Board of the NIACC in 1922. The men that made up the board would deal with Germans who,
while treading carefully just at the lines, would never legally cross them, making their jobs almost
impossible to enforce.
The Naval Inter-Allied Commission of Control, or NIACC, initially restricted development of German naval forces in the interbellum period. The NIACC wanted any development of naval arms to be along the lines of the Scandinavian coastal monitors and not towards mighty vessels that might have been able to bring the Allies to their knees. Germany, caught in the hyperinflationary loop and economic problems, was not in any position to do anything about her surface fleet. By the late twenties, however, the situation was reversed and rearmament was more or less an open secret. The commissioning of the light cruiser Emden, Germany’s first post-war large naval construction was quickly followed by the commissioning of sixteen 1934/A-class destroyers to replace destroyers left over from the Great War. These vessels were largely unsuitable for fleet operations, even the new
Emden was by-and-large a training ship. The Reichsmarine organized the destroyers into three destroyer squadrons, but a large policy argument broke out in the Reichsmarine.
Emden
in China, 1931. Her design was nothing cutting edge, but she did serve as the first major
construction project since the end of the Great War, and a testbed for welding in order to save
weight.
On one side, the traditionalists wanted to recapture some of the--largely manufactured--glory of the Kaiserliche Marine: the fleet that had fought the British to a draw at Jutland and Helgoland Bight. A newer and growing chorus, however, wanted to play to German strengths. They argued passionately for what had actually worked in the past:
kreuzerkrieg, or cruiser warfare. With surface raiders designed to draw off some of the British Home Fleet and submarines conducting long-range unrestricted submarine warfare, those captains argued that they would be of more use to the Fatherland than battleships that served no purpose other than to sit at anchor in Wilhelmshaven.
Karlsruhe-
class. While not ideal, these light cruisers did have long range and good performance.
The lessons from these ships would go on to inform the evolved design of the Leipzigs.
This argument persuaded Admiral Raeder, chief of the Reichsmarine. Though he didn’t necessarily want to sacrifice his battleships, he did convince the Weimar to spring for three light cruisers of the
Karlsruhe-class and later a pair of the evolved
Leipzig-class together with six more of the 1934/A destroyers. The
Karlsruhe-class were more heavily armed and armored than the
Emden, these were the first modern surface combatants of the budding Reichsmarine. Together with the approval from the NIACC for their over-armed heavy cruisers of the
Deutschland-class, these would form the nascent core of the long arm of the cruiser fleet. The three vessels--officially called
panzerschiff by the Reichsmarine but labelled “pocket battleships” by the British press--had developed German experience in the construction of large surface combatants. These ships had been developed with a similar eye to British “light battlecruisers” from the Great War, better known in the British press as “Fisher’s Follies,” referring to the former First Sea Lord’s rather bizarre ships. The
Courageous-class were very fast, with a shallow draught, and had mounted four 15”/381mm in two twin turrets as their main armament. Though the British versions had been intended to operate as scouts for the Grand Fleet, the Germans were more interested in the ability of long-duration, fast, heavily armed ships which could either out-shoot or out-run opponents as needed. To escort such ships--which would be operating far from home and thus need long legs themselves--the plan necessitated a turn away from destroyers in favor of longer-endurance light cruisers.
Scharnhorst-
class from the US Navy’s Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI). Note that they list the ship as carrying nine 11” guns, when in fact the Kriegsmarine had consented to wait for her 15” rifles. This would prove a nasty surprise to British surface combatants once the war started.
The experience with the
Deutschlands led directly to the development of the bleeding-edge
Scharnhorst-class battlecruisers. Armed with nine 15”/38cm SK C/34 main guns in triple turrets (two superfiring turrets forward, one aft of the superstructure) and six 5.9”/15cm SK C/28 in three twin mounts for the secondary battery (one on either side of the bridge and the third superfiring over the aft main gun turret), these vessels were designed to be able to kill almost anything they came across. For protection from aircraft, eight 4.1”/10.5cm L/65 SK C/33 heavy AA guns were positioned on the main deck in four double mounts; a further eight 37mm L/83 SK C/30 AA guns were emplaced higher on the superstructure. Twenty 20mm SK C/30 autocannon in single mountings were liberally scattered around the ship at the outset. With their bunkerage full, these ships could cover nearly 2300 nautical miles with an average speed of 23 knots.
