As is widely known, at the beginning of World War II, Germany tried to disorganize the sea communications of the Allies with the help of surface ships. Both combat ships of special construction, from "pocket battleships" to "Bismarck" and "Tirpitz", and converted merchant ships, the combat stability of which was ensured by their ability to disguise themselves as a merchant ship.
Subsequently, the growth of resistance of the Anglo-Americans at sea led to the fact that the Germans stopped relying on surface ships in such operations and finally switched to the conduct of submarine warfare (we will omit the games with the Condors as a striking means, this is not important in this case) … And, again, it is widely known that Germany lost the submarine war already in 1943.
However, we are interested in the stage with surface ships. Interesting because, firstly, the Germans missed some opportunities, and secondly, the fact that they missed these opportunities contains a very interesting lesson that goes far beyond the Second World War.
But first, let's note one important nuance. Very often in relation to German surface ships performing combat missions on communications, the Russian literature uses the word "raider", derived from the word "raid". This is one of the problems of the modern Russian language - we do not call things by their proper names, which then prevents us from correctly understanding the essence of events. Especially in a harsh form, this problem exists in translations, sometimes completely distorting the meaning of concepts. Let's define the concepts to begin with - German warships did not just carry out raids, they waged a cruising war on the communications of the British. These were cruising forces, and this is how one should understand the importance attached to them by the highest German military command. A raid is a kind of action that is applicable not only in a cruising war. Roughly speaking, a military campaign into hostile waters with the aim of destroying convoys can be considered a raid, but not every raid of a surface ship is a cruising operation against shipping. The missed opportunities of the Germans lie in the understanding of this fact.
Cruising war and raids
According to the "Marine Dictionary" K. I. Samoilov, published by the State Naval Publishing House of the NKVM of the USSR in 1941, "cruising war" was defined as "operations against enemy sea trade and against neutral commercial ships that deliver the enemy items and supplies that are used to wage war." Was this what the Germans wanted and did? Yes.
Let's turn to the classics. In the seminal work of Alfred Thayer Mahan "The influence of sea power on history" (here they are, the difficulties of translation, because Mahan wrote not about sea power, but about power, power - force applied in time, continuous efforts, sea power, and this is something completely different) there are such wonderful words about the war on communications:
The great damage done to the wealth and well-being of the enemy in this way is also undeniable; and although its commercial ships may to some extent take cover during the war - by deception, under a foreign flag, this guerre de course, as the French call such a war, or this destruction of enemy trade, as we may call it, if it is carried out successfully, should be of great concern to the government enemy country and disturb its population. Such a war, however, cannot be fought on its own; it must be supported; without support in itself, it cannot extend to a theater far from its base. Such a base should be either domestic ports, or some solid outpost of national strength on the coast or at sea - a distant colony or a strong fleet. In the absence of such support, the cruiser can only venture on hasty voyages at a short distance from her port, and her blows, although painful for the enemy, cannot then be fatal.
and
… Such harmful actions, if not accompanied by others, are more annoying than weakening. …
It is not the capture of individual ships and caravans, even if in large numbers, that undermines the country's financial strength, but the overwhelming superiority of the enemy at sea, which expels its flag from its waters or allows the latter to appear only in the role of a fugitive and which, making the enemy the master of the sea, allows him to block the water trade routes leading to and from the shores of a hostile country. Such superiority can only be achieved by means of large fleets …
Mahan gives a ton of historical examples of how these dependencies worked - and they did. And, unfortunately for the Germans, they worked for them too - all attempts by Germany to wage a war on communications, without backing it up with the actions of the surface fleet, failed. Germany lost both world wars, including because of the inability to withdraw England from the war. And if in the First World War Germany had a large fleet, which she simply did not really use, then in the Second it was much worse - a surface fleet capable of making the Royal Navy at least wait for a German attack, abandoning active offensive actions, simply did not have. The Germans found a way out to try to destroy British trade by attacking transport ships and convoys without getting involved in battles with the British fleet. The exit turned out to be false.
But does this mean that German efforts in the war at sea against Britain were completely doomed?
Let's turn to a concept other than cruising war or cruising. Alas, in relation to the war at sea, you will have to use foreign definitions, translating them relatively accurately.
