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

I agree, it's extremely important.

IIUC the Germans never got out of this region what France did in 1913 or what Franc and Belgium likely could have gotten under wartime conditions.

France also had other coal and iron regions that weren't nearly as good and tend to get ignored as unimportant during peacetime, however these took on much greater importance when the Germans took the north-east industrial regions. France also bought a lot of raw materials from Britain during the war and Germany during peacetime.
FWIW this is France's coal production 1913-18 in long tons, according to the British Geological Survey almanacs.
  • 40,188,000 - 1913
  • 26,141,000 - 1914
  • 19,219,000 - 1915
  • 20,968,000 - 1916
  • 28,427,000 - 1917
  • 25,899,000 – 1918
B.R. Mitchell's figures (which are in tonnes) are similar.

So the production from the the regions that were ignored as unimportant in peacetime, didn't make up for the lost production from mines in areas occupied by Germany.

IIRC (and I'm confident that I do) France imported 20 million long tons of coal in 1913 which AFAIK came from the UK and during the war Britain had to export even more coal to France to compensate for the reduction in French coal production. Holding the Pas de Calais will make it much easier for the KM to disrupt the coal traffic from the UK to France.
 
Part of Message 8.
I think that in the event the Germans did capture the French coast down to Etaples-Le Tourquet the British would set up their blockade line between the Ilse of Wight and Cherbourg peninsula, as opposed the the Dover Narrows in our history.
I noticed that looking for something else. Why there? Why not to the mouth of the Somme and thence along the Some to Abbeville, Amiens and finally to join the OTL front line in the vicinity of Peronne? That's what I thought you meant.

Edit - Yes you were assuming that they'd reach the Somme from Peronne to the sea. See this quote from Message 20.
One thing to note, and the Germans noted this in October 1914, is the Bolougne is isolated. It isn't connected to the canal network and apparently the single rail line went along the coast so was vulnerable to Naval attack. Yet, assuming the line was along the Somme, Bolougne would be Strategically/operationally the most important port as it is furtherest West, furtherest from Britain and the RN and has the widest access to open water.
 
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We aren’t going to have the discussion about “whether WW1 Coastal guns could shut down Dover or starve out London when those in WW2 didn’t” again, are we? ;)
Unlikely, as the range of the OTL Paris Guns wasn't long enough to hit London from the Pas de Calais.

However, Brighton, Chatham, Sheerness, Southend, Felixstowe and Harwich would have been within their range. Although, Brighton, Felixstowe and Harwich were at the extreme end of their range.

Plus, if the German army had reached the Somme, Dieppe would have been within range of Paris Guns at Abbeville and Amiens. Le Harvre (at the mouth of the Seine) would have been out of range, but the river (which was an important inland waterway) would have been within their range from Rouen to Paris.

Which would be interesting (except for the people on the receiving end) but not enough to shut down those places. It would be their mental effect that may have been important rather than the physical damage and loss of life.
 
Would make transit of aircraft to and from France more hazardous I guess in the sense that they would have to cross the Channel at a wider point with all the implications that has for limited navigational skills and engine reliability.
To which @Rule of cool replied in this paragraph of Message 8.
That's something I've not thought about before, but is a prime example of how the Germans holding this piece of real estate makes the British war effort that much harder. The Dover-Cap Griz Nez distance is the famous 21 miles and often you can see all the way across unaided. The distances from about Eastbourne to the coastal area near Abbeville is about 70 miles and the distance from the Ilse of Wight to Cherbourg peninsula is a touch closer at 65 miles.
The aircraft could have been sent to France by ship as deck cargo if the longer journey by air was that dangerous. Although that would increase the strain on the Channel Ports still held by the Entente and may have increased the demands on Entente merchant shipping.
 
