Yuku free message boards

""""Even the most cursory look at Second World War naval history would show that to be complete nonsense"""

Well? For instance? In the Pacific there were, what? a whole two nighttime BB engagements? Guadalcanal and Leyte correct? And in the first battle of Guadalcanal the night/bad weather performance was terrible. How about the Atlantic? Im afraid the surface weapon of choice at night, most of the time, was the lowly destroyer.

I take it by your lack of rebuttle Dave that you agree with me. One of your links wouldnt load and the other? I know what BBs were in WWll and how many night battles, poor weather battles, and BB battle there were. I'd be willing to bet PBY night bombers sunk more ships at night then BBs did. But listen, I dont want to hijack this thread like we did the last one. Keep it civil and above all no pouting.

An achilles heal for the German navy was the German air force. Goering consistantly ignored their pleas for air support and Hitler wouldnt allow the Navy to have their own air arm. When Doenitz became Grand Admiral Hitler stuck his nose in every operation of the Navy, he wanted victories but didnt want his be-loved capitol ships risked. It was all a recipe for disaster and defeat.

In the U-boat war the writing was on the wall. The Germans were slow to produce new designs and refused to believe the allies had advanced radars, radio directional finders...ect They had a hard enough time getting thru the Bay of Biscay in one piece, and then found themselves faceing CVEs and fast destroyers in the open Atlantic. In Nov '41 one of their top U-boat commanders warned them that a Brit fighter attacked them with great accuracy in the pitch dark night. It was obvious they had developed a radar for aircraft which operated at a frequency they couldnt detect. A WWll sub that loses the night is a weapon that loses its ability to fight.

"If" the German navy would have heeded this warning, instead of waiting an additional year, and kicked started the Elektro-boat program they would have had the elektros in 1943. In time to incur Euro invasion shipping. The Elekros would have been effective but would they have been capable of winning he war? I doubt it.

The German BBs, pBBs, Cruisers gave them very little return for the money. Like BBs thruout the war the German ships achieved very little.

Even if they "anticipated" the war they were going to have to fight I dont know what they could have done different. Their battle fleet of WWl was on the bottom of the sea, they only had a limited ship building capacity, and only had limited time to build them. While I question the reasons for building them the Germans, in fact, came up with some brilliant designs for BBs and their armored cruisers. Ive always admired the pocket BBs . If the Kriegsmarine would have had its own air arm things would have gone better for them.

But anyone should have been able to see the window to win the war was very short, and in that "window" the submarine was the weapon to bring Britain to her knees.

"""""""I have always thought them over-rated myself. What exactly did they achieve? """"""""

More then the BBs did. The concept of a small heavily armored commerce raider was a more useful one then attempting to outgun the Royal Navy with Heavy BBs. First off the Germans couldnt make enough of them, didnt have the air power to protect them, and they would never seriously threaten the heavy units of TRN with them. The two they eventually made never really accomplished anything, other then Bismark and even she never interdicted commerce.

The only goal the German Navy should have had, other then coastal defense and the Norway campaign, was sinking supply ships to England, and later Russia. Trying to match TRN gun for gun was never going to happen, besides air power made traditional BBs roles outdated. The 3 original PBBs were launched in the early '30s and used many revolutionary building techniques includeing the first welded hulls. The Germans got much better bang for their buck with their armored cruisers then they did their BBs. But even with them they didnt use as effectively as they could have.

The concept behind these ships, BTW also built by all major navies, was going to outlast that of the major Battlewagon. You see it today in the Ticonderoga class American cruiser.