Well done.
Where is Your education? Germany had a local conflict with the Czecks in 1938 & Poland in 1939 about illigally occupied German territory. Historically seen, both states were always a part of the German I. Reich. You slackers unleashed 2 times a World War, which destroyed Europe in favour of the US. The heart spent by Drach is the evidence of exceeded British stupidity.
“Assuming somebody can keep Hitler locked in a room to keep him from mashing the ‘Lebensraum’ button for two seconds.” I think my soul departed from my body for a second from how hard I was laughing at this.
Thank You for providing a treasure trove of ACCURATE detail on the warships and battles of days gone by. I have been fascinated with WW II ships of the world for over 50 years starting in my early teens. So many documentaries use the same footage of a battleship blowing up or a submarine being strafed with little regard for accuracy. I have even seen the iconic footage of the USS Arizona blowing up at Pearl Harbor attributed several times to other ships/ The strangest one was footage from 'Triumph of the Will supposedly being McCarther's arrival in Australia. Thanks for not doing that and providing hours of bingeworthy viewing material, my wife sends her regards for helping to keep me out of her way. maybe we shall see 40 years of marraige after all.
Wait, that zeppelin weight reducing scheme is utter genius, someone comes around and sees a warship gently bobbing on top of the water with 10 zeplins huddled together above it.
Your mentioning of competition for finances and natural resources between the competing branches of the Heer, Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine and the Waffen SS reigns so true, in a regime which was purposefully designed and administered to compete within itself at every level, makes me think of another aspect which I never appriciated: 'Had the Z Plan been completed as intended, fuel consumption by the Kriegsmarine would have more than quadrupled between 1936 and the completion of the program in 1948, from 1.4 million tons to approx 6 million tons. On top of this the Kriegsmarine would have to construct some 9.6 million tons worth of fuel storage facilities for enough fuel reserves to allow just one year of wartime operations; longer conflicts of course necessitating an even larger stockpile.'
You have to account for the fact that the nazis had long term plans. Their goals were not just revenge for WW1. Their true goals were a complete reordering of the german nation. Which meant creating new structures from scratch like the SS. In time a sort of stability would be reached. But short term it would be chaotic until a clear set of rules between party state and secret police/paramilitary force was reached. Problem is this happened in the midst of a war. Also the nazi movement was the result of two forces. The far right paramilitaries of Weimar Germany(Freikorps) merging with the more occult mystical ultranationalist movements ie the Thule organisation. These two forces due to their chaotic and bloody birth were bound to have a hard time reaching an understanding with traditional government structures. The nazis could never completely abandon their roots. If anything the chaotic style of leadership was still preferable to the de facto civil war of early Weimar Germany. You no longer had street battles in Berlin. Well not between germans in any case.
Plan Z suffered from a number of fundamental flaws. First, it took little to no account of a British response in terms of warship production. The British would not have simply stood idly by and allowed the Germans to complete such a fleet. Second was the fact that Germany was incapable of making the Z Plan a reality. In plain non-Vulcan English, Germany lacked the resources- both human and natural- to build, operate, and maintain a large army, navy, and air force, and was thus not a "world" power. What's more is that the Germans would not ever become a world power until such time as she had ready access to abundant natural resources- and those resources could only have come from the east; meaning the Soviet Union. War with the Soviet Union would have required the largest and most powerful army and air force that the Germans could field, and the resources from that could only have come at the expense of the navy. Lastly was that senior German leaders failed to realize that a negotiated peace with Britain- or even victory over her- could not alleviate Germany's lack of natural resources. Nor could it help Germany in what clearly was an impending war with the Soviet Union. Indeed, victory over Britain would have made Germany responsible for overseeing the feeding of, and security over the British people- and Germany was unable to do that over conquered Europe.
ManiliaJohn01 - you are so ignorant.... German's LAST concern was feeding anybody except GERMANS. They would starve of just plain murder excess number, like they did in Poland and further East. Germans were literally ploundering all supply and production, including agriculture.
@@piotrd.4850 You don't understand what was written, and call John ignorant. We call this irony. Even with all that 'plunder' Germany could not hope to build a fleet to challenge the Royal Navy for control of the channel. Even with all that 'plunder' people were going hungry and Germany could not meet the needs of the war. Where Britain had spent centuries developing overseas territory, supporting the industrialization(Is it hilarious when people claim the US colonies went to war because they were being 'exploited' when they'd been developed and supported to the point they out-produced many European states already by the 18th century.) all it's colonies/possession and building a merchant marine big enough that all could trade with each other, Germany had just gone to war again and again and again... and made continental Europe poorer by contrast every time, much as France and Spain did before it. Continentals (and to be fair post-war Britons) are like that though, revering Empires for the territory they've conquered and the people they've killed rather than the things they've built. Regardless, nothing John said was wrong. People make a very big deal out of Germany's few naval successes in the world wars but tend to ignore the fact that none of these ever even came close (by an order of magnitude or two) to leveling the field in terms of combat capable warships. 'Plunder' is hard to turn into warships, it takes years to develop the capability at shipyards and those were years that the Germans didn't have.
@@giupiete6536 I'm afraid that you don't understand - I was commenting on John's ridiculously naive concept of [..] Indeed, victory over Britain would have made Germany responsible for overseeing the feeding of [..] . It would have been other way round and doesn't have anything in common without building anything or not! As of matching UK naval power - don't you understand they DIDN'T HAVE TO LEVEL PLAYING FIELD? Britain was already overstretched and still maintained idea of outbuilding next two competitors. Therefore every single major German warship would cause disproportionate response, therefore strain, on British economy and shipbuilding capability, because that's what they were - fans of disproportionate response. How many naval assets had e.g. Tirpitz alone tied? Every Lion-class battleship would mean that much resources taken away from aircraft, tanks.... Anyway, what boggles the mind is opinion of people who were THIS close to defeat despite horrendous number of German blunders and on more than one occasion. For most of the war, Germany and Germans were whipping asses left and right like nobody's business - in the war, which they themselves had no concise concept of fighting and winning! It took obscene amount of resources and research to protect convoys against flimsy, uncoordinated, poorly informed and armed U-boot fleet whose communication were read. Hell, had they somehow had torpedoes of Japanese quality it would end then and there for Great Britain. Even "loosing' reportedly "hopeless" war Germany dismantled two large world powers, as seen now, effectively turning them into vassals, mortally wounded third (USSR) and thoroughly obliterated anything of value in Poland and similar countries. This kind of thinking by their opponents largely contributed to German successes and actually belittles enormous human and economic cost to stop them - it took whole 2nd half of the war with mammoth effort from literally entire industrialised world to reasonably stop and push back against "capability and resource lacking" Germany. I happen to know for a fact, that same reasoning as yours was behind Churchill's decision to dispatch Prince of Wales to Singapore and similar sentiments were onboard, until it was blown out of the water by then underestimated Japanese.
@@piotrd.4850 The British had an Empire it could draw from. The Anglo-German Naval Arms Race barely put a dent in the Empire's economy while it nearly crashed Germany's. Starving a people into extermination is an excellent way to paint a target on every single soldier/Officer on the Isles. They would not enjoy being on the island when everyone wants you dead. The resistance movements of the UK would be crippling to Germany's control of it, along with the Royal Navy that would have sailed to Canada to regroup and fight back.
@@piotrd.4850 The British had planned to seed Germany with anthrax if worst comes to worst. I'm pretty sure they would've struggled to feed their population when all their cows died from the anthrax laden cakes. Sure, this would result in chemical response, but Germany had no major bomber arm to actually deliever the chemicals, and the V-1's and V-2's were far too expensive and off limited range to use as a replacement.
Not only would you have seen the British respond in their building but the enhanced danger to American shipping likely would have triggered the huge scale up of the USN two years earlier. This not only 6 Iowa completed but the four turret follow up. Many overlook the tensions between the US and Imperial Germany at the end of the 19th century. The dreadnought competition of RN and SMS has obscured that the pre-dreadnought and then the Delewares building was aimed at Germany. The USN still had mistrust of the KM even though the focus shifted to the Pacific and thus the drive for a true "two ocean" navy.
One of the great "WHAT IF`s" that keep you up at night. With a lot of hindsight we can all come up with many questions, recommendations and "why didn´t they think of this & that" Because clearly, the realitiy of 2 WW´s is not enough for civilized Reddit discussions ;)
The Rocket Propelled Battleship, with a bank of 80 V-2 Engines in the back to overtake Merchant Convoys or escape the British. With the 700,000 ton, 8 32" Gustaf Guned Fantasy, why not?
@@Colonel_Overkill World of Warships did a special test on the H-45, when you're firing Shell's that weigh over 30,000 lb each, even a near Miss is dangerous. A slow rate of fire though. Probably used Destroyers for life boats.
There is no 'what if's, whatever Nazis do, they would lose the war. 'What if' are just the wet dreams of contemporary Nazis, too stupid and too ignorant to understand both, the reality and the history. Nazis were a bit lucky and too crazy on the onset of the war, and that's pretty much it.
Thanks, as always for your research and insight and also to your followers/responders for their equally adept addendi. Although not a naval history fan-boy myself, and thus feeling unworthy to add any intelligent additions, your channel provides me with some excellent bed-time stories. Thanks, again.
I had wondered why the Western Allies gave the Russians the unfinished German aircraft carrier. They obviously realised that it only realistically value it had was as scrape. This also explains why the Russians never got the hang of carriers. You do have to wonder why they were trying for a High Seas Fleet Mk2. Even with Plan Z they were never going to be in a position to seriously threaten anyone else. And with the airstrike capability from carriers and land based aircraft they could no longer expect to hide in port. U-Boats and Commerce raiders would have been a far better bet for taking on the Allies. This was recognised in WW1. Some of the most effective German commerce raiders of WW2 were the disguised armed merchant ships. And it would have been much more cost effective. You could build a fleet of converted merchant ship raiders from those you captured. Just have a couple of supply ships carrying some guns and other equipment. Capture a ship. Refit it and then send it out to raid. Plan Z was a wishlist vanity project.
Loving the content. Only discovered the channel recently, very much enjoying it all. Fav so far it's the 3 part Jutland, with aftermath summary being a great addition. Context and outcomes in all these are great
The thing about the GZ's casemate secondaries. They were the result of an error, with the original design having 8 150mm casemates in single mounts. The doubles were a mistake.
Specifically, the ship's designer had the idea of saving some weight by replacing the 8 single casemates with 4 double casemates. Miscommunication with the shipyard resulted in replacing the single mounts with doubles on a 1-for-1 basis.
An over-ambitious and bordering on fantasy level plan. Not only cost, but time and lack of materials would be against them. You would also need large shipyards that were out of range of the Bomber Command. Wilhelmshaven is too close and Kiel cannot build this number of capital ships.
Just a small clarification. The whole plan was intended as a pre war building effort. Infact (as mentioned in the video) the plan was fundamentally based on the premise that war would NOT come with any power before 1945. So the dockyards position in relation to bomber command is irrelevant as as soon as war started, the plan was instantly defunct and didn't exist. Hope that makes sense. Also, the unrealistic plan part of your post is bang on. And sums up pretty much all plans made under Nazism 😂
@@AdamMGTF But Germany could not have held off until 1945. They began the war bankrupt and in need of purchasing raw materials to keep their economy and armament program going. Germany's key supplier was the USSR as they could negotiate payment in kind - manufactured goods and technology in exchange for raw materials. The longer this went on the less Germany would be able to borrow to purchase iron from Sweden and tungsten from Spain. And the more dependent on the USSR they became the more the USSR would demand in exchange. The German economy was run on conscription, subsidies and wage/price controls. To pursue a massive naval expansion in addition to the resources that went into the army and air force... where would these additional raw materials and additional skilled workers come from. The superiority of the Luftwaffe over the Royal Air Force was a result of the Germans starting earlier than the British. When they both were going in war time production in 1940 the British were out-producing the Germans almost 2 aircraft to 1... and that isn't counting production in Canada or the US $1.2 billion (about $22 billion in current dollars) of aircraft the British purchased in 1940 from USA (paid in gold). German production was held back until they captured raw materials and a large slave labor force. While Germany was manufacturing the Bismarck and the Tirpitz (to go from zero proper battleships to two), the British commenced construction on five battleships to add to their existing 12. I am not counting the Hood as a Battleship. The Royal Navy had three battlecruisers (Hood, Renown and Repulse) compared to Germany's two (Scharnhorst and Gneisenau). A faster manufacturing of ships by Germany would have triggered faster production in Britain.
Geez, the nazis were delusional, who would've guessed... On a more serious note, the germans theoretically weren't expecting a big war until 1945, their plans were intended for that time frame. What they didn't expect however, was that they'd go bankrupt in 3 years, because printing money doesn't work, and have to conquer european countries to offset the economic crisis.
Great video and awesome info sir! I've always been fascinated with the h class battleships, especially the h44. Just the thought of the shear size is mind blowing. I'm sure those who fought against the germans in ww2 are glad the H class were never built but man would they have been a sight to behold. It's kinda a shame that ships like yamato are sitting at the bottom of the ocean. I personally would have love to see one. The only battleship I've ever seen or been to is the uss Alabama and she is a beaut. Its amazing that something that solid and heavy actually floats, or did.
