What If: Germany captured enough territory to have enough materials to build capital ships.

here is a critical issue--exactly what I said:

very difficult to weld like that....''''with one hand'''/etc.......welding in an upside down position/etc
...30 lbs is not much--to a male
etc

 

..typical of a lot of replies I get on forums---the other poster proves my point
..I guess I should thank you

 

disregard

 

...you probably don't understand ...it's extremely difficult to weld upside down [ without experience ] --and this appears to be a tack weld she is doing --very, very simple...much simpler than seam welding --and she has trouble with a tack weld....she has trouble just climbing down the ladder

 

If I might also add, it was probably with a stick welder?
Which in basic form is just a battery with some wires and a welding stick...

 

Please regale me with a "story" from your "experience" of welding with one hand while dangling from a scaffold.
If you don't have one b I am sure you will make one up toot sweet.

 

...looks like a lot of women couldn't cut it as welders--according to your example
...I don't have to tell you my experience--your example tells it all...she had a hard time just going down the ladder!!!!
...appears she was a college material female,not used to ''''hard''''/''''atypical'''' work

 

Odd, that you are now quoting a source you implied as not credible, as being credible.

She has trouble tack welding with one hand, and dangling from a scaffold with the other. This does not say she had problems with tack welding.

 

..more of my experience [ hahahahah ]
....some of the engineers could tack weld/basic weld...they knew the basics--but could not seam weld very well--nowhere good enough for production standards..they knew how to turn it on, etc....
.....our welder would ''sabotage''' the welding ''machine'' when he went on vacation, because the engineers would usually screw up the settings.....and these engineers were ''smart''/college educated

 

Of course not...Because you have no experience welding one handed dangling from a scaffold.

 

Were they welding one handed dangling from a scaffold?

 

..you have come nowhere close to refuting my statements--plain and simple
..the other thing is, it would've been more wise to have the German women doing simpler jobs...in other production areas
..also, didn't the German women help in other areas, anyway? so if they are going into welding/etc, that would take away labor from the other areas?

 

they could go down ladders with 30lbs

 

Had war not intervened, the British expected to have complete by 1944:

Six Lion class battleships and the five KGVs.
Vanguard, which originated with a March 3, 1939 memo. That memo anticipated Germany having five new battleships in addition to the Scharnhorsts and Deutschlands.
Six armoured-deck aircraft carriers.
Continued construction of cruisers, destroyers, etc. One idea was a 9.2" gunned heavy cruiser.

This would be comparable to the time frame in which our hypothetical Kriegsmarine might develop.

We should also consider that many of the older ships would still be useful, particularly the modernized capital ships like Valiant or Renown. Hood would have received her reconstruction which would make her comparable to a modern ship.

Ships like the Nelsons or modernized Queen Elizabeths would be slower than new ships, but the significance of speed should not be exaggerated. It's mainly of value if one side seeks to avoid action, which is often tantamount to abandoning one's mission. There's also a particular quirk in the Anglo-German situation: German ships seeking to operate in the Atlantic have to pass by Britain coming and going. Damaged ships trying to get home would be in special danger.

Older aircraft carriers like Furious would still be valuable, a fair match for the Graf Zeppelin type in my opinion. The RN regained control of its air arm in 1939 and would likely have improved its aircraft over the next few years. Meanwhile Hermann Goring was chanting "Everything that flies belongs to me!", and proposed German carrier planes were mostly adaptations of land-based designs.

This is all without any special British response to the German naval program. If that program became truly alarming, the British would respond just as they did in the naval race leading up to WWI, increasing their own construction to match the threat.

One thought I've had, a class of sisters to Vanguard using similarly rehabilitated turrets from the Revenge class battleships. Heavy guns and mountings were major long-lead procurement items, and the twin 15" turrets were excellent, reliable weapons.

If more aircraft carriers were needed for Atlantic operations, they might be of the Ark Royal type, with greater freeboard and larger air groups than the armoured-deck carriers. The latter were conceived with a view to engaging land-based aircraft which were expected to be more numerous and of better performance, so the ships' primary defenses were armour and their heavy anti-aircraft armament.

 

Plain and simple, I have refuted all you points with period sources. You vain attempt at refutation has been to whine that those sources are not credible.

You have even quoted one of my sources that you had complained about not being credible. Thus providing ample evidence in the falsehood of your claim.

Again, absent an Eastern Front, will they even have to?

We are changing history here, so those other areas probably will not need the extra labor. In this alternate history, the German shipbuilding industry and associated industries are going to need to need a lot more labor than they did historically.

 

Wonderful, but immaterial...And does not answer my question of welding with one hand, while using the other to hang on to a scaffold.

 

A few thoughts on the German side:

Like others, I question building additional Bismarck or Scharnhorst class ships when they had newer designs ready.

