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Originally Posted by brndirt1
Well put, even with the "streamlined" assembly line methods, Speer only managed to get about 120 of this type launched didnt' he? And if they failed or had badly fitting parts, they could fail at depth where the older "hand-made" boats could exceed their estimated "crush depth".
The advantage in this type would have to come much earlier in the contest at sea to have made any difference. And since the "need" for the type wasn't seen until it was too late, they couldn't/wouldn't be developed any sooner than they were.
I seem to recall that it still took something like two years to go from design to first launch didn't it? If they started in 1942 for a 1944 delivery, to advance it would mean the Kreigsmarine wouldn't have the experience to draw upon which made the XXI appear.
Development cannot go from "learning" to "fruition" without the intervening learning process. It just doesn't work like that, the Thresher is a good example.
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These are all good points, but as Clay Blair points out in the second volume of his study of the Battle of the Atlantic ("Hitler's U-Boat War"), the potential combat value of the Type XXI U-boat was virtually nil when it first appeared in combat.
This was because the Allies had finally managed to employ enough long range patrol aircraft to adequately cover all of the Atlantic convoy routes, as well as the areas the U-boats would have to transit on their way to and from the combat zones. This, coupled with surface hunter-killer groups, forced the U-boats to make the entire voyage submerged at minimal speeds. Transit times for the U-boats were measured in weeks, leaving just a matter of a few days for patrolling against the convoys. Furthermore, contrary to claims of the "what-if" boys, the Type XXI was NOT a "true submersible"; it required the use of diesels (combined with snorkeling) which left the Type XXI vulnerable to normal ASW tactics and weapons much of the time. Blair, himself a WW II submariner who inspected one of the captured Type XXI's at the end of the war, is dismissive of the "advanced" German sub technology, if the last chapter of the second volume of his book is any guide.
It was true that the extra battery capacity gave the Type XXI a limited period of high underwater speed, but this was not sufficient to overcome the Allied ASW proficiency which prevailed after 1943. Moreover, the Type XXI boats suffered from poor design, shoddy construction, and batteries which had a short life due to the demands of high underwater performance.