# German Bomber design rational



## Robert Porter (Nov 18, 2016)

Out of curiosity I have always wondered why the Germans did not build and operate heavy bombers such as the B-17 and B-24? They certainly had the technical ability to create bombers with equal performance and payload. I have read several places that this was a decision made early in the war not to do so, but have never heard an explanation of the rational. Especially early in the Battle of Britain when heavy bombers could conceivably have caused a great deal more damage? 

Or am I incorrect and they did operate such bombers?


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## GrauGeist (Nov 18, 2016)

The Germans did have heavy bombers such as the He177 and the Do217 but they lacked a cohesive strategic heavy bombing strategy.


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## Shortround6 (Nov 18, 2016)

There are a lot of threads here that touch on that subject.
But basically _nobody _had large numbers of large 4 engine bombers in 1940. 
From a production standpoint every 4 engine bomber was worth 2 twin engine bombers.

_Everybody _in the 1930s made 3 assumptions that proved false.
a. everybody over estimated the damage bombs would cause which made them think that bombers with small bomb loads would be effective.
b. everybody over estimated the tendency of the population at large (civilians) to panic under bombardment and riot in the streets bringing about the fall of the government/s under bombardment and the suing for peace.
c. everybody overestimated the ability of the bomber to "always get through" the enemy air defenses. This meant slow bombers and bombers with weak defensive armament were judged to be OK. 

And we are back to the fast progress of aeronautical knowledge. What they could build in 1942 was not what they could build in 1938. and the engines they had in 1942 were not the engines that they had in 1938-39. This applies to all the combatants, not just Germany. 

The Germans did build around 1200 He 177s





Two engines drove each propeller. They didn't use them all that often (for various reasons.) and they didn't become operational until 1942.


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## Robert Porter (Nov 18, 2016)

GrauGeist said:


> The Germans did have heavy bombers such as the He177 and the Do217 but they lacked a cohesive strategic heavy bombing strategy.


I have read that part of the design criteria those bombers had to meet was a form of dive bombing or glide bombing in order to improve accuracy. But apparently they had little luck. If I am reading their specs right each had a bomb load capacity of around 2000 lbs or a little over, but they seem to have been primarily used on the eastern front and saw little action on the western front which speaks to your point of no cohesive strategic strategy.


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## Robert Porter (Nov 18, 2016)

Shortround6 said:


> There are a lot of threads here that touch on that subject.
> But basically _nobody _had large numbers of large 4 engine bombers in 1940.
> From a production standpoint every 4 engine bomber was worth 2 twin engine bombers.
> 
> ...


As I recall they did have designs/plans for the so called America bomber but it never saw production I think.


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## Robert Porter (Nov 18, 2016)

Shortround6 said:


> There are a lot of threads here that touch on that subject.
> But basically _nobody _had large numbers of large 4 engine bombers in 1940.
> From a production standpoint every 4 engine bomber was worth 2 twin engine bombers.
> 
> ...


I wondered about the actual effectiveness of bombing campaigns. I think they did a lot of good for the allies but less than was hoped for. Again, from what I have read most of that was due to greater than realized de-centralization of production facilities and the overall resiliency of the German production facilities. One can't help wonder what difference a cohesive bombing campaign by the Axis against the UK would have produced. 

One story, have no idea how true, I have often read variants of it, was that Hitler was so incensed by an early bombing of Berlin that he ordered the Luftwaffe to cease attacking RAF bases and focus on cities. And that if he had not done so the RAF may well have been finished off.


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## Shortround6 (Nov 18, 2016)

An america bomber was pie in the sky wishful thinking. The B-29 could NOT fly from a North American base, bomb anything in Europe and return to a North American base. Americans _started _what would become the B-36 bomber project in April of 1941.

From Joe Baugher's web site. 

"....design competition for a bomber with a 450 mph top speed, a 275 mph cruising speed, a service ceiling of 45,000 feet, and a maximum range of 12,000 miles at 25,000 feet. It had to be able to carry a 10,000 pound bombload a distance of 5000 miles away and return, and had to be able to carry 72,000 pounds of bombs over a reduced range. It had to be able to take off and land on a 5000-foot runway. These requirements were far beyond the state of the art at the time."

See: Convair XB-36 Peacemaker

Chances of Germany actually producing a plane that could perform such a mission during 1940-45 was effectively zero.


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## Robert Porter (Nov 18, 2016)

Shortround6 said:


> An america bomber was pie in the sky wishful thinking. The B-29 could NOT fly from a North American base, bomb anything in Europe and return to a North American base. Americans _started _what would become the B-36 bomber project in April of 1941.
> 
> From Joe Baugher's web site.
> 
> ...


That was my feeling as well. I just don't see how it could have been accomplished with the available technology of the day. This is what I found on the concept, but consider the source. Amerika Bomber - Wikipedia


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## Shortround6 (Nov 18, 2016)

Robert Porter said:


> One story, have no idea how true, I have often read variants of it, was that Hitler was so incensed by an early bombing of Berlin that he ordered the Luftwaffe to cease attacking RAF bases and focus on cities. And that if he had not done so the RAF may well have been finished off.



The Germans _might _have been able to force the RAF to abandon the forward airfields (the ones closest to the coast) which would have put a much larger strain on the RAF but that is hardly _finishing off _the RAF. The 109s didn't have the range to escort the bombers much past London which left the RAF an awful lot of England to fly out of and engage the Germans.

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## Greyman (Nov 18, 2016)

Shortround6 said:


> _Everybody _in the 1930s made 3 assumptions that proved false.
> a. everybody over estimated the damage bombs would cause which made them think that bombers with small bomb loads would be effective.
> b. everybody over estimated the tendency of the population at large (civilians) to panic under bombardment and riot in the streets bringing about the fall of the government/s under bombardment and the suing for peace.
> c. everybody overestimated the ability of the bomber to "always get through" the enemy air defenses. This meant slow bombers and bombers with weak defensive armament were judged to be OK.



In a broad sense I don't think these are necessarily false. While it does seem that the effectiveness of conventional bombs was over-estimated before the war, one thing most academics were planning on was a no-holds-barred conflict where a good proportion of bombs loaded with some pretty horrifying chemical agents were very much on the table. 

There are many that would argue that we might have seen things play out differently if one side decided to go all-out.


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## Shortround6 (Nov 18, 2016)

Robert Porter said:


> That was my feeling as well. I just don't see how it could have been accomplished with the available technology of the day. This is what I found on the concept, but consider the source. Amerika Bomber - Wikipedia



Again you have the disconnect between prewar thinking and actual results. The bomb loads they _thought _would burn an entire city were off by a factor of several hundred. The idea that even a few squadrons of bombers could destroy New York was ludicrous. Hundreds of fire trucks and thousands of firemen on duty at any given time mean that New York had as good or better fire protection than any city in Europe.

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## Shortround6 (Nov 18, 2016)

Greyman said:


> In a broad sense I don't think these are necessarily false. While it does seem that the effectiveness of conventional bombs was over-estimated before the war, one thing most academics were planning on was a no-holds-barred conflict where a good proportion of bombs loaded with some pretty horrifying chemical agents were very much on the table.
> 
> There are many that would argue that we might have seen things play out differently if one side decided to go all-out.



Well, to point "A" on my list, most German bombers were rigged to hold large numbers of 110lb bombs (He 111 could hold 32) and the British seemed to favor 250lb bombs in most 1930s designs even of 4 engine bombers. It was found that 500lb bombs were about the minimum effective against large buildings. 
and again, the tonnage of bombs needed to really destroy parts of a city were underestimated by a huge factor. Damaging or destroying a few buildings per block was one thing, destroying entire blocks was something else. Damaging the water mains and firefighting ability was also harder to do than originally thought. 
Point B, Few, if any, city populations _ever_ rioted in the streets after a bomb raid or even series of raids in any country. There may have been thousands of refugees fleeing a city but not uprisings against the government.
ANd C. Most people (countries) gave up on un-escorted daylight bombing raids real quick and switched to night attacks if there was any real opposition in the air.


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## wuzak (Nov 18, 2016)

Robert Porter said:


> I have read that part of the design criteria those bombers had to meet was a form of dive bombing or glide bombing in order to improve accuracy. But apparently they had little luck. If I am reading their specs right each had a bomb load capacity of around 2000 lbs or a little over, but they seem to have been primarily used on the eastern front and saw little action on the western front which speaks to your point of no cohesive strategic strategy.



No:

Heinkel He 177 - Wikipedia
"*Bombs:* Up to 6,000 kg (13,227 lb) of ordnance internally/7,200 kg (15,873 lb) externally or up to 3 Fritz X or Henschel Hs 293PGMs (w/FuG 203 _Kehl_MCLOS transmitter installed)"

Dornier Do 217 - Wikipedia

Max Load 4,000 kilograms (8,800 lb) internally & externally.
Max Internal Load 3,000 kilograms (6,600 lb).
Of course the bomb load would vary with range.


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## Robert Porter (Nov 18, 2016)

Shortround6 said:


> Again you have the disconnect between prewar thinking and actual results. The bomb loads they _thought _would burn an entire city were off by a factor of several hundred. The idea that even a few squadrons of bombers could destroy New York was ludicrous. Hundreds of fire trucks and thousands of firemen on duty at any given time mean that New York had as good or better fire protection than any city in Europe.


Oh I did not say I thought anything of the sort, just musing over what was being thought of. And the Amerika bomber was certainly beyond what WW2 Germany could produce especially with the constraints in place during the war on material and manufacturing capacity. Please don't jump to conclusions as I was honestly not saying it was practical nor possible just that it had been discussed.


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## Shortround6 (Nov 18, 2016)

I know you didn't say it but there are a lot of websites and at least one book if not more advancing the idea. 
And don't get me wrong,the Americans managed to come up with a few (or more than a few) misguided ideas of their own.
As did the British. 
Project for defeating German Beach defenses. 

_View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cyBcGDzQzI_


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## Airframes (Nov 18, 2016)

Another factor to remember when considering Germany's lack of 'heavy' or strategic bombers - the Luftwaffe was a tactical air force, who's role was supposed to be the support of the Army in the advance. It's organisation and equipment were built around this doctrine, with the resulting 'problems' encountered when operating in, or as close to, a strategic role.

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## Shortround6 (Nov 18, 2016)

This is another one of those things that is a near myth.
The Initial German bombers, the JU-52, Do 11/13/23 and the later Ju 86 were hardly "tactical bombers" nor were the early He 111s or DO 17s








Sure, they _could _be used to bomb supply points or bridges/road junctions and supply columns but they could also be used against *most *opponents, cities, factories and ports. Russia being an exception but then NOBODY had planes in 1937-41 that could fly distances needed to attack much of Russia is squadron numbers. (Whitley perhaps excepted) 
The HE 111B as in the top photo used DB 600 engines (with carbs) and had 950hp for take-off and 910hp at 13,120ft. There is only so much you can do with engines of that power. max range with 1653lbs of bombs was 1030miles and range with max bomb load (3,307lbs) was 565 miles.
Max range of a JU-87B Stuka with an 1100lb bomb was 370 miles.
Tactical radius of these planes was ?????
A 400 mile radius was sufficient for a German bomber to hit most of France with the Brest peninsula and the Pyrenees mountains excepted. It was enough to reach all the way across Poland. And it was enough to Hit a good part of England. It is about 380-385 miles from Essen to Sheffield. It was _just _possiable to hit Liverpool from German soil with a 400 mile radius but the airfield would have been very close to the border. It was likewise just about 400-410 miles from German soil to Bergen Norway. It is just about 400 miles form the German border (now) to the Romanian border, flying over Austria and Hungary.
This means that the Germans could threaten most if not all of her likely enemies with air attack over a large percentage of their countries with planes having an operational radius of 400 miles or so. AS Germany acquired more territory (Austria, the Sudetenland, etc) the reach of the bombers increased. 
As engines got more powerful the range and bomb load increased.

edit. top photo may be of a He 111E with 1010hp Jumo 211 for take-off. range 932 miles with 2200lb of bombs.

Given the continental distances the need for bombers with 600-800 mile of operational radius was actually minimal. And given the fact that it is about 700 miles from Warsaw to Moscow a plane that would be capable of strategic bombing against the Russians, even if Poland was captured, required a rather large leap in capability/engine power.


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## Robert Porter (Nov 18, 2016)

It would seem the Luftwaffe was used in a role very much like the Army had wanted the Air Corps used for initially. But they somehow became stuck in that role whereas the Air Corps gradually gained more and more role autonomy as the war progressed. I think what I am understanding is Strategic vs Tactical uses of an Air Force? Is that correct?

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## GrauGeist (Nov 19, 2016)

Robert Porter said:


> I have read that part of the design criteria those bombers had to meet was a form of dive bombing or glide bombing in order to improve accuracy. But apparently they had little luck. If I am reading their specs right each had a bomb load capacity of around 2000 lbs or a little over, but they seem to have been primarily used on the eastern front and saw little action on the western front which speaks to your point of no cohesive strategic strategy.


There was a fixation by the RLM that nearly everything should be dive-bomb capable. This ideology would cause a great deal of delays and frustrations with German aircraft design.

Regarding the He177's bombload you mentioned, the "Grief" carried 2,000 pounds of ordnance however it carried far more than that. It was originally conceived for the "Bomber A" proposal in 1936, where the requirements were to carry a 2,000 pound bombload a distance of 3,100 miles WHILE being able to maintain minimum speeds of 311 mph @ altitude so perhaps this is what you were thinking of?

The He177 went through a great deal of trial during it's development: the divebombing requirement - which cost alot of time and effort only to fail in the end, evaporative cooling tests, engines, landing gear and so on.

In the end, it proved itself to be a capable bomber, but it's main shortcoming was actually lack of fuel and more were lost sitting on the ground than in the air.

It's internal stores capacity was 13,230 pounds plus it had external hardpoints for additional ordnance including torpedoes.


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## stona (Nov 19, 2016)

Shortround6 said:


> This is another one of those things that is a near myth.



I'm glad you said 'near myth'. Wever, responsible for the development of Luftwaffe doctrine, was certainly not an out an out follower of the doctrines developed on the similar theories of Douhet, Mitchell or Trenchard.

_Luftwaffendienstvorschrift 16: Luftkriegsführung_ (_Luftwaffe_ Service Regulation l6: Conduct of the Air War) on which Luftwaffe doctrine up to WW2 was based laid down three points: 

1) subjugation of the enemy air force in order to achieve and maintain air superiority.

2) support of the army and navy (neither of which operated any aircraft independently).

3) attack against the enemy industry.

And in that order. Practically the 'subjugation of the enemy air force' was best achieved whilst it was on the ground. The second point already concedes a certain degree of subordination to the Army. The third point did not imply a huge strategic campaign of the type launched in 1943 by the Allies. It was closer to that launched by the Luftwaffe against, for example, British ports in 1940/41 or that launched less successfully by the British at the same time against oil and industrial targets in the Ruhr.
It is not true that no thought was given to a strategic capability, but the Luftwaffe was developed primarily as a tactical air force.
A very important difference to British doctrine was that the defence of the Homeland was primarily the task of the Flak arm, also controlled by the Luftwaffe, not the Army, with cooperation from the Luftwaffe.

As far as the adoption of, in Anglo-Americam terms, medium bombers, one should look at the lessons learned by the Luftwaffe in Spain, where the performance of the He 111 exceeded expectation and certainly influenced later planning. This was confused with competing requirements, but the Ju 88 was probably the outstanding result.

Cheers

Steve


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## tomo pauk (Nov 19, 2016)

There was plenty of similarities in British and German approach to the designing of bombers, with important exception that LW have had Ju-87 for pin-point attacks on mostly the frontline targets, while RAF was trying to bulk up the numbers with single engined strategic bomber, the Fairey Battle. The bulk of German bomber force was represented in the He 111, a strategic bomber indeed by late 1930s/early 1940s standard.


