Hi, I'm Dönitz...

[aj906]

Obviously I'm not, but I've often thought how the war in the Atlantic could have been changed. I was just wondering what those of you at the [simulated] pointy end would have done differently to Onkle Karl.

Although he did get command of elements of KG 40 for a time in early 1941, assume air support - as in the game - is non existent. You can only change two things; and the Enigma code is not one of them (as that is more of a Wehrmacht thing).


For my part:

A) 1/3 of my force would have been dedicated from mid/late-1940 to hunting escorts. These would have been men with proven records: Lemp, Prien, Kretschmer, etc. I've often thought ignoring the defense was a serious failure in Dönitz' strategy

B) I would have withdrawn all boats in the wake of the disastrous losses in mid-1943 to rest, re-equip, retrain and strengthen the ubootjagd for an onslaught in a very specific location (the Western approaches for instance) at a specific time. Imagine a convoy battle that has had its escort eroded in the first line of defense (wolfpack), that then meets a second pack that takes out perhaps 1/10 of the convoy, only to meet a third and perhaps fourth line that meets other packs... Wolf packs are great ideas, but they lacked depth.


Anyway, just a thought...

[andwii]

a few things I would do would be the type XII being made not by a new manufacturer to save money but by an experienced one. Also when Germany invaded Russia, Hitler devoted the materials (the metals) to things like tanks, I would have given then to Karl. Now this whole thing would have been different if Hitler wasn't so arrogant thinking he knew everything in war when he in fact knew near nothing. Think of how different the war would have been if Hitler didn't give karl a wimpy small portion of the Luftwaffe. One reason they didn't focus on the defense line is because they move to fast and are small, and once you irritate an escort like that good luck getting out alive. What they needed is a combination of heavy cruisers or battleships (which they had earlier in the war) and a nice sized sectioned off portion of the Luftwaffe for the kriegsmarine. One other blunder is sending so many subs to the Mediterranean, or in sending 41 boats to the Indian ocean, where the japs would not give supplies to the germans (good game japs), and where near all sank.

[Rconch]

Secure my communications.
When it became quite obvious that the enigma had been broken by the Brits.

[Missing Name]

There were many things that were out of Doenitz' control. (One of the biggest: the war started six years before Hitler assured him it would.) And speculating these is bound to bring up a sea of what-ifs. That being said, if two things could have been changed...

- The battleships should not have been built. The Bismark and Scharnhorst classes used up enormous amounts of resources and in the end did little to change the war (Sank one outdated battlecrusier, one outdated aircraft carrier, kept a small amount of the large British fleet at bay). Instead, more resources should have been put into u-boats and aircraft carriers.

- Fix the damn torpedoes. More extensive testing could have prevented many early missed opportunities.

And make their u-boats out of whatever the British navy uses for their T-class. Seriously, they don't have to worry about anything.

[STEED]

Pecking order -
Luftwaffe
Army
Navy

Game over.

How the hell could the Navy be any higher up the list?

Doenitz slaughtered his men in 1943 to the end of the war for nothing, if he did not suck up to Hitler and used common sense he may of saved more lives. Of course this is a what if.

[Frenchy849]

Yeah,the Allies would have intercepted Doenitz's message of everyone RTBing and would have sent all the planes they could afford in the port they were stationed,and basically make a German Pearl Harbor,but a more disastrous one for the Germans.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Frenchy849

Yeah,the Allies would have intercepted Doenitz's message of everyone RTBing and would have sent all the planes they could afford in the port they were stationed,and basically make a German Pearl Harbor,but a more disastrous one for the Germans.

Plus the potential for a lot of collateral damage to the coastal population in France.

[Puster Bill]

Originally Posted by Rconch

Secure my communications.
When it became quite obvious that the enigma had been broken by the Brits.

I'm with you, but I'm not so sure it would have helped very much. Advances in sonar, HF/DF, and radar pretty much assured that even if you perfectly secured your communications, as Doenitz could have done by various means and methods*, you are still going to lose badly without major upgrades to the fleet, and you have to do that as quick or quicker than new tech is introduced by the other side. Basically, you're screwed, because it's faster and cheaper to develop a new radar, or new ASW weapon, then to develop a whole new class of boat.

