Plan Z.

This is coolbert:

As it was in the days of the Kaiser before the Great War so was it too in the days of Hitler before the Second World War.

The German Navy in strength able to confront and defeat the British Royal Navy in a great climactic sea battle. As was the desire of the Kaiser so was it too the desire of Adolf Hitler.

A plan for naval expansion afoot but ONLY AGREED UPON IN 1938. Plans too that would not have come into fruition not until 1948!!

This was Plan Z as advocated by Admiral Raeder!!

Plan Z the nucleus to consist of ten massive battleships plus four aircraft carriers. Smaller vessels getting short shrift to include submarines. U-boats seen as an adjunct weapon and not as a major component of Plan Z.

"When Hitler rises to power in 1933, he sets about rebuilding his armed forces, focusing on the Navy. Hitler sees the battleship as the ultimate status symbol for his Third Reich, and orders two vessels to be constructed that are bigger, more powerful and more heavily armored than anything else at sea."

Those two vessels [battleships] the Bismarck and Tirpitz. More as the "ultimate" status symbol but a beginning. H-class battleships to follow enormous and dwarfing even the Musashi and Yamato of the Imperial Japanese Navy.

Raeder somewhat lagging with regard to naval theory and doctrine as it existed at the time. His concern the massive naval confrontation the battleship to be the main weapon, without however not ignoring the role of the aircraft carrier.

Raeder ignoring an asymmetric approach to countering the Royal Navy? More or less not taking into serious consideration the possibility of naval sea mines, submarines and land-based naval aviation as OFFENSIVE naval weaponry. Cheap, quick and dirty as a means of fighting and defeating the RN. Or at least causing some serious aggravation..

But Raeder wanted big and the rest is history as they say.

coolbert.