Where Hitler went wrong on the U-Boat campaign
 

My friend at work and I are fanatic SH3 gamers. We constantly talk about the game and have lunch time chats about WW2 in general. Playing the "What If" game of alternative universes we often discuss what we would do, in hindsight, to win the war for the Nazis

For the sea campaign its dead easy

- build no surface fleet with prestigeous battleships that take up huge resources

- build and maintain over 5,000 U-Boats and have at least 300 - 1000 UBoats operational at any one time. You basically sink anything that floats

WW2 won on the sea !

You build 5000 uboats ??? That is an awfull lot, think about the resources (material, rephlenishment, ammo, personell) you need, but ok, I go with you.

But what-if the allies build 50000 ASW vessels and 50000 ASW planes ?

You loose the war :D

It would have prolonged the war because allied radar and sonar still would rule the day.

Well maybe if the U-boat would have managed to starve the British from American supplies enough so that they couldn't continue the fight. That was a very real posibility in the beginning of the war.

With Brittain out of the picture it would have been a whole different ballgame.

U-boats were a huge waste of resources there is no way you can just starve and defeat the world's greatest naval power the Royal Navy. England was receiving a lot of aid from the world's second greatest naval power the U.S Navy. Germany should had built some four aircraft carrier groups instead. Anyway, Hitler should have let Raeder to do his job and not interfere which seems to have been Hitler's favourite hobby and pass time.

They should have build the XXI überboot since 1939. In fact the XXI was build with technolgy which was 1939 available. If they were building just that type of sub, they would own every damn convoy.

Hit, run and dive to 300m. Bevor a damn can sinks to 300m you are far away at 16knots.

Well someone should have told Churchill that, because he was pretty worried about it ;)

I cannot say this wouldn't work...

I like those "what if" scenarios. :P

As it proved later, the victory points would be:

- No battleships
- Yes to carriers
- No Balkans
- No Russia
- Invade England
- Raid Gibraltar

U-boats would then serve the ancillary purpose of guarding. If Germany wanted then to advance to the West:

- Invest in air technology
- Invest in ASW / Radar etc.
- Harrass the west front. But no possibility of invasion without real navy.

Thank god, these things never happened.

Couldn't disagree more. Look at how few Uboats with only a couple of thousand crewmen sunk hundreds of thousands of tons of shipping and supplies until 1943 when the allies got the upper hand in the battle of the Atlantic. Uboats were an extremely efficient means of fighting a naval war for a country with such a small Navy as Germany in 1939.

No battleships and heavy cruisers but 100 more type VII boats when the war started would've put the Royal Navy under tremendous pressure.

Good point

Well, historical "what ifs" are only that.

Game what-ifs on the other hand... :hmm:

A lot of possible neat gameplay there.

I cannot believe it, but I am about to agree with Drebbel. The advent of RADAR was the death knell for the conventional submarine of the early 20th century. Yes, it is true that the XXI was a landmark that was used by a multitude of nations for early Cold War designs, but is was produced with so many new advances that it proved highly unreliable in practical use.

The second world war was simply part of a cycle of ASW/ASUW seasawing that has occured throughout the 20th century. The submarine was at a technologic advantage in WWI. By the 1940's the pendulum had swung over to the ASW side (it went, way, as evidenced by uboat losses in the last 36 months of WWII). The advantage went back to the submarine in the early Cold War, so much so as to cause the development of the hunter/killer submarine and SOSUS monitoring stations (not to mention satellites).

Germany could have had 5000 uboats. Once RADAR came along, it was all over. In the end, they just couldn't build them fast enough. Now, if you will excuse me, I will be heading to the doctor's office. I must not be well.

Prolonging the war may have been the only result in this case, but! Prolonging the war may have been just what the Germans needed.

Type XXI anyone? Had enough of these gotten into the waters the german would have easily won the war in the seas.

For fear of Uboat threats D-Day may have been postponed.

Saying that prolonging the war would have been all bad for Germany might not be true, the allies won thanks to great timing not by taking thier time.

An empty victory if it happened the U.S.S.R still would had crushed Germany.