You can keep the Allies from reading your messages, but they will DF them, and via that and traffic analysis they'd be able to get a pretty good picture of what was going on. Not necessarily precise enough to target hunter/killer groups to individual boats, like the Allies did, but good enough to route traffic out of the area.

The problem is that the boats have to transmit in order to be coordinated effectively by BdU, and that means those boats can be located. You have to have a completely different paradigm, one that might not be possible given the technology back then.

Once you get in contact with the enemy, though, it doesn't really matter how well your communications are secured. If he's got overwhelming technology, you're screwed.



*Some possibilities: Every few months, at a pre-arranged time or on a pre-arranged signal, all the radio techs pull the rotors for the Enigma machines and rewire them according to a diagram. Or, get a bunch of slave labor to generate one time pads, which are perfectly secure when used properly. No amount of cryptanalysis can break them when used correctly.

[pickler]

not much doenitz could do. industrial might of ussr+usa=win. even if hitler had allocated more steel and aluminum resources to the kriegsmarine the panzer armies in the east would have suffered a bigger blow still and russians would have reached berlin much sooner, so it wouldn't even matter if doenitz was keeping the shipping lanes harassed. even in happy times the germans were only sinking half of what they needed to starve briton. it was too little too late.

it was all about who controlled the air. If the luftwaffe cleared the skies of bogies then german submarines could have had better survivability. the luftwaffe was never the same after the battle of britain. Germany was in deep sh%# by 1941 and not '43.

i think doenitz did everything a good sea commander would have done with the exception of setting uboats to sea even after the may 1943, but that was orders from hitler. type xxi was a waste of resources as much as maus, tiger II, me-262 and x-missiles. they should have mass produced a cheaper more hydrodynamic smaller submarine when USA entered the war.

[USNSRCaseySmith]

Originally Posted by pickler

not much doenitz could do. industrial might of ussr+usa=win. even if hitler had allocated more steel and aluminum resources to the kriegsmarine the panzer armies in the east would have suffered a bigger blow still and russians would have reached berlin much sooner, so it wouldn't even matter if doenitz was keeping the shipping lanes harassed. even in happy times the germans were only sinking half of what they needed to starve briton. it was too little too late.

it was all about who controlled the air. If the luftwaffe cleared the skies of bogies then german submarines could have had better survivability. the luftwaffe was never the same after the battle of britain. Germany was in deep sh%# by 1941 and not '43.

i think doenitz did everything a good sea commander would have done with the exception of setting uboats to sea even after the may 1943, but that was orders from hitler. type xxi was a waste of resources as much as maus, tiger II, me-262 and x-missiles. they should have mass produced a cheaper more hydrodynamic smaller submarine when USA entered the war.

Not exactly Doenitz call but had Germany waited on starting the war to amass more U boats and wait a LONG time to attack Russia, plus possibly get the Type XXI and the 262 into service quicker, the war would have turned out extremely differently.

[Dread Knot]

Originally Posted by USNSRCaseySmith

and wait a LONG time to attack Russia, .

This basically gives the Red Army more time to reorganize itself after the 1930s purges and disasterous Winter War in Finland which it was rapidly in the process of doing in early 1941. It also give the Soviets more time to build up their industrial base in the Urals which was also trending before war erupted between Hitler and Stalin. If Hitler waits to attack Russia, he attacks a more formidable Russia.

Hitler's obession with finding Lebensraum in the East doomed his efforts before they even started.

[USNSRCaseySmith]

Originally Posted by Dread Knot

This basically gives the Red Army more time to reorganize itself after the 1930s purges and disasterous Winter War in Finland which it was rapidly in the process of doing in early 1941. It also give the Soviets more time to build up their industrial base in the Urals which was also trending before war erupted between Hitler and Stalin. If Hitler waits to attack Russia, he attacks a more formidable Russia.

Hitler's obession with finding Lebensraum in the East doomed his efforts before they even started.

True, Well in that case they shouldnt have attacked Russia, opening up that second front and then not being prepared for winter doomed them. Those resources as others had said could have been used elsewhere.