Pause for reflection
 

It's a sobering thought I had looking at these guys my wife's grandfather probably knew from being aboard Kraken in a wolfpack with the Bullhead. The Bullhead didn't come home...

This is going to be a long one. As I'm abit late in contributing here. So bare with me. But you're all sub captains so patience is in your blood.

I believe Topp and alot of people underestimate the significance of the type XXI U-Boat. It would have made a difference for two reasons. a) It was designed to operate alone. b) it was be a more effective convoy killer. The main problems with the conventional U-Boats was it needed to be surfaced in order to persue and manuver into a good position to attack a convoy. Second was the rather small armament. 4 bow tubes, And only one salvo of which could be used against the convoy since it took an average of 15 minutes per tube to reload. Which is why Wolfpack tactics were needed with conventional U-Boats to make any significant impact on convoys. The U-Boats themselves unfortunately were designed with the Wolfpack idea in mind. The type XXI had 6 tubes which could be completely reloaded in less then 10 minutes. Especially with wakeless torpedoes, it could strike again and again at a convoy, most of the time without the need to see it thanks to the Neibelung SONAR technology installed on it before Escorts would know where to look. And last but not least a very large stock of torpedoes. So yes it would have made an impact and life hell for convoys if they were deployed in significant numbers. But alone it wouldn't have won the war it's the case of (It can't win the war for you, BUT you can't win without it)

Rockin Robin is right on many cases and makes a good case. However there are a few points of contention.

On the subject of Karl Doenitz. He shares a good portion of the responsibility of the appaling losses, But not for the loss of the battle of the Atlantic. Doenitz recognized that Battleships and large surface ships were obsolete. Unfortunately more conservative bureaucrats did not. So there were very few U-Boats available, even fewer ready for patrols. Infact the impact they had for their meagre numbers is quite astounding. But Doenitz's pride and carrear took precidence over tactical necessity. Doenitz's insistance on constant communication (especially status reports complete with their exact locations) proved fatal for many U-Boats. The Wolfpack tactic proved to be very destructive BUT it was easily countered. Once Anti-Submarine warfare was booming, Doenitz was too stubborn to do anything about it and just sent his men to their deaths. Many men's only crime was having a commander more concerned about the braids on his sleeve then their well being. Had Doenitz been listened to early on, There would have been enough U-Boats for a blockade. However when things turned bad by 1943 there's alot of blood on his hands.

Robin is also right that resource wasting proved fatal for the Germans, BUT for the wrong reasons. The U-Boats were far from a waste of resources before the war, they were infact the needed technology. Instead Hitler and a very conservative Nazi bureaucracy insisted on building Bismarck and Tirpitz. Collectively 120 000 tons of obsolete ships. The time, resources and men needed for those would have netted 130 Type VII or 110 Type IX U-Boats alone, That's not counting the ones already produced. Also the potential of these subs hampered by bureaucrats being too confident of their technology rather then expanding on them. So the lack of Radar and active SONAR only hampered the U-Boat's effectiveness.

The U-Boats were designed with the wolfpack idea in mind, The type VII's especially with a rather light torpedo count and only 5 tubes (4 bow, 1 stern). The type IX had a very respectable amount of Torpedoes, But again most of them stored externally and with only 6 tubes (4 bow, 2 stern) And the reloading by hand only made things worse since it took forever to reload. All a U-Boat could hope for attacking a convoy would be 3 ships at most. Since most U-Boat commanders would aim for two torpedoes per ship. A convoy attack from a single boat would net 2 ships per sucessful attack. So a U-Boat needed wolfpack tactics to inflict significant losses and it worked for a time. One of the very few examples of the U.S. the Germans should have followed was to design subs to operate alone instead of depending on wolfpack tactics, Also the swift acceptance of Radar as viable technology would have aided the Germans immensely. The type XXI solved these problems.

I admire the Kriegsmarine, But I have nothing but scorn for the Nazi party. The Kriegsmarine had some of the most able sailors the world known, and they had the misfortune of very lousy leadership. The war was lost before the first shot was fired for the simple reason that the Nazi party was a self destructive regime. It encouraged internal strife and backstabbing rather then harmony and respect for the chain of command. The Nazis (And I say Nazis since they were in power and calling the shots at the time, The word is not interchangable with 'Germans') were as much at war with each other as they were with everyone else. Hitler should have seen that the U.S. being tied up in the Pacific was a godsend for him, instead he stupidly declared war on the U.S. while having enough trouble with England and Russia.

