Z-Plan Discussion

[JerseyJohn]

FUEL

One thing nobody's mentioned concerning Germany's Z-Plan fleet, and something I forgot about myself, is fuel! How would Germany have filled those greedy behemoths without conquering the USSR?

In the late Spring of 1941, when it was realized that Scharnhorst and Gneisnau wouldn't be able to take part in Exercise Rhine, a suggestion was made to postpone the operation till Fall, when Bismarck and Tirpitz would have been able to break into the Atlantic together.

Raeder considered the option. It would have been much better weather for an Atlantic run, especially along the Norwegian coast -- more clouds and a chance of storms, making it unlikely that the ships would be spotted from the air. But he decided to go with Bismarck and a heavy cruiser (Prinz Eugen) instead because, knowing Barbarossa was soon to be launched, he feared the navy's oil allotment would be cut back, negating such a large scale operation. Also, he may have felt that if Bismarck's solo operations were devastating enough that the surface fleet would be given a higher priority.

So, in reality, the operation of just two super large BBs would have been a strain on the German fuel supply. We can imagine what it would have been for the four even larger H-Class ships.

Again, the conclusion is that even while promising a large navy, Hitler's thoughts would have been on conquering the USSR, and ultimately freeing up the resources needed to support his Blue Ocean Navy.

[Lars]

Ships burn fuel, but they don't burn that much. German fleet would be doing sorties, not extended patrolling. Wouldn't worry about it.

41-42 seems a reasonable time to kick it off. Actually, I wouldn't give anyone a tech edge, you might really unbalance things. As you point out, all the pre-war work was ignored till it was really needed. As usual.

[SeaMonkey]

I'm buying Part 2 conclusions, you've got the reins JJ.

For the fuel dilemma, USSR was trading with Germany, that would have continued until USSR entry because of Stalin's appeasement policy.

Now for anyone believing that Germany was eventually going to be able to rival UK for sea dominance, banish the thought.

What we're looking for is respectability. Why? What does seapower provide?

Perhaps an avenue of commerce throughout the world's waterways? Let's imagine that the infantile Kriegsmarine accomplished a trade pattern.

What would they be trading? What would you go after if you had future war designs? Would you have the presence of mind to stockpile a few critically important resources?

One of the big questions in my mind is what would Germany have sacrificed for the Z-Plan in reference to its air and ground forces?

[Lars]

Nitrates from Chile. Used for making gunpowder, or fertilizers, among other things.

Germany was one of the last nations still running square-riggers around the Horn. Beautiful ships, it's a shame the war killed them off.

[Lars]

Oh, and damn you SeaMonkey. You just cost me $25.

Jogged my memory and I had to run over and order "The Way Of A Ship" by Allen Villiers.

Just got off the four-masted schooner Argus, or as she's known these days, Polynesia.

[SeaMonkey]

A small price to pay for that nautical background, I'd say Lars. See what happens when your out on that ocean day end, day out....soothing, relaxing, mind-numbing, except when your a deckhand. Now that your a land-lubber again, monetary reality strikes, can't depend on the sea for your sustenance.

4 masts eh? All I know is jib, fore, main, mizzen, and jib doesn't count as a mast. Any chance of flying on the spinnaker(did she even have one)? What were her dimensions?

[Lars]

248'

You were close. Forgot spanker (or jigger). No spinnaker.

She's a 1938 Portuguese Greenland codfisher. Read "Quest of the Argus" by Villiers.

Haven't got my pics back yet, but this guy's look amazingly just the same. When you've been there, you've been there.

http://www.fortogden.com/poly001.5.html

[xwormwood]

Originally posted by Lars:

Germany was one of the last nations still running square-riggers around the Horn. Beautiful ships, it's a shame the war killed them off.

The Padua (=Kruzenshtern) is

Pamir video footage from 1957

[ March 01, 2007, 04:07 PM: Message edited by: xwormwood ]

[Lars]

Cool! Thanks for the links wormwood!

[Iron Ranger]

Wow, alot of posts here.

A few problems with the Z-plan overall.

Oil; germany just didnt have it to fuel these BB pigs. Getting fuel to these huge fuel eating machines was not possiable unless they could buy oil from someone (russia?)

Lost time; across the board germany was behind the western allies in tech. The lost tech/development due to the basicly stagnit naval program of the 20s would have ment while thier ships were big and scary, they had holes in the design (see the Bismarks tiller problems).

[Lars]

Look, while it appears a BB burns a staggering sum of fuel when you first look at it, it's really not that much.

