A better High Seas Fleet for WW1

[JasTysoe]

The OP is looking for something else than the usual BB/BC discussion.

It somehow leads me into thinking that the submarine could be a different element.

'Swarms' of submarines could be stationed at the critical naval bases. This, i believe, was what the admirals feared.

rather than focusing on the massive BB's, maybe a 1914 'e-boat' could be more useful?

Airships would be excellent in the scouting role.

Combine this with the first type of carriers, the North Sea could have been rather unpleasant for GF.

Just a thought. Maybe not war-winning, but surely something else.

oh yes: get an admiral who can grasp a new concept!

What admiral couldn't grasp a new concept? The Dreadnought "revolution" was just eight years old - that's only about as old as the i-phone 8 is today, and much younger than Teslas that many people are still trying to get to grips with. The "modern" sub was about the same age (or youth). Eight years is the blink of an eye in history; it's just two Olympiads and in some sports there's plenty of athletes who are still training for the same events over a longer timespan than that and still getting better at something as simple as riding a bike or sailing a boat.

Aircraft were just as young - the first one flew off a ship less than four years before WW1 broke out. The navies of the world didn't take until about 1920 to create the aircraft carrier because they were all staffed exclusively by morons, they took that long because even with an enormous amount of development starting from the far-sighted but flawed Beardmore design of 1912, that's how long it took to work out in reality rather than in forums with 110 years of hindsight.

In 1914, carrier-sized aircraft were dropping darts and using pistols to shoot at each other. In 1918 the RN was seriously planning a multi-carrier strike against the HSF in harbour, using torpedo bombers. That represents about a thousand-fold increase in one factor alone. How many people who "could not grasp a new concept" have overseen a thousand-fold increase in one factor of a new concept, and an almost infinite increase in others?

These admirals were handling incomparably greater changes than most of us (probably any of us) have had to - why on earth do they deserve such an insult? Maybe it's harder than you think to work out things such as fuel storage, airflow over decks, how to get 1/4" mahogany planking built with 1914 technology to handle slamming the seas at 40 knots, the design and build of many dozens of sloops, etc etc etc, while also expanding your forces enormously, fighting a war, introducing convoys, researching ASDIC, introducing AA guns, etc etc etc.

They had "E Boats' in WW1, in the form of the Thorneycroft CMBs. They did very little of use, and late in the war proved to be very vulnerable to seaplane biplanes. So how are they going to be as useful as you imply? The CMBs were designed to be launched off mother ships but that idea is very easy to think about 110 years later on a forum and incomparably more difficult to actually carry out in the North Sea.

The Germans has Zeppelins. The British shot them down, because neither side was stupid.

 

[Marquis]

So, to start with, to achieve a better outcome for the HSF in WWI, you need to remove Britain from the board. That is best achieved by not poking the lion on a more-or-less monthly basis. Build up enough of an HSF to keep the Russians off your back in the Baltic and some long-range cruisers for imperial duties. Germany's first dreadnoughts are laid down with 11" guns in a hexagonal layout and triple expansion engines. Bite the bullet and pay Parsons his license fee for turbines. Go with ABXY (the Americans a year earlier laid down dreadnoughts in this layout). Allows you a narrower, finer hull form, a bit more speed and you don't have a floating bomb full of cordite. It also might be cheaper and allow you to add more protection. Also, as the 12" SK L/50 is already in design at the time the German dreadnoughts are laid down, don't bother with the 11".

4.1" guns are a minimum for destroyers, 88mm isn't worth a damn by this time. 4.1" guns aren't enough for light cruisers. Something in the 5-6" calibre is necessary.

Don't invade Belgium.

 

[mack8]

The OP is looking for something else than the usual BB/BC discussion.

It somehow leads me into thinking that the submarine could be a different element.

'Swarms' of submarines could be stationed at the critical naval bases. This, i believe, was what the admirals feared.

rather than focusing on the massive BB's, maybe a 1914 'e-boat' could be more useful?

Airships would be excellent in the scouting role.

Combine this with the first type of carriers, the North Sea could have been rather unpleasant for GF.

Just a thought. Maybe not war-winning, but surely something else.

oh yes: get an admiral who can grasp a new concept!

Since the BB/BCs are the biggest and the most visible actors so to say, it's inevitable that a lot revolves around them. Not to mention that in topics suh as this the warship pornography part plays a big part.

