Z-PLAN H-CLASS SUPERBATTLESHIPS
H39-H44
(1939-1946)
By Rob Arndt
The Z-Plan was Nazi Germany’s fleet building program started shortly before World War II.
In the mid 1930s, a major discussion about a new fleet program started in
According to this plan, the German Kriegsmarine would have grown to about 800 units, consisting of 13 battleships and battle cruisers, 4 aircraft carriers, 15 Panzerschiffe, 23 cruisers and 22 so-called "Spähkreuzer" which were basically large destroyers. In addition,
many smaller vessels would have also been built.
Those ships would have been built between 1939 and 1946; in this time, the personnel strength of the Kriegsmarine should have been enlarged to 201,000 men and over 33 billion Reichsmarks should have been spent for construction of the new units.
However, these ambitious projects never were realized. It is questionable whether the German industry would have had the resources for such a monumental construction program and that the other European nations would have just stood still and not react to this program.
The realization of the Z-Plan started on
Four months later,
1939 H39 design, possibly to be named “Hindenburg”
What H39 would have looked like upon completion
The H44 design was the final result of the designs for a battleship which started with the H39. Again enlarged in size and armor protection, the armament and engines did not change compared with the previous design, the H43, reducing the maximum speed to 30 kn. It was never intended to build a ship like the H44, it was a design study to see how a battleship had to be designed to be protected against all known threats.
Realistic fictional depiction of H44 dwarfing the Tirpitz to the left
Do-216 aircraft above H44 Superbattleship "Götz von Berlichingen" or "Ulrich von Hutten
GENERAL H-CLASS BATTLESHIP DATA SHEET
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STRANGE VEHICLES OF PRE-WAR
(1928-1945)