U-Boats Patrols Statistic
 

During the work on my project I have made a research on the U-Boats patrol areas.

https://i.ibb.co/r0yC1Kv/Patrols-Diagram-Page-1.png

Germany had gone to war in September 1939 with 57 U-boats, but only 26 of them were oceangoing boats.
Type II – 31
Type VII – 19
Type IX – 7

Diagrams show that type VII U-Boats most of all were assigned to North Atlantic (65,9%) and Spain (19,5%).
Type II U-Boats due to their short range were to operate in North Sea (66%), and type IX U-Boats were sent to distant areas – Spain, Bay of Biscay and Gibraltar.

In the next posts I’ll publish the information on the Patrol's effectiveness in the beginning of the war (1939) and compare the results with 1940 patrols data.

I would love to see you finish this project, and finally put an end to the debate on whether or not the U-boats could’ve affectively won the battle of the Atlantic.

Some say yes others no.

I always felt it was possible. They had long shot!

I don't have the aim to find out if Gemany could won the battle for Atlantic. They had no chance to do it (thank God for that). The aim of the project is to follow the destiny of an ordinary U-boat commander,so I had to check where U-Boats were sent during the war.

Very nice indeed you may also be interested if you haven’t got it already a book called u boat attack logs it’s very thick and detailed but you can get it on amazon

1939 attack diagrams.

https://i.ibb.co/6XJQJWC/Patrols-Diagram-Page-3.png

Attack diagrams do not show the number of ships sunk in 1939, they give the information on the number of attacks performed by U-boats in different patrol areas. For example, according to the Convoy attacks diagram in 1939 U-Boats engaged 18 convoys, either of which could cause sinking of several ships.
The diagrams give us information on the shipping traffic intensity in different patrol areas. The information is not 100% accurate and I'll check it when I'll have time. nevertheless, it provides an overview of the U-boats patrols statistic in 1939.

On the basis of the abovementioned diagrams the following conclusions can be made:
1. High intensity of single ship traffic (90 vs 18 convoys) characterize the 1939 year.
2. The best areas have been south of Ireland (27,8%) and North Atlantic (to the west of Ireland - 33,3%).
3. The high percentage of traffic in the North Sea is due to the fact that the North Sea was the main operational area of type II U-boats, and type VII, IX U-boats had to pass the North Sea on the way to their Patrol areas.
4. The Bay of Biscay also turned out to be rich hunting "grounds", U-boats had met there 13,3% of single ships and 16,7% of convoys.
In the next post I'll publish the statistic for the 1940 year and we shall compare the results.