That is true, but he did have significant input as the operational commander of U-boats. It's very probably true also that Doenitz would have preferred the majority of U-boats to be Type VII's with only a handful of Type II's for training and some Type IX's special missions and support. Doenitz did not fully realize the shortcomings of the Type VII's until too late in the war.

Gentelmen:

Suppose they had not built the Aircraft Carrier Graf Zepplin to 90 percent compleation and used that for advanced U Boats. I know that is changing the subject but it is good historical speculation,

As Ever,

Walter L. Marlowe

( Airborne all the Way)

The original what-if supposed that Germany did not build the Bismarck/Tirpitz class battleships and instead built 100 additional U-boats, (presumably 750-ton Type VII's), so substituting the Graf Zeppelin would not, in terms of tonnage, equal the two battleships; I have seen conflicting data on the GZ's displacement, but the largest figure is about 33,000 tons which would equate to the displacement of only about 44 Type VII's.

Additionally, building 100 additional U-boats would require far more yard space (slips) and skilled labor than building the GZ, and the production of diesel engines would also have to have been increased, so there is really no equivalency between the GZ and 100 U-boats. Then there would also be the manning problem to overcome.

Those are the obvious objections, but it also is likely that building an additional 100 U-boats prior to WW II, instead of a couple of battleships (or a carrier), would very likely have triggered alarms in the naval communities of both Britain and the US. This would have meant both countries would be likely to build far more ASW escorts than they did historically, largely negating the effect an additional 100 U-boats would have on the early stages of the battle of the Atlantic. The RAF's Coastal Command would also have received far more attention than historically.

Even if that didn't happen, if the Germans were somehow able to build those U-boats in secret (an unlikely event), I seriously doubt 100 additional U-boats would have been decisive. It would have meant an additional 33 operational U-boats at sea in 1939, but historical sinking rates per U-boat suggest this wouldn't have been enough to effectively cut the supply routes to Britain. The Germans actually achieved this approximate figure in late 1942 (only about 55 were Type VII's) and still never came close to sinking a decisive number of merchant ships. As Clay Blair points out in his book, "Hitler's U-boat War", U-boats, regardless of their numbers, were never able to sink more than about 2% of the merchant ships transiting the Atlantic, and this was far below the rate necessary to produce decisive results.

Some points:no one can deny that the German big ships were useless in WWII;no one can deny that they were useless in WWI ;my conclusion is that the best possibility for the Germans had been no Bismarck etc but U Boats . Would that have been decisive? Maybe,maybe not. We will never known ,but it is certain that with the U Boats the Germans would have had a bigger chance than with the big ships like in 1914.An other point:in 1914 the money for the big ships meaned less money for the army that was not strong enough for the schlieffenplan. Ludendorf wanted more money for the army,but there was not enough and the politicians refused to increase taxes;result:Ludendorf was fired and the Schlieffenplan failed. In 1939 it was the same:not enough money for the army and the Luftwaffe. At the "Hossbachconference" in 1937 Goering was right:the Germans had better done to distribute the money and the raw materials to the U Boats and the Luftwaffe and to the motorisation of the army;the accomplishment of the Zplan was impossible :it required enormous supplies of raw materials and oil which Germany never could buy:U_Boats were much cheaper and maybe effective and the big ships were costly and useless. Conclusion:If I was Hitler ,I had fired in 1935 Raeder and the old gang and had appointed Donitz commander of the KM.Germany's chances would not have been worse .

Well, i've got a better idea. What if they built god knows how many stukas to further obliterate British cities? Or what if they developed a landing force that could take Britain? Hmm?

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To the German Commander-- Nuts.

-- The American Commander

Why would you want to do this? They lacked the speed, range and payload to be an effective strategic bomber and were mostly withdrawn from combat over British Isles during the Battle of Britain due to significant losses.

This has been discussed ad nauseum.

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Best Regards,
JW

The Type VII was really short-sighted on Germany's part. It was designed as a submarine for commerce warfare against one country: Britain. The problem with this was that it really couldn't operate in the mid and Western Atlantic off the US. It was too short ranged to engage shipping in the South Atlantic and outside the Atlantic as well.

What the Germans really needed was a large submarine of the sort the US and Japan were building. That is, one that could travel 15 to 25,000 miles without refueling, carried alot of reloads and could stay at sea for well over a month at a time. By being able to move into the South Atlantic, engage shipping in the Indian Ocean, and elsewhere it gives the British a much larger problem.
First, they have to institute convoy practices in places they historically didn't need them. This slows the pace of merchant shipping dramatically even if it does reduce the losses to submarines some.
Next, the British would have needed far more escorts than they could ever possibly build to combat such a threat. Historically, they were very short on escorts for most of the war just trying to deal with the threat in the mid and Eastern Atlantic. Adding millions of additional square miles of ocean to be covered only makes the whole process of stopping a u-boat war more difficult.
The bottom line is still tonnage. It doesn't matter where it goes down, what should have mattered to the Germans was that it was British. So, sinking ships off Australia or India is just as effective as sinking them off Britian herself.

Wrong on both points. They were far from useless. That's not to say there weren't better investments that the Germans could have made with the capital spent on them but they clearly played a significant role in both wars.

They were far from useless, they gave the Royal Navy excellent target practice in real-life situations both times!

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Happy Trails,
Clint.

