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Knowing till this day still saddens me! Think of it if the Bismarck did survive, and more bigger and heavier ships were built than any other ship besides a U-boot...a total change in the outcome of the years of 1938-45!
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I know...but what if the plan wasn't a total fail.. just saying if everything worked out fine what would be the outcome of WWII? :88)
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With the WW2 naval war.
Once the USA got involved, the outcome was pretty much inevitable given the might of their military / industrial power. Just a question of how long and how many had to die in the process |
Germany did not really have a use for bigger ships. It had no hope of matching the true naval powers of the time and the design of the ships reflects that.
They were meant to a) sink merchants b) keep enemy navies busy. German battleships reflect these needs: They were lightly armed compared to those of other nations but fairly fast. They also did not feature an all-or-nothing armour scheme that would allow for better survivability when fighting equal foes; they were built to destroy weaker ships without taking too much damage and run away from danger. A British battleship sunk vs. a German battleship damaged severely enough to need lengthy repairs would have been in favour of Britain, because each German capital ship was tying up many times its worth on the other side. * As an aside: Possibly as important as the sheer industrial power of the USA, Germany had no way to win a decisive victory against a foe that far away. It was obvious ommerce raiding couldn't cripple it alone (realistic for the UK - Churchill was worried about that). Germany's plans for taking the fight to America were technically sweet but very ambitious for their time... not something that could be relied on and outright daydreams when fighting a costly war elsewhere. |
The German surface navy probably never really had a good faith sponser with Adolf Hitler. In 1943, after the humiliating defeat in the Battle of the Barents Sea, Hitler flew into a rage and told his admirals that their Navy was "utterly useless". He railed against all big ships as a waste of resources, even going back in history to criticize the dreadnoughts of the Imperial German High Seas Fleet in WWI. He wanted all the remaining heavy ships scrapped, and their guns removed for use as coastal defences. Doenitz talked him out of it but you can't help but wonder if he was venting a belief he had held all along.
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Yes, but it is also true that Hitler had little or no interest in the U-boats and had huge interest in giant battleships like the Bismarck, it is sad to see he did not put in much "effort" into the Kriegsmarine as he "did" into other branches of the German army.
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On entry to the war America alone had 7 carriers and 17 BB's with 4 more coming online before August of 1942. By wars end America turned out the following: Large Fleet Carriers (CVB)- 2 (late 45, no action) Fleet Carriers (CV) Lexington Class- 2 Ranger Class- 1 Yorktown Class- 2 Wasp Class- 1 Hornet Class- 1 Essex Class- 17 ------------------------------ Total CV's 26 Light Carriers (CVL) Independance Class- 9 Saipan Class- 2 ---------------------------- Total CVL 11 Escort Carriers (CVE) Long Island Class- 2 Bogue Class- 11 Sangamon Class- 4 Casablanca Class- 50 Commencement Bay Class- 16 with 3 more in 1946 ---------------------------------------------- Total CVE's - 83 Total carriers @ end of 1945 - 120 Thats JUST carriers. Think about the hundreds of cruisers, destroyers, subs and merchants the US also turned out. Germany could have had 20 Bismarks and 20 Graf Zepplins and the only thing that might have happened was the war gets prolonged to the point that Berlin gets nuked as well. As for winning the war, there was zero chance of that happening after Hitler declared war on the US. I'm not even mentioning Russia here. All those capital ships would have served Germany better if the steel had been used for U-Boats. |
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