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Herman Goering is the greatest air strategist the Allies ever had. He single-handedly weakened Germany's aerial capabilities more than any other commander during the war.
WW2 is easily one of the most interesting events in history to learn about. You can never know enough about it, and it feels like information worth knowing
Both Germany and Britain at the start of the war ignored the potential of submarines, while at the end and through the war they became more aware. It’s an epic realization by both sides and their pursuit to fight against one another with anti- submarine technology and better submarines alike. It’s fascinating.
yeah, that was actually crazy, I do think the US had the best submarines, due to the crews, the US navy crews were amazing at their job. Like a certain Lucky man I've heard of..
I've claimed this very thing before but was informed that Britain actually had over 60 submarines at the time. Germany wanted to build more subs but internal politicking and bickering between the military branches meant precious resources of iron and steel were prioritised elsewhere. Hitler was talked into building 4 battleships instead of building more subs which may very well have been one of his several blunders - though their battleships were a nuisance for a small while
The thing you neglected, was the "fear-factor" of the Kriegsmarine. Despite beeing heavily outnumbered, the surface raiders and U-Boots forced the Allies to spend allot of resources. Prime example is the Tirpitz. Despite sitting in Docks most of the time, the mere presence of the ship around Norway made the allies reconsider operations in that area. I'd argue that despite beeing underfunded, the Kriegsmarine sure made a net positiv in the german war effort.
Lol, "Fear-Factor". The Kriegsmarine were nothing at all. It didn't stop convoys from reaching Britain, it didn't stop Royal Navy operations in the area. The Regia Marina for example is more threatening than the Nazis.
pity they horrifically dropped the ball and had the entire island of Ireland under the Union Flag when by 1936 the South of Ireland (the 26 counties) was a separate nation and no longer under British rule.
In my opinion excluding U-Boats, the Kriegsmarine was a complete failure but U-Boats were so effective that at the end of 1942 the British war machine was done to 2 weeks of fuel some British officers during that time thought that they were going to lose the war thanks to the U-Boats. Winston Churchill at the end of the war wrote: The only thing that ever really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril
But the fact is, the U-boats never got anywhere near to cutting Britain off. They completely failed. In fact they couldn't even begin to stop Britain sending forces and materials wherever it wanted, from Africa to Russia and points even further. The U-boats never even remotely approached their quarterly tonnage sinking goals. Churchill was full of hyperbole.
@@lyndoncmp5751 Hyperbole or not, he was head of state. Had he been scared into surrender by the uboats, that alone would’ve constituted a massive impact by the U-boat fleet
@@strangelyukrainian7314 But Britain was never even remotely scared into surrender by the U-boats though. The U-boats couldn't even stop all those Arctic Convoys to Murmansk in Russia from Britain.
@@nbewarwe I'd say the IJN ultimately had more influence in Japan's foreign policy leading up to WW2 since the Japanese government went with the Navy's Attack South plan instead Army's attack North plan .
@@thorpeaaron1110 The Attack North plan would be workable with continued imports of oil and steel from USA. Once USA and Netherlands imposed sanctions they needed to secure a new source of oil and other resources, and hold it. USA was effectively a hostile power having begun lend-lease support for China months before (not just selling to Japan's enemy, but outright giving them supplies and materiel). They needed to secure resources and guard their naval flank against USA.
A factor that weighed heavily on the subpar ship designs of the Kriegsmarine were the consequences of Versailles and the way the naval departments were restablished after WWI. Being a designer in the Kaiser's navy was not easy: "To become a designer in RMA during the Admiral Tirpitz era, one must travel a long, hard road. After high school, two years of practice, after that university and a Master's Degree in engineering. The candidate needed to join the Imperial Navy for 4 years, including one year onboard and three years at the IM shipyards. After that, there is a rigorous examination to see how much has been learned. After three years of service as an assistant engineer, they were then allowed to take a second examination which included six week ship design project. If one failed here, he was expelled with no hope of readmittance. If one passes, he was then employed as a civil servant. After a few years, and if he was judged to be experienced and innovative enough, only then was he was asked to join the RMA as a designer." Such degree of demanded excellence produced wonderful vessels the like of Derfflinger and Seydlitz. But after WWI, all that was lost. The new design departments were led by front line officers, with little design experience, and the designers themselves lacked practical experience (notice how previous to WWI you needed to have served several years at sea before being admitted). This produced design teams led by people who couldn't provide adequate technical guidance, and designers that lacked fundamentals and pragmatism, not having spent much time at sea. This led to teams competing against each other, lack of practicality in designs and innovation for the sake of innovation. An example: At one point in 1939, the new battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were found to be incapable of shooting their main guns. This could only be corrected after 22,000 yards (!) of useless electrical wires were removed and major modifications were made to the Fire Control circuits and mechanisms. Look up the short article "The Working Environment for German Warship design in WWI and WWII", by Peter Lienau, for a fantastic read on that topic.
And oddly enough the "in-between warships" that were build during the Weimar Republic (the so called pocket warships) were working pretty well. Though probably because Germany optimized said ships to stay within the regulations of the treaties while also projecting massive firepower. Makes me wonder if it would have been smarter to simply build more of those and then add some carriers (and not this clusterfuck called Graf Zeppelin). The Stuka might have been a good candidate for naval bombing runs considering that the greatest Stuka ace had a battleship among his kills.
@@Athrun82 The Germans had a perfectly acceptable second-rate navy in the 1930's, but their premier surface ships (the Scharnhorsts and Deutchslands) were still not sufficient against the British. The Scharnhorsts were fast and tough, but were still outgunned by every other capital ship in the world. Hood, Renown, Repulse, Dunkerque and Strasbourg could handle Scharnhorst and Gneisenau with ease, to say nothing of the more powerful battleships. The Deutchslands were also a flawed design from the start, as River Plate demonstrated. Graf Spee couldn't even sink one British cruiser with its 11 inch guns. Regarding carriers: that was always a non-starter. The major navies (Britain, the US and Japan) spent decades figuring out how to operate carriers. Moreover, in the confined waters around Europe, carriers were less effective than in the vast Pacific, which is why battleships were more dominant in that theatre. German carriers would have been even less effective than Bismarck and Tirpitz were.
@@Cailus3542 While I am not a big fan of the Scharnhorst & Gneisenau (they had a laundry list of flaws) I think that analysis is overly harsh. _Hood, Renown, Repulse, Dunkerque and Strasbourg could handle Scharnhorst and Gneisenau with ease_ Strasbourg and specially Dunkerque could not handle them with ease. It was the other way around. Dunkerque was designed to face the Deutschland class, and it showed. When pitted against Scharnhorst, it was a much more dangerous prospect. The only clear advantage they have is their excellent 330 mm gun, against the German 280 mm one. With the caveat that the Germans could ideally fire twice as many shells in the same amount of time. Speed was a bit less, and the armor is... mixed. Secondary battery also goes to the Germans. _The Deutchslands were also a flawed design from the start, as River Plate demonstrated Graf Spee couldn't even sink one British cruiser with its 11 inch guns_ This is an incorrect assesment, if I may. Graf Speed was outnumbered three to one, and yet it gave Exeter a thorough trashing. The British heavy cruiser was listing severely and its main armament and fire direction systems were in tatters. Late in the battle, fire was directed by the main gunnery officer standing on the roof of the last operational turret, shouting orders to those inside. This was turret was later put out of action due to a near miss. The light cruisers also took varying degrees of damage. Not bad for a ship outnumbered three to one.
@@Athrun82It probably would have been cheaper and massively more successful to just go with those and some torpedo destroyers (Weapons the axis had an advantage in) they probably could have actually built a proper navy. (It probably would be better at screening air attacks too)
Hey Griffin! Just a heads up. At roughly the 20minute mark you mention the kriegsmarine had less resources than the wehrmacht and the luftwaffe. The "Wehrmacht" is the name of the German armed forces as a whole and consists of the "Heer" (Ground Forces), the "Kriegsmarine" (Navy) and the Luftwaffe (Air Force). So you probably wanted to say it had fewer resources than the Heer and the Luftwaffe.
Strictly speaking, that's correct, but for whatever reason when I (as an American) heard about the German military, "Wehrmacht" was the term almost always used for the land forces.
@@WushuMR2 I mean you even have that on the vehicle plates like WH (Wehrmacht Heer), WL (Luftwaffe), WM (Marine) aswell as SS (in runes) for the electrician boys. Vehicles of our modern Bundeswehr always have the Y simply because it was kinda the only thing available which is a bit boring. So if you see old pictures of vehicles that have such plates you can easily identify to which branch it belongs. Have fun with this useless information.
