What if...

[Ifernat]

I would agree that the U-boats couldn't by themselves have won the war, they never managed to get to the point where the US Navy did in the Pacific where the loss of Japanese shipping capacity began a death spiral where a lack of resources crippled the ship building industry. As has been stated the U-boat campaign was really a minor side issue as it relates to the Eastern Front which is where the war was ultimately decided.

There are a few interesting what if scenarios however in the Mediterranean. For example consider what if an Italian submarine had broken up (even by damaging rather than sinking) Operation Judgement? If the Italians still had those battleships do the British commit as heavily in Greece? If they don't, how many days are shaved off the delay on the start of Barbarossa?

The same could probably be said if more assets had been used to Siege Malta in 1940-1941. The what if there is whether an unimpeded supply line for the Italians and later Germans vs a weakened British position changes the timeline especially again in regards to Greece.

Probably still doesn't make that huge a difference, but its an interesting idea. Does kind of highlight just how badly Mussolini managed to sandbag his 'ally'.

[desirableroasted]

Originally Posted by Ifernat

I would agree that the U-boats couldn't by themselves have won the war,

Militarily, no. But politically, they could have tipped things in the first months of the war.

When we recall that Churchill's appointment to PM, eight months after the war started, was by no means guaranteed, you could argue that if Uboats had been even more effective in Sep 39 - May 40, British morale and political vacillation might have tipped the PM post to Lord Halifax.

Another sinking of a capital ship, a la HMS Royal Oak, for example, might have been enough in those uncertain days.

[P_Funk]

I don't think that the British resolve ever would have been tipped by a simple symbolic event. Fact is that Hitler was loath to invade Britain no matter what. The only thing that would have put Churchill on a Battleship headed for Nova Scotia was the wholesale loss of the British Isles and simply put to change the preparations of Sealion to the point that they were a credible threat to Britain would involve changing a great deal of what went on in the mind of Hitler.

This then becomes a spculation based on the notion of "what if Hitler wasn't such a strategic imbecile?" or better yet "what if Hitler was a slightly different kind of moron?".

The whole point of the U-boats was to force Britain to capitulate politically to Germany, and that was never going to happen. I think that if Britain was on the verge of Starvation FDR would've found some excuse to save them. Run American ASW and merchants by the dozen through the whole of the Western Approaches, make them impossible to not sink and as a result either the U-boats let a lot of tonnage through to Britain because of overzealous caution or they sink a lot of Americans and FDR gets the political currency to get into the war earlier.

Imagine entire convoys of nothing but American ships and escorts. That'd be a helluva gambit.

[bybyx]

Here are my 2 cents:
1.I think that a war could only be won by having air supremacy over sea and land.
2. Maybe if the Me262 would have been in service earlier, it would have cleared the skies over nazi occupied Europe and in Russia, allowing the bombers to hammer into oblivion any resistance.
3.The u-boats could have roamed with more freedom and if the type xxi was introduced earlier maybe they would have blocked the Atlantic.
However those said above would also force a massive involvement from USA, and i think the first nuke would have been dropped on Berlin

[desirableroasted]

Originally Posted by P_Funk

The only thing that would have put Churchill on a Battleship headed for Nova Scotia was the wholesale loss of the British Isles

And, yet, in mid-August 1941, that is exactly where he was, in HMS Prince of Wales.

A lucky shot by a U-Boat? It probably would not have shifted the will of the British people to try to win the war, not by 1941 with so much committed, but:

• the special relationship between FDR and WSC would be lost, along with its "wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more" way of getting things done.
• an untested, less popular and less populist Anthony Eden would become PM (or would he? Probably yes, though he would have far less political capital).
• at any rate, the British government would have to adjust itself at a time where every hour wasted counted.

Probably would not have changed the outcome, but it would have been a vastly different war for the UK.

[Tupolev]

Didn't someone literally bounce a torpedo off the battleship he was on?

