The Butterfly Effect: A British AAR

[Arilou]

I'd vote for Churchill. He's so cliché

[Carlstadt Boy]

I'd vote for Churchill. He's so cliché

Now we have to spam the whole page again.

[DonnieBaseball]

Now we have to spam the whole page again.

All that "hard work" down the drain.

Perhaps Dury will post another poll?

[RAFspeak]

Look here you chaps - I'll have you know that our Winston is in charge!

...If I hear any more Bolshie talk about killing him off, it's off to the target range for the lot of you - as new targets!

[El Pip]

Bafflegab/C&D/Carlstadt Boy - A valiant effort on the spam front.

Vann the Red - It is a popular subject.

trekaddict - Brings a tear to my eye.

RAFspeak - Battlecruisers first, FAA second. That is the system.

Carlstadt Boy - What you are describing is a game of terrifying beauty, by all accounts the HOI3 front AI is *almost* competent in the latest patch, combine that with the Vicki economy system and you would have a proper grand strategy game. It would be marvellous.

Duritz - I think I'm going to wait for the inevitable expansion pack before risking HOI3, though as I now have a new computer I may risk the demo again just to give it a try.

DonnieBaseball - Some say tease, some say busy while others say 'Crafting an update of such beauty it would make the Pope weep tears of joy'. Who is to say which are correct?

Nathan Madien - Battlecruisers are inexplicably cool and demand to be built even if strict logic says otherwise.

Faeelin - Well I'd could hardly have a social democrat statist hero, those ideas always end in misery and pain for all involved.

Praetonia - You are correct on the booting out part, the coming back I leave ambiguous but pretty clear his already ropey domestic reputation is shot to ribbons.

And ignore Faeelin's comment, we are currently engaged in an ongoing jousting contest where I am a Churchill worshipping hard right reactionary who eats poor people while he is a closet communist with alarming authoritarian tendencies who worships Stressemann (a man so evil I refuse to spell his name correctly) and wants everyone to pay for the privilege of working for the state. In the course of this such details as 'facts' and 'What was actually written' are frankly irrelevant.

Death Poll - It was a nice idea but never going to happen, sorry gents.

And now, despite Arilou being his usual inconsiderate and blundering self, there will be update. Once the pictures are sorted so soon. As in 'today' soon.

[Bafflegab]

Sadness abounds... Such hard spammage gone to waste... Alas, we do what we can...

New poll (Much simpler) :

A) Update will be posted today because we are awesome at getting to the next page.

B) We will either spamm to slowly or overshoot as before and push updatery to tomorrow.

I vote A!

EDIT: Sorry Pip, posted this as you posted yours...

[El Pip]

Chapter LXXXIII: A Questionable Race.

The late-1930s saw the culmination of a low level building competition that the popular press had, with typical alliterative subtlety, a battlecruiser building battle. Quite aside from the minor detail that many of the ideas and design produced at the time never made it to the docks, the sobriquet did hinge on a definition of 'battlecruiser' that encompassed everything between a treaty heavy cruiser and a full blown balanced battleship. In fairness however the latter was not an unreasonable move for the layman, there were more classifications than actual ships; large cruisers, cruiser killers, pocket battleships, battlecruiser, light battleships, light fast battleships, the permutations were endless. The problem of designation was not helped by the production of plans and schemes by all the major naval powers and several not so major. Typical of the problem was the Soviet Project 25, with three triple 305mm (12") guns and only moderate armour it was far more powerful than a Treaty heavy cruiser but no match for a proper modern battleship such as the Royal Navy's King George V. Naturally the Soviets referred to the design as a battleship for reasons of prestige, but in reality it fell into one (or possibly several) of the related categories outlined previously. In the case of Project 25 the saving grace was that it was never built, Stalin soon demanding a larger and far more powerful design be produced so that particular problem never arose.

Sadly this 'solution' was not so easily applied to the major powers, the United States Navy's championed the Alaska class 'large cruiser' while the Imperial Japanese Navy was outlining a 'super-A-class' cruisers to fit in above their heavy cruisers but beneath the battleships. The Alaska was a somewhat desperate bid to modernise the USN fleet on the cheap, as the Navy correctly doubted a large battleship (or even a small one) would be approved the 'large cruiser' designation was an attempt to sneak extra tonnage into service without attracting attention. Sadly a combination of naval disinterest from the new President and Congress, domestic priorities and the ever present budget crisis killed the idea. Conversely the IJN's problems were not financial but strategic; there was no clear idea on what vessels would be needed and how they should be employed. With the battle over Strike North and Strike South still raging, not to mention the arguments over fleet carrier vs 'super battleship', the future fleet designs were officially on hold. Despite this work on the new design, dubbed Design B-65, continued though strictly 'off the books', the decisive battle faction illicitly diverting funding to their pet project. The final programme worthy of note was the Dutch Project 1047 and was perhaps the most interesting. Though the design was still some way from finalisation and would go through several more evolutions, it deserves a mention as the one of the few battlecruiser projects to emerge from outside the established major naval powers.