It would seem that this definition is very reminiscent of what in our fleet was traditionally called the word "raid". But the raid is carried out by ships striking overland. A raid is a special case of a raid, the "special task" of which is that the attacking forces - ships - must strike at a coastal target, whatever it may be, from fuel depots to enemy ships in the base. Nowadays, the relevance of raiding actions has been seriously reduced by the appearance of cruise missiles - now you just don't have to go to the target on the shore, it is attacked from a great distance. But even forty years ago, raids were quite relevant.
Let's ask ourselves a question: if a raid is a special case of a raid, then there are other options for raider actions. Is it possible to consider a military campaign as a raid, the purpose of which is to destroy the guarded convoy and return? As mentioned above, you can, and this will also be a special case of a raid, like a raid.
What's left behind the brackets? Raid operations aimed at destroying enemy warships, temporarily outnumbered against the raiding forces, remained outside the brackets.
The Germans, faced with the total domination of the British, and then the Anglo-Americans in the sea, chose an asymmetric tactic - a cruising war, the impossibility of victory in which without the support of a powerful fleet was perfectly justified by Mahan. At the same time, the Germans did not fully use the possibility of sending raiders to purposefully “shoot” the British warships. But such operations, firstly, would immediately begin to change the balance of forces at sea in favor of Germany, if they were carried out correctly, of course, and secondly, and this is the most important thing, the Germans had quite successful examples of such actions, such as really successful, and potentially successful, but during which they again refused to achieve the result.
Consider three episodes from the German war at sea, taking into account not only the actual results achieved, but also those that the Kriegsmarine refused to achieve.
But first, let's answer the question: does the fleet fighting in a significant minority have the prerequisites for achieving success against a numerically superior and dominant enemy at sea.
Velocity versus mass
Those who have been boxing know the truism very well: a knockout is not a super-strong blow, it is a missed blow. What is needed for the enemy to miss it? You need to be more technical and faster, and the force of the blow should be just sufficient, and not prohibitively large. She is also needed, of course, but the main thing is speed. You should be faster. And more resilient, so as not to lose speed too early and have time to "catch" the moment.
This simple rule applies more than ever to military action. Getting ahead of the enemy in deployment, maneuver, and withdrawal is the key to the success of raiding operations, and even small forces against large ones can achieve this. Why is that? Because the enemy dominating the sea is burdened with an obligation that he cannot refuse to fulfill - he must literally be everywhere.
Let's remember the Second World War. The British fleet is conducting operations "around" Norway. Fights Italians in the Mediterranean. Conducts surveillance and patrolling of the German coast, wherever he can. Keeps strength in the metropolis. Guards convoys in the Atlantic. Allocates forces in order to chase raiders. And this dispersal of forces has obvious consequences - it is not easy to gather ships into a fist to destroy the enemy's forces, naturally, when the attacker ensures the surprise of his actions (which is a priori necessary in any combat operation).
Let's consider this problem on the example of the operation of the Royal Navy against the "pocket battleship" "Admiral Graf Spee". Formally, the British threw three formations to capture the "battleship" from a total of one aircraft carrier, one battle cruiser, four heavy cruisers and light cruisers hurrying to help. In practice, these forces were so scattered across the South Atlantic that only one very weak unit from the heavy cruiser Exeter and two light cruisers Ajax and Achilles could detect the Admiral Spee. The rest were late, another British heavy cruiser arrived only when Exeter had already lost its combat effectiveness from the fire of the Spee's cannons.
At first glance, the Spee's campaign, which ended in self-flooding, is a complete failure. But we must clearly understand that this is not the failure of the ship and not the idea of such a campaign, this is the failure of the commander of the "battleship" Hans Langsdorf. He won the outset of the battle, he disabled the only enemy ship that could pose a serious threat to him, he had fire superiority over the remaining British ships. Yes, the Spee was damaged and its crew suffered losses. Yes, the enemy had speed superiority. But on the other hand, "Spee" had a colossal superiority in range - only a week had passed since the moment of receiving fuel, and there was enough fuel on board to take off. Langsdorf could, firing back, get away at least from light cruisers.
