Was the Kriegsmarine really outclassed that badly by the Royal and U.S. navies, or could it have withstood one on one?
Bump
>>29782371
Germans are bad boat people but excellent refugees and colonists, hence why so many colonized the Americas and rest of Europe.
So I would say no, because if Germany was good at navy, the entire planet would have gotten Reich'd and be just billions of German descendents. Its their own weakness to keep them from being OP.
>>29782371
By the Royal Navy alone they were terribly outclassed.
They shouldn't have bothered with a surface blue water navy.
Great at U boats.
>>29782402
And people still think Operation Sea Lion could have been successful, the Germans really had no chance.
>>29782371
No surface fleet and subs that were up against the two pioneers in ASW.
They're would've been buttstomped by either. The US wouldn't've even needed the Pacific fleet.
>>29782371
The surface branch of the Kriegsmarine was a joke, even the Regia Marina did more. When the Italians are doing better than you, you dun fucked up.
>>29782432
>>29782402
The Royal Navy wasn't particularly overpowered at that point in time. If the Germans had properly prepared and been competent. They could have done it.
RN alone would have mopped the floor with them. And the Pacific war was basically another league entirely.
Krauts are good at lots of things, but a surface Navy doesn't seem to be one of them
>>29782432
They had a retard plan C to invade the UK via landing in Scotland aswell, over 400 miles of open sea, at St. Andrews.
>>29782450
Fuck off, they'd have been slaughtered, your own generals even said so.
>>29782448
Regia Marina was effectively knocked out of the war by 41. The Roma was sunk by the Germans in 43.
>>29782450
No, no they couldn't.
A few destroyers set loose amongst those 'landing craft' would have caused havoc.
Their only chance at winning in naval warfare was the Submarine fleet. But British and American technological advances put an end to that.
Meanwhile in the Pacific, US subs were running rampant and strangling Japan and the IJN could do little to stop them. It proves that Submarines can work to blockade an island nation under the right circumstances. Germany was simply fighting the wrong enemies for it to work.
>>29782464
UK was buying obsolete warships from the USA just to get their numbers up. They were so desperate, they would have put the USS Monitor out to sea if they could
Bump
>>29782450
They simulated it with wargames in the 1970s, with ex British and German officers.
Conclusion was a total disaster for Germany, could never create a decent beachhead or prevent the Royal Navy from steaming down and closing the channel.
>>29782465
By a Bi-plane equipped carrier.
They were indeed outclassed by the Royal Navy alone. Much is made of the Kriegsmarine's modern battleships in the same way all German wartime equipment is fawned over, but they were outclassed in every way by the RN's fleet.
This comes down to doctrine though, RN and USN navies were built for power projection and defending far flung territories, the Kriegsmarine was built for commerce raiding. Arguably in WW2 it was even all that great at commerce raiding when you compare it to how it did in WW1.
Back to doctrine again, the Kriegsmarine was never a central part of German strategy. They were concerned with land warfare, compared to the UK where they were basically all about maritime power. Take how each chose to defend against invasion as an example - the invasion battle for Britain would ultimately have been fought by the RN had the RAF failed. Conversely the invasion of Europe on D Day was defended against on the beaches by the army - defending at sea never came into it.
They wanted to boost the Kriegsmarine to be more of a power but never got round to it. The Kriegsmarine was outclassed but it was never high priority to begin with.
>>29782481
I Beleive it was with US generals instead of British, 20 miles inland was a generous estimate of how far they would have got, before being stopped, cut of from resupply by the Home Fleet arriving from Scotland/Scapa Flow. 90% casualties was the estimate
>>29782482
Roma and Italia were hit by Do 217k3 with FritzX guided bombs.
Roma's magazines blew up and sunk. Killing 1300 men. Italia managed to limp to Tunisia.
>>29782517
I meant the Taranto raid.
>>29782523
The British should be thankful the Italians were so incompetent.
I'll never understand why they didn't go for Gibraltar
>>29782546
They were having a hard enough time with Malta.
>>29782592
That is because the Royal Navy was able to keep it supplied.
Taking the Strait should have been the priority of the Med/African campaign.
>>29782389
Who is that dude? A marine? part of a Kriegsmarine Field Division or something?
>>29782450
not even teh reichsmarine thought this.
>>29782477
this is because they were trying to maintain convoys across an entire ocean while still maintaining a fleet at home to keep the germans in europe. if all of a sudden the entire german army tries to cross the stream in your backyard, everything changes. because the bulk of british fire power is being kept just up the lake a bit. which is why they needed the lend lease ships for convoy work.
go and read more.
>>29782546
They couldn't and even if they had a shot, it would have been a massive fuck you to Spain.
>>29782546
they did, this is where scuba and frogmen came from. the italians and the british basically fought underwater warfare over gibraltar.
>>29782981
Please be pretending to be retarded.
>>29782990
>all of that edge
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decima_Flottiglia_MAS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_Gibraltar_during_World_War_II#Italian_frogmen_raids_1940.E2.80.931943
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_HMS_York
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxiliary_ship_Olterra
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionel_Crabb
>>29783045
Way to overembellish. British and Italians did not have an underwater frogpeople warfare. Italians sabotaged a few ships then died in an accident. A Brit picked up the bodies. That's far from "basically fought underwater warfare over gibraltar."
>>29783104
>Italians sabotaged a few ships then died in an accident.
you didn't read all of the links, or even much of the first one. ok, that's your prerogative, but you've just passed up the oppurtunity to learn something and instead opted to try and salvage some pride in front of people who will never meet you in person or know you from adam.
