Percentage of ships sunk on WWII?

[rfunes]

Hi all,

I was wondering, do anyone knows the number of ships sunk vs ships that "escaped" to be attacked by u-boats, in the real life?

I came to this question because once I reach a convoy in SH3, most of the time I can only manage to sink 2, 3 or at the most 4 ships, in an convoy of, say, 20 ships.

How the germans expected to build an "blockade" to "kill" the supplies to England, when so much ships still could complete the trip with no problems? (I'm talking about my experience in SH3)

It seems to me like this "blockade" tactics really never had any possibility of success.

Please correct me if I'm wrong. This is a conclusion I came while playing SH3, I don't know about the real life.

Thanks!

[Dowly]

Even a single ship that is carrying a vital cargo can affect the war on land a lot!

Imagine situation where US forces are controlling some very important, say, a bridge. Their tanks are all blown and they need more and fast.

You see a ship carrying shermans in English channel heading for those US troops that need them. You sink the ship and they get no tanks and some german tank platoon crushes the US troops. Atleast that way I think it, when I see a ship carryin tanks in-game.

So, what I´m trying to say is, although 2-5 ships from a 30 ship convoy was sunk, it propably had an enormous effect for the war on land. Ofcourse it depends on what the ships are carrying.

[benetofski]

rfunes,

An interesting question!

Perhaps if I give you a brief reply and then give you a link might fill in the gaps!

During the early part of the war, the German blockade was surprisingly effective - mining convoy routes - around the British Isles impacted upon the food and raw materials necessary for Britain to sustain it's war effort.

If my memory serves me, U-boots were being laid at typically 1 per week by 1940 (Deutsche- Werke, Kiel) and this number later increased significantly when the Blohm and Voss (and other) Yards started cranking them out at about 2-3 /week!

http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/...campaigns.html

http://www.battle-fleet.com/pw/his/atlantic.htm

[Kpt. Lehmann]

Originally Posted by rfunes

Hi all,

I was wondering, do anyone knows the number of ships sunk vs ships that "escaped" to be attacked by u-boats, in the real life?

I came to this question because once I reach a convoy in SH3, most of the time I can only manage to sink 2, 3 or at the most 4 ships, in an convoy of, say, 20 ships.

How the germans expected to build an "blockade" to "kill" the supplies to England, when so much ships still could complete the trip with no problems? (I'm talking about my experience in SH3)

It seems to me like this "blockade" tactics really never had any possibility of success.

Please correct me if I'm wrong. This is a conclusion I came while playing SH3, I don't know about the real life.

Thanks!

Good question rfunes,

I think the best way to look at it is to try and see the big picture and think in terms of a "cumulative effect."

1) How many merchant ships are built / launched vs. howmany U-Boats built / launched per month from the beginning of the war to the end.

2) How much raw tonnage of supplies did England need to survive month to month

3) How much tonnage destined for England was sunk month by month.

Some convoys were never detected while some suffered multiple attacks by more than one wolfpack.... two ships here .... three ships there. Usually at least a few got through.

One situational idea to consider: In order to survive, you must drive 1000 miles per week, but only receive enough gas/petrol for 900 miles. What do you do? What consequences does it have for others when you fail?

At more than one point, England was losing the "tonnage battle" if I recall correctly. Something to keep in mind here too is that the citizens of England were already being rationed on many many things so that she might support her military efforts.

A drop in imported food and materials could be felt quickly.

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by rfunes

Hi all,

I was wondering, do anyone knows the number of ships sunk vs ships that "escaped" to be attacked by u-boats, in the real life?

I came to this question because once I reach a convoy in SH3, most of the time I can only manage to sink 2, 3 or at the most 4 ships, in an convoy of, say, 20 ships.

How the germans expected to build an "blockade" to "kill" the supplies to England, when so much ships still could complete the trip with no problems? (I'm talking about my experience in SH3)

It seems to me like this "blockade" tactics really never had any possibility of success.

Please correct me if I'm wrong. This is a conclusion I came while playing SH3, I don't know about the real life.

Thanks!