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## Shortround6 (Nov 19, 2016)

stona said:


> I'm glad you said 'near myth'. Wever, responsible for the development of Luftwaffe doctrine, was certainly not an out an out follower of the doctrines developed on the similar theories of Douhet, Mitchell or Trenchard.
> 
> _Luftwaffendienstvorschrift 16: Luftkriegsführung_ (_Luftwaffe_ Service Regulation l6: Conduct of the Air War) on which Luftwaffe doctrine up to WW2 was based laid down three points:
> 
> ...



The Luftwaffe certainly managed to hit quite a number of 'strategic targets' quite aside from attacking the ports, however 'hitting' a strategic target is quite different than 'destroying' it. Luftwaffe wasn't very good at follow up damage assessment (Hmmm, where have we seen that before  How many British aircraft plants suffered bomb damage even if not destroyed in 1940? 
French had very few "heavy bombers" and the ones they had in numbers (around 80) were just about obsolete when built.





a variant was the first allied bomber to bomb Berlin. Single plane raid. 




Italians had what for strategic bombers in 1940? a few prototypes and tooling up for the Piaggo 108?
Japanese bombed cities using single engine and twin engine bombers, sometimes at considerable distances considering the time (late 30s). Strategic bombing? 

Germany's resources were not unlimited and given the limits of aircraft of the time (and actual knowledge of target effect and so on) the German decisions to build what they did build in the mid and late 30s (things got crazier later) seems sound. The main bomber, the He 111, had a range and payload comparable to most of it's contemporaries and as shown previously, the range to attack a very large percentage of likely targets. Building specialized aircraft to attack the small percentage of remaining targets at the cost it would have entailed (many fewer bombers) doesn't seem like a good trade-off.


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## stona (Nov 19, 2016)

Primary factors effecting British bomber designs in the early '30s, prior to the emergence of Germany as a threat were:

1) Distance to Paris as criterion for range of day bombers which would comprise the main striking force. Bombing a potential enemy's capital is clearly in line with Douhet/Trenchardian orthodoxy and not the same as the doctrine that would influence German designs. The development of these British aircraft was heavily influenced by the discussions at the Geneva Disarmament Conference, the outcome of which was deemed likely to influence the size of future bombers. No replacement heavy night bomber was planned for this reason.

2) Subsequently Japanese aggression in Far East and then 1936 Abyssinian Crisis introduced requirements for ferry range to reinforce Middle and far East.

3) Emergence of Germany as European threat led to demands for increased operational range, speed and armament. It was these factors that led to the development of much larger bombers than had previously been sought by the RAF.

The He 111 was designed in accordance with the principles laid out in L.Dv. 16 and I think it a stretch to describe it as a strategic bomber. The Germans envisaged conflict with near continental neighbors, literally on their borders. They did not have the Imperial commitments of the United Kingdom.

The emergence of the single engine bomber in the RAF has a rather convoluted history. In the 1920s there were two classes of RAF day bombers, high and medium performance. Through much of the 1930s the Hawker Hart and its derivatives best represented the high performance day bomber class. It filled twenty five squadrons. Until 1935 the squadron of twin engined Sidestrands, formed in 1929, was the only representative of the medium performance class.
In October 1930 the department of the Air Member for Supply and Research (AMSR, that man Dowding again) put forward a project for a _'High Speed 1000lb Bomber' _ which was to have _'Twin F or H engines ....to carry twice bomb load of present types and great speed or defence'. _The Flying Operations 1 (FO1, Maund) advised the Air Staff that if this was an intended replacement for the Hart it was neither asked for, nor required. If on the other hand the AMSR was seeking to perpetuate the Sidestrand class, despite what Dowding admitted were _'its admitted disabilities of strategic mobility', t_hen Maund thought that the proposed aircraft was too large._ "2H engines to drop 1000lb of bombs is rather like giving a battle cruiser 4" guns as primary armament' _was his comment.
It was the AMSR (Dowding) who then suggested that such an aircraft might be powered by a single engine, he had in mind the Griffon.
It was as a consequence of this exchange that the genuinely important (vital?) issue of evasion versus defence, or high versus medium performance, became obscured in argument about the relative merits of twin or single engine bombers.
The consequences would be felt by those Battle crews, dispatched to support the BEF in 1939/40.

Cheers

Steve


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## stona (Nov 19, 2016)

Shortround6 said:


> How many British aircraft plants suffered bomb damage even if not destroyed in 1940?



Aircraft plants were expressly part of point 1 in L.Dv. 16. By attacking these the Luftwaffe was simply carrying out its primary objective, subjugation of the enemy air force.

Cheers

Steve


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## stona (Nov 19, 2016)

tomo pauk said:


> There was plenty of similarities in British and German approach to the designing of bombers, with important exception that LW have had Ju-87 for pin-point attacks on mostly the frontline targets,.



This is actually a dissimilarity.

Dive bombing was acknowledged to be more accurate. The Germans demanded a dive bombing capability in their bombers precisely because they were expected to engage precise targets, often in support of the army.

The Japanese and Americans adopted dive bombing in their naval aviation to sink ships.

The British never developed a dive bomber of their own (excluding late war fighter bombers) and only used some imports in limited numbers in the Far East. They considered torpedoes the best way of sinking ships (by the simple expedient of letting water in) the Swordfish was not a dive bomber. Their bombers were never intended as precision bombers, this dates back to WWI. They were developing a strategic force. Using some of those 'medium', if single engine, bombers in support of the army in the early stages of the war proved disastrous.

Cheers

Steve


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## Shortround6 (Nov 19, 2016)

Both Britain and Germany had bombed each other in WW I and, had the war gone on longer, would have used more bombers and more powerful ones (larger was a bit hard to do, HP V/1500 and German giants being close to maximum practical size.)
Apparently some of the lessons were forgotten between the wars.

We may also be arguing a bit about the exact meaning of "strategic bombing" and we might get in a loop.
Yes bombing aircraft factories may be considered part of subjugating an enemy air force but at what level? tactical? grand tactical? strategic? and if you subjugate the enemy air force then you are free to attack enemy industry/s that are NOT air power related.

Was bombing the German fuel industry a way to subjugate the German air force? granted the land forces used considerable amounts of fuel but I hope you get the meaning. The crossover from strategic to tactical, tactical in sense of limiting an enemies ability to wage a certain type of warfare vs affecting land/sea battles while they are going on, can get very blurry. For instance in Europe a railroad bridge can be used to bring trainloads of troops/supplies to the front, depending on were the front is. It can hold trains carrying coal or iron ore to steel mills. Is it a tactical target or a strategic target?

One might well compare the He111 to the Wellington or Hampden. And limit the Wellington to the non Hercules versions. Were the .Wellington or Hampden tactical or strategic bombers? The fact that they weren't real good at it goes back to available engines, knowledge of structures and budgets. How many planes for how much money.

We can also look at the _Knickebein _beam system which had aerials going up in 1939 to show that the Germans were at least giving some thought to long range bombing operations (comparatively speaking) and navigation and not using He 111s and Do 17s to bomb enemy armies in front of their own armies which is the impression some authors seem to be giving. Not you. 

"_The He 111 was designed in accordance with the principles laid out in L.Dv. 16 and I think it a stretch to describe it as a strategic bomber. The Germans envisaged conflict with near continental neighbors, literally on their borders. They did not have the Imperial commitments of the United Kingdom_."

This is mostly true but it also points out that a German Strategic bomber didn't need the range of a British Strategic bomber. The Germans didn't have the long distance commitments and it would have been foolish to build a fleet of bombers that had much more range than needed. AS noted before a 400 mile operational radius would cover quite a number of potential targets.
I got the 400 mile radius as an offshoot of another thread in which it was stated that the British often figured the operational radius as the range minus one hour at cruising speed then divided by two. Fairey Battle, early Blenheims having an operation radius of about 400 miles, (1000 miles minus 1 hour act cruise/2) Wellingtons and Hampdens with full bomb loads could do a bit more.


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## davebender (Nov 19, 2016)

Germans did have heavy bombers such as the He177
Germany did not produce many heavy bombers for a very simple reason. Heavy bombers are very expensive to produce and operate. Not producing heavy bombers allowed them to maximize production of fighter aircraft and Ju-88 light bombers.


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## Shortround6 (Nov 19, 2016)

stona said:


> The British never developed a dive bomber of their own (excluding late war fighter bombers) and only used some imports in limited numbers in the Far East. They considered torpedoes the best way of sinking ships (by the simple expedient of letting water in) the Swordfish was not a dive bomber. Their bombers were never intended as precision bombers, this dates back to WWI. They were developing a strategic force. Using some of those 'medium', if single engine, bombers in support of the army in the early stages of the war proved disastrous.
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Steve



Well you had the Blackburn Skua. You had the Hawker Henley. Ordered and built to the tune of 200 airplanes but never fitted with dive bombing sights, dive brakes or bomb crutch. Shuffled off to target tow land with almost indecent haste before somebody got the idea that the RAF should support the army. The Fairey Barracuda was _supposed _to dive bomb, at least that's what those weird youngman flaps were supposed to help with.


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## GrauGeist (Nov 19, 2016)

davebender said:


> Germans did have heavy bombers such as the He177
> Germany did not produce many heavy bombers for a very simple reason. Heavy bombers are very expensive to produce and operate. Not producing heavy bombers allowed them to maximize production of fighter aircraft and Ju-88 light bombers.


And how many Ju88s did it take to match a single Greif?
Factor in men, materials, engines, tires, defensive MGs, fuel and so on.


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## stona (Nov 19, 2016)

Shortround6 said:


> The Fairey Barracuda was _supposed _to dive bomb, at least that's what those weird youngman flaps were supposed to help with.



Naval aviation again, my fault as I wasn't specific. Dive bombing was acknowledged to give the best chance of hitting a ship sized target. I forget how many bombs the RAF (and later USAAF) dropped on ships at Wilhelmshaven to minimal effect, but it was a lot 

I was also thinking of aircraft developed in that early-mid 1930s period which were in service at the beginning of the war rather than two or three years in. The British did an investigation of bombing against its ships ('Tactical Summary of Bombing Attacks by German Aircraft on HM Ships and Shipping, September 1939 to February 1941', where did they get the concise titles from?) which clearly showed that dive bombers carried out the most successful attacks against all classes of ships, but particularly trawlers/auxiliaries and destroyers and escorts. In the case of aircraft carriers and capital ships dive bombing (specifically by the Ju 87) was the only method to have any success at all. The British were well aware that dive bombing was an effective way of damaging, if not sinking, shipping.

Cheers

Steve


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## pbehn (Nov 19, 2016)

The Germans had a plan for strategic bombing called the Ural Bomber, the link provides a lot of interesting stuff I was not aware of until today.

Ural bomber - Wikipedia



Strategic bombing was undertaken by countries separated by water from their adversaries. It is a luxury in war time, If you have a front to fight on then Strategic bombing is symbolic and for propaganda, either in attack or defence there are always targets on the front or just behind that are more important than houses or factories in your opponents capital city.. Between 22 June and 02 December 1941 Germany advanced to within 15 miles of the Kremlin. The Russians toyed with bombing Germany but the game was not worth the candle.


The B24 was one of the best strategic bombers in WW2, what did the British do with it? The very first B24s were converted to carry people (and I suspect documents) contracts needed to be signed drawings needed to be exchanged discussions needed to be held, it was Churchill's favourite mode of transport. The next use was in the Battle of the Atlantic which had to be won before any thought of bombing Germany.


For the RAFs first 1000 bomber raid Coastal command refused to take part, the shortfall was made up by training units of Bomber command. If strategic bombing was considered vital Coastal command would have handed the planes over.


Despite all the bombing of Berlin by US and UK heavy bombers the Russians were able to drop more explosives on the city in a matter of weeks using artillery and rockets.


from wiki
Bombing of Cologne in World War II - Wikipedia
The first British Liberators had been ordered by the Anglo-French Purchasing Board in 1940. After the Fall of France the French orders were in most cases transferred to Britain.

The RAF, like the US, found global war increased the need for air transports and early type bombers and seaplanes were converted or completed as cargo carriers and transports. LB-30As were assigned to transatlantic flights by RAF Ferry Command, between Canada and Prestwick, Scotland. The first Liberators in British service were ex-USAAF YB-24s converted to Liberator GR Is (USAAF designation: LB-30A). The aircraft were all modified for logistic use in Montreal. Changes included the removal of all armament, provision for passenger seating, a revised cabin oxygen and heating system. Ferry Command's Atlantic Return Ferry Service flew civilian ferry pilots, who had delivered aircraft to the UK, back to North America.[_citation needed_]

The most important role, however, for the first batch of the Liberator GR Is was in service with RAF Coastal Command on anti-submarine patrols in the Battle of the Atlantic.[20]

Also
Bombing of Cologne in World War II - Wikipedia
At this stage of the war Bomber Command only had a regular front line strength of around 400 aircraft, and were in the process of transitioning from the twin engined medium bombers of the pre-war years to the newer more effective four-engined heavy bombers such as the Handley Page Halifax and Avro Lancaster. By using bombers and men from Operational Training Units (OTUs), 250 from RAF Coastal Command and from Flying Training Command, Harris could easily make up the 1,000 aircraft. However, just before the raid took place, the Royal Navy refused to allow the Coastal Command aircraft to take part in the raid.[5] The Admiralty perceived the propaganda justifications too weak an argument against the real and pressing threat of the U-boats in the Battle of the Atlantic. Harris scrambled around and, by crewing 49 more aircraft with pupil pilots and instructors, 1,047 bombers eventually took part in the raid, two and a half times more than any previous raid by the RAF. In addition to the bombers attacking Cologne, 113 other aircraft on "Intruder" raids harassed German night-fighter airfields.


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## Shortround6 (Nov 19, 2016)

A few points. 
1. it is about 930 miles from Moscow to Tankograd. or slightly longer than the distance from London to Warsaw. 
The Ural bomber was pretty much a pipe dream for the 1930s and most of WW II. Getting a plane to fly that distance with even a token bomb-load was hard enough. A Halifax II could do it carrying about 1500lbs or less using Merlin XX engines. Actually flying for that long in defended airspace would have been a near miracle. Halifax II cruised at 205mph true. Only over water zones are lakes or rivers. 
given the amount of empty space in Russia it didn't take rocket scientists to figure out what the likely target/s were after the first few hours of flight. 
2.Germans had crap for defensive armament for a good part of the war, Sorry but a 7.9mm MG with a 75 round drum is NOT first class. Turrets on the first "Ural" bombers held a single 20mm cannon but it was a MG/FF and the turret/s were "powered" by two men. One _controlled_ the traverse and the other the elevation. both using hand cranks. Granted better mounts might have showed up on later aircraft but the turret on the Do 217 and late He 111Hs wasn't all that special. It _appears _to have been powered in traverse only and even at that had a small range of manual traverse???????
3. Long range navigation over most of Russia was going to be a real problem. Maps, in all likelyhood, were not as good as the rest of Europe. The German _Knickebein _system wasn't going to work at the distances needed. And even trying to "Bradshaw" (follow rail lines) was going have problems. Not that many rail lines and once the Russians figure out what is going on the possibility of ambushes goes way up. 

4. The B-24 use by the British doesn't prove much one way or the other as the Versions the British got first did *not *have turbos and had a rather different performance envelope than the versions used by the USAAF. In fact it may show the lack of actual combat capability of early 4 engine bombers using low altitude and/or low powered engines. Using non-turbo B-24s as long range *low altitude *maritime patrol planes actually made a great deal of sense.

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## GrauGeist (Nov 19, 2016)

pbehn said:


> The Russians toyed with bombing Germany but the game was not worth the candle.


The Russians bombed Berlin as early as 7 August 1941 and continued to bomb Germany (and other targets in Germany) for the duration of the war. Their primary bomber in these missions was the Petlyakov Pe-8.

While it may have accounted for a small percentage of all Allied tonnage delivered to German targets, the fact remains that they were there.


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## nuuumannn (Nov 19, 2016)

Shortround6 said:


> The fact that they weren't real good at it goes back to available engines, knowledge of structures and budgets.



