But the U-Boats sinking merchie convoys off the US coast meant nothing. That shipping was a lifeline to nobody. And once us not so quick-witted Americans learned to turn off lighthouses, stop broadcasting directional signals in the form of peacetime radio stations and in general to behave as if we were in a war The situation changed.
The US was no island that could be hurt meaningfully by U-Boats and any thought that greater U-Boat success would have changed the war is just fantasy. Admiral Danial Gallery demonstrates that at their greatest time of sinking Allied shipping, they were losing because the Allies built more tonnage than unhindered U-Boats could send to the bottom. Sinking Atlantic merchants did nothing to stifle the production of Allied weaponry, as sinking Japanese shipping in the Pacific did. They were swatting an ostrich with a fly swatter.
It only made the ostrich mad.
They Type XXI would only have forced the Allied ASW plotters to draw bigger circles. Once the hole in the middle of the Atlantic was plugged, the U-Boats had nowhere to hide from the planes of the ubiquitous jeep carrier hunter-killer groups.
No change in the nature of a weapon that lost the war just by virtue of using it could have resulted in a German victory. The order to commence unrestricted submarine warfare was the order to hand victory to the Allies. Once carried out, nothing could have changed the outcome. Each submarine built meant fewer tanks, trucks, planes, bombs, bullets, the list is much longer of the materials that were sacrificed to build submarines. How would building more submarines of any type help?
Germany should have only used submarines for coastal defense and action against bona fide military targets. They should have left Britain alone totally aside from the necessity of politely nudging them from the continent.
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The German Ambassador in Switzerland approached the British Ambassador and offered to make peace. When rebuffed, he pointed out that the British didn't have a chance.
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That is very different from the scenario I laid out. In reality the German ambassador said, "You might as well quit now. It will be much worse for you if you keep fighting." That is a threat. I laid out a promise, with no threat implied. The British would have accepted that even if they had to throw Churchill overboard to do it. After all, they did make him walk the plank immediately after the war.