The Americans were blessed with a technologically stagnant Japan in the Pacific which is why their subs were so successful. And American subs were designed to operate alone, as well as mounting radar. Still they had their own failing, Even the Baolo class couldn't dive too deep, and suffered from very lousy torpedoes for much of the war. But the roles were reversed in the Pacific with the subs constantly evolving while their target remained complacent and stagnant rather then vice versa which was the case of the U-Boats in the Atlantic.

So the U-Boats were not the cause of Germany's defeat, The Nazi party did that on their own. The effectiveness of German U-Boats is what made things hell for England in the first place. And for the Americans in 1942. But the Allies evolved and the Germans were too proud and complacent. Hitler was not smart, He was actually rather mediocre of intelligence. But he was a gambler and it often paid off at first, Just because he was lucky did not make him smart and the U-Boat men paid a very heavy price for that.

Also XXI type has another decissive differences.

c) high underwater speed, so avoid depth charges at 200 meters at 13 knts is easier that running at 2 knts in a VII . and more with a silent running of 6 knts

d) High underwater endurance

e) luxurious things for the crew like fridge or air aconditionated.

f) more diving depth.


Some high performance technology exist before WWII but germany believe that they will won the war in 1942 so it was no used, and when the situation was really a disaster was too late to try develop an effective XXI force.

The situation could be different using all boats, including IX-B and C in a blockade around britain withouth the use of the U-boat situation repports or communications.

Doenitz was also a victim of Hitler's weird intuition. Hitler constantly forsaw an Allied invasion of Norway, so badly needed U-Boats were frittered away from the Battle of the Atlantic guarding against an invasion they probably couldn't have hindered anyway. Then there were Hitler's constant attempts to shore up Mussolini in Italy. Which meant wasting U-Boats fighting in an inland sea from which they could not be recovered.

The US Navy suffered from something similar in the Pacific. General MacArthur was constantly diverting submarines to dubious tasks like supplying guerillas and acting as a taxi service for agents. But at least the submarine could do it's job while in transit.

One important thing about the Type XXI is it didn't come into existence in a vacuum. It was burgeoning growth of Allied airpower to a saturation level and the increasing effectiveness of radar that brought about the need for a Type XXI as a solution. The importance of these events and the impact they would play on submarine warfare simply weren't forseen by Doenitz before the war. Or, if they were they were discounted.

Thanks for adding more to my point. The type XXI was on the drawing board even before the war started. The U-Boats were extremely successful in WWI so the technology was being researched. However the type XXI of pre WWI only had in mind the hull and the advanced electric engines. The events of the war prompted pattern running and acoustic guided torpedoes, The Neiblung SONAR, The NAXOS radar detector and the Schnorkel (pronounce it correctly people :P) amoung other things.

The ridiculous redeployments were a victem of Nazi bureaucracy, And so was this advanced technology.

Another point to add to your point...the Type XXI was put on the back burner during the "Happy Times" when the night surface attack was still a viable strategy. At the rate of success the U-boats had at that point, the Nazis believed the war would be won before development was completed. By the time they realized it was indeed needed, it came too late to the party.

What would have been the impact of a Type XXI available in late 41-early 42? Good question...

Keep in mind, the Germans had more ships to shoot at than the US.

We had ULTRA. US communication was (more/less) one-way.

Donitz micromanaged the u-boats, which created tons of useless radio traffic...enter HF/DF. Enigma code was comprimised, and the Germans were in denile about it being broken.

The allies learned the lessons on WWI submarine warfare...
...that chapter the Japanese totally underestimated submarine warfare. (It's true purpose- anti-commerence.

According to this logic, the uboat war in the Atlantic, the USN's submarine campaign in the Pacific, the Soviet's guerrilla war on the eastern front, Sherman's March to the Sea, Nathan Bedford Forrest's cavalry raiders and the minutemen of the American Revolution are all directly comparable, for they all sought the same ends: Disruption of the enemy's supply.

