Germany's naval/dockyard gambit (A strategic discussion)

[Bluestreak2k5]

I've never said it is good strategy. The opposite is the case, I think it's a horrible strategy. The German Reich simply can't be a naval power that rivals the Royal Navy.

Well, an unholy alliance with the USSR is a thing as we know. The USSR deals with the land business, the German Reich creates a strong Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine? That could work, sort of, if the Soviets can be trusted. In game of course. I mean heck, just split Europe between the two. USSR gets the whole East, the German Reich the west. Guess west europe also makes good Lebensraum.

The Germans never needed to rival the RN, they just needed to force them to expend more resources and keep them busy. Submarnes fulfill the role the best and is/will always be the only strategy that fulfills that. You don't even need to send German units to Africa to help fight because the RN is too busy combatting your subs and 0 supplies making it through to Africa.

 

[philbex]

I don't think that a sub only strategy would have been the best move Germany could make on a political or strategical level.

On a political level, how would a naval program that consisted only in building a sub force be viewed in the UK? Would the response be no apathetic or would it be viewed as a weapon that was pointed straight at the UK?

Building only submarines could engender greater hostility against Germany by the British population and its government which could lead to the UK taking a more aggressive stance against GER on the international stage (Munich,..).

Strategically, if Germany didn't build a surface fleet, it would (if alliances are historical) allow the RN to reduce the size of the Home Fleet and move more of it's heavy units to the Med and the far east where they would be more useful. It would also make the RN strive to improve its anti-sub tech and tactics.

 

[BBBD316]

Personally I hope that this is reflected in the game, you (and AI) expend points/power/kookaburras on esponiage to gather intel on your enemies production plans so you can try to counter act their building and construction.

The UK would have been far happier if German just focused on a surface fleet as they would never be able to compete with the RN, subs on the other hand did/could have caused greater issues at least in the short term.

My strategy will be to leave England be, focus on either diplomatically or militarily closing the Med and helping the Italians take North Africa & the Middle East, then prepare for Barbarossa. Protect my coastline with naval bombers and interceptors and let them try their best.

 

[womble]

....expend ...kookaburras...

Expending kookaburras?! You fiend! What next? Kittens as Special Forces?

 

[Secret Master]

Expending kookaburras?! You fiend! What next? Kittens as Special Forces?

Better than the alternative.

 

[Maximus137]

So historically, I don't think there was much of a chance for Germany to compete against the RN. In game however, it.... Could happen. At the expense of creating a more powerful Army.

So if you're looking to invade GB, then yeah, it could be a legit strategy. But you better hope you have enough to deal with France.

 

[Big Nev]

Considering what the UK allowed the German Reich to do before they did anything to stop them, including letting them rearm their airforce and land army way past what the treaty of versailles allowed, I doubt that they would directly bomb German dock yards to rubble. The UK loves its naval superiority and hates when others try to rival it, but I don't think they would be that aggressive.

No, it probably wouldn't lead to war.

But those shipyards would be high on the priority list for the RAF once hostilities do kick-off.

And, as many have pointed-out, it would increase Word Tension and it would certainly see the UK building-up sooner.

Reinstating the G3 programme, for example and, of course, if Germany is going sub's, Britain goes DDs and starts work on improving their anti-sub tech. This would be a disaster for Germany as Huff-Duff was already in-place in by the end of WW I. In 1926, Watt & Herd had built & demonstrated a device that could determine the range & direction of a radio source (in this case, lighting strikes) in milliseconds! With just a little prompting, this could lead to the fully-fledged Huff-Duff devices, on destroyers in say... 1940 instead of 1942. Pip-squeak was used in every aircraft section of fighters in The Battle of Britain, so this is hardly much of a stretch.

And a Huff-Duff set on every DD & DE, in 1940, would be game over for the U-boat.

 

[paranoidsteve]

No, it probably wouldn't lead to war.


And a Huff-Duff set on every DD & DE, in 1940, would be game over for the U-boat.

This is incorrect, it would have been game over for U-boats that used their radios to broadcast once at sea.....this would lead to the development of new systems of operations while at sea,the non use of radios to broadcast while at sea. Something that should be covered in naval doctrines (although i don't think it will be as the doctrine was never used by anyone as far as know) Instead satellite's and short burst transmissions where adopted.

 

[Bluestreak2k5]

So historically, I don't think there was much of a chance for Germany to compete against the RN. In game however, it.... Could happen. At the expense of creating a more powerful Army.

So if you're looking to invade GB, then yeah, it could be a legit strategy. But you better hope you have enough to deal with France.

Why do you have to compete against the RN, or even invade UK? They produce very little resources on the mainland.

Convoys/escorts compete with the save slipyards as destroyers do and they cannot build all of them at once, they must choose. Every pound of metal, every manpower, every dollar put into convoys and escorts is a win for Germany and a loss for the allies because those resources could be spent elsewhere on aircraft, tanks, etc. UK working with limited resources because of convoy attacks is nothing better then a minor such as Hungary.