The Japanese B-65 project was intended to replace the venerable Kongō class battlecruisers in the IJN's Yasen Butai, the Night Battle Force. Tasked with launching the first attack on the enemy fleet, the B-65s were designed to break through the outer screen with their powerful 12" guns and open a gap for destroyers and lighter cruisers to launch torpedo attacks on the enemy battleships. The main Japanese battleline would then destroy the weakened enemy fleet the next day with the B-65s supporting as needed. The 'enemy' was traditionally assumed to be the USN's Pacific Fleet but the growing strength of the Royal Navy's Eastern Fleet increasingly made it a target as well. Though the surface faction could find funds for the design work, to get construction approved they would have to face down the carrier advocates who had entirely different ideas about how to counter an enemy fleet.

For now though let us concern ourselves with the those vessels that were either in service or on the slipway and that, for different reasons, dominated naval thinking and planning. Despite being designed at similar times and having similar tonnages (around 30-32,000 tonnes standard) these ships were radically different and represented the different priorities, strategies and abilities of their respective nations. Before we consider these vessels in detail it is worth examining the class that was the first shot in the 'building battle'; the unquestionably unique Deutschland class. The last, indeed only, great hurrah of the pre-Nazi Reichsmarine they are generally known as innovative ships which, while true, misses their real impact as political vessels. While all warships are political statements to some degree the Deutschland's were an extreme example, any strategic or military role was almost incidental to their intended political purpose. The design requirements from the politicians, such as they were, indicated the ship had to be powerfully armed but still treaty compliant, trivial details such as who she was intended to fight and how were not even mentioned. To deal with this the then Commander in Chief of the Reichsmarine, Admiral Hans Zenker, fell back on the then default Weimar Republic assumption of any future war being against an alliance of France and Poland, with Britain and the US being unfriendly but formally neutral. Under this scenario the Reicshmarine's role would be to control the Baltic and the German coast, doing this would cut Franco-Polish naval supply lines and prevent any French amphibious landings. While surface raiding was discussed it is interesting to note that it was not considered a top priority, with the Atlantic trade dominated by neutral shipping (the French merchant marine, never particularly large in any event, was concentrated in the Mediterranean) there were felt to be few legitimate targets but a great risk of getting Britain or the United States involved. This focus on Baltic and coastal operations to the detriment of 'blue water' operations would have serious design consequences that would hinder the class when they were later re-tasked to convoy raiding.

The basis of the design were the treaty limits, primarily the official tonnage limit of 10,000 and the unofficial, but very real, restriction to 11 inch main armament. These restrictions were intended to limit Germany to coastal defence ships similar to the pre-war, pre-dreadnought Brandenburg class, vessels sufficient to match a second tier navies such as Sweden but not challenge a Great Power. Unwilling to produce a crippled battleship Zenker determined instead to produce a superlative heavy cruiser, directing the design bureau, the Marineamt (MA), to start work on the design. Unfortunately the late 1920s MA was not the same impressive organisation it had been in the Tirpitz era; it's a strongly technical ethos where promotion was by skill and ability had been lost in successive re-organisation and budget cuts. In an attempt to find homes for unwanted fleet officers they had been shunted into high positions in the MA to avoid retiring them, consequently these officers had imposed a more military approach to design and promotion, one which prized time served and discipline over technical experience. The effect was that the Tirpitz dictum of producing designs superior to the direct counter-part was lost, as was the superlative under-standing of the requirements for strength, stability and sea-keeping. On the other hand losing the dead hand of Tirpitz was not all bad, freed from the restrictive 'best practices' of their predecessors the MA was able to consider options that would never have been contemplated previously, though in fairness to their predecessors some of the ideas weren't contemplated for the very good reasons they were just bad ideas.

