What if, in 1939, before the war, Germany decides to withdraw all surface forces (like the destroyers, cruisers, and pocket battleships), to the Baltic Sea, where they will do nothing until the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau are combat ready. Hitler then orders the German surface fleet (this battle happens before the Norwegian campaign, or doesn’t happen at all) to engage the British near the Jutland peninsula, hoping to win an even bigger surface victory than at the Battle Of Jutland in World War 1 (many far right Germans celebrated the Battle Of Jutland and the Battle Of Tannenberg as a victory to forget World War 1). Let’s say the German and Allied fleets fought to the death, and the German sailors were willing to sail into such a battle.
How detrimental would this have been for the German war effort? How would the war have changed?
