OT Debate: If you were karl Donitz ....

[Hartmann]

First of all , in the battle of britain , correct the mistake of bombing london and continues with the destruction of air bases ,aircraft factories and ports.
this was the key factor of the german defeat with england.
With air superiority the british warships can be wiped out by planes, like the in the pacific war, where the Aircraft power against warships was decissive.

Build heavy bombers with a long range fighters scorts, and convert british factories in rubble

Concentrate all boats in the Western Appraoches of brittain, nor med or other scenarios.

Early development of snorkel and XXI boat

Be more careful with Enigma decoding system, and asumes it as probably decoded.
more changes in codes.



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Finally, not related with doenitz but yes with hitler:

Not crush the british army in dunkerque.

Delay of guderian in reach moscow before winter 41 by hitler orders.

The stalingrad battle, where tank crews were used as an infantery troops in the city , the crazy fanatism in take a city with the stalin name at all costs and the lost of the whole 6th army.

After winter of 1942 ,the turning point, the war was lost anyway.

[TarJak]

You can add the debacle in North Africa in an attempt to bail out Italy, to that list as well.

Hitler's strategic objectives were always to knock out the Russians. His original strategy for dealing with Britain was much the same as it was when he annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia to hope they wouldn't engage and if they did attempt to put them into a position to sue for peace.

He was on a timetable driven by the Russian build up so when he saw he couldn't get his way against Britain after the relatively easy take over of Western Europe, he went back to his original focus in the East.

He then needed to strike for the oil and mineral fields in the Urals just to keep is war machine going because Germany could not import oil or other resources he was short of without running the gauntlet of the RN which was a force he knew his KM was never in a position to defeat.

Once the US entered the war in terms of providing escorts and ship building facilities for Britain, Hitler and Germany's fates were sealed. The tonnage sunk could not keep up with the ship building prowess of the USA who did not have any real import restrictions due to it's geography.

[NoLine]

Germany lost the (entire) war when Hitler declared war on the USA in 1941

cheers
NoLine

[Jimbuna]

I would have said "when he invaded Russia" If Hitler had not threatened to invade Britain it is debatable whether the US would have become involved with regards to protecting mainland Europe :hmm:

[danurve]

I would have had placed in my Will;

If theres ever my photograph placed in a motion picture, make sure there are no Flys on it.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by danurve

I would have had placed in my Will;

If theres ever my photograph placed in a motion picture, make sure there are no Flys on it.

:rotfl: :rotfl:

[NoLine]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

I would have said "when he invaded Russia" If Hitler had not threatened to invade Britain it is debatable whether the US would have become involved with regards to protecting mainland Europe :hmm:

Hitler had no real other option but attack the Soviet Union, he didt have enough raw materials and oil to keep the war going
Declaring war on the USA on the other hand served no real purpose, although the uboats where happy
Im not sure US congress would have allowed a war on two fronts after Japans attack, by declaring war on the Germans

I could be wrong though

cheers
NoLine

[STEED]

Originally Posted by NoLine

Hitler had no real other option but attack the Soviet Union, he didt have enough raw materials and oil to keep the war going

Hitler set it all down in his book back in the 1920's living place for the German people lays in the east. His dream came real when he got power and he always wanted war with Russia. Your spot on about the oil.

[Steel_Tomb]

The thing that lost the war for the Germans was that Hitlers ego got the better of him. If he had continued to bomb the RAF airfields in the south east of England the war England would have been defenceless and easily invaded & defeated. All the army's equipment was rusting away at Dunkirk and without air cover we would have been compelely stuffed.

[Jimbuna]

Hitler did have options......mainly not to become a belligerant and negotiate trade agreements

[STEED]

Originally Posted by Steel_Tomb

The thing that lost the war for the Germans was that Hitlers ego got the better of him. If he had continued to bomb the RAF airfields in the south east of England the war England would have been defenceless and easily invaded & defeated. All the army's equipment was rusting away at Dunkirk and without air cover we would have been compelely stuffed.

The R.A.F would had pulled back long before being defeated.

Operation Sea Lion has been proved to be a great defeat for Hitler, the evidence is based on the first study back in 1974 by veterans on both sides and a up to date study has agreed with them. German forces would of got no further than 25 to 30 miles in land before they would be forced to withdraw from attacks by the R.A.F and the RN, also don't forget we built a number of defencive positions in key areas that would have slowed down the Germans.

[scrag]

Interesting question -

First order of the day sink everything and I mean everything - regardless of nationality war now exists and any and all vessels operating in known trade routes with the UK are subject to attack without prior warning.