True statement. The same year the Germans started building Bismarck, the USA started work on Enterprise. Edit: I'll cut them a little slack because, as of the mid-late 1930s, only a handful of people in the world had figured out that battleships were obsolete and aircraft carriers were the new rulers of the seas.
@@bamagrad99 Actually, NO navy figured it out even up to and past the end of WWII. Do remember that the USN and RN kept putting new battleships into service even after the Axis had stopped and people began to realize all these new battleships (on both sides) were just a waste of steel.
Sincerely glad you were not A/ a time traveler, and B/ so minded as to give aid to the German navy. Much happier with you where you are, providing sound historical analysis and information. Thoroughly enjoy your work, Cheers.
The results of WWI U-boat action should have been enough to make them the priority. However, Donitz was too compliant and followed orders despite results. The U.K. was starving by December, 1941. Any German Surface was vulnerable. Brilliantly the Reichmarine had a similar composition as modern navies with submarines, larger destroyers and specialized craft. Even aircraft carriers are targets and specialized.
The big fleet idea worked up to WW1 when COAL was the main source of energy. With no domestic oil, this Z-Plan puts the cart before the horse! I really enjoy your vids Drach
Plan Z can be summed up like this: Possible IF germany dedicated every last resource to the project, otherwise, it's just wishful thinking. The German economy was no where near what it needed to be for the plan to be completed in 10, let alone 15. 20 years would be possible as that gives just enough time to put everything that is need to support and produce such a fleet size in place. As for the ship designs, a good starting point considering the kriegsmarine had to start from almost scratch.
Drachinifel, thanks for the thorough documentary. Your comment about the Graf Zepplin being used during a surface duel reminds me of the carrier that appears in the "Battleship" game. As we both know, most carriers had no where near the deck and hull armor to survive several hits from 16, 15, or 14 inch guns. I think the guy who came up with the Graf Zepplin carrier/cruisers concept must have come up the "Battleship" game. 😆 I think that if Grand Admiral Raeder had of been able to lock his master, Der Fuehrer, in a rubber room, with a ball of string, until at least 1945, Germany would have had a better fleet. I agree with you that they should have been practical and frugal with the designs and ships that they built. Don't waste time and Reichmarchs on useless super-cruisers, enlarged Deutschland class pocket battleships, or super-destroyers. And they should forget the expensive super-Bismarck class. So Stick with building all 6 Admiral Hipper class cruisers, do at least 4 Bismarck class battleships, 4 Scharnhorst class battle-cruisers, and 4 sensibly designed Graf Zepplin carriers.
One factor that must be recalled with 'pie in the sky ' Plan Z was that Hitler never intended for it to be actually used. He really thought his posturing and diplomatic domination over the British government would continue. He had waved the hype of the army and air force so well that these paper tigers would still serve. The Nazi regime has perhaps 12-18 month head start on France, Britain and all the other European powers. The margin of victory in France was supplied by the Czech arms handed to him in Munich. When he turned on the Soviet Union a year later the hollow nature of his army and logistics train was reveled. Hitler in 1941 was believing his own propaganda!
Drachinifel, you are clearly an engineer or perhaps more precisely a Naval Architect. Excellent video, thanks. The concluding comments promptly whacked it all into place. As an aero eng, what you said about navalising ME109 vs FW190 resonates. Naval aircraft need to be robust and for all its other qualities the Messerschmitt was anything but.
The real issue with the "German tillman ships" is simple. Where to build them. The Germans where barley able to build the Bismark class, they would have needed to effectivly build all new drydocks to make the things.
@@piotrd.4850 "Attention Royal Navy, we are creating a huge dry dock to obviously create a huge ship in clear violation of the treaties." The reply? The Royal Navy starts to modernise and build more ships.
When it came to WWII Cruisers the US Alaska class were badass. These cruiseer's 12" 50 caliber main armament were better than most 14" guns. Those cruisers were beautiful, handsomely great looking, these cruisers and the German Prince Eugene and Bismark and Tirpitz along with the Iowa class battleships were hands down the best looking ships of steel to ever put to sea. IMHO, Which is awesomely important.......to probably only me. 😎😎😎😎
16:08 They actually intended to build 6 H-39 class Battleships. The next designs, H-40 Scheme A, and B, H-41, H-42 were some what serious design considerations, however if and when any of these could and would have been built would have been after the six H-39s were at least floated. H-42, H-43, and especially H-44 were design studies that were not even shared with Admiral Raeder or Admiral Doughnuts (pun intended). These ships were designed as 97,000 ton, 118,000 ton, and 141,500 ton ships. Germany had now way of building any ship of this size at the time. There projected main guns were to be. 16.54" (420mm) and 20.06" (508mm) on the last 2. by 1942 the Design Navy Weapons Office had just got to the determination that a 420mm gun was possible by boring out and lining the 406mm gun, for the H41 design. This came also came with testing special projectiles and powder to get that to work, and would have taken time to get it tested and working right. In all honesty if Germany could have built any of the H-39s it may have helped them a little, but unless they could have made the whole six battle groups, and supply ships along with replenishment ships, and cruisers/destroyers to escort them, then as noted it just wasted a lot of time, money and manpower that could have built more submarines that were so successful in the first 2 years of the war.
Agreed! While I LOVED seeing the Japanese fleet entering San Francisco Bay in Season 3, I always thought it was a shame we didn't get a look at a 1960s version of an H-class. I would've said Tirpitz, but by the time MITHC was set, Tirpitz (had she survived WWII) would've been getting pretty long in the tooth and probably wouldn't have been used much beyond a training ship in the Baltic.
Excellent video! I haven't read the comments yet but suspect you'll get a slating by some; there are people on TH-cam who can't tolerate any criticism of German weapons or technology.
As I've heard said on occasion, there were times when Hitler himself was the best "ace in the hole" the Allies had. Thank God he decided to make the German navy follow this plan, instead of first building up the U-Boat arm in case of a sooner-than-expected war, and then constructing the surface fleet. As it was, with just 60 U-Boats at the start of the war, it was still a damn close-ran affair. If they'd had 90 or 120 boats at the start of the war, enough to where Doenitz could have almost immediately kicked off effective wolfpack operations, things might have ended very differently indeed. A very good read as to what they were able to accomplish with very limited numbers of submarines is "Operation Drumbeat", a detailed account from both sides of the U-Boat offensive against the US East Coast in the first part of 1942 after the US entry into the war. They were very nearly able to bring shipping to a complete halt, thanks in no small part to some utterly boneheaded decisions on the part of the US and USN, and Admiral Ernest King's Anglophobia, ignoring intelligence and operational advice from the RN. In many ways, it was a worse defeat than that suffered at Pearl Harbor.
Half of those rumors come from German Generals who basically wanted to cover the tracks of their own mistakes by claiming that they could have one without Hitler. And Hitler made about as many good decisions as a made bad decisions. Though thanks to his ideology he made a few pretty stupid decisions.
Later in the war the Allies abandoned attempts to support Hitler's assassination because they were worried someone more suited to command would take over.
The same could be said for the U boats as has been said for plan Z . If they were there in greater numbers effective counter measures would have been implemented earlier. The American reluctance to convoy, the British reluctance to release aircraft for submarine patrols, the British tendency to chase around the ocean in hunter killer groups would all go away quicker in the face of earlier losses. With luck it might even get King fired. Knowing more submarines were being built might have gotten some corvettes on the slipways earlier.
Both arguments of course are irrelevant when it comes to the Z plan as it was drawn up for Hitler. And he didn't care about such things. He wanted a plan for a large navy and that's what he got.
Yeah, Britain thought so before WW I. They paid heavy price in ships blown in indecisive battle, which was supposed to end war in weeks, instead required millions of dying in the mud and trenches. Continued that trail of thought - lost empire due to war 20 years later, and now are smaller and far less industrialised economy then Germany. Also, Germany didn't plan war with USA.
I don't know much about boats, aeroplanes and buses, WW1,2 or 3, however, the over powering conclusion I can draw about this is that whoever designed the 'Z' Plan forgot to acknowledge the impact that allied aircraft would have. Particularly these four, 1) CAC Wirraway, 2) Fairey Swordfish Mk 1, 3) Blackburn Skua and 4) Aichi E13A "Jake". These four probably represent the fourmost powerful aircraft capable or reverse thrust and vertical landing at sub-sonic as well as super-sonic speeds. That's the problem with TH-cam. Any kid can get up and make a video. THank God I'm here.
Another really excellent video. Thank you, when do you have time to sleep and eat? One more problem the Germans faced in building the H Class BBs is the shallowness of their harbours. They were very much limited in how much water these big ships could draw without grounding on the Ems mud, which meant the hull design had to be wide rather than deep. That required extra power because of extra wave-making, which in turn required trade-offs somewhere. And the proposed Diesel engines were already pushing it terms of power output - I think diesels are not easily scaleable in the same way as boilers and steam turbines. But the extra beam would have helped with the torpedo defences, which would have been hard pressed facing 1944 scale carrier strikes.
Actually all 6 H class BBs that were first ordered were planned to be H-39's with H-41 through H-43 being possibilities and H-44 being more of a Battleship study. H-42 most likely could have been the largest BB that Germany at the time could have built, and still wouldn't have been practical to do so for them.
In light of the fact that the Germans were very creative in terms of air force and land weapons. It is not surprising that they would be creative with their ships. I think your assessment of the ships is correct. I cant wonder what would have happened if they had built the fleet. We will never know.
A great video! I mostly agree with your assessment, though I did catch one little error. Technically, the USS Gambier Bay used its deck gun against a cruiser during the Battle off Samar, but that is a minor historical footnote. Keep these great videos coming, I'm learning a lot of interesting naval history from your productions.
I understand a lucky hit blew up a heavy cruiser - not bad going. But the Battle off Samar was very much *not* how a naval battle was supposed to be fought!
Love to watch your channel. I used to be a ww2 naval junkie. Things coming back from the dark and dusty closet lol. Graf zeppelin was a great try for a first time. Remember the Hermes, Britain's first carrier that had experience in ww1. America started with the Langley. Ijn I can't remember. But the effort to try is impressive. People get caught in here and now, not trial and error. Love you channel will keep watching, and yes I'm a subscriber
It could be argued that Hitler's late 1930s international strategy was not based on war but on expanding German territory and influence by picking off individual countries with treaties, intimidation and/or bluff. The threats of invasion by the German army and terror bombing by the Luftwaffe were part of this too. The Z Plan would have allowed for a continuation of this via "gunboat diplomacy", especially for countries heavily reliant on shipping for food and/or their economy and/or with vast overseas empires (ie all western European countries in those days). Hence the Z Plan's emphasis on commerce raiding and cruisers, which could have gone - and did go - all over the world, not just a battlefleet to match Britain's. Also, it would have allowed Germany to bombard those hard to reach countries such as France, Britain etc from the sea. One by one each could have fallen into line behind Germany with no actual war, just the threat of it or a display only. The strategy worked for the militarisation of Germany contrary to the Versailles Treaty, the military reoccupation of the Rhineland, the Anschluss with Austria, the incorporation of the Sudentenland, and the occupation of Czechoslovakia. The fact that Poland (and later, other countries) said "no" to German intimidation was the beginning of the end to this strategy (though it continued up until the invasion of the USSR), which would also have been a reason why the Z Plan was terminated.
All in all I think you are very on point with the practicality angle. Germany had no hope of building an offensive fleet to compete against England. If they did start to build any significant amount of battleships, then England would have mirrored. I like to play these ships in World of Warships, and War Thunder. If Germany could have got their hands on the French Navy then that could have been a serious thorn in the side of possible effects on the allies. If Italy could have acquired better radar and not end up in the mediteranian disaster that it encountered. lot of if if if. And yes they needed way more U boats way sooner while the U boat was a serious threat.
So Germany building a big navy whilst sandwiched between France and Russia is an obvious non-starter which is why it historically didn't happen. I think a more interesting debate would be about whether the Axis, now controlling Europe, could compete with the USA after defeating France, the USSR and for arguments sake, also Britain. This was after all the main idea behind Germany's ideals, that Europe as a continent needs to unite in order to compete with the American continent.
No it couldn't. Because of physics. Once the Bomb was ready no later than the mid 40s there were two possibilities either a detterence a la the Cold War settled in one in which the US with a better naval tradition was poised to win long term. Or nuclear war. Personally I believe detterence with Nazi Germany as opposed to the soviets would have failed. Since ideologically german superiority was tied to war a long Cold War would eventually have discredited their ideology. The soviets did not view war as a goal unto itself. Just as a means to an end. Eventually a nuclear armed Germany would have chosen war even at the risk of a complete destruction once the US retaliated. Their ideology mandated war. The German-US version of the Cuban missile crisis would have resulted in war.
As far as naval aircraft; yes a modified 190 would have been a better choice for a single engine navel fighter than a modified 109, however, the Bf-110 would have been a better choice overall as a pre-existing aircraft. It's wheel track was wide and thus stable, it had two engines which would give some redundancy over water, and had much lighter wing loading than either the 190 or 109. It was also capable of flying as a heavy fighter or fighter bomber. Hard to think of anything else in German service that would work better than the 110 for this role until a proper naval fighter could be drawn up.