Weren't very good compared to what? It's a little unfair to compare these pre-war designs to more advanced types that entered service during the war. Available engines, maybe, but doctrine is more likely a restricting factor to the capability of pre-war aircraft. The urgency that a state of war introduces puts R&D into overdrive, which accelerates technology development. Had there been no WW2, aircraft like the Wellington and Do 17, He 111 would have remained in service in their early incarnations a lot longer than they did.



Shortround6 said:


> We can also look at the _Knickebein _beam system which had aerials going up in 1939 to show that the Germans were at least giving some thought to long range bombing operations (comparatively speaking) and navigation



Yep, I agree; the use of this technology gave the Luftwaffe the most accurate bombing force in the world at the outbreak of war. It wouldn't be for another couple of years before the RAF and USAAF got anywhere near the accuracy of navigation and target location that Knickebein and X and Y Gerat offered.

Regarding 'strategic bombing', the German bombing force was as 'strategic' in its intentions as any elsewhere. The distances offered by the aircraft available were perhaps not as great as those required by, say, the RAF's or the IJN's needs, but strategic bombing isn't defined by distance, as much as the choice of target. In the simplest terms possible, attacking fuel plants and aircraft factories behind the front lines is 'strategic' bombing, attacking a line of enemy tanks hiding in wait to attack advancing friendlies is 'tactical' bombing.


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## stona (Nov 20, 2016)

Strategic? Of course there was a capability, but, look at the task for the Luftwaffe given in Hitler's 16th July Directive for Sealion. .

_"The English air force must be beaten down to such an extent morally and in actual fact that it can no longer muster any power of attack worth mentioning against the German crossing."_

Not that different from what it had already done in Poland and the Low Countries and France, there was just the small matter of 22 miles of water, which at this time seems to have been regarded as no more than a wide river.

This fits very well with the two primary doctrinal objectives of the air force in L.Dv. 16,

_"1) subjugation of the enemy air force in order to achieve and maintain air superiority.

2) support of the army and navy."_

And more specific objectives, set out in paragraph ten of the same document.

_"The mission of the Luftwaffe is to serve these goals by commanding the war in the air within the framework of combined operations. By battling the enemy air force, the enemy armed forces are weakened and, at the same time, our own armed forces, our people, and our homeland are protected."
_
Compare this with the pre-war plans for Bomber Command . I have to be somewhat selective because this is a forum reply, not a thesis, and I can't reproduce all of them, even those pertaining to Germany rather than other potential enemies..
There were plans for attacking the_ 'German Air Striking Force and its maintenance organisation (including aircraft industry)' _As a pre-emptive effort to minimise bombing of Britain. Relevant here are the points made about the perceived consequences of bombing made by someone else above. Attacking the enemy air force and its infrastructure was one of the aims of the Luftwaffe too, and is debatably strategic. The Luftwaffe attempted it in support of an invasion plan, the British just wanted to prevent themselves being bombed.
All the other plans are unequivocally strategic in nature, from cooperation with the Navy to protect maritime trade to

_"WA.4 Plans for the attack of German military rail, canal and road communications...."

"WA.5(a) The attack of German war industry."

"WA.5(b) The attack of the RUHR and its effect on the military lines of communication in western Germany."

"WA.5(c) Attack on Germany's war resources of oil."
_
And this is the point, RAF Bomber Command was established as a strategic striking force and the Luftwaffe's bomber arm was not. Both had some capability to perform tasks for which they had not been designed, the Luftwaffe could bomb Coventry and Fairey Battles could perform tactical tasks behind the Anglo/French front in the Battle of France, but this was not a reflection of the doctrine on which they were founded.
The original question was about the rationale for German bomber design, and that is a reflection of the doctrine, everything from range, bomb load, performance and intrinsic dive bombing capability.

Cheers

Steve


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## pbehn (Nov 20, 2016)

GrauGeist said:


> The Russians bombed Berlin as early as 7 August 1941 and continued to bomb Germany (and other targets in Germany) for the duration of the war. Their primary bomber in these missions was the Petlyakov Pe-8.
> 
> While it may have accounted for a small percentage of all Allied tonnage delivered to German targets, the fact remains that they were there.



Below is from the Pe 8 article in wiki, Its strategic raid on Berlin 4 reached Berlin and only two returned, this was a symbolic gesture which almost certainly cost more in terms of Russian men and machines than German. Only 93 Pe 8s were built and front line strength was rarely above 20 from what I can see.

On the evening of 10 August, eight M-40-engined Pe-8s of the 432nd TBAP, accompanied by Yermolaev Yer-2s of the 420th Long-Range Bomber Aviation Regiment (DBAP), attempted to bomb Berlin from Pushkino Airfield near Leningrad. One heavily loaded Pe-8 crashed immediately upon take off, after it lost an engine. Only four managed to reach Berlin, or its outskirts, and of those, only two returned to their base. The others landed elsewhere or crash-landed in Finland and Estonia. The aircraft of the commander of the 81st Long-Range Bomber Division, Combrig Mikhail Vodopianov, to which both regiments belonged, was attacked mistakenly by Polikarpov I-16s from Soviet Naval Aviation over the Baltic Sea and lost an engine; later, before he could reach Berlin, German flak punctured a fuel tank. He crash-landed his aircraft in southern Estonia.[20] Five more Pe-8s were lost during the operation, largely due to the unreliability of the M-40s.[21] Seven Pe-8s were lost during the month of August alone, rendering the regiment ineffective.


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## stona (Nov 20, 2016)

pbehn said:


> For the RAFs first 1000 bomber raid Coastal command refused to take part, the shortfall was made up by training units of Bomber command. If strategic bombing was considered vital Coastal command would have handed the planes over..



I just noticed this and have to correct you. 
First this shows a lack of understanding of the structure of the RAF and the roles of the commands within it.

Bomber Command was established as a strategic bombing force. It was the only reason for its existence.

Coastal Command had an entirely different job to do, as specified in various pre-war plans. It was not and never was intended as a strategic bombing force.

You also gave a rather over simplified account of the efforts made by Harris to assemble the aircraft and the contribution of other commands.
When 'the new sheriff in town' Arthur Harris decided to attempt a 1,000 bomber raid, to capitalise on the successes he had achieved against Lubeck and Rostock, he first approached Portal and Churchill seeking authorisation for such a raid, which he knew would involve aircraft from other commands. Harris asked for help from the commanders in chief of both Coastal Command and Flying Training Command. *Sir Philip Joubert of Coastal Command immediately offered 250 aircraft, many of them from ex Bomber Command squadrons.* He was keen to get his command involved. Training Command offered 50 aircraft, but they were poorly equipped and, eventually, just 4 Wellingtons came from this command.
It was only later that the Admiralty refused to allow Coastal Command to take part in the operation. Anyone aware of the ongoing battle between the RAF and RN for control of maritime air power will understand why this happened. It would not have been lost on the Admiralty that if Harris' grandiose plan was a success it would do little to help the Admiralty's prospects of building up a force of long range, modern aircraft for the prosecution of the war against the U-boats. They were prescient...it didn't.

Wikipedia never let's the facts get in the way of a good story 

Cheers

Steve


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## pbehn (Nov 20, 2016)

stona said:


> Wikipedia never let's the facts get in the way of a good story
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Steve


I know but I cannot cut and paste from books on the Battle of the Atlantic, in 1942 there were 8 million tons of shipping sunk. The Battle of the Atlantic was of far greater significance to the UK than strategic bombing. As I said the Liberator was a strategic bomber but instead of using it to bomb Germany we fitted it with RADAR and Leigh lights because it had the range to close the mid Atlantic gap.


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## stona (Nov 20, 2016)

Coastal Command was always competing with Bomber Command for aircraft. It had started the war in an even more woeful state than Bomber Command.

It is also important to remember that the Deputy Director of the Plans Division in the Air Ministry, through much of the expansion period during which Coastal Command might have hoped for some reinforcement was a certain Group Captain Arthur Harris. In December 1936 Harris wrote.

_"It would be an unnecessary, a serious and perhaps even fatal subtraction from our total offensive strength to keep any ponderable number of aircraft either employed on, or standing by for, reconnaissance operations in connection with a trade defence war that might not happen."_

Harris argued that it was more cost effective to _"nip in the bud"_ an enemy's war waging potential by attacking his war industries. He was concerned, in his words, with _"sources" _rather than _"fringes"_. The best place to attack a U-boat was in its factory or dockyard where you knew where it was, not to go gallivanting around the North Atlantic in the hope of finding one. This is the raison d'etre of any strategic bombing force. He was right at the time, before the advent of workable radar. The 'Channel dash' was a salutary lesson to the RAF, including Coastal Command.
His argument was supported by many at the Air Ministry (hardly surprising as the Admiralty was still trying to seize control of Coastal Command) as well as Churchill and essentially prevailed. Bomber Command received a preferential supply of aircraft.

The Battle of the Atlantic was never as close as has sometimes been claimed in any case.






Cheers

Steve


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## ChrisMcD (Nov 20, 2016)

You should also remember Milch's quotation of Goering; "The Fuhrer will only ever ask me how many bombers do you have. He will never ask how big they are. For one four engined job I can build two and a half medium bombers"
Ref: Devils Disciples page 416.

Bear in mind that in this time frame (late 30's) Germany was running short of a lot of raw materials including aluminium.

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## GrauGeist (Nov 20, 2016)

pbehn said:


> Below is from the Pe 8 article in wiki, Its strategic raid on Berlin 4 reached Berlin and only two returned, this was a symbolic gesture which almost certainly cost more in terms of Russian men and machines than German. Only 93 Pe 8s were built and front line strength was rarely above 20 from what I can see.
> 
> On the evening of 10 August, eight M-40-engined Pe-8s of the 432nd TBAP, accompanied by Yermolaev Yer-2s of the 420th Long-Range Bomber Aviation Regiment (DBAP), attempted to bomb Berlin from Pushkino Airfield near Leningrad. One heavily loaded Pe-8 crashed immediately upon take off, after it lost an engine. Only four managed to reach Berlin, or its outskirts, and of those, only two returned to their base. The others landed elsewhere or crash-landed in Finland and Estonia. The aircraft of the commander of the 81st Long-Range Bomber Division, Combrig Mikhail Vodopianov, to which both regiments belonged, was attacked mistakenly by Polikarpov I-16s from Soviet Naval Aviation over the Baltic Sea and lost an engine; later, before he could reach Berlin, German flak punctured a fuel tank. He crash-landed his aircraft in southern Estonia.[20] Five more Pe-8s were lost during the operation, largely due to the unreliability of the M-40s.[21] Seven Pe-8s were lost during the month of August alone, rendering the regiment ineffective.


Yes, they had manufactured 93 airframes (including the early TB-7 designation) and they had less than a great performance record.

But the point is, that the Soviets were striking Berlin (and other key targets) well within German proper from the early stages of the war. Along with the Pe-8, there was also the DB-3 (including the Torpedo carrying version, dropping conventional ordnance), IL-4, Yer-2, etc.

Their lessons learned in daylight attacks over Germany were comparable to what Bomber Command and the U.S. learned during the early days and their losses were comparable, percentage-wise.


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## pinehilljoe (Nov 20, 2016)

IMHO when you ask about doctrine in Nazi Germany you have to start by reading Mein Kampf. It’s also hard to apply logic to the planning within Hitler’s regime. Hitler intended his conflicts to be over quickly, with Blitzkrieg attacks overrunning the defender. He never planned or wanted a protracted War. He did not need a strategic arm to Luftwaffe, wars would be over before 4 engine bombers could come into play. Germany had the technology to design and build 4 engine strategic bombers, but not the resources to do so on a scale that the Western Allies did, and still produce the other weapons to fight the War. Also there simply wasn’t a motivation to do from Hitler and Nazi command. In Korda’s With Wings like Eagles, he quotes Goering stating "The Führer will never ask me how big our bombers are, only how many we have." Goering wanted to keep his neck and was more politically motivated to build two or three Stukas or Heinkels over one 4 engine bomber.


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## pbehn (Nov 20, 2016)

stona said:


> The Battle of the Atlantic was never as close as has sometimes been claimed in any case.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



You provocative patronising ass hole, my father was in the Battle of the Atlantic, and the Arctic convoys and the Pacific. He was not a hero he did his bit, now let me see you tell Dragondog that the air war over Europe was not close, how would his father have done in a P40. The Battle of the Atlantic was won by massive investment on both sides of the Atlantic in planes ships, men, weapons, technology and intelligence. The Battle of the Atlantic was the one which troubled Churchill the most, it was the obsession of Bletchley Park and its code breakers. Your idiotic graph hides the fact that shipping losses in 1942 equalled (almost) the losses of the previous 3 years and there was no way the USA/Canada/UK relationship could survive 700,000 tons of US produce going to the bottom of the sea EVERY MONTH.


I have had it with this forum you are an educated idiot trolling for an argument.


Cheers guys.

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## Shortround6 (Nov 20, 2016)

stona said:


> Group Captain Arthur Harris. In December 1936 Harris wrote.
> 
> _"It would be an unnecessary, a serious and perhaps even fatal subtraction from our total offensive strength to keep any ponderable number of aircraft either employed on, or standing by for, reconnaissance operations in connection with a trade defence war that might not happen."_
> 
> ...



And Harris did a very good job with argument, Unfortunately he was arguing a false position. It was NOT the job of Coastal Command (or whatever group was tasked with long range air support to "_go gallivanting around the North Atlantic in the hope of finding one_." 
The job was NOT sinking U-boats but to KEEP U-Boats from sinking the merchantmen. An important distinction. 
A submarine a hundred miles from a convoy was little or no threat unless almost directly in the path of the convoy. The submarines detection range was very limited, that is the range at which it could detect a target. At night or underwater it's detection range was even less. Basically U-boats _gallivanted_ around the North Atlantic in the hope of finding a convoy. It seemed to work for them (sarcasm). It actuality they concentrated on choke points or known convoy routes. Convoys not taking huge detours due to cost of time and fuel although zig-zagging did cost both. 
Likewise air patrols could be concentrated in certain areas or zones. Just keeping the U-boat underwater limited it's ability to detect targets and it's ability to get into a firing/attack position. This was well known in WW I but seems to have been conveniently forgotten in some of the arguments before and in early WW II. 
And even a decent spotting report on a U-boat could allow a convoy to alter course and avoid it if the report was in time. 
U-boats depended on air reconnaissance (spotty and limited in range) their own visual lookouts (dependent on weather but visual horizon plus smoke trail of target.) radio reports from other U-boats and luck. Visual horizon from a periscope is limited, worse than a row-boat. Ability to follow convoy while submerged was also *very *limited. Batteries, if fully charged could allow for ranges of 60-90 miles at 4 knots vs a convey speed of 7 knots. However due to power needed and the discharge characteristics of lead acid batteries a full battery was only good for less than 2 hours at full underwater speed of 7.6-8knots. With less than full battery??? U-boats had to run on the surface in order to get in attack/firing position much more often than not. 

The part " _in connection with a trade defence war that *might not happen*." _ really laughable given the experience of WW I. Any potential enemy that had studied WW I knew that a trade war against England was a very good option. Even it it didn't defeat England outright (small chance) the resources expended in conducting such a war would require a much greater expenditure by England to fight back (protect trade) in manpower, fuel, ships, aircraft and so on. The country attacking England in the trade war could pick and choose points/times of attack (to some extent) while the British had to defend everywhere all the time. You can't escort 40% of the convoys for example.
For the British the defense of a trade war should have been what was the most effective in terms of resources. A squadron of planes searching the ocean or a dozen slow, small ships (pickets if you will) with crews measured in dozens per ship and using tons of fuel oil per day? What was the cost of XX number of 4 engine patrol planes vs the cost of a single 1400ton destroyer. 

The value of air patrols or air escorts for convoys/shipping had been proved in WW I which is well before radar. Radar helped extend air coverage to 24 hours a day, just as radar on the escort ships extended search radius and search times. Before radar on the ships anti-sub actions often worked from what was called the "flaming datum" They looked for the U-boat in a search pattern based on the last burning/sinking ship as the center of the pattern. Even after radar at times. 

