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Plan Z
Plan Z was the name given to the planned re-equipment and expansion of the ''Kriegsmarine'' (German navy) ordered by Adolf Hitler in early 1939. The fleet was meant to challenge the naval power of the United Kingdom, and was to be completed by 1948. Development of the plan began in 1938, but it reflected the evolution of the strategic thinking of the ''Oberkommando der Marine'' (Naval High Command) over the two decades following World War I. The plan called for a fleet centered on ten battleships and four aircraft carriers which were intended to battle the Royal Navy. This force would be supplemented with numerous long-range cruisers that would attack British shipping. A relatively small force of U-boats was also stipulated. When World War II broke out in September 1939, almost no work had been done on the new ships ordered under Plan Z. The need to shift manufacturing capacity to more pressing requirements forced the ''Kriegsmarine'' to abandon the construction program, and onl ...
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Kriegsmarine
The (, ) was the navy of Germany from 1935 to 1945. It superseded the Imperial German Navy of the German Empire (1871–1918) and the inter-war (1919–1935) of the Weimar Republic. The was one of three official branches, along with the and the , of the , the German armed forces from 1935 to 1945. In violation of the Treaty of Versailles, the grew rapidly during German naval rearmament in the 1930s. The 1919 treaty had limited the size of the German navy and prohibited the building of submarines. ships were deployed to the waters around Spain during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) under the guise of enforcing non-intervention, but in reality supported the Nationalists against the Spanish Republicans. In January 1939, Plan Z, a massive shipbuilding program, was ordered, calling for surface naval parity with the British Royal Navy by 1944. When World War II broke out in September 1939, Plan Z was shelved in favour of a crash building program for submarine ...
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Light Cruiser
A light cruiser is a type of small or medium-sized warship. The term is a shortening of the phrase "light armored cruiser", describing a small ship that carried armor in the same way as an armored cruiser: a protective belt and deck. Prior to this smaller cruisers had been of the protected cruiser model, possessing armored decks only. While lighter and smaller than other contemporary ships they were still true cruisers, retaining the extended radius of action and self-sufficiency to act independently around the world. Through their history they served in a variety of roles, primarily as convoy escorts and destroyer command ships, but also as scouts and fleet support vessels for battle fleets. Origins and development The first small steam-powered cruisers were built for the British Royal Navy with HMS ''Mercury'' launched in 1878. Such second and third class protected cruisers evolved, gradually becoming faster, better armed and better protected. Germany took a lead in small cru ...
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Reichstag (Weimar Republic)
The Reichstag of the Weimar Republic (1919–1933) was the lower house of Germany's parliament; the upper house was the Reichsrat (Germany), Reichsrat, which represented the states. The Reichstag convened for the first time on 24 June 1920, taking over from the Weimar National Assembly, which had served as an interim parliament following the collapse of the German Empire in November 1918. Under the Weimar Constitution of 1919, the Reichstag was elected every four years by universal, equal, secret and direct suffrage, using a system of party-list proportional representation. All citizens who had reached the age of 20 were allowed to vote, including women for the first time, but excluding soldiers on active duty. The Reichstag voted on the laws of the Reich and was responsible for the budget, questions of war and peace, and confirmation of state treaties. Oversight of the Reich government (the ministers responsible for executing the laws) also resided with the Reichstag. It could ...
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London Naval Treaty
The London Naval Treaty, officially the Treaty for the Limitation and Reduction of Naval Armament, was an agreement between the United Kingdom, Japan, France, Italy, and the United States that was signed on 22 April 1930. Seeking to address issues not covered in the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty, which had created tonnage limits for each nation's surface warships, the new agreement regulated submarine warfare, further controlled cruisers and destroyers, and limited naval shipbuilding. Ratifications were exchanged in London on 27 October 1930, and the treaty went into effect on the same day, but it was largely ineffective. The treaty was registered in '' League of Nations Treaty Series'' on 6 February 1931. Conference The signing of the treaty remains inextricably intertwined with the ongoing negotiations, which began before the official start of the London Naval Conference of 1930, evolved throughout the progress of the official conference schedule, and continued for years ...
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Washington Naval Treaty
The Washington Naval Treaty, also known as the Five-Power Treaty, was a treaty signed during 1922 among the major Allies of World War I, which agreed to prevent an arms race by limiting naval construction. It was negotiated at the Washington Naval Conference, held in Washington, D.C., from November 1921 to February 1922, and it was signed by the governments of Great Britain, the United States, France, Italy, and Japan. It limited the construction of battleships, battlecruisers and aircraft carriers by the signatories. The numbers of other categories of warships, including cruisers, destroyers, and submarines, were not limited by the treaty, but those ships were limited to 10,000 tons displacement each. The treaty was concluded on February 6, 1922. Ratifications of that treaty were exchanged in Washington on August 17, 1923, and it was registered in the '' League of Nations Treaty Series'' on April 16, 1924. Later naval arms limitation conferences sought additional lim ...
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Heavy Cruiser
The heavy cruiser was a type of cruiser, a naval warship designed for long range and high speed, armed generally with naval guns of roughly 203 mm (8 inches) in caliber, whose design parameters were dictated by the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 and the London Naval Treaty of 1930. The heavy cruiser is part of a lineage of ship design from 1915 through the early 1950s, although the term "heavy cruiser" only came into formal use in 1930. The heavy cruiser's immediate precursors were the light cruiser designs of the 1900s and 1910s, rather than the armored cruisers of the years before 1905. When the armored cruiser was supplanted by the battlecruiser, an intermediate ship type between this and the light cruiser was found to be needed—one larger and more powerful than the light cruisers of a potential enemy but not as large and expensive as the battlecruiser so as to be built in sufficient numbers to protect merchant ships and serve in a number of combat theaters. W ...