The inescapable reality that the German surface fleet faced in both world wars was that their geographic position was just about as bad as it could get (with Britain able to control all the exits from the North Sea) and that a nation with faced "continental" threats far more serious than any maritime counterparts was never going to be able to devote the economic resources necessary to successfully challenge the Royal Navy for the control of those exits. This was as true in 1938 as it was in 1898, and both Raeder and Hitler, with the example of 1914-1918 in front of them, should have realized what Wilhelm II never did. A "fleet in being" was necessary to hold sufficient heavy units of the RN in home waters, reducing possible convoy escorts, but this could have been done by building BISMARK and TIRPITZ as additional units of the SCHARNHORST class (although with a 15" main battery) and rearming SCHARNHORST and GNIESENAU with twin 15" turrets as soon as possible. Screen them with 4 light cruisers and a dozen destroyers and that should be sufficient for the purpose of keeping an equal number (probably more) of British battleships, battlecruisers, cruisers and destroyers at Scapa Flow. The HIPPER class should have been built as additional (hopefully improved) units of the DEUTSCHLAND class and, paired with "M" class cruisers, sent out to attack the North Atlantic convoy routes. With eight, rather than three, dedicated commerce raiders, and each of those with a capable consort, this would have required virtually every convoy to be escorted by a pair of cruisers, or a cruiser and capital ship, unless all the "pocket battleships" were known to be in German home waters. Other than that . . . BUILD MORE U-BOATS!
It is always fascinating to read comments about the fantasy that was Plan Z. The idea was adopted in late January, 1939. By that time, the German Naval Ordnance department (on 31 December, 1938) had already issued a report, 'The Feasibility of the Z Plan,' which pointed out that requirements in materials and manpower were so great that the whole of German industry would need to be committed to it. In other words, no weapons production for the army, and no aircraft production for the Luftwaffe. At the time the plan appeared, the Kriegsmarine were still sorting out technical problems with the Scharnhorst class yet, apparently, Germany was going to build six 56000 ton battleships, ten 21000 ton battlecruisers, and four aircraft carriers, as well as large numbers of cruisers, destroyers, and U-boats, by 1947. As Hitler always viewed the Soviet Union as his primary enemy, does anyone really, seriously, consider that he would have regarded devoting Germany's entire industrial potential to building a large fleet as having any merit at all? Honestly, the very idea is utterly ludicrous.
Great video, very informative. One question, have you any links to articles on the proposed Y Plan? I've tried finding more out about it, but to all intents and purposes come up with nothing. Here's a funny little fact, if the Z Plan fleet had been built, it would have taken the entire oil imported into Germany to fuel the ships. I wonder what the Panzer divisions and Luftwaffe squadrons would have thought of that?
I'm always amused at the vignette in the intro at the :22 mark. The secondary battery fires and there is a burst of paperwork blasted out as well. "Um, Captain, you know all those fitness reports and fuel requisition forms I was supposed to have filed today?"
I kinda like a lot of the designs in this video mainly the cruisers, carriers and the O and H classes even if the later H classes were over-compensating for something.
"Shoot whoever decided to use the 109, and instead use the exciting new 190." My thoughts from the second a naval 109 was mentioned. Yes i know I'm late, shush.
I never understood the idea behind putting anti-surface guns on a carrier. If it’s got to shoot at anything bigger than a patrol boat, you’re already doing something wrong.
The h-39 class 1000-2000 men per ship(2 in the class) Graf zeppelin 1000-1500 men The crusiers 800-1200 men per each ship Destroyers 150-211 each Submarines 15-50 per submarine
@@lefrenchaudir188 Thank you. I apologize. My question was more of a rhetorical one. My obviously poorly made point was that German manpower resources were stretched to their limits and beyond, as it was. An expanded fleet would have only made them worse.
Hey, Great Video Only one suggestion: The Spähkreuzer is spoken with an “e” Like this: Speh-Kreuzer Meaning spotting-cruiser A Spah(r)Kreuzer would be a saving-cruiser and is likely not what you intended to say 😅
@@Masterchiefkf3 not really fair to say a German response. But very true to say a Nazi response. Though more so later in the regime as things went to shit. Before then the summary execution of officers was rare. Also. This isn't just a Nazi thing. * Warning. Sweeping statement *: this is true of all dictatorships. Political backing for the dictatorship or its country make little to no difference. Napoleon in France. Stalin (well just bout all rulers) in Russia, Hussain in Iraq etc.
Wish I had seen this video sooner... :( Don't blame the germans for trying to use the Me-109. Yes, it was a bad idea, but there was no other light fighter in german service at the time the Zeppelin was launched (1936-37); a purpose-designed fighter was out of the question. You use what you have, not what you want (re: Spitfire in use in the RN, specially the disaster of the North Africa and Scicily invasion campaigns) As for the overall scheme of the Z-class, there's one massive gap that I did not hear mentioned here, and that hightlights the Krigsmarine lack of vision and experience: _there were no AAA cruisers planned_ . Sure, some light/heavy/scout cruisers would end up being converted, but, at the time the plan started (early 1939) both the RN and the USN were well into either building or preparing their anti-aicraft units, the Didos and the Atlantas...
In fairness. The role that dedicated anti air ships would play (and how useful they would prove to be). Wasn't something that could be seen in the late 30s. It didn't become obvious until a year or 3 into the war. Also The idea of a anti air cruiser just didn't factor at all into the doctrine, theory and concept behind the fleet the Germans were looking at with the z plan. They were thinking offensive against merchant ships and their escorts. The expectation being that each individual ships own anti aircraft armament would be enough to defend a ship being attacked. There was no reason in the mid-late 30s to doubt this theory. It was a totally reasonable expectation given what was known at the time and was shared by all the world's navy's. With the benafit of hindsight, we can see that it's a possible flaw in the plan. BUT. The videos point was to look at the plan and assess it based on its merits and flaws as and when it was drawn up. If you start picking it apart with hindsight. Where do you stop?
The brilliant thing about the Atlantas was that their main armament was dual purpose and they had a ridiculous amount of it --- eight turrets with two guns each. So a German equivalent could not only have fended off whatever Fairey Swordfish or the like sent against it, but also dealt effectively with any destroyers on escort duty, plus run away from any capital ships (and sent a torpedo or two their way to make them think twice).
Excellent overview. One thing: Bismarck did NOT have its main cables above its main armor deck, that's just a myth. Also the cables to the fire directors etc. were behind armor.
I think Plan Z would be a failure if they really work on it. From it's ridiculous size and Nazi Germany unpreparedness for war, it would be impossible to make it happen. And, it would be hard to maintain such fleet without enough supplies and oil which Germany is kinda lack of it during the war. And btw, can u pls review IJN Satsuma, i'm kinda curious about Japan's pre-war dreadnought
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Please ensure all Q&A questions are posted as replies to this post. :)
Drachinifel
do you have family in Royal Navy now or in the past!
@@goodman4966 none currently, but plenty in the past, and a few friends currently. Last family member in the Navy was a great uncle who found himself in the engine rooms of HMS Royal Oak when U-47 showed up...
GJ mate .
Was the japanese 100mm AA effective as an AA gun, and how about its ability against surface targets? (Also pls do a guide on the (Aki)duckys, thanks)
Are you ever going to do something like this for the IJN? They had some pretty interesting designs, like the B-65 cruisers.
Raeder: "Okay, so you want another High Seas Fleet that can challenge the Royal Navy?
Hitler: "Yeah."
Raeder: "Okay, then just give us until about 1948-ish and we might just be ready."
Hitler: "Don't worry. I'm not going to war until then."
**The German Reich has declared war on Poland**
Raeder: *_"Sigh..._* U-Boats it is."
Dönitz: "Somebody said U-Boats?"
I have this mental image of Doenitz crashing through a wall when Raeder said "U-boats."
@@evanhunt1863 *"OH YEAAH!!" but in german*
@@Paludion so you mean "AU JAAAA!!!"?
@@Paludion German Kool-Aid Man.
ADMIRAL Kool-Aid Man, I should say.
What is interesting is that Wilhelm II built his entire battle fleet of dreadnoughts and super-dreadnoughts in eight years, along with doubling the numbers of cruisers and destroyers in the High Seas Fleet. So, it was possible for Germany to build a formidable fleet in less than a decade... in theory. Of course, the real situation is that German industry in general was very poorly run under the Nazis, who were generally ill-educated brutes, or well educated people who were detached from reality. Add to that the material requirements of rebuilding a military fro scratch are very high compared to the stead state of arming of the German Army prior to WWI. That is to say that the Army was already mostly armed and only a few major weapons systems were added. The new Wehrmacht needed a lot of everything and add to that whole new families of weapons systems like tanks, armored vehicles, self-propelled guns, etc. As well as building an air force from scratch. So the material demands on the German economy for re-armament in 1933-1939 was far higher than 1906-1914. All that said, yes, Germany could have built a large fleet quickly had it truly been a priority.
I love your pronounciation of Spähkreuzer, it sounds like Sparkreuzer witch would translate into Discount Cruiser and thats kinda fitting ;)
The proper pronunciation should be more like Shpare-croizer, which is amusing enough to an Anglophone.
😁
Poundland doesn't do Cruisers... but if we did...
[Eager young aide sticks his head around the door of the naval design department]
AIDE: Admiral Doenitz wants more Sparkreuzers
[Naval designers sadly shake their heads and begin folding their complicated plans for gigantic battleships into paper boats...]
I honest to God thought he actually meant discount cruisers-
Even the spotters on the Kamchatka could tell that those ships where not torpedo boats
I wouldn’t count on that. If by some chance they did, they will signal they spotted torpedo boats anyways.
@@frost9041 Oh absolutely. The Signal men on that bucket are horribly incompetent or hallucinate about torpedo boats. But the spotters might accidentally see the difference if the ship is large enough
@@lok3kobold oh no I don’t think you relise the true horror that ship was it see a pack of fucking seagulls and signal that the whole Luftwaffe and raf are attacking it
@@andrewgraham6006 "We are sinking!"
*everyone liked that*
"Wait, no, we're fine!"
*sigh*
@@Ealsante oh no false alarm one of the crew men accidentally turned a tap on
"A High Seas Fleet if you will.... because that worked out so well the first time"
The salt and sarcasm is palatable
I think, beside being a funny comment, it's not quite comparable as in WW1, the German fleet could not break out of the North Sea. The situation was completely different in WW2, with France and Norway occupied and the existance of an airforce.
Flash doors? Who needs them?
Well the only reason it didn’t work was because the only bigger fleet in the world was the british who could easily contaminate the high seas fleet in the north sea. Not to mention the lesser supply
@Rauschgenerator except during plan Z, france would probably have had its shit together by then, and Norway would have 100% modernized. Nevermind Poland would have modernized by then
The Germans were stupid to hand their fleet over at the end of WWI. And in WWII the Brits unleashed the World War again, before the Germans could establish a fleet in being. But anyway the Royal Navy is dead like the entire west.
The Z plan had one massive flaw; the British response to actual German building programmes. British survival was based on her merchant fleet and the security of the merchant fleet was dependent on the Royal Navy. Britannia's sword and shield was sea-power; Germany was a continental power and would win or loss on land. Thanks to an intelligence source inside the German Navy design department the Royal Navy had some idea of what the Germans were thinking about. The British were well aware that the Germans, Italian and Japanese were in breach of the Naval treaties but were not in a position to openly or privately protest about it. The pre-war proposed minimum British 1942 fleet was for 20 battleships & battlecruiisers with the 2 Revenge class battleships (that were in the Reserve Fleet in 1939) having been scraped or reduced to training duties. The fleet was to include 12 aircraft carriers (2 as peace time training ships), 70 cruisers and 198 destroyers. There was to be a greatly increased trade defence force with the oldest light cruisers converting to AA cruisers and older destroyers converting from fleet roles to ASW and AA escorts. New designs of versions of types of deep sea and coastal escorts and the increasing tempo in their peacetime construction (but inadequate to the massive wartime needs).
This bears repeating, the single greatest flaw of the Plan assumed no-one else would change or expand their forces to account for it.
I'm sure there were many smart people doing estimates and analysing the best course of options. 198 ships though, that I can't ignore. You could've just thrown in two destroyers for good measure, but no, the English had to screw it, didn't they?
@@klobiforpresident2254 reminds me of MHV's most recent video showing relative timelapse of US vs Japan WWII warships. ... Like someone was just churning out US DDs and DEs.
Do not forget the US 'Two-Ocean Navy' plan of the same time period which would have built an fleet of approximately the same size as mention for the RN with the more elderly units still hanging around for secondary roles. Given economic realities, the Z-plan was a pipe dream as the German economy could not out build the British at all and the US could out build both combined once it got cranked up.
So the real problem with the Z-plan was it would antagonize the UK and the US both who could out build you and could build very solid designs if they could avoid idiots like Jackie Fisher (not a problem in WWII as both navies did suffer from another Jackie Fisher). The Japanese building plans would have the same effect, UK and US ramp their building plans. Given the tendency for German and Japanese designs to have some real ly bad design features that the UK and US mostly avoid, both Germany and Japan have fewer and overall inferior ships to the UK and US.
@@charlesbaker7703
Yeah, when watching that and his other videos about the balance of power in the Pacific … it's scary.
"There won't be a war."