FWIW this is France's coal production 1913-18 in long tons, according to the British Geological Survey almanacs.
  • 40,188,000 - 1913
  • 26,141,000 - 1914
  • 19,219,000 - 1915
  • 20,968,000 - 1916
  • 28,427,000 - 1917
  • 25,899,000 – 1918
B.R. Mitchell's figures (which are in tonnes) are similar.
FWIW this is France's iron ore production 1913-18, in long tons, according to the British Geological Survey almanacs.
  • 21,565,746 - 1913
  • 11,070,921 - 1914
  • 610,286 - 1915
  • 1,653,673 - 1916
  • 2,002,020 - 1917
  • 1,644,982 - 1918
B.R. Mitchell's figures (which are in tonnes) are similar.
 
The British Geological Survey almanacs don't have iron & steel production for the period 1913-19, but these are the figures for France (in tonnes) for the period 1913-18 from B.R. Mitchell.
  • 4,687,000 - 1913
  • 2,802.000 - 1914
  • 1,111,000 - 1915
  • 1,784,000 - 1916
  • 1,991,000 - 1917
  • 1,800,000 - 1918
 
I'm still more sceptical than you about the severity of the effects of closing the Strait of Dover to Entente shipping.

Yes, it will be an inconvenience. However, it can still reach East Coast ports (including London) via the North of Scotland. That will increase the journey times so fewer trips can be made with the same number of ships. However, would that significantly increase the length of the journey for a ship that was (for example) laden with Argentinian beef, Canadian grain, Indian tea, or New Zealand lamb. Plus that doesn't allow for loading and unloading which (as far as I know) was a much larger percentage of a round trip than it is now and that has to be allowed for when calculating how much shipping capacity would have been lost.

You're right about the oceanic shipping, but the point is that the ships have to go directly into London to unload, they can't unload in ports on the west coast and have the food transported overland to London as the internal transport was lacking at the time. Even if trans-shipment was practical a decent portion would have to then be carried to London in coastal shipping, which then faces the same problem as the oceanic ships of running the gauntlet past Cap Griz Nez.

Also we don't know how much coastal shipping laden with food for London passed through the Strait of Dover before the war. So we don't know how much harder it would have been to feed London if the Strait of Dover was closed or made much harder to pass.

What we can say with certainty is that it won't stop the flow of coal from the Durham & Yorkshire coalfields to London. But it would make it harder to send it to ports in the English Channel, the South-Western Approaches and last, but not least France. Therefore, closing the Strait of Dover latter might (and I repeat might) have have a more significant effect on France than on the UK because most of its coal came from the UK.

Finally, the shipping (sea-going & coastal) that is forced to go around the North of Scotland can use the Caledonian Canal (which will shorten the journey) as long as they are: less than 45.7 meters (150 feet) long; less than 10.67 meters (35 feet) wide; don't have a draft in excess of 4.1 meters (13.5 feet); and don't have a mast height greater than 35 meters (115 feet).

According to Admiral Bacon 120 ships a day passed Dover in 1915 and 1916, which meant 120 ship anchored in The Downs of Kent every night for examination. This number dropped to 80 in 1917. While its one thing to debate the veracity of his claims of the impact of closing the Dover Narrows, I don't think this statistic is a lie.

To look at coastal shipping more broadly. When it comes to Railways for example, once beyond the range of artillery in the trenches and maybe some aircraft close to the front they are virtually immune from enemy action and can be used as the powers see fit. In contrast coastal shipping (which for the sake of argument made up ~20% of Britain's domestic transport in 1914) is open to enemy action, whether that be surface ship, direct attack by uboats or mines. In WW1 the Flanders coastal uboat flotillas were about 25% of Germany's uboat strength and sank about 25% of the ships sunk by uboats, from a pair of tine ports on the wrong side of the Dover Narrows. In this scenario the Germans hold 3 much larger and more suitable ports, including one not constrained be the Dover Narrows, so could expand their uboat operations to include full sized uboats ranging further afield and therefore putting much more of Britain's domestic transport under threat in a way they could never do to France's domestic transport.

In a total war fought to exhaustion these (and other) fractions will come into play, and this one will be in Germany's favour.
 
Part of Message 36.

I'm very nonplussed.

I admitted that road transport was "less of a thing" in 1914 than it was in 1940.

It's the railways and inland waterways that will be the significant ways of transporting goods from ports "West of Dover" to London in the event of the Strait of Dover being much harder for Entente merchant shipping to pass or closed it completely.

