BISMARCK & TIRPITZ cause Germany to lose the Battle of the Atlantic
- Thread starter steel_captain
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You are probably better off equating Italy and Japan even though Italy is connected to Europe rather than Japan-UK. Italy is still heavily reliant on it's coastal trade, completely dependent on foreign oil (GB owned and controlled sources of oil) and it's industry and economy had similar capabilities as Japan. Rather than build 1 Yamato, Italy built 2 Littorios but GB's shipbuilding could handle 5 similar ships at this time.
I never was equating Great Britain and Japan as far as the extent of their industrial capacity but rather each was an industrial "island" nation
You care to back these claims up, especially the killing of Darlan.
Who was this catspaw"? DeGaulle?
The Japanese did manage to build Yamato and her sisters. They also were, therefore, entirely incapable to building sufficient destroyers and escort vessels,l even a partially adequate fleet to supply their fleet (the vast majority of all good shipped into and out of Japan and its colonies travels on British, Dutch and American cargo ships, right up to the start of the war).
Grand Admiral Thrawn
Donor
Around 60% of the fleet was moved away from France. By tonnage, about 40 % was in Toulon, near Marseilles, 40 % in French North Africa and 20 % in Britain, Alexandria and the French West Indies. Without ASB assistance, the Germans were not getting their hands on it.
The French ships berthed in Plymouth and Portsmouth were boarded without warning on the night of 3 July.
After the attack major fleet elements were moved back to France.
Darlan honored his promise, the fleet was scuttled when the Germans over ran Vichy France.
Churchill was desperate for a cheap win after Dunkirk, the fall of France and the loss of the Lancastria.
Admiral Somerville said that it was "the biggest political blunder of modern times and will rouse the whole world against us ... we all feel thoroughly ashamed..."Smith, C., England's Last War Against France: Fighting Vichy 1940–1942, pp. 86, 88.
What anglophile, FDR said about 2 similar incidents.
de Gaulle was grabbIng French territory as Churchill wanted done. At that point in time he was dependent on British assistance. For some reason FDR was not a big fan of his.
The "hand that held the dagger" quote is part of a speech against Italy declaring war against France, and not a part of Britain attacking France.
“The Hand That Held the Dagger”: FDR delivers historic speech in Mem Gym
FDR delivers his famous “hand that held the dagger” speech in Mem Gym.
uvamagazine.org
Edit: And if you are drawing an equivalency, we know there is none/ a false equivalency, as FDR publicly made it known what his thoughts on PH/Italy were via speeches we have copies of still today, while there are no public speeches condemning Britain over attacking France.
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FDR was rather selective in his outrage.The "hand that held the dagger" quote is part of a speech against Italy declaring war against France, and not a part of Britain attacking France.
“The Hand That Held the Dagger”: FDR delivers historic speech in Mem Gym
FDR delivers his famous “hand that held the dagger” speech in Mem Gym.
Edit: And if you are drawing an equivalency, we know there is none/ a false equivalency, as FDR publicly made it known what his thoughts on PH/Italy were via speeches we have copies of still today, while there are no public speeches condemning Britain over attacking France.
Grand Admiral Thrawn
Donor
Or more correctly, used context in his outrage. He didn't condemn American and British troops invading North Africa, because they would fight to restore French control to all of France. He did condemn Nazi aggression against France since it was the opposite of that. Under your logic framework, those would be the same things (invading French territory without permission).
