How far could the captured French Navy makes a difference?

[Mauser]

How far could the captured French Navy makes a difference assuming the majority of them were able to be captured by the Germans? Most of the French battleships are old but the Kriegsmarine might make a good use out of them as raiders? Deterrent to divert British resources?

+As a complement let us also consider the possibility of having Dunkirk operation prevented by the German advance.

 

[sharlin]

The only ships the Germans could use as raiders would be the cruisers and the Dunkerque and Strassbourg, the old dreadnoughts had not been heavily refitted or modernised and were obsolete. The germans would have to man them somehow and then spend time and effort getting things made to either make them take german parts or get the factories making them again. And then you've got to re-lable EVERYTHING, all the dials, signs, notices, warning notices..the lot will be in French.

 

[Garrison]

How far could the captured French Navy makes a difference assuming the majority of them were able to be captured by the Germans? Most of the French battleships are old but the Kriegsmarine might make a good use out of them as raiders? Deterrent to divert British resources?

+As a complement let us also consider the possibility of having Dunkirk operation prevented by the German advance.

Honestly I think if you eliminate Dunkirk then the British aren't likely to be worrying about a few French ships. Even with the evacuation there were members of the British cabinet who felt a negotiated peace was the best option. They would have been massively strengthened without the evacuation so its possible that Britain makes a deal with Hitler.

 

[Mauser]

Honestly I think if you eliminate Dunkirk then the British aren't likely to be worrying about a few French ships. Even with the evacuation there were members of the British cabinet who felt a negotiated peace was the best option. They would have been massively strengthened without the evacuation so its possible that Britain makes a deal with Hitler.

It seems to me that you're suggesting that the evacuation in Dunkirk is the decisive turning point here.

 

[Cook]

Most of the French battleships are old...

They weren’t actually, most were newer than their British counterparts and some were the newest in the world and included the latest innovations in maritime engineering. The Dunkerque had been launched in 1935, sported 8 x 330mm guns and 225mm of side armour. Its sister ship, the Strasbourg, had been launched a year later than Dunkerque. By comparison HMS Hood, which attacked the Dunkerque at Mers el-Kebir, had been launched in 1918.

It seems to me that you're suggesting that the evacuation in Dunkirk is the decisive turning point here.

That is the generally accepted view amongst military historians.

 

[Mauser]

They weren’t actually, most were newer than their British counterparts and some were the newest in the world and included the latest innovations in maritime engineering. The Dunkerque had been launched in 1935, sported 8 x 330mm guns and 225mm of side armour. Its sister ship, the Strasbourg, had been launched a year later than Dunkerque. By comparison HMS Hood, which attacked the Dunkerque at Mers el-Kebir, had been launched in 1918.

That is the generally accepted view amongst military historians.

Is it possible for the German to launch a special mission to seize these battleships or at least captured them with the whole crew? And again, what impact could these battleships create if captured?

 

[Garrison]

It seems to me that you're suggesting that the evacuation in Dunkirk is the decisive turning point here.

Potentially one decisive turning point. I suspect the British decision would hinge on whether Churchill could survive the capture of those 250,000 troops. If he goes then Britain probably makes a deal. If he stays Britain probably fights on but the Germans might be more tempted to actually launch Operation Sealion, and that's still going to be a disaster(see the glossary of Sealion threads for more on that because it doesn't bear discussing again).

 

[Cook]

Is it possible for the German to launch a special mission to seize these battleships or at least captured them with the whole crew? And again, what impact could these battleships create if captured?

It is possible, given some of the other raids they successfully carried out. But they were counting on not needing to do so. They were confident, at least initially, that Laval and Darlan would either hand them over or operate them under German guidance, and they were largely right; following Mers el-Kebir an undeclared state of war existed between Vichy France and the British Empire that continued until Vichy's collapse. In September 1940, the British were defeated at Dakar by a French squadron that included the battleship Richelieu, which had only been launched in 1939.

 

[Shaby]

There still remains the small matter of extricating said ships from Med, where they'd essentialy be trapped. By the time Germans got them into action, they'd be useless. Med might be the worst possible place to use those ships.

 

[MUC]

The main question is if capturing the French Navy intact and putting it to good use, could make Hitler rethink Raeder's idea of a "Med. strategy", while postponing Barbarossa.
Coordinated attacks with the Italian Navy, dedicated support by the Luftwaffe and a better equipped/supplied Afrika Korps may allow the Germans to reach the Middle East in 1942, after shutting down Malta, Gibraltar (with Franco's support?), etc.

 

[HMS Warspite]

The French ships were all designed for the mediteranean Sea and therefore short ranged, so hardly suitable for oceanic deployement. If the Germans had been able to obtain this fleet, it would strategically be not important enough to influence the Batlte of the Atlantic conflict, which was a long range war on commerce and supplies. In the Med. however, the French fleet in german hands could theoretically have shifted the ballance temporarily into the Axis Powers hands, until the full flow of new building in the USA would come online at least.