And that doesn't even take into account that anti submarine tech just doesn't exist in a useful form in 1939.

 

[Big Nev]

This is incorrect, it would have been game over for U-boats that used their radios to broadcast once at sea.....this would lead to the development of new systems of operations while at sea,the non use of radios to broadcast while at sea. Something that should be covered in naval doctrines (although i don't think it will be as the doctrine was never used by anyone as far as know) Instead satellite's and short burst transmissions where adopted.

Throughout 1941, 42, 43 & 44, there were very specific "systems of operations while at sea" http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/ETO/Ultra/SRH-025/SRH025-8.html#s10 in order to counter RDF. Severely limiting the use of radio by submarines. They worked, but only to a certain extent. You see, in order to assemble a wolfpack, the spotting sub needs to tell its friends where the target is. So... the doctrines you mention were in-place.

A radio also comes in handy when trying to find your supply ship. Also not allowed!

Within seconds of switching its radio on (& I mean 2-3 seconds, so the 20 or so seconds required to transmit a regular encoded 23 (ish) letter report was far too long) it's bearing would be known, and, within minutes (if it can see a convoy, it's within ten miles) it would be under attack.

While the convoy is re-directed away from it's original course.

I have no idea what you mean by satellites. This is WWII. Sputnik was launched on 4th October 1957.

Short burst transmissions. If you mean Kurier, the Kurier technology was so advanced it took until late1944, and it was stil experimental then, for Germany to develop it sufficiently to counter radio direction-finding. Equipment that everybody had been using even during WW I so... fairly common but feindishly difficult to avoid.

Whereas Britain had been using RDF to track its own fighters during the Battle of Britain in 1940, so had loads of experience with its practical implementation and the only real delay in putting Huff-Duff on ships was perfection of cheap CRT oscilloscopes.

(Something that was a priority for RADAR anyway)

Why do you have to compete against the RN, or even invade UK? They produce very little resources on the mainland.
Convoys/escorts compete with the save slipyards as destroyers do and they cannot build all of them at once, they must choose. Every pound of metal, every manpower, every dollar put into convoys and escorts is a win for Germany and a loss for the allies because those resources could be spent elsewhere on aircraft, tanks, etc. UK working with limited resources because of convoy attacks is nothing better then a minor such as Hungary.
And that doesn't even take into account that anti submarine tech just doesn't exist in a useful form in 1939.

Now this I agree with. My point is, however, that anti-sub tech's would have existed in usefull form, if Germany had started to upgrade their ship-building capacity in 35/36 in order to build masses of U-boats in 37/38.

 

[Bluestreak2k5]

Now this I agree with. My point is, however, that anti-sub tech's would have existed in usefull form, if Germany had started to upgrade their ship-building capacity in 35/36 in order to build masses of U-boats in 37/38.

I disagree, while anti sub capabilities may have come out sooner I doubt they would have been available in force by 1939/1940. We didn't see the first serious losses to the Uboats until late 1942. This would require a MASSIVE retrofit and investment by the UK to replace and update their existing fleet or to build new ships.

Thus UK would be faced with choosing to either drydock and retrofit their outdated ships, or build new ones, or to scrap production of Battleships and carriers. The UK Naval leadership would have never agreed to scrapping such large ships.

At the same time, Germany could more rapidly expand the Uboat production because a lot of their shipyards were already building small vessels such as destroyers.

If HOI4 is anything like HOI3, building subs only from 1936 onward is a terrible idea because you will generate way too much threat from the massive building program. This is why I stated on page #2 I would just convert all naval factories into civilian and use them to build synthetic oil, and other consumer factories before converting them back to produce the new 1938 sub and be ready for war in 1939.

I also think Germany could have more easily ramped up production of uboats in 1938 time frame, which would have been too late for UK to start such large destroyer programs.

 

[Big Nev]

More massive to fit a few antennae and a box of electronics on destroyers than for Germany to re-tool half of its industry and build new shipyards?

Fitting the Huff-Duff RDF didn't require a dry dock. A few tech's/engineers, half a dozen tea-chests of kit and a few hundred metres of cable. No big deal.

As I've already pointed out, Britain had been building this type of equipment for years prior to 1940.

They just didn't have lots of cheap oscilloscopes.

The first serious losses to U-boats you're talking about would just happen two years earlier, as Britain will have responded to a much greater potential u-boat threat.

And this is what I want to see. A reactive AI. I know it's a little much to hope for to see the Brit' AI counter Germany's building of shipyards by prioritising ASW, but I can dream

Incidentally, Britain should be prioritising ASW anyway.


EDIT: I would also like to point-out that the "heavy lifting" of convoy escort & ASW duty was performed by the (260+) Flower class corvettes, which were built in small, civilian shipyards which normally built fishing vessels (would this be re-tooling Consumer Goods factories as Naval Dockyards?) rather than the larger shipyards where destroyers, cruisers & larger were being built. So there's no clash of requirements between building battleships, CVs etc. & building ASW assets.