See this quote from Message 31.

I like the AEC Mammoth; it's no Ferrari P4 but it is a bit of a beast.

While talking about tonnages of ships, increasing of rail capacity and other stats is all well and good putting the mid 30s Mammoth against a 1914 truck shows at a glance why road transport had increased dramatically by 1939 and makes vague claims about coastal shipping decline seem less pie in the sky.
 
For what it's worth Boulogne isn't significantly further west than Calais and both ports are significantly further west than the Belgian ports Germany held in the Great War.

These distances and times are from Cherbourg and are according to sea-distances.org.
  • 138 nautical miles to Boulogne - 14 hours at 10 knots.
  • 155 nautical miles to Calais - 16 hours at 10 knots.
  • 178 nautical miles to Dunkirk - 18 hours at 10 knots.
  • 201 nautical miles to Ostend - 20 hours at 10 knots.
  • 212 nautical miles to Zeebrugge - 21 hours at 10 knots.
  • 218 nautical miles to Bruges - 22 hours at 10 knots.
  • 283 nautical miles to Antwerp - 28 hours at 10 knots.
I've done the distance from Cherbourg as that's the narrowest point in the English Channel. It should go without saying, that the faster the ship the shorter the transit time, but as there's always one, I have said it.

Boulogne isn't much further west than Calais, but its a few km further way from the RNs base in Dover and any land on which guns could be positioned and directly faces a significant amount of sea room. Those 30km extra to/from Calais might be the most contested piece of water in the world in WW1, but that extra distance and extra sea room would make Boulogne that much harder to blockade.
 
FWIW this is France's coal production 1913-18 in long tons, according to the British Geological Survey almanacs.
  • 40,188,000 - 1913
  • 26,141,000 - 1914
  • 19,219,000 - 1915
  • 20,968,000 - 1916
  • 28,427,000 - 1917
  • 25,899,000 – 1918
B.R. Mitchell's figures (which are in tonnes) are similar.

So the production from the the regions that were ignored as unimportant in peacetime, didn't make up for the lost production from mines in areas occupied by Germany.

IIRC (and I'm confident that I do) France imported 20 million long tons of coal in 1913 which AFAIK came from the UK and during the war Britain had to export even more coal to France to compensate for the reduction in French coal production. Holding the Pas de Calais will make it much easier for the KM to disrupt the coal traffic from the UK to France.

Those less productive coal and iron regions don't make up for the loss of those captured by the Germans, but in total war fought to exhaustion it means that France only had to import ~12,000,000 tons of coal as opposed to 20,000,000. IIUC France ran out of money in mid 1916 and was wholly dependent on British finance to pay for imports, so again these fractions matter. Holding the Pas De Calais would make things worse, maybe France goes broke in early 1916, or maybe Britain can't guarantee coal for Italy in 1915 and she stays neutral for longer.

I'd add that that coal isn't just coal, Britain had high quality black coal whereas Germany had an abundance of low quality of brown coal. I don't know what France had, Murphy's law and France's luck would state they lost all the good stuff and the poor regions only had the poor stuff. But I suppose in war it's better to have and use the poor stuff than surrender.
 
Part of Message 8.

I noticed that looking for something else. Why there? Why not to the mouth of the Somme and thence along the Some to Abbeville, Amiens and finally to join the OTL front line in the vicinity of Peronne? That's what I thought you meant.

Edit - Yes you were assuming that they'd reach the Somme from Peronne to the sea. See this quote from Message 20.

I may have gotten Le Treport west of Abbeville and Le Torquet near Boulogne confused.

I'm still working out the exact movement of the Corps in the 1914 offensive, and therefore the options to changing them, so am loathe to make any big claims. It just might be practical that the Germans reach Dieppe and beyond, but there's no way I'd make that claim without gaming everything out beforehand.
 
FWIW this is France's iron ore production 1913-18, in long tons, according to the British Geological Survey almanacs.
  • 21,565,746 - 1913
  • 11,070,921 - 1914
  • 610,286 - 1915
  • 1,653,673 - 1916
  • 2,002,020 - 1917
  • 1,644,982 - 1918
B.R. Mitchell's figures (which are in tonnes) are similar.

