Germany sends Blucher to Kamerun at war start

[NOMISYRRUC]

Part of Post 78.

The armoured cruisers are indeed not very well suited for commerce raiding. But I thought as a kind of ''fleet in being'' kind of thing. "" the heavy guns'' behind the light cruisers as a kind of protection.

If the armoured cruisers are to be used a guard ships to protect the harbours then it would be better to use some of the older battleships. The KM still had all 8 Siegfried class coast defence ships and 2 Brandenburg class pre-dreadnoughts in 1914. IOTL they defended Germany's coasts in the early days of 1914 before being relegated to second-line duties. Therefore, sending them overseas in the summer of 1914 would be no great loss in terms of ships. Although the loss of trained personnel needed for their crews (which would be killed or taken prisoner) would have been.

Also (as noted by others) these ships were in reserve in the summer of 1914 and there wouldn't be enough time to mobilise them after the POD (28th July 1917) so it would have to have been a longer term project. However, the thread has been drifting in that direction anyway.

But if it was part of a long-term project, it would have been better to strengthen the fixed defences of the ports by installing more (and more powerful) cost defence artillery (e.g. 11 & 12in guns) to ward off British pre-dreadnoughts (the Siegfried class had 9.4in guns) and providing them with enough sea mines to lay defensive minefields. Then the Second Reich has its cake and eats it because its ports overseas are better defended and it doesn't loose the crews of the old battleships.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Part of Post 75 by @YYJ.

The post does not say how many light cruisers, but I would guess a minimum of at least one per armoured cruiser, so lets say this plan calls for 5 more light cruisers to be deployed overseas. That would be in addition to the 7 light cruisers that started the war overseas IOTL= 12 light cruisers overseas. Germany started the war with 37 light cruisers, 2 of which were very obsolete (Irene class) and 12 of which were obsolescent (Geffion, Hela, and the Gazelle class). If Germany does not build more light cruisers, that means they have only 11 modern light cruisers for fleet work. Germany already had too few light cruisers for scouting and screening the fleet, so High Seas Fleet action in the North Sea would be imperilled, and have to rely on submarines and zeppelins to locate the Royal Navy. Both submarines and zeppelins sound good as scouts on paper, but performed poorly historically.

Part of Post 78 by @Parma which was his reply to the above.

Interesting.
I did not know how many light cruisers the Germans had in 1914, but you explained it very well.
The armoured cruisers are indeed not very well suited for commerce raiding. But I thought as a kind of ''fleet in being'' kind of thing. "the heavy guns'' behind the light cruisers as a kind of protection.

FWIW every German Navy Law from 1900 included 10 light cruisers for the Foreign Service Fleet (out of a total of 38 or 40) which AFAIK includes ships refitting in Germany and if correct explains why there were 7 cruisers overseas instead of 10.

However, the draft of the 1900 Law included 45 light cruisers (15 in the Foreign Service Fleet) to be built at a rate of 3 per year because the service life of a light cruiser was to have been 15 years. The law as passed only had 38 light cruisers (increased to 40 in the 1912 Law) with (as already related) only 10 in the Foreign Service Fleet to be built at the rate of 2 per year because the service life of a light cruiser was increased to 20 years.

I've proposed a force of 45 light cruisers in @mack8's build a better Kaiserliche Marine thread. The 5 extra light cruisers in the Foreign Service Fleet would have allowed 5 extra light cruisers overseas if the refits were timed correctly. Plus IIRC one of the light cruisers overseas had just been relieved and she remained on station in stead of returning to Germany.

Voilà! Germany has 12 light cruisers overseas ITTL instead of 7 ITOL.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Two paragraphs from Post 120 dated 12.02.22 from the thread "von Spee’s cruisers based out of Namibia (German South West Africa)".

