What could they have done?

[Scape]

Just an open question for the history buffs here. What could have the Germans done different with the losing hand they had 42-43? I'm talking up to the point where they start taking HUGE monthly losses. The happy times were long since over and the convoys were starting to get really good and there were starting to be enough anti-sub ships with good crews coming online. To me I would think they should have change tactics outright instead of just trying easier picking in Brazil or India and fighting a losing battle.

Did they have a chance at all or was the fix in by 42 and it was only a matter of time for all the mistakes to catch up?

[Torplexed]

The problem was the sort of changes they needed at that point would have had to be in the R&D pipeline for several years. Homing torpedoes, a true submarine like the Type XXI, and the tactics and doctrine to go with it. Regrettably, Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz was something of a one-trick pony. Once the wolf-pack concept was soundly defeated he really didn't have much else in his bag of tricks. Short of getting a clue that their mail was being read, and dumping Enigma for a completely different code, I can't think of much else they could have done short term.

[Freiwillige]

Yea, I think changing the code would have gone a long ways to help their issues. Most attacks happened cause the allies knew exactly where they were at so instead of a juicy convoy the U-boats found bombers and hunter killer groups! The allies just literally steered the convoys around the U-boats.

Also BDU's absolute insistencethat U-boats radio in daily reports. The allies used Huff-Duff and zeroed in on them for the kill. It was those two things more than anything else that led to the demise of the U-boats.

The war in the Atlantic was lost for the Germans by 1942. They probably could have broke England's back if U-boats were produced in the numbers required at the outset and Hitler sending 40 boats to the Med was a huge mistake to the Atlantic cause.

The Germans swan song is always too little, too late.

[Pacific_Ace]

Failure to adapt their doctrine (like reporting on radio daily), trying to make wolf packs work when clearly they just didn't most of the time played a role.

Failure to consider that their codes had been compromised played a very large role.

The biggest problem (oddly enough) was basically a technology gap brought on by a failure to see where ASW technology was headed as the war began. They needed Type XXI's by 1942. Type XXI's coupled with decent homing torps would have been a war winning combination imho.

We all seem to share a fairly common perception.

Large numbers of boats sent to The Med was an idiotic intervention by Hitler.
Large numbers of boats to defend Norway's coast didn't help.
Assigning boats to The Arctic Route was anti-productive as, England was the only nation capable of being "starved into submission" (oil was the weak spot and key).
The South of Afrika, The Indian Ocean, The Pacific, were anti productive.

Once the wolfpack tactic began to fail it was time for uboats to start acting more like the submarines of other nations. Radio Silence being Rule Number 1.

The Type XXI was not the solution. It wasn't what they wanted. It was an emergency stop-gap measure taken when it was realized that the solution would not be available in time.

The envisioned solution was The Walther Boat. It was intended to run on a single propulsion system. No batteries. No diesels. No oxygen needed for the motors.
Dønitz wanted the first true submarine.

The RN's fuel reserves at one point dropped to less than a one month supply.
That was the win or loose point. Once England recovered from that point she was unbeatable.

Had England remained alone, a Mexican Standoff was very possible.
But with USA, and more importantly Russia, brought into the fray, it was just a matter of time.

[Uncle Goose]

The main problem was that Hitler wasn't very fond of the sea, this meant he saw the Kriegsmarine as something of a sideshow and this resulted in less materials to build submarines. Another problem was lag in technological viewpoint, especially in Radar and developing new types of submarines and torpedo's. Too much resources were spent in near useless projects like V1 and V2's. Furthermore, Dönitz had little access to Hitler in the first years since he was only a low level Admiral at the time and many people close to Hitler were overseeing who got in contact and when. People like Göring refused to give Dönitz airplanes to do searches on sea and when he finally did none of the pilots he handed over to the Kriegsmarine had any experience with navigation on sea. Also, while the Type XXI would have been the key to success it had serious delays, one of them being caused by the ever increasing bombing raids but the other part of the delay was caused by the fact that the XXI was a complicated machine and there was a lack of skilled workers to build them. Since the XXI was build in parts it was common issue that several parts did not fit and had to be send back to the factory causing massive delays. And then you had to breach in the enigma code, Dönitz thought about the fact that the code could have been compromised but experts claimed it was impossible. When Dönitz actually found out after the war that the code was broken he was quite surprised and said he had been to confident with those experts.

Dönitz was no one-trick pony, he knew what he was doing but it was a difficult job.

[evan82]

Originally Posted by Snestorm

The envisioned solution was The Walther Boat. It was intended to run on a single propulsion system. No batteries. No diesels. No oxygen needed for the motors.
Dønitz wanted the first true submarine.

Yes, but this concept fail.

[Freiwillige]

Doenitz Had stated that to starve England into making peace he would need three hundred boats. 100 in base, 100 to and from patrol, and 100 on patrol. He almost succeeded with 1/6 the number. He wasn't dumb but his hands were often tied by lack boats and of official enthusiasm until it was too late.

[Jimbuna]

Sue for peace with the western allies and concentrate all men and materials on the struggle with the east.

[Ping Panther]

Paukenschlag!

The u-boats totally ruled here. They got held down to logistical limitations that were more a matter of being held to other "distractions?", at that moment in early '42.
They had a very early stranglehold that would have nailed-down the U.S. presence early on, clamp off the U.S. flow of resources to Britain, etc.

Good quote from Snestorm:

Large numbers of boats sent to The Med was an idiotic intervention by Hitler.
Large numbers of boats to defend Norway's coast didn't help.
Assigning boats to The Arctic Route was anti-productive as, England was the only nation capable of being "starved into submission" (oil was the weak spot and key).
The South of Afrika, The Indian Ocean, The Pacific, were anti productive.

Suggested reading: "Torpedo Junction" by H.H. Hickam, Jr.

[Zilch]

In the air, prioritize the Me-262 for use as the interceptor it was, rather than as a bomber for vengeance.

Rotate veterans into training roles rather than keep them on the front lines where they will probably not make it back from. This way you have a constant flow of reasonably well-prepared people instead of masses of poorly-trained ones with only a few vets to guide them.