What-if Deutschland WW2 Panzerschiffe

[James Hood]

Good on you, following up your theories with actaul kit building.

Beaucoup nice work!

[Seasick]

I had considered this question once. I kicked around a few designes in a computer program that I downloaded. I decided to buck convention and came up with a ship sort of like this:

Main armament: three triple 21.5cm guns (8.46"). The barbetts armored against 8" AP shells, turrets. All or nothing deck armor against 8" shells.
Secondary three twin 12.7cm DP guns. (a DD gun that the KM did develop)
6 twin 37mm AA Flak

diesel engines
21" torpedos

My reasoning was that the armor against 8" would be sufficient against treaty heavy cruisers, and the 21.5cm would allow for AP shells with a significant weight advantage over treaty ships armor against 8" shells.

Its less glamorous than the actually built ships. I suspect that it will do just as well as a raider and probably better at the River Plate.

[stevegallacci]

Don't know the history but the 12.8cm flakzwilling 40 would have been a fierce weapon for a ship (was it originally a ship's weapon, for that matter?) Two 12 round a minute guns with powered fuse and feed.

[Seasick]

The 28cm guns are too big and the replacement should do the task of the 28cm and 15cm. It will need to out shoot the 8" (aka 20.3cm) on treaty cruisers. The 21.5cm I suggested months ago might be a little weak. The Royal Navy had 9.2 inch on the Lord Nelson class and they were capable of penetrating enemy armor at short range. By the 1930s radar controlled fire control should make them accurate at long range and able to defeat any Treaty cruiser.

Three triple 23.5cm primary, four twin 12.7cm, four twin 8.8cm flak, four twin 3.7cm flak.

[GMG4RWF]

a) the 6in guns are a waste of weight and manpower, being not very useful in most situations, manpower intensive and poorly protected,

d) the tactical thinking behind the fitting of such a large number of torpedo tubes was dubious, to say the least and

e) for employment mainly in the North Sea an aircraft isn't really necessary

A and B) GUNS - The 5.9' guns proved nearly useless in Graf Spee against the 3 cruisers.

D) TORPS - Uselessy used by Graf Spee.

E) PLANE - I wouldn't drop off the Arado. They are always useful even in the North Sea. I've rather prefer to have one onboard rather then go out in mission and cry for one and I don't have it.

F) ....speed which they didn't have (26 knots tops). Also no need to have that huge range they had. Eventually I would sacrifice some of the range to better speed.

these ships were designed as independent raiders:
A) the 15cm guns were intended for sinking merchies, they had more range than the 88/105s but had much more ammo than the limited # of 28cm rounds.

D) the torps served 2 functions: 1} they could be used to attack a group of merchies or quickly finish off one in a hurry if help arrived 2} there were some ships (Hood, Repulse...) that could both out run & out gun them, these gave them a weapon that could be used to defend against them (& mounted aft to discourage pursuit)....{the fact that they were defective, as with US torps, didn't come into design thinking}

E) planes were for spotting independent merchies (the ocean is a big place).

and F) I believe they were 28knts - not much but significant.

[GMG4RWF]

F) I believe they were 28knts - not much but significant.

(oops...) & range was for long range raiding, all the way to the Indian ocean! (they had trouble with that in WWI)