Technically the German Navy simply lacked the numbers of crew and trained personell in general, to crew and maintain the newly aquired ships, as the Navy was already starved in personell, being third in priority after the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe. The few human resources available were almost exclusively used to the U-Boote, as this was the true power of the limmited German Navy in this war.

 

[Grimm Reaper]

Most of the French capital ships are in British ports or Alexandria so the Germans are not able to get at them.

As for Dunkirk being prevented, by the time the 'formal' evacuation was launched @40,000 men had already been withdrawn...

 

[Julian]

Though then again, most of the troops rescued at Dunkirk weren't sent to the Mid East as they were refitting from the equipment that was lost at Dunkirk, so a loss there doesn't really effect that front. Overall Dunkirk is an important morale victory, but militarily it only gave the British several hundred thousand men lacking any equipment.

 

[TyranicusMaximus]

Though then again, most of the troops rescued at Dunkirk weren't sent to the Mid East as they were refitting from the equipment that was lost at Dunkirk, so a loss there doesn't really effect that front. Overall Dunkirk is an important morale victory, but militarily it only gave the British several hundred thousand men lacking any equipment.

Hell, I'm not sure they even learned anything from the Battle of France.

 

[Anaxagoras]

If the Germans had gained control of the French fleet, where would they get the crewmen to operate them? It takes a lot of time and resources to train tens of thousands of men to become efficient sailors.

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

If the Germans had gained control of the French fleet, where would they get the crewmen to operate them? It takes a lot of time and resources to train tens of thousands of men to become efficient sailors.

It's quite a strech but I suppose they could conscript veterns of the High Seas Fleet though they'd need refresher training, and younger men to do the heavy lifting. Whether such men would be keen on facing the Royal navy again is a different question. Last time they were expected to do that they mutinied.

 

[BlondieBC]

Assuming the Germans can use them, they will have a large impact in the Med, and a big butterfly in the Pacific War. In the med, when combined with the Italian Navy, they give the Italians a chance to win some of the sea battle near Crete or battles that did not occur in OTL. The British will likely move more ships to the theater stripping the Pacific of even more ships/men than OTL. It could have some interesting butterflies with the diplomatic actions leading up to Pearl Harbor. Churchill made a statement about an alliance with Satan if he fought Hitler, and there was some merit to allow Japan some concessions in the Pacific to buy time to defeat Hitler.

A lot will just depend on how the ships are used. It could range anywhere from almost no impact to a major change in the war, and a lot of the impact is outside of the Nazi control.

 

[BlondieBC]

It's quite a strech but I suppose they could conscript veterns of the High Seas Fleet though they'd need refresher training, and younger men to do the heavy lifting. Whether such men would be keen on facing the Royal navy again is a different question. Last time they were expected to do that they mutinied.

Your plan does not seem like a stretch. I well trained, 25 year old petty officer is in his upper 40's in the war. Assume they are 20-25% of the crew. Now train up the rest.

But the real solution is so obvious people are ignoring it. Italians. They had BB in drydock being built. Ships with trained crews. They do exactly what the USA was doing in San Diego. Add new recruits to the old ships, strip off experience crew to combine with new recruits for the new ships.

Also, the Nazi could look for some French sailors. After all, the Gestapo can find their families, so with the right pay scale (much higher than the French navy), they probably can get 10% of the French crews to sign up, if they chose this problems.

 

[Mauser]

This starts to look feasible for further discussion.

Reading from the previous posts I think we can safely say that the issue on crew fulfillment is solved. The Germans could complement the ship by using the method described by BlondieBC. I also wonder at the same time if some of the lesser important ships could be given to the Italians for their use. After all the Italians had a working navy and probably higher amount of experienced crew for capital ship operations than their German counterpart.

For the use of the captured ships I could see Kriegsmarine assigning them to the Mediterranean together with the Italian feet in a comprehensive operation to hamper or disrupt Allied operations there. I'm not sure with the details but from the suggestion of others the 'new fleet' could be used as an important element in Mediterranean strategy.

Coordinated attacks with the Italian Navy, dedicated support by the Luftwaffe and a better equipped/supplied Afrika Korps may allow the Germans to reach the Middle East in 1942, after shutting down Malta, Gibraltar (with Franco's support?), etc.

In addition to that is there any way to 'extract' more active assistance from the Vichy French, considering they had various assets in Africa?

 

[DaleCoz]

The problem with this is oil. Battleships take a lot of it, and the European Axis couldn't fuel the ships they had after Barbarossa. You might see an impact in 1940-41, but then the big ships would spend most of their time sitting, just like most of the Italian and German battleships did.