Topside torpedoes

[John Pancoast]

Originally Posted by Aktungbby

[COLOR=palegreen]The information is interesting but what strikes home is the consistent undertone of chaos and less than victory even in the daily reports. The Kreigsmarine is not winning at all; it is knee-jerk responding to the allied effort-particularly the air power- against which there is no solution.... In police work this is reactive not proactive. To win a global strategic war ya gotta be proactive and make the allies respond (knee-jerk) futilely to what you are doing to them. Minor tactical propaganda bright spots wll not carry the day.

I agree completely with your thoughts; some of the ideas Doenitz et al came up with make one shake their head at their obvious silliness and no chance of success and that's not just from a hindsight point of view nor the usual "It was Hitler's fault, if he'd only listened to me" so common in memoirs.
"Chaos" is a perfect description for it. Always seems to be a "What should we do? ?" aspect, followed by a "I don't know" to many decisions.

Partly it's because Germany was so outclassed in manpower, industry, and technical areas but just as much because Doenitz was just plain "out Admiraled".

That's not meant to be braggadocio; more of what seems to be fact.