The Germans cannot blockade France even if they defeat the Grand Fleet as outlined in the August 1914 event. The problem is that it is too far from the German fleet's bases in Germany to the patrol areas astride France's sea lines of communication.
Kriegsmarine: what if Germany managed to surpass the British Navy?
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The Germans cannot blockade France even if they defeat the Grand Fleet as outlined in the August 1914 event. The problem is that it is too far from the German fleet's bases in Germany to the patrol areas astride France's sea lines of communication.
As folks have pointed out the sheer building capacity of the UK vs Germany, with the UK having far more slips and yards than the Germans have is also a huge advantage. And as folks also pointed out the UK at the time had literal laws that said if they were being threatened militarily at sea, then the purse is opened and its a case of "Go nuts."
As an example of this, in the early 1900's the Russians were developing the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peresvet-class_battleship class of 'fast' battleships.
The Naval attache for the UK managed to get some information about this class off dock workers and spies and the like as well as Russian information or propaganda about the class.
And from the sounds of it ,these were super-ships, that would be far faster than any battleship afloat, able to run down any armoured cruiser and crush them and wreak carnage on the UK's vital merchant fleet. Basically, imagine the Gulf War 'Iraq has Chemical weapons' panic and translate that into warships as the attache took these reports, added his own spin on it and passed it onto the UK.
In the Admiralty, pants were shat, tits went up and a whole manner of things went sideways before the Admiralty yelled at the Government about this clear and present danager predicting doom and disaster and the need for a counter.
The result was SIX of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan-class_battleship whereas the Russians built 3 of the Peresvet class and they were nowhere near as good as the reports indicated and the Duncans were a considerable overmatch being faster, better armed and protected.
It took the Russians between 3 - 5 years to build those three ships.
The UK spooted out the Duncans within 3 years with one taking 4, and this was without interrupting other construction projects for battleships, cruisers etc.
The UK's naval industrial muscle of the Victorian or pre-dreadnought era is terrifying, and if you challenge them the UK is legally obligated to out build you. And the French will also start building up to try and counter this German threat too. Or they just build up their army and threaten you on land which you're now largely ignoring in order to try (and fail) to outbuild the RN, MN and Russian Fleet combined.
As an example of this, in the early 1900's the Russians were developing the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peresvet-class_battleship class of 'fast' battleships.
The Naval attache for the UK managed to get some information about this class off dock workers and spies and the like as well as Russian information or propaganda about the class.
And from the sounds of it ,these were super-ships, that would be far faster than any battleship afloat, able to run down any armoured cruiser and crush them and wreak carnage on the UK's vital merchant fleet. Basically, imagine the Gulf War 'Iraq has Chemical weapons' panic and translate that into warships as the attache took these reports, added his own spin on it and passed it onto the UK.
In the Admiralty, pants were shat, tits went up and a whole manner of things went sideways before the Admiralty yelled at the Government about this clear and present danager predicting doom and disaster and the need for a counter.
The result was SIX of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan-class_battleship whereas the Russians built 3 of the Peresvet class and they were nowhere near as good as the reports indicated and the Duncans were a considerable overmatch being faster, better armed and protected.
It took the Russians between 3 - 5 years to build those three ships.
The UK spooted out the Duncans within 3 years with one taking 4, and this was without interrupting other construction projects for battleships, cruisers etc.
The UK's naval industrial muscle of the Victorian or pre-dreadnought era is terrifying, and if you challenge them the UK is legally obligated to out build you. And the French will also start building up to try and counter this German threat too. Or they just build up their army and threaten you on land which you're now largely ignoring in order to try (and fail) to outbuild the RN, MN and Russian Fleet combined.
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Not to mention potentially get economic and political support from the US, who may not do much against a German Europe, but don't want a German worldwide hegemony.
French special ops teams infiltrate the German equivalent of the Admiralty and other arms of government in the late 1880s, creating a mindset of 'must beat the British at sea'. The successful long term infiltration strategy is aided by a few well-placed bribes to key ministers are their aides. Thirty years later, the French army marches on Kiel as the culmination of their strategem to make France the foremost naval and land power in Europe.
If only, future historians will say, the combined Danish and Swedish force hadn't launched their daring raid on Kiel while the French were progressing triumphantly through central Germany in a leisurely parade-like manner.....
Another Obstler [1] Herr Admiral?
How about this one, sir? Bleischnapps from Alsace - it's known for its sweetness - think of it as drinking your enemy's tears to double your enjoyment.
Ah, the ministers have arrived,. Fortunately I have a few bottles of the Bleischnapps tucked away for important visitors, so you can introduce them to your new favourite drink.