Bismarck - 844,800 gal.

Panzer IV - 470 gal

So to run one voyage on a BB you could run 1,800 tanks. Sounds bad, right? But, this is the key. You're not going to run that BB each and every day while those tanks will be burning each and every day. Not to mention all the other supporting vehicles in an army.

We're not even talking in the same league when it comes to fuel consumption. There's a reason most of the world's trade is shipped. It's the most fuel efficient. Unless things get really dire (like they did for Japan) you can cross fuel worries off the list.

[JerseyJohn]

SeaMonkey, Lars, Iron Ranger

A lot of interesting things to consider. I partially agree with Lars point of view on ships and fuel, except the dire straights partdefinitely comes into play for Germany, just as it did for Japan. I believe, on average, Germany fought the war with less than the per capita amount of oil used in pre-war Britain; all things considered that should make it's usage kind of tight.

Lars makes a good point in comparing Bismarck's fuel consumption to panzer units, but we're talking about two Bismarcks here, and four even larger H-Class vessels in addition to a greatly expanded surface fleet. If they don't put to sea fairly often, actively threatening the UK jugular, there's little point in having built them.

SeaMonkey has a good point about the Russo-German trade and German tanks being filled with Soviet oil. But I don't think that would have been viewed as a reliable source and, if Stalin felt he had Germany at his mercy you could be sure he'd have used it to put Hitler in a strangle hold. I'm sure that's the way Hitler saw things, so we're back to Germany figuring it has to seize the Russian oil in order to survive.

The Reich's own oil resources would, of course, be some oil in Hungary and the rich fields of Rumainia, backed up by the artificially processed oil of Southern Germany.

Historically, Germany depended on the oil windfall it received with the fall of France, just as in North Africa Rommel relied heavily on what he was able to capture from the British.

I can imagine Hitler thinking it would be enough for Germany to have six to eight large BBs in the Baltic or North Sea to tie the Royal Navy up in watching them, releiving much of the pressure from smaller commerce raiders operating in the Atlantic -- I think that was called the Fleet in Being strategy, but I'm not certain. And not taking the Royal Navy head on till after the conquest of the USSR, with all of European Russia's resources placed at Germany's dispossal.

There's also reference, to varrying degrees according to the historian, as to Hitler's ultimate take on competition with the United States and expansion into South America, but I'm not sure what he was thinking on that plain and I doubt he had a real plan in mind as he forced the Central European issues during the late 30s.

-- At this point, regarding the scenarios, I think two would sum things up nicely.

1941 Z -- German army is larger, as is the Air Force. Germany and UK have more advanced techs than they do in standard Fall Weiss -- Lars I understand your play balance observation, but I'm thinking in terms of reflecting what the actual tech levels might have been and will try to balance it out in other ways -- France will have extended Maginot Line with Italy having a better infrastructure and industrial production with the Balbo HQ in Libya and an air fleet near Rome.

Germany will have three BBs added up front (Bismarck, Tirpitz and Hindenburg) with three more under construction (Ludendorff, Frederick and Schlieffen) along with an aircraft carrier unit representing the functional Graff Zeppelin and Peter Strasser and another cruiser unit representing the three Deutschland Class armored cruisers. A fourth U-boat would be added in the Atlantic.

UK, counters this with the KGV BBs completed, Lion in production and two additional aircraft carriers.

Among other tech advances, Germany has better subs than in 39 but UK has better sonar.

The emphasis here won't be to assume Hitler stayed with any specific committments made in 1938, but that overall preparations for a major war were made as new technologies emerged and fit into existing plans. For example, I see the Luftwaffe moving toward jets and the army reacting to the Maginot Line extension by seeking ways to break the fortresses themselves rather than trying to move around them -- rockes L=3 representing very heavy artillery as well as functional rockets carrying block buster bombloads.

1942 Z -- Identical to 1941 but with the emphasis placed on German capital ships, both on the board and in the hopper. The Maginot Line will be extended even farther west. Other adjustments to be determined after finishing the 41 scenario. This one will be The Raeder Fantasy traditionally associated with the Z-Plan.

Lars and xwormwood, great links and info. A sort of bonus added to the rest of what we're discussing. I really enjoyed them and learned a few things I'd never have thought about otherwise. :cool:

[Lars]

Fleet in Being is correct. Bismarck and Tirpitz were a threat even if they never left port. UK was the ones who had to burn a heck of a lot of fuel to keep them bottled.

Bottom line, as you figured out, Germany has Romanian oil, they're golden. UK has the US oil, same same.