Wow, 1/10 of prewar production by 1917.

The British Geological Survey almanacs don't have iron & steel production for the period 1913-19, but these are the figures for France (in tonnes) for the period 1913-18 from B.R. Mitchell.
  • 4,687,000 - 1913
  • 2,802.000 - 1914
  • 1,111,000 - 1915
  • 1,784,000 - 1916
  • 1,991,000 - 1917
  • 1,800,000 - 1918

Much less drastic than ore production's drop but still horrific.

To tie this back to the Race to the Sea, these real shortfalls (which will be much greater in this scenario) had to be made up for by imports. IIUC France had 9.5 billion in foreign assets, second only to Britain's 19.5 billion (US dollars? I can't recall.) which they liquidated to pay for imports. This money will undoubtably run out sooner with Pas de Calais gone and I'd also guess with Britain on the back foot somewhat they'd find it a bit harder to make up for the French shortfall.
 
Something has occurred to me.

Britain spent its prewar years lavishing attention on its fleet, so had the industry required when war came to expand this fleet, building capital ships all the way down as well as new ships such as monitors to deal with the unexpected development of the Germans on the Belgian coast. What they did struggle with was equipping a mass Army for total war as a giant siege, resorting to sub-standard makeshifts like boring out old 6" naval guns to make 8" howitzers.

Given Germany did pretty much the opposite, their industry supported a mass Army with thousands of artillery pieces with millions of shells and their navy was much smaller. Would they struggle to equip a large anti-ship force with naval style guns once they find themselves in possession of a strategically important piece of coast? It's one thing to emplace ~50 large naval style guns in Belgium by March 1915, it's something else entirely to find ~150+ to emplace in France in the same period. At least one 280mm battery in Belgium was of old circa 1880 guns, would the Germans have to do a lot of this, scrounging obsolescent guns to make up the numbers?
 
Part of Message 41.
FWIW this is France's coal production 1913-18 in long tons, according to the British Geological Survey almanacs.
  • 40,188,000 - 1913
  • 26,141,000 - 1914
  • 19,219,000 - 1915
  • 20,968,000 - 1916
  • 28,427,000 - 1917
  • 25,899,000 – 1918
B.R. Mitchell's figures (which are in tonnes) are similar.
French coal production in 1913 and 1920 by district.

Coal Production in France by Districts 1913 & 1920.png

Source: https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/FRB/pages/1920-1924/26813_1920-1924.pdf

So the Nord & Pas de Calais regions produced 68% of France's coal in 1913.
 
I was thinking about Britain's immediate military response to Germany holding the Pas de Calais.

In WW1 Britain had some 53 x 9.2" coastal guns and 103 x 6" coastal guns emplaced around British ports in WW1. Dover was pretty low on the list, with 5 x 9.2" guns compared to 14 on the Solent and 8 at Plymouth for example. Apparently the 9.2" gun was pretty good, the coastal mountings gave a range of 21,000 yards.

With the Germans holding the Pas de Calais how would this change? Would Dover get more guns, and of what type?

Below is a table from Wiki of the 9.2"-gun emplacements in Britain.

PortCountry/territoryWorld War IWorld War II
SolentUnited Kingdom
14​
6​
PlymouthUnited Kingdom
8​
6​
ForthUnited Kingdom
6​
3​
PortlandUnited Kingdom
6​
4​
DoverUnited Kingdom
5
6​
Medway & ThamesUnited Kingdom
4​
2​
Milford HavenUnited Kingdom
4​
2​
CromartyUnited Kingdom
3​
0​
TyneUnited Kingdom
2​
1​

Here is a complete table of British coastal defence guns in 1914. Dover had 6 x 6" and 5 x 12pdrs in addition to its 5 x 9.2" guns.
 
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As per usual with Alternative History the devil is in the details, although those details were in front of me now I've wrapped my head around this stuff.