Regarding subs, imo they would be better off with unrestricted warfare from the start. What do they have to lose? Unleashing them on the troop convoys over the channel in the early days might prevent some troops reaching France, which helps the german army. And if the Atlantic convoys are similarily savaged, that might force the british to divide their main fleet to provide protection, which is exactly what the german keep trying to do? (overwhelm a portion of GF and destroy it)

 

[Hammerbolt]

Others might correct me but my understanding is that they started stacking shells/bags AFTER Dogger Bank, though perhaps the cordite problem and the not so flash-tight doors problem were there already?

Don't know when, tbh, just that it was before Jutland. And, cordite or not, doors or not, if you stacks of explosive in "open" areas, when under fire, something is bound to go boom...

 

[mack8]

A question, does anyone knows the rought cost of a pre-WW1 german destroyer? There is info in the links above for ships dwn to light cruisers (which hovers between 6-8 million marks or so), but not lower. Subs cost would be handy as well.

 

[Hammerbolt]

A question, does anyone knows the rought cost of a pre-WW1 german destroyer? There is info in the links above for ships dwn to light cruisers (which hovers between 6-8 million marks or so), but not lower. Subs cost would be handy as well.

Check this site. Only checked the Royal Navy, but it does have DDs and subs.

 

[naraic]

Don't know when, tbh, just that it was before Jutland. And, cordite or not, doors or not, if you stacks of explosive in "open" areas, when under fire, something is bound to go boom...

After Doggerbank Beatty's after action report conclusion was that the German rate of fire was better and safety protocols had to be thrown out the window to match the German speed of fire.

 

[Hammerbolt]

After Doggerbank Beatty's after action report conclusion was that the German rate of fire was better and safety protocols had to be thrown out the window to match the German speed of fire.

Yeah cause who needs safety protocols?...

 

[mack8]

Check this site. Only checked the Royal Navy, but it does have DDs and subs.

I did earlier but nothing on german DDs. From the british figures can be extrapolated than a DD was roughly 1/3 the cost of a CL, so if same applies to the germans it should be roughly 2-3 million marks for a DD? Probably closer to 2 million?

 

[ivanotter]

This was done for Jutland but Jutland was delayed by a week and the submarines had to return to Germany.

that was also what i thought i have read somewhere. wonder how it would have panned out?

 

[ivanotter]

I am not insulting anybody, least the admirals.

It was an honest comment in terms of coming to terms with something new and sometimes un-tried. Nothing wrong in that.

If we look at a 'swarm' of e-boats and a 'swarm' of submarines focused on limiting transfer of troops and stores from Britain to France, we could perhaps see a different outcome in the very early days?

It is also correct that the early aircraft were very lightly armed (if at all). It would have been difficult to shoot down a German airship. only much later did the British have different bullets for that job.

However, if we look at the channel routes, it is hard to protect against 'swarms' of e-boats. The question is then: with what to combat low-cost e-boats? bigger British units could be hit as well, not just transports.

It would not be a great proposition to exchange a cruiser for an e-boat.

Operating submarines in the channel is not easy. Too shallow too often, but not impossible.

... and that is my contribution: Let the HSF re-evaluate what is important. And that might be to: (1) reduce cross-channel traffic (2) open the distant blockade of Germany

 

[scifilovr]

If we look at a 'swarm' of e-boats and a 'swarm' of submarines focused on limiting transfer of troops and stores from Britain to France, we could perhaps see a different outcome in the very early days?

It is also correct that the early aircraft were very lightly armed (if at all). It would have been difficult to shoot down a German airship. only much later did the British have different bullets for that job.

However, if we look at the channel routes, it is hard to protect against 'swarms' of e-boats. The question is then: with what to combat low-cost e-boats? bigger British units could be hit as well, not just transports.

It would not be a great proposition to exchange a cruiser for an e-boat.

Operating submarines in the channel is not easy. Too shallow too often, but not impossible.

... and that is my contribution: Let the HSF re-evaluate what is important. And that might be to: (1) reduce cross-channel traffic (2) open the distant blockade of Germany

Torpedo boats aren't a superweapon, they're not even that effective as warships. They're eggshells armed with sledgehammers. Yeah, if they manage to hit something they can deal heavy damage, but any torpedo is going to have a significantly shorter effective range than any gun. So to get in range to hit with your sledgehammer, you've got to run across the gauntlet of a lot of guns that are bigger and more accurate than anything you can carry on a torpedo boat.

The one thing I also love about the "swarm of torpedo boats" tactic is how are you gonna pitch that to the sailors who have to man them? You're going to send your sailors into battle with the full expectation that some of them will have to effectively suicide themselves in order to get a kill? "Cruiser for an e-boat" sounds like a great idea in theory, but not so much for the E-boat crew.

