The FReeper Foxhole Presents the Saturday Symposium - The Z Plan - July 2nd, 2005

see educational sources

[w_over_w]

1843 An alligator falls from the sky during a Charleston SC thunderstorm

If you look real carefully . . . concentrate . . . YOU TOO!, can see an alligator fall from the sky!

[SAMWolf]

it's a little out of my league.

You just think it's out of your league. ;-)

[SAMWolf]

Well, you got a "free" game anyway. :-)

[snippy_about_it]

Will take a front seat for today's symposium...

May I sit with you?

[snippy_about_it]

Re Post 13, Someone left the machine signed on...

LOL. Darn it. Someone might have mistaken me for smart!

[snippy_about_it]

Hi PE.

[snippy_about_it]

((Hugs))

How's your Dad doing today?

[snippy_about_it]

You can use them for shots toward the waterhole, if you miss you won't have to dive in after them. :-)

[Valin]

As a side note I did read somewhere recently that the main reason that Chamberlin agreed to the Munich accord was to give Britian more time to re-arm.


I've read the same thing.

One final thought, one of the unintended conswquences of the Allied Strategic Bombing campaign was that it gave the average German somebody to hate and to unify against other than the NAZIs.

Some German graffiti I recall reading about said "Enjoy the war, the peace will be hell"

Looks like Douhet was...again

[snippy_about_it]

LOL. Cool!

[Valin]

Cool!

[Professional Engineer]

1937 Richard Petty auto race driver (Daytona 500-1979,81)

All hail King Richard

[Professional Engineer]

Got plans for the weekend??

Just R&R, it's been a hectic week. I've also caught the cold BG and Msdrby shared.

[Professional Engineer]

1973 Betty Grable, US actress (How to Marry a Millionaire), dies at 56

Take me out to the ball game!

[Professional Engineer]

1862 Lincoln signs act granting land for state agricultural colleges

And establishes the source of endless "aggie" jokes.

[Professional Engineer]

Howdy ma'am

or should that be

Hiya Sam?

[A Jovial Cad]

The German Armed Force's problem--right across the board; it wasn't just limited to the Navy--was that their Fuhrer never sought a comprehensive rearmament in depth of the kind needed to wage, and win, war on a global scale commiserate with Hitler's goals.

The spectre of a vast, glittering, smoothly-oiled Wermacht armed to the teeth with the latest innovations in warfare was largely a creation of Joseph Goebbel's Propaganda Ministry, pre-war. German industrial war output was a confusing pastiche of conflicting goals, overlapping jurisdictions, and petty fiefdom wars between bureaucrats until Albert Speer managed to obtain the authority he needed to cut through the nonsense and set concrete production goals and timetables. Even then he wasn't entirely successful; turf wars continued right up to the end between bickering Gauleiters and the Armaments Ministry.

Even after the bullets had started to fly Germany waged war for three years, 1939-42, before Hitler deigned to put his nation on a total war footing. He was concerned about the effect the corresponding drop in the availability of consumer goods on the Home Front would have on civilian morale, so he delayed this economic imperative until it was much too late to affect the outcome. This is borne out when one considers that German industrial production hit it's peak in 1944, a full five years after the commencement of hostilities.

So, to my thinking, the "Z" plan was always a kind of wishful thinking on the part of the German leadership. Hitler's own view, while grousing in his bunker about what coulda been as the ceiling shook under the impact of Red Army artillery fire, was that for Germany the ideal political conditions would've have dictated that he commence the war earlier, say in 1938; but the ideal military conditions could not possibly have attained until much later, say 1943. And by then the West would have rearmed, and Stalin would have rebuilt his decimated officer corps from the purges of the 1930's. Thus: stalemate. Stalemate was not what Hitler had ever had in mind, thus he plunged ahead, always confident that he could come to terms with England or, failing that, quickly conquer the Soviet Union and then reinforce the Continent against further Western intervention.

Fortunately for us, and the world, the "Z" plan never had much of a chance to come to fruition in the first place.

[PzLdr]

This is a difficult question because we don't know what the other powers would have done in the same time period that Plan Z would have been developing. Having said that, I would say the answer is "NO".

To begin with, the German Navy might have had four carriers, but there is little likelihood than would have had an air arm to fly off of them. Goering, prior to World War II refused [except for some float plane units] to give up control of anything that flew. There is no reason to believe he would have changed that, even if the Kriegsmarine built the bird farms. Additionally, the Germans had no aircraft capable of flying off the carriers. The 109's landing gear was too close together and too weak, the Stuka's too far apart. Would the Germans have developed a second generation of fighters, capable of carrier flight? Doubtful. Hitler was interested in numbers, and absent the pressures of war, I don't think a replacement for the 109s would have been designed. Just more 109 squadrons would have been built.

