Planned German Battle Cruiser raids on convoys

[Signals]

I believe that the German failure to break the British blockade

Who were they going to trade with in 1918?

[amlovell]

They might have wished to exchange fleets with Britain.

[Signals]

They might have wished to exchange fleets with Britain.

Why? If a businessman was to look at this as a trade agreement, then the US Navy would have won the deal. He would have seen their navy as a potential for growth and strength, not one of 90 years of decline.

[bill24chev]

Most of what you said is fair enough, but I don't agree with the above. Many of the early distant-water actions were fought without destroyer support on either side - as, for that matter, were some in WW2.

I agree with you MikB that Destroyers did not often get involved in “cruiser” actions such as the cruise of the Emden and her destruction or Coronel and the Falklands battle, and this is the original theme of this thread. My mindset had drifted to think of Jutland style epic fleet actions.

I remember from somewhere, that at some time in the 1900/s Germany considered attacking the eastern united states with their fleet. Without the destroyer and light cruiser screen they would have been vulnerable to torpedo attack. The inability to refuel the destroyer screen may have been a factor in ending this idea. The RN carrying out such a plan would have had the use of Canadian or West Indies bases to refuel.

However back to the original topic and also the involvement of Destroyers, I do think that, weather conditions permitting, the Grand Fleet Destroyer flotillas would have been despatched from Scappa to attack any attempt to break out into the Atlantic. They would, along with the most modern light cruisers be the only ships capable of catching the German Battle Cruisers if they had remained undetected until close to a position near to Shetland Of course Room 40 would have warned the Grand Fleet and the whole would be waiting .

[bill24chev]

I believe that the German failure to break the British blockade

Who were they going to trade with in 1918?

I agree that by 1918 trading would be limited but upto 1917 trade would have been possible with the USA and South America.The US made a anumber of ptotests to GB concerning the stopping of US and nuetral ships carrying US goods to Germany.

[Signals]

Yep, if people look at the trading partners Germany could have dealt with in 1918 it makes the talk of keeping the ring a little humorous, break out and trade with no-one. By 1917 the focus for Germany was a close blockade of Britain, not breaking the blockade’s from the North sea, the HSF did actually break the Blockade in 1917/18 while the U-Boats, of which there were never enough, carried out their own blockade. Some of Britain's unsung heroes of the day were their Foreign diplomats, the wheeling and dealing they were doing to try and wrench interned German Merchant ships from their possessions to cover their losses to U-Boats, things like that, persuading neutrals to turn on Germany, they were brilliant. But also one of Britain’s greatest weapons were her geographical position, same as Germany's was for the Baltic.

On a pure numbers game the Germans were not capable of tackling the huge numbers of the GF and combined Allied ships joining the war due the U-Boat campaign, silly talk that they could and not sure why everyone brings this up, it was never going to happen, but the HSF was the power behind the U-Boat war. The German change of tactics in using U-Boats in the waters around Britain released the HSF to knock Russia from the War, and the HSF was the power allowing the U-Boats to escape into the North Sea unchallenged by the GF.

It is a little naive to keep saying the Germans did not break the Blockade, knocking Russian from the war and taking her bread basket was exactly this, that fact is was not done in the North Sea hides this fact. And I'm not commenting on the Army's ability here to bring home the required foods, just the comment that the HSF was actively involved in breaking this Blockade and did. The U-Boats were working on their own Blockake of Britian, which only succeeded in being supressed with massive aid from the U/S, and again in the following war. With their smaller numbers the HSF did far more to help break the blockade via the Baltic than the GF did to ring the U-Boats bases.

With all the goings on in this period the GF that was incapable of having any real bearing on matters, with the North Sea infested with mines & submarines it was just as risky for them as it was the HSF to put to sea, a point Jellicoe made clear in after August 1916 when he said he was not going to offer Battle again when the Germans came out after he lost 2 cruisers to U-Boats in August, so there never was going to be another Jutland, and there was only one because both sides wanted to fight, but with different tactics. The GF was losing playing the German game, so they did not play it after August 1916. The GF could not stop the U-Boats or closely blockade their bases, or bring the HSF to action or stop their allies being rolled in the Baltic, and they were keeping a ring in a Blockade that was protecting Germany trading with nobody in 1918. It is without doubt the Royal Navy's Submarine force could have waged their own blockade of any German merchant trade trying to break the blockade. Fisher was at least correct in his thoughts on the future of submarines even though he got it wrong with battlecruisers.