[Minty]

Graf spee's limit was 72 hours I believe, If you want an example of what Naval power can achieve I have one word; the name of the most important ship ever built in the 20th century with one it's most decisive and bravest of admirals aboard. To my country's shame at the time he was German and not British, Albeit a nasty son of a bitch but he did was had to do. anyway the ship and word is: Goeben. That is naval warfare. It's actions in the first week of WW1 probbaly effected those of everyone living today in europe

[JerseyJohn]

Lars, it's good that after all this time I finally figured out that Rumania was Germany's main source of oil. But, even without a large fleet and several huge battleships, the Germans always had a tight oil situation and Hitler put great influence on capturing the Russian fields, so all in all I don't believe the huge Z-fleet we were talking about earlier, along with an expanded army and air force, could have been comfortably provisioned by the Rumainian fields. Also, the huge quantity of oil captured in France, combined with the Rumanian and Hungarian feeds, is usually cited as having made the difference for Germany.

But, in this case, trying to determine required quantities and adequacy of sources isn't really necessary. SeaMonkey and yourself have convinced me that the naval fuel issue wasn't as large as I'd originally thought.

I agree that we can go on the premise Germany would have found a way to fuel the additional capital ships at least enough to get them raiding and dangerous.

Idea so far is to make the 1941 Z scenario in line with what most of think Hitler would actually have done if given an additional two years of peace -- and what UK countermeasures might have been. And the 1942 scenario will go as closely as possible to what we see now as Hitler's (mainly) Naval Z Plan.

Minty, the Goeben certainly did have extremely far reaching effects on modern history, and Churchill's decision to seize without compensation two nearly completed Turkish battleships also played a hand. What gaul -- the Ottoman Empire was still neutral at the time!

Imperial Germany had another interesting cruiser episode with it's Pacific Squadron, hitting enemy ports for provisions and coal. I read about it a long time ago, probably during the 50th WWI anniversary in 1964, and don't recall much about it, but they certainly had some gutsy captains and admirals in that fleet.

[Liam]

When I heard about the British offense against the Turkish fleet while OE could've remained neutral I was extremely shocked! Really really foolish!!! Some say that the Turks extended the war a year or two by tying up Allies troops in the MidEast in WW1 and Russian ones in The Caucasus.. One really cannot say how things would've been with a better policy toward Diplomacy in that region.

As for WW1 Commerce Raiders, Germany's were World Renowned from the Indian Ocean, to the Pacific, everywhere... Legendary Battles that Germany could not win, and extremely effective hit and run tactics by a inferior Navy. One must take their hats off to German Captains of the era.

As far as Fuel consumption is concerned, I'm probably right in assuming Fleets do not use the same purified fuel that Planes, Tanks and vehicles use. Probably more dirty junk? I may be off, but this may account for the reason many tend to worry less about supplying fleets fuel?

There is another possibility too, a Battleship can take port in Friendly Harbors? In WW1 coal was an issue for German Raiders, they got it where they could! Safe to assume the range on WW2 era ships was not the same. Fuel is not always the issue, but getting it to the front line is!

Originally posted by JerseyJohn:

Lars, it's good that after all this time I finally figured out that Rumania was Germany's main source of oil. But, even without a large fleet and several huge battleships, the Germans always had a tight oil situation and Hitler put great influence on capturing the Russian fields, so all in all I don't believe the huge Z-fleet we were talking about earlier, along with an expanded army and air force, could have been comfortably provisioned by the Rumainian fields. Also, the huge quantity of oil captured in France, combined with the Rumanian and Hungarian feeds, is usually cited as having made the difference for Germany.

But, in this case, trying to determine required quantities and adequacy of sources isn't really necessary. SeaMonkey and yourself have convinced me that the naval fuel issue wasn't as large as I'd originally thought.

I agree that we can go on the premise Germany would have found a way to fuel the additional capital ships at least enough to get them raiding and dangerous.

Idea so far is to make the 1941 Z scenario in line with what most of think Hitler would actually have done if given an additional two years of peace -- and what UK countermeasures might have been. And the 1942 scenario will go as closely as possible to what we see now as Hitler's (mainly) Naval Z Plan.

Minty, the Goeben certainly did have extremely far reaching effects on modern history, and Churchill's decision to seize without compensation two nearly completed Turkish battleships also played a hand. What gaul -- the Ottoman Empire was still neutral at the time!

Imperial Germany had another interesting cruiser episode with it's Pacific Squadron, hitting enemy ports for provisions and coal. I read about it a long time ago, probably during the 50th WWI anniversary in 1964, and don't recall much about it, but they certainly had some gutsy captains and admirals in that fleet.

