"Why model the German fleet?" Topic

As a relative newcomer to WWII naval gaming (currently working on British and Italian in the Med.), I wonder is there much point in getting German ships.

To me, the actions seem to be a sole German battleship (eg Birmarck and perhaps an escort) doing a sortie, causing some damage and then being hunted down by superior Royal Navy ships in an uneven action. At least, in the Med., there were some fleet actions.

Perhaps I am wrong and would welcome your thoughts?

If you adhere strictly to historical actions involving major warships, yes, the use of German ships is limited. However much fun can be had with the wargamer's favourite "what if" type of action.

Also there are several actions involving destroyers and torpedo boats that are worth re-creating: the 1st battle of Narvik 10 April 1940 and the Bay of Biscay action of 28 December 1943 are two of the better known instances.

Scharnhorst, and others (destroyers) conducted a number of sorties against the convoys, and British covering forces.

Then, there's always the what-if with the Tirpitz, not to mention using her as a target for numerous forces.

Lots of small unit actions in the Channel, North Sea, and Bay of Biscay, with DDs, Torpedo Boats, S-Boats, R-Boats, U-Boats, etc., etc..

Channel Dash.

Battle of the River Plate.

U-Boat war nearly brought Britain to her knees.

As previously mentioned, Narvik is a good choice too.

Agreed, not a lot of major, fleet actions, but certainly far more than the Russians did, or could.

Italians are interesting too.

If you really want full-on fleet actions though, only the USA and Japan really fill that need well.

The majority of the German destroyer fleet fought at, and was destroyed at Narvik. The Norway invasion fleet was almost detected and intercepted.

As noted above, the German fleet wasn't really set up for fleet actions although Gneisenau and Scharnhorst did hunt in pairs, but there was plenty of cat and mouse stuff off Norway to attack convoys involving multiple ships, U-Boats and aircraft.

There isn't any really any reason _not_ to collect the German fleet, as it is so small.

Small = cheap!

As others have pointed out, there are quite a few 'near miss' situations were battles could have happened but didn't.

River Plate wasn't really that uneven an action; the British were superior but the Graf Spee could have done better than it did historically.

As others have pointed out collecting the entire fleet will almost be less ships than collecting one side of some of the major Pacific actions…. Plus if you're doing the RN you already have opponents for them.

Though the German Navy does have an issue whereas the most important mission they undertook (the U-boat campaign) is easier to model on the operational level than on the tactical level.

-Will

But then we have all those ships from the Z-Plan(and other ships) which are made in some scales,so your German Fleet could be bigger if you wanted to go the Never Built route.

I have in 1/6000th scale a very nice German WWII Fleet which includes the H-class Battleships and the German Hybrid Carrier Battleships.

Just because the ships weren't built doesn't mean you can't have those ships.

I'm with Captain Gideon on this, I'd go with Z-Plan options to get into some fun potential scenarios if I was doing pure naval battles.

My main interest is air gaming though, so I have a decent collection of Axis and Allies German ships as targets, including the Graf Zeppelin.

"What if" convoy raids are good to play. I have got all of the major German capital ships together with the destroyers and escorts. Had some great "break out of the fjords" games. One to one, those German ships can be tough opponents (as the Bismarck demonstrated).
Now the WW1 German Fleet- that really is worth collecting.

Naval miniatures wargaming is founded on "what if" scenarios. The WWII German navy had a lot of potential. That's enough.

- Ix

Very many thanks for all the helpful reples. Indeed, I already have a High Seas fleet for the Great War, as well as US and Japanese for the Pacific.

If Hitler had waited for the Plan Z ships to be completed, is it likely the Kriegsmarine would have sortied as a complete fleet?

Were there any significant actions in the Baltic versus the Russians?

If Hitler had waited for the Plan Z ships to be completed, is it likely the Kriegsmarine would have sortied as a complete fleet?

I propose we wargame that scenario to find out if it makes any sense. :-)

- Ix

Not to mention that they had some really nice looking warships.

Not to mention that they had some really nice looking warships.

Lovely and generally they get good stats in rules sets. But like Tiger tanks, many of these ships suffered from unreliable mechanics, so their operational availability tended to be low.

The action-that-never-was that I'd like to model would be a German invasion of Iceland.

Launched from northern Norway they would attempt to seize landing strips in Iceland and would then fly aircraft into them from Norwegian bases. The naval cover would be Bismarck, Tirpitz, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau with air cover optionally provided by Graf Zeppelin, Peter Strasser and perhaps one or other of those liner / heavy cruiser conversions they looked at.

The thing about alternative history is that in the circumstances where Germany has four BBs, two CVs and a CVL operational in European waters, the RN would not have the historical orbat either. What Britain would have built in response to the above is not wholly clear – more than one Ark Royal would be helpful but whether it would be likely is harder to say.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the Battle of the Barents Sea. An escorted convoy attacked by two German forces, one led by the Hipper, one by the Lutzow, while a British cruiser force tried to come to their rescue.
2 cruisers and 6 destroyers on each side. Quite a big battle.

I would suggest picking up a copy of Vincent O'Hara's German Fleet at War, in which he describes some 69 surface actions fought by the German Navy in WW2. He restricts himself to actions involving purpose built German Naval vessels of 500 tons or greater.

His Struggle for the Middle Sea covers surface actions in the Med, with In Perilous Passage looking at the later Malta Convoys.

Whilst I don't agree with some of O'Hara's arguments, these three books provide enough ready baked scenarios to keep most Naval gamers busy for years :-)

O'Hara's German Fleet at War is highly recommended. There's some good detail on some of the really minor actions; destroyer skirmishes in the Channel, battles against Poland, actions in the Black Sea and the Baltic.

As you can pretty much have all the German forces you need for every action for a fairly modest outlay, it's a navy worth collecting.

Nick

link

The Hipper and the Lutzow might not be the biggest of the capital ships but this is a good template for what ifs.

Field Marshal the Admiral Hipper is a Heavy Cruiser and as such NOT a Capital Ship.

With regards to the Lutzow which one are you talking about?

The Germans had 2 Lutzow's in German service in WWII.

The 1st Lutzow(ex-Deutschland)was a Pocket Battleship with 11in Guns so you could refer to her as a Capital Ship but she's really an overgunned Armoured Cruiser.

The 2nd Lutzow was a Admiral Hipper class Heavy Cruiser that was sold to the Russian's in 1940 and as such never saw action in German service.

In WWII the German Navy had 4 Capital Ships the 2 Bismarck class Battleships and the 2 Scharnhorst class Battlecruisers.

And finally the Hipper and Lutzow were indeed real and not what-if ships.

Michael

don't forget the two pre-dreadnoughts Schleswig-Holstein and Schlesien. While outdated and only used for shore-bombardments, they're still classified as capital ships. :)

We are having great fun with the German Fleet in our Baltic Naval Campaign, see elsewhere on this forum.

It's a great Navy, it's small for a start !

Regards Ken
yarkshiregamer.blogspot.co.uk

Many thanks for all the suggestions

Of course you might also consider some what-if using the French heavy unit under Vichy to supplement the Germans and Italians. If the British do not knock out French units (a few minefield would have done that trick) and the French fleet is not scutteled…..