Leipzig-
class detail from the ONI. A major change was the rearrangement of her rear guns and
machinery, getting a better rear coverage.
To provide scouting duties and to save the guns of the battlecruisers from undue wear and tear, the Kriegsmarine began design work on an evolved
Karlsruhe-classes: the
Leipzig-class light cruisers. The plan for these vessels was to mount the same nine 5.9”/15cm quick-firing L/55 guns in three triple turrets: one forward and a superfiring pair aft. Anti-aircraft protection was provided by a pair of 8.8cm L/76 in two turrets on either side of the superstructure and eight 37mm L/83 SK C/30 guns higher up on the superstructure. An additional four 20mm cannons were also supplied. These ships were also designed with two quadruple 53cm torpedo tube mounts as well as 120 mines. They were able to range out over 1900 nautical miles at 27 knots in support of their squadrons.
The first Type IA. Not designed to be ocean-going boats at all, these were strictly classed for
training and tactical development. Of course, this did not stop them from being deployed at
outbreak of the war, to predictable results.
The surface fleet was only half of the focus for the Reichsmarine. Even though restricted from doing so, Germany had contracted with Finland to construct the Type IIA-class submarines. Only six would be produced, but these submarines were not meant for front line duties. The first, U-1, was commissioned eleven days after the signing of the Anglo-German Naval Agreement, which lifted the sanctions for Germany to possess such craft. Type IIA were rapidly followed by nearly eighteen of the Type IIB. Lengthened with the addition of several additional hull sections and possessing additional fuel capacity, the range of the IIBs went from 1000 nautical miles at 8 knots on the surface to over 1800 nautical miles with a surface speed of 13 knots. By the end of 1935, nearly 12 of the boats were in commission, with six more building. The original designs for the Type VIIC had been made; however, Doenitz intervened and challenged the design crew to build the the Kriegsmarine a more powerful boat which could range far out over the Atlantic.
Admiral Domenico Cavagnari, Chief of the Regia Marina
during the period 1933 - 1943 with Benito
Mussolini. Largely a figurehead due to his insistence that Italian ships need not deploy with
advanced all-weather rangefinding and detection equipment, a fact that rankled Mussolini who
insisted on advances to beat the Royal Navy and the Marine Nationale.
In Italy, on the other hand, was focused on their likely enemy of France, with only an eye towards France’s ally, Britain. Possession of four battleships of late Great War types meant that Italy was already far behind the power curve and attempted through the development of a large heavy cruiser contingent to make up for that. One of the main concerns, however, was the insistence of the Navy Chief, Admiral Cavagnari, not to include any developmental technologies which might have increased the ability to fight at night or in bad weather. The anger towards Cavagnari led Mussolini to reassign more forward-thinking men under the crotchety old admiral and turn him into a figurehead.
Littorio-
class battleships of the Regia Marina.
These vessels were designed to be able to fight
against whatever the opponents of Italy could cruise through the Mediterranean, but the Royal
Navy’s focus on Germany meant they missed most of their chance at the pride of their opponent’s
navies.
With their dalliance with unimportant ships out of the way, the Italians sought to complete four new battleships and to replace their largely obsolete destroyer forces with ships that would compete with the Royal Navy and Marine Nationale. Despite being signatories to the Washington Naval Arms Treaty, these battlewagons were far outside of the treaty requirements at nearly 40,000 long tons displacement and armed with nine 15”/381mm L/50 Ansaldo 1934 guns as the main battery; by this time, however, the remaining Allied signatories had already invoked their ‘escalator’ clause and rendered the Washington and London treaties void.
*****
Author's Note: I altered the names of what would have been the Konigsberg-class to the Karlsruhe-class because when I was modifying the game it wouldn't recognize the umlau, and so I'd wind up with two of them, and it was just problematic. I decided to let the game handle this for me instead. Also, the ships statistics listed throughout this AAR will be modified versions of what we see in the game.
@Axe99 , as I promised, here's the first of what should be many naval-focused posts for this AAR! Hope you enjoy!