Kriegsmarine

What went wrong with the Kriegsmarine?

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war started 10 years too early

Would they evere have been ready, in that case given uk, france etc were rearming as well?

Yeah. Remember, the KM was meant to be a fleet in being first and foremost as raiding would be carried out by uboats for the most part.

They didn't have the materials to follow the Z-Plan. Even if they did, it arguably would've still lost against the RN and USN.

eternally cucked by anglo and french fleets

Starved of resources, Abysmal moral.

It was a giant waste of ressources that lost us WW1 (arguably caused it to begin with) and didn't help in WW2 either.
>it arguably would've still lost against the RN and USN.
That's not arguable at all, it's a simple fact.

Not being British.

Post 1940. Raeder wanted surface raiding cruisers for Guerre-de-course and that's what Plan Z was designed to do. IMO what went wrong with the KM was Göring, if they had the foresight to sack him, pick someone who could coordinate with the other branches, and develop suitable aircraft in the 30s to use Europe as a giant CV (more fighters and special Ju87s I guess?) the British would have been forced out of the Channel and the North Sea by late 1940

not immediately investing in Walther turbines and T-stoff-Production despite the technology being available
Not immediatly investing in stealth despite the technology being available
Not immediatly investing in Snorkels despite the technology being available
Not immediatly investing in decoys despite the technology being available
Not continously developing encryption technology, despite code breaking being always a possibility and the "Kurier" System being an incredibly simple and cheap solution to all problems that could have been available long before August 1944
Not building more secret oil depots and positioning more ships in neutral states for secret refueling
Not building more merchant commerce raiders despite them being far more succesful than Uboats perunit

It was manned by krauts

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Pretty much. The KM played their game well with what they had and had their early successes, but they were totally outclassed by the RN. Then from 1942 on they had the USN's Atlantic Fleet on them as well.

>not immediately investing in Walther turbines and T-stoff-Production despite the technology being available
Hydrogen peroxide tech was great if you wanted to kill your people quickly, not so great for killing the other guys. Pretty much everybody who experimented with it stopped quickly. Heck, the HMS Explorer was constantly on fire when the peroxide plant was running (hence the nickname).

Size matters. The only time I remember a country overcoming a naval disadvantage was the Peloponnesian War. Even that involved a surprise attack and being outright gifted an entire fleet by sand jews trying to D&C. The Germans had resource issues, so they needed to choose to dominate on land or sea, but not both. Naturally, they chose land. If they did well enough on land they wouldn't need the sea; plus, it was still possible that Britain was going to ally with them. I think that was on the table until around 1904. Russia also could have sided with them, which would have almost ensured a land victory.

They did try to build a massive fleet, even making ships that weren't "up to code" to try and catch up to the royal navy. If I remember correctly, this caused a big panic and they signed a treaty capping the size of their navy. It's not like the Kriegsmarine was totally worthless in WW1 though. Radar didn't exist so ships and subs alike could harass shipping; they even bombarded coastal cities in Britain. WW2 was just an issue where Germany didn't have the time, nor desire to build a fleet capable of defeating Britain+France+America. The issue with them investing into their navy is that the money is a complete waste until they finally outscale their rivals. If I were Hitler or the Kaiser I would have focused resources on the land army too. On the other hand, they probably could have pulled off Sealion if they had a stronger navy.

Hitler promised Raeder that the war wasn’t going to begin before 1948. From 1936 onward they were operating under the “plan z” which called for 10 Bismarck class battleships.
Meanwhile Donitz was left sucking hind tit, unable to get the resources he needed for his vision of a full submarine campaign against Britain.
In 1939 when the war started there was only 60 u boats in service. Only 1/3rd could be on station at any one time, the others in transit or in port.
Donitz believed that with 300 submarines he could quickly starve Britain. It wasn’t until the absolute failure of the surface raiding forces 1941 that Raeder was dismissed and Donitz became head of the Kreigsmarine. By then it was too late, Germany was fighting on the eastern front and couldn’t devote enough resources to submarine production, and in 1942 the allies had
Developed much more effective anti submarine warfare tactics and equipment. The battle of the Atlantic was over by 1944.