Air power questions aside, assuming the war starts in 1946, the Germans are still bottled up in the Baltic and Kiel. Unlike Jutland the large number of battleships will do them squat since British air power could pound them from both carriers and England.Plus the Royal Navy, at Scapa Flow could meet them in the North Sea [although the U-boats would have been a problem].

Speaking of U-boats, same question as aircraft. Would the Germans have built new types, or gone with more Type VIIs and IXs? Since they only had 57 boats of all types [mostly VIIs] in 1939, I think the U-boat production of those types would have increased. VIIs were classified as coastal boats. With more U-boats, would the Germans have revised their tactics, and used them vs. enemy naval units in conjunction with the surface fleet, like the Japanese, or gone after the commerce. Raeder adopted commerce raiding because he had to. I think if he'd had his fleet,he would have put the U-boats on a leash.

One of the reasons Hitler went to war when he did [in addition to his morbid fear of dying before he achieved his goals] was to avoid having to rearm after the Allies caught up. When Germany invaded France, she had two critical areas of weapons superiority, entertain guns and aircraft. If Germany waits until 1946, what happens on the land, vis a viz the Allies. How does it affect naval operations.

In sum, and it is mere speculation on my part, I believe that if Plan Z had been completed, Germany still would not have succeeded, due to geographic constraints, the fact that German naval doctrine was going to be centered on the battleships, not the carriers, the fact that Goering controlled the aircraft, plus economic production [Director of the Four Year Plan], and because the German approach, absent war was to crank out numbers of types of equipment not really suited to what Raeder had in mind.

[PhilDragoo]

The new opportunities for expansion caused some dissension in the German Naval Command. The newly designated head of the U-boat service, Karl Donitz, favoured a massive expansion of the Submarine force, with emphasis on the 500-ton Type VII, to give a greater number of vessels within the Trety limitations, rather than the larger 800-ton Type IX favoured by the High Command under Grand Admiral Erich Raeder.

Raeder himself, whilst not neglecting the possible role of the U-boat, was a “big ship” man. In this field, first fruits of the 1935 treaty were the the fast battleships “Scharnhorst” and “Gniesenau”. Classed by the British as battlecruisers, these 32,000 ton vessels, mounting nine 11” guns, and with a top speed of 31 knots, were a force to be reckoned with. Also laid down were several heavy cruisers and the great 35,000 ton eight 15” gunned battleships “Bismarck” and Tirpitz”

These were only intended as the first steps in the creation of a formidable new Kriegsmarine. In 1938 Hitler and Raeder drew up the massive expansion program known as the “Z Plan”. This envisaged no war with Britain before 1945. By that date Raeder hoped to have a fleet including six 50,000 ton battleships, twelve 20,000 ton battle-cruisers, four carriers, a large number of light cruisers and destroyers and 250 U-boats. Donitz with typical realism felt this program to be completely unviable, making impossible demands on German manufacturing capacity, and with the problem result of a new naval arms race with Britain and France.