Unfortunately this seems to be one of those cases where the RAF defeating the Royal Navy or the Royal Army was more important than defeating the enemy that was actually shooting at Great Britain.

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## stona (Nov 21, 2016)

pbehn said:


> You provocative patronising ass hole, my father was in the Battle of the Atlantic, and the Arctic convoys and the Pacific. He was not a hero he did his bit, .



Well thanks for that.

That the Battle of the Atlantic did not come as close to defeating Britain as has sometimes been claimed post war is a statement of fact, not trolling. The Battle of Britain never came close to defeating Fighter Command, the Germans never came close to being able to mount an invasion, both facts and neither detract from the determination, effort and occasional heroism of the men and women of Fighter Command.

The Anglo-French invasion of Egypt and the British landings at Port Said were probably illegal, definitely unjustified and a political and military disaster, but that doesn't reflect on my father and his colleagues flying in from HMS Theseus, under fire, to land the RM Commandos and returning, several times, to evacuate casualties. Like your father he just did his job.


This has absolutely nothing to do with your father's service, you are being an over sensitive arse hole. Would you care to discuss the figures quoted?

Cheers

Steve
.

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## stona (Nov 21, 2016)

Shortround6 said:


> And Harris did a very good job with argument, Unfortunately he was arguing a false position. It was NOT the job of Coastal Command (or whatever group was tasked with long range air support to "_go gallivanting around the North Atlantic in the hope of finding one_."
> The job was NOT sinking U-boats but to KEEP U-Boats from sinking the merchantmen.
> 
> Unfortunately this seems to be one of those cases where the RAF defeating the Royal Navy or the Royal Army was more important than defeating the enemy that was actually shooting at Great Britain.



This strikes at the whole concept of strategic aerial warfare and the reason for Bomber Command's existence. *A Trenchardist like Harris would argue that the best was of preventing a U-boat from sinking British shipping was to destroy it before it ever put to sea or prevent it from ever being built by striking at the means of producing it.*
The RAF would also argue that it was the job of the Royal Navy to protect Britain's maritime trade as this was the reason for its existence. In fact, throughout the war navies sank slightly more U-Boats than were sunk by aircraft.
I have at no point said that I agree with this argument, I am well aware of the precedents, but this is the essence of the argument that won the day in the mid 1930s. If people don't want to hear the contemporary arguments because they don't like them, then I will happily stop contributing to the discussion.
To paraphrase Harris, nobody knew if an all out strategic bombing campaign would work, because nobody had tried it. We know with hindsight not afforded to the decision makers of the mid 1930s, that it would not.

It was important to the RAF to win these political battles at this time. It saw itself as fighting for its survival as an independent service. Both the Army and Admiralty were making strenuous attempts to either bend the RAF to its will or to take control of certain aspects of military aviation, both were fiercely resisted by the Air Ministry/RAF.

Cheers

Steve


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## Shortround6 (Nov 21, 2016)

The historically perspective is good to have and I thank you for providing it. That doesn't mean we can't criticize the perspective or those that held certain views at the time. Especially if the views didn't take into account information available at the time. No retrospectroscope needed in the 1930s to use WW I experience. 

In the context of this thread it helps show that perhaps the Germans were _not wrong_ in failing to pursue a bombing force like bomber command. Given Bomber commands rather notable lack of results in the first few years of the war, the lack of support to other forces (the RN and RA) that concentration on Bomber Command made necessary and it took many times the number of bombers originally thought necessary to achieve significant results (and numbers well in excess of Germany's ability to produce) and the lack of a _dedicated_ strategic component may not have been such a bad decision.


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## stona (Nov 21, 2016)

This boils down to a similar argument to that between the Army and RAF regarding Army cooperation and what we now call close air support.
Simplistically, in the opinion of the RAF, it was the Army's job to destroy enemy assets on the battlefield and the Navy's to destroy them on the ocean. The RAF saw its role as reducing or stopping the flow of those assets from the factories to the battlefields and oceans of the world. This was the fundamental role of any strategic air force (before we advance into nuclear age and mutually assured destruction).
Any hint of subjugation of the RAF to the Army or Admiralty was fiercely resisted, and this was not always to the larger good.

In the context of this thread the raison d'etre of the Luftwaffe and its bomber force was quite different and this is why its rationale for bomber design was fundamentally different. 

The recognition of Germany as a potential enemy caused a reappraisal of British bomber design requirements. These were entirely strategic in nature. A map was produced for the Committee for Imperial Defence's Sub-committee on Air Parity (set up precisely because of fears aroused by reported increases in the strength of the Luftwaffe) which showed that to attack Berlin from bases in Britain required a radius of action of 550 miles, to attack industrial areas in East Germany, 700 miles. It was noted that none of the RAF's current bombers could attack Berlin with a full bomb load.
The design conflict between speed and armament dominated the discussion of operational requirements for bombers. Though some favoured speed as a primary defence, the dominant issue was one of bomber weight. It was supposed that the heavier the bomber the more possible it would be to have both speed and, what was regarded at the time, as adequate armament. These technical issues were at the core of discussions about new heavy and medium bombers in 1936 and the quest for the 'ideal' (standard) bomber in 1937-39. There was no change in bombing policy, and no predeliction for heavy bombers (as Webster and Frankland contend). The bombers were to attack Germany, targets were at a long distance, common sense, not any predeliction, dictated that much heavier bombers than those to attack Paris would be required to get the range and particularly speed required. 
It was this strategic requirement that led to the British building bigger and heavier bombers, and the lack of such meant that the Germans did not.

Cheers

Steve


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## BLine22 (Nov 21, 2016)

stona said:


> The RAF would also argue that it was the job of the Royal Navy to protect Britain's maritime trade as this was the reason for its existence.



The Royal Navy would agree that its their job to protect maritime trade. They would also argue that Coastal Command should belong to the Navy in order to accomplish this mission. 



stona said:


> The RAF saw its role as reducing or stopping the flow of those assets from the factories to the battlefields and oceans of the world.



The problem with this argument is that you can't begin this job until a conflict has started and then escalated. Somebody has to destroy the assets that have already been produced at the start of a conflict.


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## stona (Nov 22, 2016)

Your first point is why the Admiralty was trying to regain control of 'shore based aviation', meaning Coastal Command. The fact that at the outbreak of the war its own carrier based assets were borderline obsolete probably had something to do with this as well. 

Second point, a strategic air force would argue that destroying those assets already produced, on or near the battlefield, was the job of the other services. It's, job in line with Trenchardian doctrine, was to attack the enemy's means of waging war. 

The lessons of WW1 were either willfully ignored or misunderstood. The single most important work regarding the application of air power during WW1 was 'War in the Air' by Raleigh and Jones, seven volumes produced between 1922 and shortly before the war. It's hard going and not recommended reading! In the political climate of the day (the newly independent RAF was reduced by 1920 to just 14% of its size on Armistice Day) the RAF was competing for a proportion of an ever decreasing defence budget and had to find roles independent of the support of ground forces and naval aviation. A failure to do so was bound to result in its dismemberment. This is why the Raleigh and Jones work was so disingenuously complimentary about the WW1 attempts at 'strategic' bombing. Great emphasis was also placed on the success and cheapness of Imperial policing by air, and this had indeed proven successful. The difference between scaring a few hundred tribesmen who might never have seen an aircraft, or bombing the occasional African chief's kraal, and launching a full scale bombing offensive against another industrialised nation seems to have been conveniently overlooked.
We have seen that planning and procurement for Bomber Command in the 1930s was underpinned by Trenchardian doctrine, and 'War in the Air' reinforced this in the minds of the decision makers. Lessons were learned from WW1, its just that to a large extent they were the wrong ones.
John Slessor (much later, as Chief of the Air Staff) would write,
_"Our belief in the bomber was intuitive...a matter of faith."_
It was. Strategic bombing doctrine became orthodoxy, and any dissenting view was difficult to hold in any senior capacity in the RAF or Air Ministry. It took two years of war to demonstrate that the British had defined air power FAR too narrowly, some of the reasons have been cited by others above. The lack of any suitable aircraft for maritime trade protection, or blockading the Norwegian iron ore trade were early examples. The RAF had actively opposed the adoption of any kind of air support doctrine, and this was reflected in the failures in Norway and France. Much worse was the failure to prepare properly for the one job that the adoption of Trenchardian strategic bombing doctrine as the new orthodoxy should have demanded. Bomber Command was not capable in 1939, and would not be for several years, of mounting the sort of campaign for which it was supposedly designed. 

Cheers

Steve

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## pbehn (Nov 22, 2016)

stona said:


> Well thanks for that.
> 
> That the Battle of the Atlantic did not come as close to defeating Britain as has sometimes been claimed post war is a statement of fact, not trolling. The Battle of Britain never came close to defeating Fighter Command, the Germans never came close to being able to mount an invasion, both facts and neither detract from the determination, effort and occasional heroism of the men and women of Fighter Command.
> 
> ...


Your view of history is religious not factual. Historically Park and the RAF fought the Battle of Britain to a draw, you argue therefore that no other outcome was possible,. At any time before August 1940 the RAF could have lost the Battle of Britain simply by appointing Leigh Mallory in place of Park. His conduct during the BoB showed he hadn't a clue what he was doing, later, wargaming the battle he took part in winning, he lost the war game, so no, I do not accept the Battle of Britain never came close to a Fighter command defeat.. Leigh Mallory could have lost it as quickly and spectacularly as the Battle of France was lost. Using this logic any pilot who lands never came close to death, Of course Ted Briggs and Robert Tilburn were never in danger of dying when the Hood was sunk by the Bismark while the other 1,418 crewmen aboard had no chance of survival and were doomed as soon as they signed up. 


The Battle of the Atlantic was being lost in 1942 with 700,000 tons lost in a month, that is not open to debate the Allies could not stand it. An exchange rate of 40 freighters for each submarine is unsustainable and that is in goods. For the Allies to invade Europe 10s of thousands of men had to cross the Atlantic. With troopships carrying 500 to 6000 troops the USA could have faced losses like Omaha beach on a daily basis. Throughout 1942 and into 1943 the allies introduced new ships and tactics to hunt submarines, new escort carriers, developed ASW with centimetric RADAR and leigh lights. This changed the course of the battle,, However the Germans were developing acoustic torpedoes, If they had them in large numbers and developed sensors for Centrimetric radar the battle would have run much differently. It is not a fantasy "what if" to see the Battle of the Atlantic being lost by the Allies, one simple development on the German side would be to use the correct procedures when operating enigma and consider that it could be broken.

Here are Battle of Atlantic losses.
Losses during the Battle of the Atlantic - Wikipedia

Your graph shows the number of UBoats operating continuously increasing until early 1943.
It also shows cumulative losses increasing with the biggest increase in 1942.

The turn in the battle due to new Allied equipment and tactics is a historical fact, it is not a fact that the Germans were incapable of developing new weapons and counter measures, they just didnt. By 1943 Germany was embarking on losing the Battle of Kursk and while Germany was lead by an infantry corporal the UK was lead by a former Lord of the British Admiralty.

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## pinehilljoe (Nov 22, 2016)

Robert, the thread meandered from your original question why Nazi Germany didn't have a four engine bomber force. IMHO the Nazi's had the technology. The political leadership never supported a four engine bomber program. Hitler knew the economics of Germany, he relied on Blitzkrieg Warfare to end conflicts quickly. Germany did not have the capacity to produce 4 engine bombers by the thousands as the West did, production in other areas of the economy would have had to be reduced. A good book is Paul Kennedy's Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. Kennedy spends a lot of pages on the economy of Nazi Germany and gives insight into why Hitler needed Blitzkrieg type wars for its economic survival.

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## Milosh (Nov 22, 2016)

Sorry for putting this here but couldn't create a thread for this.

1939:
Allied and Neutral ship tonnage sunk by German and Italian submarines (#ships, GRT)
Sep39 48/178,621
Oct39 33/156,156
Nov39 27/72,721
Dec39 39/101,823
Tot39 147 (36.75/month)/509,321 (127,330.25/month)
British merchant ship construction capacity from 1939-1941 did not exceed 1.2 million GRT per year.
US merchant ship construction in 1939 was 0.242 million GRT.

Number of U-Boat patrols (combat patrols only, does not include tanker/resupply missions)/losses/aborts prior to contact in principle theaters (North Atlantic, South Atlantic, Indian Ocean, and the Americas)
Aug39 19/2
Sep39 3/0
Oct39 13/3
Nov39 10/1/1
Dec39 5/1/1
Tot39 50/7/2 (an average of 10 patrols per month and 14% lost)

Thus for 1939, an average of 2.94 ships were sunk per patrol and one U-Boat was lost per 21 ships sunk (note that throughout these averages will be slightly inflated since they do not include the minor contribution of the Italian submarine fleet.)

1940:
Allied and Neutral ship tonnage sunk by German and Italian submarines (#ships, GRT)
Jan40 53/163,029
Feb40 50/182,369
Mar40 26/69,826
Apr40 6/30,927
May40 14/61,635
Jun40 66/375,069
Jul40 41/301,975
Aug40 56/288,180
Sep40 60/288,180
Oct40 66/363,267
Nov40 36/181,695
Dec40 46/256,310
Tot40 520 (43.33/month)/2,462,867 (205,238.91/month)
US merchant ship construction for 1940 was about 0.5 million GRT.

Number of U-Boat patrols (combat patrols only, does not include tanker/resupply missions)/losses/aborts prior to contact in principle theaters (North Atlantic, South Atlantic, Indian Ocean, and the Americas)
Jan40 8/2
Feb40 10/3
Mar40 10/2
Apr40 19/3
May40 8/0/2
Jun40 18/3/1
Jul40 4/0
Aug40 16/2/1
Sep40 12/0
Oct40 13/2
Nov40 14/1
Dec40 6/0
Tot40 138/18/3 (an average of 11.5 patrols per month and 13% lost)

Thus for 1940, an average of 3.77 ships were sunk per patrol and one U-Boat was lost per 28.89 ships sunk.

1941:
Allied and Neutral ship tonnage sunk by German and Italian submarines (#ships, GRT)
Jan41 23/129,711
Feb41 47/254,118
Mar41 41/236,549
Apr41 41/239,719
May41 63/362,268
Jun41 66/325,817
Jul41 26/112,624
Aug41 27/85,603
Sep41 57/212,237
Oct41 28/170,786
Nov41 15/76,056
Dec41 23/93,226
Tot41 457 (38.08/month)/2,298,714 (191,559.5/month)
US merchant ship construction 1941 0.804 million GRT

Number of U-Boat patrols (combat patrols only, does not include tanker/resupply missions)/losses/aborts prior to contact in principle theaters (North Atlantic, South Atlantic, Indian Ocean, and the Americas)
Jan41 10/0
Feb41 18/3/2
Mar41 15/3/3
Apr41 14/2/2
May41 21/0/2
Jun41 22/2/3
Jul41 24/1/9
Aug41 42/5/9
Sep41 38/0/2
Oct41 37/0/6
Nov 41 27/5/5
Dec41 49/4/6
Tot 41 287/25/49 (an average of 23.9 patrols sailing per month and 8.7% lost)

Thus for 1941, an average of 1.59 ships were sunk per patrol and one U-Boat was lost per 18.28 ships sunk.

1942:
Allied and Neutral ship tonnage sunk by German and Italian submarines (#ships, GRT)
Jan42 56/310,224
Feb42 72/429,255
Mar42 93/507,514
Apr42 81/418,161
May42 129/616,835
Jun42 136/636,926
Jul42 96/467,051
Aug42 117/587,245
Sep42 96/461,794
Oct42 89/583,690
Nov42 126/802,160
Dec42 64/337,618
Tot42 1,155 (96.25/month)/6,158,473 (513,206.08/month)
British and Canadian merchant ship construction 1942 1.8 million GRT
US merchant ship construction 1942 5.433 million GRT

Number of U-Boat patrols (combat patrols only, does not include tanker/resupply missions)/losses/aborts prior to contact in principle theaters (North Atlantic, South Atlantic, Indian Ocean, and the Americas)
Jan42 50/2/5
Feb42 29/3/2
Mar42 32/2
Apr42 37/2/2
May42 23/3
Jun42 39/9/5
Jul42 45/7/3
Aug42 58/10/4
Sep42 52/8/8
Oct42 62/6/10
Nov42 54/8/6
Dec42 59/8/7
Tot42 540/68/57 (an average of 45 patrols sailing per month and 12.6% lost)

Thus for 1942, an average of 2.14 ships were sunk per patrol and one U-Boat was lost per 16.99 ships sunk.

