The book opens with a strange range of German proposals, including a light-torpedo-boat-carrying submarine, hydrofoils, large surface ships, and aircraft carriers. The Versailles settlement barred U-boats and sharply limited surface forces, while its treatment of small torpedo boats left room for experiments that led toward the Schnellboot or S-boat. The review disputes the suggestion that German naval planning in the 1920s and early 1930s was already directed against the Royal Navy, with France presented as the more plausible opponent before Plan Z expanded German ambitions. Treaty constraints, experimental designs, and the later Plan Z strategy belonged to different phases and need to be assessed separately.
Notable Point · 1:12-4:24
Kriegsmarine secret projects and the limits of Plan Z
A review of unusual German naval designs links Versailles restrictions to S-boat development and cautions against reading the later Plan Z into earlier Reichsmarine policy.