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)