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Originally Posted by Stoli
Allied Air Superiority over the Atlantic trumped any modern advancement in U-Boat Technology Mass production of the XXI would of equaled more dead U-Boat crews.
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Of course. A what if can be countered with another what if very easily, and as things stand today, building a high-tech sub is very expensive and technologicaly complicated while droping an acoustic guided torpedo from a plane or helicopter to kill it is relatively quite cheap and easy to do. Good bye XXI.
On another subject, I still stand by my original affirmation. Brittain could have never ever been truly submited by starvation. As correctly mentioned by others, the most that Hitler could expect was a "white peace" with Britain. He had a good case for it too, for numerous reasons that I won't get into (just remeber things like the hundred years war), but he misscalculated Winston Churchill. The man was obssesed with defeating Hitler (thank God for that) and there was no way that he was going to play along with the Furer.
What would it take to "starve" a nation out of war?
If they have a weak will to fight, a small reduction of, say, 5% in consumer goods availability that caused inconvenient lines at the supermarket maybe quite enough. The U-boats could have achieved this and in fact did (and more).
BUT if they have the will and resolve of a Winston Churchill, inspiring them to pick up a kitchen knife and take at least one of the dirty hun with you when the invasion finaly comes, then you have a different story. Then what? incur a loss of consumer goods of 30%? 50%? 75%? I don't think it would have been enough even then. A lot of third world countries today have a mean family income less than $8 U.S. dollars daily and they manage to get along. There is of course, a braking point. But I beleive that long before that breaking point would have been reached the rest of the world would have risen in Britain's behalf, either by pity, fear of suffering the same faith, good old fashioned beleif in whats right, or for whatever reason but they would have stepped in. So that would have backfired.
And even IF (an if that I hope we all agree now that really couldn't happen) IF England should fall, Winston Churchill had vowed that the "dominion" (the rest of the empire and commonwealth) would carry on the fight and then what? starve India, Canada, South Africa and Australia out of the war? It just isn't doable.
One last point: Consider the principle of diminished investment return. I you invest 300 U-boats into the war effort, you might sink (just to say a figure) one quarter of the total allied tonnage. Does that mean that if you invest 600 U-boats into the war effort, you will sink half? and that if you invest 1200 U-boats you will sink all of the allied tonnage? NO, of course not, past a certain point of equilibrium, investing more produces incresingly diminishing results until you finaly reach a point where it cost you more to hunt than the actual losses that you inflict. The principle of diminished investment return sucks, just ask any fisherman. :hmm:
Edit: By the way, how much would it cost to produce each type of U-boat and how much for a cargo ship (along with it's cargo)? Anybody know? I've been wondering about this for some time. I want't to know how many tonns do I need to sink before I consider myself a "good investment" for the fatherland? (I realize the value of cargo varies wildly, I'm looking for ballpark figures)