There were plans to rearm the Scharnhorst class with 15" guns, but it's questionable on at least two grounds. Granted it would increase the weight of broadside to something more appropriate for ships of the size they ended up being, but eight guns were usually considered the minimum for effective gunfire control. There was only one class of six-gun capital ships in the dreadnought era, the Renowns, and that design was based on the number of turrets expected to be available in the short construction time demanded by Fisher. Fisher was also developing the obsession with gun caliber that would culminate in the Furious design with just two 18" guns, peculiar IMO since Fisher's greatest innovation had been increasing the number of main guns in the Dreadnought.

Per navweaps, the triple 11" turrets weighed 827 tons and the twin 15" 1160, an increase of 999 tons plus heavier ammunition. 2/3 of the increase would be in the forward part of the ship, which was planned to be extensively reconstructed to carry the weight and maintain trim.

There had been cases, mostly in the late 1800s, of main battery guns being replaced one-for-one with newer types (usually lighter caliber), but I am not aware of anything like the Scharnhorst rearmament - anyone? We might consider the Mogami class cruisers, but they had been intended from the start to have their 6.1" armament replaced by 8", and even so they needed extensive hull modification to accommodate it.

With the size of the German and British fleets we are discussing here, two ships having 11" or 15" guns would be a minor part of the balance. So we have a difficult project, which might not be successful, and wouldn't make much difference if it was.

 

I think that was just a lack of thought on the OP's part - he had mentioned H-Class battleships, but did not include them in the original scenario. Further, I don't think he had much knowledge of the Z-Plan concerning other warships.

Well, it is not that questionable, as fire control, before the advent of radar was always pretty poor. Nor was it 8 guns, but 4 turrets - the Germans would only fire 1 gun from each turret for their ranging salvoes - so that would be 4 guns. It always seemed to be more of a chance of increasing the number of hits in a full broadside, than acquiring the range faster.

The problem is less for the O-Class, because, with only cruiser-proof armor, they are not going to be engaging capital ships. They are meant to sink convoys & escorts of cruiser size or less. While the Twins have better armor, they would probably be used in the same role. The German battleships create the opening, and the battlecruisers break out into the Atlantic to operate against convoys.

I would not call it an obsession, so much as a escalation - The Germans now have 15-inch guns, so we need 18-inch guns to maintain the range advantage.

The Courageous, Glorious, and Furious appear to have been designed to participate in a Baltic amphibious operation. I never saw them as battlecruisers or large light cruisers - To me they were large fast monitors.


I never saw this as an innovation, let alone Fisher's greatest innovation. The Americans and Japanese, both beat Fisher to this concept. Fisher was just the first to get his into the water. The South Carolina mounted all 4 turrets on the centerline, thus equaling the broadside of Dreadnought and doing it with less guns. Alsob, the Japanese were going to have a battleship with more main guns than Dreadnought. However, the Americans were in no hurry to complete South Carolina, and the Japanese did not have the funding for so many large guns. Thus, only luck put Dreadnought in the water first before any others, but the same line of thinking is there with other navies.

As to such a significant gun & turret upgrade, not to my knowledge. However, the major pre-war reconstruction of the Italian Cavour, Cesare, Dulio, an Doria, as well as during the war, with the US California, Tenneessee, and West Virginia were far greater undertakings then what was proposed for the Twins.

The difference is not Line-of-Battle, but commerce warfare. As the Germans had decided that 15-inch was better than 11-inch for commerce warfare...Hence, stopping the construction of the Panzersciff P-Class with 11-inch guns in favor of switching to the O- Class with 15-inch guns.

 

The 9.2 never gained much traction though, and the design was going to be big, 20,000 tons+. Still, they could not get quadruple 9.2-inch gun turrets and meet design parameters, so they looked at 6x12-inch guns, then 6x10-inch guns, before returning to 8-inch & 9.2-inch guns, before deciding to pursue an 8-inch gunned design. I believed the British looked at a 9.2-inch gunned design late in the war, but am still looking into that. But, basically, the design went nowhere.

 

British OBBs will still be useful, but probably not in such a fleet action as we are looking at. Convoys will always need to be protected, especially with the O-class and the Twins roaming the Atlantic. Italy & Japan will still need to be looked after. There will be plenty of work for them to do. But, outside of some hammer & anvil tactic(which I see as unlikely, since they will be busy elsewhere) would be there only opportunity to see fleet action.

The British might go with more Ark Royals, but it is hard to say. The armoured carriers might be looked at more favorably, since there is a greater chance of surface engagement, particularly in the North Atlantic. Then again, this would also depend on the aptitude of their captains, as the Glorious captain was not air-minded, and lacked the knowledge and skill for fighting a carrier. Of course, the same would apply to the skippers of any German aircraft carriers.

I think, given slipways and whatnot, it would be a choice of Lions or Vanguards. But, the British bottlenecks seem to have been engineering plants & fire control systems. It would also depend on how the design and production of the 16-inch turrets went. Given that the KGV quad turrets were still giving fits in 1943 is telling. Also, using old turrets off of OBBs, also mean less OBBs to go around - another factor to consider.