Kareau states that there were 3 German 280mm coastal gun batteries in place in Belgium by March 1915. What isn't said is that each of these batteries are of quite different types. The Tirpitz battery was modern 280mm high-velocity naval guns of the type fitted to German Dreadnoughts intended to shoot at ships well out to sea with a range of up to 35,000 metres. The Groden battery was almost the opposite, low velocity 280mm howitzer with short range, intended to shell an amphibious landing with a range of about 10,000 metres. Both of these were emplaced near Ostend.

EDIT: By a process of elimination, the Hindenburg battery was equipped with four 28 cm MRK L/35 guns or 28 cm MRK L/40 guns the type that were fitted to the Brandenburg-class, Germany's first pre-dreadnought battleships.. These were emplaced near east of Ostend and had a range of about 16,000 metres.

While this is probably adequate for the first round of fortifications for 42km of Belgian coast it would be hopelessly inadequate if the Germans captured some 200km of Belgian and French coast. I'd think that Dunkirk, Calais and Boulgone would been at least what Ostend got: 4 x 280mm Guns and 4 x 280mm Howitzers. But that's a lot of big artillery pieces., I'd think it would be difficult for the Germans to meet this requirement.
 

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There never was a "race to the sea" - it was only a chimera caused by the Franco-British and German Armies making repeated attempts to outflank each other to the north (the only place there was to make a turning manoeuvre without dragging Switzerland into the war).

If Germany "wins the race to the sea", that means it successfully outflanks the French and British armies, and that means it wins the war.

The discussion from that point on is diplomatic, not military.
 
There never was a "race to the sea" - it was only a chimera caused by the Franco-British and German Armies making repeated attempts to outflank each other to the north (the only place there was to make a turning manoeuvre without dragging Switzerland into the war).

If Germany "wins the race to the sea", that means it successfully outflanks the French and British armies, and that means it wins the war.

The discussion from that point on is diplomatic, not military.

I know it wasn't an actual race, but that's what these outflanking attempts are commonly known as. The British and French 'won' this non-race because they denied Germany access to the French Channel Ports, but this likely only became an aim once the forces began running out of outflanking room up near the Belgian border.
 
I've found something real for this scenario.

IOTL it appears as if once the 3 batteries of various 280mm guns and the 2 batteries of 210mm guns were emplaced in early 1915 no other big guns were emplaced at Flanders until the 4 x 305mm guns of the Kaiser Wilhelm battery were emplaced in March or May 1916. Once the Battle of Jutland on 31 May 1916 showed pre-dreadnought to be useless on the battle line 6 pre-dreads were relegated to training duties and 20 of their 208mm guns stripped out for railway gun use. The Army got the first 4 of these guns and emplaced them on the island of Wanerooge in 1917. The Navy kept 16 of these guns and used them in 4 batteries of railway guns, presumably in late 1917 given the first 4 guns entered Army service in 1917.

However, in 1915 two pre-dreads of the 4 ship Brandenburg class were relegated to training duties and some 6 x 280mm guns were stripped out. These were transferred to the Army and used as railway guns but appear to not have been used in combat until 1918. I'd suggest that these guns could have instead formed coastal batteries near captured French ports.

Another possibility is that the 6 Siegfried class coastal defence battleships that were laid up as barracks ships in August 1915 be stripped of their 3 x 240mm guns and these 18 guns could be emplaced along the captured coast. The guns of the Odin class were stripped out and emplaced on islands off the German North Sea coast.

The problem I foresee with using the guns for these ships laid up in 1915 is the somewhat slow pace. IOTL the Belgian coast was as fortified as it was going to get for some time by March 1915, which I'd suggest is the timetable for fortifying the French ports as well. However, the Brandenburg's guns didn't start being stripped out until late 1915 and even the were allocated to go to the Ottomans. The Worth's guns didn't start being stripped out until early 1916, which is probably why they didn't enter combat as railway guns until 1918. This activity would have to be considerably accelerated, perhaps immediately upon being initially decommissioned in early 1915, but even that's pretty late.

I'd not given these details of this scenario much thought, but it turns out it might be pretty tough.
 