>>29783148
I did but if you are so desperate to blow up a small scale series of raids into "underwater warfare" then why don't you quickly summarize what happened using figures and statistics?
>inb4 Italians sabotaged a few ships then died in an accident. A Brit picked up the bodies.
>>29782371
Yes.
Are you fucking retarded?
>>29782477
They were buying convoy escorts, genius. The warship bulk of the Home Fleet was still quite capable of smashing Sealion on its own.
>>29783186
>small scale series of raids
that small scale series of raids accounted for 200 000 tons of allied shipping in gibraltar and the rest of the battle of the mediterranean. the decima mas operated from a scuttled ship inside british territorial waters. the british had to establish mine clearance divers that operated contiunously throughout the war to inspect the hulls of ships in gibraltar and all of this caused the refinement of rebreathers for combat operations and the manned torpedo.
so you didn't read the links then.
>>29782371
They were extremely behind in the design department from the weimar era disarmament, meaning their designs where not as good as contemporary US ones.
They also had less.
They should have focused all development and building on U-boats.
The US outclassed the Brits and the Brits outclassed the Germans.
The Germans never stood a fucking chance.
>>29783253
Now you are including rest of the mediterranean into this supposed underwater warfare over Gibraltar. I guess you don't really have much else to go on.
Also 200k tons of shipping is like 20 boats. Over 4 years. Meanwhile the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau sank or captured 120k tons in one operation.
>>29783345
gibraltar was a vital port for the entire british empire and the raids were part of the battle for the mediterranean, in which decima mas played an important part. that the italians could infiltrate one of the most important ports in the world and blow shit made the admiralty shit itself. hence the establishment of the first recognizably modern mine clearance diver units and it's constant activities in checking hulls in port. the british were lucky numerous times because the ships the italians were targetting had just left port before the divers arrived. you'd may as well negate the cross channel commando raids why you're there; most of those were abject failures.
the entire point of the frogman was the same as special operations. a small bunch of guys having a much greater impact than they should. let's ignore what the sas did in the desert as well, the conventional forces had a much greater impact. and you'd may as well negate the cross channel commando raids why you're there; most of those were failures.
but well done in comparing the activities of a handful of men against two fuck huge warships by the way.
the purpose of the u-boats incidentally was raiding logistics. you've got a bunch of guys in rubber suits doing it up close in personal using shit they assembled in a scuttled frieghter in enemy territory and apparently it's nothing. except of course, the british didn't think it was nothing.
none of this detracts from the fact that the british and the italians were both trying concertedly to use this quite new method of warfare (combat swimming and underwater demolitions) to try and gain an advantage in one of the only european theatres the west was active in at the time.
so you read what, one more link that time?
>>29782450
>The Royal Navy wasn't particularly overpowered at that point in time
it was the most powerful navy in europe by a considerable margin, had the italian and german fleets by some miracle joined up and tried to fight the british fleet the british would still have had a edge in numbers and firepower
>If the Germans had properly prepared and been competent. They could have done it.
but they werent.
>>29782477
>UK was buying obsolete warships from the USA just to get their numbers up. They were so desperate, they would have put the USS Monitor out to sea if they could
they were buying old destroyers to use as convoy escorts while building more suitable escorts, they needed enough hulls to provide escorts for the convoys while retaining a fleet significant enough to stove in the german surface fleet if they tried a invasion. the sheer amount of territory they had to cover was the big factor.
>>29782371
the kriegsmarine suffered from numerical inferiority against the RN alone and many of its ships were not great designs to begin with, the scharnhorst class ships for example were underarmed and armored to face a battleship, but to big and expensive to be worth using in a traditional battlecruiser role, the pair of them once being chased off by a ww1 era battlecruiser. the panzerschiffe were essentially a design dead end being little more than a heavy cruiser with a overgunned main battery that in action proved ineffective.
the kriegsmarine didnt do well at commerce raiding with its surface fleet and lost a fairly substantial chunk of its units in the norway campaign. losing 1 heavy and 2 light cruisers and 10 destroyers, allied losses were nearly as bad but represented a far smaller percentage of the RNs strength. the RN having 66 cruisers with 23 building to the germans 12 and 184 destroyers with 54 building to the germans 21 when the war began,as well as 15 battleships and battlecruisers with 5 building to the germans 4.
>>29782481
>>29782512
Yup, here's the text from the Sandhurst wargame. Though I think the generals were British and West German (I know Galland was definitely brought in as a referee to the game).
>>29782450
Hahaha, fuck no.
>>29783755
fug forgot it:
http://mr-home.staff.shef.ac.uk/hobbies/seelowe.txt
The Kriegsmarine's surface fleet was really a token one at best relative to most other major powers. I'm not sure if the numbers are 100% accurate, but a while ago I counted the total number of major surface combatants for each Axis navy throughout all of WWII.
Kriegsmarine:
6 battleships (includes 2 old pre-dreadnought battleships)
6 heavy cruisers
6 light cruisers
55 destroyers (includes 15 Elbing-class "fleet torpedo boats")
33 torpedo boats (not including the Elbing-class)
Regia Marina:
7 battleships
7 heavy cruisers
16 light cruisers
66 destroyers
79 torpedo boats
59 corvettes
IJN:
13 fleet carriers
7 light carriers
6 escort carriers
12 battleships
18 heavy cruisers
25 light cruisers
186 destroyers
187 escort ships
12 torpedo boats
Japan was always the naval powerhouse of the Axis. That said, the Kriegsmarine did have a pretty huge U-boat force, even if most of them were of the relatively small Type VII class.