Japan had the following shipbuilding slips:
4 large slips (Mitsubishi Shipyard at Nagasaki, Kawasaki Shipyard at Kobe, Yokosuka Arsenal, Kure Arsenal)
4 cruiser/medium slips (Yokosuka, Kure, Sasebo, Maizuru Arsenals)
In addition to Mitsubishi and Kawasaki, six other private yards approved by the IJN (Uraga Dock Company in Uraga/Yokohama, Fujinagata Shipyard in Osaka, Ishikawajima Shipyard in Tokyo/Yokohama, Mitsui Shipbuilding in Tamano, Mitsubishi Yokohama and Osaka Iron Works) built ships up to the size of a 5000t light cruiser, and most often only up to destroyers in total
Historical Japanese naval construction/commissioning in the 1930s
1929: Ashigara CA, Haguro CA, Myoko CA, 4 DD, 1 SS
1930: 3 DD, 2 SS
1931: Ryujo CVL, 4 DD
1932: Takao CA, Atago CA, Chokai CA, Maya CA, 3 DD, 3 SS
1933: 3 DD
1934: 2 DD, 1 SS
1935: Soryu CV, Mogami CL/CA, Mikuma CL/CA, 1 DD, 3 SS
1936: 3 DD
1937: Hiryu CV, Suzuya CL/CA, Kumano CL/CA, 11 DD, 2 SS
1938: Tone CA, 4 DD, 2 SS
1939: Shokaku CV, Zuikaku CV, Chikuma CA, 4 DD
4 Aircraft Carriers, 1 Light Aircraft Carrier, 9 Heavy Cruisers, 4 Large Light Cruisers, 42 Destroyers, 14 Submarines
@ Japanese WW2 Production (or their mobilised capacity)
- 2 battleships, begun well before the war, so at best they get a Clayton's/Steve Bradbury level pass mark; no one apart from the US and British successfully built a battleship from go to woe after declaring war
- ~6 escort carrier conversions
- 3-4 light carrier conversions
- 5 aircraft carriers (Taiho, Shinano and 3 Unryus)
- 5 cruisers
- 32 destroyers
- 32 child-size destroyers/de facto DEs or frigates
- 174 kaibokan/corvettes
- 43 first class submarines, 57 second class submarines
Now, this could well count as 'industry' or 'industrial capacity', no doubt.
Japan can't count as comparable to Britain, either on the level of shipbuilding alone, or military industrial production (arms, armoured vehicles, aircraft and warships combined) or general industrial production. On that last category, Great Britain produced 224.3 million tons of coal, 17.7 million tonnes of iron ore, and 13 million tonnes of steel in 1940 compared to 56,587,000 tons of coal, 3,417,000 tons of pig iron and 6,855,000 tons of steel for Japan, before factoring in their respective empires.
This would suggest that apart from them both being generally categorised as industrialised island nations, they can't be readily viewed as equal or equivalent.
4 large slips (Mitsubishi Shipyard at Nagasaki, Kawasaki Shipyard at Kobe, Yokosuka Arsenal, Kure Arsenal)
4 cruiser/medium slips (Yokosuka, Kure, Sasebo, Maizuru Arsenals)
In addition to Mitsubishi and Kawasaki, six other private yards approved by the IJN (Uraga Dock Company in Uraga/Yokohama, Fujinagata Shipyard in Osaka, Ishikawajima Shipyard in Tokyo/Yokohama, Mitsui Shipbuilding in Tamano, Mitsubishi Yokohama and Osaka Iron Works) built ships up to the size of a 5000t light cruiser, and most often only up to destroyers in total
Historical Japanese naval construction/commissioning in the 1930s
1929: Ashigara CA, Haguro CA, Myoko CA, 4 DD, 1 SS
1930: 3 DD, 2 SS
1931: Ryujo CVL, 4 DD
1932: Takao CA, Atago CA, Chokai CA, Maya CA, 3 DD, 3 SS
1933: 3 DD
1934: 2 DD, 1 SS
1935: Soryu CV, Mogami CL/CA, Mikuma CL/CA, 1 DD, 3 SS
1936: 3 DD
1937: Hiryu CV, Suzuya CL/CA, Kumano CL/CA, 11 DD, 2 SS
1938: Tone CA, 4 DD, 2 SS
1939: Shokaku CV, Zuikaku CV, Chikuma CA, 4 DD
4 Aircraft Carriers, 1 Light Aircraft Carrier, 9 Heavy Cruisers, 4 Large Light Cruisers, 42 Destroyers, 14 Submarines
@ Japanese WW2 Production (or their mobilised capacity)
- 2 battleships, begun well before the war, so at best they get a Clayton's/Steve Bradbury level pass mark; no one apart from the US and British successfully built a battleship from go to woe after declaring war
- ~6 escort carrier conversions
- 3-4 light carrier conversions
- 5 aircraft carriers (Taiho, Shinano and 3 Unryus)
- 5 cruisers
- 32 destroyers
- 32 child-size destroyers/de facto DEs or frigates
- 174 kaibokan/corvettes
- 43 first class submarines, 57 second class submarines
Now, this could well count as 'industry' or 'industrial capacity', no doubt.