Please bear with me, here's where I'm at with gun availability and therefore the ability for Germans to fortify the French channel coast from late 1914.

I think it's reasonably well known that building big guns is a major industrial undertaking and very expensive, therefore such guns are quite scarce. The Germans can only use what's immediately available in 1914.

My best guess so far is that the four 28 cm MRK L/35 or 28 cm MRK L/40 of the Hindenburg battery were the spare rifles for the Brandenburg class pre-dreadnoughts (16 & 8 in 4 ships), ships so old that 2 had already been sold to the Ottomans. These guns were long out of production.

My best guess is that the four guns of the Tirptiz battery were 28 cm SK L/45, as used on the Nassau class battleships and the battlecruiser Von der Tann. Given some 56 of these guns were mounted in 5 ships and it was twice superseded in production I'm not surprised there would be 4 spare rifles available in 1914 for coastal emplacement.

EDIT: The 8 guns in 2 'secondary' batteries that were emplaced east of Ostend were 21 cm SKL/40 (42 in 11 ships). These came from the 5 Victoria Louise class Protected Cruisers which mounted 2 guns each, that were decommissioned in October 1914 because they were too vulnerable.

By that logic there should have been spare rifles for the 28 cm SK L/40 gun (40 in 10 ships), 24 cm K L/35 (24 in 8 ships) and 24 cm SK L/40 (40 in 10 ships) available in 1914. For secondary guns there were 17 cm SK L/40 quick-firing guns (140 in 10 ships). My guess this would be a 4 gun battery of 28 cm SK L/40, a 3 gun battery of 24 cm K L/35, a 4 gun battery of 24 cm SK L/40 and about 5 or 6 x 4 gun batteries of 17 cm SK L/40.

It's important to note that there's a big jump in range from the early MKR/K guns to the SK guns, which I suspect is why the Germans put a battery of each at Ostend.

My suggestion for how these will be deployed is this:
  • Calais - Tirptiz battery 4 x 28 cm SK L/45 & Hindenburg battery 4 x 28 cm MRK L/40
    • Same as OTL Ostend and appropriate as Calais has deep approaches so is hard to defend and closest to Britain.
  • Boulogne - 4 x 28 cm SK L/40 & 3 x 24 cm K L/35
    • As close to Calais scheme with available guns, Boulogne is also deep and easy to approach.
  • Dunkirk - 4 x 24 cm SK L/40 & 4 x 21 cm SKL/40
    • Dunkirk has shallow approaches, easier to defend than C & B
  • Ostend - 4 x 21 cm SKL/40 & 4 x 17 cm SK L/40
    • shallow approaches, not as important as French ports
  • Cap Griz Nez - 4 x 21 cm SKL/40 & 2 x 4 x 17 cm SK L/40
    • keep a coastal shipping lane open
  • North of Boulonge - 2 x 4 x 17 cm SK L/40
    • defend railway to Boulogne that runs close to coast
That's about it until older ships start being disarmed, which IOTL started in late 1915. Not as impressive as I'd imagined, but holding this coast is still a priceless, war-winning asset to the Germans.
 
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The initial wave of the BEF was the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 5th Divisions. The main (80%) embarkation port for 1st, 2nd & 3rd divisions troops was Southampton, who went to Le Havre. 5th Division was garrisoned in Ireland and went from Dublin to Le Havre, 6th division was also in Ireland and went to join 4th Division in England for home defence. The infantry divisions sailed 12-14/8/14 and cavalry division 15-19/8/14.

Newhaven was the main (87%) embarkation port for stores, which then went to Boulogne.
  • German cavalry arrived in Ostend 21/8/14.
  • 4th Division sent to France 22-23/8/14.
  • Battle of Mons was fought 23/8/14.
  • Boulogne evacuation begun 24-25/8/14.
  • Royal Marine Brigade land at Ostend 26-27/8/14.
  • St Nazaire selected as alternative BEF supply port 29/8/14.
  • Le Havre evacuation begun 29/8-5/8/14.
  • Royal Marine Brigade withdrawn from Ostend 30-31/8/14.
I don't know what happened once the lines stabilised from November 1914, but I can't image that such valuable ports as Le Havre, Boulogne, Calais and Dunkirk were not used extensively by the BEF.
 
