German destroyer Z38

Interbellum Following the end of World War I Germany signed the Treaty of Versailles, which put strict limits both on the size and displacement of warships that she could possess. During the Interbellum, the period between the first and second world wars, the average size of Allied ships and their armaments in almost all warship categories grew substantially. As a result of the treaty, Germany felt that her ships could not compete with those of the Allied navies and began to ignore the treaty, at first covertly, and later openly after Hitler, the (dictator) of Nazi Germany, publicly denounced it in March 1935. The displacements of all German ships at the time were purposefully understated to have their official sizes comply with the treaty. At first, these changes were made with the goal of being able to match or exceed French and Polish destroyers, but later it was necessary that these destroyers be able to match British destroyers, a much more difficult goal. Due to the comparatively small number of German shipyards, compared to the British or French, Germany adopted a policy of over-arming her destroyers to compensate for their low numbers, so that they bore similar armament to French and Polish light cruisers. Several negative consequences resulted from this, such as making them slower and overweight. Although German heavy destroyers matched British light cruisers in armament, they were much less seaworthy and had far worse facilities for control and use of their guns. Plan Z Plan Z was a German naval rearmament plan that started in 1939, and involved building ten battleships, four aircraft carriers, twelve battlecruisers, three pocket battleships, five heavy cruisers, forty-four light cruisers, sixty-eight destroyers, and 249 submarines. These ships were to form two battle fleets: a "Home Fleet" to tie down the British war fleet in the North Sea, and a "Raiding Fleet" to wage war upon British convoys. Erich Raeder, the Grand Admiral of the Kriegsmarine, was assured by Hitler that war would not start until at least 1945. Raeder had wanted the deadline for the completion of Plan Z to be extended to 1948, but Hitler insisted on 1945, although Hitler privately wanted to be at war with the Anglo-French alliance by 1942. World War II began in 1939, meaning that very few of Germany's heavy ships would be finished at that point. Germany's main naval opponents were France and England. Compared to the number of ships Germany had upon entry into the war (in parentheses) they had: 22 battleships (two), seven carriers (none), 22 heavy cruisers (four), 61 light cruisers (six), 255 destroyers (34), 135 submarines (57, of which less than half could actually serve in the Atlantic or the North Sea). Due to the clear advantage her enemies had, Raeder remarked that the Kriegsmarine could not hope to win, and thus the only course for them was to "die valiantly". Destroyer function The function of the destroyer was defined by its evolution: around the 1870s, nations that could not directly threaten Great Britain's navy began to invest in torpedo boats, small and agile ships which used their torpedoes to deliver enough damage to pose a tactical issue to enemy fleets. Near the turn of the 20th century, British and German torpedo boats grew in size to the point of creating a separate line of sea-going torpedo craft, "torpedo boat destroyers", or simply destroyers, designed in part to counter torpedo boats themselves. Experience in World War I showed that destroyers very rarely engaged capital ships, but more often fought other destroyers and submarines; because of this, destroyers were partially re-focused towards escort and anti-submarine services. During the war, they were used as "maids of all work", fulfilling virtually every role to some degree, and, unlike capital ships, which rarely left port during the war, served in numerous operations. By the end of the war, destroyers were perceived as one of the most useful classes of ships. During World War II, destroyers served essentially the three basic functions they had in World War I: to act as screening ships to defend their fleets from those of an enemy, to attack an enemy's screening ships, and to defend their fleet from submarines. However, there was an increased desire to introduce anti-aircraft measures to the destroyers, although many nations struggled to do so effectively. How destroyers were actually used varied by country. Germany did not use her destroyers to defend against submarines, hence their lack of strong anti-submarine armament. Germany relied on a massive fleet of trawlers that had been requisitioned and refitted as minelayers instead. British destroyers were built for escorting fleets, defending them from enemy planes and sinking submarines. German destroyers were built to escort fleets, or act as torpedo boats. The role of the destroyer began to vary more widely as World War II progressed, with five parallel evolutions: the all-purpose destroyer (all countries), the anti-submarine destroyer (United States and United Kingdom), the anti-aircraft destroyer (Japan and the United Kingdom), the small destroyer (Germany and Italy), and the super-large destroyer (France). ==Design and armament==