Thiaria: Other People's ships

Germany in the Thiarian universe

Preface: The following is meant to provide a background for some fictional German (and other) WWII-era ships. Apart from the existence of these ships and some additional engagements, the general course of history remains unchanged, except for a slightly longer duration of the war and a Nuke on Berlin. German guilt, shame and full responsibility for all horrors of the war including those that befell Germany itself are not to be marginalized, minimized or otherwise -ized. I am also aware that the basic setting is grossly unrealistic. Even with a considerably stronger Russian fleet remaining available in 1919 and all German ships interned in Scapa Flow distributed among the victors, the British would never ever have acquiesced to more benign conditions concerning the German fleet than the ones actually set in the treaty of Versailles.

Having said that, let's proceed anyway, for the sake of drawing some AU German, Russian, Swedish and Italian ships (what is mentioned in the text is going to be drawn, sooner or later):

1. Distribution of the HSF
A few days after the Germans were presented with the final draft of the conditions for the Treaty of Versailles in early June 1919, the communist sailor's councils on the interned German capital ships got wind of Admiral Reuter's plans to scuttle the fleet. Being aware that there would be bloodshed if the British tried to prevent such a move, they decided to snitch, and a deserter hid on a British despatch boat and told them what the Sailors knew, spiced up with some wild guesses. Upon learning of Reuter's perceived intentions, Admiral Beatty cancelled the exercise scheduled for June 21st, 1919 and his ships assumed positions that allowed them to quickly interfere if anything was tried. Reuter realized he had no chance, and the order to scuttle never went out. Eleven battleships, five battlecruisers and six modern light cruisers plus 32 destroyers were available for distribution among the Allies after the treaty was signed on June 28th. The British were not entirely happy with that outcome, and Beatty received some covert criticism for not allowing Reuter to proceed; any German ships in the hands of Britain's erstwhile allies were considered a threat to Britain's security. In the event, they set rules for the distribution of the German fleet that were designed to limit especially France's and Italy's gains to a minimum. The ships were to be distributed equally among Great Britain, the USA, France and Italy, with each nation getting to pick among the prizes in the aforementioned order; battleships, battlecruisers and light cruisers were to be picked from separately. That way, no one would receive more than one ship from each class, and the best units would remain in Anglo-American hands. This resulted in the following distribution: Great Britain received Baden, Großer Kurfürst, Kaiserin, Hindenburg and von der Tann plus the Austrian Kaiser Maximilian; the USA received Bayern, Kronprinz, Prinzregent Luitpold and Derfflinger; France received König, Friedrich der Große and Seydlitz; and Italy finally got Markgraf, Kaiser and Moltke. Of the three modern Thiarian ships that had become Allied prizes, Great Britain received the battleships Macanta and Lormaic, and the USA the battlecruiser Aigean. This left Great Britain with eight prizes, the USA with five and France and Italy each with three. The USA waived any rights to receive further ships, as did Japan, which was entirely uninterested in prizes; to get France and Italy to an at least numerically equal footing with Britain, they were awarded one of the surviving Austro-Hungarian dreadnoughts and two Helgoland-class ships each, plus the two remaining Turkish dreadnoughts (the battleships Hüdavendigar Sultan Murat and the former russian Imperator Nikolai I). The latter were never surrendered, after Turkey secured more favourable peace terms in the Treaty of Lausanne; consequently, France and Italy each received only a single ship that was really useful, and only Italy commissioned that one for continuing service (SMS Markgraf became RN Marcantonio Colonna in 1921; she served till 1938 in a virtually unaltered state, but was torpedoed by the Spanish republican submarine C4 in September, wrecking her port shaft; a full-blown reconstruction along Andrea Doria's lines was approved in 1939, but not implemented due to the war; she was patched up and assigned to coast defence duties in North Africa in 1940, where she was sunk by British airstrikes). All other German and Austrian ships were scrapped ore used for trials or as targets. By 1935, none was afloat any more. Of the German cruiser fleet, Great Britain received Cöln II, Karlsruhe II, Brummer and Regensburg, the US got Dresden II, Bremse, Frankfurt and Straßburg; France received Emden, Nürnberg and Stralsund and Italy was awarded Königsberg, Graudenz and Pillau. France received one Austrian scout cruiser as well, and Italy two of them; the French also received one large, modern Thiarian light cruiser.