And after the war the pre-Jutland ships were well on their way to being outclassed by new construction from the US and Japan as Britain's issues as ruler of the waves was not only based on the challenge from the German navy, Jutland started the cracks the GF never recovered from, remembering Geddes in 1921, With the solitary exception of the battle-cruiser “Hood," the navy therefore possesses no capital ship which embodies the vital and momentous lessons of Jutland, which battle revealed that all ships designed before that date are liable to instant and complete destruction by the exposure of their magazines to the new developments of shell-fire. With so many other navies growing more powerful the fate of Britain's dominance of the waves and Empire was doomed to it's current levels. The pre-war expenditure on the GF and the subsequent war set in motion the end of the Empire, they were a failure as value for money. WW1 destroyed Empires that is for sure, and Britain's, although intact, was fracured by the growing new threats of the US & Japan as world seapowers with WW2 showing only one of these as totally dominate for year to come.

When it came to Destroyers and Cruisers Jellicoe was always having a little whinge about them, many cruisers although numerous, were too slow, destroyers, not enough for offensive operations, many more suited to a close blockade and so forth. And Battlecruisers, well he had no answers for this problem. These thoughts were backed up by Eric Geddes 31/8/1918,

In spite of the numerical superiority of the British Force the position cannot either now, or in the immediate future, be considered as satisfactory. Sums up the actual situation really. We can be thankful the British and allied armies just did not sit back and keep the ring.

[TeeCeeCee]

Most of what you said is fair enough, but I don't agree with the above. Many of the early distant-water actions were fought without destroyer support on either side - as, for that matter, were some in WW2.

To return to the original subject of German plans for BC raids on convoys; quite apart from the acceptability of risk of action damage, seaborne refuelling of the ships would present at that time potentially insuperable problems. I don't even know if there was any proven capability to do so. Many German BCs had endurances in the 4000 nmi range and were at least partially coal-fired. Fuelling was one of the major constraints on WW2 raiding operations such as 'Berlin' and Prinz Eugen's attempt to retrieve something from the wreckage of 'Rhine', and those later ships had at least 50% greater endurance than the WW1 BCs.

I know the example is not from the HSF exactly but the Armed Merchant Cruiser CAP TRAFALGAR and the SMS EBER had a small fleet of supply colliers, some captured, and re-fueling was on an ad-hoc basis. It was a matter of finding a quiet cove in a small mid-ocean island and it was basically bags of coal, and any wood cut from the island, and using derricks with a lot of muscle and sweat to get it over the ships side.

For the HSF itself? I don't see how you can coal on the open ocean from a small boat/collier alongside? the same goes for a small warship taking coal from a capital ship. How? Leaving aside damage to the small ship, I'd think it'd be lethal in any coal hold under those bags as the ship rose and dipped in a swell. And stationary ship? open ocean? enemy submarines? The fear itself would stop the plan in its tracks.

So a german warship on an extended cruise would need a collier, and as both have speed differences, they can't sail in company so it's a case of a rendezvous in a small uninhabited island. And this brings me full circle as this is exactly what happened with the CAP TRAFALGAR above.

[SiegeGunner]

Many modern capital ships of the era could burn oil as well as coal - but mainly, I think, injected into their coal-fired furnaces as a sort of 'afterburner' for short stints at maximum speed. Were there any entirely oil-burning battleships/battlecruisers at that time? And the oil was presumably a fraction akin to diesel, as later bunker oils needed to be heated in order to become 'pumpable'.

[Gibbo]

The first use of oil was to spray it into coal burning furnaces; Britain adopted this process in 1905 for battleships and cruisers, with new destroyers being entirely oil fired. The only coal burning British destroyers built thereafter were the Beagle class of 1908.

HMS Dreadnought had a mixture of coal and oil fired boilers. The first entirely oil burning battleship was HMS Queen Elizabeth, laid down on 21 October 1912 and completed in January 1915. By the end of the war, Britain had completed 10 battleships (5 each of the Queen Elizabeth and R classes) and 2 battlecruisers (Renown and Repulse) wholly fired by oil; the 3 light battlecruisers Courageous, Glorious and Furious also burnt only oil. The first all oil British cruisers were the Arethusa class of 1912.

