Could Germany replace its battle fleet with railway guns and eastern strategy?

Could Germany have spent its battleship resources on railway guns, Baltic vessels, and western fortifications while defeating Russia first?

The alternative faces railway and mobility limits, costly fortifications, contrary army doctrine, and possible French countermeasures. Its Baltic assumptions also confuse shallow entry routes with the depth of the sea itself.

The counterfactual redirects German naval resources into railway artillery, shallow-draft Baltic ships, and western fortifications while the army attacks Russia. Railway guns would depend on tracks reaching the fighting, whereas heavy mobile siege guns could follow the army more readily. The proposed fortifications would require considerable money and labour and run against the doctrine described for the German army. France could also respond by shifting resources from battleships into siege artillery, while its faster mobilization was part of the reason for Germany's historical western emphasis. Shallow draft addressed passage into the Baltic through the Øresund, rather than a uniformly shallow sea. These objections leave the suggested early defeat of Russia and British neutrality as assumptions of the alternative scenario.