What if Ultra was not broken would germany win the uboat war

Just asking the experts here if the allies had not broken the ultra code.

Would germany have won the war in the atlantic or would it have have just delayed the ending of ww2 ( which I think will happen) or even cause britain to capitulate ( lack of supplies for army and civilian)

 

Hello to the group. I think "no". By 1943 the German U-boat, as a weapon, was insufficient against allied newly developed counter-measures. What was needed as a U-boat with a different attack philosophy and capability. They got it with the type XXI, but they got it to late and to little for it to do any good.

 

but the germans used the enigma code,???? :-?

 

True, but Enigma was mostly of use on the strategic level, not the tactical. And tactically, the German U-boatsw were completely outclassed by the end of 1943.

 

I would'nt go so far to say as out class, but with new improved tech, and the 100 destroyers which the US gave UK, 1943 was the turning point.

by 1944 with the enigma ( sorry enigma not ultra) code broken, longer range aircraft. better tactics and hedghogs the uboat days were numbered.

Even with new torpedoes, snorkel's longer range and faster speed.

30+% of uboats destroyed was by aircraft mainly due to enigma telling them where they will be.

Should play the computer game Silent Service 2 very authentic and realitic. ( you become a U boat Kapitain )

 

i prefer silent hunter 3

BTW: enigma was never broken. it was impossible in those days to break enigma. it had only two weaknesses, elimenate those and you have a trully unbreakable code. the britisch had an enigma machine and several code books, most of them stolen out captured U-boats.

 

opps yes your correct silent hunter 3 that's the game i played.

I thoght the britains knew where the u boat were when ever it reports back to base. they even knew when and where the at sea supply locations are, they only limited its use because they did not want the germans to find out that they had broken the code.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/wwtwo/enigma_01.shtml

website on the enigma code, according to them the end of the war would have been delayed by 2 years if not for the breaking of the code.

 

Actually, Enigma was broken on a regular basis. Remember there were many variations on enigma, KM, Luftwaffe, even the Railways. Some were easier to break than others but AFAIK all systems were broken at one point or another.

The maths behind breaking it was developed by the Poles pre-war and further developed by the UK. Mechanical computers called Bombes were used to check all combinations of settings looking for a particular word or phrase (called a crib) and once that was found, all traffic for that day on that system was readable.

Captured machines helped, as they gave the wiring for the wheels (but this could be worked out mathematically). Code books gave the settings for the month, so no cribs were needed (hence the capture of weather ships in the North Atlantic).

Tom

 

They did know where the U-boats were whenever they radioed their HQ, but that was due to High Frequency Direction Finding, aka "Huff-Duff". By 1943, all of the larger escort ships had that capability, which led to many successful attacks on the U-boats.