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To: snippy_about_it
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.
38 posted on 07/02/2005 9:06:42 PM PDT by PzLdr ("The Emperor is not as forgiving as I am" - Darth Vader)
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To: PzLdr

Even if Plan Z was accomplished, I think we may have seen another Jutland in WWII.

Hitler was overconcerned about losing major Naval assets and that pretty much kept the surface units of the Kriegsmarine on a very tight leash.


44 posted on 07/03/2005 4:27:16 AM PDT by SAMWolf (How do you tell when you run out of invisible ink?)
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