Sea/Air development if Germany wins the 'Race to the Sea' 1914.

[Rule of cool]

I've been trying to wrap my head around the dilemma about what resources might be allocated to the French channel coast, and I think I have come up with some possibilities and some technical developments.

Firstly, holding the French coast and in particular Calais I think would drive a significant change in thinking over what happened with the Belgian coast and Ostend and Zeebrugge. I think at the very least the greater coastline and bigger ports would mean the half-measures that happened in Belgium in 1915 would not be sufficient.

Secondly, the back and forth between the CO of High Seas Fleet, CO of MarineKorps Flanders, Chief of Naval Staff and RiechsMarine Amt (Naval Office) in 1914-15 shows that the new coastline will not get any ships diverted from the High Seas Fleet. I can see the HSF arguments, they had suffered losses at Heligoland Bight and off Texel early in the war and these newly captured bases were very vulnerable to attack until about March 1915 when the defensive guns were emplaced. Thus the new French coastal command will only get ships directly from the CNS/RMA that haven't been allocated to the HSF or Baltic fleet, similar to how the MKF only got the tiny coastal Uboats and Tboats which weren't ordered until weeks after the war began.

Thirdly and arising from the first 2 points, perhaps the new command could be a 'dumping ground for difference'. The 4 x Z1 (V105) Tboats building for the Dutch don't readily fit into the German naval strategy, nor do the 4 big Destroyers building for Argentina for starters. These could be followed by the 8 big destroyers built using machinery built for large Russian destroyers.

In technical terms the 4 big Argentine destroyers were designed to use 4 x 4" from the US. German Tboat doctrine was that the primary armament of Tboats was torpedoes and guns were defensive weapons, as such these big ships were completed with 4 x 88s and sent to the HSF. However if German naval thinking changed in the first weeks of the war as a result of the capture of the French channel coast and ports and these unusual ships were to be 'dumped' in France then it might be decided to not try to conform with HSF practice and alternatively arm them with weapons close to what they were designed for - 4 x 105mm guns as used on German light cruisers. Such ships would be more than a match 1 on 1 with the Tribals of the Dover Patrol and even the modern destroyers of the Harwich Force. If joined by the 8 B97s throughout the rest of 1915 the French coast would have a formidable force of destroyers for offensive tasks.

 

[Rule of cool]

In that thread there was some discussion on whether the German Navy could have used the extensive network of inland waterways in the Pas de Calais, which connected to the equally extensive network of inland waterways in Belgium, that the Germans used IOTL.

I posted the following links to a website about the state of said inland waterways today in Message 99 on Page 5 of the thread.

This website shows the inland waterways network of northern France as it is now. It might not have been this extensive in 1914.

Northern France | Detailed Navigation Guides and Maps

Nord, Calais, Picardy region canals and rivers. Expert detailed cruising information. Ports, depths, heights, locks, VNF contacts, guides, maps, photos

www.french-waterways.com

These are the dimensions of the French canals now. They might have been different in 1914.

Navigation Information | Depths, Heights, and Widths

Information about canal and river depths, bridge air height clearances and waterway lock widths. Key maximum boat dimensions to travel the waterways.

www.french-waterways.com

It appears if they mostly can't use the French canals around Calais and Dunkirk. The older canals were mostly improved from the late 1800s to the Freycinet standard, to handle a barge called a Peniche 38.50 m (126 ft) long, 1.60 m draft and 5.05 m (16.6 ft) wide. The A class coastal Tboat was too long for the locks at 41 m (134 ft 6 in) and the UB class coastal Uboat was too deep at 3.03 m (9 ft 11 in).

In contrast the Zeebrugge canal first opened in 1906 had depth of 8 metres (26 feet), width of 125 metres (400 feet). The sea lock is 20 metres (65 feet) wide by 210 metres (682 feet) long, that at the inland end being 12 metres (39 feet) by 100 metres (325 feet). A Megdeburg class cruiser was 138.70 m (455 ft 1 in) long, 13.50 m (44 ft 3 in) beam and 4.40 m (14 ft 5 in) depth could comfortably use this canal all the way to Bruges.

Here is a detailed map of Dunkirk in 1943 and canals leading away, which is significantly different to what you see on Google maps satellite view today but probably gives a good idea of the situation in WW1. WW2 Boulogne map, and WW2 Calais map, both more similar to WW1 than today's Google map satellite view.

EDIT: The Ostend-Bruges canal appears to be about 150' wide, about twice the width of the Dunkirk and Calais canals, and presumably deeper as well given the Germans appear to have used it for the U & T boats. All is not lost for the French ports, some of their more inland berths and potential anchorages are over a mile from the coast so presumably difficult for the RN to accurately shell from the sea, especially if they have to contend with shore guns, minefields particularly at Dunkirk with it's shallow approaches.

 

[Rule of cool]

Looking into German Torpedo bombers I came across this in Wiki:
The torpedoes used by ...... German torpedo bombers were not designed for aerial use and had very narrow parameters for a successful launch, namely that the aircraft had to be flying straight and level and at an altitude of no more than 10 meters (33 ft).

The most produced Torpedo bomber the Gotha WD.14 was "found to be ineffective in their intended role of torpedo bomber, since their low speed made them extremely vulnerable to defensive fire". I suspect the method of Torpedo delivery as well as these aircraft being floatplanes would have made them that vulnerable. After some experience the German Navy lost interest in the slow Torpedo Bomber and didn't really pursue the concept.

Given these aircraft were stationed on the North Sea where no enemy craft went, the Baltic which was pretty empty due to mines and ice and Flanders which was out of the way to an extent this was no great loss. However if the German held the French channel coast, giving them access to a lot of British shipping routes this development path might have been different. One thing would be to make an airborne torpedo that could be dropped from higher and faster, another would be to have airfields good enough to allow land based Torpedo bombers with considerably better performance.