[SeaMonkey]

Good assumption Liam, you're right on. Most naval vessels, excepting high performance ones, use a fuel called Bunkers. It comes in various grades but is pretty much "bottom of the barrel".

Thing is many different fuels will work in a ship's boilers, even crude oil, prerequisite is it must burn and most things do if you get them hot enough.

Not to say these alternatives are desirable as they really increase the maintenance aspects and can actually ruin the engines, but in a pinch, life or death, you burn'em.

[JerseyJohn]

SeaMonkey, I read a long time ago that the Middle East oil was used almost entirely for the British Eastern Mediteranean and Indian Ocean squadrons and I wondered where they refined it. Now I see how, no doubt very low grade refining and possibly straight out of the pipes.

In the Air Force (c1969) we had two grades of fuel on the flightline, avgas and jet fuel. Avgas was colored differently from jet fuel so they could be easily distinguished from one another. A lot of lifer sergeants used to sneak avgas into their cars (couldn't beat the price) and us lesser ranks would get a kick out of all the knocking and odd emission colors as their cars clunked by. You'd think fuel going into an aircraft would need to be more refined than the stuff in car engines (especially way back almost forty years ago). Or, maybe avgas was more refined but not particularly good for car engines.

Liam, I'm not sure what the range difference was between oil burners and coal burners, but it must have been huge. One of Churchill's biggest achievements as First Lord of the Admiralty was to get approval of an all oil burning navy through new ship construction, and also to get a long term deal for the Middle East oil -- outright theft, but paying enough to satisfy the Sultans.

[SeaMonkey]

Hell JJ, I've run avgas(was it the blue dyed?) in my GN and T especially when racing, it has lead(TEL) but is very high octane, mostly a blend of Alkylate and Toluene.

Gas doesn't get much better than that. Today we have a bunch of crap(xc premium 93 R+M)(MTBE was really good and got a bad rap), but the engines are really good. Don't get me wrong, these are highly refined components, 3rd and 4th tier stuff.

Jet Fuel is nothing but kerosene initially, that's what all the commercial jets run. Military is a different story, they need a little more volatility so they get some lightends like raffinate, butane, but just a touch, mostly kero.

Now those boilers we're talking about, can run on all of it, except the gasoline type fuels, to much RVP(volatility) the boilers would explode.

Things like the first run(initial distillation of crude) kero, diesels, gasoils, atmos bottoms can all satisfy those naval vessels requirements, just got to stay away from the volatiles.

So you see, given a little ingenuity and a some knowledge about his engines, a good captain could improvise getting around.

[JerseyJohn]

SM, you've restored my faith in those old sergeants, we all thought they were ruining their cars for the sake of not paying 27 cents or so at the gas pump (remember those days? ) but I guess the only problem was the dye going through the doohickies. :cool:

I think avgas was the blue dye, but I'm not sure. The other was red, that must have been jet fuel, or was it the other way around?

I've been watching a series called Future Car, and some similar shows, and was horrified to see that cars now only utilize about 25% of the fuel, and it must have been much worse in decades past.

So, I suppose we can look forward to getting 100 miles per gallon -- country, in a year or two, after having the economical system converter installed for 7 or 8 grand. :eek:

[Liam]

My ideas for a Plan-Z a realistic one that doesn't drain German resources but utilizes them to the utmost is this...

Germany Focuses it's full power on raiding. I prefer the concept of Unlimited U-Boat warfare on the British Isles, with the aid of surface ships for only that purpose, doing away with the Heavy BBs and even using the remaining Cruisers in Support Missions only.. The amount of Research and metal in those ships could have been properly utilized with a raiding Surface Navy, U-boat Force and coordinated Long Range Germany Air over the Atlantic. Boy would the end result of been catastrophic for the British.

To me the Bismark and Tirptiz were fear ships, used to threaten the British with the idea of something they were not going to achieve, by 1941 everyone pretty much knew that. To recreate the German Surface Fleet of WW1 is the concept of this thread, one that could rival the British which was never feesible without sacrificing victories on land.

I would like to know how much damage could've been dealt to the British in '40 even with a failed Battle of Britian in the air, what the end result of completely strangling 80-90% of her imports. A blockade of an Island is doable...