Japan can't count as comparable to Britain, either on the level of shipbuilding alone, or military industrial production (arms, armoured vehicles, aircraft and warships combined) or general industrial production. On that last category, Great Britain produced 224.3 million tons of coal, 17.7 million tonnes of iron ore, and 13 million tonnes of steel in 1940 compared to 56,587,000 tons of coal, 3,417,000 tons of pig iron and 6,855,000 tons of steel for Japan, before factoring in their respective empires.
This would suggest that apart from them both being generally categorised as industrialised island nations, they can't be readily viewed as equal or equivalent.
The US recognized Vichy and condemned the Free French for invading St. Pierre and Miquelon, two French islands off the coast of North America, situated between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, northeast of Maine.
On December 24, 1941, The Free French sent a naval force that ousted the islands’ Vichy rulers. A plebiscite held the following day found 98 percent of the islands’ inhabitants supported the overthrow of the Vichy rulers.
The Roosevelt administration denounced De Gaulle’s “arbitrary” action and tried to convince the Canadian government to restore St. Pierre and Miquelon to Vichy’s control.
The State Department castigated the liberating force as “the so-called Free French,” indicating that it regarded Vichy, not the resistance, as the legitimate rulers of the two islands.
Vichy officials praised the Roosevelt administration’s stance on the islands as “a severe lesson to the dissidents.”
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But at no time were they declared to be equivalent...only industrialized island nations who depended on tankers bringing in crude oil imports.
On Shipbuilding, Slips and Capacity
- Early on in the thread, it was claimed that slips are simply rails in the ground on the short of the sea or riverbanks
- The actual situation was a bit more complex than this, but there is one truth hidden in there that might work against the intention: the amount of available 'shore'
- Britain, being an island chain, had quite a few deep water ports and port cities ideally suited to shipbuilding
A rendering of the details of British slip capacity in the Second World War is in this post:
The short version is 16 slips of 800ft or greater, 37 of 600-800ft, 28 of 500-600ft, 40 of 400-500ft and 14 of 300-400ft. We can classify these, for the purpose of discussion, as Classes A, B, C, D and E respectively.
Post 41 here is also of interest: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=66&t=104543
Germany
Class A: 9-10 (Blohm & Voss in Hamburg, Kriegsmarinewerft Wilhelmshaven, Deutsche Werke Kiel, Krupp Kiel, Friedrich Krupp Germaniawerft Kiel, AG Weser/Deschimag Bremen) (From Post #28 here: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=66&t=104543 )
None of these are of any relevance for U-Boats; one doesn't build a U-Boat or two U-Boats on a Class A/Battleship and Aircraft Carrier slip. Military shipbuilding isn't Tetris. I would also go so far as to say that anything in Class B/Large Cruisers and Light Carrier Slips is also not really what would be used. For a 220ft Type VII or 251ft Type IX, a 300ft-400ft long slip is ideal
Where else built U-Boats during WW2? Emden, Lubeck, Rostock and Flensburg (Nordseewerke x 30, Flender Werke AG x 42, Neptun Werft AG x 10 and Flensburger Schiffsbau-Ges x 28 respectively) with Stettin producing a cursory 3. We can only throw in Danzig after 1940.
Let's dig a bit deeper for a closer look
AG Weser (Bremen)
1934: 2
1935: 0
1936: 8
1937: 5
1938: 8
1939: 25
1940: 26
Blohm & Voss (Hamburg)
100 ordered or laid down in 1939
Friedrich Krupp Germaniawerft (Kiel)
1934: 6
1935: 12
1936: 11
1937: 4
1938: 8
1939: 14
1940: 22
Deutsche Werke AG (Kiel)
1935: 10
1936: -
1937: 8
1938: -
1939: 24
1940: 15
Deutsche Werke AG (Hamburg)
1939: 18
1940: 14
Bremer Vulkan-Vegesacker Werft (Bremen)
1938: 4
1939: 52
Howaldtswerke (Hamburg)
1939: 33
Nordseewerke (Emden)
1939: 20
1941: 10
(Data from https://uboat.net/technical/shipyards/ )
A caveat before diving into the above: Many of the U-Boats listed as built or laid down in particular years were rather ordered in that year.