The difficulties surrounding the branches, plus the failure to use OKW as was intended by OKW is worthy of a video on its own. A truly interesting bit of history.
"Oh yeah, the displacement of this cruiser is totally under 10,000 tons." - German Admiral to Washington Naval Confrence enforcer, 1934, regarding Admiral Graf Spee
The trick is to measure its displacement BEFORE you add the important things like guns, armor, lifeboats, ammo, etc. I believe almost all parties did this between the wars.
@@BandanRRChannel More or less. The brits AS far AS i know wanted Not to Cheat but some Cruiser they build where strangly big for Thier Limited guns and Armor. AS If theily where meant to be Upgraded into a way Higher weightclass.
Something about the Hilfskruezers is that in November 1941, one of them the HSK Kormoran sank the light cruiser HMAS Sydney off the coast of Western Australia after taking it completely off guard. While most of Kormoran's crew of nearly 400 survived, Sydney went down with her entire crew of 645.
@@aaravtulsyan lol thats the fault of the Allies war is about deception the Kormoran had no armor at all all it had was some torpedos and anti tank guns while the HMAS Sydney was the pride of the Australian navy and had a veteran crew which foolishly aproached the Kormoran in close range and was caught sleeping with the Kormorans crew destroyed many vital parts of the Sydney before the crew even started firing their guns were badly damaged and managed to inflict little to no dmg but cuz the Kormoran was a commerce ship with no armor the little dmg it sustained proved to be enough to sink it
The Kormoran had a legendary service life with it sinking many Commerce ships and even manageing to steal an Oil Tanker from the Royal Navy which managed to make its way back to Germany not to mention it sank the pride of the Australian navy with a mere surface raider
@@lordbeerus7248 sure it was the allies fault they decided to be good chaps and help a ship that was signalling for help. Using cheap and criminal tactics like this, can't expect anything else from the Nazis cam we
You could cover an often overlooked topic - USN submarines in the Pacific. I am currently writing an essay comparing and contrasting what led to the success of the USN's submarines and the failure of the u-boats, it is a topic worth exploring.
Its kind of insane that they used their tech to make an advertisement in the style of their normal videos, with the sponsor integrated into the plot, buying new upgrades in the middle of an engagement !
I gotta say that the quality of his videos, already excellent to begin with for a long time, just keeps getting better and better. Thank you for your great work Sir.
I never thought I would enjoy WW2 and all the history again - but your format of animation/not too much gore if any and a voice worthy of some new Curious George story teller - nice. I hope someone can use your work when they need to cram an all nighter for writting a paper on german history :)
This channel and History of the Universe really show the level of research, quality, and information that can be put into this format. I need more channels of this quality.
Historia Civilis tops these 2 in research and getting in to those sweet sweet nitty gritty details if you ask me. Must watch for any history buffs out there
sincerly,this is an underrated part of the war, no one considers other thsn in battle for britain how important naval warfare was in ww2. anyways,id suggest a looking into romania in ww2,its an intresting perspective imo
I hope we can get a Video of the japanese and italian navy next, we barely know anything about those even so they where interesting aswell. Plus I still would love a Video about the history of the red cross organisation as whole and then maybe the developement of it in countries like germany, japan, italy, russia etc as it is extremely interesting imo (most people forget to thank the healer).
Correction at 17:30. If the destroyer dropped the depth charges without moving at speed like in the animation, it would have suffered risk of damage from it's own weapons, in 1941 some of the battleship USS Washington's fire control and radar systems were damaged when passing over the remains of the destroyer HMS Punjabi after it was accidentally rammed by HMS King George V and it's depth charges activated, imagine what would happen to a destroyer
On that note, maybe you would consider making a video about U-47 raid on Scapa-Flow, or other notorious U-boats or captains? Submarine warfare always was and still is a very special topic.
Plan Z also assumed that Britain would not build in response to the German build up. In reality, any fleet the Germans could have built would have been out built by Britain. Drachinifel has a great video about the possible RN response, 'Countering Plan Z - What would the Royal Navy have done?'
It's funny how the plan to defeat the Royal Navy in one conclusive battle sounds just like the Japanese navy's plan to defeat the U.S. navy in one big battle that would be fought at terms that were favorable to them.
It's the logical position of the underdog. You Know You can't handle sustained attrition warfare, so you search for a battle where you can destroy the enemy in detail.
@@EndOfSmallSanctuary97 I'd say that was different. The Japanese had the superior navy: all four of their battleships were the latest design built by Britain, and the two new Italian armoured cruisers. Plus the Russian fleet had had to sail round Africa to get to Tsushima while being denied access to ports by the British.
@@EndOfSmallSanctuary97 And if you know about the Battle of Tsushima you will know how utterly ill-prepared the Russian 2nd Pacific Squadron was to fight any enemy. Especially when it came to training and discipline of the crews, even if they weren't sailing vessels in as poor of condition as what they were on.
I've been interest in WWII since I was a kid, I even remember watching the Military channel even when I was 7. I don't know how I didn't know the Germans actually constructed and aircraft carrier until now.
Yeah, it was a fine ship design to bad they didn’t realize it’s full potential. The Graf Zeppelin, was 90 percent completed by the summer of 1938, almost a full year before the start of WW2.
The Tirpitz was arguably more successful than the Bismarck. It was stationed in the north of Norway and would threaten any allied convoy trying to ship supplies to the USSR. This forced the allies to protect their convoys using a great chunk of their navy, against a threat that rarely even left port, making the Tirpitz a prime example for the fleet-in-being doctrine
that's a fair point but at the same time it wasn't a very good doctrine since all it did was make the allies more cautious and act smartly and there were always more and more supplies going into the USSR, they might as well just have made more mines and it would of had the same effect really
At the end of the war....too late to be a factor....the Kriegsmarine introduced three new submarines: The Type 21, which was WAY ahead of its time, as it could travel faster underwater, using diesel power instead of battery power. It also held more torpedoes. The Type 25 was a smaller coastal submarine, but had the same new technology as the Type 21, and I think actually sank a few ships right before the end of the war. There was also the SeeHund, and minature submarine, which was able to penetrate harbors, and it too sank a few ships before the wars end, on trial missions.
It would have been interesting in 1939-41 if the Germans deployed the subs they had at the end of the war against the anti submarine Corvettes and frigates the British had at the End of the war. I think Britain still would have prevailed as Germany could never have matched the shipbuilding capacity of Britain. plus from about late 1942 the Royal navy had the technological edge over the Kriegsmarine
the biggest problem with the Kriegsmarine's U-boat campaign wasn't a lack of technology, it was a lack of sound doctrine. Even if Germany had somehow managed to design/deploy the Type 21 earlier in the war, it would not have changed anything. They still would have used hilariously bad radio discipline (that made it easy for the Allies to track the boats) and their tactics and general coordination would still have been so poor that any technology "advantage" would have been rendered null. Germany lost the war in the Atlantic FAR earlier in the war than one might initially think. A lot of the stories about the effectiveness of the U-Boat campaigns were Allied propaganda to build support for the war.
Once again, id like to thank you for uploading this in wide format sir. It looks more "cinematic" on my computer screen and when watching on my phone it fills the entire length of my screen instead of watching big black bars on the sides.
Germany’s navy had its ups and downs, the U-boats proved to be deadly sinking a ton of allies supply ships, however I do believe the Bismarck, Tirpitz, and other warships could have been used better.
Germany's mistake was in building those battleships at all. Now, this isn't a "they should've built aircraft carriers instead" thing. The European naval theater was very, very different from the Pacific. The profusion of land-based aircraft in the Euro theater made aircraft carriers much less important. But the thing about surface fleets is that unless you can build a big enough one that you can actually defeat the other side in a decisive battle, they're a waste of resources and manpower. It's very much a 'go big or go home' kind of situation. Germany had no business building any surface warship bigger than a destroyer; if they'd put the time, effort and raw materials that they wasted on boondoggles like the Bismarck and Tirpitz into improving their submarine fleet instead, they would've fared far better. Although really, their chances of winning even a marginal victory in the naval war (and, with it, of winning even a marginal victory in the whole war since the outcome of the naval conflict pretty much decided which side was going to win) went up in smoke the moment the British broke the enigma code.