Then, of course, it could have turned out differently, but in those years it was a very non-trivial task to drive a single ship into the ocean. It's not very easy even now. Even, rather, it is difficult. What if Langsdorf made the decision to take the lead? In the best case for the Britons, the result would be a long and exhausting pursuit across the entire ocean, where the British would have to introduce more and more ships into the operation, in order to then force the Spee to take a battle somewhere, in which it is not a fact that it would have cost no loss. In the worst case, the British cruisers that had used up their fuel would have been forced to retreat, the reinforcements would have been late or "missed", and the Spee would have gone home.
The fact that Langsdorf first drove his ship into a dead end, then, abandoning the attempt to break through with a fight, flooded it himself, and then shot himself, was not due to anything other than his personal will. During the war, the British sacrificed themselves more than once in hopeless battles and died in whole crews for one or two hits on the target, and having the opportunity to escape. Nobody bothered the Germans to behave in a similar way.
The British did not have a good option to take and slam the arrogant alone, despite the monstrous superiority in forces over the Kriegsmarine. Why? Because they had to be everywhere, and there are not an infinite number of ships, and the enemy holding the initiative can take advantage of this.
This is the main prerequisite for the success of the raid, even in conditions when its goal is not to attack convoys and other "cruising" actions, unable to ensure victory in the war even if successful, but to search for and destroy weak battle groups and single combat ships of the enemy. To even out the balance.
The Germans did not set such plans and goals for themselves, they either did not understand their importance, or did not believe in feasibility.
The irony of fate is that they did and did well such actions. But - by chance. Let's consider them in more detail.
Episode 1. Operation "Yuno"
On June 4, 1940, the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper left Wilhelmshaven for the open sea. By June 8, the German battle group already consisted of Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper, destroyers Z20 Karl Galster, Z10 Hans Lodi, Z15 Erich Steinbrink and Z7 Hermann Schöman. The unit was commanded by one of the most experienced German commanders, Admiral Wilhelm Marshal.
The combat mission of the compound was a raid on Harstad, Norway. In the opinion of the German command, such an operation would ease the position of the German troops in Narvik. Thus began the German operation "Juno" ("Juno"). However, on the same day, June 8, when the battle group moved towards its target, the Germans learned that the Allies were evacuating from Norway. The attack lost its meaning. The Marshal, however, decided to find and destroy the convoy with the evacuated troops.
He didn't find it. The group managed to destroy only two transport ships - the military transport Orama and the tanker Oil Payonier. Along the way, the minesweeper "Dzhuneper" was sunk. But in the second half of the day, the battle group what is called "caught" an absolutely outstanding prize - the aircraft carrier "Glories" escorted by a pair of destroyers. The results are known. The battleships sank everyone, and the only damage that the British managed to inflict was a torpedo hit from the destroyer Akasta, which cost the life of the destroyer crew (remember the English ability to fight to the end, which Langsdorf lacked), and fifty sailors from the Scharnhorst.
Now let's estimate how many British forces were in the area of operation. The aircraft carriers Glories and Ark Royal, the heavy cruiser Devonshire, the light cruiser Coventry, and the light cruiser Southampton were in close proximity to the battlefield. The battleships Valiant, Rodney, the battlecruisers Ripals and Rhinaun, and the heavy cruiser Sussex were at a distance of less than a forced daily passage.
But - the paradox of naval hegemony - all these ships had their own tasks, they were not where it was necessary, or they could not abandon the escorted convoy, or they could not risk passengers on board … ultimately, sinking the Glories and the escort destroyers,the Germans left. This luck was accidental - they were not looking for a warship that could be sunk, relying on the superiority of a pair of battleships. But what prevented them from looking for such opportunities, if they understand the nature of war at sea a little better? Nothing. Find a convoy, destroy the guards in battle, with the remaining forces, catch up and melt as many transports as possible.
By a certain point, the British could well face a certain shortage of warships. And that would have made the German submarine and auxiliary cruiser war on communications much more successful. The British simply would not be able to allocate as much forces to guard the convoys as they did in reality - they would have to hunt the raiders, destroying their combat fleet faster than they could restore it. And already if German submarines would join the hunt for warships somewhere in the Mediterranean …
Of course, all of the above happened in fact on the outskirts of Europe - off the coast of Norway. But the Germans had quite successful military campaigns far into the ocean.