And as for the Channel... operating a submarine in there is damn near impossible. You wouldn't do it with modern submarine technology. Number one is shallow water, so you have virtually no protection against depth charges and all of the navigational challenges operating in such a constricted environment. Number two is the currents. The English Channel, by virtue of its tidal nature, has very strong and very consistent currents. Those currents are typically around 2-3 miles per hour, which doesn't sound like a lot, but when your best submerged speed is 5 knots... Number three, the English Channel is tiny, it's a chokepoint, so it's very easy to control access and all of the German naval bases are far away from it. Getting into the Channel means traveling almost 400 miles across the North Sea, one of the most tumultuous seas in the world, in a 50-foot long motorboat. That wouldn't be fun in peacetime, let alone wartime.

 

[Hammerbolt]

Any such swarm would run into a hailstorm of light guns and the defender's own light boats...

 

[Kalga]

If the Dreadnought revolution was as gamechanging as the orthodox view* goes, then the HSF should have pruned their predreadnoughts even more aggressively than OTL in the lead up to WWI. Selling 2 of the Brandenburg class to the Ottomans was a good start. The Kaiser & the Wittelsbach class should have followed to be sold, dumped on colonial stations, or BU them and have their armaments recycled for some beefier protected cruisers or whatnot.

*which I don't buy it, which if anything Dreadnought set off an explosion of design escalation more akin to the victorian ironclad era rather than then next step. King Edward VII class is still in the same league as the Majestic class, while the same could not be said for the Queen Elizabeth class compared to Dreadnought. But all this is another discussion entirely.

 

[YYJ]

And as for the Channel... operating a submarine in there is damn near impossible. You wouldn't do it with modern submarine technology. Number one is shallow water, so you have virtually no protection against depth charges and all of the navigational challenges operating in such a constricted environment. Number two is the currents. The English Channel, by virtue of its tidal nature, has very strong and very consistent currents. Those currents are typically around 2-3 miles per hour, which doesn't sound like a lot, but when your best submerged speed is 5 knots... Number three, the English Channel is tiny, it's a chokepoint, so it's very easy to control access and all of the German naval bases are far away from it. Getting into the Channel means traveling almost 400 miles across the North Sea, one of the most tumultuous seas in the world, in a 50-foot long motorboat. That wouldn't be fun in peacetime, let alone wartime.

... Number 4, minefields.

Mapping World War I Sea Mines Off the British Isles | Worlds Revealed

During World War I, Germany laid more than 43,000 mines that claimed some 500 merchant vessels. The British Navy lost 44 warships and 225 auxiliaries to mines. The purpose was to interrupt the flow of supplies to Britain and to hamper the British fleet. Mines were most often set near harbors and...

blogs.loc.gov

 

[sparky42]

... Number 4, minefields.

Mapping World War I Sea Mines Off the British Isles | Worlds Revealed

During World War I, Germany laid more than 43,000 mines that claimed some 500 merchant vessels. The British Navy lost 44 warships and 225 auxiliaries to mines. The purpose was to interrupt the flow of supplies to Britain and to hamper the British fleet. Mines were most often set near harbors and...

blogs.loc.gov

Wonder why they had those fairly random fields of the Irish West Coast?

 

[Hammerbolt]

Wonder why they had those fairly random fields of the Irish West Coast?

Covering approaches to harbours? Even a minor port might be worth mining. Worst case, it diverts resources.

 

[sparky42]

Covering approaches to harbours? Even a minor port might be worth mining. Worst case, it diverts resources.

Suppose the entrance to the Shannon and maybe Galway bay ( though Galway in particular is minor beyond minor), but the field up North around Achill really doesn’t make sense to me, no ports to speak of, no nearby urban area of note, no RN sheltered anchorages to protect? Also why just those few areas rather than the rest?

 

[Coulsdon Eagle]

Whilst the loss of Queen Mary & Invincible are pretty much agreed to be the result of cordite fires enhanced by lack of safety protocols, it is more likely that the fatal hit aft on Indefatigable was through magazine penetration which blew out the bottom of the ship, with the blast wave killing most on board. She was sinking by the stern & listing severely to starboard when the coup de grace was supplied by two hits on the forecastle near A turret which were more probably caused by cordite.

 

[Hammerbolt]

Suppose the entrance to the Shannon and maybe Galway bay ( though Galway in particular is minor beyond minor), but the field up North around Achill really doesn’t make sense to me, no ports to speak of, no nearby urban area of note, no RN sheltered anchorages to protect? Also why just those few areas rather than the rest?

Bad inteligence on the german side, maybe?