What significant role ? In ww I :the battle of Jutland,if there was no battle,would the result of WW I have been different (from a German or British point of view ) ? In ww II the first time the Bismarck was in action,he was immobilized by British aircraft and then scuttled ;he sank one old British ship ;the British could allow the loss of the Hood. The Tirpitz ....was hiding in a Norwegian fjord. You could say that the Tirpitz was tieing the Home Fleet and that after the end of the Tirpitz,the Home Fleet could be send to the pacific .Good for Japan,but was the mission of the Tirpitz to help Japan . In fact,after WW I for an intelligent naval officer it was obvious that the role of the battle ships was over,but Raeder,who was living in the past,wanted the same navy as in 1914,while the only case the UK was in danger,was in 1917 due ....to the U Boats.

Because the Germans made poor tactical and operational choices doesn't mean that their fleet was irrelevant. Bismarck could have been more useful if handled properly. For example, what if Scharnhorst and / or Gneisenau were available and sent to sea with her along with one or more fast replenishment ships the Germans had?
In operation Berlin Scharnhorst and Gneisenau proved very effective at merchant raiding and capable of evading the RN as well.
A similar operation with two or all three could have been equally effective.

At Jutland the Germans chose to withdraw rather than fight. What if they chose to fight instead? If a major portion of the British fleet went down it would have been an unmitigated disaster for England. For Germany, a land power, a fleet is a luxury and could have been done without.
The result of a fight to the finish at Jutland was a losing proposition only for the British. Yet, the Germans retreated because they failed to really grasp the strategic significance of sea power.

Without German capital ships the RN would have had a free hand in the North Sea and Med as well as potentially in the Baltic. Furthermore the High Sea fleet was potent enough to threaten the RN. If they got careless enough a couple of naval victories could have put Britain under a great deal of additional stress. So in this conflict they were far from useless.
You need to learn to seperate potential from what actually happened. I would consider Bisarck as having been in action a number of times. At Denmarck straits she won a clear victory over a pair of British capital ships and if she had returned home at that point it would have been of considerable worth.
She also threatened the Murmansk convoys and contributed to losses on that run to a significant extent. The Pacific wasn't the only place the home fleet could have been used either. Indeed without the German BBs the Med would proably have been a British lake from very early inthe war.
Battleships played a number of important roles in WWII. So wrong again.

Like the Yamato ? In the Pacific ,the battle -ships were used as artillery shooting on the islands occupied by the Japanese,when the marines were attacking them ,the Bismarck was immobilised by British aircraft and doomed . And the Prince of Wales and the Repulse ?? That the Tirpitz was considered by the British as a "fleet in beying" ,yes,but was that that an advantage for the Germans ? Last point:were there any battle ships build after WW II ? And if not,why ? Because they were ...useless ?

But we are talking about BBs as a groupl
They were also used as carrier escorts, against surface ships, and for bombarment of opposing installations. Ie multiple uses.
And the Glorious was quickly destroyed by German BBs. Note that RN BBs were required to sink Bismarck and the Royal Oaks planes wouldn't even have got a chance at Bismarck if it hadn't been for the shells of POW.
It meant that considerable more escort was required for the Murmanks runs and the reaction to one of her sorties resulted in very heavy losses to said convoy.
Yes
Not because they were useless, but because they were no longer viewed as cost effective. Especially since the only countries left with them were pretty firm allies. Indeed near the end of the war BBs (at least US ones) were quite capable of defending themselves vs air attack as long as it wasn't overwhelming (ie more than a couple CVs worth of planes). Note that the US recommisioned it's BBs on several occasions hardly something they would do for a useless vessel.

From "The Hunter Hunted" by Robert C. Stern
Chapter 9:

Quote:

. . . To win the war, Donitz figured in 1940, would take a monthly toll of 700,000 GRT of shipping sent to the bottom. Since the average freighter in 1940 was perhaps 5,000 GRT, that meant something like 140 ships would need to be sunk each month. He calculated that if that rate could be maintained for two years, Germany would win.

From Endnotes for Chapter 9:

Quote:

Donitz, if fact, was well off in his projections, because he never counted on the ability or willingness of the Americans to mass-produce merchant ships. By the end of the war, US shipyards had delivered over 56 million GRT of cargo shipping. When the Liberty Ship programme peaked in December 1943, new construction exceeded losses by 1.4 million GRT that month alone.

From 1939-1943: BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIC
　
Everything I have read about Donitz suggests to me that he was an intelligent military mind. I'm not sure how he came up with his calculations, but I'm willing to assume that his base figure of sunk GRT to knock GB out of the war had some validity. However, did he really believe he could ever achieve a sustained sinking rate of 700,000 GRT per month for two years?? Even with 100 Type VII boats at sea (meaning 300 in commission), sinking an average of five ships per day for two years seems utterly fantastic to me. As Stern noted, he obviously never counted on America's involvement and I would submit, an assumption that the British would never develop their own effective anti-sub measures either. As noted above, even during "Happy Times" I & II, his maximum GRT sunk was 500,000/month (admittedly impressive!) and before his enemies started to figure out how to deal with the problem.

I recognize that this is an old thread and some of this info was already pointed out, however, I think this clearly knocks out this "what if", even with three times the number of U-boats initially proposed.
　

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"I do not have to tell you who won the war. You know, the artillery did." - Gen. George S. Patton
"In 9 months and 3 days of combat on the Continent the 949th FA Bn had fired 51,000 rounds of ammunition, approximately 2,550 tons." - Unit History

After ww II several navies retained their existing battleships,but they were no longer strategically dominant military assests.Indeed,it soon became apparent they were no longer worth the considerable cost of construction and maintenance and NO NEW SHIPS OF THIS CLASS WERE COMMISSIONED . Source: Wikipedia :Battleship

See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Vanguard_(1944)

Good point, and I just entered a correction in the Wikipedia entry about battleships to reflect that.

Note to all, Wikipedia IS NOT 100% accurate, and historical information should be researched.

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"I love deadlines. I love the 'Whooshing' noise they make when they go by." - Doug Adams