Episode 2. Operation "Berlin"
January 22, 1941 "Scharnhorst" and "Gneisenau" set off on a long voyage to the Atlantic with the task of sinking British convoys. During this operation, a couple of ships more than once caught the eye of the British, attacked ships reported about it, and in general, the British had a rough idea of what was happening in the ocean. But, as already mentioned, to drive a surface ship into the ocean is not a trivial task, and to put it mildly. On March 22 of the same year, a pair of battleships moored in Brest, and the British merchant fleet decreased by 22 ships. The operation was commanded by Gunther Lutyens, who replaced the "raider of all Kriegsmarine" Marshal because of the latter's conflict with Röder. The replacement was not good and had fatal consequences. The master of cruising war Marshal, the only admiral who sank an aircraft carrier in an artillery battle (at that time) and a wayward commander capable of independent decisions, would still be more appropriate in the place of Lutyens.
What is characteristic of Operation Berlin? Firstly, a pair of German battleships "combed" British shipping with absolutely impunity, although three times they ran into strong guards. On February 9, the ships found themselves dangerously close to the battleship Ramilies in the North Atlantic, on February 16 to the southwest they parted quite a bit from the battleship Rodney, on March 7 east of the African coast they similarly left the battleship Malaya and on March 20 they were spotted aircraft from the Ark Royal aircraft carrier. But the British could not attack the German compound, although from the moment it went out to sea, large forces were dispatched to capture it. But the sea is big.
Question: could the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau have thinned out not merchant ships, but British warships? Consider the situation with the exit of the German compound to the HX-106 convoy.
On December 8, only one ship was included in the escort of the convoy - the battleship "Ramilies", built in 1915.
The rest of the half-dead destroyers of the First World War and the corvettes "Flower" entered the guard a few days later, after the alarm raised by the "Scharnhorst" and "Gneisenau". In theory, the Germans could try to give battle to the British striker and sink him. Of course, it was a risk: the Ramilies' 15-inch cannons could fire at the same range as the German 280-mm guns, and the mass of the 15-inch shell was much higher. But on the other hand, the Germans had 18 barrels versus 8 for the Ramilies and a top speed superiority of about 11 knots. This, in total, made it possible to impose any battle scenario on the British.
Moreover, if the Germans had a little better to debug the interaction between the surface and submarine fleets, the battleships could lure the English battleship out of order of the convoy, direct the U-96 submarine to Ramilies, which already attacked the convoy a couple of days later, sinking a couple of transports, and then calmly interrupting all merchant ships from cannons. This was all the more real, because in the same cruise the German ships did direct the submarines to the target, just later. It was possible to try to attack the battleship at night at the maximum range of actual fire, using radar guidance. It was possible to fire at the battleship, and then point the submarine at it. When the Ramilies was sunk in the Western Atlantic, the British had a very serious "hole" in their defense, which they would have to urgently close with something … but with what?
It would be especially painful for the Britons if the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had walked through all those anti-submarine trawlers, corvettes, WWI destroyers and the old leader that were approaching the convoy in those days. It sounds funny, but just a year ago Britain was forced to make a "destroyer-base" deal, giving up strategic military assets for fifty rotting WWI destroyers, as one of the officers who received them put it - "the worst ships ever seen." The British experienced a monstrous shortage of escort ships, and the ships they used would have been shot dry by any of the German ships. It would have been a blow far more painful than the sinking of merchant ships.
Lutyens blindly followed Hitler's orders not to engage in combat with British surface ships. Operation Berlin did not lead to a reduction in the combat strength of the Royal Navy of Great Britain. However, during this operation, the Germans showed that, despite the British domination at sea, despite their numerical superiority in warships of all classes, despite their aircraft carriers and carrier-based aircraft, a small group of raiders could break into the ocean, and to conduct intense hostilities there, and return. That, in fact, happened, only the wrong goals were chosen.
Episode 3. Hike "Bismarck" and "Prince Eugen"
A lot has been written about this campaign, but for some reason no sane conclusions have been made. What can we learn from the first and last military campaign of Bismarck? First, a raider can break into the ocean even if large forces are waiting for him. The Bismarck was expected and it broke through.
