Myths of the Battle of the Atlantic

1. Britain was doomed without massive US support like the 50 destroyers etc.

2. The Fw 200 was a scourage of the Atlantic and devastating.

3. The Type XXI would have changed the course of the war had it been introduced earlier

4. Breaking Enigma made a huge difference before 1943.

 

I dont know much about the war in the Atlantic, thus except for item 2, why are the others myths?

 

Even without US help the law of diminishing returns would have set in and U-boat kills would have diminished and Britain, much like Japan, would have scrapped through. The US made a difference but British economic collapse was nowhere in sight.

The Type XXI simply changes the game. The Allies would have responded to it with improvements of their own and a steady state would have returned to the situtation. In this case, the Allies were developing in paralled with the Type XXI things like scanning sonars, better ahead thrown weapons (Squid, Weapon Alpha etc.), active sonobuoys and, other aerial search techniques etc. So, the Type XXI would have had only a short term impact then would have been effectively countered. It was a spoiler not a war winner.

Enigma made little difference before 1943 primarily because there was significant lag between decryption and information being made available to active units at sea. Another problem was the general lack of excess escorts and ASW ships to prosecute U-boats that were not already tactically involved in attacking convoys. This had to wait until there were a good number of new ASW ships not needed for convoy duty, escort carriers and, long range patrol aircraft available. This only happened starting in mid 1943.

 

I agee with the others but disagree with the Type XXI, not a war winner, the allies could produce more ships than the Germans couls sink though I'm not that sure they could afford to loose that many cargoes especially if some were troop ships, but t was deifinetly a game changer, just for one it was just as fast submerged as a Flower class orvette making a substntial portion of the ASW fleet nearly useless. Also that sort of speed would force hunter killer tactics as at 15 knots WW2 sonar performance is very degraded making single ship actions a lot less effective. Post WW2 NATO analisys of the soviet submarine threat also confirm this, while most of the "soviet military power" style pubblications were really propaganda panphlets to get more funds, the USN and RN of the fifties and sixties were strongly ASW oriented and the more numerous opponents were the wiskey, and the wiskey had a lot of the XXI in it's design, so even with 20 more years of tech sevelopment they were still considered a realistic threat.

 

I think XXI type can change the outcome of the war had been put into service in 1942
secondly, it had to be produced in large quantities.
Only about 100 or more ships would make a mess in the Atlantic.

 

100 more ships would mean 20 in the Atlantic,to have 100 more operational in the Atlantic,the Germans would need some 400 YBoats extra(and,there also is the problem of the training of the crew ).
In march 1943,there were 400 UBoats:
222 front-line boats (the other for training)
of the front-line boats,182 were stationed in the Atlantic
of these 70 on combat patrol (the others en route and at base)
of these 70,45(!!!)were patrolling the convoy routes in the North Atlantic .

 

it was impossible that the Germans could build 400 ships XXI type
how many XXI type ships at sea in the line could change the fate of the war?

 

There never would be enough operational XXI type ships to change the fate of the war .
Btw :the UBoat bases in Western France could not handle such a big increase of UBoats .

 

Agreed there could not be enough Type XXI's, but if there had would they simply not replace the older units with them sent to training command or other bases?

 

well,the older types could be used for basic training,but,could they also be used for advanced training,or should the Germans be forced to use the XXI type for advanced training ?
I know not enough about the difference between the older types and the XXI type (only that the last had a schnorkel)
In march 1943,52 UB were used for basic training and 119 for advanced training .
I am also curious about the duration of basic and advanced traning,and if the XXI type would demand more time for training .
A last point:was the XXI type that revolutionnary ? Schnorkel or not,they still would have to go to surface to overtake a convoy.

 

The Type XXI's were like Jets were to propeller aircraft.They were also the first production sub that could travel faster underwater than the surface.

 

The Type XXI's also had a propensity for battery explosions. Unless this happened in a very favorable location the news was unlikly to make it back to Germany and thus they would have been unlikly to fix the problem.

 

I have to disagree about Enigma. especially the code books. One of the most important captures of the war occurred in May of 1941 when U-110 was forced to surface following an attack. a boarding party from H.M.S. Bulldog was launched. The party boarded the ship to find it deserted, with all of its classified material still intact. It became evident that the submarine was not going to sink. A towline was set up in order to try and capture the submarine. Mean while the entire U-boat was being searched and gutted. The boarding crew could not speak German so anything that was not clearly pleasure reading was taken off the submarine. An Enigma machine was retrieved from the U-boat, this was not the most important item found on board. The British already had several Enigma machines, but the codebooks were also found and proved to be invaluable. These codebooks allowed for “major insight” into German naval operations. This whole operation was completed in total secrecy; which was crucial so that the Germans did not change their encryption patterns. These documents enabled the British intelligence service to decipher a German naval message in around six hours. This was a phenomenal feat for the British.
of notable interest was the disclosure plans for operation drumbeat. the British had it all. time, place, number and location of all boats. they quickly passed all the info on to the Americans. who unfortunately ignored it !!!! causing major loss of life and property.