@@dark7element I have, for the last forty years of doing my own analysis of the question of The Kriegsmarine beginning large scale submarine production 1936 and no further capital ships. I really do not understand the apparent blindness that you seem expect the Royal Navy to have. "My God, Jerry is building lots of submarines but no capital ships. How soon can we laydown the Lions?" That must be the reaction you expect the Royal Navy to have. Just being Colonel Blimp and ignoring the threat that nearly brought the empire to her knees in the previous war. Do we have any historical situation which might shed some light on what the Royal Navy's reaction would be? Well we do. That exact scenario happened in Sep 1939 when the war started. The same scenario you and others postulate for 1936 onward. German shifted from capital ships to submarine production. The Royal Navy, in answer, ceased the Lions and some aircraft carriers and other ships to put that space to building of anti-submarine vessels. Other impacts might include a small reduction of Tribal J K l M fleet destroyers for production of the Hunts. Just as the Royal Navy could have almost doubled the potential output of Plan Z in capital ships. The same production capability could have ,in part, or completely reallocated to ASW ships. One advantage the British would have is they could build ASW vessels and put them in the reserve fleet and only bring them out for training as needed whereas the Kriegsmarine would probably man the U-boots full time. Other impacts might include a small reduction of Tribal J K l M fleet destroyers for production of the Hunts. The Royal Navy could have practiced convoy tactics with the called up reserve vessels thus developing actual doctrine for convoys before the war. This would be a great advantage over what happened in 1939 when the Royal Navy had to start from scratch during the war. There could also see the advent of an early HMS Archer prior to the war as well. The move to all submarine building By Germany would have been met by a large ASW push by the Royal Navy. I do not feel that Germany would any better chance just building U-boots than they would have using Plan Z. Britain could out produce Germany in either case. I do not believe the Royal Navy or Britain would have taken the totally oblivious view of Colonel Blimp necessary for this idea to have succeeded any better. Is there a clear winning position for the Kriegsmarine? Probably Hitler not going to war!
@@kennethbriner5390 With the technology availabe in the late 1930s and early 1940s, I believe that investment in ASW vessels would provide diminishing returns relative to investment in submarines themselves. The international supply lines of the British Empire were enormous (there were u-boat raids in the Indian ocean! A lot of them!) and you need more escort ships to guard supply lines like that compared to the number of submarines (and surface commerce raiders) you need to threaten them. No, Germany was never going to be able to outproduce the UK, but focusing on subs would've given them the most favorable exchange on investment compared to the UK.
Well the Bismarck was crippled and rendered inoperable by the RN and had to be scuttled in 1941. The Tirpitz was forced to limit it's operations for the rest of the war in 1942 when British commandos destroyed the Normandie dry dock during the St Nazaire Raid.
I don't think there was a single ship in the Kriegsmarine that was 10,000 tons displacement in WW2. Not sure what you're talking about- they certainly weren't that small
Something that always bugs. During the invasion of Norway he states the Kriegsmarine supported the Wehrmacht and at 20:00 says the Kriegsmarine had fewer resources than the Luftwaffe or the Wehrmacht. That's like saying the U.S. Navy received fewer resources than the U.S. Air Force or the U.S. Armed Forces. The Wehrmacht was all the German armed forces, not just the Army. The land component of the Wehrmacht was the Heer, or Army. To say the Kriegsmarine received fewer resources that the Wehrmacht makes no sense, as the Kriegsmarine was a branch of the Wehrmacht, along with the Heer and Luftwaffe. Just a pet peeve.
Raeder: "Okay so you'd like a big navy that challenges the royal navy?" Hitler: "Yes." Raeder: "Okay, then just give us until 1948-ish and we might just be ready." --------------1939------------------ *_"German Reich has declared war on Poland"_* Raeder: *_*Sigh*_* U-Boats it is. Donitz: "Somebody said U-Boats?"
13:26 Short and Successful. Graf Spee had a very successful raiding career, got into a 1 vs 3, send 1 packing before disengaging. The Captain then deiced it was better to scuttle the ship here than go out and lose all his men.
At 9:08 there are shown the multiple choises of the germans, problem is, the ships there displayed look like italian ones. Respectivly: Littorio class battleship, soldati destroyer and zara cruiser
@@vermas4654they didn’t really achieve much, they lost every single major engagement of the war. The Uboats at their peak failed to sink even quarter of the tonnage sent overseas, and failed to stop the British transporting supplies across the empire, from the Far East to the med. the biggest factor was the fear
@@carwyngriffiths that they even managed to pull off Weserübung and sink so many ships is still very remarkable. They shouldn't have been this "successful" considering the royal navy.
For anyone curious about what the details of Plan Z entailed, I highly recommend this video: ua-cam.com/video/HvQj2oM69IY/v-deo.html. Of course, as pointed out, Plan Z's main assumption was that there would be no war with Britain for ten years. For a look at how the Royal Navy could have responded to such a German naval build up, I also recommend this video from the same channel: ua-cam.com/video/R89zNg3WYko/v-deo.html
After binging all of his drydocks this past half year - it´s hard to say what i love about him the most. His extreme respect for sources and accuracy, or his unstoppable wholesomeness
How did they figure that? Sure, the U.K. (and France) were unnecessarily appeasing the German takeovers for a while out of fear of another "Great War," but did Germany really think that policy would last for an entire additional decade? Even if Poland wasn't the last straw, surely they wouldn't just sit back and let Hitler march on the Soviet Union. Although not on friendly terms, letting Hitler have the Soviets (if he had succeeded in this version of history) would've allowed him to become way too powerful.
panic how? they took their time and sunk them both and neither of them had a deciding factor in their theaters, Germanys plans to choke supply lines was never going to work when the USA was always sending more ships, those ships did more for boosting allied moral when they got sunk then any positive for the axis powers
How WW2 would have gone when it had only began in 1944-45 that Plan Z would have been at least partially completed etc would be interesting. Since it would open a massive amount of possibilities. Thinking about it, even something like Scharnhorst and Gneisenau being available for Operation Rheinübung (as originally planned) would have changed things. PoW would have probably been sunk that day as well and the final battle of Bismarck might have been completely different
Do you think the Royal Navy would still be using Hood if they had time to complete the Lions, Vanguard and the rest lol? Britain would simply outbuild Germany again
@@jakemurray2635 You are mixing things up. The second part is more ships being available that should have went with Bismarck that couldn't. And yes, they would be using Hood. She had a major refit planned in 1942. Doesn't sound like she was obsolete to me
@@Hendricus56 She was commissioned in 1920 lol. When the Royal Navy starts commissioning new and bigger capital ships, they'd start getting rid of older ships like the R class, QE Class and battlecruisers. She had a refit planned because the war was on and nothing was going to replace her
@@jakemurray2635 She had the refit planned either way because in the build up to WW2, she was the most important asset. And you honestly expect the RN to get rid of basically a fast battleship? Faster than the QEs, better armed than the KGVs... She was basically the best the Royal Navy had at that point. They would have definitely modernised her. No questions asked. When you say QEs (even then some would have survived since they were modernised), R class and Repulse/Renown, you ignore that those were WW1 vessels. They fought in that war. Hood not
@@Hendricus56 Hood was designed and built in WW1 tho and would not even be close to the planned 6 Lion class Battleships and would perform the same roles the Renown class performed historically ie convoy and fast carrier escort as Battlecruisers were not supposed to fight in the battle line. While not decommissioned, she certainly would be in reserve by 1944 to free crews up for the bigger, better ships
Despite all its shortcoming, the Kriegsmarine punched way above its weight even the surface fleet. The fact such a small force was able to snatch Norway right in front of the doorsteps of the most powerful Navy of that time (at least in the Atlantic) while trading losses on equal footing, is quite remarkable. On paper, the RN should have dominated, but lost the battle of Norway...
Well, not quite. The British won the naval campaign quite handily in the end, but they couldn't do anything to prevent the land invasion of Norway itself due to the German landings. The Kreigsmarine suffered substantial casualties, ranging from a modern heavy cruiser (sunk by a Norweigan fort) to half their destroyers. Even Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were damaged, requiring extensive repairs that would take months. British losses, such as HMS Glorious, were far less serious.
@@Cailus3542 well yes "in the end" after 5 years of grueling attrition with the aid of the US. Considering the size of KM at the start of the war, compared to the RN, the KM effect on the war should have been insignificant.
They really didn’t having the majority of your surface fleet sunk or damage in a single campaign isn’t particularly impressive especially considering they inflicted almost no damage back with their own surface fleet apart from a carrier (which was only made vulnerable due to the impulses of the captain he was a wanker) and some smaller vessels. They had pretty poor designs and let’s not forget that battle they fought with themselves which saw them damage or lose multiple ships.
