I just had a go with the Walter boat

[Rockin Robbins]

It was the advent of the American hunter-killer jeep carrier groups that spelled doom for the U-Boat. Thirty knots is nowhere near fast enough to outrun a PBY. The Walthers were doomed, launched or not. They just would have provided a more exciting death. And the Germans couldn't build them half as fast as we would sink them.

I'll not go into the years of training necessary before the first one would have seen battle. It would have been 1948 before a single type XVIII could have been deployed as a military asset.

I still look forward to playing with it!

[Zantham]

Yes as Ducimus said they were underwater bombs... H2O2 is very unstable and explosive.

However the Walther boat didn't have to outrun the escorts or HK groups, they just had to go fast enough that the destroyers couldn't use their sonars to track them. Imagine chasing one of these things that had gone deep (possibly 900 feet deep?). Now its moving away from you at over 20kts. You can hear it, but when you try to catch up to it your sonar guy goes deaf. So you have to slow down again to get a bearing in case the wily uboat captain changed course, dropped a decoy, or whatever. Remember he can go 200kms at 24kts. And at any time he thinks he lost the escorts go back to regular battery propulsion to go silent. By the time he has to surface (or snorkel?) hes over 300kms away!

So it would not have been quite so easy to catch as the regular uboats. It would have brought another happy time in 1943 maybe, but its very likely the Allies would have adapted their tactics and eventually started sinking them again, tho maybe not as easily as they caught the regular uboats.

I remember reading somewhere of an XXI captain doing an attack on an escorted group. As he closed he dropped some decoys that the destroyers picked up, and they could hear the XXI going, but they had no idea what they were dealing with, and because of the speeds the uboat was making they dismissed it as an unexplained phenomenon. The XXI did get into position, and would have fired, except the war was just over at this point. He then broke off and continued to wherever, never having come under attack.

[Rockin Robbins]

And when it pops its ugly head up there's a PBY waiting to tag it. The very act of firing a torpedo would be death to the Type XXI or Type XVIII. The PBYs had air dropped sonarbuoys and Fidos. I'm sure other weapons would have been quickly developed as well.

The only hope for the Germans would be the old strategy of overwhelming the defenses, and that just wasn't in the cards with their inability to produce these boats in hiding. Production facilities would have been wiped out as quickly as they were built.

I'm afraid the Type XVIII and Type XXI were just a lost hope before they could even be put into service.

[DS]

U-Boats can't win if their bases are radioactive wastelands under a mushroom cloud. The Allies got the bomb first, and were willing to use it. Strategically, U-Boats were irrelevant after that. Submarines would not become strategic weapons platforms again until the advent of the SSBN.

[pythos]

The atom bomb was not available when the first research on the walter drive was going on (1939). The type XXI would have been quite devistating, but one with the sprint ability the walter had, would be much more of an advesary.

Remember, the PBYs could not hear under water, they were in the air. They could not see down more than 100 meters, if that. The Walter boat would have dissapeared for the airborne scout.

It takes a long time for a deph charge to drop to 400 ft, which the type XXI was found to exceed with not so much a creak while under tests by the allies following the war. By the time the bomb got to the deph, the walter would have been long away from the area.

Why do you all think the type XXI, became the basis for early american cold war subs, and most if not all soviet subs until the second generation nuclear subs? Because it was way ahead of its time, and would have been a very scary advesary for the allies to deal with.

[Rockin Robbins]

In a famous interview where he said the Type XXI and Type XVIII would not have turned the tide of war. I agree. They would have been sitting ducks just waiting for someone to say goodbye. Training was impossible. Achieving numbers was impossible. US planes had droppable sonobuoys, which took DDs right out of the picture. The slave labor necessary to build anything was beginning to feel bold enough to engage in meaningful sabotage. The war was over. The vast majority of good U-Boat crews were dead. Isolated success would have had the same effect as the ME-262: nothing.

And like Ducimus said. The Walther was a bomb. All that would have been necessary was a near miss, the likes of which would merely have shaken other subs to make the sub itself into a very effective depth charge. The Walther design was as flawed as the ME-163 Komet. Kaboom! They were nice looking toys with more bark than bite.

[Schnee]

Its an interesting toy with the added speed. It certainly massacres lightly escorted convoys.

But it seems to be sort of a hit an run weapon. Doesn't have the regular fule "legs" of the D-2 . You are tied more closely to your bases it seems

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by pythos

Remember, the PBYs could not hear under water, they were in the air. They could not see down more than 100 meters, if that. The Walter boat would have dissapeared for the airborne scout.

But the sub has to come to periscope depth to shoot, and there were more and more blimps helping with the escort, not to mention the hunter-killer groups' fighters. Yes, if they could have had all that wonderful technology up-and-running in 1939 they would have made a huge difference.

But they couldn't.

[gimpy117]

The speed of the german boats were impressive, but somthing tells me that they couldn't hold that for long.

basically, I don't think the boats were much more stealthy than a VIIC or IX, so sure, you could have a better shot at gettign away at 20knts in the electro boat, but eventually you will be found and you better hope your quiet.

[Hartmann]

Originally Posted by Zantham

Yes as Ducimus said they were underwater bombs... H2O2 is very unstable and explosive.

However the Walther boat didn't have to outrun the escorts or HK groups, they just had to go fast enough that the destroyers couldn't use their sonars to track them. Imagine chasing one of these things that had gone deep (possibly 900 feet deep?). Now its moving away from you at over 20kts. You can hear it, but when you try to catch up to it your sonar guy goes deaf. So you have to slow down again to get a bearing in case the wily uboat captain changed course, dropped a decoy, or whatever. Remember he can go 200kms at 24kts. And at any time he thinks he lost the escorts go back to regular battery propulsion to go silent. By the time he has to surface (or snorkel?) hes over 300kms away!

So it would not have been quite so easy to catch as the regular uboats. It would have brought another happy time in 1943 maybe, but its very likely the Allies would have adapted their tactics and eventually started sinking them again, tho maybe not as easily as they caught the regular uboats.

Yes, it´s the tactic used by the actual diesel electric submarines (still in use ) like kilo.

i´m sure that a good number of these boats arround england during 1942-43 could make very difficult the build of an invassion force for a second front.

Yes , allied could build a lot of ships, but it takes a lot of resources .

And if you have fidos and sonar detectors, this weapons have to deal with a 25 knts target, probably using sonar coating, antiradar coating in periscopes and snorkel, detectors and countermeasures.

How many time could take a crash dive from periscope depth for a walter boat with the drive engaged ??

[Dr. Evil]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

It was the advent of the American hunter-killer jeep carrier groups that spelled doom for the U-Boat. Thirty knots is nowhere near fast enough to outrun a PBY. The Walthers were doomed, launched or not. They just would have provided a more exciting death. And the Germans couldn't build them half as fast as we would sink them.

Yup. The strategic advantage of the Walter drive would have lasted about a month before the allies would have developed counter-tactics.

Now, the XXI boats, on the other hand...

I've played pretty extensively with both, and I would much rather have a quiet boat with a lot of underwater endurance than a loud, fast boat. Even at 30 knots, most escorts can still outrun you, and at that speed, you're making more than enough noise for them to hear you even at that speed. When playing with the Walter boat, I found myself going deep and creeping along more than I would have liked and wishing it had better underwater performance on batteries. Far as I'm concerned, the turbine is great for intercepting a convoy that you would have otherwise been unable to run down, but not for much else.

[captgeo]

The Walther Boat is offered to you in Career U-Boat when you have done enough patrols (4 or 5) in the IXD2. There is a MOD out there that grants you it at any time, but I can not remember which one it is.