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I'm trying to get my head around German (and as point of comparison, British) destroyers, as these were be the types deployed to the Belgian ports and would be deployed to the French channel ports if captured.

The main theme is that German destroyers were smaller than their British contemporaries and emphasised torpedoes over guns in order to conduct attacks on larger ships as part of the fleet. Thus the Germans seemed to lack destroyer leaders, although this might be because Germans destroyer flotillas were smaller than their British counterparts. They also stuck with 88mm guns into 1915 when the British started fitting 4" guns back in about 1906. Even the little coastal patrol A class t-boats had a single 51mm gun and a twin TT mount in the first batch.

Upon mobilisation (aside from the 12 ships ordered in the 1914 programme) Germany ordered:
  • 25 A class coastal t-boats
  • 48 V25 class ocean going t-boats
  • 8 B97 class destroyers
    • based on the Argentine export destroyers using machinery ordered by Russia*
In 1914 Germany was undertaking orders for export; 4 large destroyers for Argentina, 4 small torpedo boats for the Netherlands and the machinery for 8 large destroyers for Russia*. Germany took over the ships to become the G101 and V105 classes.

There doesn't appear to be a 1915 mobilisation building plan. This doesn't surprise me with 12 prewar and 8 export ships already in hand and the late 1914 order for 81 light warships.

The 1916 mobilisation programme consisted of:
  • 30 A-class coastal t-boats, up-gunned with 2 x 88mm but down to a single TT.
  • 12 S113/V116 class destroyers, big destroyers armed with 4 x 150mm guns and 4 TT.
    • Only 2 entered service and were transferred to France and Italy postwar
  • 15 & 8 V125 class, improved V25 class with 4 x 105mm guns and 6 x TTs
    • Only 19 of this class (44 planned in total) were completed
I think a major lesson gleaned from war experience was that gun-torpedo balance was not optimal in German light warships. The Germans undertook a major re-gunning of their ocean-going t-boats and destroyers from early 1916, replacing the 88s with 105s. The big change I see, and a major point of difference from contemporary British development, is the big 1916 destroyers being armed with four 150mm guns thereby outgunning the later RN ships armed with 4.7" guns.

These lessons were learned from the extremely limited naval engagements in 1914-15. I think that if the Germans captured the French channel coast they'd be forced to deploy more than the measly A class that they sent to Belgium, and they'd learn the gun lesson much earlier. In addition I'd think that the slight change to the land-sea balance would mean the 1916 building programme would be accelerated.
 

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While the coastal gun and destroyer situation looked reasonable to an extent the cruiser situation was horrific.

By the end of 1914 Germany had lost 3 light cruisers at Heligoland Bight (3 damaged), 2 armoured and 2 light cruisers at Falkland Islands, a light cruiser at Cocos island and 2 light cruisers to mines. Blucher was sunk at Dogger Bank Jan 15, light cruiser Bremen was sunk in Feb 15, Dresden in Mar 15 and Konigsberg in Jul 15. Set against these 15 losses some 6 light cruisers were commissioned in the first year of the war, although a Battlecruiser could be said to be a replacement for the 3 big cruisers.

This would make giving some cruisers to the Channel coast forces, like the British did with Dover Patrol and Harwich Force, very difficult due to the shortages it would create elsewhere. However this might encourage experimental destroyers with bigger guns.
 
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One area that I doubt holding the French channel coast will have any impact on development is uboats. Primarily because of the very rapid evolution of uboats during the war, which for the coastal UB Type III if 1917 came close to matching the specs of the pre-war, ocean going Type U31 class of a mere 3 years previously.

However holding the French coast will transform the uboat campaign due to their geographic position. It will be akin to the first 'happy time' in WW2 when the Germans captured the French coast and could put 40% of their uboats into the Atlantic.
 
Would Germany develop it's own Monitors?

While coastal batteries in Calais and Cap Griz Nez can't reach the British coast, they could probably cover a Monitor that could get close enough to do so.
 
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