> My questions: What was it that so limited the German
fleet? (Inadequate
> bunker space … consumable storage … crew limits … ?) Did their
> designs vary so much from other navies? A deliberate design
compromise for
> some reason? A mistake?
>
> If some one has these answers off the top of their head, I
would like to
> hear them. Don’t put any effort into this … just the questions that
> occurred to me (and were not answered) while reading the book.
>
> Bill Riddle
>
Unless my recollection of long ago read Marder are wrong, the German Navy
chose to devote the weight saved to extra armor. At the time, after all,
there really weren’t very many places for a German dreadnaught to travel to,
so they were indeed designed as a North Sea fleet. Its worth pointing out
that naval engineers of that period still looked upon their creations as
temporary commodities. Advances in technology were coming so fast that a BB
was second class by the time it was launched. (Dreadnaught herself was not
suitable for front line action a mere decade after launch.) HMS Victory was
in service for nearly a century. The USS Enterprise may get close. (Wonder
if we will have a Turner to paint the E has she is towed to anchor for the
last time?) However, replacing whole fleets in the years before WWI was
taken for granted, hence, design specialization made a lot more sense that
it did before or since the first century of ironclads. Rich man’s game.
Eric Bergerud, 531 Kains Ave, Albany CA 94706, 510-525-0930