@@DD-qw4fz I was referring to the naval campaign around Norway, not the overall naval war of WW2. Norway was lost, but the Kreigsmarine never recovered from their own losses. In the case of the latter, the Kreigsmarine's surface fleet had a minimal impact. It was bled dry in the Norway operation (which was a success nevertheless for the Germans), and subsequently had no large impact on the Royal Navy's dominance of the Atlantic and North Sea. The surface fleet had no major success in commerce raiding on a large scale, never mind threatening Allied command of the sea. Also, small correction: the US played no major part in the fighting against the Kreigsmarine and Regia Marina's surface fleets. The main US contribution was in the form of sending older ships for shore bombardment, fast battleships to help contain Tirpitz and of course, countless destroyers to fight the U-boats.
You can't compare the Kriegsmarine to the RN and say "well, the RN was so much bigger; they should have beat them right away, and if they didn't then the Kriegsmarine was better", because aside from a couple pocket battleships and merchant raiders, the Kriegsmarine was concentrated all in one spot. Whereas the RN had commitments around the globe. And the attacker always has the advantage of concentration of force. If the RN didn't have to worry about the Italians or Japanese, I'm sure they could have wiped out the Kriegsmarine to the last rowboat on their Norwegian doorstep.
Still love doing the Easter Egg hunt while watching your videos. Like the "Flying Bell" in the beginning or the "Conspiracy Meme" with all the red lines on a map while talking about old Admirals with no connection to reality. Thank you all @ AH
I wouldn't say they were successful. Once the convoy system was figured out, the Kriegsmarine the threat to shipping was relatively minimal. But. When we consider the fact that the Kriegsmarine was operating on a comparative shoestring budget at the best of times. Their accomplishments were impressive. So, militarily speaking, I would call it an honorable defeat.
It needs reminding that the Royal Navy wasn't fighting only the Kriegsmarine in the Atlantic. The Kriegsmarine's successes ought to be put into perspective that the RN was fighting two proper naval powers in different theaters a logistical burden that Germany never could have shouldered. The Kriegsmarine owed the Regia Marine and Imperial Japanese Navy for the opportunity to punch above its weight as it were.
I know quite little about the German navy during WW2. Thank you for this video, and I would appreciate more like it in the future too! God be with you out there, everybody. ✝️ :)
Anyone else recognize the music at 12:00 from Real Time History's videos on Napoleon's invasion of Russia? I realize the music is probably copyright free and used by many content creators. I just think it's really cool because that music sets the mood perfectly for epic/awesome history videos.
8:39 I love the hoi4 sounds XD I am actually playing it rn while listening to this video in the background lol, I was so confused for a second tho like why am I hearing those noises.
12:10 “third rate” is an exaggeration. The navies stronger than the KM were the USN, Royal Navy, IJN, Regia Marina, and French navies. But it was stronger than the Soviet or any other navy, so maybe 2nd tier naval power.
@@natebox4550 USSR, Brazil, Argentina, Chile all had battleship navies; Dreadnought era ships that could trade fire with the older us navy battleships, for example. Netherlands and Spain and others had significant cruiser navies. In terms of modern battleships the Kriegsmarine was on par with the French Navy (four for each), it was the lack of their older modernized ships thanks to Versailles that made them worse off. But hey, leaving aside size, the Kriegsmarine proved a tougher fight for the Royal Navy than the Regia Marina, so it’s a matter of perspective.
The Germans had some huge battleships bigger than Bismarck like the H class which were built to house 16 or 20 inch guns for its main armament but only 2 were built out of the 6 planned and the 2 that were built were eventually scrapped
Despite being so outnumbered ,German navy achieved what if could , it did perform great feats,the fact that it continued to fight for at least 4 years is quite impressive
By 1944, German sailors of surface warships who survived the sinking of their vessel and were rescued by their comrades only to be conscripted into the Army or the the Volksgrenadiers and fight the War on the battlefield.
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Corrections:
At 6:08 Karl Dönitz's name is missing a t.
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Ok
What was The Japanese Perspective in WW1?
He does these sponsorships cuz UA-cam demonetizes him for showing history.
@@Charlie-fu6ep virgin UA-cam
1:00 correction 2: that supposed to say raven, not vanguard (vanguard=soviets, raven=germany)
Herman Goering is the greatest air strategist the Allies ever had. He single-handedly weakened Germany's aerial capabilities more than any other commander during the war.
Him and whoever was giving him drugs.
did you know germany had stealth planes in ww2? when the allies landed in Normandy they barely even spot any German planes!
@@kingking-ci1gf yes!! It's the bf109 I varient, I for Inexistent
He not just weakend the aerial capabilities, he was also good in creating imaginary supply bridges by air
@@kingking-ci1gf when its white planes, its the RAF. If they’re blue, its the USAAF. If its no plane at all, its the Luftwaffe
Or so the joke goes
WW2 is easily one of the most interesting events in history to learn about. You can never know enough about it, and it feels like information worth knowing
That I can agree with. It might even give us a favorite battle if we have one. I should know, my favorite is Midway.
War always represents the real face of humans
Facts
@@GMKGoji01 Midway is one of the greatest victories of the war along side the Battle of Britain.
wait till you get bored of it and move on to ww1
Both Germany and Britain at the start of the war ignored the potential of submarines, while at the end and through the war they became more aware. It’s an epic realization by both sides and their pursuit to fight against one another with anti- submarine technology and better submarines alike. It’s fascinating.
I thought Germany focused on U-boats at the start of the war due to resource restrictions.
by then most people before ww1 or ww2 think submarine jsut for pirate use not for war .
@@scottanno8861 they really only started focusing on it after Bismarck died
yeah, that was actually crazy, I do think the US had the best submarines, due to the crews, the US navy crews were amazing at their job. Like a certain Lucky man I've heard of..
I've claimed this very thing before but was informed that Britain actually had over 60 submarines at the time. Germany wanted to build more subs but internal politicking and bickering between the military branches meant precious resources of iron and steel were prioritised elsewhere. Hitler was talked into building 4 battleships instead of building more subs which may very well have been one of his several blunders - though their battleships were a nuisance for a small while
The thing you neglected, was the "fear-factor" of the Kriegsmarine. Despite beeing heavily outnumbered, the surface raiders and U-Boots forced the Allies to spend allot of resources. Prime example is the Tirpitz. Despite sitting in Docks most of the time, the mere presence of the ship around Norway made the allies reconsider operations in that area.
I'd argue that despite beeing underfunded, the Kriegsmarine sure made a net positiv in the german war effort.
Ah yes, the mighty German u-boot
Lol, "Fear-Factor". The Kriegsmarine were nothing at all. It didn't stop convoys from reaching Britain, it didn't stop Royal Navy operations in the area. The Regia Marina for example is more threatening than the Nazis.
@@fissionabledolphin That's how they say in german
Very true points
Yes, the equivalent of the british navy in the mediterranean
I love this art style you’ve settled on it’s so clean and fresh and the animation flows gorgeously just a huge well done to the team
I agree. It looks amazing
yeah it looks good to me but i usually just stare into the wastepaper basket
I hope there is no problem in using the "click and select" sounds from Hearts of Iron...
pity they horrifically dropped the ball and had the entire island of Ireland under the Union Flag when by 1936 the South of Ireland (the 26 counties) was a separate nation and no longer under British rule.
Way better than Alegría art, for sure.
Many people overlooked this part of the war, im glad you're covering this part of the war
In my opinion excluding U-Boats, the Kriegsmarine was a complete failure but U-Boats were so effective that at the end of 1942 the British war machine was done to 2 weeks of fuel some British officers during that time thought that they were going to lose the war thanks to the U-Boats.
Winston Churchill at the end of the war wrote: The only thing that ever really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril
But the fact is, the U-boats never got anywhere near to cutting Britain off. They completely failed. In fact they couldn't even begin to stop Britain sending forces and materials wherever it wanted, from Africa to Russia and points even further.
The U-boats never even remotely approached their quarterly tonnage sinking goals.
Churchill was full of hyperbole.
@@lyndoncmp5751 his hyper-huge belly was also very full too
@@johnhession8035
Yes with whisky and cigarette smoke. At least he knew how to party 😎
@@lyndoncmp5751
Hyperbole or not, he was head of state. Had he been scared into surrender by the uboats, that alone would’ve constituted a massive impact by the U-boat fleet
@@strangelyukrainian7314
But Britain was never even remotely scared into surrender by the U-boats though. The U-boats couldn't even stop all those Arctic Convoys to Murmansk in Russia from Britain.
I'd love to see a video on the Japanese Navy especially since they had large influence on Japanese politics and doctrine
So did the army. They both were basically children arguing over who got to play with the toy that was the government of Japan.