Repeatedly used mines in harbor areas and choke points. I would also would develope a heavy weight deep water mine and place them in areas that would likely interdict shipping (even is they were released in the Gulf Stream and traveled into the Northern Seas). Mines would also be used as primary load outs on U Boats prior to initiating unrestricted warfare.)

Pre-dispostioned significant resources to resupply my boats away from home port (Subtenders).

Attempted better efforts to obtain foreign ports to operate from in the Atlantic.

Coordinated with IJN on developing better tactics (for them) and encouraging the use of I boats in unrestricted Submarine warfare - in fact asked for a squadron and support for them in Europe - imagine an I Boat with a schnorkel (eventually) - or the immediate impact of the Japanese Submarine version of the long lance)

Developed and fielded a surface search radar for the Condor.

Pressed hard for a significant means of detecting and countering radar.

Pressed harder for a longer range heavier torpedo that employed a wake home capability or at least was capable of traveling as much as 20 Nm and would then float in the water column and act as a mine after the fuel expended.

Possibly used my capital ships to draw the Royal Navy into a U Boat version of the Kursk saliant ambush. Short of that the surface Navy was used for nothing significant they drew off some assets but they effectively were useless (I know some will disagree but they drew off valuable yard and construction space that could have been used to build a significantly larger submarine force).

Forced the Italians to operate in the Atlantic (would have to move considerable assets of them into bases in Germany to be effective - but anything would have been better than surrending them wholesale).

Build T-34's

Regarding the what if and Hitler - I would have NOT gone into Poland or France and played the foreign policy game a bit longer - obviously the Brits with Chamberlein where handicaped and the US had significant German ties. I would also look hard at increasing ties with the Spanish. Worked harder on stirring up issues between the Russians and Japanese while smiling along and treating both as friends. I would not go into Africa as it netted nothing in reality - I need oil and raw materials and if I can stave off a war with England I get what I want by an all out atttack on the USSR vice proving yet again that the French are not capable of understanding manuever warfare. Imagine if I could prove or justify that the Communists has designs on world domination and that they were a direct threat to my country - then I am justified in attacking (even using Poland as a staging ground) remember the world was significantly more worried about commies than the fascism.

Oh and the comment that the Kreigsmarine was not a group of Nazies holds as much water as the same BS that the Germany had no idea about war atrocities or the vendetta against non arian races. I will give you that there are elements in all the services that dispised the Corporal, but in fact they seemed farily comitted to the German cause (and the Nazies) - for if they were not there would have been a different WWII all together. If I know that my neighbor is murderer or a thief and I do nothing does that also mean that I in part share in the crime of harboring a fugitive?

[GoldenRivet]

Originally Posted by sandbag69

If you were Karl Donitz how would you have won the Battle of the Atlantic and thus defeated Britain.

Here's how I would have done it.

1. Concentrate on cutting off the British Supply lines by sending U-boats to only the Western Appraoches of Britain. Forget the Med, Indian Ocean, and even the US Atlantic Coast they were side shows and not the main theatre. The main aim of a u-boat is to place an enemy nation under blockade not to just sink tonnage.
This is exactly how the British won WW1. They blockaded Germany until into 1919 and starved them into submission.

2. Tankers were to be number 1 Priority targets. Britian produced no oil in 1939 - 45 and was totally reliant on Tankers bringing it in.

3. Demand Kriegsmarine sorties and feint attacks into the Atlantic. Thus pulling many British Destroyers and search aircraft away from ASW duty.

4. Demand Luftwaffe concentrate on bombing British Ports and Docks rather than City bombing. British Dockers were notorous for taking weeks to unload ships even when the country had introduced rationing. They even went on strike (Damn Commies I bet) many times. A few well placed bombs and they wouldn't have shown up for work at all.

5. Demand Luftwaffe air sorties over convoy routes. Forgot the Condors attacking Convoys they were mostly useless at it.

6. Send special raiding U-boats to attack coastal Oil refineries in Curacoa and then US Coast when the US entered the war. Shell those Oil tanks and blow see em burn.

7. Attack Destroyers and Escorts when possible. Dont just assume that they are the hound and the u-boats are the fox.

8. The most brutal of all would be to sink the Rescue ships in convoys when possible. I know it would be horrendous but to break morale of the merchant seaman it is a must. They would be terrified to come out of port. I would have been hung at Nurnberg for this.

Hindsight is a great thing isn't it.

counterpoint:

I do believe most of what you said was his intent.

