What's the biggest failure of the uboat service?

[BasilY]

Better torpedoes early on could have made a real difference. The Enigma breach happened after the balance of the fight has already turned.

[PhantomLord]

Biggest fail was to split the boats instead of pushing the trigger in the atlantic. . Guard service around norway, more and more boats into the med...

[Murr44]

They made a very serious error in not copying the Long Lance torpedo. The Japanese gave them several examples as part of a technological exchange but from what I've read the Germans never bothered to examine them.

[CCIP]

Well, in all fairness, I think the thing that really failed them is less their decisions and more the fact that the service was not adequately prepared and invested into before the war started. The only way I see things going differently is if they started with Doenitz's planned 300 boats, not 57.

[GOZO]

Beleiving they really could pull it off regarding the opposition faced......:lol:

/OB

[ozzysoldier]

hitler in charge of the u-boat arms

[Jimbuna]

Fail to discover/suspect a breach of the enigma code.

[Contact]

Fail to introduce electric Boats earlier (XXI/XXIII).

[U-46 Commander]

Not producing more U-boats. They(Hitler) Wanted Battleships, not subs.

[Hawk U-375]

I say Enigma/ Failure to produce more U-Boats before the War.

[ReallyDedPoet]

Well, in all fairness, I think the thing that really failed them is less their decisions and more the fact that the service was not adequately prepared and invested into before the war started. The only way I see things going differently is if they started with Doenitz's planned 300 boats, not 57.

Bang on with this one :yep::up:


RDP

[gutted]

Not producing more U-boats. They(Hitler) Wanted Battleships, not subs.

yup. they spent too much effort building things they were too scared to use for fear of losing them.

[Murr44]

It was Raeder & the other admirals (apart from Doenitz) who were wedded to the big ship (battleship) navy idea. They were still thinking in terms of the WWI era navy where control of the oceans would be decided in massive fleet engagements like Jutland. Hitler actually hated the sea (one of his many weird phobias) & had very little interest in the KM. Doenitz erred in his insistance on regular radio contact & his refusal to believe that Enigma had been compromised. There were some on his staff who suspected that the code had been broken but they were ignored.

[Puster Bill]

I voted for Fail to discover/suspect a breach of the enigma code, but they actually *DID* suspect this.

Doenitz actually had the security of it investigated several times, and logged his suspicions in the BdU KTB, most notably after the Tarafal Bay incident:

"It is more likely that our cypher material is compromised or that there has been a breach of security. It appears improbable that an English submarine would be in such an isolated area by accident. The Naval War Staff is therefore taking the necessary steps to safeguard cypher material."
http://www.uboatarchive.net/BDUKTB30297.htm


I've often wanted the 'game' what would happen if you take the ability to know what the u-boats were doing away from the Allies. My sense is that it would have made life tougher for the carrier based Hunter/Killer groups, and would have prevented a number of losses (U-505, for example), but the submarine is an offensive weapon, and the only way to use them effectively is to close with the enemy, ie., attack convoys, and centimetric radar and advanced sonar and weapons like FIDO and Hedgehog would have still resulted in high losses (just not *AS* high).

[Erich dem Roten]

You know, I really want to pick every option. I don't think it was (and it rarely ever is) one single thing that lost the battle for the Atlantic.

I suppose I'll make my own entry: Failure to keep abreast of and counter allied ASW tech. A sub can only do so much if it is detected before it can attack or the captain knows attacking means suicide. This would include getting those XXI's out faster, better anti-sonar coatings and decoys, more time invested in torpedo technology...and on and on.....

...don't waste the Luftwaffe on silly targets with little military bearing, that way maybe you'd still have something resembling an airforce to check the airborne ASW patrols out of England...introduce wolfpacks earlier and teach better coordination between sub captains in training...allow captains to evade planes rather than sacrifice themselves and their boats and crews...

