Type XXI: A Game changer?

12-02-10, 12:24 PM

Britain only reluctantly ceded submarine parity with Germany in the London Naval Treaty as a desperate act of appeasement meant to buy time for her own rearmament schemes.

Does anybody really think they would have sat idly by while German shipyards cranked out a program for 300 boats by 1940?

Producing 300 U-Boats in five years from scratch has a great deal to do with technology (conventional building techniques could not do it and Germany had no experiance at modular shipbuilding), economy (even in Nazi Germany things needed to be bought and paid for and cash was finite) and strategic priorities (the workers and steel needed for a 300-boat building effort would have raped the Army's rearmament program and plans for motorization and panzers let alone what it would have done to the Luftwaffe's wish list).

Of course everyone is forgetting that the Kaiser's U-Boats ultimately failed and made Germany's situation (arguably) worse in 1918 and so selling the land-minded Hitler on a repeat performance from the start was problematic even if the other insurmountable problems acquired solutions.

Everything Hitler wrote about in Mein Kampf pointed East and involved a neutral or even an allied British Empire. A 300-strong fleet of U-Boats would destroy any chances of keeping the peace in the West while contributing nothing to the acquisition of Living Space at the expense of Poland and the Soviet Union that was Nazism's centrepiece agenda.

Without context and balance any "what if" on the Internet quicky degenerates into fantasy worthy of dragons, Middle Earth and magic rings of Power.

12-02-10, 12:30 PM

Don't forget the "Cloak of Invisibility"...

desirableroasted · 12-02-10, 08:03 PM

I am reminded of a National Lampoon spoof which went something like:

"Exam question: What if Custer had had an atom bomb at Little Bighorn? Consider your answer carefully and support your arguments."

XXIs from 1939 would have moved the needle, sure, but in that huge swirling vat of variables that is WWII, I cannot see it would have made a difference.

Perhaps a fleet of XXIs in '39 would have been so successful and demoralizing to the British leadership that Halifax would have been chosen as PM instead of Churchill. And then perhaps Halifax would have appeased. That would have been a game-changer. But that is two "perhaps" on top of "ifs."

OSU · 12-03-10, 01:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Randomizer

Without context and balance any "what if" on the Internet quicky degenerates into fantasy worthy of dragons, Middle Earth and magic rings of Power.

You're forgetting Narnia and "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..."

And yes, I do agree with you on that point. "What-ifs" are always, well, iffy. There are so many things that could have happened. What if the radar operators on Hawaii had been more specific, maybe then the attack on Pearl Harbor might not have been a surprise. We will never know for sure.

Axeman3d · 12-03-10, 06:47 AM

I think the real game changer early in the Battle of the Atlantic would have been either numbers or radar.

Having a fast boat with 6 tubes and better submergence times would not change the fact that the Atlantic is bloody huge and boats cant see very far, no matter how good their batteries. If you cant find the enemy, you cant kill them, and without good radar sets or a ton of boats to string across the supply routes, your fancy subs are no better than Type VIIs. If Doenitz had his 300 subs in 1939, then Britain would have been in dire straits indeed, without the need for more advanced tech. In fact it would be a hinderance, since it would be far easier to nail together a load of Type VIIc boats than a couple of XXIs.

As for Russia, remember that they were getting convoys of kit from the US and UK sent to them to help them out, since they were basically an agrarian 19th century country and it was taking a lot of time for them to get their production up to speed. U-boats made a dent in those convoys as well. With no UK in the game (assuming the U-boats starve the UK into a cease fire of some sorts) then Russia is going it alone and the two front war becomes just Axis v Russia for the title, with the US sitting in the sidelines unable to take the fight to Europe as they have no base without the UK. Makes for an interesting scenario.

ediko · 12-03-10, 08:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Axeman3d

I think the real game changer early in the Battle of the Atlantic would have been either numbers or radar.

Having a fast boat with 6 tubes and better submergence times would not change the fact that the Atlantic is bloody huge and boats cant see very far, no matter how good their batteries. If you cant find the enemy, you cant kill them, and without good radar sets or a ton of boats to string across the supply routes, your fancy subs are no better than Type VIIs. If Doenitz had his 300 subs in 1939, then Britain would have been in dire straits indeed, without the need for more advanced tech. In fact it would be a hinderance, since it would be far easier to nail together a load of Type VIIc boats than a couple of XXIs.

