How would secret autoloaders for German eleven-inch capital-ship guns change their ships and engagements?
Short answerThey could produce devastating rapid fire and encourage twelve-gun ships, provided German designers resisted adding crippling complexity.
NotesA sufficiently high and sustained rate of fire might favor a twelve-gun, 11-inch Bismarck concept over a smaller number of heavier guns. Reliable autoloaders would change engagement tempo by putting far more shells onto a target before it could recover or maneuver. The caveat is institutional rather than merely technical. A German tendency to add refinements and complexity could turn a working mechanism into an unreliable one before it reached combat.