[1] Obstler is a fruit schnapps, which is all to easy to have too much of after a few Kellerbrauen. A more subtle name (than lead schnapps) might be prudent, but my German's getting a bit rusty.
Actually sounds more plausible than most scenarios which rely on opponents drinking lead paint.
One thing on a generally constructive note I would like to suggest: It's not just that this scenario as presented is a German/Central Powers win. It's that it's a complete sweep.
Germany narrowly managing just enough of an advantage to eek out a victory at sea isn't by any means easy, but it's a lot less challenging to suspension of disbelief that the Germans "eek out what technically counts as a win, at a horrific price" than "everything, absolutely everything, goes better than OTL and how."
Germany narrowly managing just enough of an advantage to eek out a victory at sea isn't by any means easy, but it's a lot less challenging to suspension of disbelief that the Germans "eek out what technically counts as a win, at a horrific price" than "everything, absolutely everything, goes better than OTL and how."
Another example of the UK of the time's paranoia about its naval supremacy and any percived threat is the Russian Cruiser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_cruiser_Rurik_(1892) that was designed for commerce raiding, but the RN heard about her, guessed her role, got some details wrong or hyped them up and then said they needed a counter
This resulted in the 2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powerful-class_cruiser ships being built in 3 and 4 years respectively, the Russians took 5 years to build their one ship and the two RN ships were a serious overmatch for her.
Basically unless you have the UK collapse, forget its own naval laws or suddenly get hit by massive meteors or some such disaster, there's nothing that's going to stop the UK from finding out about the German building plan, figure out its aimed at them and go "LET US DANCE!" and then start farting out cruisers and battleships like there's no tomorrow because the Treasury of the planets sole hyper power will be open to give the RN what it wants.
This resulted in the 2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powerful-class_cruiser ships being built in 3 and 4 years respectively, the Russians took 5 years to build their one ship and the two RN ships were a serious overmatch for her.
Basically unless you have the UK collapse, forget its own naval laws or suddenly get hit by massive meteors or some such disaster, there's nothing that's going to stop the UK from finding out about the German building plan, figure out its aimed at them and go "LET US DANCE!" and then start farting out cruisers and battleships like there's no tomorrow because the Treasury of the planets sole hyper power will be open to give the RN what it wants.
More a case of it being hard to be able to parse how sensitive the UK/RN of the late 1880s onwards to WW1 was to any naval challenge.
Even if you start in the 1890's, the RN is already producing the 9 Majestics, to go with the 8 Royal Soverign class ships already in service, along with 1 Collingwood, 2 Trafalgars, 2 Centurions, 1 Renown and 1 Victoria class ships already in service. And the RN built the Majestics within 3 years of being laid down.
That's 24 Battleships off the bat by 1897, and this is whilst the UK was still happily making cruisers and the like for export to South America. And this is whilst the RN had 82 Protected Cruisers of various sizes in service at around the same time or building/fitting out. This just illustraits the building capacity of the UK because if challenged, really truly challenged, those exports would stop, those yards would start making ships for the RN.
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Not going to wash I am afraid
The word paranoid was invented to describe the constant state of the British admiralty
During the period you describe Britain maintained a real monopoly on world trade including coal supplies that took 2 world wars to break
As a result it had a navy vastly superior to any other
As Germany expanded its high seas fleet in an attempt to match the Royal Navy the British responded in an arms race that only it could win and out built the Germans in all respects except submarines.
In all other respects the RN was the superior force both in terms of manpower, experience training and technology and tended with a very few exception to kick Germany around the North Sea as well as elsewhere and maintain the distant blockade throughout WW1 that was partially responsible for teh final victory by the Entente
Its intelligence gathering, interpretation and disseminating processes were a league ahead of Germanys.
The reason the RN based itself in Scapa Flow was due to the real fear of a surprise attack on Portland (peacetime base of the Home Fleet) and on the eve of war a certain Winston Churchill then 1st Lord of the Admiralty ordered it to sortie and rebase to Scapa flow - as it was out of range of many of the smaller shorter ranged Torpedo boats (light destroyers) and the chances of being surprise attacked at that anchorage was almost non existent given that it would take the heavy units some time to cover the 800 odd NMs and almost certainly detected and engaged if it had tried.
And any ship badly damaged is unlikely to make it home.
It would take an extraordinarily tall and improbable 'if tree' for you to present an ALT History scenario where the above is not the case.
So the how they did it is deemed very important on this forum.
