Why the U-Boats lost.

• The basic design of the U-Boat had hardly changed from WW1
• 55 U-Boats at the start of the war
• The Navy came third for supply's
• The war came five years to early for the U-Boats
• U-Boats were over stretched
• Hitler calls an end to all long term scientific research in 1940
• Britain got the Enigma machine in the 1930's

Why the U-Boats did well in the early war years.

• Hitler rebuilt the Military forces
• Germany was ahead in the 1930's on the scientific front
• Europe did not or would not believe Hitler would start a war
• The Allies were caught with there pants down
• Britain was busy with the air war in 1940

If Churchill was elected in the 1930's you can bet your ass Churchill would have done the same as Hitler the only differences would been, we were not the aggressor. And U-Boats would not had it so good.

Thank God we had Churchill who saw Hitler for what he was, a warmonger.

Thank you Penelope!
 

Nice to hear from the U-Boat contingent. It's kind of a shame we're not having the discussion in their forum. I just don't know the people over there well enough to start something like this with confidence that everyone will remain constructive and have fun speculating about the what ifs.

Actually I'm surprised at how much we are in agreement, rather than the differences in detail. And I've learned a lot from all the great posts in here. This is a graduate course in What If!

Please don't get the idea that I say that U-Boats were lousy boats. They had lots of admirable qualities. In some ways they were superior to American boats. But diving deeper doesn't sink targets. Being harder to see when approaching convoys (I wonder how true that is if running decks awash) might help sink more ships. Having half the number of torpedoes would definitely hurt their chances to sink more ships. it is fascinating to run both kinds in SH3 and SH4. I love 'em both!

One thing is certain. The United States could have won the war in the Pacific with U-Boats. The Germans could not have won the war in the Atlantic with American submarines. It wasn't the character of the weapons that made the difference, it was the different circumstances in which they were used. Both boats were completely capable of delivering victory if used in an appropriate manner. The Atlantic just didn't quite fit.

And the German high command needed the resources that U-Boats were using up. They could update U-Boats or produce all the land stuff they needed to prosecute their war. They couldn't do both and they made the choice to let the U-Boats continue unsupported.

Probably the best choice would have been to not support the U-Boat war at all and declare peace with Britain after Dunkirk. But "best choice" and "World War II German leadership" do not belong in the same sentence, as so many of you have trotted out examples of so far in this thread. They certainly exceeded their normal allottment of one fatal mistake.:dead:

Winston Churchill, the one man who back in the middle 1930's, brokered the abdication of Edward VIII, not because he wanted to marry "the woman I love" but because he was a Nazi sympathizer who wanted to throw British might behind Hitler. Edward's attitude and plans were ably assisted by our wonderful Joseph Kennedy (who never met a Nazi he didn't like), American ambassador to Britain (thank you very much). With amazing tact and skill, without any power to require it, Churchill saved western civilization and very few know about it to this day.

During this time Churchill cultivated the friendship and trust of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, convincing him of the mortal danger in which Naziism put the world. He convinced Roosevelt to unconstitutionally and secretly establish a shadow British government, host the British secret service and move some of the Enigma decoding teams to the US. This was a time when the myopic, head in the sand, isolationist, stupid Republicans held the hearts and minds of the American public. Had any of this been discovered, Roosevelt would have been impeached, tried and probably imprisoned for espionage. His vision and courage were incredible. Roosevelt's leadership was incredible. He did all this against the wishes of his people for a greater cause. But make no mistake, it was Winston Churchill who was the indispensible mover in the events leading to WWII for all the Allies.

This American holds Winston Churchill as the greatest hero of the twentieth century.

The idea that America could have won the war with Uboats- sorry - no way. Maybe if we used nothing but Type IX's and had a slew of em - but the Type VII didnt have the range needed to even make the round trip and be on station for as long as was needed.

Now if Germany had had 55 fleet boats instead.... hmm... an interesting what if. With the superior surface speed, armament and range provided.... there actually might have been more success in the early years - but no matter how you slice it - more boats were needed.

Ultimately, what lost the war for Germany was idiocy, not a single weapon and its usage. BTW RR - I had not considered the idea of supplies coming in if the uboats were blocking the channel, but I dont think they would have been needed but for a short period - so in my view the attempt would have been worth it. But then again - we all have the benefit of hindsight!

And yes - Winston Churchill is indeed one of the greatest heroes of the 20th century. We need leaders like him again to be sure even today!

Of course America would have won the war with U-boats. And with war canoes too if that was all they had. It's not like USA was up against some kind of superpower and had to cut their enemys supplies to stand a chance. The japanese were simply outproduced and in most cases outmatched by the US and would still have been by a large margin even with 0 ships sunk by submarines.