[Starts largest war in history]
That guy was literally Hitler.
@@felix_halcs123 But Hitler started the war...by invading Poland
@@felix_halcs123 *After* Hitler invaded Poland on the 1. of september The UK sent an ultimatum to Germany to stop hostilities, which Hitler didn't. On the 3. since Hitler didn't respond, both France and Britain declared war.
To be fair, if Hitler didn’t start World War II, Stalin would’ve done it anyway a year or two later, if not over Poland than possibly over the Baltic countries or Finland, or maybe picking a fight with Japan over Manchuria. Ultimately, it was the Munich Agreement that led Hitler to think he could get away with taking Danzig off of Poland without the UK or France intervening (and he was right - while war was declared, they refused to actually try and counterinvade Germany and help the Poles directly, largely due to the formidable defenses of the Siegfried Line, though the fact that French strategy was pretty much dependent on fighting defensively like in the previous war didn't help, especially when the Germans demonstrated that they weren't going to allow themselves to be bogged down into a war of attrition again if they had any say in the matter). By his own admission, had the UK and France been more firm in opposing the occupation of the Sudetenland, he wouldn't have made a similar ultimatum to take Danzig from Poland, which led to war when Poland refused and the UK and France finally put their foot down.
I feel like he received a cancer diagnosis and went full Walter White so he could see his destruction of the world before it got him, then got bored halfway in amd just intentionally made poor decisions to get it over with quicker...
The ww1 reparations started the war
The Axis did not have enough oil to properly fuel even the Italian battle fleet. If the Plan Z fleet had been built, it would have been forced to stay in port for most of the war, much like the Japanese battle fleet was inactive in the Pacific during much of the war.
Ensign Nemo maybe having designs like the Revenge class battleships which were coal powered and with Poland vast coal supply they may have stood a chance of being useful. But for all the axis navies they suffered through the entire war with a crippling lack of fuel
What most do not know, was that lack of fuel transport was also the ultimate limiting factor for the assault on Japan by the USA. The amount of fuel required to take even a tiny island was mind numbingly stupendous and there simply were not enough tankers till middle of 1945.... @@themadhammer3305
w8stral yeah, the planned invasion force for the invasion of Japan was monstrous, it makes sense that fuel was an issue.
Between Britain and the US they maybe could have chucked enough tankers together after VE day but the logistics involved were still mind boggling even for the two largest navies in the world.
Although I agree for the most part, one serious problem is that Stalin was paranoid about the British prior to Operation Barbarossa, and would probably have sold Germany fuel throughout their war with Britain (and by extension Italy, making the Mediterranean even more dangerous); even the possibility of a victory at sea may have convinced the Germans not to attack the Soviets until after a British defeat.
There's a reason no one could convince Stalin to prepare for a German attack in 1941 when all signs pointed towards an obvious, imminent invasion.
How would you get the OIL to Germany from Russia at the time? Would have to do a crash course build in tankers which did not exist for going from the Caspian to Black sea and then up the Danube. Hrmm... When was the Caspian connected to the Black sea again? When was the Danube connected to the Rhine again? ... Yea, wouldn't work. Timing is wrong. But a Railroad transport for quite a bit of it... There is a reason the Persian and Texas were so important. All that oil is right next to the coast. @@BrigadierBill
It’s evil…it’s diabolical…it’s LEMON SCENTED
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought of that haha
was looking for this very comment
This is a very confusing comment 😂
Adam Bainbridge it’s a reference to the Spongebob movie.
Me too
I'm sure in some alternate reality Graf Zeppelin got to use its guns in a glorious duel against Kaga and its 200mm guns...
Were the Lexington class carriers invited?
The Yamamoto of naval TH-cam channels. Destroys all competitors. Top work this one. I been watching for a long time to back when we had no human voice. I don't have a question more a request. With your skills would you please do a decent video on the British pacific fleet of WW2. Too often overlooked and its a big interest of mine and I reckon would make a great vid. Although I'm a little bias! Not enough vids on the subject in my opinion.
Agreed. Drach's videos are always excellent. My favorite aspect is how he's able to compare ships, doctrines, etc. He doesn't just wank to statistics like too many people (and most naval documentaries, for that matter); he gives context and comparisons that allow for a deeper understanding of the subject matter. Every video I watch excites my interest and drives me to learn more, and for that I'm grateful.
(Also, as a side nitpick, I'd say he's the Cunningham, Nimitz, or, if you want to go Japanese, Togo of naval TH-camrs rather than Yamamoto. Yamamoto made way too many colossal blunders to be considered a great admiral; Pearl Harbor, Midway, Solomons, etc.)
So Drach will die in a Plane crash?
I came here it make a humorous comment about said admiral.
I was too slow :(
Still. Agree with the spirit of your satment
Check out Cool Worlds.
"They might even lose a fight to a well commanded destroyer."
USS Johnston: "Did someone call me?"
"An Aircraft Carrier is not a Cruiser"
Tell that to the Soviet Union/Russia.
Because a treaty Soviet entered after ww1 forbids any aircraft carrier from passing through the Dardanelles. Some cruisers do carry recognizance aircraft/s, ehum...
@@bjorntorlarsson i think he said about "Kiev" Aircraft carrier/cruiser hybrids
@@igoryst3049 "Kuznetsov" is the same hybrid with the ramp... Soviet admirals have been prepared to win the past war in the maximal scale. They improvised with idea of the lone aircraft carrier/raider
The Japanese top that in audacity by calling their current carriers "destroyers".
@@IrishCarney this is the same sort of handwavy behaviour that had the Italians flying aircraft under the banner of the Order of Malta
You're being too generous to Plan Z by comparing it to the High Seas Fleet. The HSF consisted of ships that were comparable or in some cases superior to their closest Royal Navy counterparts. That's not really the case for Plan Z.
RedXlV for Battlecruisers? Sure, but the actual Battleships of the high seas fleet were pretty bad until the Bayern class in comparison to the Royal Navy Battleships, the German guns were consistently of a smaller calibre and thus more limited in capability than the British, and the layout of such guns was often horrendous(Hexagonal turret layout is gross)
Not sure I can agree there. Call me bias and I guess I could be.
But apart from the outlying terrible designs on both sides (I'm looking at you, so called "Invincible" class)...
The British ships were ahead of the German classes.
Can hardly blame the Germans. The British ship building industry was the thing of legand. They started the race for Dreadnaughts and never really lost the lead.
German armour was excellent. British was arguably as good.
British power plants were much better in every respect, especially overall efficiency.
Guns were of larger caliber.
Obviously I'm talking about capital ships.
As a purely qualitative argument. I think the British ships had a technical lead of a couple of years at least. Before factoring in the size and quantity of British ships.
That said. I'm no expert (my knowledge is much more 30s and 40s and geo-political rather than technical). So any good source on the subject is one id enjoy reading.
Also
*Whisper's* The German ships were cooler. Especially Von-Derr Tann, Sydlitz and Baden.... Other than Warspite. Because. Warspite.
@@deeznoots6241 Calibre isn't everything - 18" of Yamato wasn't that superior to 16" of Iowas, Bismarck's 15" wasn't overwhelming to British 14" from KGV which itself (can be argued) was quite comparable, if not better, than Rodney's 16". Sorry to break it to you, but British shipbuilding SUCKED - compared to other powers their ships were overengineered and obsolete at the same time. Quadruple turrets like those on PoW were constant cause of trouble and British battleships were just about slowest of the bunch. Only the Soviets trailed behind by significant margin.
what he is totally missing is how germany always builds ships that (even today) on paper look bigger than other countries ships of the same class and with smaller caliber guns, but in reality these ships are well balanced and just worked. they can take enormous damage and they can accurately hit the enemy unlike british ships which somehow always end up exploding from being hit by a single shell or rocket (ww1, ww2, falklands), rolling over when taking in a bit of water eg. from a torpedo hit, to outright sinking because they hit a single mine and can't stop the flooding. german ships just work better than that, maybe because they are better balanced. just looking at the datasheet doesn't tell you that but reality proved them right.
Why would plan z be completed with battleships and battlecruisers? It takes up to 1948 to get completed,weren't battleships and battlecruiser obsolete by 1944?
"Hey guys, you know how Britain has the literal best navy in the world?"
"Yes, we are well aware, did you have a way for us to beat them?"
"Yes I did"
"well, tell me!"
"BIG boat, REALLY BIG boat"
Hitler: "Enough really big boat?"
"... probably not..."
*Hitler looks displeased and reaches for the 'send for the Gestapo' button"
"...BUT!...Wait...err..."
*Hitler hesitates*
"... U-Boats!...yes, erm. *cough* Yes! U-Boats.....lots of them!"
*Hitler looks unsure* ... "Annnddddd"
"...And... Goering will supply the planes!?!."
*Even Hitler face palms*
You should do some research of your own. Not so much. At one time yes. By world war 2 british gunnery standards and training had fallen pretty badly. And many of thier battleships were poorly maintained antiques.
@Shonono Yeetus Biggest? Maybe, bit not the best. Their Battleships were shit. Nelson and Rodney were only decent. The Prince of Wales, King George V were jokes, quad 356mm? Many others would go for others, their own treaty was the death of their Navy.
France while new had began building far more Modern Navy ships, quad 380mms were experimental, but were better than anything Britain's quad 356mm.
@Shonono Yeetus The only reason they won was by numbers, most of their ships were all either outdated or crap. Aircraft Carrier wise, they were in the game for a while and had to dish everything out from the Prototype Aircraft Carrier to work out everything.
Germany was still oudated on armor, using Turtleback Armor against Convoys and smaller ships. Italy is Italy, both were not aspiring Naval Powers and never were. Germany even by WW1 only had one good class of Battleship, the Bayern, others were shit designs.
I'd say, Britain won only by numbers and every ship they had were quite shit.
@@matthewang8934 Utter crap. Tribal Class destroyers were amongst the best gun Destroyers of the war, Town Class Cruisers ranked amongst the finest Light Cruiser design of the War. The only real issue with the King George V Class were the 14 inch guns, 9 15 inch in triple turrets would have been a better choice, otherwise they were well armoured and fast. While not the best BB's of the war they were more than adequate. Most of the modern British Destroyers were good all round fleet destroyers. As for the British Carriers, they were designed the way they were because they were designed to operate in seas covered by hostile land based aircraft, which neither the Japanese or US Carriers were. Show me a US or IJN Carrier that would have survived multiple 1000Kg bomb hits.... Don't worry, I'll wait, though I won't hold my breath as you WONT find one.... You WILL however find several British Carriers that did just that.....
This is what those such as yourself do not seem to understand. Many of these ships were designed for specific roles. The Arathusa and Leander Class Light Cruisers were NOT designed for Fleet Roles, that was the job of the Towns. Instead they were Trade Route protection vessels. That is the job they were DESIGNED for. A factor people like you never take into account. Real war, is not a game of Trumps. A Leander Class does not have to be able to sink a German Surface Raider, it simply has to damage it enough to send it back to Port for repairs, that is STILL a Mission Kill.....
WWII came earlier than any Navy really wanted, the build plan for the Royal Navy from 1935 - 1944 (when they were expecting war) included a complete modernisation of the Navy, with virtually EVERY pre 1930's ship being replaced, including the Battleships, with both the Lions and KGV's replacing the Queen Elizabeths and Revenges.
The Bismarck's Achilles Keel :P
Anto 😑
Kiel?
From now on I'm using the term "Bismarck's Rudder" Instead of "Achilles heel"
You forgot the Graf Zeppelin's best feature: Her catapults!
The Graf was to be a catapult carrier who launched all her craft via compressed air catapults. Had she been completed, she would've been able to launch 18 aircraft before her catapults needed to recharge...for about 50 minutes.
So not only did the Graf carry a really small number of planes for her weight, but she couldn't even launch half of them within an hour!
Truly she was a masterpiece of Nazi German engineering!
Jokes aside, the Germans had no idea how to design or operate a carrier effectively. This isn't surprising: Every navy that builds and operates carriers goes through that awkward first few ships where they're just trying to figure out what works and what doesn't. China's going through the same thing right now.
And once you have a workable carrier design and aircraft for it, you're only halfway done. You still have to figure out how to operate a carrier so it can be a decisive force in battle, then build the organizational framework and institutions to train crews and produce ships, planes, and equipment to support a carrier. This takes a lot of time, resources, and serious organizational effort to develop; just look at what the IJN and USN had to go through to get effective carrier forces, and how long it took the RN to get close to their level because for a long time they weren't willing to put in the same effort to learn "how to carrier".
Graf Zeppelin was a terrible carrier design (though in fairness she wasn't an awful first attempt for a navy that had no carrier experience), but it didn't really matter since, again, the Germans had no idea how to use carriers in the first place. They could've been handed a brand new Shokaku-class ship with a full compliment of Japanese carrier planes and probably would've gotten it sunk on its first mission.
(Funnily enough, Graf Zeppelin is one of my favorite German ships of WW2. Maybe it's her interesting story. Maybe it's because I like pointing and laughing at Nazi incompetence. Maybe it's because her humanized version in Azur Lane is humorously grumpy and stupidly hot. Probably all of the above.)