Well, the Imperial Japanese Navy cemented Japan's standing in the international stage after Togo's victory at Tsushima.
If you want you could watch an entire series on Pacific War by Kings and Generals
@@nbewarwe I'd say the IJN ultimately had more influence in Japan's foreign policy leading up to WW2 since the Japanese government went with the Navy's Attack South plan instead Army's attack North plan .
@@thorpeaaron1110 The Attack North plan would be workable with continued imports of oil and steel from USA. Once USA and Netherlands imposed sanctions they needed to secure a new source of oil and other resources, and hold it. USA was effectively a hostile power having begun lend-lease support for China months before (not just selling to Japan's enemy, but outright giving them supplies and materiel). They needed to secure resources and guard their naval flank against USA.
A full-length vid on the Soviet-Afghan War would be so awesome.
A factor that weighed heavily on the subpar ship designs of the Kriegsmarine were the consequences of Versailles and the way the naval departments were restablished after WWI. Being a designer in the Kaiser's navy was not easy:
"To become a designer in RMA during the Admiral Tirpitz era, one must travel a long, hard road. After high school, two years of practice, after that university and a Master's Degree in engineering. The candidate needed to join the Imperial Navy for 4 years, including one year onboard and three years at the IM shipyards. After that, there is a rigorous examination to see how much has been learned. After three years of service as an assistant engineer, they were then allowed to take a second examination which included six week ship design project. If one failed here, he was expelled with no hope of readmittance. If one passes, he was then employed as a civil servant. After a few years, and if he was judged to be experienced and innovative enough, only then was he was asked to join the RMA as a designer."
Such degree of demanded excellence produced wonderful vessels the like of Derfflinger and Seydlitz. But after WWI, all that was lost. The new design departments were led by front line officers, with little design experience, and the designers themselves lacked practical experience (notice how previous to WWI you needed to have served several years at sea before being admitted). This produced design teams led by people who couldn't provide adequate technical guidance, and designers that lacked fundamentals and pragmatism, not having spent much time at sea. This led to teams competing against each other, lack of practicality in designs and innovation for the sake of innovation. An example:
At one point in 1939, the new battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were found to be incapable of shooting their main guns. This could only be corrected after 22,000 yards (!) of useless electrical wires were removed and major modifications were made to the Fire Control circuits and mechanisms.
Look up the short article "The Working Environment for German Warship design in WWI and WWII", by Peter Lienau, for a fantastic read on that topic.
And oddly enough the "in-between warships" that were build during the Weimar Republic (the so called pocket warships) were working pretty well. Though probably because Germany optimized said ships to stay within the regulations of the treaties while also projecting massive firepower. Makes me wonder if it would have been smarter to simply build more of those and then add some carriers (and not this clusterfuck called Graf Zeppelin). The Stuka might have been a good candidate for naval bombing runs considering that the greatest Stuka ace had a battleship among his kills.
@@Athrun82 The Germans had a perfectly acceptable second-rate navy in the 1930's, but their premier surface ships (the Scharnhorsts and Deutchslands) were still not sufficient against the British. The Scharnhorsts were fast and tough, but were still outgunned by every other capital ship in the world. Hood, Renown, Repulse, Dunkerque and Strasbourg could handle Scharnhorst and Gneisenau with ease, to say nothing of the more powerful battleships. The Deutchslands were also a flawed design from the start, as River Plate demonstrated. Graf Spee couldn't even sink one British cruiser with its 11 inch guns.
Regarding carriers: that was always a non-starter. The major navies (Britain, the US and Japan) spent decades figuring out how to operate carriers. Moreover, in the confined waters around Europe, carriers were less effective than in the vast Pacific, which is why battleships were more dominant in that theatre. German carriers would have been even less effective than Bismarck and Tirpitz were.
More like 3rd rate
@@Cailus3542 While I am not a big fan of the Scharnhorst & Gneisenau (they had a laundry list of flaws) I think that analysis is overly harsh.
_Hood, Renown, Repulse, Dunkerque and Strasbourg could handle Scharnhorst and Gneisenau with ease_
Strasbourg and specially Dunkerque could not handle them with ease. It was the other way around. Dunkerque was designed to face the Deutschland class, and it showed. When pitted against Scharnhorst, it was a much more dangerous prospect. The only clear advantage they have is their excellent 330 mm gun, against the German 280 mm one. With the caveat that the Germans could ideally fire twice as many shells in the same amount of time. Speed was a bit less, and the armor is... mixed. Secondary battery also goes to the Germans.
_The Deutchslands were also a flawed design from the start, as River Plate demonstrated Graf Spee couldn't even sink one British cruiser with its 11 inch guns_
This is an incorrect assesment, if I may. Graf Speed was outnumbered three to one, and yet it gave Exeter a thorough trashing. The British heavy cruiser was listing severely and its main armament and fire direction systems were in tatters. Late in the battle, fire was directed by the main gunnery officer standing on the roof of the last operational turret, shouting orders to those inside. This was turret was later put out of action due to a near miss. The light cruisers also took varying degrees of damage.
Not bad for a ship outnumbered three to one.
@@Athrun82It probably would have been cheaper and massively more successful to just go with those and some torpedo destroyers (Weapons the axis had an advantage in) they probably could have actually built a proper navy. (It probably would be better at screening air attacks too)
Hey Griffin! Just a heads up. At roughly the 20minute mark you mention the kriegsmarine had less resources than the wehrmacht and the luftwaffe. The "Wehrmacht" is the name of the German armed forces as a whole and consists of the "Heer" (Ground Forces), the "Kriegsmarine" (Navy) and the Luftwaffe (Air Force). So you probably wanted to say it had fewer resources than the Heer and the Luftwaffe.
Strictly speaking, that's correct, but for whatever reason when I (as an American) heard about the German military, "Wehrmacht" was the term almost always used for the land forces.
no heer was for all and wehrmacht for tanks and infantry
@@WushuMR2 I mean you even have that on the vehicle plates like WH (Wehrmacht Heer), WL (Luftwaffe), WM (Marine) aswell as SS (in runes) for the electrician boys. Vehicles of our modern Bundeswehr always have the Y simply because it was kinda the only thing available which is a bit boring. So if you see old pictures of vehicles that have such plates you can easily identify to which branch it belongs. Have fun with this useless information.
@@gamerdrache6076 No. Its the other way around. Heer was and is still the word for German Ground Forces
@@Frontline_view_kaiser bro my great grandpa was officer in the nazi army and yo say i don´t know what what is
The difficulties surrounding the branches, plus the failure to use OKW as was intended by OKW is worthy of a video on its own. A truly interesting bit of history.
"Oh yeah, the displacement of this cruiser is totally under 10,000 tons."
- German Admiral to Washington Naval Confrence enforcer, 1934, regarding Admiral Graf Spee
The trick is to measure its displacement BEFORE you add the important things like guns, armor, lifeboats, ammo, etc. I believe almost all parties did this between the wars.
@@BandanRRChannel More or less. The brits AS far AS i know wanted Not to Cheat but some Cruiser they build where strangly big for Thier Limited guns and Armor. AS If theily where meant to be Upgraded into a way Higher weightclass.
Something about the Hilfskruezers is that in November 1941, one of them the HSK Kormoran sank the light cruiser HMAS Sydney off the coast of Western Australia after taking it completely off guard. While most of Kormoran's crew of nearly 400 survived, Sydney went down with her entire crew of 645.
Yea by pretending to be a merchantman in distress
@@aaravtulsyan lol thats the fault of the Allies war is about deception the Kormoran had no armor at all all it had was some torpedos and anti tank guns while the HMAS Sydney was the pride of the Australian navy and had a veteran crew which foolishly aproached the Kormoran in close range and was caught sleeping with the Kormorans crew destroyed many vital parts of the Sydney before the crew even started firing their guns were badly damaged and managed to inflict little to no dmg but cuz the Kormoran was a commerce ship with no armor the little dmg it sustained proved to be enough to sink it
The Kormoran had a legendary service life with it sinking many Commerce ships and even manageing to steal an Oil Tanker from the Royal Navy which managed to make its way back to Germany not to mention it sank the pride of the Australian navy with a mere surface raider
@@lordbeerus7248 sure it was the allies fault they decided to be good chaps and help a ship that was signalling for help.
Using cheap and criminal tactics like this, can't expect anything else from the Nazis cam we
@@lordbeerus7248 I didn't that that piracy and criminal tactics were something to be proud of
I like how they're using hoi4 naval sound effects for this video, great video as always!