[BasilY]

Well, in all fairness, I think the thing that really failed them is less their decisions and more the fact that the service was not adequately prepared and invested into before the war started. The only way I see things going differently is if they started with Doenitz's planned 300 boats, not 57.

This really wasn't the fault of the uboat service...:shifty: The items I have listed were sqaurely the fault of the KM, and quite hard to be blamed on Herr Furher.:ping: "You go to war with the army you have, not the army you want." (Quote from the Brilliant Rumsfeld, no less :-)) I am sure the Heer would like to have more Panzer IV's to start the war with and the Luftwaffe more ME109.

Besides, a study on uboat.net has shown that had the torpedoes been functioning properly at the begining of the war, the tonnage for the first 2 years of the war would have been tripled and at least 2 battleships would have been sunk in the Noregean Campaign alone. That would have been very hard on England to beared when she was bearing the war alone. (no offense to the Canadians et al)

[Kapt Z]

Well, in all fairness, I think the thing that really failed them is less their decisions and more the fact that the service was not adequately prepared and invested into before the war started. The only way I see things going differently is if they started with Doenitz's planned 300 boats, not 57.

Exactly!:know:

[Stealth Hunter]

Definitely the enigma. If they had suspected the breaking of the code, they could have switched over to another system in a few months. However, since they didn't, it allowed the Allies to pinpoint the location of u-boats, and thus sink them without little or no trouble. Very costly for the Kriegsmarine.

[Task Force]

Fail to co-operate better with the surface fleet and Luftwaffe

If they could have had help from the Luftwaffe then they could have done better defending there ships from the allied aircraft and protected supply lanes and got Intel on convoys and task forces from high above.:yep:

[BasilY]

They made a very serious error in not copying the Long Lance torpedo. The Japanese gave them several examples as part of a technological exchange but from what I've read the Germans never bothered to examine them.

I love to have a long lance copy. Can someone put it in a mod? I will pay 1000 Renown each for 2 fishes per patrol. Keep it for a battleship or a carrier.

I guess the reason the Nazi didn't try to copy the Long Lance is simply cockiness. They just believe they are best in everything. At one point Goering halted development on future fighter aircraft because he believed that the ME109 is the pinnicle of fighter development and any improvement is no longer possible...

[Task Force]

Those Crazy nazis, I cant believe Goering would think that.:88) :doh: :rotfl:

[navy_gunner]

Vista...... still cant get my game up and rolling to solve all their problems....

[Murr44]

Those Crazy nazis, I cant believe Goering would think that.:88) :doh: :rotfl:

Off topic but Goering actually had the nerve to accuse Gunther Lutzow (a high scoring ace) of cowardice & threatened to have him shot at one point because Lutzow dared to disagree with him over something; I can't remember what it was now. He (Goering) was a morphine addict so what do you expect.:roll:

[ECAaxel]

Off topic but Goering actually had the nerve to accuse Gunther Lutzow (a high scoring ace) of cowardice & threatened to have him shot at one point because Lutzow dared to disagree with him over something; I can't remember what it was now. He (Goering) was a morphine addict so what do you expect.:roll:


I believe the argument was over whether the spitfire was superior on not to the ME109, Gunther believed it was, but Goering refused to believe him.

[DarkFolle]

the biggest failure? :hmm:
maybe starting a war with a bunch of egocentric, self-satisfying, each-other-intolerant, each-other-unsupporting commanding officers, first of all that genius of Hitler (the one who said "i don't want to conquer Russia, i just want the Arian space"....yeah, mate, sure, just in a second, the russians will give their life and territories for free...)?? :hmm:
U surely start a war with what u have, but if u start a war with nothing AND plan to conquest the entire world with it... :hmm: gimme another beer dude...:rotfl:

Useless topic, because there are so many faults the Nazi did from the very beginning of the war that are countless. They could and would have won if.. or if... or if not, better to say...