BTW: SC should allow Surface fleets to blockade MPP Convoy Lanes altogether. Say 1 ship per 10 MPPs of shipment and every single remote resource should have a Convoy Lane...Historically simulating that feel and the proper use of Surface Ships and U-Boats

How much MPPs do you think the Germans lost in oil-rubber shipments? 50mpps per turn? translated into game terms

[SeaMonkey]

There are 3 grades of avgas, blue, green, and red, the red be an 80 octane and definitely would cause an automobile to ping, knock, and miss, so you may be right.

Jet A or Kerosene, even the HiPo stuff, has a green tint to it, can also be akin to yellow as the refining has some undesirable byproducts show up especially from sour(high sulfur) crudes and the severity of the fractionation temps.

Usually kerosenes or jets are not dyed.

Well at the 100 mi/gal average vs say 25 today and $2.50 a gallon you'll need to own that vehicle for 7 years to get pay back.

Better yet, by a still. If you don't drink the white lightning, you can add it to your gas.

And in any case if you drink it, you won't care anyways. :cool:

[JerseyJohn]

Ah, SeaMonkey, I knew sooner or later we'd get that still back!

Yes, I thought there were more than two colors, but it's just been so long that I can't remember the details clearly. And those sergeants weren't driving new cars, so there's no telling what might have caused those unsavory buckings and knockings, but I do remember it was noticable and also would bet that, as you say, they only had access to the lowest grade of avgas.

Mainly, I'd like to see much better fuel efficiency becuase, living in this part of the country, it would be a nice touch to not actually see the air I'm breathing.

Liam,

Sure, I agree, that would be the way to go, but we're trying to incorporate what the Germans actually had in the works and what would have been under production in 1941-42.

-- Germany was building the H-Class BBs, mainly only the 16" main guns were produced, but it shows Hitler was serious about getting them launched even during the actual war.

When Doenitz replaced Raeder he was more than happy to scrap the rest of the BB program and put the guns over to coastal defenses.

I partially agree with what you're saying about Bismarck and Tirpitz, but they also could have been used to real effect. If Operation Rhine had gone off as it was supposed to, with Scharnhorst and Gneisnau coordinating with Bismarck and Prinz Eugen, the outcome might well have been very different and Bismarck could have made it to France.

The four capital ships working together would have presented a real menace to the Atlantic convoys. At the very least the Royal Navy would have needed to pull all of it's capital ships back to home waters, leaving the Mediteranean virtually unprotected.

Even that would only have added a few more BBs to the naval order of battle, and the German ships, with only a short distance to travel in order to raid the convoy routes, and a comparatively easy return trip, would, in my opinion, have had a defastating effect on British commerce.

If Germany managed, later, to pull Tirpitz around the Atlantic, along with an addition heavy cruiser or two, the two large BBs working together would have been a nightmare for the admiraltiy to deal with. In essence they could have easily sunk any large ships capable of catching them (KGV class BBs & old battle cruisers Hood, Renown and Repulse).

Also, under the present parameters, there's no way to create surface raiders or to have capital ships directly attack convoy lanes, so there's little point, for game purposes, of designing that sort of fleet; it would have to be nothing but U-boats that we'd pretend were commerce raiding cruisers -- which isn't really an option.

[Minty]

Germany had some effective surface raiders at the start of WW1 but these were gobbled up and hunted down by 1915. One of the only ways they coud survive was by scavenging coal, something the Oil burners 25 years later would have had much more difficulty doing., albeit the oil burners woudl have more range. And in WW1 Germany still had something of an empire ( at first) where ships could run to and arraneg colliers to come out from. It didn't last long. I read that the orginal pair of Scharnhorst and Gneasaiu actually fuelled and resupplied at French islands in the Pacific, they were so isolated the locals didn't know there was a war on and were happy to sell fuel and food. When this trick stopped working they just pretended to be British ships figuring that noone local had an up to date Jane's fighting ships 1914 to hand. It worked too.

[JerseyJohn]

Originally posted by JerseyJohn:

Minty, ...

Imperial Germany had another interesting cruiser episode with it's Pacific Squadron, hitting enemy ports for provisions and coal. I read about it a long time ago, probably during the 50th WWI anniversary in 1964, and don't recall much about it, but they certainly had some gutsy captains and admirals in that fleet.

The original Scharnhorst and Gneisnau were the ships I was talking about, forgot their names, as I said, it's been a very long time since I read about that. Glad you brought it up, that was one of modern history's more interesting, and incredible, war exploits. It's more like something out of the 18th century than the 20th.

Agree completely regarding oil fueled ships, things like that in WWII would have been highly unlikely, if not completely impossible. Aside from which, no part of the earth was as out of touch with Europe and America in WWII as the Pacific islands were twenty years earlier.