What if Hitler scrapped the surface Navy fleet in 1934?

Although that list would be tiny compared to Soviet production figures...

 

Build up the U-boat fleet, For a war against the Soviet Union ????????

In 1934 it would have needed a really good crystal ball to have knowledge that the capitalist USA would supply war materials to the communist USSR in a war against Germany !!!!!

 

While very helpful in shortening the war and saving many lives, "relied on the Lend Lease for survival" is a bit much.

 

Almost every aircraft carrier that was lost was attributed to submarines. However, the U-boats were wasted in attacks on capital ships. If Germany had either defeated Britain or made peace with them, and then went against Russia, it is doubtful that the United States would support the Russians. However, it must be remember that Germany declared war on the United States in support of Japan. That was essentially a suicide note.

My take is that Germany should have concentrated on their submarines and light attack surface ships for coastal duties. I would also think that it may be a possibility to use the French and Italian surface fleets to blockade the Med, which would be a big help. However, the failure to trust or exploit these assets in joint ops was a mistake.

 

Was all 4,474,000 tons of food Spam ?
I heard Stalin credited the saving of the Soviet Union to Spam. Gads, what nasty stuff !
Emergency protein when you need it, but.....the taste/texture/smell makes my skin crawl.

Big in Hawaii, I know.

(we need a "hurl"/"blow chunks" i-con)

 

This is clearly not true. Ark Royal and Eagle are about the only carriers sunk by submarines. Most carriers were sunk (or essentially sunk) by aircraft.

This includes:

Yorktown, Soryu, Akagi, Kaga, Hyryu, Shokaku, Zuikaku, Hiyo, Wasp, Hornet, Glorious, Hermes... Well, you get the picture.

The only way submarines normally got much of a shot against surface combatants was if the surface combatant happened to stumble across the path of the submarine giving it a shot. Surfaced subs are sitting ducks in a gunfight with warships of almost any size. Submerged, they are simply too slow to actually aquire a firing positon on a moving ship. Instead, they must hope the ship runs over their position. Think of WW 2 submarines as mobile intelligent mines.
Now, against merchants the story changes. Submarines that can operate on the surface are very dangerous to merchant ships. They act much as merchant raiders have for millinia. Their means of escaping retaliation by warships was to submerge and hide until the danger passed.

 

The threat of submarines (there or not) keeps a lot of surface ships/resources busy.
As ambushers, they're ideal. As you say .... they have to be in position first, but if they are. Yowza!
Pallawan Passage comes to mind, and others like
(if there were substantial air attacks upon with significant "U" presence)
attacks on Rabaul, Truk, Kure, Yap, even Pearl Harbor, even off New York City, from the air and those that can will run for open sea. Leaving the mouth of the harbor a bottleneck, full of torpedoes.

 

The Yorktown was sunk at Midway by a Japanese Submarine. The Shokaku was sunk during the Battle of the Philippine Sea by the submarine USS Cavala, as was the IJN Taiho by the USS Albacore. The Carrier USS Wasp was sunk by a spread of submarine launched torpedoes off Guadalcanal in late 1942.

 

HMS Courageous - Torp. by U-29, 9/17/39
HMS Ark Royal - Torp. by U-81, 11/14/41
HMS Eagle - Torp. by U-93, 3/9/42
HMS Avenger - Torp. by U-155, 11/15/42
HMCS Nabob - DBR by U-?, 8/22/44
HMS Thane - DBR by U-?, 1/15/45
USS Lexington - Torpedoed and bombed, 5/8/42
USS Yorktown -T&B(I-168) 6/7/42
USS Wasp - Torp. by I-19, 9/15/42
USS Hornet - Torp. by I-?, 10/26/42
USS Liscombe Bay - Torp. by I-175, 11/24/43
USS Block Island - Torp. by U-549, 5/29/44
Chayo -Sailfish, 12/4/43
Shokaku - Cavallia, 6/19/44
Taiho - Albacore, 6/19/44
Taiyo - Rasher, 8/18/44
Unyo - Barb, 9/16/44
Shinyo - Spadefish, 11/17/44
Shinano - Archerfish, 11/29/44
Unryu - Redfish, 12/19/44

Granted more of the Japanese ships were sunk by air attacks, but I think that until the torpedo issues were solved, most commanders did not desire to take on capital ships and their escorts. Also, eight of the carrier losses by air attacks were during two major naval battles.

Interestingly, almost no battleships/battlecruisers of any nation were sunk by submarines.

 

I should also mention that when I made that statement, I was mainly thinking about British carriers. The only one sank by aircraft was HMS Hermes, while the HMS Glorious was sank by the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and HMS Dasher was destroyed by a gas explosion. No USN CVs were taken out by air without a sub being involved. 3-CVEs were taken out by kamikaze attacks, and one by gunfire. Also one CVL (Princeton) was sunk by a bomb.

 

Please don't go misquoting people, I never even suggested such a thing!

 

When I posted that building up the submarine forces in 1934 was going against Hitler's political objectives, you posted the following,

Which at the very least implies that building up the U-boat fleet was a useful objective for war with the Soviet Union.

Truth is, in 1934 Germany building up the submarine fleet only seriously threaten's one nation and that's Britain, who alone amongst the major European powers relied on merchant shipping for her very survival.

 

Well if you mean that cutting off the troops, weapons, ammo, oil ect coming across the Atlantic to prepare for the D-Day invasion. Which is the 2nd front Stalin pleaded with Allied Command for; as going to war with Russia. Then your right I digress!

My humble apologies Red Coat.

 

From the Naval Institute published in 1947
Japanese Merchant Marine ship losses (over 500 GRT)
From December 1941-August 1945
left to right
losses due to, number of ships, GRT (Totals), disabled... Grand Total(#/GRT)
Army Air - 260 - 774,680 - 40/134,892...300/909,572
Navy land based Air - 130.5 - 363,518 - 14/19,650...144.5/383,168
Carrier Air - 359.5 - 1,329,184 - 34/123,951...393.5/1,453,135
Submarines - 1,150.5 - 4,859,634 - 2/1,683...1,152.5/4,861,317
Mines - 210 - 397,412 - 147/420.725...356/818,137
Surface Gunfire - 16.5 - 77,145 - 2/8,811...18.5/85,956

 

I don't doubt that a larger U-baot force would greatly increase the risk to Britain. But has anyone considered the amount of resorces that were tasked with finding information or hunting down the German surface fleet. Just in the case of the Tirpitz the RN kept several ships on standby incase she came out of port. MILORG(the military arm of the Norwegian resistance) had been tasked with gathering intell on her and the level or readyness of ALL POSSIBLE anchorages on the Norwegian coast. Was the target of 3 underwater raids by Britian and at least one by Russia(K-21 claimed a hit but the crew of the Tirpitz only found out of the attack when they picked up the subs report) and at least five air attacks all before she was sunk. Quite a bit to allocate to one surface vessel. IMHO the larger the Kriegsmarine the more resources would have been sent to hunting it down.