U-110 link

 

I would also have to disagree about the Enigma point. With the British being able to read all of the Kriegsmarine's mail it was able to re-route convoys around patrol lines and react quickly as boat movements changed. Because it had could read the Enigma the British were able to destroy all the supply ships anchored at sea; which forced a major change in how Donitz was able to deploy his boats knowing that every boat would be forced to rely upon only what it set out to sail with, with no hope of getting re-supplied with a few tons of fuel or water on its way back. The Milk Cows were able to extend the length of patrols by weeks in the case of the type IX's, even with the VII's it allowed them to more safely operate off the US East Coast & Carribean with the extra fuel they were able to obtain.

The XXI's if produced in quanties like the VIIC early in the war would have made a major impact; though with the enterance of the US Germany could never keep up the same pace in building ships (and sinking them) faster than the US was able to produce. To truly follow the scenario to its completion, once the XXI's were in service Germany wouldn't have just stopped all its R&D, in 43 or 44 there would have been an even more advanced version that the allies would have had to deal with. To say that the XXI's wouldn't have had an impact if implemented early is partially true, but doesn't take into account that Germany would have continued to improve upon it by fixing its faults and working on its next generation of subs (whatever that may have been). Even with sonar buoys until the allies could have devised a homing torpedo that could withstand the depths that the XXI was able to dive to, a skilled captain could easily evade any amount of surface contacts. Running silent at 300m deep (and being able to go to 400m and deeper) slamming the engines to flank and moving at 15 knots at that depth would make for an extremely difficult target to hit. The amount of resources ultimately required to sink one would have been enormous! As fast as the XXI's were able to reload their torpedoes if employed in a wolf pack they would have been extremely devastating.

In order to have had a honest chance of altering or at the least greatly extending the war not only would the XXI have had to been implemented early, the ME 262 would have been needed to be put into service around the same time. Imo what would have made the biggest difference was if the Field Marshalls and Generals had been allowed to run the war rather than the Politicians. As R&D produced better weapons they would have been put into service, rather than becoming a point of political bickering or been brushed aside by Goering because he was too worried about what medal he wanted next so that his uniform could look better.....

 

# 2 was true to a point right into 1942 until Allied sea escorts and heavier AA arms were fitted also with protective shipping sea escorts caused the demise of the Kondor. There was not effective counter to them from the Allied Merchant fleet until the listed measures were in effect that I mentioned. Even with route changes the Merchantmen were still plagued by the U-Boot Flottilles ever on the watch.

 

I disagree with point one. Although maybe 'doomed' was an exaggerated term, there is no denying that Britain was in dire need of ships to protect the merchant convoys. With many of their destroyers and cruisers preparing for invasion, the government started turning ocean liners into 'Armed Merchant Cruisers' to guard all their convoys. Some convoys were guarded by only one AMC.

So while they may not have been 'doomed', the 50 destroyers from the US were a welcome help.

 

ONe needs to seperate the contributions of Enigma and Huff-Duff. From what I've read the latter had a bigger impact on the Battle of the Atantic.

 

I have a question for people. Was the Bismark actually sunk by a torpedo from the HMS Dorsetshire or did the Germans scuttle it? I have a book by Robert D. Ballard (the man who found the Bismark) and his investigations concluded that he could not figure how the ship actually sank as a combination of deterioration, extreme amounts of damage, and the fact that the ship seperated towards the bow could not allow for a good conclusion. Of course British reports say they sank it with a torpedo and German reports say the ship was scuttled so who was right? Lastly the ship had been hit by a salvo during its engagement with the Hood, a torpedo from a swordfish, and took more than 5 hours of shelling and torpedoing by the bulk of the British fleet. How was the ship able to stay afloat as long as it was? I find it rather amazing.

 

The problem with this question is the word "or." Lots of ships that were sunk in battle were scuttled by the crew. For some reason, in Bismarck's case, the ship's loss has become subject of an ugly custody battle. It's nonsense. Unless the Bismarck crewmen are abject liars, they performed scuttling measures. So what? Scuttling was a standard operation for mortally wounded ships. If we listed all the ships during WWII that were scuttled while sinking, we'd have an awfully long list. But again, because it's Bismarck, it has become an issue. If enemy action admits 41,000 tons of flooding and scuttling admits three tablespoons, that doesn't mean the ship wasn't scuttled, and the scuttling doesn't mean the ship didn't sink from enemy action.
After the damage from Denmark Strait and the three aerial torpedo hits, Bismarck was sitting a bit low in the water. Combined with the rough seas and the short range at which most of the final gunnery took place, this made it almost impossible to hit Bismarck in her lower hull. In fact, from all those hundreds of large-caliber shells fired, we know of only four hits to her main belt (all of which probably penetrated). You can toss a thousand shells into the superstructure without inflicting much ship-killing damage. Many of the hits that Bismarck received are described as simply "rearranging the wreckage" of the superstructure. Any modern battleship could have withstood similar damage for a long time.

 

My understanding was that she was already in sinking condition when hit by the Dorsetshires torpedo. As Tiornu has mentioned both scuttling and combat damage helped her reach that state.

Take a look at Hornet for perhaps an even more impressive performance as far as remaining afloat. Although she also was a hulk long before she went down.