Secondly, it is worth considering Lutyens' request to give him the Scharnhorst, the Gneisenau, and ideally also the Tirpitz when he can go to sea, and postpone the operation until the Tirpitz and the Gneisenau being repaired. … Raeder refused everything, and he was wrong. During the "Berlin" Lutiens managed to complete the combat mission with two ships. It is self-evident that the British, for whom ownership of the sea is a fix, will take various measures to prevent such an incident from happening again. This means that in order to "attack in the same direction against an already forewarned enemy," larger forces had to be brought into battle. Were the British ready for this? No. So what? This means that the same forces that were actually thrown at it would have been thrown to intercept the German compound.
That is, even if, together with "Bismarck" and "Prince Eugen" in the Danish Strait, there were, for example, "Scharnhorst" (even if only he was alone), then all the same, the same " Hood "and" Prince of Wales ". Only the Germans would have had nine more 280-mm barrels. And if the sinking of Hood is more of a statistical fluctuation, then the Prince of Wales's failure and its withdrawal from battle is a pattern in those circumstances. The Scharnhorst as part of the group would have made it logical, not accidental, and the failure or sinking of the Hood, and much more serious damage to the battleship.
And thirdly, if the Germans did not pursue the ephemeral goal of fighting the convoys, but would "raid" the surface fleet of the British, then after the battle in the Danish Strait, Lutyens would have done what the Bismarck commander Captain Ernst asked of him there and then. Lindemann - to chase the "Prince of Wales" and finish him off. That is how the first combat campaign of the Bismarck would have ended, and after the battle with the battleship, the formation had only one way - home to the nearest port for repairs. And the task of finishing off the "Prince of Wales" in those specific conditions does not seem unrealistic at all.
In fact, if the Germans had acted rationally, then until a certain moment they would have "brought" a battleship from each campaign. And each time, a decrease in the Royal Navy's combat power would reduce the British ability to defend their convoys. The logic would be very simple - there is no battleship or cruiser in the convoy? Any German auxiliary cruiser can melt the rest of the escort junk and then send the transport to the bottom in batches. Few auxiliary cruisers? But there are a lot of submarines, and unlike what really happened in history, they will attack convoys or single ships without an escort. Always or much more often than in reality. Inflicting continuous losses to the Royal Navy would facilitate the activities of the Italian Navy, and this, in turn, could affect the outcome of the battles in Africa, the same Rommel could have won at El Alamein, had he had the fuel for maneuver. Everything was interconnected in the war at sea and the Germans had not to make transport their main goal, but warships, which made Britain the "Lady of the Seas". Sooner or later, they would still have overstrained, only the "wave" launched by the sinking battleships would have changed the course of the war and not in favor of the allies.
And when would the “breakdown” occur? "Bismarck" died due to accumulated mistakes - Röder, who did not give Lutyens the necessary amplification, which he asked, and Lutyens himself, who first had to listen to the commander of his flagship, and then maintain discipline when using radio communications and not invent anything for the enemy. The death of this ship was not a foregone conclusion, at least there and then.
But it turned out the way it happened, and in the end, Hitler, who does not understand absolutely anything in naval affairs, strangled his surface fleet himself, depriving himself of another opportunity to delay or change the inevitable ending of the war of little Germany against almost the whole world.
The battle score at the end of 1941, however, was in favor of the Germans - they sank an aircraft carrier, a battle cruiser, two destroyers and a minesweeper in their surface raids. You can also add here the light cruiser Sydney, sunk by an auxiliary cruiser (in fact, a merchant ship with weapons). The price of all this is one battleship and the same auxiliary cruiser.
And, of course, submarines - they were left out of our consideration, because the submarines of that time could not chase surface targets or jerk out from under the raid across the ocean floor. It was difficult to use them precisely as a raiding tool aimed at destroying the enemy's surface fleet. But to give a categorical order, if there was a military target, to beat it, and not wait for a safe opportunity to attack the transport, it was quite possible. Germany's submarines outnumbered the surface fleet and could sink and sank large British surface ships. By the end of 1941, their track record included two battleships, two aircraft carriers, one escort aircraft carrier, two light cruisers, and five destroyers. The losses, of course, were incomparable with those in surface ships - by the end of 1941, the total number of submarines sunk reached 68 German units. And these losses, in contrast to the "Bismarck", were completely a foregone conclusion.