The 'K' class light cruiser was typical of the new MA, technically innovative and a triumph of new technology but with an unclear military purpose and several crippling flaws where technology and innovation had not lived up to their promises. While attracting attention for having two non-centred turrets aft and only one forward, to support a dubious 'hit and run' scouting doctrine, it was her innovative but fatally flawed construction that was their main claim to fame. The first substantially electrically welded warships the ships suffered serious structural issues, when Admiral Raeder dispatched the Karlsruhe an ambitious round the world cruise in 1934 the ship was forced into conducting an embarrassingly public extended repair in San Diego when her hull plating began to fail.

The Deutschland design started life as an un-scaled 'K' class cruiser, as both designs faced tonnage limits and had similar missions (not to mention the lack of technical or political direction for the MA) this was a logical place to start. The weight saving triple turrets were retained, though not the less than successful turret positioning, as was the wide-spread use of welding in the hull which saved considerable tonnage, an unfortunate decision. Another fateful choice was to dispense with the unusual dual propulsion system of the 'K's and go with diesel engines alone. While removing the weight of the steam turbine and dual fuel system saved a large amount of tonnage the cost was high; almost a 4knot drop in top speed even after the diesel plant had been considerably enlarged. These decisions were consequences of the assumed mission; operating in the Baltic and southern North Sea high speed and rough sea stability were not key requirements, unlike the requirement to at least be close to the tonnage limit.

Appropriately for such political ships their first 'kill' was a political one; when the Grand Coalition of Chancellor Herman Muller collapsed in 1930 one of the sticking points in the budget was the continued procurement of the class, the differing wings arguing over the relative merits of social spending vs finishing the Deutschland and laying down the Admiral Scheer, the failure to agree forced Muller from office and propelled Heinrich Brüning to the Chancellor's office, starting the chain of events that would eventually propel Hitler to power. Compared to the Reichsmarine the Nazi's Kriegsmarine had far more ambition but also a better realisation of the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Deutschlands. Despite their formidable and well armoured turrets the rest of the ships armour was poor, thinner than a comparable 'treaty' heavy cruiser while by the mid-1930s the strength and stability issues with the welded hull had become well known. Quite simply the much vaunted 'roll damping' tanks had not worked as planned and this, combined with a very wet forward, made the Deutschlands marginal fighting vessel in any kind of rough weather. More seriously the bold claim 'He can outrun what he cannot fight', which had never actually been true for the Royal Navy. had finally been completely undermined by the French Navy launching the Dunkerques, considerably reducing any lingering deterrent value the vessels had.

As their deterrent value declined the class began their drift towards the convoy raiding role that had been dismissed so early in their design. The start of this movement had been the retirement of Admiral Zenker and his replacement with the more cerebral Admiral Raeder who was keener on convoy warfare by all means, including surface raiders. From this position he saw in the heavy guns and (unintentional) vast range of the diesel engined vessels great potential. Quite aside from any value from the sunk convoys such heavily armed ships would force any enemy to exert considerable efforts to strong convoy escorts and powerful escorts, considerably reducing the strength of the fleet that could be kept to counter the battlefleet he hoped Plan Z would provide. It as by this circuitous route that the Deutschlands finally found the strategic role that many assume she was always built to perform. Her new mission was flagged to the world in early 1935 when the Deutschland herself made a long distance cruise to Brazil and back without supporting vessels, covering over 12,000nm at 16knots without refuelling in a feat that even the long legged USN cruisers would struggle to match. While this triumph was, naturally, heavily publicised in truth the cruise had been less than successful, when the ship returned to Germany serious structural issues were found in the hull and particularly the motor rooms as the welded joints struggled to cope with the rough seas and vibration from the engines. As a consequence the ships would keep to the Baltic and North Sea, only venturing out when the Spanish Civil War errupted and her presence was required in the Bay of Biscay, an ominous sign for a vessel expected to operate in the North Atlantic for extended periods when war broke.

In truth though by the mid-1930s the Deutschlands were somewhat out-dated, though her extended cruise may have garnered some public attention the focus of the professionals was on the ships that had followed her, beginning with the direct French reaction, the Dunkerques.

Notes:
Random facts on this update;
The Project 25 was an entirely genuine Soviet battleship design from 1936/7 and was indeed rapidly dumped by Stalin as not big enough. The battleship design eventually grew into the vast 65,000t Sovietsky Soyuz while Project 25 became a mere battlecruiser the Kronshtadt, neither of which were finished (though building started on four Sovietskys for but a mere 1/3rd of the entire defence budget.) TTL Stalin still Project 25 is too small and Soviet industry still isn't good enough for the job, however Stalin may be reconsidering his technical partners, perhaps after fighting side by side in Spain the French may loan him a few designs as they almost did OTL.

