What if the Kriegsmarine decided that building large, expensive battleships was pointless for Germany, and built 100 Type VII U-boats instead of Bismarck and Tirpitz?

(NB: the figure of 100 is based on the tonnage of Bismarck - which is about equal to 50 U-boats. But 50 U-boats might cost more than Bismarck, I'm not sure about that.)

Anyway, the U-boats did far more damage to Britain than Bismarck and Tirpitz ever did. The big battleships were scarcely cost-effective.

Even together, and with Scharnhorst and Gneisenau as well, Bismarck and Tirpitz had no chance of beating the British Home Fleet in a Jutland-type fleet action - they were far too heavily outnumbered for that. And as commerce raiders they were overkill - the pocket battleships were good enough for that.

But having an extra 100 U-boats available in late 1940 might have tipped the Battle of the Atlantic in Germany's favour - since at that date Germany only had about 60 historically, which was nowhere near enough to cripple Britain's trade.

Opinions?

Let's compare the production costs:

Bismarck: 196.8 million Reichsmark (RM)
Tirpitz: RM 181.6 million
Gneisenau: RM 146.2 million
Scharnhorst: RM 143.5 million

TOTAL: RM 668.1 million for four battleships.

Production costs of a Type VII C U-Boat:RM 4.8 million.

However, one has to keep in mind that the difference in building a battleship and a u-boat are like paying, let's say $ 150,000 for a TOW-Anti-Tank System and $ 5,000,000 for a M1 Abrams MBT. Complete tactical differences.

Cheers,

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"Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!"
(President Merkin Muffley in "Dr. Strangelove")

Hindsight is a wonderful thing

However if Germany had started building an extra 100+ U-boats instead of the Bismarck and Tirpitz, it would have told the British in the 1937-8 period that Germany was indeed looking to fight Britain.
This in my view, would have made Britain stand up to Hitler far sooner than it did, maybe as soon as the annexation of Austria, and almost certainly at Munich.
If the British had stood up to Hitler, the French would almost certainly have followed, and Hitler would have been either forced to fight a war which his army was unready for, or back down.
Also the British on seeing the U-boat build up would have increased the building of escort ships at the expense of their heavy units. So while the Germans would have more U-boats the Convoys would have been better protected.

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if in doubt....Panic!!!!

Good points, redcoat. However, Britain can't cancel her battleship program easily, because Italy and Japan are building 4 fast new battleships between them, and Britain needs to counter them, since she can't rely completely on either France or America to help protect the British Empire if it is attacked by Italy and Japan.

Britain couldn't afford to cancel more than 2 of her 5 King George V class battleships, and even that is taking a big risk. Still, for each cancelled battleship, Britain could probably build about 20 convoy escorts.

The Royal Navy was much better prepared for war than the Kreigsmarine at the time of the Munich crisis in September 1938. The British Army was very small and had few modern tanks but was more or less ready - while the German tank arm had about 1500 light tanks, and about 100 Pzkpw III's and IV's.

However, the main issue for Britain was the Luftwaffe, which was larger and much more modern than the RAF, which in 1938 had only 3 squadrons of Hurricanes and 1 squadron of Spitfires, while all other fighter squadrons still had Gladiator and Gauntlet biplanes. It was the same story in the bomber squadrons - the Battle, Blenheim, and Hampden had only just started to enter squadron service. Whereas Germany had hundreds of Bf109s, Ju87s, Do17s and He111's in service. Also the British radar network was incomplete and still suffering teething technical difficulties.

The British believed that the Luftwaffe could deliver a knock-out blow to London and that the RAF would not be able to prevent it. This was a mistaken assumption, but because the RAF Marshals wouldn't guarantee the air defence of Britain yet, they advised Chamberlain that Britain wasn't ready to fight, and that war in 1939 was militarily far preferable to war now, in 1938.

This was a prime reason Chamberlain appeased Hitler at Munich in September 1938 - his military chiefs had advised him to.

Good points Redcoat. Germany building 100 U-Boats instead of Bismark and Tirpitz would have alerted Britain to possible German intentions, but as vonManstein39 says, Britain also had to watch Italy and Japan building their battleships, so chances are she would have continued with her own battleship program. More than likely Britain would have excellerated her Fleet Air Arm/Royal Navy anti-submarine warfare studies to counter-act the U-Boat threat. But she may not have openly challenged the Germans over the U-Boats.

Afterall, when Germany finally revealed the existence of the Luftwaffe, the new and larger Wehrmacht, etc. what protests were made by France and Britain were weak and fell on deaf ears. If Germany had wanted to build U-Boats instead of battleships, she would have done so regardless of world opinion.

And an extra 100 subs at the start of the war would have seriously threatened not only Britain's supply lines but also threatened the effectiveness of the Royal Navy.

Imagine if, instead of using these additional subs to attack supply ships, these subs were sent to sink Britains battleships, cruisers, and aircraft carriers, or used to just bottle up the Royal Navy in port, allowing the Kreigsmarine's other ships free run of the world's oceans.

With the Royal Navy having suffered either major ship losses to U-Boats, or being penned up in port. Britains supply lines would have been open to attack from all quarters. This could easily have led Britain to being brought to her knees, and sueing for peace.

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There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today.
- Admiral Sir David Beatty, after the destruction of the HMS Queen Mary at the Battle of Jutland, May 1916

Good points all, frankly I think that building the 100 U-boats would have brought Britian to its knees, but in the end I suspect that German nationalism and Nazi pride would build the big ships. Can't be a power and not have the capital ships in a pre-WW II era, apparently they learned nothing from WW I.

100 subs sounds fine but as in 1943 the allied started new tactics and weapons ( hedgehog, some sorta seeking missiles )the U-boot losses greatly increased like for the month of May 1943:

"Monthly Loss Summary
- 40 British, Allied and neutral ships of 204,000 tons in the Atlantic from all causes
- 37 German and 1 Italian U-boats. In addition to those lost in or around the convoy battles: 3 by RAF in North Atlantic; 6 by RAF and RAAF Bay of Biscay patrols; 4 by US forces in the North Atlantic, off Florida and Brazil; 2 by collision in the North Atlantic."

100 boats with normal battle activitty would be lost in 2-3 three months...

I guess this was the moment Dönitz said "The battle of Atlantic is lost !"

I´ll have the names of the allied weapons for this achievement elsewhere but I´ll be back on those.

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Yes, in 1943, but would Britain have survived the initial onslaught, prior to development and deployment of better sonic detectors, radar and anti-submarine weapons?

My understanding is that the British were sorely lacking in these at the start of hostilities. Throw in another 100 subs, and your starting to drop the very platforms on which they would have deployed these new weapons, Her Majesties Ships!

Yes,

in that case thinking Doenitz had free hands since the end of 1930´s to create the "Wolf pack strategy" must admit they sure had a thing for bringing England to its knees, and with some 100 more subs, even better!

But it´s the same with Afrika korps, you need to have the Hitler´s interest to have the sufficient back up, or the money would be directed to other things than just the 100 subs if the Tirpitz etc were not built.So this is strictly what if.

I just had a thought how humiliating it would have been to Goering to see how Doenitz is honoured for crushing Britain instead of him...

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