All those promises are fine and good, but where were they supposed to get the resources and payments for all these projects? The German economy would not hold out until 1948 unless it expanded to get more valuables (done through annexation and invasion) That means war comes earlier than Plan Z can be finished.
If the British noticed Germany building up tons of surface ships, which were in violation of treaties, then they would start building their own surface forces up again. A more prepared KM also means a more prepared RN. It may have given Germany a longer reign of winning in the Atlantic but once they start losing surface raiders, having ASW tactics improve against them, and Enigma is broken then it is over for them. No matter how many ships they have, they won't outnumber the British and Americans and their ports will be under aerial attack- which leads to keeping them in the Fjords and becoming a fleet in being.

Yes but the OP question is “what went wrong?”
And the answer is Hitler favored Raeder and battleships, and lied to his admiral about what weapons he would have available/timetable for hostilities.

If Hitler had listened to Donitz in the mid 1930s the U boat force would’ve starved Britain into a truce before the USA joined the war.

Focus more on the „Scourge of the Atlantic“

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They attempted to fight outside of their tiny little baltic puddle

I don't think there was a way to starve the brits into submission. Starve them yes, degrade their abilities but into submission seems doubtful. The bongs back then were hard bastards.

They were trying to win a tonnage war against an alliance that could make up for shipping losses fourfold, relying on mostly one method of naval warfare (the submarine) against an enemy that could bring a myriad of countermeasures upon it, from sonar to radar to radio-direction finding and cryptanalysis. In short, they bit off more than they could chew, a very common pattern in WW2 Germany.

Well they sank over 14 million tons of allied sniping, so I’d say they were on the right track, it just wasn’t enough

It was a navy built to counter the French Atlantic fleet, which was forced to fight the Royal Navy.

>Not continously developing encryption technology

Actually the Kriegsmarine were the most disciplined about encryption, adopting the fourth rotor and using a signals book.

The chief problems was that their signals book was compromised, the fourth rotor had a vunerability.

It was the complexity of figuring out u-boat transmissions that forced going with electronic computation.

Its well documented that it was a very close run thing in 1940-41. The U-boats managed to almost create enough shortages of food in Britain that the British government was concerned it would face domestic pressure to negotiate a peace. With very small numbers of Uboats actually on station at any given moment. Only 20 for the first few months and never more than a few dozen after that.
If Donitz had been given his 300 boats at war's start, Britain would have been completely cut off from imports of food and fuel, and the government would have faced a no confidence vote and the German sympathizers plus people who just didnt want to see their kids starve would have forced a peace.

Raeder wanted raiders, kek

>Its well documented that it was a very close run thing in 1940-41. The U-boats managed to almost create enough shortages of food in Britain that the British government was concerned it would face domestic pressure to negotiate a peace. With very small numbers of Uboats actually on station at any given moment. Only 20 for the first few months and never more than a few dozen after that.
at no point in the war did britian ever suffer food shortages, with rationing at the height of the u boat attacks still being better than in germany of the same year

even at the nearest they got to victory, they were still a long ways off from actually beating them, and the british blockade was doing far more damage to the germans than vice versa
even during happy time, when british escorts were total ass, they only reached their quota of 300K tons of cargo per month once

If you want to pretend that being forced to implement strict rationing isnt food shortages, then ok.

If Hitler had listened to Donitz the Germans wouldve had enough U-boats to starve the UK into peace. Obviously they didnt.

certain luxuries like sugar and meat were rationed
but staples like bread, fish, sausage were never rationed
british people were actually healthier during the war than before due to a sudden decrease in refined sugar
war making effort was affected, but more than 90% of goods crossing the Atlantic eventually made it through

the u-boats had an effect, but never to starvation levels
as opposed to the british blockade which resulted in german civilian rations being worse than prison rations in UK

So you agree that if Donitz had his 300 U boats in 1940, Britain would have been starved to the peace table?

