Risk fleet

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Risk fleet is a term from the concept for the construction of a German deep sea fleet for the Imperial Navy , which the head of the Reichsmarinamt Alfred von Tirpitz developed.

The planned fleet was intended to deter other navies from starting a sea ​​war with the German Reich . To do this, the navy was to become so strong that it would have posed a significant risk of defeat for a potential attacker if he had started a war. With this in mind, Tirpitz coined the term risk fleet . The armaments planning for this was laid down in the 2nd Fleet Act of 1900 .

Tirpitz envisaged two thirds of the strength of the potential attacker as the necessary strength for such a fleet. The largest fleet at that time was the Royal Navy , which, however, did not include any conflict with Germany in its strategic planning at the time .

The doctrine of the Royal Navy for its part provided for a strength that corresponded to the strength of the two next largest sea powers in total ( Two powers standard ). This brought Tirpitz's risk fleet into conflict with British military doctrine. The resulting increased construction of warships is known as the German-British arms race , in which both sides did not achieve their intended goals, but the British continued to be the dominant sea power. During the First World War , the theory of the "risk fleet" proved to be correct in a certain way, because the British Home Fleet did not think of getting close to the German coast and looking for a decisive battle. Instead, the British Navy limited itself to a long-range blockade far off the coast, where their ships could maneuver freely and still effectively cut off Germany from supplies via the North Atlantic. Thus, the German "risk fleet" remained mostly in the port, even isolated sea battles could not bring a decision and during the entire war the German navy with the exception of the submarine weapon was practically useless, because due to their numerical inferiority they could not prevent the British from their blockade , nor could induce the enemy to attack them in tactically favorable own waters. The result was a tactical stalemate, which was, however, a strategic victory for the British, who were able to achieve their goal of cutting off Germany from maritime trade with only minimal losses, while the expensive and labor-intensive German fleet was largely useless in the port.

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