What can we tell from this data?
Firstly, there was a big jump after the DoW and subsequent orders.
Secondly, there wasn't a huge amount of slack in 1934-1938 to accommodate any truly large scale expansion in U-Boat construction.
Thirdly, if the largest numbers for each major prewar yard are taken from 1936-1938 (laying down of Bismarck and Tirpitz) and not taking into account any other factors such as price, we get a nominal extra 37 U-Boats available or close to commissioning in September 1939. This would be on top of the @ fleet of 57 for 94 U-Boats, in the best of all worlds. That isn't enough to shift the balance of the war at sea, just alter the scoreboard a little bit.
Fourthly, the cost of Type VII: 4,189,000 to 4,439,000 Reichsmarks and a Type IXB: 6,163,000 to 6,448,000. If we allow for 24 x Type VIIs and 13 x Type IXs at the lowest cost that gives us 180.655 million Rm compared to 196 million Rm for Bismarck and 191.6 million for Tirpitz; the remaining 206,945,000 Rm can't be spent in a manner that yields 1939 results. Bottlenecks are the curse of the Wehraboo classes, with apologies to Oscar Wilde.
What would be very useful, if anything good can come from such a regularly reoccurring idea/thread, is a definitive list or table of German shipbuilding slips as of 1939 or 1940. This would enable its use the next time this discussion occurs, and the time after that. I'd wager it would also be useful to put a price on what it costs to build additional slips and infrastructure to get around logistical bottlenecks.
- Early on in the thread, it was claimed that slips are simply rails in the ground on the short of the sea or riverbanks
- The actual situation was a bit more complex than this, but there is one truth hidden in there that might work against the intention: the amount of available 'shore'
- Britain, being an island chain, had quite a few deep water ports and port cities ideally suited to shipbuilding
A rendering of the details of British slip capacity in the Second World War is in this post:
The short version is 16 slips of 800ft or greater, 37 of 600-800ft, 28 of 500-600ft, 40 of 400-500ft and 14 of 300-400ft. We can classify these, for the purpose of discussion, as Classes A, B, C, D and E respectively.
Post 41 here is also of interest: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=66&t=104543
Germany
Class A: 9-10 (Blohm & Voss in Hamburg, Kriegsmarinewerft Wilhelmshaven, Deutsche Werke Kiel, Krupp Kiel, Friedrich Krupp Germaniawerft Kiel, AG Weser/Deschimag Bremen) (From Post #28 here: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=66&t=104543 )
None of these are of any relevance for U-Boats; one doesn't build a U-Boat or two U-Boats on a Class A/Battleship and Aircraft Carrier slip. Military shipbuilding isn't Tetris. I would also go so far as to say that anything in Class B/Large Cruisers and Light Carrier Slips is also not really what would be used. For a 220ft Type VII or 251ft Type IX, a 300ft-400ft long slip is ideal
Where else built U-Boats during WW2? Emden, Lubeck, Rostock and Flensburg (Nordseewerke x 30, Flender Werke AG x 42, Neptun Werft AG x 10 and Flensburger Schiffsbau-Ges x 28 respectively) with Stettin producing a cursory 3. We can only throw in Danzig after 1940.
Let's dig a bit deeper for a closer look
AG Weser (Bremen)
1934: 2
1935: 0
1936: 8
1937: 5
1938: 8
1939: 25
1940: 26
Blohm & Voss (Hamburg)
100 ordered or laid down in 1939
Friedrich Krupp Germaniawerft (Kiel)
1934: 6
1935: 12
1936: 11
1937: 4
1938: 8
1939: 14
1940: 22
Deutsche Werke AG (Kiel)
1935: 10
1936: -
1937: 8
1938: -
1939: 24
1940: 15
Deutsche Werke AG (Hamburg)
1939: 18
1940: 14
Bremer Vulkan-Vegesacker Werft (Bremen)
1938: 4
1939: 52
Howaldtswerke (Hamburg)
1939: 33
Nordseewerke (Emden)
1939: 20
1941: 10
(Data from https://uboat.net/technical/shipyards/ )
A caveat before diving into the above: Many of the U-Boats listed as built or laid down in particular years were rather ordered in that year.
