Quote:
Originally Posted by RoflCopter4
I stand thoroughly corrected. I didn't know there were so many problems with the Type XXI. This report is downright scathing. I'm disappointed that this report mentioned almost nothing about the diesels' performance while snorkelling. All of it's figures for submerged speed and endurance are when using the electric motors and batteries. How fast could it go with the diesels when snorkelling? Was it ever intended to do so or were the diesels just meant to charge the batteries? Would it just have run off the electric engines with say one diesel engine up to keep the batteries at full charge?
It also mentions nothing about the length of time required to charge the batteries. From the constant complaining about the low performance of the diesels I could imagine it taking a fair long while, but it doesn't say.
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See, the problem with the Type XXI was that it never had enough people trained to use it that it was used in battle. Therefore, any pie in the sky claim could and would be made about it, much in the same way as the other "super weapons" the Germans designed, maybe even produced a few but never had their limitations tested.
So all we're left with is the grandiose stories the originators used to sell the products to a military starving for stuff that worked! "Crap! We need some weapons bad. Weapons that work."
"Hey we have a future weapon that MIGHT work!"
"Here's the last of our dwindling resources: build it."
A fair plan, executed today, beats a perfect plan to be executed tomorrow. And the perfect plan is only perfect while it's just a dream. And it might not start tomorrow. And....we'd best go with the fair plan and work it to death.
The Type XXI was full of undiscovered flaws and a few of them would have been fatal. A big one was that the snorkel was one incredible radar target. So they'd be sitting there at snorkel depth, deaf, dumb and blind and the bombers would just have a party at their expense. The U-boat would just vanish and the Germans not a bit wiser for the experience. Fortunately for them they were unable to train enough crews for the boats to see action.