What's the biggest failure of the uboat service?

[BasilY]

Originally Posted by CCIP

Well, in all fairness, I think the thing that really failed them is less their decisions and more the fact that the service was not adequately prepared and invested into before the war started. The only way I see things going differently is if they started with Doenitz's planned 300 boats, not 57.

This really wasn't the fault of the uboat service... The items I have listed were sqaurely the fault of the KM, and quite hard to be blamed on Herr Furher. "You go to war with the army you have, not the army you want." (Quote from the Brilliant Rumsfeld, no less :-)) I am sure the Heer would like to have more Panzer IV's to start the war with and the Luftwaffe more ME109.

Besides, a study on uboat.net has shown that had the torpedoes been functioning properly at the begining of the war, the tonnage for the first 2 years of the war would have been tripled and at least 2 battleships would have been sunk in the Noregean Campaign alone. That would have been very hard on England to beared when she was bearing the war alone. (no offense to the Canadians et al)

[Kapt Z]

Originally Posted by CCIP

Well, in all fairness, I think the thing that really failed them is less their decisions and more the fact that the service was not adequately prepared and invested into before the war started. The only way I see things going differently is if they started with Doenitz's planned 300 boats, not 57.

Exactly!

[Stealth Hunter]

Definitely the enigma. If they had suspected the breaking of the code, they could have switched over to another system in a few months. However, since they didn't, it allowed the Allies to pinpoint the location of u-boats, and thus sink them without little or no trouble. Very costly for the Kriegsmarine.

[Task Force]

Fail to co-operate better with the surface fleet and Luftwaffe

If they could have had help from the Luftwaffe then they could have done better defending there ships from the allied aircraft and protected supply lanes and got Intel on convoys and task forces from high above.

[BasilY]

Originally Posted by Murr44

They made a very serious error in not copying the Long Lance torpedo. The Japanese gave them several examples as part of a technological exchange but from what I've read the Germans never bothered to examine them.

I love to have a long lance copy. Can someone put it in a mod? I will pay 1000 Renown each for 2 fishes per patrol. Keep it for a battleship or a carrier.

I guess the reason the Nazi didn't try to copy the Long Lance is simply cockiness. They just believe they are best in everything. At one point Goering halted development on future fighter aircraft because he believed that the ME109 is the pinnicle of fighter development and any improvement is no longer possible...

[Task Force]

Those Crazy nazis, I cant believe Goering would think that. :rotfl:

[navy_gunner]

Vista...... still cant get my game up and rolling to solve all their problems....

[Murr44]

Originally Posted by Task Force

Those Crazy nazis, I cant believe Goering would think that. :rotfl:

Off topic but Goering actually had the nerve to accuse Gunther Lutzow (a high scoring ace) of cowardice & threatened to have him shot at one point because Lutzow dared to disagree with him over something; I can't remember what it was now. He (Goering) was a morphine addict so what do you expect.

[ECAaxel]

Off topic but Goering actually had the nerve to accuse Gunther Lutzow (a high scoring ace) of cowardice & threatened to have him shot at one point because Lutzow dared to disagree with him over something; I can't remember what it was now. He (Goering) was a morphine addict so what do you expect.

I believe the argument was over whether the spitfire was superior on not to the ME109, Gunther believed it was, but Goering refused to believe him.

[DarkFolle]

the biggest failure? :hmm:
maybe starting a war with a bunch of egocentric, self-satisfying, each-other-intolerant, each-other-unsupporting commanding officers, first of all that genius of Hitler (the one who said "i don't want to conquer Russia, i just want the Arian space"....yeah, mate, sure, just in a second, the russians will give their life and territories for free...)?? :hmm:
U surely start a war with what u have, but if u start a war with nothing AND plan to conquest the entire world with it... :hmm: gimme another beer dude...:rotfl:

Useless topic, because there are so many faults the Nazi did from the very beginning of the war that are countless. They could and would have won if.. or if... or if not, better to say...

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Stealth Hunter

Definitely the enigma. If they had suspected the breaking of the code, they could have switched over to another system in a few months. However, since they didn't, it allowed the Allies to pinpoint the location of u-boats, and thus sink them without little or no trouble. Very costly for the Kriegsmarine.

Precisely

[Scape]

Torps not being tested would be #1 followed by Radio traffic but one thing that was not suggested here was letting the sub be captured so soon after the start of the war giving the Allies a much better idea of the limits of the U-boat. Huge intelligence failure.

[Blacklight]

The fact that the British broke the enigma code and the Germans didn't change it is one of the major reasons that Germany lost the war. Germany would have stood a far better chance if they had just changed up their code system once in a while rather than relying on the Enigma so much.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Scape

Torps not being tested would be #1 followed by Radio traffic but one thing that was not suggested here was letting the sub be captured so soon after the start of the war giving the Allies a much better idea of the limits of the U-boat. Huge intelligence failure.

Are you referring to U-570 :hmm:

[Dekessey]

Originally Posted by Erich dem Roten

You know, I really want to pick every option. I don't think it was (and it rarely ever is) one single thing that lost the battle for the Atlantic.

I voted failure to make adequate test on torpedoes, because it could have made a significant difference early on, namely during the invasion of Norway. But it's really a combination of all answers, the most obvious is not having enough Uboats at the start of the war. In fact, the very first mistake was to think the Allies wouldn't react in September 39, which started the war much earlier than the Germans were planning.