1943:
Allied and Neutral ship tonnage sunk by German and Italian submarines (#ships, GRT)
Jan43 44/307,196
Feb43 67/362,081
Mar43 110/633,731
Apr43 50/287,137
May43 46/237,182
Jun43 17/76,090
Jul43 46/237,777
Aug43 20/92,443
Sep43 16/98,852
Oct43 20/91,295
Nov43 9/30,726
Dec43 8/55,794
Tot43 452 (37.67/month)/2,510,304 (209,192/month)
US merchant ship construction 1943 13.081 million GRT

Number of U-Boat patrols (combat patrols only, does not include tanker/resupply missions)/losses/aborts prior to contact in principle theaters (North Atlantic, South Atlantic, Indian Ocean, and the Americas)
Jan43 61/13/11
Feb43 72/8/9
Mar43 59/16/10
Apr43 95/35/18
May43 55/23/9
Jun43 46/23/9
Jul43 39/27/7 (49 total patrols of all types)
Aug43 33/12/6
Sep43 32/11/10
Oct43 62/23/9
Nov43 36/9/4
Dec43 31/10/2
Tot43 621/210/104 (an average of 51.75 patrols sailing per month and 33.8% lost)

Thus for 1943, an average of 0.73 ships were sunk per patrol and one U-Boat was lost per 2.15 ships sunk.

So, overall, the most successful year for the U-Boats was 1940, before the expansion of the force allowed for an increase of more than about a dozen patrols sailing per month, and well prior to the entry of the US and its shipbuilding capacity into the war. Worse, the performance of the U-Boat force in 1941 and 1942 never exceeded its performance in the first months of the war. And, after 1943 the U-Boat campaign became ever less relevent to the outcome of the war.

Allied and Neutral ship tonnage sunk by German and Italian submarines (#ships, GRT)
Tot44 125/663,308
Tot45 63/284,476

US merchant ship construction for 1944 was 12.257 million GRT
US merchant ship construction for 1945 (through 1 May) was 3.548 million GRT

U-Boat Fleet to 1Sep42
On 19Aug39 there were 57 U-Boats in commission, 20 sea-going U-Boats and 18 ‘ducks’ were fully ready to put to sea
Total number U-Boats deployed to 1Sep42 275
Total number lost 94
Total number retired 10
Total number available 171

U-Boat Fleet 1Sep42 to 1May45
Total number deployed 1Sep42 to 1May45 531
Total number lost 1Sep42 to 1May45 568

British controlled merchant shipping over 1,600 GRT (number/in thousands of gross tons)
3Sep39 2,999/17,784
30Sep40 3,75721,373
30Sep41 3,608/20,552
31Dec41 3,616/20,693

Thus, despite the ‘success’ of the U-Boat force in 1940 (relative to its performance in 1941 and 1942) it had no appreciable effect in reducing the size of the British merchant fleet.

Numbers of ships arriving and losses in North Atlantic convoys inbound to Britain (ships arriving/losses)
1939 700/5 (7.1%)
1940 5,434/133 ((2.5%)
1941 5,923/153 (2.6%)
1942 4,798/80 (1.7%)
1943 5,667/87 (1.5%)
1944 7,410/8 (0.1%)

The operational U-Boat force from 1943-1945 never approached a "steady 400-500 boat." Rather, during 1942 the peak strength of boats assigned to combat flotillas (including those under repair for combat-damage and breakdowns, but excluding those assigned to school flotillas, experimental projects, or otherwise retired from combat) was 202, during November. The low in 1942 was 89 in January. The average monthly strength during 1942 was 143.83. The strength of the force peaked in May 1943 at 237. It had declined to a low of 159 by November. Average monthly strength during 1943 was 197.58. The peak strength during 1944 was 168 in February, the low was 146 in November. Average monthly strength in 1944 was 157.83. The peak strength in 1945 was April with 165, the low was May with 134, prior to the surrender. <http://www.onwar.com/ubb/smile.gif>

At that, these were much better than 1939 (average of 19.5 monthly), 1940 (average of 18.75 monthly) and 1941 (average of 47.5 monthly). OTOH, the 'bang for their buck' was probably highest in 1940, which was also arguably the U-Boats most 'successful' year in terms of ships sunk per patrol and U-Boats lost per ship sunk (see my previous reply).

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## stona (Nov 22, 2016)

I wrote.

"The Battle of Britain never came close to defeating Fighter Command"

And it didn't. It didn't even come close to forcing 11 Group north of the Thames. There were shortages of trained pilots, the stabilisation system is a clear demonstration of this, but despite the fears expressed by the commanders of Fighter Command at the time ('we are going downhill'), we, with the benefit of hindsight know that the Germans were suffering more and never came close to their objective of "subjugating the English air force." Had the Luftwaffe been in a position to maintain or increase the pressure on Fighter Command, which was creaking, in September and October, then who knows what might have happened, but it could not. This was probably just as well for the Heer and KM, but that's another story.

If you feel the graph is idiotic, then take it up with Williamson Murray, from whom it comes. The problem is that the Germans could not *consistently* inflict the losses on Allied shipping which would have enabled them to win the Battle. Average monthly losses to U-boats throughout 1942 are closer to 500,000 tons than 700,000, a better measure, and nearly 30% lower. The figures for 1942, particularly the first half of the year are weighted in favour of the U-boats by the inept tactics of the recently arrived Americans, allowing the U-boat arm a second 'happy time'. New GRT became available at a rate that never seriously fell below losses and eventually largely exceeded them, largely thanks to those same Americans who proved to be quick learners, and ship builders. Again, hindsight affords us a luxury not afforded to people at the time. Whilst it is understandable that this Battle would cause Churchill sleepless nights, the outcome was in doubt until at least late 1942 or early 1943, and the graph shows that. We now know that the Germans were not capable of the sustained effort required to win. The Allies also won the technological battle. Both are parallels with the BoB.

As for the Germans developing new weapons and tactics, the fact that Type VII U-boats were still being commissioned in January 1945 (U 1308 is the latest I've found with a perfunctory search of my files) tells us all we need to know.

Cheers

Steve


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## Graeme (Nov 22, 2016)

Looking at Mr Murray's graph - should the line depicting tonnage lost due to U-Boats be tapering down?






I base that on this graph from my bookshelf...


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## Shortround6 (Nov 22, 2016)

stona said:


> As for the Germans developing new weapons and tactics, the fact that Type VII U-boats were still being commissioned in January 1945 (U 1308 is the latest I've found with a perfunctory search of my files) tells us all we need to know.



Depends on how you look at. Somebody once said in regards to artillery. "the shell is the weapon, the artillery piece (tube) is just the delivery system."
Improvements in Torpedoes could make a substantial difference in a submarine fleet's effectiveness. As could improved sonars, snorkels, passive radar receivers, improved diving depth (stronger hull not only increases dive depth, it slightly reduces the lethal radius of depth charges.) I would note that the US built essentially the same submarine from about 1939/40 to 1951. And kept the wartime design of diesel engine (although uprated) till the last of the diesel boats were built after a _new _design turned out to be a dud.
Granted the Japanese never had the anti-sub capability of the RN and US Navy in late WW II.


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## pinehilljoe (Nov 22, 2016)

Shortround6 said:


> Depends on how you look at. Somebody once said in regards to artillery. "the shell is the weapon, the artillery piece (tube) is just the delivery system."
> Improvements in Torpedoes could make a substantial difference in a submarine fleet's effectiveness. As could improved sonars, snorkels, passive radar receivers, improved diving depth (stronger hull not only increases dive depth, it slightly reduces the lethal radius of depth charges.) I would note that the US built essentially the same submarine from about 1939/40 to 1951. And kept the wartime design of diesel engine (although uprated) till the last of the diesel boats were built after a _new _design
> 
> .



Shortround6: I didnt write what you quoted, maybe there's a bug in the forum, if you wouldnt mind, try reposting. . If one of the moderators is reading. The quote is from a post by STONA. Your post 56 quotes post 54, and has me as the author.


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## Shortround6 (Nov 22, 2016)

pinehilljoe said:


> Robert, the thread meandered from your original question why Nazi Germany didn't have a four engine bomber force. IMHO the Nazi's had the technology. The political leadership never supported a four engine bomber program. Hitler knew the economics of Germany, he relied on Blitzkrieg Warfare to end conflicts quickly. Germany did not have the capacity to produce 4 engine bombers by the thousands as the West did, production in other areas of the economy would have had to be reduced. A good book is Paul Kennedy's Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. Kennedy spends a lot of pages on the economy of Nazi Germany and gives insight into why Hitler needed Blitzkrieg type wars for its economic survival.



In part it is also due to timing. 
First flights and start of service for the 3 main German bombers in use at the start of the war were

Do.17.............11/34................11/36
He 111............2/35..................1/37
JU-88.............12/36.................9/39

For the British it goes 
Whitley............3/36.................3/37
Hampden........6/36.................9/38
Wellington.......6/36................10-38

However the First production Whitley with a Merlin engine doesn't fly until 5/39 and soon the Tiger powered versions (MK I, II, III) are banned from over water flights.

The Germans build two 4 engine prototypes early on, The DO 19 flies 10/36 and the JU 89 flies 4-37 but neither are very good. While long ranged they are no faster than the He 111 and don't carry a much heavier bomb load. 

Round 2 has the British coming up with.
Stirling................5/39..................1940???
Manchester........7/39...................11/40
Warwick..............8/39...................?????
Halifax.................10/39................11/40 

Stirling doesn't actually fly in combat until 1941 after a German tactical raid that missed the beach defenses in Brighton blew up Stirlings on the production line and parked outside factory ( since we _know _the Germans didn't strategic bomb) . Production is set back from months to a year depending on source. 
Warwick used up to 85% of the structural components of the Wellington but even so, lack of assembly space and lack of suitable engines delayed use for a considerable time. Please note it often took 4-6 months from a squadron getting it's first aircraft to the squadron flying a combat mission. 

Round 2 for the Germans comes up with.
Do-217.............10-38..............?/40 or 3/41
He 177..............11/39...............1942
JU-288..............11/40........................
FW 191...............early 1942....................

German side show.
FW 200.............7/37....................6/40?

Germans have a notable lack of suitable engines to make the big twin engine planes work. Do-217 is used for recon in late 1940 but first bomber squadron doesn't get any till March 41. FW 200s in use in 1940 had engines of under 900hp each and and bombload of around 2200lbs. In 1941 they got a different 9 cylinder radial with 1000hp (1200 for take-off with water methanol/injection) max bomb load (never actually used) was two 1100lbs in recesses in outer engine nacelles, two 550lb bombs on under wing racks and twelve 110lb bombs in the ventral gondola. 

Please note that _NOBODY _ had 4 engine bombers in service in 1940 in any numbers. The 54th B-17 was flown on July 21st 1940. 

Chances of the Germans being able to build a plane in 1940 in large numbers comparable to the Allied bombers of 1942/43 is about nil. The engines don't exist. The Halifax I wasn't exactly a ball of fire (until hit) using Merlin X engines with a FTL of 17750ft. The Jumo 211D used in many of the JU-88A-1s and and A-5s gave a max of 1080hp at 12,000ft. The J version ran late. The 1940 DB engines don't have much different FTLs. Trying to build 4 engine bombers of similar size/weight to the MK I Halifax would have meant an even lower service ceiling.

The Germans tried to get too clever with fancy engines and lowest possible drag and wound up with long, complicated and down right painful development cycles. The Do-217 was the least ambitious and was the most successful but it was closest to an American B-25/B-26 in capability. (engine power, max weight, wing size)

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## Shortround6 (Nov 22, 2016)

pinehilljoe said:


> Shortround6: I didnt write what you quoted, maybe there's a bug in the forum, if you wouldnt mind, try reposting. . If one of the moderators is reading. The quote is from a post by STONA. Your post 56 quotes post 54, and has me as the author.



Don't know how it happened, I think it is fixed. My apologies .


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## stona (Nov 23, 2016)

Graeme said:


> Looking at Mr Murray's graph - should the line depicting tonnage lost due to U-Boats be tapering down?



No. It represents cumulative losses (and gains). It can never go down, only flatten off.

The difference between cumulative losses and gains represents the increase in tonnage available to the Allies at any given time. Despite the U boat efforts, there was a net increase in tonnage available of more than 10 million tons by early 1943. This is why I said that the U boats never consistently sank enough shipping to come close to winning the Battle. They had the best chance in 1940/41, before the huge expansion in ship building. By 1943, the Americans alone were producing three 14,000 ton 'Liberty ships' _a day. _This represents a potential building capacity of more than 1.25 million tons per month. The U boats never sank close to that, even in their best months.

Edit (I've had time to dig out some figures), US yards built 8 million tons of merchant shipping in 1942 (average 666,666 tons/month), 12 million tons in 1943 (average 1 million tons/month). They were not the only ones building shipping, but US production alone far outstripped losses.
If we accept the figure of 14,915,000 tons for the total tonnage, merchant and naval, sunk by ALL U boats in ALL theatres between 1939 and 1945 we can clearly see it adds up to little more than one year's (1943) US production. Herein lies the fundamental problem for the KM, it simply couldn't sink enough shipping consistently for a long enough period. 

Cheers

Steve

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## stona (Nov 23, 2016)

The Germans had better 'delivery systems' available. They chose to persevere with the Type VIIs and develop a system to support them at longer range, rather than build more bigger and better submersibles like the Type IX. 
They did finally develop the world's first true submarines, in the Types XXI and XXIII, but like so much in the German war effort, these were too little, too late.
Cheers
Steve


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## Shortround6 (Nov 23, 2016)

The bigger conventional U-boats were slower to dive, had a bigger turning circle and had a bit less range (endurance) when running on batteries (20%?). Diving depth _may _have been a bit shallower. the much larger torpedo storage is part illusion. a larger percentage of the extra torpedoes were stored outside the pressure hull in containers under the decking. In order to get the torpedoes into the torpedo room/s the submarine has to be surfaced with crew on deck, in some case the external storage actually required crew in the water but they may have been the type VII. In any case it was not something that could be done in all sea states and most certainly not in close proximity to the enemy. As in repeated attacks on a convoy during one night or perhaps even two nights. 

I would note the British continued to build S and V class submarines until the end of the war and didn't switch over to all Ts. In part for some the same reasons the Germans _persevered _with the Type VII. Faster diving, better underwater maneuverability and smaller target.


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## Elmas (Nov 23, 2016)

But, if I rememeber well, the IXs had a better rate of sinkings per boat than the VIIs.
Of course it must be noted that the IX commanders were more seasoned, the IXs were employed in less protected areas, many of the VIIs at the end of the war were sunk at the first combat mission and so on.


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## stona (Nov 23, 2016)

Elmas said:


> Of course it must be noted that the IX commanders were more seasoned,



An important point.
1,171 U-boats were commissioned during the war and of those only 325 made successful attacks. 846 _never_ made a successful attack, for a variety of reasons.
About 3,000 vessels were sunk, 800 by the 30 most successful commanders. Statistically 27% of sinkings were achieved by less than 3% of U-boat commanders.
There are parallels here with the Luftwaffe (and other air forces) again.

Cheers

Steve

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## stona (Nov 23, 2016)

Shortround6 said:


> I would note the British continued to build S and V class submarines until the end of the war and didn't switch over to all Ts. In part for some the same reasons the Germans _persevered _with the Type VII. Faster diving, better underwater maneuverability and smaller target.