[Jimbuna]

Definitely the enigma. If they had suspected the breaking of the code, they could have switched over to another system in a few months. However, since they didn't, it allowed the Allies to pinpoint the location of u-boats, and thus sink them without little or no trouble. Very costly for the Kriegsmarine.

Precisely http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/thumbsup.gif

[Scape]

Torps not being tested would be #1 followed by Radio traffic but one thing that was not suggested here was letting the sub be captured so soon after the start of the war giving the Allies a much better idea of the limits of the U-boat. Huge intelligence failure.

[Blacklight]

The fact that the British broke the enigma code and the Germans didn't change it is one of the major reasons that Germany lost the war. Germany would have stood a far better chance if they had just changed up their code system once in a while rather than relying on the Enigma so much.

[Jimbuna]

Torps not being tested would be #1 followed by Radio traffic but one thing that was not suggested here was letting the sub be captured so soon after the start of the war giving the Allies a much better idea of the limits of the U-boat. Huge intelligence failure.

Are you referring to U-570 :hmm:

[Dekessey]

You know, I really want to pick every option. I don't think it was (and it rarely ever is) one single thing that lost the battle for the Atlantic.


I voted failure to make adequate test on torpedoes, because it could have made a significant difference early on, namely during the invasion of Norway. But it's really a combination of all answers, the most obvious is not having enough Uboats at the start of the war. In fact, the very first mistake was to think the Allies wouldn't react in September 39, which started the war much earlier than the Germans were planning.

[BasilY]

the biggest failure? :hmm:
maybe starting a war with a bunch of egocentric, self-satisfying, each-other-intolerant, each-other-unsupporting commanding officers, first of all that genius of Hitler (the one who said "i don't want to conquer Russia, i just want the Arian space"....yeah, mate, sure, just in a second, the russians will give their life and territories for free...)?? :hmm:
U surely start a war with what u have, but if u start a war with nothing AND plan to conquest the entire world with it... :hmm: gimme another beer dude...:rotfl:

Useless topic, because there are so many faults the Nazi did from the very beginning of the war that are countless. They could and would have won if.. or if... or if not, better to say...

You go to war with the leader(s) you have, not the leader(s) you want:D

[Subnuts]

Voted "Other" ; their inability to keep pace with Allied ASW advances and to provide appropriate countermeasures, and the fact that technological development in Nazi Germany was almost wholly reactionary, eventually doomed the U-boats.

[saltysplash]

I dont think it was a U Boat service failure...it was a lack of forsight......Germany unlike Great Britain focused on land based warfare.....Her Hitler didnt listen to Raeder, who imo understood the importance of a global fleet which would challenge the British fleet and cause it to divert rescources to far and away places, away from its most needed locations close to the homeland.

Dont forget Sealion failed due to lack of air support.....but even more so because the kreigsmarine couldnt provide suitable cover for the channel crossing......Hitler....inspite of all his foresight....couldnt foresee that Naval power combined with air power would only bring victory against the british isles.

We all know Hitlers fears when his surface vessels put to sea!!!!!! his restricions made their operations unattainable.

The U-Boats played a valient role in their war in the Atlantic but.......they were ...even with hindsight on a hide into nothing........All Churchill had to do was stand his ground and enjoy american aid and it was a matter of time......and men.

Nicholas Monsarrat in his novel 'Cruel Sea' kinda hit the nail on the head.....They had a good time in the early days but they were doomed......it was a matter of time only

[Steeltrap]

A few things:

* The fact the KM was 'unprepared for war' was in no small part due to the fact that Hitler had assured them there would be no war until 1945 at the earliest.

* The lack of an effective invasion plan for England was a reflection of the point above. Hitler did not believe that England and France would honour their commitments to Poland. His view was there was no strategic reason to justify it, hence they wouldn't do it. Clearly the idea that one might honour a treaty because that's the point of them wasn't in his nature....quite revealing.

