Was the XXI pointless???

[Mush Martin]

No Hitlers strategy was at fault the only thrusts that mattered were
Moscow and the Caucusus via the Ukraine. honestly if he wanted to
achieve elbow room effectively he would have been better to stop
at the original border and consolidate poland for a year prior to
the ill timed invasion. Hitlers interference in the movements of
the army groups prevented the Vital support of Lizt in the caucauses
which would have provided all the oil the germans needed and denied
it to the soviets.
the war in the east was not Misjudgement of terrain. it was the
meddling of an egotistic megalomaniac in military affairs.
the death of sixth army at "Stalingrad" shows how brilliant the
russian strategy was, they killed an entire army with a name.

how different a war it would be if moscow Fell first and
and the caucuses and Egypt had recieved the support they
deserved. German possesion of Moscow as an First Priority
target would have done much to slow the soviet industrial
move east and the organization of resistence, no it wouldnt
have prevented the russian recovery but it would have resulted
in meeting it on more equal terms later. the caucuses oil would
have Put vitality in the german war effort the shortage of oil
was paralytic to germany and this would have resolved much
as well as oil from the desert if rommel had had as little as
ten percent of the resources given to russia.

I believe he is correct to say that germany lost the war
when they declared war on russia and the US not because it
was inevitable to lose but because germany erred so in trying

[Hitman]

Hitler never intended an invasion, all his intensions were to push british out of war.

You are right, Hitler in fact wanted badly Britain to join him or at least to look in another direction while he attacked the soviets. He was slightly surprised when Britain finally declared the war on germany after invading Poland. He knew brits threatened to do so, but since his interests were in the east he ultimately thought the brits would leave him harrass the USSR because that benefited them also indirectly. Obviously Hitler had not learned the lessons from just 20 years ago, when Britain made anything possible to ensure that in europe there would not be another nation as powerful as themselves:hmm:

[MENTAT]

Originally Posted by Hitman

.. if Soviet Union had attacked first -which is doubtful because Stalin didn't really want anything in the west, and had seen how France and Britain had been crushed out- the political scenary would have been different.

No, Stalin was just looking out for an opportunity, as ideologically, Germany was in position of "the defender of the fascism", Soviets were "the defender of communism", these two ideology was in feud for eachother. basically it was a conflict of ideoligies, not teritorial profits.

If Stalin hesitated on an attack plan on Germany, the only reason could be of a newly implemented communism which was fragile condition in Russia. They were busy with annihilating vast amount of people who were unfortunate to refuse communism.

Originally Posted by Hitman

And anyway, by June 1941 the soviets had obviously not yet attacked, so Hitler would have had time to defeat England with a larger U-Boot fleet.

Can give credits for that, however, Hitler with attacking Soviets on his mind, just couldnt focus on Britain effectively. With the fear of being stabbed by the Soviets, he just wanted to conclude the West front quickly and go for soviets. For that reason, and with the boost of Goring, he decided to hasten things up and decided for Battle of Britain, not from underwater but a quick version from air. Eventually failed to do so.

[MENTAT]

Originally Posted by Hitman

... when Britain made anything possible to ensure that in europe there would not be another nation as powerful as themselves:hmm:

They were not powerful already their sole advantage was being an island nation geographically and large navy

France was almost as powerful as Brits, even more powerful from them. They lost the war miserably.

[Mush Martin]

[/quote]
Can give credits for that, however, Hitler with attacking Soviets on his mind, just couldnt focus on Britain effectively. With the fear of being stabbed by the Soviets, he just wanted to conclude the West front quickly and go for soviets. For that reason, and with the boost of Goring, he decided to hasten things up and decided for Battle of Britain, not from underwater but a quick version from air. Eventually failed to do so.[/quote]

and I can give credit to that,

[Thniper]

Originally Posted by MENTAT

Hitler never intended an invasion, all his intensions were to push british out of war.

Hmm, I always thought that operation 'Seeloewe' was intended to prepare an invasion of Britain, afterwards resulting in the Battle of Britain.

So Hitler didn't really intend an invasion?:hmm:
That's new to me! Well, I'm always learning...

[Mush Martin]

Originally Posted by Thniper

Hmm, I always thought that operation 'Seeloewe' was intended to prepare an invasion of Britain, afterwards resulting in the Battle of Britain.

So Hitler didn't really intend an invasion?:hmm:
That's new to me! Well, I'm always learning...