 

[Denkt]

From the stream we know that the cost of an Scharnhorst class battleship (level 1 battleship for Germany) is 7200 dockyard days. With 15 dockyards used (maximum) to build a Scharnhorst class it will only take 480 days to build it without any production modifiers. That mean it is definitely possible to build new capital ships during the mid and end game.

Another things is that all starting ships will be obsolete rather soon so that mean UK can't rely on its starting navy for to long something that Germany can take advantage of.

 

[BBBD316]

Can Germany, effectively ignore the UK.

Have troops garrison the coast, have lots of interceptors/naval bombers in the skies and send everything else east? Waste nothing on the battle of Britain or surface ships?

So you can keep making more and more effective subs, but all other resources go to the war against the USSR.

 

[Big Nev]

480 days in-game.

That's interesting. From this, can we deduce that the HoI IV "construction time" is from laying the keel to launching the ship?

Scharnhorst was actually built in 476 days.

Umm… no she wasn't. It took almost twice as long again (another 826 days, that's 2¼ years) from launching for her to be commissioned. Launching a hull, even with most of the kit (engines & main armament) installed still requires a staggering amount of work to complete fitting-out. And we can see a very similar pattern with other capital ships.

The reason for this is obvious. When building ships, it's vitally important to clear the slip as soon as possible, so you can start on the next one. This means that only the work that MUST be done prior to launching actually gets done and EVERYTHING ELSE is left for later. Even if some of the work would be more efficiently done while still on the slip, clearing the slip takes precedence.


So… for Germany to be able to build capital ships so quickly (no production modifiers) is just a little off. Especially when they're starting from scratch!

IMHO

I hope PDX take this in to account and "ballance" ship-building times significantly upwards.

 

[Maximus137]

Can Germany, effectively ignore the UK.

Have troops garrison the coast, have lots of interceptors/naval bombers in the skies and send everything else east? Waste nothing on the battle of Britain or surface ships?

So you can keep making more and more effective subs, but all other resources go to the war against the USSR.

Essentially what I'm going to try in HoI3. I think it'll be an effective plan.

Biggest thing will be maintaining my resources I think.

 

[BBBD316]

Well the savings in fuel, planes & pilots alone would be huge. As long as you are still making attacks on shipping would still require the UK to focus on convoys.

If it means more resources to steal the Russian ones I would consider that a fair trade.

 

[btxsqdr]

I wonder too if it will be so easy to beat UK with Germany as in HOI3. In HOI3, if you start in 1936, you just build 3 carriers at the same time as soon as possible, after done some research, so you have approx. 6 CV's (as in TFH, and more before TFH) in Sep 1939. With that, you simply sink all UK ships on sight -- and after 6-9 months, you invade UK (on very hard difficulty). This breaks the game, of course, because with a strong CV fleet of 9-12 ships in late 1940, USA is no match for you, and the Soviet Union too, due to the amount of MP/IC in 1941. Submarines are a defensive weapon, with many disadvantages, cool looking though. In fact, I managed it to build 3 CV's over time, after research, starting in 1939 scenario too. If you focus on submarines, you certainly make the same mistakes as the historical Germans back in WW2. I think it will be the first thing I'll do in HOI4: Build a CV fleet and conquer London in 1940.

 

[Jazumir]

A good gambit, against AI it may succeed, but if by chance you play PBEM [...]

Considering the nature of HoI, I´d expect that chance to be rather low. ;D

(PBEM = Play By E-Mail)

 

[Big Nev]

HA! Yeah.

You can churn-out Graf Zeppelin CVs like sausages.

Considering it took them two whole years just to launch the damn thing.

A full year later, in December 39, she was still only 85% complete with a projected completion at least six months down the line.

That’s three & a half years from laying the keel to operability.

This was the best Germany could do could possibly have done and, in actual fact, was still fairly ambitious even without the diversion of resources to other projects.

Even then, even if they had managed to finish it and get it operational (after another six months of trials, taking us to FOUR years, minimum) her aircrew had still only been practicing on land.

I have it on very good authority that “putting a kite down on a postage stamp in the middle of the ocean” is nothing like landing on an airfield.

And then (and I love this) the aircraft she’d been designed to operate had to be strengthened for carrier operations. So now they were too heavy! The ships flight & hangar decks had to be reinforced and more powerful equipment had to be installed in order to be able to operate them.

Brilliant!

Seriously. For Germany to build an aircraft carrier, from game start on Jan 1st 1936, it should take about five years to get the first one operational. So… late 40/early 41. And the player should need to push it hard (= lose-out in other areas) in order to achieve this.

There should be a raft of technologies that you need to research (like Britain, Japan & the good-old US of A) had been doing for decades) before you can build an operational carrier.