* Technology killed them. The fact that the Brits 'broke' enigma (and they had the hardest time with the u-boat version, and didn't get a lot of 'real time' intel until later in the war) wouldn't have mattered one little bit had the u-boats had a technological advantage. In other words, knowing where they were would not have helped, other than in terms of evasion, if you didn't have an effective means of killing them once you found them. The fact that they could kill them meant the use of sigint to find them was adding insult to injury....

Consider the fact that the operational XXI patrol in progress at the time the war ended succeeded in getting into a firing position on a Brit task force, and had observed evasion was almost easy due to superior depth and, especially, speed abilities of the XXI, and you can see where superior technology might have got them.

They were defeated because they became too easy to locate AND SINK (from around May 1943 they lost 1 u-boat for every merchant sunk...). Allied radar, sonar/asdic and weapons, plus aircraft equivalents, simply overwhelmed them as the u-boat's technologies did not advance in any really effective manner prior to the introduction of schnorkel coupled with the XXI.

** Another way of answering this is by answering a different question: as a u-boat, what's the ONE thing you would deny the Allies were you able to do so? My answer would be RADAR of any kind. Why? Because it was radar that forced u-bpats to abandon surface attacks. That meant they were severely limited in their ability to manoeuver, tactically AND strategically, making them much easier to locate and destroy. Had you been able to conduct night surface attacks throughout the war the situation would have been considerably different....

[jpm1]

never had any failure , my crew's top banana lol

[mr chris]

1.
Failure to have the U-Boot arm ready for war.
What might have happened if BDU had his 300 boats in 39?:hmm:

2.
Contuining to think that Enigma was unbroken by the Allies.

3.
Not getting electro boats into the U-Boot arm sooner.
The Germans had been looking at the technology long before the war came.
Not a failure of the U-Boot service but one of the German war time leaders.

[jpm1]

difficult to say as often during a war if you create a high end weapon the enemy doesn't last long in general to play oppsite to you , but i would be curious to see how the things would have turned into if during the Norway invasion all the faulty torps would have been functional

[Hartmann]

Dont forget Sealion failed due to lack of air support.....but even more so because the kreigsmarine couldnt provide suitable cover for the channel crossing......Hitler....inspite of all his foresight....couldnt foresee that Naval power combined with air power would only bring victory against the british isles.


i don´t think so, with a full air cover the british navy is not a problem.

since 1941 and the pearl harbour attack it was clear that the main ship in a navy is an aircraft carrier and not a battleship.

i can´t imagine the british navy in the channel under the attack of stukas or other bombers like ju-88 without air cover.

[danoh]

I voted "other" as the possibilities given overlook the fact that despite the many problems listed the U-Boat arm in fact did it's job quite well until long after the war was lost (Dec. 7, 1941.)

My "other" reasons are strategic. In both all the simulations I've played and in reality, Germany should have crushed Britian when she had it by the balls .

Germany could have also followed the historical path and beaten Russian with a more intelligent campaign in the east in 1941. In which case the U-Boat war becomes trivial.

Given the strategic decisions that were made, loosing the ASW technological battle was decisive.

[Kipparikalle]

The biggest mistake of the war, was Hitler starting it without putting the war factories on full production mode.
"...It would ruin the country's economy" or something like that, he said.


When the war facilities finally went on full mode (1944), war machines such as planes was producted much faster than they were lost (read in Adolf Galland, Stuka Bomber Pilot, Deutchland's hawks, etc...)

But it was already too late

[Red Heat]

Well, in all fairness, I think the thing that really failed them is less their decisions and more the fact that the service was not adequately prepared and invested into before the war started. The only way I see things going differently is if they started with Doenitz's planned 300 boats, not 57.

Very well said, Sir!
The true! :yep:

[Brag]

Wrong priorities. Too much effort and expenditure was made on the surface fleet, which could never catch up with the RN.

Later, the failure to recognise that Enigma was compromised (this was very obvious).