That's difficult to answer, since you have to adjust for ships built and sunk during the war. If you're talking about the prewar merchant fleet as a whole, casualties for many of the larger companies were 1/2-1/3 of the prewar vessels, with oil companies being especially hard hit. I guess you could conclude that British losses as a whole were roughly equivalent (33-45% of prewar freighters, 50-60% of prewar tankers). If you're talking about ships that were actually hit by u-boats (regardless of when built) you'd find that the vast majority of them were destroyed. Still, given that a lot of tonnage was constructed during the war and that even ships that were sunk had often completed dozens of trips safely prior to their loss, I'd probably agree that the U-boat war was futile, especially once Germany was fighting the US and USSR as well as Britain. You also have to remember that complete massacres of convoys were rare; IIRC PQ-17, Pedestal, and SC-7 were the only major convoys to lose more than 1/2 of their ships. All this is largely speculation on my part, although I was influenced by Clay Blair's research (Hitler's U-Boat War).

[rfunes]

Originally Posted by iambecomelife

That's difficult to answer, since you have to adjust for ships built and sunk during the war. If you're talking about the prewar merchant fleet as a whole, casualties for many of the larger companies were 1/2-1/3 of the prewar vessels, with oil companies being especially hard hit. I guess you could conclude that British losses as a whole were roughly equivalent (33-45% of prewar freighters, 50-60% of prewar tankers). If you're talking about ships that were actually hit by u-boats (regardless of when built) you'd find that the vast majority of them were destroyed. Still, given that a lot of tonnage was constructed during the war and that even ships that were sunk had often completed dozens of trips safely prior to their loss, I'd probably agree that the U-boat war was futile, especially once Germany was fighting the US and USSR as well as Britain. You also have to remember that complete massacres of convoys were rare; IIRC PQ-17, Pedestal, and SC-7 were the only major convoys to lose more than 1/2 of their ships. All this is largely speculation on my part, although I was influenced by Clay Blair's research (Hitler's U-Boat War).

Thanks guys!

This is the type of information I was looking for!

Now I see that the u-boat war was a kind of "sabotage" war, doing as much damage possible, in order to bring chaos and fear to the allies.

I imagine the amount of resources the allies put on hunting U-boats, and the war effort to build a lot of destroyers, etc, just for hunting the u-boats, helped the germans to distract the allies from the war on the land, and served as a "terror" factor to the allies (psychological war?)

That said, if the numbers were about 20% of all ships (built pre-war and during the war) destroyed by u-boats, in my opinion it was a really impressive number! Especially because the "kaleuns" aways tried to sink the biggest ones, especially tankers!

Thanks!

[Dead Mans Hand]

The U-boats were pretty darn succesful up until the Enigma machines started to be compromised at Blenchly Park. The first computer, ENIAC (I do believe was the name) was employed there to crack codes, not the most effective - but anyways yeah, until they then there was no warning for a U-Boat attack and yes that's a psychological war, not to mention the fact that if in a convoy of twenty ships four a sunk, that's only 75% of ships making it to the destination. Also before the US entered, the primary concern was we would stop sending supplies due to losses (and that was the German objective, not stopping every ship in the Atlantic, but making it damaging to us so that we'd stop shipping.)

[rfunes]

Originally Posted by benetofski

rfunes,

An interesting question!

Perhaps if I give you a brief reply and then give you a link might fill in the gaps!

During the early part of the war, the German blockade was surprisingly effective - mining convoy routes - around the British Isles impacted upon the food and raw materials necessary for Britain to sustain it's war effort.

If my memory serves me, U-boots were being laid at typically 1 per week by 1940 (Deutsche- Werke, Kiel) and this number later increased significantly when the Blohm and Voss (and other) Yards started cranking them out at about 2-3 /week!

http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/...campaigns.html

http://www.battle-fleet.com/pw/his/atlantic.htm

Wow, this first link is gold !!!

It says that the total tonnage sunk by u-boats during the whole war is equivalent to the total tonnage of ALL England merchant ships in the beginning of the war!

Impressive !!!

And the logistics problems the allies had because the u-boats (33% loss of time in the Atlantic travels, due to the convoys lanes and speeds) is also an important fact I never thought.

Although in the end, it was a strategical loss.

[Caseck]

From HITLER'S U-BOAT WAR, the tonnage of ships sunk amounted to roughly 3% average of the shipping heading to Europe. 4-5% during the "Bad Months." I don't know if it ever even topped 10% during the whole war.

The word "Deluge" comes to mind.

I have a question too. A bit similar.

How many / What precentage of single ships engaged by die U-boote managed to escape? I'm asking because in SH3 a rarely let go of a ship (if I have torpedoes avaible that is). It seems that A ship found is a ship sunk. Was it like that in reality?