Danzig was not Germany before the WW2
But after the Unification of Germany in 1871 until 1919 Danzig was a part of the German Empire.
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But after the Unification of Germany in 1871 until 1919 Danzig was a part of the German Empire.
Danzig may not have been part of Germany from 1919 to 1939, but it was still German. The Poles had troops there to guard the port facilities and such that they were allowed to use, but very few Poles lived in Danzig or the surrounding areas permanently. Wikipedia (for what it's worth) has them at 1% of the population with 1% other and 98% German.
It was an autonomous territory made up of Germans that were still extremely favorable towards Germany and not Poland. I don't see there being a problem with Germany contracting shipbuilding here. The owners of any such facilities would very likely be German and would likely much prefer to do business with Germany not Poland, the country that cut them in two.
Considering them in Plan Z is reasonable. It was only small ships after all and contracted shipbuilding is still a thing.
It was an autonomous territory made up of Germans that were still extremely favorable towards Germany and not Poland. I don't see there being a problem with Germany contracting shipbuilding here. The owners of any such facilities would very likely be German and would likely much prefer to do business with Germany not Poland, the country that cut them in two.
Considering them in Plan Z is reasonable. It was only small ships after all and contracted shipbuilding is still a thing.
Eyeballing www.german-navy.de it seems to be five slipways:
Not sure if the idea was to expand amount of slipways or lay down in succession, if the latter then it's hard to believe the doubled down H-class battleships from Blohm & Voss and Deschimag could have been combat ready before 1947.
- Blohm & Voss Hamburg: Bismarck, H-class (actual), another H-class (projected)
- Kriegsmarinewerft Wilhelmshaven: Scharnhorst, Tirpitz, H-class (projected), O-class (projected)
- Deutsche Werke Kiel: Gneisenau, Graf Zeppelin, H-class (projected), O-class (projected)
- Germaniawerft Kiel: 2nd Graf Zeppelin class, O-class (projected)
- Deschimag Bremen: H-class (actual), another H-class (projected)
Not sure if the idea was to expand amount of slipways or lay down in succession, if the latter then it's hard to believe the doubled down H-class battleships from Blohm & Voss and Deschimag could have been combat ready before 1947.
The first Deschimag H-class is one of the two they actually laid down. I wouldn't have included it otherwise.
(Edit) No you might be right. It seems like there is some confusion whether the contracts were for Deschimag or AG Weser, both in Bremen.
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Weird, it seems you are right but then another one must be wrong.
I am sure there been only 4 yards large enough for the H class ships.
Maybe one of the carrier yards was large enough for a carrier but not for a BB.
See the edit above, you might be right actually. And yeah the Germaniawerft yard at Kiel had no H-class assigned to it.
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Another thought about Plan Z:
Hitler agreed on it in 1938 with the premise that Germany will not go to war in the near future. Which seems odd as he was already gearing up for war, as the Germany economy was built up on a bubble which was going to burst pretty soon. Only with plundering other countries this could be avoided.
So - could it be that Hitler never was really behind it, but used it as a method to pacify the navy and hand out money to the owners of the large ship yards? Hitler always juggled with the different factions in Germany so that none of those could get too powerful. This might be just part of his "divide and rule" strategy.
Hitler agreed on it in 1938 with the premise that Germany will not go to war in the near future. Which seems odd as he was already gearing up for war, as the Germany economy was built up on a bubble which was going to burst pretty soon. Only with plundering other countries this could be avoided.
So - could it be that Hitler never was really behind it, but used it as a method to pacify the navy and hand out money to the owners of the large ship yards? Hitler always juggled with the different factions in Germany so that none of those could get too powerful. This might be just part of his "divide and rule" strategy.
Of course we'll never know for certain, but that sounds like perfectly plausible assumption. In the end, plan Z din't have time to do too much economic damage in the short while it was even half-seriously pursued.
Okay again anecdotical evidence, but they were seriously surprised that the UK declared war because of Poland and they did not enter negotiations October 1939. I mean this was not the first African (or Asian, I do not know where it is) country occupied in the 1930s and till that point nothing worth mentioning happened.
The Z-Plan was not feasible.
a) There wasn´t enough Steel around to build all the ships, even if the fleet should be ready only in 1944!
b) there wasn´t enough oil and diesel fuel around to mobilize the fleet in times of war. The Fleet, fully build and mobilized, would have used as much fuel and oil as Germany used in 1938 in total!
a) There wasn´t enough Steel around to build all the ships, even if the fleet should be ready only in 1944!
b) there wasn´t enough oil and diesel fuel around to mobilize the fleet in times of war. The Fleet, fully build and mobilized, would have used as much fuel and oil as Germany used in 1938 in total!
That fleet wouldnt have needed 44 million barrels of oil per year. the whole Japanese fleet needed like 18 in the first year of the war and they been quite busy.
I can't judge the probability of a western intervention assumed by the German leadership at this time. But it was at least seen as probable enough to sign a treaty with the ideological arch-enemy to ensure no serious enemy pops up in the east.
Without Britain's and France's intervention, Germany would probably also prepare for Barbarossa soon afterwards. That was the actual main goal of Hitler, after all.
The first part is easily solved: just build the ships with large holes in them to save on steel. It also adds those ships to your submarine fleet.
The fleet might have used more oil than the rest of the army and air force combined if you sent out your entire navy and ran it at normal speed, 24 hours per day, 365 days a year. That doesn't happen in any real navy, for many reasons, even if you can do it in a video game.
Here in the US, we surprisingly still have a company that applies the same material saving principle to hamburgers. White Castle hamburgers are made by pressing raw hamburger into tiny patties with numerous holes, served on a small dinner roll instead of a full-sized bun. When cooked, the patties expand to fill in the holes, rather than getting thicker or more dense. You get more "burgers" with less meat (although I'm not sure you'd call what they use "meat"). Their primary advantage was that they were ridiculously cheap; the secondary advantage was that they were open 24/7 back in the days when even McDonalds closed after 10pm or so. They did a pretty good business around 2-3am after the bars closed. The burgers got the nickname of "Sliders", which is about what they do through your digestive tract.Its the next logical step in the AoN armor scheme
One kid in our college dorm (back when I was in college and dinosaurs ruled the earth) had a reputation for having an "iron stomach", able to eat just about anything. A few of us made a bet that he couldn't eat a dozen "sliders". Not being familiar with them, he took a glance at the diminutive burgers and accepted the bet. About 6-7 burgers into the challenge, he started looking a bit sick, and didn't make it to 10.
Having holes in your ships can be practical. In case of leaks and water in the boat or ship, drilling holes offers an avenue for the water to escape. I saw that done in a 3 Stooges movie. It didn't end well.
@TheLoneGunman @LordLeto @Had a dad
I have issues with the 'Agree and disagree' buttons as you know, so I won't go it it. But for posts like this we really need to add a "LOL" button to highlight humorous posts worth reading found in unusual places. Just a suggestion for Paradox as they strive to become more customer friendly.