The British used their submarines in a somewhat different role. We can't really compare this to the Germans. British submarines sank somewhere in the region of 1 million tons of Axis shipping, most importantly in the Mediterranean, during the entire war. 
Cheers
Steve


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## Shortround6 (Nov 23, 2016)

One might note that this was not entirely unique to the Germans.
The US had to replace almost all of their pre-war submarine commanders before achieving any real level of success. 
Pre-war exercises with unrealistic conditions had produced a very cautious/defensive mindset in the sub commanders. To be detected was almost automatically assumed to be sunk in the war games. 

I would also note that even such details as slip length or crane capacity can mean smaller ships staying production instead of all production facilities switching to new/larger design.

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## soulezoo (Nov 23, 2016)

Shortround6 said:


> One might note that this was not entirely unique to the Germans.
> The US had to replace almost all of their pre-war submarine commanders before achieving any real level of success.
> Pre-war exercises with unrealistic conditions had produced a very cautious/defensive mindset in the sub commanders. To be detected was almost automatically assumed to be sunk in the war games.



This is correct; the best example being Mush Morton.


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## stona (Nov 23, 2016)

This does not apply to the Germans. The names of the officers in training at the newly founded Submarine Training School in late 1935 contains the names of many of the men who would change the face of naval warfare. There were only 33 of them, the list includes Prien, Liebe, Winter, Schutze, Hartmann, Kunhke, Frauenheim, Stockhausen, Lemp and Schepke, all of whom later became recipients of the Knight's Cross (Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuz) in various degrees. This represents nearly one in three of the initial intake back in 1935. In the early war years the award was based on tonnage sunk, so the recipients were by definition the most successful commanders.
Cheers
Steve


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## GrauGeist (Nov 23, 2016)

soulezoo said:


> This is correct; the best example being Mush Morton.


Of the top 10 U.S. Sub Commanders, all had pre-war submariner training and experience.

Cmdr. Morton ranked number 3 out of those top 10 and made the third spot because of the number of ships sunk, not tonnage.

That top ten list is:
1) Cmdr. O'Kane - USS Tang: 24 ships/93,824 tons
The Tang was *lost to it's own torpedo* on 25 October 1944 resulting in O'Kane being taken POW.

2) Cmdr. Cutter - USS Pomapano: 19 ships/72,000 tons

3) Cmdr. Morton - USS Wahoo: 19 ships/55,000 tons
Lost on 4th patrol (September 1943)

4) Cmdr. Fluckey - USS Barb: 16 ships/95,360 tons

5) Cmdr. Dealy - USS Harder: 16 ships/54,002 tons
Depth charged and lost on 24 August 1944.

6) Cmdr. Whitaker - USS Flasher: 14.5 ships/60,846 tons

7) Cmdr. Underwood - USS Spadefish: 14 ship/75,386 tons

8) Cmdr. Gross - USS Seawolf/USS Boarfish: 14 ships/65,735 tons
Boarfish landed commandos near Hue, Indochina, to sabotage rail lines earning a train as an unofficial credit.

9) Cmdr. Treibel - USS Shark: 14 ships/58,837 tons

10) Cmdr. Coye Jr. - USS Silversides: 14 ships/39,000 tons
USS Silversides is preserved and on display at Great Lakes Naval Memorial Museum.

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## parsifal (Nov 23, 2016)

Quoting Steve (stona)

“_That the Battle of the Atlantic did not come as close to defeating Britain as has sometimes been claimed post war is a statement of fact, not trolling_”.

I disagree with this statement, based on the following:

The quoted shipping losses in most accounts for the Battle are consistently and massively understated. The simple facts are that most accounts only take into account shipping under direct allied control, when in fact the allied effort relied very heavily on both allied controlled and neutral shipping. Much of the British shipping at the beginning of the war was transferred to flags of convenience at the beginning of the war such as Panama, because initially the Germans were reluctant to attack neutral (particularly pan American) shipping.

Another factor is that Allied shipping total tended to include shipping controlled by neutral and France (eg Norway, Sweden, the low countries). The estimates of these neutral shipping and their contributions to the british war effort are based on pre-war shipping tallies, and put these European nations at around 9-10 million tons, and bumped up allied shipping after the entry of these nations as allies to around 25-27 million tons. In fact Allied shipping totals were nowhere near those levels. Of that 9 million tons of neutral shipping that britain gained control of after the early campaigns, about half was lost or captured (mostly lost).

In addition, the US 1938-40 suffered a net shortage of shipping. It had relied heavily for its imports on foreign shipping (particularly British and Dutch) so when war broke out there was a persistent passive demand that the allies had to meet in order to keep the world economy ticking over 9which vastly benefitted the Allies over the Axis who even by 1940 were quite isolated.


Bottom line is that far from the often quoted 3.5 million tons lost in 1940, real allied losses in 1940 were closer to 10 million tons. In 1941, the rupturing of allied shipping continued, albeit at a diminished scale, with the loss of 4.5 million tons of shipping. New construction in that pre-US entry period from all sources amounted to about 1.8 million tons 1939-41.

Captured enemy shipping (eg over 40 Italian ships were seized in british and US ports in June 1940) added about 500000 tons to the allied totals. The gross subtotals to Allied shipping after the additions of 1940 are taken into account, amount to 28million tons give or take. The net losses amount to 14 million tons, not including the 6million tons of US registered ocean going shipping.

I should also mention the demands placed on shipping on the increasingly global nature of the war. The main demands on allied shipping prior to December 1941 were the far east and the Middle East.

To keep the ME command supplied, the shipping needs went up from about 500000 tons June 1940 to over 2 million tons by the start of Crusader.

In the Pacific, to meet the needs of the pre-December 1941 garrisons, Im not sure of the actual amount, but my best gues is that it went up from about 300000 tons to maybe a million tons

Conversely, and to be fully fair, the british isles made strenuous efforts to boost home food production. Such were the extent of these economy drives that home consumption demands had been reduced to about 7 million tons by December 1941. 

Overall, the MOWT (I think it was them) estimated their minimum needs for 1942 were about 9-10 million tons just to prevent Britain from being forced to her knees. By December 1941 there was a buffer of somewhere in the order of 5 million tons. That buffer was there because finally the RN was getting organised to fight the Uboats effectively, Hitler had allowed a large proportion of U-Boat strength to be frittered away on secondary fronts, there was in the last six months a measure of US support, finally US shipping was being used all the way across the north atlantic, and finally, most importantly, the allies had temporarily cracked the Uboat Enigma ciphers

The inescapable conclusion about this is that the battle was a very close run thing in which a measure of sheer dumb luck played its part in saving britain

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## RCAFson (Nov 23, 2016)

Shortround6 said:


> One might note that this was not entirely unique to the Germans.
> The US had to replace almost all of their pre-war submarine commanders before achieving any real level of success.
> Pre-war exercises with unrealistic conditions had produced a very cautious/defensive mindset in the sub commanders. To be detected was almost automatically assumed to be sunk in the war games.
> 
> I would also note that even such details as slip length or crane capacity can mean smaller ships staying production instead of all production facilities switching to new/larger design.


That was the standard explanation of those who refused to consider that early WW2 USN torpedoes were deeply flawed. USN torpedoes were largely useless until late 1943:
Mark 14 torpedo - Wikipedia


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## stona (Nov 24, 2016)

We can argue all day about_ how_ close a thing the Battle of the Atlantic was. By your estimates, a 5 million ton buffer by the end of 1941 would support the contention I made earlier that the KM had its best chance in 1940/41. After that it had lost the Battle because, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, it could not sink enough ships, consistently enough, to prevent a steady increase in the tonnage available to the Allies.
Cheers
Steve


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## stona (Nov 24, 2016)

Shortround6 said:


> The bigger conventional U-boats were slower to dive, had a bigger turning circle and had a bit less range (endurance) when running on batteries (20%?). Diving depth _may _have been a bit shallower.



I've had a chance to dig out the relative performance of the different types. There are a lot of sub-types, but generally the shorter submerged range of the Type IX compared to the Type VII is correct. The Germans gave this figure as submerged range at 4 knots.
For the Type VIIs it is generally about 80-90 miles.
For the Type IXA, B, C is about 60-70 miles. For later Ds the figure I have is at a mere 2 knots and is not directly comparable, it varies from 121 to 245 miles.

The big advantage of the larger Type IXs, particularly operating across the Atlantic, was their much greater range. The Germans gave figures for maximum range at 10 knots. 
The Type VIIs vary from 6,200 miles to 8,500 miles for the VIIA,B,C and C41, 11,200 for the VIID.
The Type IXs vary from 10,500 miles for the IXA to a more typical 12,000-13,850 for the IX B, C and C40. The IXD1 had a range of 12,500 miles but later IXDs (D2 and D42) had a range of 31,500 miles.

Maximum surface speeds for both types are similar, most in the 17-18 knot range.

Both types could dive to 100-200m.

Cheers

Steve


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## Shortround6 (Nov 24, 2016)

Dive time for the type VIIIs was 25-30 seconds with some of the boats with larger conning towers and more AA guns taking longer. Dive time for the type IX was 35 seconds. Again with more time needed by boats with larger conning towers/more additions. They tried to get the time down by using narrow foredecks.





The Type VIIID is of no account as it was a minelayer with a 10meter section of hull added behind the conning tower to hold mine tubes. With the longer hull came larger fuel tanks. only 6 were built. 
Both the type VII and Type IX were _rated _for 150 meters although sometimes operated below that in emergencies. The Type VIIC-41 was rated for 180 meters.

The Type VII had four forward tubes with 6 spare torpedoes in the torpedo room. It had one stern tube with no spare in the VIIA and one spare in a torpedo room in the VIIIB, for a total of 12 torpedoes inside the hull . All later attack boats carried a spare torpedo in a canister under the deck both for and aft to get to the total of 14 torpedoes. Practicality of using those 2 spare torpedoes varies with area of operation and sea states. 
The Type IX had four forward tubes but only four spare torpedoes in the torpedo room. The rear torpedo room had two tubes and two spare torpedoes in the torpedo room. Total of twelve torpedoes inside the pressure hull. Most type IXs carried ten torpedoes in canisters under the deck to reach the total of 22 torpedoes. 




Not a procedure you want to undertake in typical North Atlantic weather conditions OR in areas with large numbers of air patrols. 

Getting caught with a torpedo part way through the loading hatch was a fear that probably gave ulcers to U-boat commanders.





For operations around England or the Mid-Atlantic (lots of air patrols and lousy weather) the Type IX offered no tactical advantage over the Type VII. For operations in distant waters and/or better climates it was obviously superior. 

The Type VII could still play an important role near the end of the war and was not simply a "left over" compared to the type IX that showed the Germans were not trying to introduce new weapons/tactics.


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## parsifal (Nov 24, 2016)

stona said:


> We can argue all day about_ how_ close a thing the Battle of the Atlantic was. By your estimates, a 5 million ton buffer by the end of 1941 would support the contention I made earlier that the KM had its best chance in 1940/41. After that it had lost the Battle because, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, it could not sink enough ships, consistently enough, to prevent a steady increase in the tonnage available to the Allies.
> Cheers
> Steve


I agree that the chances of German outright victory took a dive for the worse after the entry of the US, but in 1942 it was still dependent on luck and intelligent use of resources for the allies to survive. one of the biggest shake ups was in the allocation, deployment and use of the airborne assets.

For Germany to win in 1942 they had to be in a far better shape than they were historically. By the end of 1941, the numbers of boats available and at sea were still below the 50 mark. They needed 3 or 4 times that number, and could have done but for hitlers stupid decisions. They needed every boat they could get in the main TO and they needed to hit the Americans from day 1. . A loss of around 10 million tons, quickly, would have forced the allies to the negotiating table despite their industrial advantages.

It was a lost opportunity for the Germans, and certainly not beyond the imppossible.

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## stona (Nov 24, 2016)

I don't disagree with any of that. Luck always plays a part, but the reaction of the Allies to the 'U-boat menace' was obviously not all fortuitous. As Churchill said.
_"Men may make mistakes, and learn from their mistakes. Men may have bad luck, and their luck may change."_
The Allies made organisational and technological advances that left the Germans almost literally foundering in their wakes. The deployment of air power (and its new technologies) was just one aspect of this.

I still maintain that the Battle of the Atlantic was not as close as popular history generally would have us believe. At the very time the U-boats were sinking the largest tonnage of Allied shipping they had already lost the Battle. I don't believe that this was obvious at the time, but with 70+ years of hindsight it is.
A missed opportunity for Germany? Given the historical assets available to them I don't think so. In not very different circumstances? I agree that the outcome _could_ have been different.

Some smart person once said that war is a series of mistakes and the side that makes the fewest wins, or words to that effect. The Germans made far too many!
_"War is mainly a catalogue of blunders."_
Churchill again.

Cheers

Steve


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## GrauGeist (Nov 24, 2016)

One of the contributing factors to Germany's loss of any advantage from the onset, was that they never put their industry into a real wartime emphasis until much later in the war when the reality set in that things were going very bad for them. This can be applied all across the board, from AFV and aircraft production, all the way through the submarine construction.
In the year or so leading up to the war and even by early 1942, they had the opportunity to maximize production relatively unmolested - so this in itself was huge contribution to their downfall.


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## fastmongrel (Nov 24, 2016)

GrauGeist said:


> Of the top 10 U.S. Sub Commanders, all had pre-war submariner training and experience.
> 
> Cmdr. Morton ranked number 3 out of those top 10 and made the third spot because of the number of ships sunk, not tonnage.
> 
> ...



The Royal Navys most sucessful commander in terms of number of vessels sunk (27 in 29 patrols) was 
Benjamin Bryant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Bryant 
he wasborn in 1905 so it shows Old uns can still be Good uns

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## Graeme (Nov 24, 2016)

stona said:


> _"War is mainly a catalogue of blunders."_
> Churchill again.



According to Jonathan Dimbleby (The Battle of the Atlantic - pp 444) - this was Churchill's biggest blunder of WW2...


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## stona (Nov 24, 2016)

Was it just a lack of shipping?
How was NW Europe going to be invaded before the Luftwaffe was reduced or destroyed for example.
I do not disagree with the sentiment, but the statistics clearly show an ever increasing tonnage available from 1942 onward. You can never have enough shipping to satisfy every demand and keep everyone satisfied in war time, and obviously the 14 million tons lost must have had an impact. The losses may have delayed Allied operations, but my argument is that they were not enough to come close to winning the war for Germany, which is quite a different thing.
Cheers
Steve


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## Shortround6 (Nov 24, 2016)

Well, "How was NW Europe going to be invaded before the Luftwaffe was reduced or destroyed for example."

The single engine fighters, a fair proportion of the twin engine bombers, the fuel, the ammo, the bombs, the ground crews, the food for the ground crews for all types of aircraft (4 engine bombers included) all came by ship. 

Just going to the convoy system caused a drop in the amount of cargo that could be moved per month per 100,000 tons of shipping and every time the U-Boats showed up in a New area in large enough numbers to force the adoption of the convoy system in those areas the cargo moved per month/100,000 tons dropped again. 
Going to large convoys instead of multiple small ones delayed sailings and tended to overwhelm port facilities on the receiving end. Slowing down or reducing the tonnage of cargo per month per 100,000 tons of shipping. Ships at anchor aren't moving anything. 
A simple tons built vs tons sunk may not be detailed enough to give a true picture. What was important was tons moved vs tons needed to be moved. Granted at some point things did stabilize, as in 100,000 tons of shipping can move XXXXXX tons cargo per month or close to it.


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## stona (Nov 25, 2016)

Timelines are being conflated here.
Even without a single U-boat in the Atlantic Ocean it is difficult to see the USAAF commencing the operations that led to the destruction of the Luftwaffe, and this does not mean bombing French dockyards, significantly earlier.
I have never seen any evidence that the RAF or Bomber Command were ever short of fuel. There were occasional shortages of parts, usually small but essential components, sometimes from the US, but production was not seriously effected and serviceability was generally good.
The final build up for the D-Day landings was undertaken at a time when the U-boat threat had been largely neutralised. This didn't stop men being moved in relative safety earlier.More than three quarters of a million came on one ship, Queen Mary, which the U-boats could hardly trouble. Her sister ship didn't even move to the Atlantic until later, serving at first in the Far East.
The invasion in 1944 also allowed the Wermacht to be bled for another year by the Red Army, maybe not so good for the Russians, but good for the Anglo-Americans. 
Is Dimbleby seriously suggesting that with an even greater tonnage of merchant shipping available the invasion of NW Europe may have been possible in 1943? With this I do not agree.
Cheers
Steve.


