Comments by "" (@BobSmith-dk8nw) on "Plan Z - Practical, Effective, or High Seas Fleet Mk2?" video.
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My first thought as I was watching this was - how many of these ships were 3 screw ships? It looked like a lot, if not most of them were, though sometimes it's a little hard to tell from the drawing. I remember one of the RN officers commenting on the Bismarck, "Leave it to the Germans to produce a 3 screw ship ..."
Now ... the next thing is - how stupid was this? The answer is - pretty stupid.
The thing was - the Germans knew something about using submarines but they NEVER had enough ships able to go to sea at the same time during war fare - without getting chased right back into port - that they could learn anything about really sailing their ships, much less managing a fleet.
Essentially, the Germans knew nothing about surface ships. A telling characteristic of the Germans High Seas Fleet - is that the crews slept in barracks ashore - not on board their ships. Now - what does that say?
So - all the German heavy ships, Battleships, Battle Cruisers and Cruisers - were a waste of time - except as a "fleet in being". The German surface navy was able to cause the RN some trouble - just by existing - but that was about it.
Now - all that said - I am somewhat understanding about the German fixation with commerce raiding. For one thing - given the amount of ships they had - it was about all they could do. Though some of the plans for having all their ships come out at once might have been interesting - but - you notice they couldn't pull it off.
The thing with Commerce Raiding - was that it wasn't going to work any more in the age of aircraft. Now, navies had been engaged in commerce raiding for hundreds of years. They'd give privateers Letters of Mark - and go harass the enemy's merchant ships. But - all that worked because of the vastness of the sea and the insignificance of even the largest ships on it. Once you had air planes though - all that changed. It took a while. During WWI they could still have some success for a while if they could stay away from the enemies combatants. Even in WWII, right at the beginning, the Germans had some success with it. So - because no one really understood the real impact of aircraft at sea, I can understand why the Germans were so fooled into thinking they could still do commerce raiding when the war started.
All in all though - even the submarines were a failure.
The biggest indicator of the utter failure of the German Navy though - was it's virtually complete lack of amphibious ships.
Before 1941 - when Britain stood alone - the Germans stood a real chance of winning the war. The only way they were actually going to bring it to an end though - was to invade Britain. The only way they were going to successfully do that - was with a navy that could pull it off - and they didn't have one. Trying to use converted river barges was a recipe for a lot of drowned German Soldiers.
Again - I can see why the Germans weren't even thinking about that when the war started. Their experience was WWI and - if you ask me - they were as surprised as everybody else by their success. So they have this opportunity - but had not foreseen it happening and were totally unprepared for it.
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