Fateful Strategy

Greetings-We are all aware of the horrific losses suffered by the German U boats after the Spring of 1943. The reasoning given was to tie down Allied forces that could have been applied elsewhere. Was there a possible alternative?

 

Hi Wolf...

You have raised a very interesting question on the sacrifice of the young men of the u-boats.

It does seem that it was ridiculous to believe that the Allied naval assets to keep them from being used in other areas. But what good would those escorting vessels have been in the hedgerows in France? Or tie down the airpower searching the Atlantic? Surely, the massive daily bombing raids day and night would have shown the German High Command that the Allies were not suffering from a shortage of planes.

Perhaps those brave young men could have served sooner in the Marine battalions that were employed in the latter months of the war. If they were to meant to be sacrificed, then perhaps they would have stood a decent chance being able to fight back at their attackers.

Again...this is a difficult question. You have given me something to continue to ponder on for several more days....weeks.

 

Mein Herr-thanks for your reply-we have discussed this issue-there is no set answer to this-Doenitz and his staff were overworked and tiny compared to the resources the Allies mobilized against the U boat threat. The boats were badly dated by the Spring of '43. Why after capturing the Dutch subs in '40, the snorkel technology wasn't used sooner mystifies me-rigid thinking(?) or overworked and overwhelmed staff(?)-*can't see the tree for the forest*. The only lesson, I can draw is success depends on innovation and creativity, and tiny overworked staffs cannot perform this. Talk with you soon.

 

I am getting to know the U-Boot history little by little, too. So far I have only seen "Das boot " as for my high point in this area ( yet many times! ). But hopefully I´ll learn more...

Anyway, lately I have read Otto Skrozeny´s memoirs and they do include loads of stuff in various fields. Like on the sub war and why it should have continued..

If a sub sinks a 6,000-ton freighter and a 3,000-ton tanker, we lose,for example: 42 tanks, eight 152 mm Howitzers,eighty eight 87.6 mm guns, forty 40 mm AT guns, 24 armored vehicles,50 heavy Bren machine-guns on self-propelled carriages, 52 100 tons of ammunition, 6,000 rifles, 428 tons of tank replacement parts, 2,000 tons of provisions and 1,000 barrels of gasoline.

So that explains why U-boot war was important. Unfortunately Grossadmiral Raeder never understood that.Dönitz took his place too late: January 30, 1943

In September 1939 Dönitz had 26 of 55 operatinal subs available for action, yet U-29 sank the aircraft carrier "Courageous". And in Oct 1939 U-47 sailed to Scapa Flow and sank the battle ship "Royal Oak "of 29,000 tons.

In 1942 during the first phase of Battle of the Atlantic Dönitz had 91 subs of which 23 were in the Mediterranean area. 13 involved in special missions, 33 undergoing repairs and 10 were en route to their combat zones.No more than 12 U-boats actually engaged enemy ships at any time. Dönitz´s tactics would have required about 50. The total number being 250.

On those snorkels:

The snorkel was a Dutch invention. The German Professor Walter improved the system ans as well invented the hydrogen-oxygen engine.
Dönitz had been pushing for production of revolutionary Walter U-boat since 1937. He found little understanding and it wasn´t until 1942 that the snorkel system was introduced.It was two more years until about 100 type " Walter XXI and XXIII " subs were built and finally put into service. From May 1944 older type U-boats also were fitted with the improved snorkels.

In February 1945 Jalta, Chruchill wrote:

" If the new German U-boats had been committed earlier, they could have, as Dönitz said, completely changed the result of the submarine war on account of their great speed underwater ".

In the first six months of 1942 Grman subs sank more than 3 million tons out of the total 4,147,406 tons of weapons and supplies shipped by the allied alliance.Therefore far in excess of fifty percent. 729,000 tons in November 1942 alone.The number of sips sunk exceeded the number of newly-built vessels and those under construction.

Liddel Hart wrote:

" The U-boat offensive was finally brought to an end.It is certain, however, that England came very close to defeat in March 1943 ".
All of the figures above are from the archives of the British and American admiralty Headquarters.

So with so little Dönitz manages to do so much. Quite impressive.The snorkel would have changed alot, eh? Thoughts, Gentlemen??

 

In an online wargame I'm playing at the moment I am actually in charge of the German navy. Since the game began in 1935 (we're now in 1937) there was a considerable running-up period in which to plan and build a navy.

My solution was to create a number of heavy surface battlegroups (with aircraft carriers) that can be combined into one great strike fleet if neccessary but otherwise act as independant raiding parties with great range, and a host of submarines. Plus the coastal defence vessels but we needn't go into that.

I think the u-boat war was certainly worth a try. There should have been more earlier and the snorkel should also have made a much sooner appearance.

 

Kai-thanks for your reply-however the amount of war material that was sunk after the Spring of '43 caused no serious material losses to the Allies-ie-it didn't delay a single action performed by them-Churchill's desire to fight in the Med caused more delay to Overlord, than German U boats. I agree with you as presented that the snorkel was a missed chance considering that the boats were so out-dated and air power was becoming all encompassing. I believe that had the Germans amassed a staff and R+D group even a third the size of the Allies a possible different outcome could have been reached

 

As Wolf knows from previous contact with me, I feel that the 'arrogance' of the German High Command contributed greatly to the massive losses suffered by the u-boats. The 'arrogance' that I am referring to is that they never once seriously considered that the Enigma machine could be compromised or decoded. Granted with over six million combinations it would seem unlikely.