Bread was rationed. White bread was illegal to produce as it was deemed wasteful.

The U-boat arm only managed to sink enough shipping to cause worry to the British (specifically 400k GRT) for 4 months out of the first 27 months of the war. After the US joined, they managed to reach the new target tonnage of 700k GRT exactly once. The vast majority of convoys (90%) were never attacked, and the ones that were attacked had 90% survival rates.

ersatz food isnt technically rationing, as the same amount is available
and the national loaf, though unappetizing, was still nominally providing the calories needed and was more efficient use of space on ships

While a successful U-boat campaign would have starved Britain, it would not have achieved what Hitler wanted. Which was ultimately Operation Sealion and the occupation of Britain. If Germany put all resources into U-boats then they would not have the ability to mount that invasion. They would not have troop transports, vehicle transports, escort ships, and capital ships for bombardment and engaging the Royal Navy's. I don't think Britain would have surrendered even if they had to implement even harsher rationing and they would always be getting some supplies through ships and even aircraft. No amount of U-boats could stop 100% of the convoys and as ASW technology & tactics improved there would be more ships getting through.

In a fantasy scenario where Germany is able to overcome their foreign exchange shortages before the war and obtain enough scarce raw materials like copper and rubber to build massive amounts of U-boats, all while the British are completely blind to what's happening and don't invest into ASW, yes.

If Hitler had listened to Donitz instead of Raeder, and not built the surface navy, they could have had the submarines.

Hitler never seriously wanted to invade the UK. Sealion is mostly a bugaboo myth. Hitler wanted peace after the defeat of France.

Assuming the resources are that fungible, then the British could focus exclusively on anti-submarine warfare in the North Atlantic, not having to worry about a German fleet in being.

"Peace" would have meant Britain's surrender to Germany; loss of colonies and their resources, forfeiture of naval assets, dedication of British industry to the German war effort, and German forces using British land as bases.
I don't know why some people act like saying "Hitler wanted peace" would have meant British citizens could go about their lives as if they weren't under the control of an enemy.

you are literally regurgitating 75 year old narratives that are proven false, but ok.

In this case the German resources ARE that fungible, because we're talking about the steel and other materials and the dockyards and the men who built and crewed the surface fleet being diverted to the submarine force prior to the war's start.
The UK's fleet was almost all built before 1936 and they were quite worried about the Italian navy.

Do you have a single fact to back that up

do you?

No, I'm pointing out common sense. Name one nation (other their ally of Spain. Or Switzerland and Sweden, because Hitler knew he wasn't going to mess with them and succeed) where Germany respected their sovereignty or neutrality. Germany would not just let Britain go about their business and keep everything they had. Look at Vichy France and how they were allowed to keep things like their fleet...until Germany decided they wanted it (Then the French scuttled everything they could). Peace with a nation like Nazi Germany meant either pledging support or being subjugated.

You could get all the shitty, hard, nasty wholemeal bread you wanted. Don't know why you would though.

what the fuck are you even talking about? different poster, but anyways...Hitler said once or twice that the Aryan way was to follow the sun west, he dreamed of a day that Britain and Germany would sail hand in hand against America/canada (he veiwed them as the same) I am quoting this from "rise and fall of the third Reich"

also there is no real way to prove what you said is true, because everyone who thought about it is dead, and it never happened...to say it has been PROVEN false is a lie in itself.

Because Britain would abandon Canada...
Hitler was full of shit. He was then and he is now.

Radar killed the U-boats and the rest of the surface fleets after 42.

the rationing was instituted almost immediately as a submarine campaign was expected and the less shipping was being used for food the more was available for everything else.

the rations were never lowered and were always higher than the german rations

British never even had to ration essential food stuffs, only meat butter sugar and the likes.

