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

[TarJak]

Originally Posted by Dowly

The way I see the Battle of the Atlantic, it was lost before it even started. Kriegsmarine simply didnt have enough uboats to blockade Britain. I even dare to bet that even if all the uboats would have been XXI's in the start of the war, Britain would have still survived.

So, as a Doenitz, I would have b*tch slapped Hitler and told him to get real and wait a few years before starting the war.

Spot on Dowly. The U-waffe was not in a fit state to set up worlf packs in 1939 nor was it able to do so until well into '42 and even then there were still not enough to handle all the operations they had to cover. It all came down to how many operational boats were available and for Germany to have won, they would have had to have the 300 boats in 1939 which was never going to happen unless they started their full scale building programme much ealier than they could.

Hitler couldn't wait long enough to get all his ducks in a row because of Germany's debts and the threat posed by Russian military build ups.