He did intend it but hes stating that the resolve and intention changed
it was sealion that lead to the battle of britain, but with all the boats
they could muster they didnt have enough to move the wermacht across
fast enough for the KM to protect them especially under RAF aircover
so the Luftwaffe was sent in to establish air superiority to enable the
invasion but dieu to the strategic error of changing priorities from
military airbases to cities as a result of a Taunt by churchill where by
a distressed German bomber dumped its load in an inflight emergency
on london Churchill played it as deliberate even though he knew
the was a luftwaffe restriction on the capitol at the time as a
result he bombed berlin for the next three nights until Hitler
turned his bombers on the counter prestige target.
leading to the recovery of RaF fighter command and the
eventual victory over the Luftwaffe leading to a free and
Happy world blah blah god ive grown longwinded.
M

[Stoli]

Allied Air Superiority over the Atlantic trumped any modern advancement in U-Boat Technology Mass production of the XXI would of equaled more dead U-Boat crews.

[Dantenoc]

Originally Posted by Stoli

Allied Air Superiority over the Atlantic trumped any modern advancement in U-Boat Technology Mass production of the XXI would of equaled more dead U-Boat crews.

Of course. A what if can be countered with another what if very easily, and as things stand today, building a high-tech sub is very expensive and technologicaly complicated while droping an acoustic guided torpedo from a plane or helicopter to kill it is relatively quite cheap and easy to do. Good bye XXI.

On another subject, I still stand by my original affirmation. Brittain could have never ever been truly submited by starvation. As correctly mentioned by others, the most that Hitler could expect was a "white peace" with Britain. He had a good case for it too, for numerous reasons that I won't get into (just remeber things like the hundred years war), but he misscalculated Winston Churchill. The man was obssesed with defeating Hitler (thank God for that) and there was no way that he was going to play along with the Furer.

What would it take to "starve" a nation out of war?

If they have a weak will to fight, a small reduction of, say, 5% in consumer goods availability that caused inconvenient lines at the supermarket maybe quite enough. The U-boats could have achieved this and in fact did (and more).

BUT if they have the will and resolve of a Winston Churchill, inspiring them to pick up a kitchen knife and take at least one of the dirty hun with you when the invasion finaly comes, then you have a different story. Then what? incur a loss of consumer goods of 30%? 50%? 75%? I don't think it would have been enough even then. A lot of third world countries today have a mean family income less than $8 U.S. dollars daily and they manage to get along. There is of course, a braking point. But I beleive that long before that breaking point would have been reached the rest of the world would have risen in Britain's behalf, either by pity, fear of suffering the same faith, good old fashioned beleif in whats right, or for whatever reason but they would have stepped in. So that would have backfired.

And even IF (an if that I hope we all agree now that really couldn't happen) IF England should fall, Winston Churchill had vowed that the "dominion" (the rest of the empire and commonwealth) would carry on the fight and then what? starve India, Canada, South Africa and Australia out of the war? It just isn't doable.

One last point: Consider the principle of diminished investment return. I you invest 300 U-boats into the war effort, you might sink (just to say a figure) one quarter of the total allied tonnage. Does that mean that if you invest 600 U-boats into the war effort, you will sink half? and that if you invest 1200 U-boats you will sink all of the allied tonnage? NO, of course not, past a certain point of equilibrium, investing more produces incresingly diminishing results until you finaly reach a point where it cost you more to hunt than the actual losses that you inflict. The principle of diminished investment return sucks, just ask any fisherman. :hmm:

Edit: By the way, how much would it cost to produce each type of U-boat and how much for a cargo ship (along with it's cargo)? Anybody know? I've been wondering about this for some time. I want't to know how many tonns do I need to sink before I consider myself a "good investment" for the fatherland? (I realize the value of cargo varies wildly, I'm looking for ballpark figures)

[Puster Bill]

Originally Posted by Dantenoc

Of course. A what if can be countered with another what if very easily, and as things stand today, building a high-tech sub is very expensive and technologicaly complicated while droping an acoustic guided torpedo from a plane or helicopter to kill it is relatively quite cheap and easy to do. Good bye XXI.

Not so fast, literally. The FIDO had a speed of about 12 knots, far below that of the Type XXI. But you don't even have to be FASTER than the torpedo, just not significantly slower.

The FIDO couldn't really go much faster, given the technology, and still have been reasonably air-droppable. That would mean a much bigger battery, lengthening the torpedo, making it much heavier, and making it less manueverable.

Also, the FIDO had only a 27% success rate against the slower Type VII and IX boats. Of all of the 'hits' a FIDO made on submarines in WWII (about 55), fully 1/3rd, or 18, only resulted in damage to the sub, not a sinking.

Also, it would not have taken too long to develop countermeasures. First and foremost, simply crash diving at flank speed to maximum operational depth would take care of it.

For the slow boats like the VII and IX, a simple bouy that transmitted the sound of a u-boat at high speed, coupled with running at silent speed, would have nullified almost all FIDO attacks. Even for a slow boat like the VIIC/41, crash diving to 200 meters would probably prevent a FIDO from successfully attacking given enough distance from the point it was launched: They were set to search at 50 feet initially, and it was later set to 150 feet. Surfacing, while it would get you out of danger from the FIDO, would mean you would have to deal with the aircraft that dropped it.