Moltke was flagship of the scouting ships from the summer of 1912 until May 1914 when she was relieved by Seydlitz. According to Dodson consideration was then given to replacing Scharnhorst as flagship of the East Asiatic Squadron with Moltke but it was instead decided that she should relieve Goeben which was in need of a refit. However, the swap was suspended after the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in June and the Mediterranean Division proceeded to Pola for repairs which according to Dodson included replacing 4,460 of Goeben's boiler tubes.

Based on the above it's plausible to have Moltke on passage to relieve Scharnhorst at Tsingtao at the time war breaks out or have Scharnhorst returning home after being relieved by Moltke.

ITTL swap Moltke with Blücher.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

However, the draft of the 1900 Law included 45 light cruisers (15 in the Foreign Service Fleet) to be built at a rate of 3 per year because the service life of a light cruiser was to have been 15 years. The law as passed only had 38 light cruisers (increased to 40 in the 1912 Law) with (as already related) only 10 in the Foreign Service Fleet to be built at the rate of 2 per year because the service life of a light cruiser was increased to 20 years.

IOTL

• The 1898 Navy Law included 12 large cruisers, which included 3 for the Foreign Service Fleet.
• The 1900 Navy Law included 14 large cruisers, which included 3 for the Foreign Service Fleet.
• The 1906 Navy Law included 20 large cruisers, which included 8 for the Foreign Service Fleet.

The number in 1906 was originally proposed for the 1900 Law, but wasn't approved by the Reichstag. Postponing the increase made no difference in practice as the building rate in the 1900 Law as proposed was one ship a year until the target was reached and one ship a year until the target was reached in the 1900 Law as passed. So construction continued at the rate of one a year from 1907 instead of stopping at the end of 1906 and not resuming until the oldest large cruiser became overage.

Only 3 out of 8 large cruisers were actually overseas in August 1914 and I think it should have been 5 or 6 after allowing for refits. Therefore, the idea of having Blücher and/or one or two of the older armoured cruisers overseas isn't so far fetched.

Unfortunately, the information I have on the 1900 Law as proposed didn't say where the 8 cruisers were to be deployed. Although the deployment proposed in the 1898 Law was 2 in East Asia and one in Central & South America while the actual deployment in August 1914 was one in the Mediterranean and 2 in East Asia.

As the German ports in the South Atlantic have been revealed to be unsuitable for major warships the candidates seem to be Central & South America, East Asia (reinforce von Spee which has already been suggested) or the Mediterranean. FWIW my choice is the latter because ships deployed there would stand a much better chance of long-term survival (making them useful for longer) and if they join forces with the Austro-Hungarians can use their repair facilities.

 

[Catspoke]

Some of the thought behind the OP was:

IOTL in exercises in the Spring of 1914, the Germans were still expecting the British would implement a close blockade and there would be some big sea battle in the first days near the German coast. But Tirpitz asked the question during these exercises to his naval commanders "what if they don't come?", and nobody had any good answers if the British adopted a distant blockade.

So it was pretty late that the Germans got an idea of what they were facing, that there may not be a big battle, so being so close to the start of war, there would be little time for big prep and stockpiling, just an improvised plan, this is just Tirpitz worrying that the war might go by, over by Christmas, and the navy didn't do anything to prove its worth, so something is improvised. The loss of Blucher wouldn't hurt any "risk fleet" much.

Certainly, if the war was delayed until 1916, I think the Germans would have started thinking outside the box of a big North Sea battle, rangy diesel submarines were coming online, airships getting better, German colonies developing with a decent rail net.

 

[Catspoke]

Part of Post 78.

But if it was part of a long-term project, it would have been better to strengthen the fixed defences of the ports by installing more (and more powerful) cost defence artillery (e.g. 11 & 12in guns) to ward off British pre-dreadnoughts (the Siegfried class had 9.4in guns) and providing them with enough sea mines to lay defensive minefields. Then the Second Reich has its cake and eats it because its ports overseas are better defended and it doesn't loose the crews of the old battleships.

Yes even a stack of machine guns arriving in the colonies right before the war would have improved their defense dramatically, a few big guns stripped off some old battleships would of helped also at Luderitz, even Lome in Togo.

