[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by bstanko6

I don't think the Uboat was used properly. Doenitz had the right idea for a blockade... his boss uncle Adolf was an idiot and rushed things, forcing a war they were not ready for. I think if Doenitz had the right amount of boats, and a strong budget to increase Uboat tech, we may have had a different history.

nope! once the surface (Hedgehog mortars) and air are totally dominated by 10 centmeter radar capable of spotting a schnorkel (apex hunter a B-24 Liberator (flown by my still living 95 year old uncle); Cutting the five French U-boat ports on the Biscay Bay off from the Atlantic and a FIDO mk 24:

from US Navy OEG Study No. 289, 12 August 1946 provides the following data related to Mark 24 effectiveness:
Number of attacks in which Mark 24s were launched 264 Total number of Mark 24 torpedoes launched - all targets 340 Number of Mark 24s launched against submarines 204; Number of Mark 24 attacks on submarines by US aircraft 142; Number of Mark 24 attacks by Allied (primarily British) aircraft 62; Number of German U-boats sunk by FIDO 31; Number of German U-boats damaged by FIDO 15; Number of Japanese submarines sunk by FIDO 6; Number of Japanese submarines damaged by FIDO 3; Total number of submarines sunk by FIDO (German & Japanese) 37 Total number of submarines damaged 18

and your enigma ain't so enigmatic....(even after Doenitz added a fourth rotor) your happy times are over, technologically, tactically, strategically and numerically BBYY! Doenitz had read his Italian warfare book too:

After (black) May 1943, the rate of loss of U-boats was greater than the rate at which new U-boats were commissioned, and the number of operational U-boats slowly declined. On 24 May 1943, Karl Dönitz — shocked at the defeat suffered by the U-boats — ordered a temporary halt to the U-boat campaign; most were withdrawn from operational service.
May had seen a drop in allied losses coupled with a disastrous rise in U-boat losses; 18 boats were lost in convoy battles in the Atlantic in the month, 14 were lost to air patrols; six of these in the Bay of Biscay. With losses in other theatres, accident, or other causes, the total loss to the U-boat arm in May was 43 boats.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_May_(1943) Part of the u-boat's success is attributaable to the Prime Minister himself, a former first sealord, who knew Germany had been defeated under the Kaiser and would be again: he prioritized his bombers against the German land-mass first and the u-boat threat second:

....claimed that if the Admiralty’s demands for more aircraft had been met, the Battle of the Atlantic might have been won six months sooner. A recent article by John O’Connell asserts that victory could have been achieved a full year earlier if the British had allocated their aircraft differently. Dimbleby puts the figure at “many months.” The implication is that millions of tons of merchant shipping and thousands of lives might have been saved if Churchill had not prioritized the bomber offensive over the U-boat war.

https://winstonchurchill.hillsdale.edu/churchill-prolong-battle-atlantic/