The USN's first all oil battleship, the USS Oklahoma, was laid down 5 days after Queen Elizabeth, but was not completed until May 1916; her sister ship, USS Nevada, was laid down 9 days later but finished 2 months earlier. No other navy built battleships or battlecruisers burning only oil during WWI.

The first 3 German dreadnought classes and the early battlecruisers used oil only to spray onto coal. Prinzregent Luitpold of the Kaiser class was originally supposed to have a diesel engine for cruising, but this was never fitted. A mixture of oil and coal fired boilers was adopted in 1911-12, starting with the Konig class battleships and Derfflinger class battlecruisers.

The first all oil German destroyers were laid down in 1913. Germany did not build any all oil cruisers during WWI.

[MikB]

Thanks to those replying on oil fuelling - I knew the QEs were amongst the earlier all-oil warships, but was not clear how entirely dependent German WW1 BCs were on coal. I think this is decisive. A successful fuelling at sea for a coal-fired warship has to be practically discounted. In the WW2 cruises, the Germans were far better at seaborne fuelling of their now oil-fired heavy ships than the British were. But it was absolutely essential for them to be so, as there was little hope of carrying out cruiser warfare in such hostile and difficult waters as the North Atlantic without.

The Cap Trafalgar can also really be discounted - her cruise was very short and terminated in the usual way - although by an unusual adversary. The main convoy routes where serious traffic passed were not well-supplied with secluded coves for coaling, and had there been any Atlantic sortie by German BCs, any such spots would have become focal points of attention for RN patrols, with heavy ships at hand to respond. German coordination with the U-boat arm would have needed to be almost superhumanly organised to interfere seriously with that response. The GF would probably have found such exercise a scintillating improvement on swinging around their anchors at Scapa.

It seems to me any such plans to release BCs against British convoys must have been born of desperation, and would be given short shrift by the KM high command. It may have been the case, of course, as in WW2, that the surface navy was losing the political battle for resource against the U-boat arm, and was anxious to produce a strategy whose objective was as much internal as it was belligerent against British sea-trade.

Regards,

MikB

[ionia]

If the HSF was to embark on raids into the Artlantic the most appropriate time would have been in the early months of the war when the ratio between the HSF and GF was at its most favourable and the detachment of BCs from the GF would have been inconvenient, to say the least. If the Germans were to use BCs in this matter they would surely have used their ships independently - perhaps one at a time - this being the most economical use of forces designed for commerce raiding and dispertion of enemy assets. The German BCs had sufficient endurance to reach transatlantic shipping routes and return (allowing for some loitering and possibly very limited coaling at sea from captured colliers, although this could result in damage). There would be, initially, be large amounts of coal stowed in inconvenient places but MOLTKE showed that this was possible. The HSF did not undertake such raiding but I think this was a consequence of the defensive mindset of Germany at this time and the preoccupation with the German Bight.

[Signals]

The HSF did not undertake such raiding but I think this was a consequence of the defensive mindset of Germany at this time and the preoccupation with the German Bight.

One big reason was exposing their northern Baltic coasts to the Russians, there was an aggressive Russian Admiral there, until is untimely death, causing some issue for them. The Navy, like their army, were fighting a juggling arrangment on 2 fronts. The iron ore shipments from Sweden were of a little importance some people would say. Jellicoe himself says in 1916, that although the Germans were willing to lose ships in Battle in North Sea, they could not lose too many as it would completly expose their Northern Baltic Coasts.

[MikB]

The German BCs had sufficient endurance to reach transatlantic shipping routes and return (allowing for some loitering and possibly very limited coaling at sea from captured colliers, although this could result in damage). There would be, initially, be large amounts of coal stowed in inconvenient places but MOLTKE showed that this was possible.

No, not convinced. In WW2, the Scharnhorst class had double the endurance, plus the benefits of radar and spotting aircraft - but they still had great difficulty locating convoys between their forced retirements to remote ocean spaces to rendezvous with oilers. I think it's well known that U-boats sank 3 times the tonnage claimed by Operation 'Berlin' during the same period. To have attempted a similar foray in coal-fired ships of half the endurance, without radar or aircraft, would have been beyond folly.