The premature outbreak of war in 1939 quickly led to the abandonment of the Z-Plan. Of the capital ships, work would only continue on the two battleships of the “Bismarck” class. Raeder felt that his largely modern, but greatly outnumbered surface fleet could only hope to “die with honor”. Much would rest on the U-boat arm, which began the war with only 57 operational vessels instead of the 300 hoped for by Donitz. Production priority was switched to them, but it remained to be seen whether enough could be built in time.

~~~

On March 16, 1935, Adolph Hitler publicly repudiated the Treaty of Versailles. Germany would no longer conceal escalation and rebuilding efforts of her naval forces. The rest of the world was forced to recognize the emergence once again of the German people as a growing world power. Three months later Germany and Great Britain concluded the Anglo-German Naval Agreement. Under its terms Germany would restrict the strength and size of her Navy to 35 percent of that of the British Navy with exceptions to the size of the German submarine forces.14

The rest of the world stood by and watched Germany rebuild. Adolph Hitler was in full control and appeared to be acting within the terms of international agreements. England's hands were tied as a result of the Anglo-German Naval Agreement. The shroud which had hidden Germany's secret, the illegal building operations, was dropped. By mid 1935, U-1 the first U-Boat of the modern class was brought out, ready to launch. She began her first patrol just forty two days after the signing of the new Naval Agreement.15 The stage was set for the ensuing buildup of the U-Boat arm of the German Navy.

Karl Doenitz was selected by the German High Command to take charge of the new U-Boat arm. Doenitz was a World War I U-Boat commander who was captured by the British and spent several months in a British prisoner-of-war camp. Doenitz feigned insanity and was released by the British for repatriation to Germany.16 Doenitz' inter-war years were spent in the German Navy on surface duty. With his appointment to head the U-Boat arm, Doenitz began to conceptualize employment of the submarine force. Commander Doenitz recalled his experiences countering British convoys during World War I. He was convinced that a hunter killer tactic with individual submarines engaging surface ships would not be the most effective utilization of his submarine forces in the next war. He devised the Rudeltaktik (the wolf-pack strategy) in 1935.17 He felt that convoys with their protective escort must be attacked with "packs" of U-Boats as opposed to individual sorties on search and destroy missions.

Doenitz' concept of employment was that a single U-Boat would operate on patrol to locate a convoy. Upon sighting a convoy, the U-Boat would disengage the intercept while maintaining contact with the convoy. The pack would then be called in to converge on the prey. The wolf-pack would mostly engage on the surface to take advantage of their speed and maneuverability.18

Doenitz believed that an efficient U-Boat force would have to number approximately 300 boats. He envisioned 100 U-Boats at any one time on station in the North Atlantic. Another 100 boats would be in port in routine maintenance and resupply. The remaining 100 boats would be enroute to and from the patrol areas. This force, he believed would be of sufficient strength to starve Britain to death.19 Doenitz had a difficult time convincing the power structure in Germany of the need for such a large force.

Eventually Doenitz was able to convince Hitler and Admiral Raeder, the Commander in Chief of the German Navy, of the importance of increasing the size of the U-Boat forces. On 17 January, 1939, Adolph Hitler approved the Z-Plan. This plan in addition to building multiple surface ships provided for the construction of 233 more U-Boats.20 The construction would not be complete until 1948. When World War II broke out, Admiral Doenitz was in command of just 56 U-Boats.21 Throughout the war years German industry would produce scores of U-Boats. However, Admiral Doenitz would never command the size of force he felt necessary to wage a decisive campaign.

~~~

Facing a severing of the essential convoy system linking North America with embattled Britain, the officially non-combatant U.S. Navy confronted a bleak assessment of its capabilities. In 1941, the mightiest fleet the world had yet to see navigated design offices and shipyards. BUSHIPS (the Bureau of Ships) overflowed with plans for new types of auxiliary ships, submarines, destroyers, cruisers, aircraft carriers and battleships. Construction quickened on faster ships with new main propulsion systems and greatly improved range. Laboratories tested new guns and improved gunpowder, mines, torpedoes, radar and sonar. But the battle-line to be could not change the melancholy fact that on September 1, 1939, the day World War Two began, the Atlantic Squadron had no Fleet auxiliaries, and the entire U.S. Navy had in commission only one ammunition ship and two troop transports. After appraising his slender assets with the nascent Navy of the future, CNO Admiral H.R. Stark said it concisely; “dollars will not buy yesterday.”

As America rearmed and the Navy rebuilt, in mid-1941 the Atlantic Fleet went on a war footing. Reserves were summoned. One of them, the President’s middle son, Ens. Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr, was billeted to destroyer Mayrant. Ship’s flammables were removed, ammunition lockers topped-off, and the fleet got full wartime crew complements. Three aircraft carriers now patrolled the Atlantic. Anticipating the war to come, the Naval Academy graduated its 1941 class in January instead of June. Thousands of recruits swarmed boot camps in Newport, Norfolk, Great Lakes and San Diego. Only a month after Bismarck's sinking, U-203, seeking a favorable bow-angle, chased a zigzagging and unaware battleship Texas for 140 miles between Newfoundland and Greenland. A furious Hitler ordered Grand Admiral Raeder to rein-in U-boat commandant Doenitz and his impatient young captains. War seemed inevitable; it would come, however, on Hitler’s and not Roosevelt’s timetable. But as the standoff escalated, how could U-boat skippers continue to discern, even with silhouette identification, which ship belonged to whose navy?

~~~

The effectiveness of the leadership of Admiral Karl Dönitz

