I think it was a bad failure not to put more Uboats at sea. We have to remember that the so called "Happy Times" where Uboats did great damage lasted to basically 43, with Churchill stating that his greatest fear was Uboats. The problem was even during this period where Uboats did great damage, they never had more than 30 boats at sea, the entire North Atlantic, imagine if they had say 100 or more what they could've done, certainly more than Rommel. The other key of course was having France to port out of. Had Hitler put the resources into Uboats early, who knows the amount of damage that could've been done, with no more than 30 boats on patrol at one time Germany almost sunk Britian.

No, Germany was failed to lose in the end when they declared against America, that was the big mistake.

In the beginning, the Germans didn't need to put more U-Boats to sea. They were sinking record numbers of vessels right off the American coast during 1942:

"America's first year in the war ended with the loss of 1,027 Allied ships to U-boat action. This was more than half of all the ships lost by all the Allies in the U-boat war, in all areas, all through the war years from 1939 to 1945."
-The Tenth Fleet pg.60

"The Strategic Situation in 1942:
This was a phenomenal and unprecedented episode in the whole history of warfare-a major and potentially decisive victory being scored by a tiny force of submarines...
...Doenitz's U-boats wrought havoc, not merely with the material strength of the Allies during this crucial period of their build-up, but indeed with their whole planning and the grand strategy of the war."
-The Tenth Fleet pg.61-62

"December, 1941, brought the crisis to a head in the U-boat arm. It came abruptly and dramatically in the wake of the first indubitable defeat of the U-boats: in a convoy battle west of Gibralter three British ships were sunk, but five U-boats were lost. Five more U-boats were sunk in other operations in waters around the Azores. Only twice before had Doenitz lost five boats in a single month and never ten in a thirty-day period. For the first time, defeatism swept the U-boat Command. Doenitz's staff openly voiced the opinion, and in no uncertain terms, that the U-boats had had it and were no longer capable of combatting the reinforced convoys."
-The Tenth Fleet pg.63

Not about records, think if they had double the numbers what the effect and possible outcome could've been.

This book and Silent Service for 8 bit nintendo were what started
it all for me. :up:

It's not about records, indeed. That (records) wasn't my point. I wasn't trying to criticize you, or anyone else for that matter.
I was just posting some general facts, that seemed to be on a general par with a lot of things that everyone else was saying. You made me think of a particular fact when your last post alluded to U-boat numbers, that's all.

Nice to see you back in these parts M :up:

I second that! :yeah:

Then instead of sinking a little less than 1% of total Allied merchant tonnage during the war they would have sunk something less than 2%. The U-Boats were not a factor. The fact that the first quarter score was in their favor only encouraged them to waste more resources in a losing strategy.

There is no scenario where the U-Boats in any quantity, sinking neutral shipping on an ocean they could not control under skies that they could not control could attain victory in the Battle of the Atlantic. Period. Read Admiral Daniel Gallery's U-505 to see the casual way in which the U-Boats were swept from the sea by hunter-killer groups centered around jeep aircraft carriers. They could operate in an almost leisurely way, controlling the ocean surface and the skies above completely and securely. It was like killing fire ants in your lawn. Nothing strenuous.

Any particular reason to believe a public statement by Churchill regarding the U-Boats? He certainly was bright enough to lie when the results of the lie would be to build more German coffins.

At the beginning of the war Donitz said that they did not have anywhere near enough U-Boats to win the war. He tried as hard as he could to postpone the starting kickoff for another four or five years in order to have the number necessary. Of course, the war was not begun with a rational plan at all and no effort by higher authority (see how nice I am there?) to determine what requirements for victory were. The corporal was blind, convinced he had x-ray vision and nobody could see what he saw. Therefore he listened to no assessments, whether from the army or navy. He was superior to the war professionals, therefore they were wrong.

See how that worked out?:D

Donitz wanted about three times more boats than he had. And he planned on keeping the US and other neutral countries out of the war. I don't know how he planned to do that. Either he sank the tonnage and sucked all neutrals into the war against Germany or he did not sink the tonnage and Britain won anyway. The number of boats was irrelevant. The only possible way would be to subdue Britain so quickly that nobody could come to her aid.

But the British government was already ready (read A Man Called Intrepid) to run the British government out of a skyscraper in New York City. Any defeat would have been very temporary as the resulting US entry would still have ensured the defeat of Germany. You cannot sink tank factories in Detroit. Or wheat fields in Kansas. There was no way Germany belonged in a war with the United States. But with the U-Boats in play, how were they to avoid it?

The U-Boats were inappropriate for German use and should have been all scrapped in 1938, except for a small coastal defense fleet.

Nothing would'be brought them victory in the Atlantic, but bang for the buck and what had effect, I would pick uboats.

As Winston Churchill said "The only thing that ever really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril".

He was there, I'll take his word over yours anyday..lol

You often hear it said that if Admiral Doenitz had his magical number of 300 U-Boats at war's start he could have brought Britain to it's knees.

For Donitz to have 300 active boats at the war's start, it would mean those designs proven and ready BEFORE the war meaning many would be type II models and only a few type VII's and certainly not many of the longer ranged type IX's. The type II and type VII lack the necessary range to cruise into the western Atlantic where they could operate outside the range of aircover from Iceland, Newfoundland and Britain... so maybe the happy time is a little longer or more severe (assuming the early torpedo problems are worked out) But if the British sense 300 U-Boats in production they will cancel some of their capital ship construction and build more sloops, frigates and destroyers.

