Packlife
08-28-13, 12:19 AM
This is something I've been wondering about, how close did the U-boats really come to starving Britain, and I've read that a lot of former U-boat commanders felt that if they would of had the newer U-boats like the type 21 they could of turned the tide back in their favor. I've read that there is different thought's from both sides as to how close the U-boats came to accomplishing their mission. The Brits seem to have always said they were not in any real danger of having the supply lines cut, an the Germans say the opposite. I'm kinda inclined to lean toward the German's belief, a big part of why comes straight from Churchill in his famous quote "The only thing that ever really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril", I know he was update daily on how much supplies they had, how much they lost from sinking, an how much they were able to bring in safely. In the history books it kinda seems that the U-boat threat has been kinda down played, which I think started out as propaganda an ended up being recorded as fact. If Churchill was truly frightened by the U-boats then he must of thought that they were having a serious impact on Britain. My thought about the U-boat commanders believing newer boats would turn the tide is, I don't think they would fully turn the tide. I think the bigger problem was the lack of enough experienced commanders an crew's is what really put a hurting on their chances of winning. The escort commanders were living longer an gaining more an more experience, while younger an younger guy's were getting less an less training to be U-boat Cpt's. Now if Germany could of produced in mass enough type 21 boats to replace the type VII's an be able to fill them w/ experienced commanders an crew, then I think Britain would of been in some trouble imagine wolf pack attacks on convoys made up of Type 21's that were faster submerged than they were surfaced, not to mention the new torpedo's being built like the acoustic ones. I could easily see the beginning of the attack being acoustic torpedo's targeting escorts followed by infiltration inside the convoy it could of been hell on the Atlantic. An the uptick in the morale for the Germans an the hurting of moral for the British. What do you guy's think???