~~~

The priority of design studies of the H-CLASS battleship was substantially reduced when Albert Speer became Reichsminister for Armament and Munitions on 8 February 1942. Much of the design team was reassigned to build new U-Boats and other projects.

~~~

With the outbreak of WWII, the Plan Z became obsolete. The leadership of the Reichsmarine decided very early during the war to increase the building of U-boats and many shipyards were modified to do this. The design efforts increased also, but mainly these were confined to variations of the types already in service, the Type VII and Type IX.

In the late summer of 1939 the MA was rearranged into the K-Amt and the Department of Armament (DoA) was set up, led by Mr. Todt (better known as the creator of "Organization Todt"). His duty was the coordination of the armament industry, but he was killed in a plane crash 1942. His successor was Albert Speer who was appointed Reich Armaments Minister.

From 1940 – 1943 the manufacturing time for U-boats was notably decreased. The shipyards adopted the system of pre-fabrication, first used on a mass basis by the US Navy during WWI for the construction of merchant vessels. But this was only done with the hull itself. Outfitting was still done as before. About 19 shipyards assembled between 24 to 26 U-boats per month of Types VII c, IX c and IX d. Using this same system to build the new, and quite larger, Type XXI would have meant a build rate of approximately 20 U-boats per month. This was considered to be too low by the Naval High Command (OKM = Oberkommando der Marine). An alternative construction method was needed to get the higher numbers needed.

The so-called "Walter-subs" were a subject of studies from the early (official) beginning days of the U-boat arm. This propulsion system was constantly experimented with, but the hydrogen-peroxide fuel (H2O2 and Walter-turbine) proved to be very dangerous and mechanically unreliable with no end in sight. A design breakthrough came when someone suggested eliminating the Walter-engine and instead simply copying the "traditional" (diesel) engine set-up but use larger E-engines (electric) and batteries. So, that was the transition from Project XVIII to Project XXI. This occurred in early 1941. At that time, everyone expected that the war would end in a few months, so there was no urgency to get this design off the drawing boards. However, by 1943, with the war still going on and now with Russia and the US as enemies, they thought differently. The design was dusted off and rushed to completion in late 1943.

The year 1943 saw some major changes in the Navy as a whole as well as the U-boat arm. Adm. Dönitz was appointed as the successor to Adm. Raeder when the latter resigned. Despite the fact that Adm. Dönitz saved the large surface ships from the scrapyard, it was plain to see that he wanted greater progress for "his" U-boats. He managed to secure the highest priority for the U-boat construction from the Führer, but he also knew that Hitler was very generous with such orders (for example, a few weeks previously panzer production had earned the same highest priority level). So, Adm. Dönitz did what no one would have ever expected. He removed the K-Amt organization from U-boat production. Instead, he gave the responsibility for their manufacture to Albert Speer and his Department of Armament. In effect, Adm. Dönitz traded influence for output. The design of the new Type XXI, XXIII and Type XXVI U-boats was completed, what was important now was to get them built as quickly as possible.

~~~

The Germans may have had a fine submarine on paper but producing it in numbers was a different matter. Dönitz informed Hitler that the first Type XXI would be ready by November 1944. Hitler ordered an earlier date and gave Albert Speer the task of getting the Type XXI produced. But with the Allies and the Russians closing in on both sides of Europe, constant bombing of factories etc, it was an impossible demand. Also the demands of the army and Luftwaffe also hit the U-boats. Steel was vital to U-boat production - but it was also vital to the other parts of the military as well. The army also demanded men and the movement of men into the army meant that the navy did not get the men it needed. The U-boat service suffered accordingly.

The Type XXI was commissioned in early 1945 and the first one, U-2511, went to sea just one week before Germany surrendered. On May 7th, 1945, Dönitz ordered all U-boats to cease hostilities.

~~~

Phil's note: Again and again this accident of history is noted:

Although Donitz wanted to concentrate construction on the Type VII U-boats, with sufficient range to operate in the Atlantic, he found it hard to gain support within the Naval High Command, the majority of whose personnel favoured the massive Plan Z building programme, aimed at developing a powerful surface fleet. Thus the outbreak of war in September 1939 found Donitz with a total of only 57 U-boats, of which only about 20 were suitable for ocean-going operations, instead of the massive force of 300 which he had been calling for.

~~~

MMMMM . . . DOENITZ!

[PAR35]

Will take a front seat for today's symposium and listen to the scholars discuss . . . it's a little out of my league.

Since when did a Freeper have to know about a subject to comment on it. Just remember the basic rule - the weaker your argument, the stronger you should hold to the position.

Jump on in. With this one, there is no right or wrong answer.