I was looking for this comment, they are also using the clicking sound
You could cover an often overlooked topic - USN submarines in the Pacific. I am currently writing an essay comparing and contrasting what led to the success of the USN's submarines and the failure of the u-boats, it is a topic worth exploring.
This is the one channel that makes the sponsorship not look boring and where I would not skip it
Its kind of insane that they used their tech to make an advertisement in the style of their normal videos, with the sponsor integrated into the plot, buying new upgrades in the middle of an engagement !
I gotta say that the quality of his videos, already excellent to begin with for a long time, just keeps getting better and better. Thank you for your great work Sir.
I never thought I would enjoy WW2 and all the history again - but your format of animation/not too much gore if any and a voice worthy of some new Curious George story teller - nice. I hope someone can use your work when they need to cram an all nighter for writting a paper on german history :)
Can you do the evolution of medieval armour from 11th century to 15th century?
This channel and History of the Universe really show the level of research, quality, and information that can be put into this format. I need more channels of this quality.
Historia Civilis tops these 2 in research and getting in to those sweet sweet nitty gritty details if you ask me. Must watch for any history buffs out there
nice little reference of die glocke at 2:56
sincerly,this is an underrated part of the war, no one considers other thsn in battle for britain how important naval warfare was in ww2. anyways,id suggest a looking into romania in ww2,its an intresting perspective imo
the pacific was a huge naval brawl though lol
3:07 I love how you implemented a reference to Die Glock
I hope we can get a Video of the japanese and italian navy next, we barely know anything about those even so they where interesting aswell. Plus I still would love a Video about the history of the red cross organisation as whole and then maybe the developement of it in countries like germany, japan, italy, russia etc as it is extremely interesting imo (most people forget to thank the healer).
Just when I was hoping for another video, thanks for always delivering, Armchair team!
Correction at 17:30. If the destroyer dropped the depth charges without moving at speed like in the animation, it would have suffered risk of damage from it's own weapons, in 1941 some of the battleship USS Washington's fire control and radar systems were damaged when passing over the remains of the destroyer HMS Punjabi after it was accidentally rammed by HMS King George V and it's depth charges activated, imagine what would happen to a destroyer
On that note, maybe you would consider making a video about U-47 raid on Scapa-Flow, or other notorious U-boats or captains? Submarine warfare always was and still is a very special topic.
Plan Z also assumed that Britain would not build in response to the German build up. In reality, any fleet the Germans could have built would have been out built by Britain.
Drachinifel has a great video about the possible RN response, 'Countering Plan Z - What would the Royal Navy have done?'
I love the naval lover’s recommending Drach, godspeed
Two power standard 2: electric boogaloo
It's funny how the plan to defeat the Royal Navy in one conclusive battle sounds just like the Japanese navy's plan to defeat the U.S. navy in one big battle that would be fought at terms that were favorable to them.
It's the logical position of the underdog. You Know You can't handle sustained attrition warfare, so you search for a battle where you can destroy the enemy in detail.
It worked for the Japanese during the Russo-Japanese War: see the Battle of Tsushima
@@EndOfSmallSanctuary97 I'd say that was different. The Japanese had the superior navy: all four of their battleships were the latest design built by Britain, and the two new Italian armoured cruisers. Plus the Russian fleet had had to sail round Africa to get to Tsushima while being denied access to ports by the British.
@@EndOfSmallSanctuary97 And if you know about the Battle of Tsushima you will know how utterly ill-prepared the Russian 2nd Pacific Squadron was to fight any enemy. Especially when it came to training and discipline of the crews, even if they weren't sailing vessels in as poor of condition as what they were on.
They could have if they took out the oil fields
I've been interest in WWII since I was a kid, I even remember watching the Military channel even when I was 7. I don't know how I didn't know the Germans actually constructed and aircraft carrier until now.
Yeah, it was a fine ship design to bad they didn’t realize it’s full potential. The Graf Zeppelin, was 90 percent completed by the summer of 1938, almost a full year before the start of WW2.
3:05 on the right side paper is "Die Glocke" a supposed Nazi machine capable of gravity suppression
The Tirpitz was arguably more successful than the Bismarck. It was stationed in the north of Norway and would threaten any allied convoy trying to ship supplies to the USSR. This forced the allies to protect their convoys using a great chunk of their navy, against a threat that rarely even left port, making the Tirpitz a prime example for the fleet-in-being doctrine
Yeah I wondered about that comment. Tirpitz actually sank a few capital ships and operated against Artic convoys for over a year.
that's a fair point but at the same time it wasn't a very good doctrine since all it did was make the allies more cautious and act smartly and there were always more and more supplies going into the USSR, they might as well just have made more mines and it would of had the same effect really
@@volbound1700Tirpitz only fired her guns in anger at a weather station. Her crew never sank any ships directly.
@@volbound1700 Tirpitz never sank any capital ships lol
At the end of the war....too late to be a factor....the Kriegsmarine introduced three new submarines: The Type 21, which was WAY ahead of its time, as it could travel faster underwater, using diesel power instead of battery power. It also held more torpedoes. The Type 25 was a smaller coastal submarine, but had the same new technology as the Type 21, and I think actually sank a few ships right before the end of the war. There was also the SeeHund, and minature submarine, which was able to penetrate harbors, and it too sank a few ships before the wars end, on trial missions.
It would have been interesting in 1939-41 if the Germans deployed the subs they had at the end of the war against the anti submarine Corvettes and frigates the British had at the End of the war. I think Britain still would have prevailed as Germany could never have matched the shipbuilding capacity of Britain. plus from about late 1942 the Royal navy had the technological edge over the Kriegsmarine
Eh. Wouldn’t have made a difference. The allies’ anti sub technology was growing rapidly.
There's a video on UA-cam where an academic using primary German sources ripped the legend the XXI as described on Wikipedia as a complete myth.
the biggest problem with the Kriegsmarine's U-boat campaign wasn't a lack of technology, it was a lack of sound doctrine. Even if Germany had somehow managed to design/deploy the Type 21 earlier in the war, it would not have changed anything. They still would have used hilariously bad radio discipline (that made it easy for the Allies to track the boats) and their tactics and general coordination would still have been so poor that any technology "advantage" would have been rendered null.
Germany lost the war in the Atlantic FAR earlier in the war than one might initially think. A lot of the stories about the effectiveness of the U-Boat campaigns were Allied propaganda to build support for the war.
Germany had less than 1/10th the shipbuilding infrastructure of the UK no matter what they did they were always going to lose a naval war with the UK
BuT mUh BiSmArCk
Tbf rhey didn't have to win the navy war just stop Britain eating and arming
I love your videos as always high quality
These animation though, Bloody Amazing work!
Once again, id like to thank you for uploading this in wide format sir. It looks more "cinematic" on my computer screen and when watching on my phone it fills the entire length of my screen instead of watching big black bars on the sides.
You should do more navy stuff if ww1 and ww2 it’s very overshadowed in history classes
I would like to see a episode highlighting the importance of American submarines against the Japanese shipping in WW2 as well.
Plan Z: How much ships you want?
Hitler: Yes
There was a documentary once which quoted Admiral Lutjans. Supposedly he said the best the German Navy can hope for was to die gallantly.
Germany’s navy had its ups and downs, the U-boats proved to be deadly sinking a ton of allies supply ships, however I do believe the Bismarck, Tirpitz, and other warships could have been used better.
Germany's mistake was in building those battleships at all. Now, this isn't a "they should've built aircraft carriers instead" thing. The European naval theater was very, very different from the Pacific. The profusion of land-based aircraft in the Euro theater made aircraft carriers much less important. But the thing about surface fleets is that unless you can build a big enough one that you can actually defeat the other side in a decisive battle, they're a waste of resources and manpower.
It's very much a 'go big or go home' kind of situation. Germany had no business building any surface warship bigger than a destroyer; if they'd put the time, effort and raw materials that they wasted on boondoggles like the Bismarck and Tirpitz into improving their submarine fleet instead, they would've fared far better. Although really, their chances of winning even a marginal victory in the naval war (and, with it, of winning even a marginal victory in the whole war since the outcome of the naval conflict pretty much decided which side was going to win) went up in smoke the moment the British broke the enigma code.
@@strangelyukrainian7314 and how could the u boats have operated in the closely guarded English Channel? Without air superiority?
@@dark7element I have, for the last forty years of doing my own analysis of the question of The Kriegsmarine beginning large scale submarine production 1936 and no further capital ships. I really do not understand the apparent blindness that you seem expect the Royal Navy to have. "My God, Jerry is building lots of submarines but no capital ships. How soon can we laydown the Lions?" That must be the reaction you expect the Royal Navy to have. Just being Colonel Blimp and ignoring the threat that nearly brought the empire to her knees in the previous war. Do we have any historical situation which might shed some light on what the Royal Navy's reaction would be?