The Dutch 1047s, OTL they were attempted Scharnhorst copies which never even made it to the final designs stage before it was too late due to the Recover then Rearm approach of the government. TTL the Dutch government is considering the 'Rearm to Recover' idea, not to mention the generally more tense atmosphere in Europe, so are pushing ahead with the design work. The big question remains though how does the RN Eastern Fleet affect the Dutch East Indies, do the Dutch need such vessels or can they risk relying on perfidious Albion?

The Alaska, well the design process started early 1930s for a ship to counter the Deutschlands, TTL the USN just brought it forward abit as they really want some new tonnage but no there's no hope of anything much larger than a 'cruiser' (Think the RN's sleight of hand with through-deck cruisers to get aircraft carriers). More seriously they do need something with a bit of speed as the battleline remains un-modified Standards so badly decayed they aren't even capable of 21knots any more.

The Deutschlands, I'm perhaps being a bit harsh on them but in hindsight they really weren't very good, far too fragile both in armour and hull and something of a betrayal of pre-WW1 German ship building. Still they were pushing technology to the limits and the design offices were in serious trouble so I suppose they were always going to have some problems.

The fall of Herman Muller, well he did fall at that time, it was due to budget arguments and there was a big gap between Deutschland and Admiral Scheer so it seemed logical to me those facts could have been connected.

The long distance cruises and subsequent trouble, all historical and part of a general trend for Hitler to send the fleet off around the world and show off. What he mainly succeed in doing was proving German welding technology wasn't up to having a completely welded hull, sadly the Reichsmarine flatly refused to learn that lesson and kept thinking 'next time we'll weld properly and it will work'. It didn't.

Naval buffs may ask, but where are the Admiral Hippers? Answer they were delayed when the Anglo-German Naval Treaty was aborted back in 1935 then got pushed to the bottom of the pile as the Germans madly pushed the Scharnhorsts forward. They may yet emerge or they may end up as a 'What if' of the Kriegsmarine, depends on how hot the naval race gets.

[Bafflegab]

Excellent Stuff Pip!!!

I particularly like the update of the similar projects from various and sundry including the OTL v. TTL analysis.

Great Read.

[caffran]

Great stuff Pippy. well researched as always.

No Royal Navy mention though. the G3's not even on the drawing board TTL?

later, caff

[Sir Humphrey]

I've think the Dutch design, had they been built, would have been fine ships, although I would try and squeeze a larger calibre into maybe two triples instead of the 11" that were intended.

[gaiasabre11]

Very well written, El Pip, very well indeed.

Here's a link to a thread I opened in NavWeapons about a possible French counter to the German PBs displacing around 20000 tons standard, good protection, 30 knots speed and armed with 8 305mm guns in quads. Check it out if you're interested.

I've think the Dutch design, had they been built, would have been fine ships, although I would try and squeeze a larger calibre into maybe two triples instead of the 11" that were intended.

Very fine indeed.

[DonnieBaseball]

What was the point of those staggered turrets in the K class--better firing arcs right aft?

The River Plate certainly pointed out the flaws in the Pocket Battleship. Where there particular "technical" issues with German welding, was it just a case of too big a ship for it (German subs were all welded IIRC) or was the technology just not quite there yet?

Perhaps the Dutch 1047s can form the fast wing of a future ABDA fleet?

[gaiasabre11]

What was the point of those staggered turrets in the K class--better firing arcs right aft?

"The after two turrets on the Königsberg class were offset to allow for better machinery arrangements"

source

[Praetonia]

While Graf Spee undeniably lost at the River Plate, the battle was by no means a certain or a decisive outcome, which is not bad going for 16kT of German cruiser vs more than 30kT of British cruisers. I'm not so sure this is so clear a failure of the ship as is being claimed.

[Sir Humphrey]

I still prefer my 'Baby Hoods'.

[gaiasabre11]

I still prefer my 'Baby Hoods'.
...

Extremely thin armor for her size, plus just four main guns...... She has the looks but not much fighting potential IMHO. I think the Glorious has more use as a carrier than a BC.