2. The Russian Scare: Bigger battleships for the Reichsmarine
Russia had made a determined effort to rebuild its Baltic fleet before the first world war; apart from completing two large pre-dreadnoughts, they built two small, slow all-big gun ships with eight 305mm guns in an en-echelon arrangement (the Ne Tron Menya and the Kreml) before building the four Gangut-class battleships and two battlecruisers with three 305mm triple turrets (the Aleksandr Nevskiy and the Ilya Muromets). All these ships were complete in 1916, and of the follow-on classes - four fast battleships of the Lesnoye-class, two (Lesnoye and Berezina) were in a very advanced state of construction when the Russian Revolution commenced. The battlecruisers Borodino and Izmail were less advanced, but Izmail was also launched already. All these ships carried twelve 356mm guns each, and the Russians had taken delivery of thirty of these guns already. Their cruiser force included four turbine scouts - Yakhont and Ametist (their sister ship Safir was sunk by the Germans) and the newer, larger Dmitriy Pozharskiy and Dobrinya Nikitich - and the large light cruiser Svetlana. Three of Svetlana's sister ships were in advanced stages of construction. Eighteen large turbine destroyers were available, with sixteen more under construction. The Russians had suffered some losses in the war - one pre-dreadnought, both early dreadnoughts and the newer Poltava were sunk by German forces, against the loss of one German pre-dreadnought - and the remaining units were in a bad way by mid-1919, but Lenin, who could be trusted not to spend any efforts on rebuilding the fleet, was in poor health and only nominally in charge, and there was a real possibility that under one of his potential successors the Soviets would repair the existing ships and complete the unfinished ones within a few years, giving them a force of seven dreadnoughts plus two large and still relatively new pre-dreadnoughts and eight light cruisers in the Baltic. The Swedes felt quite threatened and built two small dreadnoughts with eight 280mm guns each (Wasa and Bernadotte) between 1916 and 1922, complementing their three Gustav-V-class coast defence ships, and even Britain was reluctant to strip Germany of its entire fleet with Soviet intentions and capabilities being so unclear. The final draft of the Treaty of Versaiiles thus stipulated a German fleet of six battleships, four of which were allowed to be in full commission at the same time, plus two further ones as material reserve, to be chosen from the four Nassau-class ships and the eight remaining Braunschweig- and Deutschland-class pre-dreadnoughts. Replacements were permitted after 25 years or in case of loss; the replacements for the Nassau-class were not to exceed 20.000 tons, and those for the pre-dreadnoughts were limited to 10.000 tons. Maximum gun caliber was 280mm in any case. This would give the Germans some basic capability to defend themselves against the Reds while not threatening Britain's fleet in any way; with eight dreadnoughts and two battlecruisers, even the French had a sufficient margin over the Germans. Germany's cruiser fleet was limited to six ships as well, plus two in the material reserve; the ships in question were Kolberg, Augsburg, Stettin, Lübeck, Danzig and Berlin plus Hamburg and München. Replacements were allowed after 20 years and not to exceed 5.000 tons and 150mm guns.

3. The Nassaus in World War 2
After the treaty was signed, Germany re-commissioned three Nassau-class battleships. Rheinland, which had been grounded during the war and was heavily damaged, was laid up as part of the material reserve. Also retained were Schlesien, Schleswig-Holstein and Hannover; Hessen and Braunschweig went into the material reserve. All older pre-dreadnoughts were scrapped, along with all four remaining armoured cruisers. The three Nassaus served with few alterations from their original layout till 1924; they then received a major refit involving fitting of a very high tube mast forward and an all-new fire control suite, trunking back the forefunnel and adding two 88mm twin flak mounts. Posen also replaced the old coal-fired boilers with oil-fired ones. Nassau was refitted in 1924/5, Westfalen 1925/6 and Posen 1926/7. During the thirties, eight 37mm and six 20mm flaks were added; and in 1939, Posen looked like this:

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She assumed an unenviable historic role in September 1939, firing the first shots of the second world war against the Polish; she continued to help take out the Polish fleet and provide ground support for German land forces operating around Danzig till the Polish surrender. In 1940, she belonged to the German invasion force bound for Oslo, together with the heavy cruisers Admiral Scheer and Admiral Hipper. Leading the German formation, she became the target for Norwegian 240mm coastal guns and shore-based torpedo batteries, which blanketed her at short range and turned her into a burning inferno. Before Scheer and Hipper managed to silence the Norwegian coastal batteries, Posen received 35 shell hits and three 450mm torpedoes, sinking her with very heavy loss of life including dozens of high-ranking Gestapo officers which were to assume key positions in the Norwegian civilian administration after the conquest; the German commander Rear Admiral Kummetz was rescued.