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Panzerschiff
The ''Deutschland'' class was a series of three ''Panzerschiffe'' (armored ships), a form of heavily armed cruiser, built by the ''Reichsmarine'' officially in accordance with restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. The ships of the class, , , and , were all stated to displace in accordance with the Treaty, though they actually displaced at standard displacement. The design for the ships incorporated several radical innovations, including the first major use of welding in a warship and all- diesel propulsion. Due to their heavy armament of six guns and lighter weight, the British began referring to the vessels as "pocket battleships". The ''Deutschland''-class ships were initially classified as ''Panzerschiffe'', but the ''Kriegsmarine'' reclassified them as heavy cruisers in February 1940. The three ships were built between 1929 and 1936 by the Deutsche Werke in Kiel and the ''Reichsmarinewerft'' in Wilhelmshaven, seeing much service with the German Navy. All thre ...
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Displacement (ship)
The displacement or displacement tonnage of a ship is its weight. As the term indicates, it is measured indirectly, using Archimedes' principle, by first calculating the volume of water displaced by the ship, then converting that value into weight. Traditionally, various measurement rules have been in use, giving various measures in long tons. Today, tonnes are more commonly used. Ship displacement varies by a vessel's degree of load, from its empty weight as designed (known as "lightweight tonnage") to its maximum load. Numerous specific terms are used to describe varying levels of load and trim, detailed below. Ship displacement should not be confused with measurements of volume or capacity typically used for commercial vessels and measured by tonnage: net tonnage and gross tonnage. Calculation The process of determining a vessel's displacement begins with measuring its draft.George, 2005. p.5. This is accomplished by means of its "draft marks" (or "load lines"). A ...
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German Type II Submarine
The Type II U-boat was designed by Nazi Germany as a coastal U-boat, modeled after the CV-707 submarine, which was designed by the Dutch dummy company NV Ingenieurskantoor voor Scheepsbouw Den Haag (I.v.S) (set up by Germany after World War I in order to maintain and develop German submarine technology and to circumvent the limitations set by the Treaty of Versailles) and built in 1933 by the Finnish Crichton-Vulcan shipyard in Turku, Finland. It was too small to undertake sustained operations far away from the home support facilities. Its primary role was found to be in the training schools, preparing new German naval officers for command. It appeared in four sub-types. Background Germany was stripped of its U-boats by the Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War I, but in the late 1920s and early 1930s began to rebuild its armed forces. The pace of rearmament accelerated under Adolf Hitler, and the first Type II U-boat was laid down on 11 February 1935. Knowing that th ...
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German Type I Submarine
The Type I U-boat was the first post–World War I attempt to produce an oceangoing submarine for Nazi Germany's ''Kriegsmarine''. Only two Type IAs were built, but the decision to halt production on further boats is believed to be because of political decisions and not because of major faults in the Type I design. Although the boats did not have any major design faults, they were known to be difficult to handle due to their poor stability and slow dive rate. The type was based on the design of the Finnish ''Vetehinen'' class and the Spanish Type E-1, designed by Ingenieurskantoor voor Scheepsbouw (the company also designed the Soviet S class submarine). The design later served as a basis for the development of other types of boats, primarily the VII and IX classes. Constructed by Deschimag in Bremen, the first Type IA was launched on 14 February 1936. The two boats produced, and , were primarily used as training vessels and for propaganda purposes to fly the Nazi flag. In 1 ...
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Treaty Of Versailles/Part V
A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between actors in international law. It is usually made by and between sovereign states, but can include international organizations, individuals, business entities, and other legal persons. A treaty may also be known as an international agreement, protocol, covenant, convention, pact, or exchange of letters, among other terms. However, only documents that are legally binding on the parties are considered treaties under international law. Treaties vary on the basis of obligations (the extent to which states are bound to the rules), precision (the extent to which the rules are unambiguous), and delegation (the extent to which third parties have authority to interpret, apply and make rules). Treaties are among the earliest manifestations of international relations, with the first known example being a border agreement between the Sumerian city-states of Lagash and Umma around 3100 BC. International agreements were used in so ...
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NV Ingenieurskantoor Voor Scheepsbouw
NV Ingenieurskantoor voor Scheepsbouw (''Dutch: engineer-office for shipbuilding''), usually contracted to IvS, was a Dutch dummy company set up in The Hague and funded by the ''Reichsmarine'' after World War I in order to maintain and develop German submarine know-how and to circumvent the limitations set by the Treaty of Versailles. The company designed several submarine types for paying countries, including the Soviet S-class submarine, as well as the prototypes for the German Type II submarines and Type VII submarines. The company was a joint venture by the German shipyards AG Vulcan Stettin (located in Stettin and Hamburg), the Krupp-owned Germaniawerft in Kiel, and AG Weser in Bremen. Design work was carried out at the facilities of these companies in Germany. Background information At the time of IvS, the Germans were bound by the Treaty of Versailles, signed in 1919. This treaty, among other terms, demanded that all German U-boats be destroyed or given to other nat ...
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