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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Sorry, in order to have any impact at all, first of all Donitz needed boats more modern than WWI coastal defense boats like the type VII. They didn't carry enough torpedoes, some of them were stored externally (yikes! That was stupid), they didn't have any surface speed, they didn't have any submerged speed, they had no range, they were uncomfortable for their crews, had no provisions for feeding the crews properly, I don't need to add from there.
In fact the Type VII had only one point in its favor, which was just another damning point of ineptitude, its ability to dive deep. A hiding submarine has just left the war. It is impotent. All a convoy had to do was drive the subs deep and run away.
Then, 300 U-boats was a laughable target. Okay, you have a 1,300 ship convoy with 100 destroyers. Somehow (it's impossible) you get all 300 U-boats against the one convoy. If they all sink a target, and they wouldn't--the vast majority would be killed without firing a single torpedo--1000 ships reach their destination. Big Victory! And it would be at the cost of letting every single ship that wasn't in that one convoy get to its destination unmolested.
And suppose that "doomed convoy" were attacked with such success, The US loses 40 ships in one day to U-Boats. Count the US in against Germany. Argentina loses 10--count them in too. Canada--they're in. Peru--in. Brazil--in. Instantly Germany snatches defeat from the jaws of victory because they are so boneheaded that they think sinking other nations' shipping is a way to punish Britain. Sure Britain did without but it was the cost of victory they were well willing to pay. Germany was playing checkers. Britain was playing chess.
Even with an anemic 300 WWI technology U-Boats, building that many would have been so provocative that the Allies would have been the ones to start the war and the first thing gone would have been the U-Boat production facilities. Yes, as now, the Allies were reluctant to provoke Germany but there were limits to what they would have tolerated.
And there's part two of my basic theory. Every ounce of steel put into U-boats, every hour spent producing and maintaining them, every man necessary to build, maintain and run the U-Boats was taken from the parts of the war effort that would have actually helped Germany. All of that was aid to the Allied war effort. Without the waste of manpower, materials, time and expertise spent on U-boats they would have more tanks, more guns, more railroad infastructure, more vehicles, much more blitzkrieg. How many tanks does one measly antique U-boat represent? Many, many!
Were Hitler sane, and he was not, were he a good military planner, and he was not, he would have realized that Germany was well able to confine its conquest to continental Europe and succeed. They could have done that with Britain's help, had they not had U-Boats and had they made that conciliatory speech that I outlined above after sewing up the continent.
Only a third of Britain was within German bomber range anyway. A German plane shot down over Britain was dead or a prisoner of war. A British plane was gone but many many pilots jumped into another plane and were back in the war. You don't attack someone unless you have a foolproof plan to win. There was no plan. No German calculated the fact that unconditional submarine warfare guaranteed the defeat. No German wasted time realizing that 1/3 bomber coverage wasn't going to bring Britain to her knees. There was only one weapon that would work against Britain and the US: keep them out of the war. Buy time while accomplishing all other goals. It's called management. Marshalling your strengths and rendering your weaknesses harmless.
Now, if Germany followed my course and THEN decided to build a fleet of MODERN U-Boats, who would stop them? They could have built them in a time of peace, as a power greater than the United States and with their world supremacy unchallenged. Chances are they could have built them without anybody knowing it. Connect the dots. It's much better things turned out the way they did, because a sane German leadership would have had the keys to the castle Europe.
But no, a thousand WWI U-Boats could not win the war. Donitz asked for 300 because he wasn't bold enough to ask for what he needed. He was also subservient to Admiral Raeder, who wanted a crushing surface fleet. Building submarines worked against Raeder's plan, so Donitz asked for what he thought he might get. He didn't get that. Too bad. It would have been an even greater gift to the Allied cause.
Yes Britain screamed that it hurts. Yes, Churchill said that the only thing he was afraid of was the U-Boats. But remember, they were playing chess. What hurts, you keep silent about. What is ineffectual you scream in pain so that more enemy effort can be spent in that direction. Churchill wanted more U-Boat action because that was central to his plan of bringing the US into the war on the side of the Allies. The U-Boats dutifully helped him reach his goal. Then after the US entered the war half-heartedly they solidified American resolve by sinking a bunch of shipping off the American coast--a silly exercise of making more trouble for yourself, again snatching an even more humiliating defeat from the jaws of victory.\
Yamamoto understood in Japan. No one in Germany would buy a vowel and realize that they were outmaneuvered and manipulated into utter defeat. Raeder and Donitz were both responsible for tragic mistakes--more concerned with their own personal fortunes after the war than what was good for their country. Their only aim was to secure more money for their personal functions in the war, regardless of other needs for the nation.