Plus, you're going to at least double the amount of commanders, and crews in training over the number that was already being hurriedly trained during the same period in and you're going to cram all that additional training into the same number of days and in the same number of limited areas. With everyone, new construction, new commanders, repairs, and refreshers alike, all vying for the time on the limited number of firing ranges in the Baltic you're going to have to cut back on the amount of firing time any one boat, commander, and crew actually can get.

There may be an increase in the total number of live test firings but there's going to be a decrease in the number of live test firings any one boat, commander, and crew get to make.

Congratulations. You've got more boats now, but you've also you've diverted scarce materials and supplies away from other activities and diluted the overall training level of your U-boat fleet.

The actual number of u-boats built by year:

1935 (14)
1936 (21)
1937 (1)
1938 (9)
1939 (18)
1940 (50)
1941 (199)
1942 (237)
1943 (284)
1944 (229)
1945 (91)
http://uboat.net/technical/shipyards/

If the Germans had only had the Type XXI/Me262 in 1939, things would have been different! Possibly, but nothing happens in a vacuum. It has been pointed out that if the Germans this, then the Allies that, so there's no need to go over it again. It has also been argued that the Germans could not possibly have produced more u-boats, and that if they could and had it would have taken from other parts of the war effort, since resources are finite.

I agree with all of those, so I'm not adding anything new, just summing up.

[edit] As for "never had more than 30 boats at sea", in 1943 the average was indeed right around 100 boats at sea for some months. Here is a listing of number of boats at sea and number of merchants sunk.
http://www.mistari.com.au/u-boats/sh..._per_month.htm

Note that even with that many boats at sea, the number of merchants sunk per boat never exceeded 6, and during the time when the most boats were available the average only once reached one merchant per boat.

1942 (taken out of context):

"During the first four months of the new German offensive, there was a daily average of 111 U-boats at sea in the Atlantic. Although their campaign was losing the savage force of the March slaughter, they were still doing reasonably well. By sinking forty-four Allied ships in April, they brought the year's score up to 218 ships of better than 1.3 million gross tons.
According to the Admiralty's conservative assessment, the Germans lost only fourty-four boats U-boats in those same four months. In actual fact, their losses totalled fifty-five boats--but even that higher number seemed to be bearable in the face of the results achieved and eighty-three new constructions."
-The Tenth Fleet pg.182

"Fateful Misconceptions":
"Doenitz's most serious trouble at this stage accrued from major deficiencies in his own basic planning and his management of the U-boat war. If he had a grand strategic concept at all, to match tangibly his ideas about the presumably decisive role of the U-boat in World War II, it revolved around his "integral tonnage theory". Firmly believing that ultimate victory depended on his ability to sink more ships per se than the Allies could build, he went for tonnage in sheer quantity, disregarding the crucial factor of quality in the effort. According to his theory, a westbound freighter in ballast was as valuable a target for his U-boats as an eastbound troopship, for example, chock full of soldiers, or a Liberty ship heavily laden with war material consigned to Britain or to North Africa.
Moreover, he had no acute appreciation of the relative importance of the various operational areas. Instead of emplying his U-boats when and where they could have inflicted the greatest damage, he assigned them to areas where he expected the best results in numbers at the lowest cost to himself. He thus built up his score without regard to the value of the sinkings to the overall German war effort."
-The Tenth Fleet pg.251

Info may vary, but my statement was during the beginning or "Happy Times" Germany never averaged more than 30 Uboats at sea and did mass damage.

At any one time during the so-called 'Happy Times' for U-boats, there were only ever a maximum of 30 at sea. For an area the size of the northern Atlantic, this was not many. Despite this, they managed to wreak havoc. Individual U-boat captains like Kretschmer were responsible for the sinking of 200,000

{above doesn't include uboats in the med, indian, etc..}

Complete link
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/u-boats.htm

The debate as I see it is a comparison to how resources could be best used. Most know high command still preferred the big guns on BB's over Uboats and mass resources were used and we all know the failure of the few BB's compared to Uboats. Imagine early if they would have allocated all those resources to U-boats. If more Uboats would'vbe been built early on, britian may have been brought to her knees.

Churchill also said it was only Uboat damage Britain would have to contemplate surrendering.

To those that argue resources could have been better used, then where would you have used those resources and got comaparable damage? In fact Uboats got lil resources overall and almost brought Britian to her knees..

But you extended the "Happy Times" to 1943, and we all pointed to 1942, which falls within the specified time frame. In fact, the Happy Times were over by mid-1941, and the "New Happy Times" started with the attacks on the American coast in 1942.

The Naval High Command also wanted to delay the start of the war for several years. Would that have made a difference? As was pointed out, If the Germans had more u-boats it's entirely likely that the British would have taken a different tack as well. Conjecture is always fun, but there is no way of knowing exactly how any scenario would have played out.

Looking at the numbers involved, i.e. merchants sunk per u-boat at sea, merchants sunk vs merchants at sea etc., I don't think Britain was exactly "brought to her knees". Wartime propaganda is a wonderful tool. Positive propaganda can inspire people, and negative propaganda can drive them to strive harder. I've read several books on the Battle Of Britain from during and immediately following the war, and they insist that on one hand Britain was "on her knees" and on the other the Germans never had a chance, often in the same book and sometimes in the same chapter.