Well we do. That exact scenario happened in Sep 1939 when the war started. The same scenario you and others postulate for 1936 onward. German shifted from capital ships to submarine production. The Royal Navy, in answer, ceased the Lions and some aircraft carriers and other ships to put that space to building of anti-submarine vessels. Other impacts might include a small reduction of Tribal J K l M fleet destroyers for production of the Hunts. Just as the Royal Navy could have almost doubled the potential output of Plan Z in capital ships. The same production capability could have ,in part, or completely reallocated to ASW ships. One advantage the British would have is they could build ASW vessels and put them in the reserve fleet and only bring them out for training as needed whereas the Kriegsmarine would probably man the U-boots full time. Other impacts might include a small reduction of Tribal J K l M fleet destroyers for production of the Hunts.
The Royal Navy could have practiced convoy tactics with the called up reserve vessels thus developing actual doctrine for convoys before the war. This would be a great advantage over what happened in 1939 when the Royal Navy had to start from scratch during the war. There could also see the advent of an early HMS Archer prior to the war as well.
The move to all submarine building By Germany would have been met by a large ASW push by the Royal Navy. I do not feel that Germany would any better chance just building U-boots than they would have using Plan Z. Britain could out produce Germany in either case. I do not believe the Royal Navy or Britain would have taken the totally oblivious view of Colonel Blimp necessary for this idea to have succeeded any better. Is there a clear winning position for the Kriegsmarine? Probably Hitler not going to war!
@@kennethbriner5390 With the technology availabe in the late 1930s and early 1940s, I believe that investment in ASW vessels would provide diminishing returns relative to investment in submarines themselves. The international supply lines of the British Empire were enormous (there were u-boat raids in the Indian ocean! A lot of them!) and you need more escort ships to guard supply lines like that compared to the number of submarines (and surface commerce raiders) you need to threaten them. No, Germany was never going to be able to outproduce the UK, but focusing on subs would've given them the most favorable exchange on investment compared to the UK.
Well the Bismarck was crippled and rendered inoperable by the RN and had to be scuttled in 1941. The Tirpitz was forced to limit it's operations for the rest of the war in 1942 when British commandos destroyed the Normandie dry dock during the St Nazaire Raid.
Also admiral Reinhard Scheer and Hipper were so good!
15:04 their standard displacement was around 10,000 tons, so not any different from allied ships and right on the displacement limit of Versailles
"around" sums it up pretty well, i think the 13000-14000 is the wrong type of displacement.
I don't think there was a single ship in the Kriegsmarine that was 10,000 tons displacement in WW2. Not sure what you're talking about- they certainly weren't that small
3:07 Little SCP reference on the left
Something that always bugs. During the invasion of Norway he states the Kriegsmarine supported the Wehrmacht and at 20:00 says the Kriegsmarine had fewer resources than the Luftwaffe or the Wehrmacht. That's like saying the U.S. Navy received fewer resources than the U.S. Air Force or the U.S. Armed Forces. The Wehrmacht was all the German armed forces, not just the Army. The land component of the Wehrmacht was the Heer, or Army. To say the Kriegsmarine received fewer resources that the Wehrmacht makes no sense, as the Kriegsmarine was a branch of the Wehrmacht, along with the Heer and Luftwaffe. Just a pet peeve.
With that amazing animation this man can make a show
I wonder if they note the heavy cruiser sunk by little Norway with a shore battery 🤣
And 40 year old torpedoes
The Blucher
I appreciate you pronunciation of the river where Spee was scuttled.
1:29 ah yes the Maus, also known by its other name the M36 Jackson.
3:00 Die Glocke easter egg is hilarious🤣🤣
Raeder: "Okay so you'd like a big navy that challenges the royal navy?"
Hitler: "Yes."
Raeder: "Okay, then just give us until 1948-ish and we might just be ready."
--------------1939------------------
*_"German Reich has declared war on Poland"_*
Raeder: *_*Sigh*_* U-Boats it is.
Donitz: "Somebody said U-Boats?"
13:26 Short and Successful. Graf Spee had a very successful raiding career, got into a 1 vs 3, send 1 packing before disengaging. The Captain then deiced it was better to scuttle the ship here than go out and lose all his men.
Saturday morning, eating breakfast and watching armchair is 👍👍👍
At 9:08 there are shown the multiple choises of the germans, problem is, the ships there displayed look like italian ones. Respectivly: Littorio class battleship, soldati destroyer and zara cruiser
I noticed the pizzas too
You are right, I'm the artist who drew the scene my mistake!
This channel have the best visual and quality compared to any lazy historian youtube channel ever! Thanks to your awesome artist!
It's remarkable how much they managed to achieve with so little
The Germans?
@@yw9113 the Kriegsmarine in particular
@@vermas4654they didn’t really achieve much, they lost every single major engagement of the war. The Uboats at their peak failed to sink even quarter of the tonnage sent overseas, and failed to stop the British transporting supplies across the empire, from the Far East to the med. the biggest factor was the fear
Correction: It's remarkable how much the Royal Navy managed to achieve in WW2 with so little being remembered by anyone
@@carwyngriffiths that they even managed to pull off Weserübung and sink so many ships is still very remarkable. They shouldn't have been this "successful" considering the royal navy.
"The only thing that scared me during the war was the U-boat threat." - Winston Churchill
9:51 is that a robot mech from Wolfenstein? :'D
Looks like Machine Man for me .
Good on the armchair historian team for putting effort in the sponsorship segment
For anyone curious about what the details of Plan Z entailed, I highly recommend this video: ua-cam.com/video/HvQj2oM69IY/v-deo.html. Of course, as pointed out, Plan Z's main assumption was that there would be no war with Britain for ten years. For a look at how the Royal Navy could have responded to such a German naval build up, I also recommend this video from the same channel: ua-cam.com/video/R89zNg3WYko/v-deo.html
Gigachad Drach viewer. I love that legend
After binging all of his drydocks this past half year - it´s hard to say what i love about him the most. His extreme respect for sources and accuracy, or his unstoppable wholesomeness
How did they figure that? Sure, the U.K. (and France) were unnecessarily appeasing the German takeovers for a while out of fear of another "Great War," but did Germany really think that policy would last for an entire additional decade? Even if Poland wasn't the last straw, surely they wouldn't just sit back and let Hitler march on the Soviet Union. Although not on friendly terms, letting Hitler have the Soviets (if he had succeeded in this version of history) would've allowed him to become way too powerful.
That might be my favorite channel on You Tube.
Warpath better have paid you well for that animation. That was soooo good.
Saw it was just a lame ad unrelated to the video, watched the whole thing anyway, just to see what happened in the battle in the ad !
Armchair Historian: *Updates.*
Potential History: *Updates.*
Epic History: *Updates.*
Simple History: *Updates.*
Me a Nerd: *WOOOHOOOOOO!!!*
I'm trying to figure this out for HOI4 right now actually, perfect timing... Lol thanks as always for the great content!
I would love to see another WW2 Navy related topics, particulary the Imperial Japanese Navy
The real reason why i love this channel....
The Evolution ep
and the cool divisions thing
Really detailed videos like this make me want to become a developer for Hoi4
I mean they did panic when the Bismarck and Tirpitz became sea worthy and rightfully so.
panic how? they took their time and sunk them both and neither of them had a deciding factor in their theaters, Germanys plans to choke supply lines was never going to work when the USA was always sending more ships, those ships did more for boosting allied moral when they got sunk then any positive for the axis powers
How WW2 would have gone when it had only began in 1944-45 that Plan Z would have been at least partially completed etc would be interesting. Since it would open a massive amount of possibilities. Thinking about it, even something like Scharnhorst and Gneisenau being available for Operation Rheinübung (as originally planned) would have changed things. PoW would have probably been sunk that day as well and the final battle of Bismarck might have been completely different
Do you think the Royal Navy would still be using Hood if they had time to complete the Lions, Vanguard and the rest lol? Britain would simply outbuild Germany again
@@jakemurray2635 You are mixing things up. The second part is more ships being available that should have went with Bismarck that couldn't. And yes, they would be using Hood. She had a major refit planned in 1942. Doesn't sound like she was obsolete to me
@@Hendricus56 She was commissioned in 1920 lol. When the Royal Navy starts commissioning new and bigger capital ships, they'd start getting rid of older ships like the R class, QE Class and battlecruisers. She had a refit planned because the war was on and nothing was going to replace her
@@jakemurray2635 She had the refit planned either way because in the build up to WW2, she was the most important asset. And you honestly expect the RN to get rid of basically a fast battleship? Faster than the QEs, better armed than the KGVs... She was basically the best the Royal Navy had at that point. They would have definitely modernised her. No questions asked. When you say QEs (even then some would have survived since they were modernised), R class and Repulse/Renown, you ignore that those were WW1 vessels. They fought in that war. Hood not
@@Hendricus56 Hood was designed and built in WW1 tho and would not even be close to the planned 6 Lion class Battleships and would perform the same roles the Renown class performed historically ie convoy and fast carrier escort as Battlecruisers were not supposed to fight in the battle line. While not decommissioned, she certainly would be in reserve by 1944 to free crews up for the bigger, better ships
Love the subtle HoI4 button clicking noises
The allies: let's take it nice and slowly Germany is doomed anyway.