*EDIT 4/18/20* - About a year ago I added to this comment a reply I wrote to someone else (which you can find below) that was chock full of errors, which many commenters have pointed out. I was a new naval history fan and something of a know-nothing know-it-all, and I apologize for my arrogance and touting wrong information.
To keep someone else from stumbling on this post and getting fed bad info, and as an apology for my screw-ups, I’ll go over the correct info about the Graf Zeppelin as best I can, as well as address a few things people keep bringing up.
Note that I don’t speak German, so I’m limited to English sources for this, though most of them draw on the works of German historians and seem to be largely the same minus a lot of details about the technology planned for the Graf Zeppelin. The sources I have with info about Nazi Germany’s unborn carrier program on hand are:
-Conway’s All The World’s Fighting Ships, 1922-1946 (1980)
-The German Aircraft Carrier Graf Zeppelin by Siegfried Breyer (1989)
-Without Wings: The Story Of Hitler’s Aircraft Carrier by Stephen Burke (2008)
-Fleets of World War II Revised Edition by Richard Worth (2015)
-Aircraft Carrier Impero by Davide F. Jabes and Stefano Sappino (2018)
All displacements listed are in metric tons unless specified.
Here we go:
*Part 1: Comparison to other carriers*
In my initial post I compared the Graf to various contemporary carriers to show how she would’ve matched up, but I switched up the standard and full displacements for some of the ships. Here’s an accurate, more thorough (though by no means comprehensive since this is already going to be enough of an essay) comparison of overall length (L), beam or width (B), standard displacement (SD), full load displacement (FD), and aircraft compliment (AC).
Graf Zeppelin class:
L - 262.5 m (861 ft 3 in)
B - 31.5 m (103 ft 4 in)
SD - 23,200 tons initially: ~24,500 tons after bulges were added in 1942 to compensate a 4-degree list the ship developed as its topweight increased)
FD - 29,720 tons initially: 33,550 tons with bulges)
AC - 42-43 (planned, no German plans for deck parking)
Yorktown class (United States):
L - 246.8 m (809 ft 9 in)
B - 33.4 m (109ft 6 in)
SD - 19,875 tons
FD - 25,484 tons
AC - 90-96 with a deck park (~63 without a deck park, but the USN used deck parking for the entire war)
Illustrious class (Britain):
L - 229.6 m (753 ft 3 in)
B - 29.2 m (95 ft 9 in)
SD - 23,000 tons
FD - 28,620 tons designed: 29,110 - 29,240 in service
AC - 36, later 52-57 when the Royal Navy adopted deck parking in 1944
Shokaku class (Imperial Japan):
L - 257.5 m (844 ft 10 in)
B - 29 m (95 ft 2 in)
SD - 25,675 tons
FD - 32,105 tons
AC - 72 + 12 disassembled spares (no deck park; the Japanese didn’t use them)
Bear in mind, the weight of the ships actually completed increased significantly as the war went on and they received more AA, sensors, crew, and better, heavier planes. Plane size also affects how many aircraft can be stowed in a carrier, but the numbers are still good for giving us a general idea.
Note also how much smaller the Illustrious is than the other carriers - nearly 100 ft shorter than the Graf. That hugely limits her hangar size, so her smaller air wing is understandable. Her weight comes largely from her heavy armor and larger AA battery, especially her armored flight deck which none of the other carriers have.* So defending the Graf’s tiny air wing by pointing to Illustrious’s smaller one (like some commenters have done) doesn’t hold up. Illustrious is limited by her size and made reasonable tradeoffs for having a smaller airwing. She’s a solid design; she just has different strengths than a typical CV.
*(Actually, while it’s not as important as her other issues, the Graf has arguably the poorest protection of the group, with all the other carriers having thicker belt armor and Illustrious and Shokaku having thicker deck armor. I won’t go through listing more numbers, so I’ll just point you to Wikipedia, which seems to take its armor numbers from Conway’s. Overall, not great for a CV trying to double as a bloated light cruiser.)
It's best to compare the Graf Zeppelin to the Shokakus: Both are purpose-built CVs, they’re actually close in size (Graf is longer and wider) and displacement once the Graf got her bulges, and neither navy planned or implemented deck parks for their carriers, so we don’t have to factor them into any comparison. Suffice to say, it’s really not good for the Graf. And that’s not even getting into other factors like flight-handling facilities, AVGAS storage, protection, and more.
Moving on.
*NOTE: TH-cam keeps eating my changes when I try to add everything I wrote so I'm adding the other 3 parts plus this one as separate posts below. They're around post #90, so you'll have to dig for them. (As stated, it took me a year to come back to this.) Sorry for the inconvenience.*
1Korlash Not to mention that Germany’s poor (i.e. nigh nonexistent) troop rotation system meant that their navy pilots would be fighting until killed or captured, meaning very few, if any, veteran pilots staying behind to help train. In the already unlikely scenario that a German carrier fleet would survive a good way into the war, they’d be facing the same problem as the Japanese did with their training deficit to the Allies. Imagine having a bunch of novice pilots having to take off and land *109’s* of all things on carriers in the Atlantic. I feel accident rates would do half the Allies’ work for them!
I think the other planes after the first 18 could takr of confentional, moreover her planes are counted without deck cariing, meaning that she could have roughly comparable plane numbers
@bh5496 Agreed, but "navy pilots"? I think you mean "the dregs Goering and the Luftwaffe threw our way"!
Yeah, that's another problem with any potential German carriers: If it flies, it's Goering's. The carrier pilots would answer to a separate Luftwaffe chain of command aboard the ship, not the navy.
As the inter-war Royal Navy could tell you, having your carrier pilots controlled by a separate air force (the RAF) and not the navy is very bad for rapid and seamless operations. And given how relations between the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe were worse than they were between the RN and RAF (to the point where the Graf might have had separate mess halls for the different services to prevent fraternization), that doesn't bode well for the cohesiveness of German carrier crews.
@@krisk4613 The surviving plans for the Graf tell us EVERYTHING was to be catapult-launched. That would affect pilot training, flight crew training, standard operational procedures, etc.
It might be possible to fly planes off the Graf Zeppelin's deck, but without the doctrine and training to do that, it wouldn't be an option for her.
With enough carrier experience, the Germans would likely realize that the catapult-only launch was really dumb. Whether or not the Graf Zeppelin would even live long enough for them to figure this out is another question entirely.
@@1Korlash year thats the problem with 1cariers lots of ideas, theoris and wishfull thinking.
High Seas Fleet Mk2 Electric Shipaloo.
The royal navy is going to fuck you
William Beavis
*mark 2 Naval Superiority Boogaloo
2' 18" "heavily-armed Raeders"? There was only 1.
The issue I have with the Z plan is that it plays against Germany’s strengths.
Germany is a continental power with powerful enemies on two sides, possibly even three given Mussolini’s support wasn’t certain. Not only is Germany not a naval power, it is in a horrible position from which to conduct naval war, with one of the world’s dominant naval powers plonked right athwart its approaches.
Germany is a continental, not a naval, power. If you’re a continental power, rule 1 is to avoid symmetric naval confrontation with a naval power. Granted Germany needs some form of naval power: she imports too many raw materials from overseas to avoid this, but an asymmetric strategy of using U-boats and maybe fast torpedo boats, minefields and aircraft could have contained the Royal Navy.
Ultimately, it can be argued that the decision to pursue symmetric naval competition led to Germany’s failure in both World Wars.
You are of course 100% correct
But your reasoning is irrelevant... Think of it this way... The stratigic situation is irrelevant to the Z plan.
Nazi Germany was a dictatorship and Hitler wanted a big powerful navy and that was that. So he got the Z plan.
Ok. Over simplified a bit. You could argue that what he wanted was to *say* he wanted a big powerful navy. To bang his bathtub. maybe he just wanted to ruffle a few feathers internationally (especially in Britain) *mayyybeee* he was just drumming up support amoung the populace and the (militaristic) party faithful. My thinking is that given he was ( if nothing else ) a political mastermind. It's likely this was a case of all the above and more (he was very good at accomplishing many positives out of any one action).
But the point is.
He wanted a plan for this big navy. He got the Z plan.
The actual reality of the situation from a geo-political point of view is irrelevant to the how and why the plan came about. The plan doesn't ignore the theory you stated. It's just that your theory (reality) isn't a factor.
Hope that makes sense. It's a different way of looking at history and my favourite. Especially when it comes to Nazi Germany. So much of what happened goes against anything that we see as being rational and logical. So it's always interesting to work out the Nazis "reason" behind the action taken.
@@AdamMGTF True, the actual reality of the situation is irrelevant to the request for and development of ... a plan. Kind of like Operation Sea Lion. Orders were given and the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine made a great show of making preparations while finding ways to blame each other for it not being able to actually proceed with an invasion of Britain.
Plans don't depend on reality. Only actual implementation and potential for success depends on reality.
_If you’re a continental power, rule 1 is to avoid symmetric naval confrontation with a naval power._ Beijing is forgetting this key rule
"If you’re a continental power, rule 1 is to avoid symmetric naval confrontation with a naval power." Or be the United States or China and get big and powerful enough to out-navy even a dedicated naval power.
@@vikkimcdonough6153 the usa isn't really a continental power, they have weak or friendly neighbours north and south and have done since the early 1800s, they might as well be an island, it wouldn't make much of a strategic difference, so most of their focus is on having a strong navy and its been like that since ww1, they are just as much a dedicated naval power as the British empire was. China on the other hand seems to just be going down the same road as the German empire, they won't be able to fully compete with the USA unless there is a massive decline in the US navy
The Germans really were stuck on their fixation for surface commerce raiders. I agree that virtually all of the Plan Z ships intended for that role would have simply been too specialized to be very useful. Those designs just ignore the historical reality that the ship types which tended to do the most commerce raiding were generalist ships that did many other things besides attacking merchant ships. Even all the way back into the age of sail, the frigates and smaller ships that often raided enemy commerce had numerous other roles as well, such as friendly convoy escort, battlefleet reconnaissance, repeating command signals, and a number of other independent missions that took advantage of their long range (in terms of provisions) and relative self-sufficiency. Those sailing frigates were the spiritual ancestors of world war-era cruisers (and the independent "cruises" they routinely undertook gave the later ships their name), and standard light and heavy cruisers could function well as commerce raiders, provided they had a strong enough force to overwhelm the escort. The difference was that those standard cruisers were equally adept at the myriad other roles for a medium-sized surface combatant. So many of these Plan Z ships, though, focused so much of their design on commerce raiding that they kept growing in size and cost, while at the same time sacrificing most of their ability to fight enemy warships of comparable size and cost.
Well, mostly it was the German politicians, admirals, and the industrialists who wanted large capital ships for greater profits and phallus contests. Commerce raiding was just the only practical use for them.
It's even crazier when you remember that Germany's U-boats had already shown that they were far and away the best commerce raiders Germany could field against Britain.
@@1Korlash To be fair a mix of surface and subsurface raiders is absolutely necesary to keep your enemies on guard. IMO you should also throw in some air power for good measure.
The German plans were quite modest. 2 x Scharnhorst class, 2 x Bismarck class, 6 x H-class. In addition a small number of aircraft carriers. The Germans had to protect their own commerce as well or at least make it unpalatable for the British to run roughshod over German commerce without paying a hefty price. In reality they recognised the limitations and the two H-class keels (with about 10,000 tons down between them) were scrapped and turned into U-boats. Had the two H classes been built they would have been ready about the same time as Iowa.
@@1Korlash I dunno. The seeadler did rather well for a sailing ship! Lol
But yes. If you can make one sweeping statement about Germany* in the run up to and during ww2 that's totally accurate, it's this.
"Did not learn lesson of ww1"
*I of course, actually mean Hitler. A man so determined to avoid a war in the east and west. That he managed to end up fighting a war in the west. The east. The south. The north AND in the skies over Germany.
(Insert back to the future "your just not thinking 3 [sic] dimensionally" quote here)
I remember reading somewhere that the Graf Zeppelin's design was based on the design of Akagi, I just don't know WHICH version of Akagi it was designed from.
Germans went in 1935 to japan and inspected the akagi
@@sander6438It would most likely end up like the akagi, sunk by American/ British AirPower
Great video
The biggest flaw of the Z plan was it required the British and French to do absolutely nothing about expanding and modernizing their Navies.
It bears frightening similarity to Tirpitz's Risk-flotte theory which ultimately proved a failure and a disaster for Germany.
Strangely teh H-39's had even thinner belt armour than Bismarck and the inclusion of underwater torpedo tubes is strange considering all the problems encountered with them in WW1. It also weakens the hull and reduces watertight integrity.
The 'fantasy' H-44 design was to have 20 inch guns and considering all the problems Yamato had with blast effect from her guns, I shudder to think what the effects of these monsters would have. Not to mention the very slow firing rate.
With your redesigned German ships Drach, another thing to get rid of is the German obsession with the Triple screw propulsion system.
It has been proved that either a twin or quad screw is better as the quad allows steering with the engines in case of rudder damage *cough Bismarck cough* Navies prefer a quad for larger ships as it provides redundency, which the military loves.
Great post. Small nitpick: Yamato's blast damage problem has been badly overstated and may not have existed at all. The only thing it MIGHT have done is some minor damage to her wooden deck face, but that was purely cosmetic and, again, may not have even been a thing.