Yet, Dönitz considered that the codes might have been broken for a short time. But he was persuaded otherwise by the powers that be that this could not happen.

Perhaps a test could have been performed similar in nature to the US Navy's fake 'broken water condenser' message in regards to Midway. A similar fake message could have been sent about a wolfpack's fake location and then use a Condor to observe Allied activites in regards to this location. If there was stepped up naval activity in that area after the fake message, then perhaps this might have been indicative of a compromised coding system.

And the liberal use of radio by BdU and the U-boats at sea also comes into question. With the development of HF-DF by the Allies, precise locations for the patrolling u-boats could then be discerned easily.

To bolster Wolf's statements, here is food for thought...from Jak Showell...

1171 u-boats built between 1935-1945
20 boats attacked, sank, or at least damaged 20 or more ships in the North Atlantic and North Sea
36 boats attacked between 11 and 19 ships
70 boats attacked between 6 and 10 ships
190 boats attacked between 1 and 5 ships
Totals 321 boats.

This leaves some 850 boats that never made an attack on an enemy ship. Granted that some of these boats were school boats, experimental craft, supply boats. But that still leaves a pretty large discrepency.

 

Thanks Herr Kaleun for the Showell stats-If anyone has ant doubts about the percent of failure of the attack boats, I propose you go to the www.uboat.net front page where it lists the boat of the day and for a two week period see how many boats had no success, or for many, destroyed on their first mission.

 

The U-boats were definately Germany's most lethal weapon, the only one with the capability of defeating Great Britain in nearly every year of the war, specially in 41, 42 and 43. But if there would have been a little more boats in 1939 and 1940 then Britain would have starved. And even in 1944 if the new U-boats would have been ready then Great Britain could have brought to its knees. But it was needed some codes-change and more cooperation from the Luftwaffe. The men of the submarine service were certainly not wasted. They did the best they could for their country and nearly won the war in the West for it. The Eastern front... there's the big problem...

 

Greetings Friedrich-thanks for your reply. Doenitz felt he needed a min. of 300 boats to bring Britian to the peace table-it was not uncommon in '40 and '41 to have less than 20 boats max at sea and at sometimes less than 5 at sea. Your point about friendly aircraft is well taken. The combination of Luftwaffe support with the boats was never really explored prior to the conflict because of the intercine problems between the Kreigsmarine and the Luftwaffe. Doenitz's inability to be more forceful about enigma penetration as detailed by Herr Kaluen, was a death sentence to the crews along with constant radio contact necessary for successful "wolfpack" operations. The boats were too dated to survive in the hostile enviroment of the convoy routes after mid '42. The material shortages and demands of the other branches of the Wehrmacht for skilled workers and industrial capacity under the constant bombardment of the Allied bombers insured that the new boats could never reach the front in time to save the Reich. One of the great U boat "what ifs" was if Schnee had fired on the Brit cruiser he stalked in his Type XXI after he broke thru undetected by the escorts. For those of us that love the boats-it breaks our hearts!

 

Wolfpack, you are right in your points! I would recomend you to read the thread: "The New Submarines" which is over here in the topic "Atlantic Naval Conflict". It is a little essay which I like written by me. I would like to read your comments. We needed more U-boat lovers around here...

 

Thank you Sir-myself and Herr Kaleun are of the breed you state.

 

Yes it would of been much better for the U-booten arm if the Luftwaffe could of been on hand with more sea escort fighters for the condors of KG 40 and a/c FAGr 5, etc. Fatty's main concern was to protect his fat butt and name by asking for complete co-operation of all armament and production firms to make the single engine fighter the top priority for the air protection of the Reich. All other theater's were to take a back seat. Now if he would of been replaced by someone much more astute and competent then things as mentioned maybe have changed in the Atlantic, other than this the Kreigsmarine, especially the undersea warriors were on their own.

E

 

You are right, Erich. A lot of more Condors were needed. They lead the U-boats to the convoys and they alone sank 110.000 tons of shipping in summer 1941!!!

Imagine, more Condors in 1940 and U-boat production of late 1942 in 1940 (30 submarines and 30 crews per month!)...

 

But the Luftwaffe did not make attempts to protect the Fw 200 and Ju 290 units. They were lone wolves in a way as well and paid the price on many an occassion. There were no German fighters to take on the Beufighters and Mosquito fighter/bombers. As I said FAT man had other uses for HIS Luftwaffe, thus his own Luftwaffe recon/bombers suffered as well as the u-boats.

E

 

Beside, Göring and Dönitz and/or Raeder were not precisely friends...

A question: Were the Condors under the command of OKL or OKM?

[ 05 October 2002, 03:57 PM: Message edited by: General der Infanterie Friedrich H ]

 

Everything with wings was OKL. Even the seaplanes carried on cruisers and battleships were under the OKL.

 

Now I can see why all was a mess...

With the OKW in Berchtesgaden, the Army in Zossen, the Luftwaffe in Potsdam and the Kriegsmarine in Paris!

 

Of course.

BTW - anybody know what the sum total of all sinkings by U-Boote was in WW2 (tonnage/ships)?

 

This is a question for Wolfpack or Herr Kaleun

Axis Submarine Success's is the title but I cannot remember the author.....shmae on me !

E