Ill relate my situations to your numbering system

1. this was his original strategy and it would have worked except for the ever broadening world wide campaign in which Germany quested for war materials. Hitler wanted control of the Med and north africa... U-boats were sent there in support of German operations in the areas. Doenitz had little choice - when Adolf says jump you dont ask how high you just fuggin jump hahaha

2. Tankers WERE the main priority of the U-boat arm. A great number of them were sunk off the US east coast nearly choking the northeastern united states out of the war due to fuel oil shortages caused by the drumbeat missions. (most oil came from texas on ships there were no interstate highways back then) Secondary to tankers The Germans knew that there was an ongoing massive stockpile of weaponry being shipped to the British Isles every day so General Merchant Ships were of great importance to haulting the "arsenal of democrocy".

3. There were a number of successful schnell boat attacks on British port cities, also several attempts were made by the Kriegsmarine surface groups to break out into the atlantic most frequently by means of the Denmark Straits. Some of these operations were mildly successful, others were not. Germany had not yet created a navy capable of directly threatening the British Fleet, therefore Hitler was reluctant to send his limited surface groups into the open seas to challenge the enemy.

4. The city wide bombing campaign was a blunder on the part of the luftwaffe, and tied the British and Germans in an ego driven air battle as each one bombarded the cities of the other. In 1940 - 1941 the operation sea lion was a very real possibility, most of the luftwaffe was engaged in preparing for the upcoming invasion by waging the battle of britian.

5. There were some limited convoy interdictions made by the luftwaffe, but the condor was nearly the only German airplane in the Luftwaffe arsenal capable of reaching far out to sea to bomb convoys bound for British ports. Remember... the Bf-109 (Me-109) had a short combat range - even when launced from bases in northern france the fighter only had about 5 to 10 minutes of fighting time before the fuel status required returning to base.

6. This could have been done - and actually was done a few times (though i doubt against the US) relatively shallow water prevented many attacks of this nature - despite the fact that there were relatively few surface units capabale of fighting off a U-boat... there were many many air bases well suited to the task that launced air patrols several times a day. Though this mission would have most assuredly destroyed some port facilities you would have basically been sacraficing U-boats by the dozens in the process.

7. Some limited success had been achieved using this strategy around the war's midpoint. Remember - firing a torpedo at a target moving in a straight line takes several minutes to calculate a solution per shot... escorts around convoys were usually very random and sporatic in their movements and therefore virtually impossible to plot a solution against... unlike the merchants who ran a straight slow course. By the time a commander fired a 4 shot spread in the slim hopes of hitting a fast moving and maneuverable escort he could have easily sunk 3 or 4 merchants.

8. Convoys did not usually send any boats or ships to rescue survivors - this is the harsh brutality of the nature of WW2 U-boat combat in the Atlantic Ocean. The best the convoys could do would be to mark the position of the stricken boats on their charts and radio in for search and rescue. This usually came in the form of a sea plane. most probably a PBY catalina. Rescue might come within hours, it might come within days or it might never come at all. escorts rarely if ever stopped to rescue survivors because they had the job of protecting the convoy - the commanders would have known that rescue ops would make a nice sitting duck out of them... merchants didnt commit to rescue operations because they cannot turn out of the convoy line without disrupting the whole show and for the very reason of becoming sitting ducks.

Given the broad area the U-boats had to cover... given the utter difficulty and impossibility of their situation from day one... given the opposition they faced im surprised that they did as well as they actually did.

[UnterseeBoogeyMan]

the best way to win the Battle of the Atlantic would be more attention to encryption and misinformation. When Enigma was cracked, the Uboats were bringing a butterknife to a gunfight. The Allies knew where they were and where they were going to be. All they had to do was reroute the convoys and leave an ASW killer group in waiting. It's a miracle any Uboat crews survived the war. If the Allies don't crack the codes, at least send out false information where Milk Cows would be, false headings of phony U-Boats, that sort of thing. The Germans were strong in all phases of war, but they didn't give enough credence to intell, where the Allies did. Intell was why the US won Midway and why the Allies won the Atlantic.

Given the sparse resources Donitz had t work with, he may not have won the Atlantic, but the war surely could have drug out longer.

[STEED]

Originally Posted by UnterseeBoogeyMan

the best way to win the Battle of the Atlantic would be more attention to encryption and misinformation. When Enigma was cracked, the Uboats were bringing a butterknife to a gunfight. The Allies knew where they were and where they were going to be.

U-Boat codes were much harder to break and the operators were not sloppy like the army and air force. Out of the three military wings there's was the hardest to crack and were updated more.