[seafarer]

Perhaps, but the U-flak concept was a directly initiated due to aircraft damage. The first boat to start conversion was one heavily damaged by air attack. Even when successfully attacking single planes (eg. U-441's first patrol and kill), they tended to take heavy damage in the engagement.

While hindsight may certainly color our interpretation, from what I've read, I think the U-flak concept was flawed from the very beginning. It strikes me as one of those kinds of things where senior administrative officers completely failed to show any appreciation for the actual operational/tactical situation and bulllheaded their idea through.

Sort of like operation Barbarossa, or Dieppe.