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## Zipper730 (Nov 26, 2016)

Robert Porter said:


> Out of curiosity I have always wondered why the Germans did not build and operate heavy bombers such as the B-17 and B-24?


Actually, they built a whole bunch of them: The Dornier Do P (1930), Do Y (1930 or 1931), and Do 11 (1932); then the Dornier Do 19 (1936), the Junkers Ju 89 (1937), the Heinkel He 177 (1939), the Messerschmitt Me 264 (1942), all being examples.

There also technically was the Dornier Do 217, though it was sort of a mix of heavy and medium bomber: It's range was that of a medium, it's load that of a heavy, and it was classified as both.



> I have read several places that this was a decision made early in the war not to do so, but have never heard an explanation of the rational.


Actually General Walter Wever was a huge proponent of a large bomber force with the range to hit targets past the Ural mountains: His views weren't popular among all those in the Luftwaffe, but it wasn't such a big deal as he was the Chief of Staff.

He died in 1936, and his few supporters were basically drowned out by officers who favored dive-bombers and smaller aircraft on the grounds that

They were cheaper to build and consumed less resources
While they did believe in strategic bombing; they also believed that air-superiority, and battlefield support were vital



> early in the Battle of Britain when heavy bombers could conceivably have caused a great deal more damage?


You sure you aren't confusing the Blitz with the Battle of Britain?



> am I incorrect and they did operate such bombers?


The Do-217 saw extensive service, the He-177 was used extensively against the Soviet Union since it entered service (1942), and was used during Operation Steinbock (1944).



> It would seem the Luftwaffe was used in a role very much like the Army had wanted the Air Corps used for initially.


The US Army originally wanted artillery direction planes, and from there fighters and bombers. Even by 1917 or 1918, the Signal Corps was told that they were not to engage in 'wanton and promiscuous' attacks on populations (the RFC/RNAS, and later RAF were already carrying out these raids in retaliation for the Zeppelin raids, which started over England in January, 1915), and when the RAF was created Mitchell had penis envy.

For most intents and purposes from 1918-1919, the US Army Air Service wanted to be an independent Air Force.



GrauGeist said:


> The Germans did have heavy bombers such as the He177 and the Do217 but they lacked a cohesive strategic heavy bombing strategy.


The Luftwaffe definitely had a coherent strategic-bombing strategy; they just didn't have many heavy-bombers to flatten as much as they'd have liked.



> There was a fixation by the RLM that nearly everything should be dive-bomb capable.


Yeah, particularly when it came to the He-177.



> The He177 . . . evaporative cooling tests


I didn't know they pursued the evaporative cooling requirements into the flight-stage?



Greyman said:


> While it does seem that the effectiveness of conventional bombs was over-estimated before the war


They miscalculated the effects of both high explosives and incendiaries actually. They had made estimates based on the Zeppelin raids and scaled things up a bit.



> one thing most academics were planning on was a no-holds-barred conflict where a good proportion of bombs loaded with some pretty horrifying chemical agents were very much on the table.


Yes, chemical warfare was actually expected: In the UK every family had masks for that reason. Ironically, they didn't focus as much on fire-fighting efforts as dealing with poison gas attacks.



Shortround6 said:


> Well, to point "A" on my list, most German bombers were rigged to hold large numbers of 110lb bombs (He 111 could hold 32) and the British seemed to favor 250lb bombs in most 1930s designs even of 4 engine bombers. It was found that 500lb bombs were about the minimum effective against large buildings.


It would seem that the RAF and Luftwaffe had a predilection for carrying a large number of small bombs rather than a few large ones.



> Point B, Few, if any, city populations _ever_ rioted in the streets after a bomb raid or even series of raids in any country. There may have been thousands of refugees fleeing a city but not uprisings against the government.


What about the nuclear bombings in 1945?



stona said:


> Wever, responsible for the development of Luftwaffe doctrine, was certainly not an out an out follower of the doctrines developed on the similar theories of Douhet, Mitchell or Trenchard.
> 
> _Luftwaffendienstvorschrift 16: Luftkriegsführung_ (_Luftwaffe_ Service Regulation l6: Conduct of the Air War) on which Luftwaffe doctrine up to WW2 was based laid down three points:
> 
> ...


Pretty much any air-arm will try and destroy the enemy while on the ground.



> The third point did not imply a huge strategic campaign of the type launched in 1943 by the Allies. It was closer to that launched by the Luftwaffe against, for example, British ports in 1940/41 or that launched less successfully by the British at the same time against oil and industrial targets in the Ruhr.


Yes, though there are inherent advantages in range.



tomo pauk said:


> There was plenty of similarities in British and German approach to the designing of bombers, with important exception that LW have had Ju-87 for pin-point attacks on mostly the frontline targets, while RAF was trying to bulk up the numbers with single engined strategic bomber, the Fairey Battle.


Actually, the RAF had considered dive-bombing in the 1930's.

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## GrauGeist (Nov 26, 2016)

Zipper730 said:


> Actually, they built a whole bunch of them: The Dornier Do P (1930), Do Y (1930 or 1931), and Do 11 (1932); then the Dornier Do 19 (1936), the Junkers Ju 89 (1937), the Heinkel He 177 (1939), the Messerschmitt Me 264 (1942), all being examples.


These:
*Do P* had two airframes made, one being an unarmed trainer. It was capable of a max. speed of 130 mph at sea level and had a max. bombload of 3,306 pounds.

*Do Y* had 4 units built before being cancelled. Max. bombload was 2,640 pounds.

*Do11* saw production numbers totalling about 372 units. It was painfully slow (max. speed 162 mph) and it's max. bombload was 2,205 pounds.

The *Do19* was a cancelled project, only 3 examples being built. It's max. bombload was 3,520 pounds.

The *Ju89* was also a cancelled project, 2 examples being built. It's max. bombload was 3,520 pounds.

- hardly comprise a strategic bomber program and none of them were of any use.

As I had pointed out earlier, the only mass produced and deployed "heavy" bombers that Germany used with any consistency and success, were the Do217 and He177.

There were several other more modern and promising prototypes (Me264 being one of them) that were cancelled for one reason or another..


Zipper730 said:


> Actually General Walter Wever was a huge proponent of a large bomber force with the range to hit targets past the Ural mountains: His views weren't popular among all those in the Luftwaffe, but it wasn't such a big deal as he was the Chief of Staff.


Regardless of Wever being chief-of-staff, it was a huge deal because the infighting within the RLM was a costly, counter-productive struggle that detracted from their war-planning focus. Once Wever was killed, there was no longer a voice of reason within the upper heirarchy and we see how that turned out.



Zipper730 said:


> The Do-217 saw extensive service, the He-177 was used extensively against the Soviet Union since it entered service (1942), and was used during Operation Steinbock (1944).


He177 also flew missions against western Allied positions on a regular basis. KG units that operated the He177 were: KG1, KG4, KG40 and KG50



Zipper730 said:


> The Luftwaffe definitely had a coherent strategic-bombing strategy; they just didn't have many heavy-bombers to flatten as much as they'd have liked.


No, the Luftwaffe did not have a strategic bombing plan...this has been discussed many times. The Battle of Britain is a prime example of the faltering, flip-flopping and lack of doctrine that led to a great deal of losses for little gain.



Zipper730 said:


> I didn't know they pursued the evaporative cooling requirements into the flight-stage?


The evaporative cooling was part of the original design of the He177 but the excessive heat build-up of the DB engines forced the installation of the large annular radiators that imposed a performance penalty both in additional weight and drag. Many Heinkel projects tried evaptorative cooling at one point or another and while it's a great theory (and worked well on record setting specialty aircraft), it never performed as expected on any types that entered service.



Zipper730 said:


> Actually, the RAF had considered dive-bombing in the 1930's.


Dive-bombing was a common denominator in many inter-war airforces, including the U.S. Navy and Army Air Corps.
Types like:
Curtiss A-3/F8C (1925) and F11C (1932)
Great Lakes BG (1933)
Northrop BT (1935)
Vought SBU (1933)

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## stona (Nov 27, 2016)

The He 177 was not operational in any meaningful sense in 1942. Throughout the year, and later, it was still in an experimental and proving stage of development
.
It's contribution to Stalingrad was just 13 missions (for 8 losses).

The Steinbock attempts were equally meaningless. The attack on London involved just 14 He 177s, only 4 made it to London for a variety of reasons, and one of those was shot down by a Mosquito night fighter. It was utterly irrelevant at a time when Bomber Command was sending 400-500 heavy bombers the other way whenever the weather was suitable.

You can argue that the type enjoyed some limited success in the east, where the Russians were not equipped to do much about it, but again so few were operational and flew so few missions that it made no difference at all.

All of this is because the Germans did not, for reasons I have already explained, prioritise a strategic bombing programme in the 1930s. The fruits of those efforts by the British were the Stirling-Halifax-Lancaster types which were available in large numbers by the mid war period, when the Germans had nothing comparable.

As far as flirtation with dive-bombing, that's what it was for the RAF. It started the war with no front line dive bomber.
Bomber Command had no front line bomber of any type designed to support the Army (I'm not counting the Lysander Army co-operation aircraft). They tried to use the Battle in a role we might now call interdiction with disastrous results. It was not designed for this, it was like trying to hammer in a nail with a screwdriver.
Fighter Command didn't have a front line fighter capable of carrying bombs, they were both developed with speed and fire power as preemminent requirements, meaning even the fighter bomber was in the future.
I'm sure you don't need me to compare this situation with that of the Luftwaffe. The difference is entirely due to the very different doctrine underpinning the development of the two air forces.

Cheers

Steve

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## tomo pauk (Nov 27, 2016)

stona said:


> ...
> Fighter Command didn't have a front line fighter capable of carrying bombs, they were both developed with speed and fire power as preemminent requirements, meaning even the fighter bomber was in the future.
> ...



'Capable' as "not fitted with bomb racks" or as "not capable to take off if a bomb is attached"?


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## stona (Nov 27, 2016)

Not fitted with racks.
Just about any late 1930s fighter had the power, intrinsic strength and other properties that could enable it to lift some kind of bomb load with some relatively minor modification. This is about doctrine and intent. The British had no intention of using its fighters to carry bombs in 1939, or 1940, they did fit racks to a few Hurricanes in 1941, and No.607 Squadron was the first to use them operationally, against an electrical transformer at Tingry on *30th October 1941*. There were a few Whirlwinds (requiring not so minimal modification) looking for a job to suit their performance and these were also converted. Fighter Command was prepared to give up a few of one type verging on obscolescence, and another with which it didn't have a role.
None of this should be confused with any form of close air support, to which most senior RAF figures were still implacably opposed.

It was not until* mid 1942*, in North Africa, that anything approaching what might be described as close air support started to develop, and for this a US aircraft (P-40/Kittyhawk) was used.
In North Africa the first good example of really significant and well organised close air support is probably the concerted attacks by a large number of Allied squadrons (18 contributed aircraft) in support of New Zealand troops at the Tebaga Gap. This was on *26th March 1943.*

The first really significant example of close air support by the RAF in Europe was probably the bombing and strafing of German positions by Nos. 174 (who bombed) and 3 and 43 Squadrons (who strafed) in support of the Dieppe landings on *19th August 1942*. 174 Squadron alone lost 5 aircraft leading to a lot of 'I told you so' from some RAF officers. The losses seemed to justify the core argument which had underpinned RAF opposition to this sort of operation since WW1.

Cheers

Steve

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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Nov 27, 2016)

pbehn said:


> You provocative patronising ass hole, my father was in the Battle of the Atlantic, and the Arctic convoys and the Pacific. He was not a hero he did his bit, now let me see you tell Dragondog that the air war over Europe was not close, how would his father have done in a P40. The Battle of the Atlantic was won by massive investment on both sides of the Atlantic in planes ships, men, weapons, technology and intelligence. The Battle of the Atlantic was the one which troubled Churchill the most, it was the obsession of Bletchley Park and its code breakers. Your idiotic graph hides the fact that shipping losses in 1942 equalled (almost) the losses of the previous 3 years and there was no way the USA/Canada/UK relationship could survive 700,000 tons of US produce going to the bottom of the sea EVERY MONTH.
> 
> 
> I have had it with this forum you are an educated idiot trolling for an argument.
> ...



Just saw this post, or I would have responded sooner!

You can get your post across without being a provative patronizing asshole yourself.

Insulting other members will not be tolerated. Knock it off.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Nov 27, 2016)

stona said:


> Well thanks for that.
> 
> That the Battle of the Atlantic did not come as close to defeating Britain as has sometimes been claimed post war is a statement of fact, not trolling. The Battle of Britain never came close to defeating Fighter Command, the Germans never came close to being able to mount an invasion, both facts and neither detract from the determination, effort and occasional heroism of the men and women of Fighter Command.
> 
> ...



Goes for you too. Let's keep it peaceful.


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## Zipper730 (Nov 27, 2016)

GrauGeist said:


> *Do P* had two airframes made, one being an unarmed trainer. It was capable of a max. speed of 130 mph at sea level and had a max. bombload of 3,306 pounds.
> 
> *Do Y* had 4 units built before being cancelled. Max. bombload was 2,640 pounds.
> 
> ...


My point wasn't the numbers or capability (they sucked), my point was that they did create aircraft that were deemed heavy-bombers by the standards of the time.



> The *Ju89* was also a cancelled project, 2 examples being built. It's max. bombload was 3,520 pounds.


Actually, that's what's interesting: Some sources listed 3520 or so, others stated that it was able to haul over 11,000 pounds. I'm not sure how far it could fly while carrying this much, but the speed of the aircraft was comparable tot he Vickers Wellington



> As I had pointed out earlier, the only mass produced and deployed "heavy" bombers that Germany used with any consistency and success, were the Do217 and He177.


The question revolved around why the Germans didn't build and operate heavy-bombers. They built many, they operated few.



> There were several other more modern and promising prototypes (Me264 being one of them) that were cancelled for one reason or another..


Didn't the factory get bombed?



> Regardless of Wever being chief-of-staff, it was a huge deal because the infighting within the RLM was a costly, counter-productive struggle that detracted from their war-planning focus.


There might have been infighting, but with Wever as the boss, he was able to dictate his policy. After his death, the decisions made were based on the remaining officers. Some ideas were good, others not so much.

The He 177 was a heavy-bomber, I should point out: Had it been built around more level-headed design criteria (level-bombing, shallow-angle attacks only), it'd probably been fine. The dive-bombing requirement doomed it.



> He177 also flew missions against western Allied positions on a regular basis.


I didn't know that.



> No, the Luftwaffe did not have a strategic bombing plan...this has been discussed many times. The Battle of Britain is a prime example of the faltering, flip-flopping and lack of doctrine that led to a great deal of losses for little gain.


Actually, one could easily argue that Hitler's dictates fucked things up as much as anything else.

The Luftwaffe's doctrine called for subduing enemy air-forces, destruction of industry (aircraft-factories in particular), support of army and naval forces. One could argue that an excessively stiff doctrine is foolish as it cannot adopt to a changing environment (SAC as a fine example).



> The evaporative cooling was part of the original design of the He177 but the excessive heat build-up of the DB engines forced the installation of the large annular radiators that imposed a performance penalty both in additional weight and drag.


Okay, so it was removed before the first design flew?



> Many Heinkel projects tried evaptorative cooling at one point or another and while it's a great theory (and worked well on record setting specialty aircraft), it never performed as expected on any types that entered service.


I know they used it in some designs, and the reason was straight-forward: No cooling drag.



