I just had a go with the Walter boat

[pythos]

and all I can say is, thank god the war in europe ended when it did.

I looked up the info on this proposed boat, that was on the building ways when Germany surendered, granted in pieces, and the drive wasn't complete.

From the research about the walter drive I did, this simulation is pretty much on the money, maybe even inaccurate with the underwater speed, which is a tad bit slow.

If these boats had come out earlier, perhaps during the happy times, this would have single handedly brought the allied shipping to a stop.

This boat is quite something to witness on the surface with exterior view. Have the engines set at flank, get a good view of the boat crawling along on the surface at 14 kts or more, then engage the drive. The effect is astounding.

I like this little what if, boat. Just how close the allies were to losing is terrifying when you see the things the Germans were coming up with.

[ATR-42]

Its amazing isnt it? no one knows for sure how it would have changed the war but im sure it would have had a strong impact. When i saw my boat hit 30 knots on the surface i about fell over, thats when i started looking at the data online about these boats. Its amazing.

Its hard to believe underwater speeds like ones modeled in the game but when you read about what the Germans had in the works its crazy!

[Raptor1]

It is generally said about several Axis weapons that if they had come earlier, it would've had a signifcant effect on the war, specifically the XXI U-Boat, the Me-262, and the StG44, the XVIII got very little credit because it was never completed, but with the Walther drive it could've been a very decisive strategic weapon, capable of outrunning ships like the US Destroyer Escorts, the Flower class Corvettes, River class Frigates...

[Dowly]

If you ask me, the Walther boat wouldnt have changed the outcome of Battle of Atlantic. More losses for the Allies in terms of shipping, that's for sure but there was just too many ships to be sunk for it to cripple the allies. And let's not forget that the Allies could build ships very fast.

[Raptor1]

We're not talking about a few ships sunk, we're talking about thousands of ASW ships rendered obsolete because they can't catch up to the U-Boats

[Ducimus]

Personnaly, i dont think id want to be onboard whats tantamount to a submerged bomb. Them boats were Dangerous to be on! As i recall, its one of the reasons the design was abandoned, aside from costs and logisitcs.

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Raptor1

We're not talking about a few ships sunk, we're talking about thousands of ASW ships rendered obsolete because they can't catch up to the U-Boats

You can have a sub that goes the speed of light, but if the enemy can build ships faster than it's possible to sink them, you've lost the battle.

[Rockin Robbins]

It was the advent of the American hunter-killer jeep carrier groups that spelled doom for the U-Boat. Thirty knots is nowhere near fast enough to outrun a PBY. The Walthers were doomed, launched or not. They just would have provided a more exciting death. And the Germans couldn't build them half as fast as we would sink them.

I'll not go into the years of training necessary before the first one would have seen battle. It would have been 1948 before a single type XVIII could have been deployed as a military asset.

I still look forward to playing with it!

[Zantham]

Yes as Ducimus said they were underwater bombs... H2O2 is very unstable and explosive.

However the Walther boat didn't have to outrun the escorts or HK groups, they just had to go fast enough that the destroyers couldn't use their sonars to track them. Imagine chasing one of these things that had gone deep (possibly 900 feet deep?). Now its moving away from you at over 20kts. You can hear it, but when you try to catch up to it your sonar guy goes deaf. So you have to slow down again to get a bearing in case the wily uboat captain changed course, dropped a decoy, or whatever. Remember he can go 200kms at 24kts. And at any time he thinks he lost the escorts go back to regular battery propulsion to go silent. By the time he has to surface (or snorkel?) hes over 300kms away!

So it would not have been quite so easy to catch as the regular uboats. It would have brought another happy time in 1943 maybe, but its very likely the Allies would have adapted their tactics and eventually started sinking them again, tho maybe not as easily as they caught the regular uboats.

I remember reading somewhere of an XXI captain doing an attack on an escorted group. As he closed he dropped some decoys that the destroyers picked up, and they could hear the XXI going, but they had no idea what they were dealing with, and because of the speeds the uboat was making they dismissed it as an unexplained phenomenon. The XXI did get into position, and would have fired, except the war was just over at this point. He then broke off and continued to wherever, never having come under attack.

[Rockin Robbins]

And when it pops its ugly head up there's a PBY waiting to tag it. The very act of firing a torpedo would be death to the Type XXI or Type XVIII. The PBYs had air dropped sonarbuoys and Fidos. I'm sure other weapons would have been quickly developed as well.

The only hope for the Germans would be the old strategy of overwhelming the defenses, and that just wasn't in the cards with their inability to produce these boats in hiding. Production facilities would have been wiped out as quickly as they were built.

I'm afraid the Type XVIII and Type XXI were just a lost hope before they could even be put into service.

[DS]

U-Boats can't win if their bases are radioactive wastelands under a mushroom cloud. The Allies got the bomb first, and were willing to use it. Strategically, U-Boats were irrelevant after that. Submarines would not become strategic weapons platforms again until the advent of the SSBN.

[pythos]

The atom bomb was not available when the first research on the walter drive was going on (1939). The type XXI would have been quite devistating, but one with the sprint ability the walter had, would be much more of an advesary.

Remember, the PBYs could not hear under water, they were in the air. They could not see down more than 100 meters, if that. The Walter boat would have dissapeared for the airborne scout.

It takes a long time for a deph charge to drop to 400 ft, which the type XXI was found to exceed with not so much a creak while under tests by the allies following the war. By the time the bomb got to the deph, the walter would have been long away from the area.

Why do you all think the type XXI, became the basis for early american cold war subs, and most if not all soviet subs until the second generation nuclear subs? Because it was way ahead of its time, and would have been a very scary advesary for the allies to deal with.

[Rockin Robbins]

In a famous interview where he said the Type XXI and Type XVIII would not have turned the tide of war. I agree. They would have been sitting ducks just waiting for someone to say goodbye. Training was impossible. Achieving numbers was impossible. US planes had droppable sonobuoys, which took DDs right out of the picture. The slave labor necessary to build anything was beginning to feel bold enough to engage in meaningful sabotage. The war was over. The vast majority of good U-Boat crews were dead. Isolated success would have had the same effect as the ME-262: nothing.

And like Ducimus said. The Walther was a bomb. All that would have been necessary was a near miss, the likes of which would merely have shaken other subs to make the sub itself into a very effective depth charge. The Walther design was as flawed as the ME-163 Komet. Kaboom! They were nice looking toys with more bark than bite.

[Schnee]

Its an interesting toy with the added speed. It certainly massacres lightly escorted convoys.

But it seems to be sort of a hit an run weapon. Doesn't have the regular fule "legs" of the D-2 . You are tied more closely to your bases it seems

[AkbarGulag]

A small amount of H202 sunk the Kursk. Despite my love of submarines, Fleet or U, the boat would have failed.

For example, the walther boat becomes active and is deemed a serious threat, America and England decide that NZ and Australia are expendable (England more or less did), then the Americans take all the hardware from the PTO to the Atlantic. All those man hours of work on things for the pacific theatre poured into the euopean theatre spells instant doom for any 'super' sub the Germans could have built. Add to that the dangerous soup those submariners are floating on and the job gets even easier for the allies.

Even having a working verison in the German armoury 12 months earlier would have changed nothing for the axis... some small territorial gains in the east for a briefer european theatre IMO.