One of the things also is how the UK had to be better than everyone. Look at the Satsuma class the Japanese were building, if they didn't have a problem building the 12" guns she would have been the first all big gun BB in the world. The other was the South Carolina/Michigan class BB's of the US, if congress hadn't made the process slow they might have been the 1st all big gun ships also. If either event happened they would have started making Dreadnaught class ships like the US made Essex class CV's in WW 2.
...and yet it was a private company in the UK who could build
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Lets not forget that it was a Liberal Government that won the Dreadnought race. Imagine what an imperiled empire under the Tories would do?
By 1907 the Royal Navy had built 9 units of the Majestic class, 6 of the Canopus class, 3 of the Formidable class, 5 of the London class, 6 of the Duncan class, 8 of the King Edward VII class, 2 of the Lord Nelson class and the Dreadnought.
That's 40 battleships all armed with 12-inch guns.
By comparison the Germans had just 5 ships of the Braunschweig class and 5 of the Deutschland class with 11-inch guns.
I haven't counted the 5 Wittelsbach class as they only 9.45 inch guns as their main armament.
Even if you do include the Wittelsbachs, Germany needs another 25 battleships just to MATCH the Royal Navy.
You can't just pretend Germany built more ships than the British and be taken seriously.
You must be able to explain how.
That's 40 battleships all armed with 12-inch guns.
By comparison the Germans had just 5 ships of the Braunschweig class and 5 of the Deutschland class with 11-inch guns.
I haven't counted the 5 Wittelsbach class as they only 9.45 inch guns as their main armament.
Even if you do include the Wittelsbachs, Germany needs another 25 battleships just to MATCH the Royal Navy.
You can't just pretend Germany built more ships than the British and be taken seriously.
You must be able to explain how.
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David Flin
Gone Fishin'
Let's arm wave a little bit, and say that by magic, Germany isn't limited in how many ships it can build and that it can churn out as many as battleships as it likes as quickly as it likes. Just a bit of magic to simplify things.
The rough (very, very rough) equivalence I have seen used is that one capital ship uses about the same resources as a division for the army.
Let's make the assumption that battleships and divisions are interchangeable, and that one can switch from one to the other without difficulty.
At the start of WWI, Britain had 41 more capital ships than Germany, with more on the slipways. Let's round that to a difference of 40, and then add 50% to take account of the British construction.
That's 60 extra capital ships to find from somewhere.
OK. One capital ship = one division.
That means to match (not exceed, just match) Britain, Germany needs an extra 60 capital ships, which means 60 fewer Divisions.
Germany, at the start of WWI, had 98 Divisions. Reducing that by 60 (one division = one capital ship) leaves Germany with 38 Divisions. Let us also rashly assume that Austria-Hungary can handle Russia and Serbia all by itself (48 divisions against 113 divisions. Good luck with that).
That means that Germany's 38 divisions have to overwhelm the 85 divisions of France, Belgium, and Britain.
Good luck with that.
The only way the Kriegsmarine could surpass the Royal Navy is by accident. From both sides. Neither the Kriegsmarine nor the Royal Marine can realize what is going on.
I think the only feasible way is a mutual misunderstanding. The Royal Navy could deploy a working wireless telegraph first. The Kriegsmarine copies but accidentally lucks her way into Radar so seamlessly that the Kriegsmarine doesn't realize what they call a wireless telegraph and what the Royal navy describes as wireless telegraph are two very different beast. As far the Kriegsmarine is concerned when the Royal Navy is talking about the telegraphs they obviously would omit the bits that make clear it acts like RADAR for reasons of secrecy and Royal Navy for their part think the germans a bit strange for talking about fitting individual turrets with their own telegraphs and oddly happy how easy observers can communicate the fall of shells using the telegraphs on their ships.
A battle of Jutland like encounter where the Kriegsmarine side has working Radar is probably as close as you can get to realistically allow for a decisive defeat of enough of the Royal Navvy to get a knockout blow.
I think the only feasible way is a mutual misunderstanding. The Royal Navy could deploy a working wireless telegraph first. The Kriegsmarine copies but accidentally lucks her way into Radar so seamlessly that the Kriegsmarine doesn't realize what they call a wireless telegraph and what the Royal navy describes as wireless telegraph are two very different beast. As far the Kriegsmarine is concerned when the Royal Navy is talking about the telegraphs they obviously would omit the bits that make clear it acts like RADAR for reasons of secrecy and Royal Navy for their part think the germans a bit strange for talking about fitting individual turrets with their own telegraphs and oddly happy how easy observers can communicate the fall of shells using the telegraphs on their ships.
A battle of Jutland like encounter where the Kriegsmarine side has working Radar is probably as close as you can get to realistically allow for a decisive defeat of enough of the Royal Navvy to get a knockout blow.
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