Regards,

MikB

[ionia]

No, not convinced. In WW2, the Scharnhorst class had double the endurance, plus the benefits of radar and spotting aircraft - but they still had great difficulty locating convoys between their forced retirements to remote ocean spaces to rendezvous with oilers. I think it's well known that U-boats sank 3 times the tonnage claimed by Operation 'Berlin' during the same period. To have attempted a similar foray in coal-fired ships of half the endurance, without radar or aircraft, would have been beyond folly.

Regards,

MikB

Obviously the purpose in despatching a German BC to the transatlantic trade routes would not be to intercept convoys - there were none to intercept (the Canadian troop convoy had been subject to special defence arrangements). There were, however, many unescorted merchantmen and this was an area which, at this time, the U-boats did not reach. Perhaps the major result of such a presence, if temporary, on the trade routes would be its effect on British public opinion, compelling considerable detachments from the GF.

The question of comparative endurance is a vexing one as much depends on the ability to get coal to the boilers and the effect on stability of empty tanks etc. We have been through this before but Groener gives GNEISENAU in WW2 a range of 6200 nm at 19kts and MOLTKE in WW1 a range of 4120 nm at 14kts and I think S & G's operations were much further to the west than would have been the case with a limited WW1 BC raid. From the Jade to the trade routes is about 1350 nm including a coaling in Iceland; the Etappe system could surely have managed the latter. I appreciate that this hypothetical plan is not what Hipper recommended - he favoured using the four newest BCs as far afield as the West Indies and South Atlantic!

[Gary Charles]

With reference to the original post about the German battlecruisers carrying out cruiser warfare it is interesting to see that even before the design of von der Tann was complete the RMA General Navy Department was ruling out this type of operation. They said they wanted the Grossen Kreuzer to be built as fast battleships, and they said that for years the Grossen Kreuzer would have no chance of strategic reconnaissance or escort service, or independent cruiser warfare. They said this would conflict with the operational objectives of these ships, and that the principle purpose remained participation in the decisive battle as a fast wing. However, State Secretary Tirpitz wanted them primarily only to fight enemy cruisers.

As for Kapitan Max Hahn, he was an independent thinker, a little bit of a `Maverick`. In a letter dated 28.8.1915 Vizeadmiral Hipper voiced his serious disapproval of Hahn for using his War Diary, that of von der Tann, for a series of critical comments about military issues. Whilst this shows that even though Hipper was his superior, Hahn was still allowed independent thought, it also shows that Hipper was sick of his unsolicited comments. So, even though Hahn had advocated use of a battlecruiser for merchant warfare, Hipper did not necessarily agree with this, and nor did it fit with the designed purpose of the ships, or with German strategical doctrine.

[MikB]

That was an interesting insight, Victory, in that it shows that German thought around the purpose of battlecruisers was as addled by contradictions and cross-purposes as was the British. I've often had half-formed questions in my mind as to why the Germans built the things in the first place, as they simply didn't have as a prospect Fisher's original purpose of hunting down weaker enemy cruisers. One can only visualise them as built to fight British battlecruisers in not-very-clearly visualised actions - in which they acquitted themselves very well, as we know. Whether the hit-and-run coastal bombardments had been foreseen as a role, they also proved very suitable for this.

Regards,

MikB

[ionia]

As for Kapitan Max Hahn, he was an independent thinker, a little bit of a `Maverick`. In a letter dated 28.8.1915 Vizeadmiral Hipper voiced his serious disapproval of Hahn for using his War Diary, that of von der Tann, for a series of critical comments about military issues. Whilst this shows that even though Hipper was his superior, Hahn was still allowed independent thought, it also shows that Hipper was sick of his unsolicited comments. So, even though Hahn had advocated use of a battlecruiser for merchant warfare, Hipper did not necessarily agree with this, and nor did it fit with the designed purpose of the ships, or with German strategical doctrine.

And yet, Hipper supported and embellished Hahn's proposal, which seems at variance with your last sentence. Tirpitz' opposition was surely to the concept of the guerre de course in toto, not just in relation to the use of BCs.

[Signals]

And yet, Hipper supported and embellished Hahn's proposal

Let me guess, what Philbin said?