[Arilou]

Ah, boat porn

[El Pip]

Bafflegab - Glad you liked it, this one did spiral a little out of control (it was only supposed to be one paragraph)

caffran - The Royal Navy's designs will make an appearance in the next update, though definitely not the G-3. Looking at some of proposed the specs it would probably be more powerful than the new 15" KGVs, not something the Admiralty (or the Treasury!) would be keen on.

Sir Humphrey - Indeed, the 1047s were the ships the Scharnhorsts should have been, though not without their own problems. This time round, well it's not certain the Dutch will look to Germany for their new designs. As they expect to co-operate in the Far East with the Royal Navy in holding of the IJN a certain degree of commonality would be attractive, OTL there was nothing to use but TTL the British have a BC design of their own on offer....

gaiasabre11 - With the Italian navy rusting away on the sea bed I doubt France will be in any rush to build any tonnage soon, there are more urgent priorities than the fleet.

DonnieBaseball - On the welding it was a bit of everything, no real German technical problems just the technology wasn't there and there was no understanding of brittle failure (in cold weather like the North Atlantic a welded ship can fail badly but be fine in warm weather. This was a big problem with the US Liberty Ships in OTL)

Add in the large size of the ships, the vibration from high speed diesel engines and the requirement for a hardened layer of armour to 'decap' AP shells and there was always going to be problems.

That said welding could work, HMS Ark Royal was 60% welded but had no real structural problems as the key elements were riveted. Had the MA still had a decent understanding of structures they probably would have been capable of similar successful use of welding.

gaiasabre11 - The 'K' turrets were also offset for a mad scheme to allow them to shoot further forward. Not a good idea and not one they repeated on the follow up Leipzigs.

Praetonia - Hmm, the Graff Spee was lucky to face a 'B' County class, Exeter only had 6x8", had she been facing Cumberland (a proper 8x8" County class) instead of Exeter it would have been closer.

That said I'd agree I was a little harsh on the Deutschlands, they weren't outright failures but could have been so much better had they actually been designed as surface raiders. Say 10" guns and actually having armour over the fuel system would have radically changed the River Plate encounter.

Sir Humphrey - Beautiful!

Arilou - Anything to wind you up.

[Praetonia]

Praetonia - Hmm, the Graff Spee was lucky to face a 'B' County class, Exeter only had 6x8", had she been facing Cumberland (a proper 8x8" County class) instead of Exeter it would have been closer.

That said I'd agree I was a little harsh on the Deutschlands, they weren't outright failures but could have been so much better had they actually been designed as surface raiders. Say 10" guns and actually having armour over the fuel system would have radically changed the River Plate encounter.

That would've made them better at slugging with British cruisers, yes. Maybe even produced a victory in that particular encounter.

I think the biggest problem was probably the whole doctrine. Germany had limited resources, and had to fight a commerce war. It doesn't matter that much how big your ship is when you're shooting merchantmen, and it doesn't matter as much as you might think when you're fighting the RN, either, because ultimately they can always bring overwhelming force to bear. The best choice would be to do what the RN did - build lots of small cruisers to genuine treaty limits. Not being found is the best protection, and if you lose a few, it doesn't mean the end of all your surface operations, as it did for the KM IRL.

The Soviets in fact tried to go down this path in the Sverdlov class after the war, of which 30 would have been built. This understandably frightened Britain somewhat, and would have been the apotheosis of the WWII surface raider doctrine. Naturally, being the Soviets, they were about 20 years out of date, and in a world that everyone could now see would be dominated by missiles and carrier air power, Britain simply designed the Blackburn Bucanneer...

The Japanese, on the other hand, went down the German path too, with most of their ships, in fact, and for all their effectiveness in paper fights against other cruisers and in torpedo runs in line battles, this almost never actually happened. In the commerce role these 'fleet cruisers' tended to be hunted down quickly, and in the fleet escort role became useless spectators in the carrier fights.

For Britain, battlecruisers make more sense. They allow the easy overwhelming of any potential surface raider caught, at a speed at which they can catch them and run them down. Used as they were at the Falklands rather than at Jutland, they could be useful. Of course, by this point, technology is beginning to allow 30kt fully armoured battleships, and the distinction itself is beginning to fade.

[Carlstadt Boy]

Thats the same thinking I was having. Whats the point in having raiders which can outpower british cruisers if they are not allowed to get into fights with them to avoid damage, and having them so slow so that RN can zerg its smaller cruisers on it.

More light cruisers, powerfull enough to sink armed merchantmen and fast enough to theoretically run away from everything else would made much more sense. And loosing one would not be such a loss.