No, nmot really. You seem to think 300 U-boats would cimpletely cut off britain, which doesn't seem likely. There were just too many counters to the u-boat for it to be a truly effective weapon, no matter how many you build.
Eventually you would have reached a stage where every convoy would have been so well protected that attacking it would be suicide. Also, if Britain noticed the massive u-boat build up, they would have responded by building more escorts.
There were other options they explored, but didn't use because they were never desperate enough, like fitting asdic and depth charges to small fast patrol boat vessels and launching them from "mother ships" weith the convoy.

>Hitler never seriously wanted to invade the UK. Sealion is mostly a bugaboo myth.
>hurr Hitler said he wantewd peace and didn't want to invade.
>He also said that to everyone else he invaded and genocided
It's almost like the guy wasn't very trustworthy.
The eternal kraut. It's well documented that this was an existential fight for us and that Hitler and Germany wanted to exterminate the British.

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Build carriers instead.

>Hitler had called the English lower classes "racially inferior"
he knew about the norf?!!?

>Wikipedia as a legitimate source on ww2

I see you enjoy slurping vomit from a spoon.

Bismarck and Tirpitz should have yoloed into New York harbor and blasted Manhattan

Hitler didn't call the british lower classes racially inferior? Because lots of sources seem to agree that he did.

no user, just trust this annonnymous poster from a cantonese basket weaving forum, he's a valid trustworthy source of historical facts

Knowing that Germany has never invaded England and won, why didn't Hitler just get France to do it? Didn't France have England as her bitch for a while?

Lack of resources and piss poor designs.

France's fleet was split after 1940. Some went with the Free French and fought with the Allies, listening to the Government in Exile. A large portion was held by the Vichy French and moved to the Mediterranean, but with the clear stance that they were not going to use it for war and if Germany tried to seize it then they would scuttle it.
The Royal Navy didn't trust this and so they attacked the Vichy fleet as Mers-el-Kébir, sinking many ships. A move that was was controversial even at the time. The damaged ships which escaped were moved to Toulon and when the Germans tried to capture them later on, they were scuttled.
Neither France (free or Vichy) was interested in fighting England.

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Gorings bigger blunder in that respect was not devoting more effort to Maritime Patrol craft. The bare handful of shit Condors they had was still a huge problem for the Allies. If they had 3x as many patrol craft England possibly would have been choked out early. A single good 4 engine bomber would have solved so many problems for the KM And Luftwaffe. Something like our Liberator that could have easily been adapted to a patrol role.

Building any type of surface combatant beside the s boats was retarded, the amount of steel they consumed was just gross.

If the KM fixed their torpedo problem in 39, didn't blow their load with magnetic mines till Dunkirk, focused on riverine combat to support the Heer in Russia, and built up a frogman corps to seize the French fleet in the uncertain time after the fall of France, it could have been a war winning force with half the resources it actually was allotted. That's not even talking about moving the production to all U boats or moving the industrial resources allocated to making naval plate over to AFV production.

Good post

Ok

Their obsession with triple shaft setups:
there's a reason nobody else used them

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The Wermacht and Luftwaffe

>piss poor designs
Really?

bismarck was a significantly bigger warship than the KGV, despite that she had thinner and less effective armor, a ineffective AA suite and serious structural weaknesses in the stern and steering gear.

the scharnhorst class on the other hand were too small to be effective as battleships - both guns and armor were inadequate to fight another BB and win- and too slow to make good battlecruisers or cruiser hunters and suffered from the same AA and contruction issues as bismarck as well as being very wet forwards to the point that the formost turret was effectively inoperable in even moderately heavy seas.

the cruisers were a little better although still tending to have weaker sterns and the panzerschiffe were a interesting idea but proved somewhat ineffective in battle

>and too slow to make good battlecruisers or cruiser hunters
The Scharnhorst-class could do 33 knot, aka faster than 99% of the cruisers.

31 knots in calm seas with a following breeze, in the north atlantic? 28 max unless she didnt mind being essentially underwater forward

Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine officers hated each other. The US was never air bombed because Kriegsmarine officers would refuse to bring support to the late war bombers which would have to be drowned in the atlantic in their way back and the crew rescued by a near submarine or ship which the kriegsmarine didn´t want to offer.