Quote:
Originally Posted by Sniper297
Gotta disagree with some parts of Rockin Robbins' theory - Doenitz wanted 300 U-Boats to start the war, so he could have had 100 on station at any time when hostilities began. That number would have closed the Atlantic completely and forced Britain to surrender in 1940. He had the same trouble the US Navy had with all the old geezers insisting on battleships, so when the war started he had only 26 U-Boats ready to go. That meant about 8 to 10 U-Boats at sea at any given time, not nearly enough for a decent blockade. By the time he actually had 100 boats (Aug 1942) the Americans were in the war, the Brits had time to develop ASW tactics and weapons, and it was too little too late. If the Germans had those 300 U-Boats in 1939 it would have been decisive in my opinion.
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I think the point RR is making in his thesis is that whether Germany starts the war with 300 U-Boats or 26, at some point they need to start start sinking the ships of neutrals in a big way to starve Britain out. It's simply unavoidable to achieve a full blockade. If you play the tricky game of picking and choosing targets, then something valuable is always getting into British ports. However, in so doing you start to lose diplomatically and attract the ire of the world, including the US. In addition a 300 U-boat arm probably won't be as elite as the 26 boat arm. It's difficult to produce both quantity and quality. For me one of the most fascinating statistics of the U-Boat war is that the 32 most successful 'ace' commanders (about 2 % of the whole) accounted for nearly 30 % of the Allied shipping sunk in the Atlantic on average. These officers were aged about 28 at the outbreak of the war and had already served in the Kriegsmarine for nearly ten years. Individual command talent coupled with a seasoned crew was paramount and that sort of thing was difficult to mass-produce. Plus, nothing happens in a vacuum. If Britain notices prior to the war that Germany is putting all of her eggs in the U-Boat building basket, then possibly Britain puts in more orders for escorts.
And frankly every major navy prior to WW2 seems to have been afflicted with the battleship building bug. I've always thought that if the Japanese had poured the same resources into carriers and their air wings that they did the
Yamatos they undoubtedly would have made the war in the Pacific a much more difficult proposition over the long term for the USN.
But we'll never know. Alternative history is always speculative and we can never know for certain all the variables involved. But that's the attraction of wargaming, I guess.