What can we tell from this data?
Firstly, there was a big jump after the DoW and subsequent orders.
Secondly, there wasn't a huge amount of slack in 1934-1938 to accommodate any truly large scale expansion in U-Boat construction.
Thirdly, if the largest numbers for each major prewar yard are taken from 1936-1938 (laying down of Bismarck and Tirpitz) and not taking into account any other factors such as price, we get a nominal extra 37 U-Boats available or close to commissioning in September 1939. This would be on top of the @ fleet of 57 for 94 U-Boats, in the best of all worlds. That isn't enough to shift the balance of the war at sea, just alter the scoreboard a little bit.
Fourthly, the cost of Type VII: 4,189,000 to 4,439,000 Reichsmarks and a Type IXB: 6,163,000 to 6,448,000. If we allow for 24 x Type VIIs and 13 x Type IXs at the lowest cost that gives us 180.655 million Rm compared to 196 million Rm for Bismarck and 191.6 million for Tirpitz; the remaining 206,945,000 Rm can't be spent in a manner that yields 1939 results. Bottlenecks are the curse of the Wehraboo classes, with apologies to Oscar Wilde.
What would be very useful, if anything good can come from such a regularly reoccurring idea/thread, is a definitive list or table of German shipbuilding slips as of 1939 or 1940. This would enable its use the next time this discussion occurs, and the time after that. I'd wager it would also be useful to put a price on what it costs to build additional slips and infrastructure to get around logistical bottlenecks.
"Two island nations each heavily industrialized with large navies and air forces but no home based oil resources to keep those forces fueled. "
Aside from the RN reserves equivalent to ~12 months at home and 3 million tons abroad
"Great Britain and Japan are virtually identical in that regard"
That is a quote attributed to you, but after going through all 20 pages of the thread, it and those accompanying it weren't there. I can only assume that they have been edited out for whatever reason. As such, it is hard to delve into the original context of 'that regard'. Suffice it to say that Britain was dependent on tankers bringing in crude oil (from the USA and Venezuela/Curacao during wartime), but that doesn't make it identical or nearly identical to Japan in this regard, but simply that they had that general factor in common. Japan's requirement and lack of domestic sources was far more acute and acutely felt.
This is like a case of saying that Charlton Heston and Burt Lancaster or Rock Hudson are nearly identical, based on the common factor of being mid century Hollywood leading men.
IIRC (and I'm rather confident that I do) 37% of Japanese imports were carried in foreign bottoms at the outbreak of World War II. Hardly, the vast majority. I don't have a figure for Japan's exports.
'Can something be done?' and 'Should it be done?' are separate propositions that sometimes have the world between them.
WW1 Mackensen and 'friends'
I would humbly suggest that the particular circumstances of cancelled WW1 German battlecruisers launched to free up space with no intent of ever finishing them aren't something that we should draw a lot into. A lot of things can be done in the desperate stakes of an emergency, rather than ordinary and efficient peacetime practice.
I also take issue with the Yamato class being why Japan didn't build enough destroyers, escort vessels and merchant ships. Yes the money & materials expended on them were money & materials that couldn't be used to do something else and I think Japan would have been better off building smaller & less resource hungry battleships. However, they weren't the main reasons why Japan was unable to build more warships and merchantmen than it did. You aught to be familiar with that I think said reasons were as I've been writing them on this forum for years ad nauseam.
They certainly had more in common than you appear to think.
IIRC (and I'm confident that I do) Japan & Great Britain had similar steel making capacities. The problem was that Japan couldn't produce at full capacity due to a shortage of iron ore. Despite that Japan still built about 50% more merchant ships than Great Britain in 1944, IIRC about 1.6 million tons v about a million. Japan also built more aircraft than Great Britain in 1944. If Japan had been able to run its steel industry at full capacity the tonnage built would have been even larger. IIRC the target for 1944 was 2.5 million tons.
According to Kennedy in "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" Japan built about 1,500 more aircraft than Great Britain (28,180 v 26,461) although GB built many more four-engine aircraft.