While Posen only received minor alterations in the 1930s, Westfalen and Nassau were taken in hand for a much more thorough refit from 1931 through 1934, just after the decision had been made to build no additional Deutschland-class battlecruisers due to the effects of the Great Depression. They were entirely gutted and received totally new twin shaft diesel machinery of 27.000 hp; the central shaft was removed and the ram bow was replaced by a slightly flared sickle bow for better seakeeping. Their speed increased from 19 to 22 knots, and the armoured deck above their engines was strengthened to a total thickness of 110mm. They retained their main and secondary armament, and three 88mm twins were added (two between the wing turrets amidships, and one superfiring the aft 280mm turret. Their superstructure was entirely new, with a huge bridge structure with a tube mast and a state of the art fire control system, and a single slender funnel for the diesel exhausts. Eight 37mm and eight 20mm flaks were installed as well. Aviation facilities were omitted, as the plan for the redesign was made while the Treaty of Versailles was still fully in force (there would not have been enough deck space anyway). Both ships were in active service by late 1934, and Westfalen performed the infamous bombardment of Almeria during the spanish civil war. Both were available at Kiel in September 1939, but only Nassau made a foray towards the Polish coast; she was severely damaged by a torpedo from a Polish fast attack craft two days before the end of the campaign and needed nine months of repairs, thus missing the Norwegian campaign. Her sister Westfalen was the first large German ship which received the iconic 'lightning' camouflage pattern and accompanied eight German destroyers to Narvik in April 1940. This is what she looked like during Weserübung:

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At Narvik, Westfalen she helped repulse a British destroyer attack, sinking two British H-class destroyers with gunfire (two more were torpedoed by German destroyers). The British then decided they had enough and drove the battleship HMS Warspite up the fjord, where Westfalen engaged her in one of the more mismatched one-on-ones of the war. She hit Warspite six times, but received 19 381mm hits herself before she foundered and sank with half her crew. HMS Warspite then proceeded to sink three German destroyers before she had to retreat due to flooding from one of Westfalen's hits forward (one German destroyer had had already been lost during the initial British destroyer attack); Westfalen's sacrifice arguably saved the other four.

Nassau re-entered service in July 1940 and served as cadet and gunnery training ship in the Baltic, which she would never again leave. She was briefly re-activated in May 1941 for providing fire support during the initial stage of the attack on The Soviet Union, but was called upon only a single time for a mission against Tallinn together with the pre-dreadnought Schlesien, which hit a mine and sank. For the next three years, Nassau had no operational sorties. To enable her to train German crews using the latest fire-control gadgets, she received a full radar suite in 1942, which was constantly upgraded in the following years; by 1944, her flak suite was also augmented with four additional 37mm twins and the number of 20mm guns was brought to 38. Although in 1944 she was painted in the camouflage adopted by most of the German heavy units operating out of Norway, she remained in the Baltic; in her final guise from about mid-1944, she looked like this:

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When the Red Army reached the Baltic states late in 1944, Nassau was recalled for active service. She provided fire support close to the shore and was frequently targeted by Soviet airplanes, but friendly air cover still worked, and she was only hit by two bombs that did not do much damage. By early 1945, the British had battered most of the newer German ships to pieces, and the Soviets for the first time sortied the main body of their fleet - three capital ships, one heavy cruiser and three light cruisers - with the intention to intercept and destroy the German fire support squadron off Tallinn. They were however unaware of the German battleship Gneisenau and heavy cruiser Seydlitz providing distant cover. Just as the Soviets had descended upon Nassau and the light cruiser Köln (the latter was damaged by several 305mm and 180mm hits and needed to be beached), Gneisenau and Seydlitz engaged the Soviets in the last surface battle of the Kriegsmarine on June 9th, 1945. Their gunfire damaged the battlecruiser Tretiy Internatsional (ex Aleksandr Nevskiy) so badly it had to be taken in tow and foundered on the return leg. Nassau escaped with only a single 305mm hit, only to be sunk by a near miss from a British Tallboy bomb in Kiel harbour on October 23rd, 1945.

To be continued (sooner or later...)

Greetings
GD

Shipbucket

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