@@1Korlash Sorry for not being clearer but the blast problem I was thinking about is the effect it would have on the crew.
All the light AA guns on Yamato were shielded as the blast effect would have a very high chance of concussing any exposed personal. I can't recall the figures I read but the difference between even 16 inch guns and 18.1 inch is massive.
While some say AA guns would not be manned during a surface action, the Japanese developed main gun ammo for the long range AA role. Yamato firing her big guns would cripple the light AA crews just as an air attack was incoming.
So I can only imagine the pressure wave from 20 inch guns on any exposed crew.
John Fisher See, I've heard that, but I've never found any primary sources that support it (or secondary sources that present a relevant primary source). Do you have a source?
@@1Korlash It's something I readmany years ago and, of course, now i go looking I can't find it :(
One excellent book I have is "Conway's All the world's Battleships 1906 to present. Edited by Ian Sturton.
This states the Blast effects from Yamato's main guns was so severe that all light AA had to be shielded and the ships boats stored below deck.
Another lesser evidence is one of the reasons the British did not go for superfiring turrets in their first dreadnoughts was the guns would concuss the crew of the lower turret due to the sighting hoods when fired on certain bearings. The turrets were later redesigned to correct this.
Considering these were 12inch guns, the effect of the Yamato's 18.1 inch guns on unprotected crew would be devastating, perhaps even fatal.
And the Germans were thinking of 20inch for their fantasy H-44 class.
@@johnfisher9692 Interesting. Thank you for sharing that.
Just a stunningly well done series. Unlike many TH-cam presenters, you don’t seem addicted to the sound of your own voice. Had I den told someone could talk about a class of ship in 5 minutes, I would have politely asked when they last saw their therapist. But, you do it. Very impressive, keep it up. Not normally a Patreon supporter, but you forced me. Well done.
German Navy: Plz no war until 1948
Adolf: Okay
*Starts war*
German Navy: Excuse me what the fuck?
Where is Your education? Germany had a local conflict with the Czecks in 1938 & Poland in 1939 about illigally occupied German territory. Historically seen, both states were always a part of the German I. Reich. You slackers unleashed 2 times a World War, which destroyed Europe in favour of the US. The heart spent by Drach is the evidence of exceeded British stupidity.
“Assuming somebody can keep Hitler locked in a room to keep him from mashing the ‘Lebensraum’ button for two seconds.”
I think my soul departed from my body for a second from how hard I was laughing at this.
That, and the, "Shoot whoever thought of using the BF-109" comment just got me for some reason.
Thank You for providing a treasure trove of ACCURATE detail on the warships and battles of days gone by.
I have been fascinated with WW II ships of the world for over 50 years starting in my early teens.
So many documentaries use the same footage of a battleship blowing up or a submarine being strafed with little regard for accuracy. I have even seen the iconic footage of the USS Arizona blowing up at Pearl Harbor attributed several times to other ships/
The strangest one was footage from 'Triumph of the Will supposedly being McCarther's arrival in Australia.
Thanks for not doing that and providing hours of bingeworthy viewing material, my wife sends her regards for helping to keep me out of her way. maybe we shall see 40 years of marraige after all.
Wait, that zeppelin weight reducing scheme is utter genius, someone comes around and sees a warship gently bobbing on top of the water with 10 zeplins huddled together above it.
Your mentioning of competition for finances and natural resources between the competing branches of the Heer, Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine and the Waffen SS reigns so true, in a regime which was purposefully designed and administered to compete within itself at every level, makes me think of another aspect which I never appriciated:
'Had the Z Plan been completed as intended, fuel consumption by the Kriegsmarine would have more than quadrupled between 1936 and the completion of the program in 1948, from 1.4 million tons to approx 6 million tons. On top of this the Kriegsmarine would have to construct some 9.6 million tons worth of fuel storage facilities for enough fuel reserves to allow just one year of wartime operations; longer conflicts of course necessitating an even larger stockpile.'
You have to account for the fact that the nazis had long term plans. Their goals were not just revenge for WW1. Their true goals were a complete reordering of the german nation. Which meant creating new structures from scratch like the SS. In time a sort of stability would be reached. But short term it would be chaotic until a clear set of rules between party state and secret police/paramilitary force was reached. Problem is this happened in the midst of a war. Also the nazi movement was the result of two forces. The far right paramilitaries of Weimar Germany(Freikorps) merging with the more occult mystical ultranationalist movements ie the Thule organisation. These two forces due to their chaotic and bloody birth were bound to have a hard time reaching an understanding with traditional government structures. The nazis could never completely abandon their roots. If anything the chaotic style of leadership was still preferable to the de facto civil war of early Weimar Germany. You no longer had street battles in Berlin. Well not between germans in any case.
Thank you for your informative reply@@florinivan6907
Regards
Rob
The lebenshram button
Rider Strano Lebensraum!
It's a lebensSHAM I say!
rly nis my phone is a massive potato
Beep beep
Plan Z suffered from a number of fundamental flaws. First, it took little to no account of a British response in terms of warship production. The British would not have simply stood idly by and allowed the Germans to complete such a fleet. Second was the fact that Germany was incapable of making the Z Plan a reality. In plain non-Vulcan English, Germany lacked the resources- both human and natural- to build, operate, and maintain a large army, navy, and air force, and was thus not a "world" power. What's more is that the Germans would not ever become a world power until such time as she had ready access to abundant natural resources- and those resources could only have come from the east; meaning the Soviet Union. War with the Soviet Union would have required the largest and most powerful army and air force that the Germans could field, and the resources from that could only have come at the expense of the navy. Lastly was that senior German leaders failed to realize that a negotiated peace with Britain- or even victory over her- could not alleviate Germany's lack of natural resources. Nor could it help Germany in what clearly was an impending war with the Soviet Union. Indeed, victory over Britain would have made Germany responsible for overseeing the feeding of, and security over the British people- and Germany was unable to do that over conquered Europe.
ManiliaJohn01 - you are so ignorant.... German's LAST concern was feeding anybody except GERMANS. They would starve of just plain murder excess number, like they did in Poland and further East. Germans were literally ploundering all supply and production, including agriculture.
@@piotrd.4850 You don't understand what was written, and call John ignorant. We call this irony. Even with all that 'plunder' Germany could not hope to build a fleet to challenge the Royal Navy for control of the channel. Even with all that 'plunder' people were going hungry and Germany could not meet the needs of the war. Where Britain had spent centuries developing overseas territory, supporting the industrialization(Is it hilarious when people claim the US colonies went to war because they were being 'exploited' when they'd been developed and supported to the point they out-produced many European states already by the 18th century.) all it's colonies/possession and building a merchant marine big enough that all could trade with each other, Germany had just gone to war again and again and again... and made continental Europe poorer by contrast every time, much as France and Spain did before it.
Continentals (and to be fair post-war Britons) are like that though, revering Empires for the territory they've conquered and the people they've killed rather than the things they've built.
Regardless, nothing John said was wrong. People make a very big deal out of Germany's few naval successes in the world wars but tend to ignore the fact that none of these ever even came close (by an order of magnitude or two) to leveling the field in terms of combat capable warships. 'Plunder' is hard to turn into warships, it takes years to develop the capability at shipyards and those were years that the Germans didn't have.
@@giupiete6536 I'm afraid that you don't understand - I was commenting on John's ridiculously naive concept of [..] Indeed, victory over Britain would have made Germany responsible for overseeing the feeding of [..] . It would have been other way round and doesn't have anything in common without building anything or not! As of matching UK naval power - don't you understand they DIDN'T HAVE TO LEVEL PLAYING FIELD? Britain was already overstretched and still maintained idea of outbuilding next two competitors. Therefore every single major German warship would cause disproportionate response, therefore strain, on British economy and shipbuilding capability, because that's what they were - fans of disproportionate response. How many naval assets had e.g. Tirpitz alone tied? Every Lion-class battleship would mean that much resources taken away from aircraft, tanks.... Anyway, what boggles the mind is opinion of people who were THIS close to defeat despite horrendous number of German blunders and on more than one occasion. For most of the war, Germany and Germans were whipping asses left and right like nobody's business - in the war, which they themselves had no concise concept of fighting and winning! It took obscene amount of resources and research to protect convoys against flimsy, uncoordinated, poorly informed and armed U-boot fleet whose communication were read. Hell, had they somehow had torpedoes of Japanese quality it would end then and there for Great Britain. Even "loosing' reportedly "hopeless" war Germany dismantled two large world powers, as seen now, effectively turning them into vassals, mortally wounded third (USSR) and thoroughly obliterated anything of value in Poland and similar countries. This kind of thinking by their opponents largely contributed to German successes and actually belittles enormous human and economic cost to stop them - it took whole 2nd half of the war with mammoth effort from literally entire industrialised world to reasonably stop and push back against "capability and resource lacking" Germany. I happen to know for a fact, that same reasoning as yours was behind Churchill's decision to dispatch Prince of Wales to Singapore and similar sentiments were onboard, until it was blown out of the water by then underestimated Japanese.
@@piotrd.4850
The British had an Empire it could draw from.
The Anglo-German Naval Arms Race barely put a dent in the Empire's economy while it nearly crashed Germany's.
Starving a people into extermination is an excellent way to paint a target on every single soldier/Officer on the Isles. They would not enjoy being on the island when everyone wants you dead. The resistance movements of the UK would be crippling to Germany's control of it, along with the Royal Navy that would have sailed to Canada to regroup and fight back.
@@piotrd.4850 The British had planned to seed Germany with anthrax if worst comes to worst. I'm pretty sure they would've struggled to feed their population when all their cows died from the anthrax laden cakes. Sure, this would result in chemical response, but Germany had no major bomber arm to actually deliever the chemicals, and the V-1's and V-2's were far too expensive and off limited range to use as a replacement.
Not only would you have seen the British respond in their building but the enhanced danger to American shipping likely would have triggered the huge scale up of the USN two years earlier. This not only 6 Iowa completed but the four turret follow up.
Many overlook the tensions between the US and Imperial Germany at the end of the 19th century. The dreadnought competition of RN and SMS has obscured that the pre-dreadnought and then the Delewares building was aimed at Germany. The USN still had mistrust of the KM even though the focus shifted to the Pacific and thus the drive for a true "two ocean" navy.
One of the great "WHAT IF`s" that keep you up at night.
With a lot of hindsight we can all come up with many questions, recommendations and "why didn´t they think of this & that"
Because clearly, the realitiy of 2 WW´s is not enough for civilized Reddit discussions ;)
The Rocket Propelled Battleship, with a bank of 80 V-2 Engines in the back to overtake Merchant Convoys or escape the British. With the 700,000 ton, 8 32" Gustaf Guned Fantasy, why not?
@@spookyshadowhawk6776 seems a bit under ambitious to me.....
@@Colonel_Overkill World of Warships did a special test on the H-45, when you're firing Shell's that weigh over 30,000 lb each, even a near Miss is dangerous. A slow rate of fire though. Probably used Destroyers for life boats.
There is no 'what if's, whatever Nazis do, they would lose the war. 'What if' are just the wet dreams of contemporary Nazis, too stupid and too ignorant to understand both, the reality and the history. Nazis were a bit lucky and too crazy on the onset of the war, and that's pretty much it.
that is a monumental fail of a comment @@stef1896
it is stupid, ignorant and completly misses the point.
Thanks, as always for your research and insight and also to your followers/responders for their equally adept addendi. Although not a naval history fan-boy myself, and thus feeling unworthy to add any intelligent additions, your channel provides me with some excellent bed-time stories. Thanks, again.
I had wondered why the Western Allies gave the Russians the unfinished German aircraft carrier. They obviously realised that it only realistically value it had was as scrape. This also explains why the Russians never got the hang of carriers.
You do have to wonder why they were trying for a High Seas Fleet Mk2. Even with Plan Z they were never going to be in a position to seriously threaten anyone else. And with the airstrike capability from carriers and land based aircraft they could no longer expect to hide in port.
U-Boats and Commerce raiders would have been a far better bet for taking on the Allies. This was recognised in WW1. Some of the most effective German commerce raiders of WW2 were the disguised armed merchant ships. And it would have been much more cost effective. You could build a fleet of converted merchant ship raiders from those you captured. Just have a couple of supply ships carrying some guns and other equipment. Capture a ship. Refit it and then send it out to raid.
Plan Z was a wishlist vanity project.
Loving the content. Only discovered the channel recently, very much enjoying it all. Fav so far it's the 3 part Jutland, with aftermath summary being a great addition. Context and outcomes in all these are great
The thing about the GZ's casemate secondaries.
They were the result of an error, with the original design having 8 150mm casemates in single mounts.
The doubles were a mistake.
Specifically, the ship's designer had the idea of saving some weight by replacing the 8 single casemates with 4 double casemates. Miscommunication with the shipyard resulted in replacing the single mounts with doubles on a 1-for-1 basis.
@@RedXlV seems like something you might want to clarify but hey that's just me
An over-ambitious and bordering on fantasy level plan. Not only cost, but time and lack of materials would be against them. You would also need large shipyards that were out of range of the Bomber Command. Wilhelmshaven is too close and Kiel cannot build this number of capital ships.
Just a small clarification. The whole plan was intended as a pre war building effort. Infact (as mentioned in the video) the plan was fundamentally based on the premise that war would NOT come with any power before 1945.