As for Russia, remember that they were getting convoys of kit from the US and UK sent to them to help them out, since they were basically an agrarian 19th century country and it was taking a lot of time for them to get their production up to speed. U-boats made a dent in those convoys as well. With no UK in the game (assuming the U-boats starve the UK into a cease fire of some sorts) then Russia is going it alone and the two front war becomes just Axis v Russia for the title, with the US sitting in the sidelines unable to take the fight to Europe as they have no base without the UK. Makes for an interesting scenario.

But even if the war would become Axis vs USSR, it doesn't change the fact that the far east divisions were coming. Most of the far east manpower wasn't used in the war too.

What would have truly changed the war for USSR would be Japanese intervention. When USSR found out that Japan wont attack, all the divisions on it's east were moved to the west and joined the fight decimating Axis. Even if the Axis succeeded in taking the European part of USSR or at least come to a standstill if the forces even out, it would be impossible for them to hold, too many tanks were being produced by the soviets and partisan warfare was doing it's thing too. The supplies and war material helped a lot, but most of the help they made was buying time.

If Japan would attack however the situation would be completely changed, with the Axis taking most of the USSR and maybe even moving further than the Ural mountains.

Yeah, all of you guys are right too many IF's. I will just stop before I make some stupid assumption, like USSR only took Poland to stall some time

Gargamel · 12-03-10, 09:15 PM

Let's play the What if game, but not from a historian point of view, but as strategists and tacticians, which we are.

How would early (39-42) war tactics and strategies have changed if the XXI would have been available? For example, a medium sized convoy with 4 escorts would probably have few surviving ships left if a small wolfpack (like 2-4 XXI's) hit it.

How do you think the Allies would have to react to this?

And yes, this is a thought experiment game, it's how new ideas get formed.

Edit: Removed Acoustic Torp idea, yeah thats getting ridiculous.

12-03-10, 10:51 PM

Sorry, the game is not worth playing because it has zero merit. The Type XXI and acoustic homing torpedos were derived directly from the experiances of the U-Boat war as fought with the Type VII's and IX's. Without those experiances there was no requirement for electro-boats or autonomous weapons.

Create whatever fantasy la la land scenario you wish but it can have absolutely no reasonable tactical or strategic applicability because the premise behind the specualtion is completely flawed.

Enjoy your magic beans and dragons...

ediko · 12-04-10, 11:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Randomizer

Sorry, the game is not worth playing because it has zero merit. The Type XXI and acoustic homing torpedos were derived directly from the experiances of the U-Boat war as fought with the Type VII's and IX's. Without those experiances there was no requirement for electro-boats or autonomous weapons.

Create whatever fantasy la la land scenario you wish but it can have absolutely no reasonable tactical or strategic applicability because the premise behind the specualtion is completely flawed.

Enjoy your magic beans and dragons...

Pretty much this.

What about Graf Zeppelin though? It could have helped greatly in the convoy hunt. Or what's more believable suffer the same fate as Bismarck if not worse...

It is pointless really, lets just be glad things happened the way they did (the outcome I mean, not the process).

12-04-10, 12:42 PM

Should make it clear that I am not against speculation nor asking "What if?" However, without accounting for the contextual realities that would have driven the alternate situation as they drove the actual event speculation becomes fantasy, a kiddies wish list to Santa where all things are possible and no contention, however rediculous, need be supported by evidence. Ignoring those factors that made the real history reduce the speculative dialog to the level of Hollywood's U-571, a movie widely recognized around here as a historical travesty that some actually call entertainment.

<climbs off soap box>

I would suggest that before one can deal with Graf Zeppelin in the North Atlantic , one needs to address the problems associated with developing an effective naval air arm, the possible air/sea doctrines to be used that fitted the KM's operational philosophy and institutional requirements and the equipment available for aircraft and their offensive and defensive weapons.

Even a casual examination of these factors demonstrate that there was never any realistic prospect of Graf Zeppelin being completed during the war. The KM had no time or resources to invent everything required from scratch while the USN, RN and IJN, the principle carrier operators of the day, took decades in the inter-war period to develop and train their naval air arms and doctrines. The Nazi's didn't have decades and merely sticking arrester hooks on variants of the BF-109 and JU-87 does little to show that they knew what they were doing or even on the right track.