So, I think that if Donitz would have paid more attention to Sherman, he would have been more successful.

Why? I see nobody holding a U-Boat special cocktail :hmm:

j/j ;)

Hypothetical project for HS Years ago.
 

I did a report back in HS in the mid 90s on what single weapon in the German military could of changed or altered the course of the war. It was the .....

Type XXI U-Boat.

This Hypothetical project speculated bringing the type XXI into the war in January 1942. I concluded on this report that the United States would of had to divert fast resources to the Atlantic.


I. come up with an American version of the type XXI, armed with modified


II. modified acoustic homing torpedos that was specifically designed to lock on
to the type XXI engine noise. (AIRCRAFT AND DD's)

III. increase speed of merchants to were they can go beyond 20 knots between
the continents none stop.


At the end it was concluded if Britian survived the type XXI/ or if they surrendered Unless the US was invaded and work on the atomic bomb was slowed or stopped the US would of used it until Japan and Germany surrendred unconditionally.

All very interesting
 

I agree that the type XXI was a very interesting boat with revolutionary capabilities. However, Topp's statements reveal that sub captains didn't have any concept of how to fight their new weapon. I agree that he is off-base, but that means he would have been ineffective as a Type XXI captain as well. Topp does bring up that much time-comsuming training (time they did not have) would have to come before deployment of the Type XXI. Given the urgent necessities of the war, none of that was possible.

But how about my central argument: that the Japanese and British theaters were fundimentally different because although sinking Japanes shipping starved Japan, in order to starve Britain you had to sink ships of a neutral nation: the United States. Since the US could and did produce ships faster than the U-Boats could ever sink them, the war was lost just as soon as the US joined the war, no matter how effective the U-Boats were at sinking ships. Therefore all U-Boat production above that necessary for coastal defense and warship supression was wasted resources. Also all German surface ship expenditures were wasted as well for the same reason. Keeping the US out of the war and defusing Britain were the keys to a lasting peace decided after German victory.

However, you've hit on the central fact behind my observation: the Nazi party, without which there would have been no war at all! No war means there is no way the Germans could possibly win the war that never was.:know:

One thing I know with certainty is that American submariners made use of and adapted German U-boat attack strategies to their own ends.:up:

Yup!
 

Because before the war, American stragegy was to use the subs to scout out the location of the IJN so the main battle fleet could find 'em, attack 'em and get their tails whipped by a superior enemy. That was a bad strategy.

Fortunately the Japanese took the American battlefleet and securely stored it on the bottom of Pearl Harbor so we wouldn't lose the war with it, a charitable act indeed:up:. We went shopping for a strategy for the only navy we had left, our carriers and subs, as shazaam! there were the Germans spilling their guts about their whole program, running a US Navy training program just for our benefit. And it was a free course too! As I've said before, we analyzed the defects in the German scheme, mitigated them and went to war.

A prime irony of the war is that submarines could not win the war of the Atlantic, but without their losing efforts and German need to publicize their exploits, we would have not had a strategy to use in the Pacific, where submaries COULD win a war. War, like politics, makes strange bedfellows.

If Germany had come up with the Type XXI earlier in the war it certainly would have given Britain and her allies a hard time. However, I think as always happened in the Battle of the Atlantic the inevitable countermeasures would have come into being. You probably would have seen a crash program in the manufacture of sonobuoys, the laying of sonar arrays on the bottom of the ocean, faster development and deployment of MAD gear to detect U-Boats from the air whilst they are running submerged. Possibly sooner development of helicopters with dipping sonar to run ahead of a convoy. All these Cold War ASW devices were born in the latter days of WW2 or on the drawing board. Plus, the building of all escorts and escort carriers cancelled in 1945.

Now assuming a brillant U-Boat triumph in the Atlantic I think the result still wouldn't have been Springtime for Hitler. Germany was already losing it's unequal struggle in the East regardless of any naval triumphs elsewhere. Assuming the U-Boats held off or delayed an Allied landing, you probably would have seen Stalin's domain extended all the way to the Atlantic. Somebody pass the borscht. :cool:

Didn't know GROUCHO MARX was a Submariner :D :rotfl: