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Was the XXI pointless???
By 1943 all hope of restoring power of the atlantic back to the Germans lay in the devolpment of the new electroboots. However by the wars end only two of the new XXI reached active service. I am suprised that the Kreigsmarine did not consider a radical modrinisation of the existing U-boats........
After the war the Royal Navy and the US Navy completly modrenised their boats adding schnorkels, sonar, a new sail and most importantly streamlining the boat. The Guppy series and the T class are good examples of this. The British T class achieved an Underwater speed of 15kn. This was a remarkable acheivement concdiering the design was already ten years old before the conversion began. The T class remained in service from 1938 to 1956
A much faster boat could be created, with little expence and little tecnical risk.
The manufacture of one XXI boat took over 300,000 man hours, although it could take many more because of bombing raids and intruptions (eg. badly made parts)
The VII boat was a sound design, and modifications could have being made on exsisting boats, therefore reducing the amount of time for new boats to be put in active service.
Cosidering all of these I am confused why the Kreigsmarine opted for more costly, complicated and unreliable XXI (although it was an excellent design in theory). I think if the Kreigsmarine radically modrenised their U-Boat fleet in '43, the outcome in the Atlantic may have being different....
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