The BF-109T is a case in point. Adapting a land plane for carrier use has almost never been successful even though there have been a couple none jump immediately to mind. The Messerschmidt lacked virtually every attribute associated with an effective carrier plane:

- Poor forward visibility when landing even with leading edge slats to reduce the angle of attack;

- Weak, narrow chord undercarriage. The BF-109 was notorious for being difficult to land and killed many a student trying. That on a grass airfield, now move the problem to a pitching carrier deck.

- Difficult for the pilot to exit in an emegency due to the very cramped cockpit and side-opening canopy.

- Liquid cooled engine requiring longer warm up times that slow the cycling of air operations. (If you think this is not an issue, read Shattered Sword to see how similar small technical and doctrinal issues helped to doom Nagumo's carrier force at Midway.) Also the carrier would have to hold yet another flammable liquid in quantity, always a damage control nightmare and the KM was comparitively weak in damage control.

Do not forget that a reasonable solution needs to be found for the political problems that would arise from the pecularities of the Nazi regime where by law, everything that flew belonged to Goering's Luftwaffe. In Britain, the FAA only started to become effective once it was seperated from the RAF and given back to the Navy.

Even in peacetime creating a naval air arm from nothing is difficult, expensive and prone to false starts, errors and accidents, doing so in wartime and the problems become even greater. For what its worth (nothing?) I think the Germans were absolutely correct in not pumping resources into Graf Zeppelin and trying to create a carrier force.

desirableroasted · 12-04-10, 05:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gargamel

Let's play the What if game, but not from a historian point of view, but as strategists and tacticians, which we are.

How would early (39-42) war tactics and strategies have changed if the XXI would have been available?

Let's separate strategy from tactics.

Strategy: If you had had a fleet of XXI boats in September 1939, you could extend operations, go further, been more effective. If you were lucky, the U-boats would be so demoralizing by spring 1940 that Halifax would be chosen over Churchill for Prime Minister. Slight advantage to Germany.

Tactics: None. It dives more slowly than a VII and steers like a rock with float wings. Folks who say "yeah, but it has more torpedoes!" probably shoot a full four salvo at large cargos.

Ok, your mileage may vary.

Raptor · 12-05-10, 10:31 PM

Germany started the war with 57 u-boats (30 type 2, 22 type 7A and 7B, and 5 type IXA). Let's assume all 57 were type 21 instead.

Let's also assume that every ship that was sighted by the original 57 was also sighted by the 57 type 21's.

They would have one tactical advantage in that instead of only having 27 boats capable of operating beyond the North Sea, the whole fleet could have done so. That still would not have been a lot of help. Why not? Because the u-boats had far bigger problems:

1) Faulty torpedoes - finding and attacking a target does not equate to having sunk it. Early u-boats fired hundreds of eels that hit and failed to detonate. Our theoretical 1939 types XXI's would have the same problem.

2) No radar to find targets in the vast ocean - what good is a superior weapon if it doesn't encounter something to shoot at? The convoy system would not come into existence until 1940. Ships were sailing solo, so there was no real advantage to having 6 or 60 torpedo tubes that could reload in 15 minutes.

Even after the convoy system began and escorts appeared, there was no real advantage to the type 21 until the torpedo problems were overcome.

Only after that would there be a significant advantage to the 21's with their high underwater speed and fast reloads......but only when they found a convoy.

A type 21 in 1939 or no, you might as well ask the question "what if Germany had possessed nuclear weapons in 1939?". Answer - the whole world would be speaking German today. They didn't, and we don't.

12-02-10, 08:03 PM	#3
desirableroasted Grey Wolf Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: In the mountains, now. On the edge of the sea before. Posts: 933 Downloads: 47 Uploads: 0	I am reminded of a National Lampoon spoof which went something like: "Exam question: What if Custer had had an atom bomb at Little Bighorn? Consider your answer carefully and support your arguments." XXIs from 1939 would have moved the needle, sure, but in that huge swirling vat of variables that is WWII, I cannot see it would have made a difference. Perhaps a fleet of XXIs in '39 would have been so successful and demoralizing to the British leadership that Halifax would have been chosen as PM instead of Churchill. And then perhaps Halifax would have appeased. That would have been a game-changer. But that is two "perhaps" on top of "ifs." __________________ "Well, now, that's true... the IXC is a bit of a chick magnet..but you really can't beat the VIIB for off-road fun."

