Discussion: What if?

[InvisibleDeath]

I have been watching UBoat historic documentaries and they raise this question which I'm raising as a discussion point here.

So in 1940 Norway was invaded and was protected by UBoats. The British Navy responded and entered the area of operations. It could have been a huge win for the German UBoat forces as they were easy pickings. However, not a single British ship was damaged because every single torpedo fired was a dud.

Now: in the beginning of the war, Karl Donitz (sorry, I have no Umlaut) requested two things: 300 uboats and a buttload of engineering work to make torpedos reliable. It was not until the late part of the war the Hitler realized his mistake in giving Donitz lip service. So what if Hitler had give Donitz what he wanted? What if he had 300 subs and reliable torpedoes?

For one, by the time the Norway invasion had occurred a year after attack on Poland, the Brittish could have experience a major loss for the British Navy which could have had a significant impact on the war, had the engineers resolved the trigger mechanism issues and there were few duds. A huge number of ships would have given the Germans a good attack force against the British simply by attacking war ships in large wolf packs.

So what do you chaps think the impacts would have been? Obviously it was inevitable that the Americans would enter the war. So what do you think would have been the effect on the war?

[GT182]

If Donitz had gotten what he wanted, we might be speaking German today on the East Coast. And maybe Japanese on the West Coast. Thank God he didn't get those "reliable" torpedoes and 300 U-boats.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by GT182

If Donitz had gotten what he wanted, we might be speaking German today on the East Coast. And maybe Japanese on the West Coast. Thank God he didn't get those "reliable" torpedoes and 300 U-boats.

I've been hearing that one my whole life (which goes back to 1950). Even if Britain had fallen, there was no way the Germans could invade the US from 3,000 miles away, especially since US shipbuilding far outstripped anyone else's and we had the resources to put together a far larger army.

As for Japan, their goal at Pearl Harbor was to warn us to keep our noses out of their business in Asia. They wanted China, India and everything else in the region, including Australia. It's highly doubtful they ever seriously considered invading the United States. Even if they did, they would face the same problems Germany would.

The western hemisphere might end up isolated, but we would still be speaking the same languages we do now.

[Aktungbby]

Post one's surmise is moot: WWII was the 'wizard war'

The Manhattan Project began modestly in 1939, but grew to employ more than 130,000 people and cost nearly US$2 billion (about $26 billion in 2016 dollars). Over 90% of the cost was for building factories and producing thefissile materials, with less than 10% for development and production of the weapons

The US had the best wizard who wrote FDR the letter to start the project (in addition to his work on faulty American torpedo triggers) = "money is the sinews of war" and we simply got more 'bang for the buck'... "numbers have a cachet of their own": Throw in FDR's successor, Truman: Just Two of these put paid to the Japanese Empire and kept the Cold War, arising out of 'Uncle Joe Stalins WWII 'Iron Curtain' land aggrandizement essentially in-check for half a century.

[Sjizzle]

Japan had some plan to attack US but was an epic fail with fire balloons

here

wind change they direction and some of them exploded back in Japan

[InvisibleDeath]

Aktungbby I have read stories that the last group of UBoats that were taken out and scuttled by the crews contained a number of torpedoes that appeared to be nuclear explosives. But it was at the end of the war when defeat was imminent and none were ever used.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Sjizzle

Japan had some plan to attack US but was an epic fail with fire balloons

here

wind change they direction and some of them exploded back in Japan

Poetic justice.

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Sjizzle

wind change they direction and some of them exploded back in Japan

A less than Divine Wind perhaps?

[LG]

So hard to tell (though speculation is always interesting) because the war was never determined by one single factor. It could have contributed to a change of course but I would hesitate to say that it could have meant a decisive change.

[Torplexed]

I think with any historical speculation you have to realize that nothing happens in a vacuum. If British intelligence ( some of the best, if not the best in the world ) picks ups that German shipyards are putting all their eggs in the U-Boat building basket, that means that Britain simply begins building more ASW escorts sooner. British shipbuilding capacity was always superior to German's and Germany only had so many specialized labor and shipyards for building U-Boats. As for the torpedo issue, the German (like the Americans) were already convinced they had the best engineered torpedo available at the start of hostilities. Sometimes it takes the strain of actual war to reveal the defects in any weapon system.

Besides, the beginning of the war would have been far to late to initiate such a program. Realistically you would have had to start sometime in the mid-1930s to gear up production and expand the crew training program to even have a shot at 300 U-Boats. And all this at the expense of the surface fleet which would have been difficult to do, since Admiral Raeder was running the navy then, not Admiral Doenitz.