I disagree with the premise of the article. If one reads Churchill’s History of WW2, he said that the Germans would have been better served to keep Bismark hanging around as a threat as it caused the British to retain massive forces in place just to counter the threat of a sortie. If it had ever sortied with the Tirpitz, that would have required 4 battleships to be certain of victory and those would have to be available at all times. Factoring in needed maintenance, refueling, convoy escort, etc. They could have tied down most of the heavy units of the British fleet. That’s what Mahan called a “fleet in being”.
At least until the Allies had air superiority and blasted the moored battleships to bits — like eventually happened to Tirpitz.
Would the Germans have even built Tirpitz if Bismarck had not been sunk?
I’ve always thought that Dornitz was right concerning the initial strategy of fighting England, namely that a large U-boat force would contribute to “strangling” the trade between the British Isles and everyone else.
U-boats (and minelaying) are the strategies when your navy is inferior to the surface fleet (and airpower) of the enemy.
Eventually, however, Admiral Raeder was right. In order to project power, you must have a surface fleet. While U-boats and naval-bombers could have obliterated trade between England and the rest of the world, a surface fleet would be need both to counter enemy submarine threats as well as escort amphibious forces across the channel and conduct shore bombardments. Aircraft carriers would also allow Germany to project air power to enemies across the Atlantic if necessary. At least, that was the ultimate naval dream. To achieve naval readiness, the war should have started much later. That was what naval high command wanted. Fortunately for the world, things did not work out that way.
The problem for German naval policy came from the fact that Dornitz was still a Commodore (I believe) and Raeder was much higher in rank (and thus seemed more of an expert). Raeder also had a naval vision that just happened to gel with what Hitler wanted, namely a navy comprised of a “loud and proud” surface fleet.
I agree with you glorgau. The Tripitz was completely disabled at the end and in a Fjord. The British continued expending resources, men and effort on destroying it even though the Germans knew it would never sail again.
Plus, the air attack on the Bismark was still before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Our Pacific battleships were taken off the board. At the time, only Yamamoto and Halsey understood the extent to which the day of the large capital ships had passed.
Pffft! Compared to a few commando raids encouraging Der Wanker to keep 200,000 men in Norway for the duration of the war that is not much of a distraction.
They even sent Mr.A.Hitler a nice letter asking where the promised defenders on the beaches were.