12-03-10, 09:15 PM	#7
Gargamel Lucky Sailor Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Rome Posts: 4,273 Downloads: 81 Uploads: 0	Let's play the What if game, but not from a historian point of view, but as strategists and tacticians, which we are. How would early (39-42) war tactics and strategies have changed if the XXI would have been available? For example, a medium sized convoy with 4 escorts would probably have few surviving ships left if a small wolfpack (like 2-4 XXI's) hit it. How do you think the Allies would have to react to this? And yes, this is a thought experiment game, it's how new ideas get formed. Edit: Removed Acoustic Torp idea, yeah thats getting ridiculous. __________________ Luck is a residue of Design. Last edited by Gargamel; 12-03-10 at 11:51 PM.

12-05-10, 10:31 PM	#12
Raptor Weps Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Pacific NW, USA Posts: 350 Downloads: 54 Uploads: 0	Germany started the war with 57 u-boats (30 type 2, 22 type 7A and 7B, and 5 type IXA). Let's assume all 57 were type 21 instead. Let's also assume that every ship that was sighted by the original 57 was also sighted by the 57 type 21's. They would have one tactical advantage in that instead of only having 27 boats capable of operating beyond the North Sea, the whole fleet could have done so. That still would not have been a lot of help. Why not? Because the u-boats had far bigger problems: 1) Faulty torpedoes - finding and attacking a target does not equate to having sunk it. Early u-boats fired hundreds of eels that hit and failed to detonate. Our theoretical 1939 types XXI's would have the same problem. 2) No radar to find targets in the vast ocean - what good is a superior weapon if it doesn't encounter something to shoot at? The convoy system would not come into existence until 1940. Ships were sailing solo, so there was no real advantage to having 6 or 60 torpedo tubes that could reload in 15 minutes. Even after the convoy system began and escorts appeared, there was no real advantage to the type 21 until the torpedo problems were overcome. Only after that would there be a significant advantage to the 21's with their high underwater speed and fast reloads......but only when they found a convoy. A type 21 in 1939 or no, you might as well ask the question "what if Germany had possessed nuclear weapons in 1939?". Answer - the whole world would be speaking German today. They didn't, and we don't. __________________ Raptor

12-02-10, 12:24 PM	#1
Randomizer Stowaway Posts: n/a Downloads: Uploads:	Britain only reluctantly ceded submarine parity with Germany in the London Naval Treaty as a desperate act of appeasement meant to buy time for her own rearmament schemes. Does anybody really think they would have sat idly by while German shipyards cranked out a program for 300 boats by 1940? Producing 300 U-Boats in five years from scratch has a great deal to do with technology (conventional building techniques could not do it and Germany had no experiance at modular shipbuilding), economy (even in Nazi Germany things needed to be bought and paid for and cash was finite) and strategic priorities (the workers and steel needed for a 300-boat building effort would have raped the Army's rearmament program and plans for motorization and panzers let alone what it would have done to the Luftwaffe's wish list). Of course everyone is forgetting that the Kaiser's U-Boats ultimately failed and made Germany's situation (arguably) worse in 1918 and so selling the land-minded Hitler on a repeat performance from the start was problematic even if the other insurmountable problems acquired solutions. Everything Hitler wrote about in Mein Kampf pointed East and involved a neutral or even an allied British Empire. A 300-strong fleet of U-Boats would destroy any chances of keeping the peace in the West while contributing nothing to the acquisition of Living Space at the expense of Poland and the Soviet Union that was Nazism's centrepiece agenda. Without context and balance any "what if" on the Internet quicky degenerates into fantasy worthy of dragons, Middle Earth and magic rings of Power.

12-02-10, 12:30 PM	#2
NoGoodLandLubber Stowaway Posts: n/a Downloads: Uploads:	Don't forget the "Cloak of Invisibility"...