The Soviets: RUSH B
'B' stands for Berlin isn't it??
@@Kingkhan-og8xw yes
This comment isn't even related to the video.
@@ErwinSmith001 ok, and?
@@frenchempire9471 Idk
2:56 Die Glocke art there.
Considering Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz became Reich President, I'd say the Navy was very successful.
Lmao. Successful
Loses 75% of u boat force
ABSOLUTELY fascinating!! GREAT, enthusiastic delivery!! MORE, please!! 👍👍😃
Please make a video about the Pacific war between Chile and Peru/Bolivia, I think south American history is undertaught for how interesting it is
Herman Goring lack the imagination of the potential of an Aircraft Carrier.
Despite all its shortcoming, the Kriegsmarine punched way above its weight even the surface fleet. The fact such a small force was able to snatch Norway right in front of the doorsteps of the most powerful Navy of that time (at least in the Atlantic) while trading losses on equal footing, is quite remarkable. On paper, the RN should have dominated, but lost the battle of Norway...
Well, not quite. The British won the naval campaign quite handily in the end, but they couldn't do anything to prevent the land invasion of Norway itself due to the German landings. The Kreigsmarine suffered substantial casualties, ranging from a modern heavy cruiser (sunk by a Norweigan fort) to half their destroyers. Even Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were damaged, requiring extensive repairs that would take months. British losses, such as HMS Glorious, were far less serious.
@@Cailus3542 well yes "in the end" after 5 years of grueling attrition with the aid of the US. Considering the size of KM at the start of the war, compared to the RN, the KM effect on the war should have been insignificant.
They really didn’t having the majority of your surface fleet sunk or damage in a single campaign isn’t particularly impressive especially considering they inflicted almost no damage back with their own surface fleet apart from a carrier (which was only made vulnerable due to the impulses of the captain he was a wanker) and some smaller vessels. They had pretty poor designs and let’s not forget that battle they fought with themselves which saw them damage or lose multiple ships.
@@DD-qw4fz I was referring to the naval campaign around Norway, not the overall naval war of WW2. Norway was lost, but the Kreigsmarine never recovered from their own losses. In the case of the latter, the Kreigsmarine's surface fleet had a minimal impact. It was bled dry in the Norway operation (which was a success nevertheless for the Germans), and subsequently had no large impact on the Royal Navy's dominance of the Atlantic and North Sea. The surface fleet had no major success in commerce raiding on a large scale, never mind threatening Allied command of the sea.
Also, small correction: the US played no major part in the fighting against the Kreigsmarine and Regia Marina's surface fleets. The main US contribution was in the form of sending older ships for shore bombardment, fast battleships to help contain Tirpitz and of course, countless destroyers to fight the U-boats.
You can't compare the Kriegsmarine to the RN and say "well, the RN was so much bigger; they should have beat them right away, and if they didn't then the Kriegsmarine was better", because aside from a couple pocket battleships and merchant raiders, the Kriegsmarine was concentrated all in one spot. Whereas the RN had commitments around the globe. And the attacker always has the advantage of concentration of force. If the RN didn't have to worry about the Italians or Japanese, I'm sure they could have wiped out the Kriegsmarine to the last rowboat on their Norwegian doorstep.
Still love doing the Easter Egg hunt while watching your videos. Like the "Flying Bell" in the beginning or the "Conspiracy Meme" with all the red lines on a map while talking about old Admirals with no connection to reality.
Thank you all @ AH
I wouldn't say they were successful. Once the convoy system was figured out, the Kriegsmarine the threat to shipping was relatively minimal.
But. When we consider the fact that the Kriegsmarine was operating on a comparative shoestring budget at the best of times. Their accomplishments were impressive.
So, militarily speaking, I would call it an honorable defeat.
They have punched high above their weight class .
You are a guy right?
It needs reminding that the Royal Navy wasn't fighting only the Kriegsmarine in the Atlantic. The Kriegsmarine's successes ought to be put into perspective that the RN was fighting two proper naval powers in different theaters a logistical burden that Germany never could have shouldered. The Kriegsmarine owed the Regia Marine and Imperial Japanese Navy for the opportunity to punch above its weight as it were.
@@MalfosRanger Many forgot that Italian navy could put up a good figth in that time . Japan seemed powerful until 1942 .
Love the die glocke and ufo at 3:05
I know quite little about the German navy during WW2. Thank you for this video, and I would appreciate more like it in the future too!
God be with you out there, everybody. ✝️ :)
Anyone else recognize the music at 12:00 from Real Time History's videos on Napoleon's invasion of Russia? I realize the music is probably copyright free and used by many content creators. I just think it's really cool because that music sets the mood perfectly for epic/awesome history videos.
After watching Drachinfields channel for over a year I know ask my self how the Kreigsmarine was able to do anything in the war
Much like a lot of early Axis victories, they got lucky on big gambles. And when that luck ran out, they found themselves outnumbered and outgunned.
8:39 I love the hoi4 sounds XD I am actually playing it rn while listening to this video in the background lol, I was so confused for a second tho like why am I hearing those noises.
what the heck happened about the new video about America's perspective in ww1 it was an excitement!!!!!!????
Yeh where is it
Man when I pressed it out of excitement it says private video
Guess we gotta wait boys
Damn the automatic english subtitles just dropped an ''Admiral Karl Donuts''
12:10 “third rate” is an exaggeration. The navies stronger than the KM were the USN, Royal Navy, IJN, Regia Marina, and French navies. But it was stronger than the Soviet or any other navy, so maybe 2nd tier naval power.
So pretty much smaller than every other major nation, than the Soviets. So third rate.
French and Italy were the second rate naval powers, soviets and Germany were the third rate
@@natebox4550 USSR, Brazil, Argentina, Chile all had battleship navies; Dreadnought era ships that could trade fire with the older us navy battleships, for example. Netherlands and Spain and others had significant cruiser navies. In terms of modern battleships the Kriegsmarine was on par with the French Navy (four for each), it was the lack of their older modernized ships thanks to Versailles that made them worse off. But hey, leaving aside size, the Kriegsmarine proved a tougher fight for the Royal Navy than the Regia Marina, so it’s a matter of perspective.
Excellent animation! The Always Sunny reference is gold too 😂
Can you do the Japanese navy next?
opening the eastern front right off was not a good idea. Navy with air support for raiding trade routes and sinking war vessels was cost effective.
Beautiful video. Another one on the Italian navy would be super interesting
The Germans had some huge battleships bigger than Bismarck like the H class which were built to house 16 or 20 inch guns for its main armament but only 2 were built out of the 6 planned and the 2 that were built were eventually scrapped
Armchair history is seriously underrated. He and his team puts so much work into their videos that it’s incredible
He’s doing really good for himself, what are you talking about
"Underrated"
*Looks at 1.79M subscribers**
1:00 to 2:00 He practically made a movie. Great video
Despite being so outnumbered ,German navy achieved what if could , it did perform great feats,the fact that it continued to fight for at least 4 years is quite impressive
yeah but it was losing all of those 4 years. how is that impressive?
@@joedatius i guess that it held that long
@@joedatius Gotta give them that Participation award tho
@@joedatius completely taking over Europe is not impressive?
@@Rieee140 "holding" is not exactly the right word for it.
I like all the little references that are getting thrown into these videos
The United States and the United Kingdom had better ships and aircraft carriers than Germany did in WW2. So did Japan and Italy.
By 1944, German sailors of surface warships who survived the sinking of their vessel and were rescued by their comrades only to be conscripted into the Army or the the Volksgrenadiers and fight the War on the battlefield.
I like how "Die Glocke" was shown in one of the scenes.