So the dockyards position in relation to bomber command is irrelevant as as soon as war started, the plan was instantly defunct and didn't exist.
Hope that makes sense.
Also, the unrealistic plan part of your post is bang on. And sums up pretty much all plans made under Nazism 😂
@@AdamMGTF But Germany could not have held off until 1945. They began the war bankrupt and in need of purchasing raw materials to keep their economy and armament program going. Germany's key supplier was the USSR as they could negotiate payment in kind - manufactured goods and technology in exchange for raw materials. The longer this went on the less Germany would be able to borrow to purchase iron from Sweden and tungsten from Spain. And the more dependent on the USSR they became the more the USSR would demand in exchange.
The German economy was run on conscription, subsidies and wage/price controls.
To pursue a massive naval expansion in addition to the resources that went into the army and air force... where would these additional raw materials and additional skilled workers come from.
The superiority of the Luftwaffe over the Royal Air Force was a result of the Germans starting earlier than the British. When they both were going in war time production in 1940 the British were out-producing the Germans almost 2 aircraft to 1... and that isn't counting production in Canada or the US $1.2 billion (about $22 billion in current dollars) of aircraft the British purchased in 1940 from USA (paid in gold).
German production was held back until they captured raw materials and a large slave labor force.
While Germany was manufacturing the Bismarck and the Tirpitz (to go from zero proper battleships to two), the British commenced construction on five battleships to add to their existing 12. I am not counting the Hood as a Battleship. The Royal Navy had three battlecruisers (Hood, Renown and Repulse) compared to Germany's two (Scharnhorst and Gneisenau). A faster manufacturing of ships by Germany would have triggered faster production in Britain.
Geez, the nazis were delusional, who would've guessed...
On a more serious note, the germans theoretically weren't expecting a big war until 1945, their plans were intended for that time frame. What they didn't expect however, was that they'd go bankrupt in 3 years, because printing money doesn't work, and have to conquer european countries to offset the economic crisis.
Schnapps- at 04:30? Yes sir.
The irony and sarcasm is strong in this one - love it!
I love your intro ! This channel is getting better and better with every new vid.
Far to heavily armed. As a American I can’t comprehend that statement.
By that he meant gun caliber, as the H-44 was drawn up with 20" guns.
Such a thing does NOT exist
Great video and awesome info sir! I've always been fascinated with the h class battleships, especially the h44. Just the thought of the shear size is mind blowing. I'm sure those who fought against the germans in ww2 are glad the H class were never built but man would they have been a sight to behold. It's kinda a shame that ships like yamato are sitting at the bottom of the ocean. I personally would have love to see one. The only battleship I've ever seen or been to is the uss Alabama and she is a beaut. Its amazing that something that solid and heavy actually floats, or did.
This made for an entertaining lunch break video. Thank you for posting.
The allies ALREADY had a reply to the Yamatos. It was called the Essex Class.
True statement. The same year the Germans started building Bismarck, the USA started work on Enterprise.
Edit: I'll cut them a little slack because, as of the mid-late 1930s, only a handful of people in the world had figured out that battleships were obsolete and aircraft carriers were the new rulers of the seas.
@@bamagrad99 Actually, NO navy figured it out even up to and past the end of WWII. Do remember that the USN and RN kept putting new battleships into service even after the Axis had stopped and people began to realize all these new battleships (on both sides) were just a waste of steel.
Sincerely glad you were not A/ a time traveler, and B/ so minded as to give aid to the German navy. Much happier with you where you are, providing sound historical analysis and information. Thoroughly enjoy your work, Cheers.
Hms Unicorn, although a light carrier used her 4 inch guns for shore bombardement during the war in Korea as she was the only ship available lol.
Uss card served in ww2 and the Vietnam war i think it was sunk in sallow water but she was raised
The results of WWI U-boat action should have been enough to make them the priority. However, Donitz was too compliant and followed orders despite results. The U.K. was starving by December, 1941. Any German Surface was vulnerable.
Brilliantly the Reichmarine had a similar composition as modern navies with submarines, larger destroyers and specialized craft. Even aircraft carriers are targets and specialized.
*Kure/Yokosuka*
Officer (with feath in the voice): What have you done...
**Something massive move**
Me (with devil smile): A battleship.
The big fleet idea worked up to WW1 when COAL was the main source of energy.
With no domestic oil, this Z-Plan puts the cart before the horse!
I really enjoy your vids Drach
That was an awesome run down, never knew about the plan Z.
Plan Z can be summed up like this: Possible IF germany dedicated every last resource to the project, otherwise, it's just wishful thinking. The German economy was no where near what it needed to be for the plan to be completed in 10, let alone 15. 20 years would be possible as that gives just enough time to put everything that is need to support and produce such a fleet size in place. As for the ship designs, a good starting point considering the kriegsmarine had to start from almost scratch.
Drachinifel, thanks for the thorough documentary. Your comment about the Graf Zepplin being used during a surface duel reminds me of the carrier that appears in the "Battleship" game. As we both know, most carriers had no where near the deck and hull armor to survive several hits from 16, 15, or 14 inch guns. I think the guy who came up with the Graf Zepplin carrier/cruisers concept must have come up the "Battleship" game. 😆 I think that if Grand Admiral Raeder had of been able to lock his master, Der Fuehrer, in a rubber room, with a ball of string, until at least 1945, Germany would have had a better fleet. I agree with you that they should have been practical and frugal with the designs and ships that they built. Don't waste time and Reichmarchs on useless super-cruisers, enlarged Deutschland class pocket battleships, or super-destroyers. And they should forget the expensive super-Bismarck class. So Stick with building all 6 Admiral Hipper class cruisers, do at least 4 Bismarck class battleships, 4 Scharnhorst class battle-cruisers, and 4 sensibly designed Graf Zepplin carriers.
One factor that must be recalled with 'pie in the sky ' Plan Z was that Hitler never intended for it to be actually used.
He really thought his posturing and diplomatic domination over the British government would continue. He had waved the hype of the army and air force so well that these paper tigers would still serve.
The Nazi regime has perhaps 12-18 month head start on France, Britain and all the other European powers. The margin of victory in France was supplied by the Czech arms handed to him in Munich. When he turned on the Soviet Union a year later the hollow nature of his army and logistics train was reveled. Hitler in 1941 was believing his own propaganda!
Have been binge watching this channel while playing World of Warships during our lockdown.
“Assuming that someone could keep Hitler locked in a room, and keep him from smashing the Lebensräume button for two seconds...” 😂
Drachinifel, you are clearly an engineer or perhaps more precisely a Naval Architect. Excellent video, thanks. The concluding comments promptly whacked it all into place. As an aero eng, what you said about navalising ME109 vs FW190 resonates. Naval aircraft need to be robust and for all its other qualities the Messerschmitt was anything but.
The real issue with the "German tillman ships" is simple.
Where to build them.
The Germans where barley able to build the Bismark class, they would have needed to effectivly build all new drydocks to make the things.
so what. just build a dry dock. it's not a big deal.
@@swunt10 It could take time in that day and age, be vulnerable to sabotage during construction and served as huge announcement of intentions.
@@piotrd.4850
"Attention Royal Navy, we are creating a huge dry dock to obviously create a huge ship in clear violation of the treaties."
The reply? The Royal Navy starts to modernise and build more ships.
and now I'm off to world of warships. damn good video.
650 mm guns in twin turrets? Um, that is larger than the Yamato at 460.
Don't forget 12 800mm Gustaw guns on H-45 😈
yes, really enjoyed it.....and the overview summary puts it in a real world
When it came to WWII Cruisers the US Alaska class were badass. These cruiseer's 12" 50 caliber main armament were better than most 14" guns. Those cruisers were beautiful, handsomely great looking, these cruisers and the German Prince Eugene and Bismark and Tirpitz along with the Iowa class battleships were hands down the best looking ships of steel to ever put to sea. IMHO, Which is awesomely important.......to probably only me. 😎😎😎😎
16:08 They actually intended to build 6 H-39 class Battleships. The next designs, H-40 Scheme A, and B, H-41, H-42 were some what serious design considerations, however if and when any of these could and would have been built would have been after the six H-39s were at least floated.
H-42, H-43, and especially H-44 were design studies that were not even shared with Admiral Raeder or Admiral Doughnuts (pun intended).
These ships were designed as 97,000 ton, 118,000 ton, and 141,500 ton ships. Germany had now way of building any ship of this size at the time.
There projected main guns were to be. 16.54" (420mm) and 20.06" (508mm) on the last 2.
by 1942 the Design Navy Weapons Office had just got to the determination that a 420mm gun was possible by boring out and lining the 406mm gun, for the H41 design. This came also came with testing special projectiles and powder to get that to work, and would have taken time to get it tested and working right.
In all honesty if Germany could have built any of the H-39s it may have helped them a little, but unless they could have made the whole six battle groups, and supply ships along with replenishment ships, and cruisers/destroyers to escort them, then as noted it just wasted a lot of time, money and manpower that could have built more submarines that were so successful in the first 2 years of the war.
If Germany had built the H-39, by the time it was finished they'd be up against 6 Lion class and some 30 extra carriers.
@@1993Crag Not to mention they most likely would have been bombed during construction.
@@1993Crag and simply bought entire bankrupt Great Britain in another round of MEFO, instead fighting it.
Now we need to see those in an Episode of Man in High Castle
Agreed! While I LOVED seeing the Japanese fleet entering San Francisco Bay in Season 3, I always thought it was a shame we didn't get a look at a 1960s version of an H-class. I would've said Tirpitz, but by the time MITHC was set, Tirpitz (had she survived WWII) would've been getting pretty long in the tooth and probably wouldn't have been used much beyond a training ship in the Baltic.
Excellent video! I haven't read the comments yet but suspect you'll get a slating by some; there are people on TH-cam who can't tolerate any criticism of German weapons or technology.
As I've heard said on occasion, there were times when Hitler himself was the best "ace in the hole" the Allies had. Thank God he decided to make the German navy follow this plan, instead of first building up the U-Boat arm in case of a sooner-than-expected war, and then constructing the surface fleet. As it was, with just 60 U-Boats at the start of the war, it was still a damn close-ran affair. If they'd had 90 or 120 boats at the start of the war, enough to where Doenitz could have almost immediately kicked off effective wolfpack operations, things might have ended very differently indeed. A very good read as to what they were able to accomplish with very limited numbers of submarines is "Operation Drumbeat", a detailed account from both sides of the U-Boat offensive against the US East Coast in the first part of 1942 after the US entry into the war. They were very nearly able to bring shipping to a complete halt, thanks in no small part to some utterly boneheaded decisions on the part of the US and USN, and Admiral Ernest King's Anglophobia, ignoring intelligence and operational advice from the RN. In many ways, it was a worse defeat than that suffered at Pearl Harbor.
Half of those rumors come from German Generals who basically wanted to cover the tracks of their own mistakes by claiming that they could have one without Hitler. And Hitler made about as many good decisions as a made bad decisions. Though thanks to his ideology he made a few pretty stupid decisions.
Later in the war the Allies abandoned attempts to support Hitler's assassination because they were worried someone more suited to command would take over.
The same could be said for the U boats as has been said for plan Z . If they were there in greater numbers effective counter measures would have been implemented earlier. The American reluctance to convoy, the British reluctance to release aircraft for submarine patrols, the British tendency to chase around the ocean in hunter killer groups would all go away quicker in the face of earlier losses. With luck it might even get King fired. Knowing more submarines were being built might have gotten some corvettes on the slipways earlier.
@@Drachinifel late in the war hitler was suffering from a illness (likely schizophrenia) & meth from what i remember so....
@@Drachinifel Too true. Imagine a Donitz or Rommel in charge. Heaven forbid.
you should do the iceberg ship
V1 towed torpedoes was another interesting idea.
He has done it. Hms habbakuk
The Germans had no hope of competing with the British and American navies. Not enough industrial capacity, simple as that.
Or the resources to supply that industry if they did...or didnt....either way comes down to supply
Both arguments of course are irrelevant when it comes to the Z plan as it was drawn up for Hitler. And he didn't care about such things. He wanted a plan for a large navy and that's what he got.
Yeah, Britain thought so before WW I. They paid heavy price in ships blown in indecisive battle, which was supposed to end war in weeks, instead required millions of dying in the mud and trenches. Continued that trail of thought - lost empire due to war 20 years later, and now are smaller and far less industrialised economy then Germany. Also, Germany didn't plan war with USA.
@@piotrd.4850 perhaps but they won the war
I don't know much about boats, aeroplanes and buses, WW1,2 or 3, however, the over powering conclusion I can draw about this is that whoever designed the 'Z' Plan forgot to acknowledge the impact that allied aircraft would have. Particularly these four, 1) CAC Wirraway, 2) Fairey Swordfish Mk 1, 3) Blackburn Skua and 4) Aichi E13A "Jake". These four probably represent the fourmost powerful aircraft capable or reverse thrust and vertical landing at sub-sonic as well as super-sonic speeds. That's the problem with TH-cam. Any kid can get up and make a video. THank God I'm here.
Warships on paper are always the best!
Another really excellent video. Thank you, when do you have time to sleep and eat?