 

[YYJ]

Part of Post 78.

If the armoured cruisers are to be used a guard ships to protect the harbours then it would be better to use some of the older battleships. The KM still had all 8 Siegfried class coast defence ships and 2 Brandenburg class pre-dreadnoughts in 1914. IOTL they defended Germany's coasts in the early days of 1914 before being relegated to second-line duties. Therefore, sending them overseas in the summer of 1914 would be no great loss in terms of ships. Although the loss of trained personnel needed for their crews (which would be killed or taken prisoner) would have been.

Also (as noted by others) these ships were in reserve in the summer of 1914 and there wouldn't be enough time to mobilise them after the POD (28th July 1917) so it would have to have been a longer term project. However, the thread has been drifting in that direction anyway.

But if it was part of a long-term project, it would have been better to strengthen the fixed defences of the ports by installing more (and more powerful) cost defence artillery (e.g. 11 & 12in guns) to ward off British pre-dreadnoughts (the Siegfried class had 9.4in guns) and providing them with enough sea mines to lay defensive minefields. Then the Second Reich has its cake and eats it because its ports overseas are better defended and it doesn't loose the crews of the old battleships.

Steaming one of these old battleships each into the important colonial ports and then completely stripping them it of armament to be used as coastal guns would make for formidable coastal defences.
The Brandenbergs each carried 6 x 28cm (11"), 6 x 10.5cm (4.1"), 8 x 8.8cm, and 6 torpedo tubes.
The Sigfrieds each carried 3 x 24cm (9.4"), 10 x 8.8cm, and 4 torpedo tubes.
It might have been possible to rig the torpedo tubes to be fired from land in an estuary bottleneck, or be fitted to locally obtained light craft.

 

[YYJ]

Germany had a huge merchant fleet. I was looking for any answer of how many, and I found this, although the source for the numbers in not cited.

If Germany had 1059 merchant ships seeking shelter (not technically interned) in neutral ports, then an organized foreign clandestine network could organize coaling for German warships, for a while. There was just such an organization, called the Entappendienst that existed IOTL for this purpose. They organized colliers for Von Spee etc. from South America. If they had done more planning and been better prepared, they could have had a greater effect. Also, like Emden etc, every merchant that a commerce raider carries coal, always in its bunkers, sometimes as cargo, so if one is lucky it is possible to use captured coal. Eventually the supply of German merchants will run out as they are captured by the Royal Navy.

For anyone following up on this thread, the German clandestine supply organization was properly spelled Etappendienst. If I google the previous wrong spelling all I come up with is hits on my own earlier Alternate History posts.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Yes even a stack of machine guns arriving in the colonies right before the war would have improved their defense dramatically, a few big guns stripped off some old battleships would of helped also at Luderitz, even Lome in Togo.

Steaming one of these old battleships each into the important colonial ports and then completely stripping them it of armament to be used as coastal guns would make for formidable coastal defences.
The Brandenbergs each carried 6 x 28cm (11"), 6 x 10.5cm (4.1"), 8 x 8.8cm, and 6 torpedo tubes.
The Sigfrieds each carried 3 x 24cm (9.4"), 10 x 8.8cm, and 4 torpedo tubes.
It might have been possible to rig the torpedo tubes to be fired from land in an estuary bottleneck, or be fitted to locally obtained light craft.

I wasn't saying strip them of their armaments. I was saying anchor them in the harbours and use them as guard ships.

 

[Catspoke]

I wasn't saying strip them of their armaments. I was saying anchor them in the harbours and use them as guard ships.

I imagine a foreign station like Kamerun wouldn't be popular for the crews of such guard ships, extra death to disease, etc. Wonder if the Germans would recruit locals for crews. Or maybe is the crews come the rest follows, beer halls to serve them etc...

 

[mudhead]

British posters

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[Peg Leg Pom]

British posters

Shout at the Devil is on freeview channel Legend, tomorrow at 01.25.

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