One can only guess what the Germans could achieve if they chose the right target from the very beginning. In the end, in the Pacific, American submarines sank more warships than all other branches of the Navy combined - 55% of all losses, when counted by pennants. Nothing prevented the Germans from doing the same.
Nothing prevented them from coming to naval battle groups from ships of different classes - battleships, cruisers and destroyers, who would perform their specific tasks as part of the group, nothing prevented them from later establishing interaction with the submarine fleet, including the attached Luftwaffe units with their Fw200 … the bar that the British Naval Forces could eventually drive the Kriegsmarine surface forces into the bases (in reality, Hitler did it), could be very, very high.
Lessons for modernity
Germany, with powerful ground forces, was significantly inferior to her enemies in total naval power. In addition, its ports and bases were largely isolated from the world's oceans, where the main communications of the Allies passed. Today Russia is in the same position. Our fleet is small, it does not have a clear application strategy, and it will not withstand a battle with the fleets of potential adversaries. And the economy will not allow us to build a fleet comparable to the American one, and it’s not only that, even if we had money, the demographic "wave" on the threshold of which our society is standing will simply not allow us to form the same number of crews and coastal parts. We need a new paradigm, and it is highly desirable that it does not boil down to nuclear suicide as the only scenario, although no one is going to discount it.
And in this sense, the idea of raids aimed at weakening enemy fleets deserves careful study. In the end, what, if not raids, were the massive airstrikes planned in Soviet times on the US and NATO ship groupings? Raids as they are, and their target was precisely warships. After all, what has fundamentally changed since the Second World War? Satellite reconnaissance? They know how to deceive, and there are already rockets capable of shooting down a satellite on American ships, the rest may appear in the foreseeable future. And a shipborne radar capable of giving a target control system on a target in near-earth orbit is no longer even a reality, but rather history, albeit the latest. Over-the-horizon radars? The massive proliferation of sea-based cruise missiles will put them out of play in the first hours of the conflict. Long-range all-weather strike aircraft? But organizing an accurate air strike against a surface target at a distance of thousands of kilometers or more is so difficult that most countries in the world will not even undertake. The sea is big. Nuclear submarines? They can chase a high-speed surface target only at the cost of a complete loss of stealth. We can easily face the fact that very little has changed since the Second World War, and that it is still incredibly difficult to "catch" a surface ship in the ocean, even when you roughly know where it is.
And that the naval strike group may well fight off the aviation, just as it happened more than once in the past. And then the old experience suddenly turns out to be very valuable and useful, provided that it is correctly understood.
How can you deploy raiders in the ocean? And in the same way as the USSR did in advance by bringing the forces of the fleet to combat services. Only there they were in a position from which it was possible to track the enemy with a weapon and, if necessary, inflict an immediate blow on him, and the regions of deployment were almost always the same. In our case, it is not at all necessary to become attached to Mediterranean or something else.
What is the key to success today? And the same as in the past - the forces of the modern naval hegemon are also scattered all over the planet in small groups - AUG "peacetime" with a couple of destroyers in escort, amphibious battle groups formed "around" UDC with aircraft, all of them mostly very far from each other, much further than the range of the daily transition at maximum speed.
And all this, of course, does not negate the need to sink military tankers. But they should be followed by a strike on the aircraft carrier, whose fighters were left without kerosene for a couple of days.
What should be a raider ship? Quite powerful. It should have a lot of missiles, both for strikes on the coast (against airfields to neutralize aviation), and for strikes against ships and submarines. He must have powerful air defense. It should significantly outperform competitors in cruising range and maximum speed - just for the breakaway from the superior naval forces of the enemy.
And of course, such actions are worth practicing, both "on the map" and at sea, with a real enemy. Learn from him and clearly show what awaits him if their politicians bring the matter to a real explosion. Continuously improve and experiment to always present the enemy with a fait accompli.
So that later, in the future, other people's descendants would not idly debate about the opportunities we missed.