One more problem the Germans faced in building the H Class BBs is the shallowness of their harbours. They were very much limited in how much water these big ships could draw without grounding on the Ems mud, which meant the hull design had to be wide rather than deep. That required extra power because of extra wave-making, which in turn required trade-offs somewhere. And the proposed Diesel engines were already pushing it terms of power output - I think diesels are not easily scaleable in the same way as boilers and steam turbines. But the extra beam would have helped with the torpedo defences, which would have been hard pressed facing 1944 scale carrier strikes.
Looking forward to your presentation on the pre-Dreadnought era.
Great vid Drach, thanks for sharing your thoughts on Plan Z.
Actually all 6 H class BBs that were first ordered were planned to be H-39's with H-41 through H-43 being possibilities and H-44 being more of a Battleship study. H-42 most likely could have been the largest BB that Germany at the time could have built, and still wouldn't have been practical to do so for them.
In light of the fact that the Germans were very creative in terms of air force and land weapons. It is not surprising that they would be creative with their ships. I think your assessment of the ships is correct. I cant wonder what would have happened if they had built the fleet. We will never know.
A great video! I mostly agree with your assessment, though I did catch one little error. Technically, the USS Gambier Bay used its deck gun against a cruiser during the Battle off Samar, but that is a minor historical footnote. Keep these great videos coming, I'm learning a lot of interesting naval history from your productions.
I understand a lucky hit blew up a heavy cruiser - not bad going. But the Battle off Samar was very much *not* how a naval battle was supposed to be fought!
Kromaatikse
That hit has been disproven (and it was claimed by a different CVE anyways).
Love to watch your channel. I used to be a ww2 naval junkie. Things coming back from the dark and dusty closet lol. Graf zeppelin was a great try for a first time. Remember the Hermes, Britain's first carrier that had experience in ww1. America started with the Langley. Ijn I can't remember. But the effort to try is impressive. People get caught in here and now, not trial and error. Love you channel will keep watching, and yes I'm a subscriber
How did HMS Hermes have 'experience in ww1' when she only commissioned in 1924?
The furious is what I'm probably thinking. Dont have all my books where I can show it. Locked in storage lol. My bad
finally you pulled me in... subbed!
It could be argued that Hitler's late 1930s international strategy was not based on war but on expanding German territory and influence by picking off individual countries with treaties, intimidation and/or bluff. The threats of invasion by the German army and terror bombing by the Luftwaffe were part of this too.
The Z Plan would have allowed for a continuation of this via "gunboat diplomacy", especially for countries heavily reliant on shipping for food and/or their economy and/or with vast overseas empires (ie all western European countries in those days). Hence the Z Plan's emphasis on commerce raiding and cruisers, which could have gone - and did go - all over the world, not just a battlefleet to match Britain's. Also, it would have allowed Germany to bombard those hard to reach countries such as France, Britain etc from the sea.
One by one each could have fallen into line behind Germany with no actual war, just the threat of it or a display only.
The strategy worked for the militarisation of Germany contrary to the Versailles Treaty, the military reoccupation of the Rhineland, the Anschluss with Austria, the incorporation of the Sudentenland, and the occupation of Czechoslovakia. The fact that Poland (and later, other countries) said "no" to German intimidation was the beginning of the end to this strategy (though it continued up until the invasion of the USSR), which would also have been a reason why the Z Plan was terminated.
High seas fleet two electric boogaloo
All in all I think you are very on point with the practicality angle. Germany had no hope of building an offensive fleet to compete against England. If they did start to build any significant amount of battleships, then England would have mirrored. I like to play these ships in World of Warships, and War Thunder.
If Germany could have got their hands on the French Navy then that could have been a serious thorn in the side of possible effects on the allies. If Italy could have acquired better radar and not end up in the mediteranian disaster that it encountered.
lot of if if if. And yes they needed way more U boats way sooner while the U boat was a serious threat.
So Germany building a big navy whilst sandwiched between France and Russia is an obvious non-starter which is why it historically didn't happen. I think a more interesting debate would be about whether the Axis, now controlling Europe, could compete with the USA after defeating France, the USSR and for arguments sake, also Britain. This was after all the main idea behind Germany's ideals, that Europe as a continent needs to unite in order to compete with the American continent.
No it couldn't. Because of physics. Once the Bomb was ready no later than the mid 40s there were two possibilities either a detterence a la the Cold War settled in one in which the US with a better naval tradition was poised to win long term. Or nuclear war. Personally I believe detterence with Nazi Germany as opposed to the soviets would have failed. Since ideologically german superiority was tied to war a long Cold War would eventually have discredited their ideology. The soviets did not view war as a goal unto itself. Just as a means to an end. Eventually a nuclear armed Germany would have chosen war even at the risk of a complete destruction once the US retaliated. Their ideology mandated war. The German-US version of the Cuban missile crisis would have resulted in war.
As far as naval aircraft; yes a modified 190 would have been a better choice for a single engine navel fighter than a modified 109, however, the Bf-110 would have been a better choice overall as a pre-existing aircraft. It's wheel track was wide and thus stable, it had two engines which would give some redundancy over water, and had much lighter wing loading than either the 190 or 109. It was also capable of flying as a heavy fighter or fighter bomber.
Hard to think of anything else in German service that would work better than the 110 for this role until a proper naval fighter could be drawn up.
This plan Z can’t possibly fail
Said Erich Raeder to Hitler
@@KatyushaLauncher Said Plankton to Karen.
The inescapable reality that the German surface fleet faced in both world wars was that their geographic position was just about as bad as it could get (with Britain able to control all the exits from the North Sea) and that a nation with faced "continental" threats far more serious than any maritime counterparts was never going to be able to devote the economic resources necessary to successfully challenge the Royal Navy for the control of those exits.
This was as true in 1938 as it was in 1898, and both Raeder and Hitler, with the example of 1914-1918 in front of them, should have realized what Wilhelm II never did.
A "fleet in being" was necessary to hold sufficient heavy units of the RN in home waters, reducing possible convoy escorts, but this could have been done by building BISMARK and TIRPITZ as additional units of the SCHARNHORST class (although with a 15" main battery) and rearming SCHARNHORST and GNIESENAU with twin 15" turrets as soon as possible. Screen them with 4 light cruisers and a dozen destroyers and that should be sufficient for the purpose of keeping an equal number (probably more) of British battleships, battlecruisers, cruisers and destroyers at Scapa Flow.
The HIPPER class should have been built as additional (hopefully improved) units of the DEUTSCHLAND class and, paired with "M" class cruisers, sent out to attack the North Atlantic convoy routes. With eight, rather than three, dedicated commerce raiders, and each of those with a capable consort, this would have required virtually every convoy to be escorted by a pair of cruisers, or a cruiser and capital ship, unless all the "pocket battleships" were known to be in German home waters.
Other than that . . .
BUILD MORE U-BOATS!
"Spaehlkreuzer" the way you pronounced it was "Sparkreuzer" which would literally mean savings cruiser :D
@Bene Hirsch And we all know with their size and cost, those German cruisers wouldn’t be “saving” much of anything.
I thik you missread they are named spähkreuzer meaning scount cruser
@@Zarastro54 saving the allies time on sinking them
@@krisk4613 thank you for telling us the obvious
It is always fascinating to read comments about the fantasy that was Plan Z. The idea was adopted in late January, 1939. By that time, the German Naval Ordnance department (on 31 December, 1938) had already issued a report, 'The Feasibility of the Z Plan,' which pointed out that requirements in materials and manpower were so great that the whole of German industry would need to be committed to it. In other words, no weapons production for the army, and no aircraft production for the Luftwaffe. At the time the plan appeared, the Kriegsmarine were still sorting out technical problems with the Scharnhorst class yet, apparently, Germany was going to build six 56000 ton battleships, ten 21000 ton battlecruisers, and four aircraft carriers, as well as large numbers of cruisers, destroyers, and U-boats, by 1947.
As Hitler always viewed the Soviet Union as his primary enemy, does anyone really, seriously, consider that he would have regarded devoting Germany's entire industrial potential to building a large fleet as having any merit at all?
Honestly, the very idea is utterly ludicrous.
Great video, very informative. One question, have you any links to articles on the proposed Y Plan? I've tried finding more out about it, but to all intents and purposes come up with nothing.
Here's a funny little fact, if the Z Plan fleet had been built, it would have taken the entire oil imported into Germany to fuel the ships. I wonder what the Panzer divisions and Luftwaffe squadrons would have thought of that?
Probably would have lined up to shoot the Admirals and then Hitler.
I'm always amused at the vignette in the intro at the :22 mark. The secondary battery fires and there is a burst of paperwork blasted out as well. "Um, Captain, you know all those fitness reports and fuel requisition forms I was supposed to have filed today?"
The FW190 would have been a more effective naval fighter with its wide track undercarriage and air-cooled radial.
I kinda like a lot of the designs in this video mainly the cruisers, carriers and the O and H classes even if the later H classes were over-compensating for something.
"Shoot whoever decided to use the 109, and instead use the exciting new 190." My thoughts from the second a naval 109 was mentioned. Yes i know I'm late, shush.
I never understood the idea behind putting anti-surface guns on a carrier. If it’s got to shoot at anything bigger than a patrol boat, you’re already doing something wrong.
How many crewmen would have been needed to man and support the proposed fleet?
Love these! Thanks!
The h-39 class
1000-2000 men per ship(2 in the class)
Graf zeppelin
1000-1500 men
The crusiers
800-1200 men per each ship
Destroyers
150-211 each
Submarines
15-50 per submarine
@@lefrenchaudir188 Thank you. I apologize. My question was more of a rhetorical one. My obviously poorly made point was that German manpower resources were stretched to their limits and beyond, as it was. An expanded fleet would have only made them worse.
@@scotthill8787 they can just draft danish and Norwegians tho
That picture of Churchill is something else.
Hey, Great Video
Only one suggestion:
The Spähkreuzer is spoken with an “e”
Like this: Speh-Kreuzer Meaning spotting-cruiser
A Spah(r)Kreuzer would be a saving-cruiser and is likely not what you intended to say 😅
Very frank," Shoot whoever thought about using the 109." I died laughing. Lol
Collin Gibson if my understanding of pop culture/stereotypes is right, it’s also a very German response to what was a very stupid idea.
@@Masterchiefkf3 not really fair to say a German response. But very true to say a Nazi response. Though more so later in the regime as things went to shit. Before then the summary execution of officers was rare.
Also. This isn't just a Nazi thing. * Warning. Sweeping statement *: this is true of all dictatorships. Political backing for the dictatorship or its country make little to no difference. Napoleon in France. Stalin (well just bout all rulers) in Russia, Hussain in Iraq etc.
"And could somebody please design a three gun turret for my battleships!?" Lol I was wondering if he was gonna mention that
Wish I had seen this video sooner... :(
Don't blame the germans for trying to use the Me-109. Yes, it was a bad idea, but there was no other light fighter in german service at the time the Zeppelin was launched (1936-37); a purpose-designed fighter was out of the question. You use what you have, not what you want (re: Spitfire in use in the RN, specially the disaster of the North Africa and Scicily invasion campaigns)
As for the overall scheme of the Z-class, there's one massive gap that I did not hear mentioned here, and that hightlights the Krigsmarine lack of vision and experience: _there were no AAA cruisers planned_ .
Sure, some light/heavy/scout cruisers would end up being converted, but, at the time the plan started (early 1939) both the RN and the USN were well into either building or preparing their anti-aicraft units, the Didos and the Atlantas...
In fairness. The role that dedicated anti air ships would play (and how useful they would prove to be). Wasn't something that could be seen in the late 30s. It didn't become obvious until a year or 3 into the war.
Also
The idea of a anti air cruiser just didn't factor at all into the doctrine, theory and concept behind the fleet the Germans were looking at with the z plan. They were thinking offensive against merchant ships and their escorts. The expectation being that each individual ships own anti aircraft armament would be enough to defend a ship being attacked.
There was no reason in the mid-late 30s to doubt this theory. It was a totally reasonable expectation given what was known at the time and was shared by all the world's navy's.
With the benafit of hindsight, we can see that it's a possible flaw in the plan. BUT. The videos point was to look at the plan and assess it based on its merits and flaws as and when it was drawn up.
If you start picking it apart with hindsight. Where do you stop?
Using a navalized messer would b no worse than the brits using their sea hurris n seafires
The brilliant thing about the Atlantas was that their main armament was dual purpose and they had a ridiculous amount of it --- eight turrets with two guns each. So a German equivalent could not only have fended off whatever Fairey Swordfish or the like sent against it, but also dealt effectively with any destroyers on escort duty, plus run away from any capital ships (and sent a torpedo or two their way to make them think twice).
@@IrishCarney true. The germans didn't even have a dual-purpose gun...
Excellent overview. One thing: Bismarck did NOT have its main cables above its main armor deck, that's just a myth. Also the cables to the fire directors etc. were behind armor.
I think Plan Z would be a failure if they really work on it. From it's ridiculous size and Nazi Germany unpreparedness for war, it would be impossible to make it happen. And, it would be hard to maintain such fleet without enough supplies and oil which Germany is kinda lack of it during the war.
And btw, can u pls review IJN Satsuma, i'm kinda curious about Japan's pre-war dreadnought