I remember reading something like that. It was early war with all the pistol failures and the crew heard the clang of the dud.

T.

[Jaystew]

I dont think Germany winning the war was never out of the question until 1944/1945.

If they had had more U-boats or XXIs in 1939/1940 they could have caused some very serious havok during the "Miracle at Dunkirk" when 300,000 BEF and French forces lived to fight another day escaping to the UK over the sea.

This was more a failure of the air force because Germany was at a substantial naval dis advantage against the British but Germany had the air advantage against the UK.

1940/1941 was also the timeframe Germany could have easily taken the UK out of the war with a land invasion of the UK. Operation Sea Lion exist for just that purpose. In 1939 there was still half a continent opposing them and they did not have the number of divisions to support a land invasion but in 1940 though they did not have air supremacy they did have plenty of French Air bases, they did have the whole European coast under defensive construction and they had a very determined anti-sea campaign underway forcing the British to spread their naval defenses out.

According to "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" by William L Shrier the British in 1940 and early 1941 had essentially no homeland defense that could have fought off 10-20 divisions of German troops.

Suppose Germany had launched Sealion in late 1940 or early 1941 and it had succeeded. The UK would have been out of the war. Do you think the USA would have entered the war against Germany before December 7th 1941? I think it is highly unlikely. I think just like in WWI the USA of the 1930s and 1940s would have let European issues be solved by European players. This is not to say that covert or unofficial actions subverting the Germans and supporting the British would have been sanctioned or performed, but if the UK collapsed the Americans would have had very little in the way of motivation to go to war with Germany.

Sealion needed a few things to succeed. They needed to mine the entrance to the English Channel on both ends this to effectively keep the British Navy out of the channel or make it very difficult for them to get in without taking losses. They needed air superiority to protect the troop transports.

Hitler was the one who wouldn't take the gamble and the generals and admirals were smartly not for the invasion on the grounds that it would very likely not succeed. But if they had gambled and won, the war could have turned out a lot different.

By early 1941 the UK would have been out of the war, USA not very likely to come into the war, until Japan attacked in Dec 41 by which time the USSR probably would have been all but defeated by Germany could have waited another year or gone ahead with Operation Barbarossa and if they had waited another year they may have succeeded because they wouldn't have had to devote resources to fighting against the British.

The African campaigns would have been very much diminished in importance compared to the UK homeland. Without support from UK itself troops in Africa would not have been able to sustain a fight against Germany or deliver the defeat they did.

[desirableroasted]

Well, yeah, but the original poster was asking "if you could do one thing with only a U boat"

About a gazillion things could have changed the war, but we are scratching our heads about the one guy in a U-boat question.

[Admiral Halsey]

Originally Posted by Tupolev

Didn't someone literally bounce a torpedo off the battleship he was on?

I remember reading something like that. It was early war with all the pistol failures and the crew heard the clang of the dud.

T.

I think that was Roosevelt you're thinking of.

[Andrewsdad]

Wilhelm Zahn commanded U-56 and almost changed the war. The episode is documented in the dissertation called "Wolves Without Teeth, The German Torpedo Crisis in World War Two" by David Habersham Wright (Georgia Southern University, 2010)
http://digitalcommons.georgiasouther...99&context=etd

It's a fascinating read. The U-56 story is on p. 63

Salute,
AD

[desirableroasted]

Originally Posted by P_Funk

The only thing that would have put Churchill on a Battleship headed for Nova Scotia was the wholesale loss of the British Isles

I've been puzzling over this... but I realize now you thought I meant Halifax, Nova Scotia. I meant Lord Halifax, who was WSC's chief rival for the PM post when Chamberlain resigned in May 40.

[Admiral Halsey]

Originally Posted by P_Funk

Imagine entire convoys of nothing but American ships and escorts. That'd be a helluva gambit.

That would've been a hell of a sight to see. One could only imagine how Hitler would've reacted to that news.