Doenitz and the germans weren't stupid and if fleet boats was what they needed they would have built such boats instead. But more torpedoes doesn't help much if you are sunk because you are easy to find, slow to dive, unable to dive deep and have short underwater range. And if they wanted range and torpedoes they already had the type IX, with range and surface speed similar to fleet subs, worse radar but better in everything else. After the war americans studied the u-boats to improve their own, not the other way around.

You really can't judge the subs or uboats by the end result because the conditions were so different. I read somewhere that japanese escorts never dropped their cans below 50 meters, as they didn't think submarines could go deeper. Sounds like happy times lasted the whole war for the submarines;)

The was the case until a certain thoughtless blabbermouth Congressman named Andrew Jackson May spilled the beans after returning from a war zone junket in 1943. It then went out over the wires and was widely published. Admiral Lockwood stated that the remark probably cost the Navy ten submarines and 800 men.

All the time I read about the superior fire power of the fleet boats compared to U-Boats. In theory having extra fire power is great but what about the hit rate. Although the type VII U-Boats had less torpedos I believe that their hit and or sink rate was much higher then the hit/sink rate of the fleet boats. You have to keep that factor in mind as well.:know:

You make it sound as if the Pacific war was a oiece of cake for the US. US cruisers were caught with their pants down more then once during the Solomons campaign for example.;)

Sorry to be pedantic STEED, but it was 57. :up:

LOL fair enough RR... just remember that "hero" was the one who failed to warn the USA what the Japanese were about to do to Pearl Harbour. Legend has it that Churchill knew the Japanese were headed em masse out towards Pearl Harbour, but decided to not warn the US of it. Unless the US government knew as well... and did nothing.... oh heck WW2 conspiracy theories abound!

That is a understatement!

Still thumbs up.
 

Sometimes a statesman holds a secret because he has to. Churchill was not free to discuss everything he wished. He was still a British citizen owing his allegiance to British interests. This is in contrast to our congressman who had the blood of hundreds of dead American submariners on his hands because he bragged that the Japanese were setting their depth charges too shallow.

Also, I believe that if the Japanese had not successfully attacked Pearl Harbor, we would have pursued our "shootout at OK Corrall" capital ship showdown plan and the Japanese would have delivered us a humiliation that would have had us tallying up negatives and positives and electing to leave the Japanese alone. Our political situation, even though Roosevelt was president, was firmly isolationist. "Let the Europeans take each other to Hell. We have no obligation to jump in after them." The America first movement was so strong it took a Pearl Harbor to galvanize us into action. No offense was meant by Mr Churchill and none should be taken by us.

What would we have done with the information anyway, but blown the British secret service's advantage. Churchill also sacrificed his own city of Coventry so as not to reveal our ability to read Enigma messages. Pearl Harbor was a cheap loss which may have won the war for us. Churchill was right. It's called war for a good reason. Victory only follows sacrifice and he was willing to pay the price for victory. That's a hero.

As for the whole war in the pacific, no it was not a piece of cake. But it's not like the victory was in danger if the fleet boats would have been less successful. The success of the fleet boats certainly helped the war effort. My point is that you can't use this success to conclude that fleet boats were better than uboats. Yeah they were probably better at the task they had, to fight an enemy far away but with very limited and weak ASW capabilities. If the britts and americans had the ASW capabilities of the Japanese they would probaly have been beaten with uboats from WWI.

When you compare the two it's pretty clear that the fleet boats objectives were a piece of cake compared to the objective the uboats had.

Some excellent posts sir.....you have obviously researched your subject matter well http://www.psionguild.org/forums/ima...s/thumbsup.gif

Certainly some top notch posts RR, but I am not and never will be a Churchill fan. Yes he made sacrifices but he wasn't the one who paid for those sacrifices. The people in that city had no clue it was about to bombed to hell, how many people died... loads.

He is no hero. A good leader able to make tough choices yes... but that doesn't make him a hero, not even on the best day of his life.

Another poster misses my point
 

My point has nothing to do with what boat was better than what other boat. My point is that for one situation unrestricted submarine warfare was the key that fit the lock, but on the other unrestricted submarine warfare not only did not fit the lock, it put other locks on the prize. As I said before, America could have won the Pacific war with U-Boats but the Germans could not win the Battle of the Atlantic with American submarines.

We Americans were also very fortunate that our fleet was sunk in Pearl Harbor, forcing us to cast about for a strategy that could win the war in the Pacific. And we were fortunate that submarines designed for scouting worked even better as wolves.