While it isn't really stated anywhere that I have read, I suspect that the Germans knew about the FIDO near the end of the war, as the Type XXI was to be equipped with a special passive sonar receiver in the conning tower specifically tuned to listen for torpedoes. The only real reason to have something like that is to be able to counter a weapon like the FIDO. When you couple that evidence along with the fact that several boats were merely damaged, and not sunk, in FIDO attacks, BdU must have known *SOMETHING*.

But what we have here is the continual battle of measure, countermeasure, and counter-countermeasure. I'm not sure if any of us can say how it would have played out with any certainty.

[Mush Martin]

Originally Posted by Puster Bill

Not so fast, literally. The FIDO had a speed of about 12 knots, far below that of the Type XXI. But you don't even have to be FASTER than the torpedo, just not significantly slower.

The FIDO couldn't really go much faster, given the technology, and still have been reasonably air-droppable. That would mean a much bigger battery, lengthening the torpedo, making it much heavier, and making it less manueverable.

Also, the FIDO had only a 27% success rate against the slower Type VII and IX boats. Of all of the 'hits' a FIDO made on submarines in WWII (about 55), fully 1/3rd, or 18, only resulted in damage to the sub, not a sinking.

Also, it would not have taken too long to develop countermeasures. First and foremost, simply crash diving at flank speed to maximum operational depth would take care of it.

For the slow boats like the VII and IX, a simple bouy that transmitted the sound of a u-boat at high speed, coupled with running at silent speed, would have nullified almost all FIDO attacks. Even for a slow boat like the VIIC/41, crash diving to 200 meters would probably prevent a FIDO from successfully attacking given enough distance from the point it was launched: They were set to search at 50 feet initially, and it was later set to 150 feet. Surfacing, while it would get you out of danger from the FIDO, would mean you would have to deal with the aircraft that dropped it.

While it isn't really stated anywhere that I have read, I suspect that the Germans knew about the FIDO near the end of the war, as the Type XXI was to be equipped with a special passive sonar receiver in the conning tower specifically tuned to listen for torpedoes. The only real reason to have something like that is to be able to counter a weapon like the FIDO. When you couple that evidence along with the fact that several boats were merely damaged, and not sunk, in FIDO attacks, BdU must have known *SOMETHING*.

But what we have here is the continual battle of measure, countermeasure, and counter-countermeasure. I'm not sure if any of us can say how it would have played out with any certainty.

In Fact of course Correct.

however the previous history of the adaptability of allied technological
development is sure enough to suppose that the problems of FIDO
would have been overcome, other air dropped torps were faster it was
a matter of Materiel I think regarding protection of the seeker head
that dictated the Low and slow profile for FIDO.
[edit] also with a torp strong enough to go deeper would come
the strength to drop and travel faster.

[MENTAT]

Originally Posted by Mush Martin

In Fact of course Correct.

however the previous history of the adaptability of allied technological
development is sure enough to suppose that the problems of FIDO
would have been overcome, other air dropped torps were faster it was
a matter of Materiel I think regarding protection of the seeker head
that dictated the Low and slow profile for FIDO.

And of course an advanced torpedo means an advanced counter-measure.

[Puster Bill]

Originally Posted by MENTAT

And of course an advanced torpedo means an advanced counter-measure.

Measure, counter-measure, counter-counter-measure, ad infinitum.

There really wasn't anything that prevented the Allies from making a bigger and faster acoustic torpedo, it just wouldn't have been very practical to make them air-droppable from conventional long range maritime patrol aircraft. You could drop them from dedicated torpedo bombers, of course, as they were designed to carry larger torpedoes. But, that means that the 'improved' FIDO is really only available to carrier task forces, and close to the land bases.

Plus, any technique likely to work against a FIDO will likely work against it's successor, within reason.

I do wish that FIDO's were modeled in SHIII, as I would love to test out some of my ideas (realizing, of course, that simulation doesn't necessarily equal real life).

For instance, crash diving to maximum depth, then going to silent running, with perhaps a course change. Or just going to silent running once you get underwater.

[Mush Martin]

I have a great account somewhere on the threads here of an experience
I had with some runaway acoustics that came after me during River Class
Frigate testing
IMO they werent that hard to fox.

two of the six torp spread came about and ran back down range towards
me, I went dead quiet and the passed behind me then while they were
still in earshot I Throttled up to flank. appropriately the torps came about
to track on me and I went quick quiet and they passed left and right of me
back up range and got individual hits on the two remaining rivers that
were bearing down on me, (no kaa kaa)

was a great experience.
M

[Stoli]

The German secret weapons group never got the chance to install their revolutionary propulsions system. The system was based on a top secret flux-capacitor design that would make traversing the Atlantic a cake walk. The problem with the system was it required a huge amount of power to get the revolutions to 88rpms.