12-03-10, 06:47 AM	#5
Axeman3d Machinist's Mate Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Central Scotland Posts: 127 Downloads: 29 Uploads: 0	I think the real game changer early in the Battle of the Atlantic would have been either numbers or radar. Having a fast boat with 6 tubes and better submergence times would not change the fact that the Atlantic is bloody huge and boats cant see very far, no matter how good their batteries. If you cant find the enemy, you cant kill them, and without good radar sets or a ton of boats to string across the supply routes, your fancy subs are no better than Type VIIs. If Doenitz had his 300 subs in 1939, then Britain would have been in dire straits indeed, without the need for more advanced tech. In fact it would be a hinderance, since it would be far easier to nail together a load of Type VIIc boats than a couple of XXIs. As for Russia, remember that they were getting convoys of kit from the US and UK sent to them to help them out, since they were basically an agrarian 19th century country and it was taking a lot of time for them to get their production up to speed. U-boats made a dent in those convoys as well. With no UK in the game (assuming the U-boats starve the UK into a cease fire of some sorts) then Russia is going it alone and the two front war becomes just Axis v Russia for the title, with the US sitting in the sidelines unable to take the fight to Europe as they have no base without the UK. Makes for an interesting scenario.

12-03-10, 10:51 PM	#8
Randomizer Stowaway Posts: n/a Downloads: Uploads:	Sorry, the game is not worth playing because it has zero merit. The Type XXI and acoustic homing torpedos were derived directly from the experiances of the U-Boat war as fought with the Type VII's and IX's. Without those experiances there was no requirement for electro-boats or autonomous weapons. Create whatever fantasy la la land scenario you wish but it can have absolutely no reasonable tactical or strategic applicability because the premise behind the specualtion is completely flawed. Enjoy your magic beans and dragons...

12-04-10, 12:42 PM	#10
Randomizer Stowaway Posts: n/a Downloads: Uploads:	Should make it clear that I am not against speculation nor asking "What if?" However, without accounting for the contextual realities that would have driven the alternate situation as they drove the actual event speculation becomes fantasy, a kiddies wish list to Santa where all things are possible and no contention, however rediculous, need be supported by evidence. Ignoring those factors that made the real history reduce the speculative dialog to the level of Hollywood's U-571, a movie widely recognized around here as a historical travesty that some actually call entertainment. <climbs off soap box> I would suggest that before one can deal with Graf Zeppelin in the North Atlantic , one needs to address the problems associated with developing an effective naval air arm, the possible air/sea doctrines to be used that fitted the KM's operational philosophy and institutional requirements and the equipment available for aircraft and their offensive and defensive weapons. Even a casual examination of these factors demonstrate that there was never any realistic prospect of Graf Zeppelin being completed during the war. The KM had no time or resources to invent everything required from scratch while the USN, RN and IJN, the principle carrier operators of the day, took decades in the inter-war period to develop and train their naval air arms and doctrines. The Nazi's didn't have decades and merely sticking arrester hooks on variants of the BF-109 and JU-87 does little to show that they knew what they were doing or even on the right track. The BF-109T is a case in point. Adapting a land plane for carrier use has almost never been successful even though there have been a couple none jump immediately to mind. The Messerschmidt lacked virtually every attribute associated with an effective carrier plane: - Poor forward visibility when landing even with leading edge slats to reduce the angle of attack; - Weak, narrow chord undercarriage. The BF-109 was notorious for being difficult to land and killed many a student trying. That on a grass airfield, now move the problem to a pitching carrier deck. - Difficult for the pilot to exit in an emegency due to the very cramped cockpit and side-opening canopy. - Liquid cooled engine requiring longer warm up times that slow the cycling of air operations. (If you think this is not an issue, read Shattered Sword to see how similar small technical and doctrinal issues helped to doom Nagumo's carrier force at Midway.) Also the carrier would have to hold yet another flammable liquid in quantity, always a damage control nightmare and the KM was comparitively weak in damage control. Do not forget that a reasonable solution needs to be found for the political problems that would arise from the pecularities of the Nazi regime where by law, everything that flew belonged to Goering's Luftwaffe. In Britain, the FAA only started to become effective once it was seperated from the RAF and given back to the Navy. Even in peacetime creating a naval air arm from nothing is difficult, expensive and prone to false starts, errors and accidents, doing so in wartime and the problems become even greater. For what its worth (nothing?) I think the Germans were absolutely correct in not pumping resources into Graf Zeppelin and trying to create a carrier force.