> Dive-bombing was a common denominator in many inter-war airforces, including the U.S. Navy and Army Air Corps.


The US Navy seemed to take the idea more seriously than the USAAC.


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## Shortround6 (Nov 27, 2016)

Zipper730 said:


> My point wasn't the numbers or capability (they sucked), my point was that they did create aircraft that were deemed heavy-bombers by the standards of the time.
> 
> Actually, that's what's interesting: Some sources listed 3520 or so, others stated that it was able to haul over 11,000 pounds. I'm not sure how far it could fly while carrying this much, but the speed of the aircraft was comparable tot he Vickers Wellington
> 
> The question revolved around why the Germans didn't build and operate heavy-bombers. They built many, they operated few.



Part of the problem was timing. The early "heavy" bombers sucked, doesn't matter who built them, American XB-15, Russian PE-8 (early power set up), The Do 19 and and the JU 89.
ALL heavy bombers (and most mediums) could trade bomb load for range. At least to some extent, Depended on both the bomb bay and the size of the fuel tanks.
The "Ural bomber" was a slick name but had little or no basis in fact. Unless they were planning on one way trips the published "range" of the JU 89 was sufficient *only *for a round trip from _Moscow_ to the Urals with little or no reserve. Planning to capture 750-900 miles of enemy territory in order to establish and air base for use by heavy bombers seems to be more than just a bit optimistic.
The JU 89 had a wing almost 40% bigger in wing area than B-17. The DO 19 was almost 23% bigger. If you want to carry heavy loads with low power engines you needed a big wing. Problem comes in when you get more powerful engines you are stuck with the large/HIGH DRAG wing. Yes the more powerful version could lift more but speed wasn't going to change much and any attempt to increase cruise speed was going to burn up the extra fuel pretty quick. a 10% increase in cruising speed needs about 31% more power according to the cube rule. The designers were also learning a LOT about aircraft structures at the time and even airfoils which rendered even 3-4 year old designs obsolete. Shorts got the contract for the Stirling, in part, because they were the ONLY company in England to have ANY experience with large (4 engine) all metal monoplane aircraft. 
It_ may_ be possible that the Do 19 and Ju 89 were never really intended to be production aircraft but rather proof of concept or "training" aircraft in the sense of giving German designers experience with large aircraft. 




Zipper730 said:


> There might have been infighting, but with Wever as the boss, he was able to dictate his policy. After his death, the decisions made were based on the remaining officers. Some ideas were good, others not so much.
> The He 177 was a heavy-bomber, I should point out: Had it been built around more level-headed design criteria (level-bombing, shallow-angle attacks only), it'd probably been fine. The dive-bombing requirement doomed it.



The dive bombing requirement certainly screwed it up but an early version which many people seem to advocate for would have had problems of it's own. The He 119 was the first plane to use the DB606 coupled engine (surface radiators and all) but those engines were 2350hp each and not the 2700hp engines used in early production He 177s. Splitting the power plant would have given four 1175 hp engines. 
The He 177 was designed with a number of innovative features and as some of the innovations turned to crap the design kept having to be _tweaked_ in order to keep as close as possible to the original requirement. The original surface cooling had to be changed from surface cooling only (or with small radiators) to a more even split between surface cooling and radiators and finally to radiators only. The increase in drag affected not only top speed but cruising speed and thus range. to restore range extra fuel tankage needed to be added which required some structural beefing up which added weight which decreased performance. They had also planned to use remote controlled gun installations but the progress of these fell behind the airframe construction and manned turrets/positions had to be used which further added drag. The initial prototypes quickly added about 20% to the vertical tail surfaces and in the A-3 versions and later 5ft 3 in was added to the fuselage length behind the bomb bay in part to reduce instability in flight. 
These had nothing to do with the dive bomber requirement and would have been required to be fixed on any version (4 separate engines included). 

Please look at the Halifax I (with Merlin X engines) the YB-17A (without turbos) and the early B-24s (also without turbos) to get benchmarks for a possible German 4 engine bomber in 1940 or early 1941. Throw in the German's rather lousy defensive armament of the time (basically night bomber only) and any "practical" German heavy bomber program seems more than a bit suspect. 



Zipper730 said:


> The Luftwaffe's doctrine called for subduing enemy air-forces, destruction of industry (aircraft-factories in particular), support of army and naval forces. One could argue that an excessively stiff doctrine is foolish as it cannot adopt to a changing environment (SAC as a fine example).



Having strategic bombing as the 3rd priority in not the same as ignoring it completely. The Germans had a bit of an advantage in the strategic bombing game in that Berlin was around 280-300 miles from the western border. Granted the Ruhr was in easy reach of the Western Allies but in the bomb the Capital game the Germans had a big advantage in radius. Think of the British Capitol being Dublin instead of London. Germans might very well have tried to build longer range bombers but since London was only 300 miles or less from the German Border the Germans didn't need to build 600 mile radius bombers to hit it even without taking France/low countries.
The fact that the German beam systems were operational in the summer/fall of 1940 (construction started in 1939) shows the Germans were giving more thought to "long range" navigation for strategic bombing than the British were.


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## Glider (Nov 28, 2016)

I know that it sounds simplistic but at the end of the day the German econamy and its limitied raw materials, meant that the Luftwaffe didn't have the choice. They could either have the tactcial airforce they had, or they could have the heavy four engined bomber airforce, not both. 
The Lutwaffe grew from nothing to being a formidable force in a very short space of time, to grow even further would be askiing too much.


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## GrauGeist (Nov 28, 2016)

Zipper730 said:


> My point wasn't the numbers or capability (they sucked), my point was that they did create aircraft that were deemed heavy-bombers by the standards of the time.


So did most of the world's airforces of the day, as these few examples (not a full list, however) show...
Britain: AW.38, Wellington
France: Amiot 143, F.220, MB.210
Italy: Z.1007, BR.20, SM.81
Japan: KI-1/KI-2, KI-20
Soviet Union: DB-A, TB-1, TB-3
U.S.: B-15, B-18, B-19




Zipper730 said:


> Actually, that's what's interesting: Some sources listed 3520 or so, others stated that it was able to haul over 11,000 pounds. I'm not sure how far it could fly while carrying this much, but the speed of the aircraft was comparable tot he Vickers Wellington


Double-check those sources. They may be citing "max. load" which would be opposed to "empty". Max. load would be fuel, defensive ammunition stores, fuel and full load of ordnance, etc.



Zipper730 said:


> The question revolved around why the Germans didn't build and operate heavy-bombers. They built many, they operated few.


SR put out a very good point on why the Germans didn't put a priority on heavy bombers.

The argument that medium bombers would do just as good of a job as heavy bombers won the day, however. The Germans were also notorious for forcing their types into being a "jack of all trades". Look at how the Ju88 went from a medium bomber, to a dive-bomber, torpedo bomber, heavy fighter, mine layer, night fighter and so on...they did actually perform in the medium bomber role, too!

Like I mentioned before, the RLM flip-flopped on alot of it's policies and this created a great deal of waste in regards to aircraft design, requirements and production.



Zipper730 said:


> Didn't the factory get bombed?


By late 1942 and particularly by late 1943, most of Germany's aircraft manufacturing facilities were coming under attack by Allied bombing. But it wasn't until 1944 that nearly any production facility in Germany was being scoured night and day.



Zipper730 said:


> There might have been infighting, but with Wever as the boss, he was able to dictate his policy. After his death, the decisions made were based on the remaining officers. Some ideas were good, others not so much.


Weaver may have been the boss, but resistance from the others in that circle would create delays and additional meetings and continuous bureaucratic circle-jerks.

Keep in mind that time was of the essence, if Germany were to have a viable bomber force (or fighters and other crucial assets) before they went to war, they needed to have a sizable force on hand, well trained, equipped and prepared before war started. This was simply not the case and as we see with their losses with the invasion of Poland, the lower countries and the battle of France, they were already in a precarious position when they started the Battle of Britain. Germany did not take it's production seriously until they were against the wall, and production output of fighters, for example, was highest in 1944, well after the writing was on the wall - had they been this serious in 1937, 1938, then they could have been in a better position to contest the Allies.

They were literally playing "catch up" from then onward.



Zipper730 said:


> The US Navy seemed to take the idea more seriously than the USAAC.


The Army had it's own way of thinking, regarding dive-bombing.

They had types like the A-12, A-24 and A-36 that were capable. The problem lays more in how they used them and the training and philosophy versus what the Navy doctrine was.

The one star of the USAAC/USAAF dive-bombing doctrine was the A-36 Apache, which did accomplish a great deal in many respects.


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## Elmas (Nov 28, 2016)

Two Spitfires landed, very short of juice, in a U.S. bomber base where some B-17 were refuelled, and did stop near the bowser.

_“Could you please refuel”_ asked one Pilot to the Petty Officer in charge.

_“Sure”_ the Petty Officer replied, _“but you have to wait for your turn. How many gallons you need?”_
The Spitfire Pilot replied ...

_“Oh, but it this case you can refuel with this..”_ said the Petty officer handling his Zippo to the Spitfire Pilot...

Always, when I read about a huge Luftwaffe force of heavy bombers, I wonder how many Zippo’s would have been needed to refuel them....

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## Shortround6 (Nov 28, 2016)

The US Army had "attack" planes rather than dive bombers, although dive bombers fell into the attack catagory. 
A-12





A-18




A-17




However in 1938 the Air Corp decided attack planes should be twin engine,leading to the A-20. 

Attack planes were to be used either in direct support of the land battle or for close range interdiction. They carried four .30 cal machine guns (twice the armament of a Stuka) at a time when US fighters carried a single .50 and a single .30. They also carried multiple bombs instead of one big one )or one big and several small. The Army had gone to air cooled engines ( early version/s of the A-12 used a water cooled V-12) to reduce vulnerability to ground fire. The Army also did a lot of experimenting with planes fitted with smoke canisters/tanks for the rapid laying of smoke screens as part of the tactical battle, 

However as ground troops got better and more AA guns both the "Attack plane" and dive bomber lost a lot of their appeal. Trading aircraft for a crater in a road junction or a machine gun bunker was a loosing proposition. For the Navy trading several aircraft for a destroyer was a definite win and trading even a dozen aircraft for a cruiser or carrier was also a big win. US Army also had designs for good artillery pieces sitting in drawers and just needed more money from congress to go into production. They didn't need quite the same air support for taking out strong points as some other countries did. Britain wound up with neither heavy artillery or aircraft for the first few years of the war. 

Different countries had different needs and different doctrines which affected the aircraft produced/purchased. Too many countries often built ships/aircraft and other weapons based on what the other guy had (keeping up with the Jones's) rather than what they actually needed. Something that affects ACAMs (Arm Chair Air Marshals) even today  
Just because Air Force A used a certain type plane to good effect doesn't mean it was also a good plane for Air Force B.

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## Zipper730 (Nov 28, 2016)

GrauGeist said:


> Double-check those sources. They may be citing "max. load" which would be opposed to "empty". Max. load would be fuel, defensive ammunition stores, fuel and full load of ordnance, etc.


The term payload was used.



> SR put out a very good point on why the Germans didn't put a priority on heavy bombers.


The argument that two mediums are as good as one big one.



> Keep in mind that time was of the essence, if Germany were to have a viable bomber force (or fighters and other crucial assets) before they went to war, they needed to have a sizable force on hand, well trained, equipped and prepared before war started.


Of course



> This was simply not the case and as we see with their losses with the invasion of Poland, the lower countries and the battle of France, they were already in a precarious position when they started the Battle of Britain.


I never knew that



> Germany did not take it's production seriously until they were against the wall, and production output of fighters, for example, was highest in 1944, well after the writing was on the wall - had they been this serious in 1937, 1938, then they could have been in a better position to contest the Allies.


I'm glad they weren't



> The Army had it's own way of thinking, regarding dive-bombing.
> 
> They had types like the A-12, A-24 and A-36 that were capable.


The A-12 I know almost nothing about; the A-24 and -36 I do.



> The problem lays more in how they used them and the training and philosophy versus what the Navy doctrine was.


True enough



Shortround6 said:


> The US Army had "attack" planes rather than dive bombers, although dive bombers fell into the attack catagory.


True enough. Could the A-14/A-18 dive-bomb?

Different countries had different needs and different doctrines which affected the aircraft produced/purchased. Too many countries often built ships/aircraft and other weapons based on what the other guy had (keeping up with the Jones's) rather than what they actually needed.[/quote]True.



> Just because Air Force A used a certain type plane to good effect doesn't mean it was also a good plane for Air Force B.


However there were some good rules of thumb

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## GrauGeist (Nov 28, 2016)

Another often over-looked Army dive bomber is the Curtiss A-25.

The Army ordered 900 SB2C aircraft from Curtiss. These were designated the A-25 and in a typical Army decision, changed their minds, and never used them as a combat platform. Instead, they were used as trainers and ten were given to Australia and 410 of them were given to the USMC, which redesignated them the SB2C-1A and used them for operational training.

The idea of dive bombing was adopted by the USN by the late 20's and remained an integral component until the immediate years following WWII, when the Navy drew the conclusion that the Soviet Navy did not possess enough surface assets to warrant a dive-bombing force.

The Navy's philosophy was that an enemy warship would be evasive and therefore requiring the bomb(s) be placed as close to the target as possible, unlike the typical Army's approach, which was to try and saturate the target with level bombing, which was also a philosophy held over from the 1920's.

During the inter-war period, the Army did consider, and experiment, with the dive-bomber as a solution for close support and "pinpoint" strikes, but they never seemed to take the Navy's advice or experience into account, and followed their own ideas on how dive bombing should be done. This is most likely the reason we see the Army selecting certain types for dive-bombing, but never really developing any effective program (with the exception of the A-36, of course).


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## pbehn (Nov 28, 2016)

This was simply not the case and as we see with their losses with the invasion of Poland, the lower countries and the battle of France, they were already in a precarious position when they started the Battle of Britain.



Zipper730 said:


> I never knew that


Germany lost 
285 destroyed and 275 damaged in Poland
260 destroyed in Norway
Up to the beginning of the campaign in France they lost 1,460 with 1,074 damaged, these are totals including those in training.
In France they lost 1,428 destroyed and 488 damaged which was approximately half its strength.

When told of the actual strength of the LW approx 700 bombers and 600 to 700 fighters not the 4500 bombers and 1500 fighters he had boasted about Goering is reported to have sat down in shock muttering "Is this my Luftwaffe".

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## Zipper730 (Nov 28, 2016)

GrauGeist said:


> Another often over-looked Army dive bomber is the Curtiss A-25.


The SB2C



> The idea of dive bombing was adopted by the USN by the late 20's and remained an integral component until the immediate years following WWII, when the Navy drew the conclusion that the Soviet Navy did not possess enough surface assets to warrant a dive-bombing force.


True enough, but I should point out that the A-1 and A-4's were capable of such attacks



> The Navy's philosophy was that an enemy warship would be evasive and therefore requiring the bomb(s) be placed as close to the target as possible


Lob it in their face



> During the inter-war period, the Army did consider, and experiment, with the dive-bomber as a solution for close support and "pinpoint" strikes, but they never seemed to take the Navy's advice or experience into account, and followed their own ideas on how dive bombing should be done.


I didn't know that.



pbehn said:


> This was simply not the case and as we see with their losses with the invasion of Poland, the lower countries and the battle of France, they were already in a precarious position when they started the Battle of Britain.
> 
> Germany lost
> 285 destroyed and 275 damaged in Poland
> ...


Wow


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## pbehn (Nov 28, 2016)

Zipper730 said:


> Wow



The LW and most of the German military were set up to fight campaigns (which were highly successful) not a continuous war. They didnt really go on to a full war footing until 1942/43 by which time they were less than two years from complete defeat.


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## stona (Nov 28, 2016)

Since this thread is about bombers, and to emphasise the point made above, the Luftwaffe started its campaign against the Soviet Union with* 200 fewer* bombers than it had commenced operations in the West in 1940.
Murray summed up the consequences of German policy succinctly:
_"Between July 1940 and December 1941, the Germans lost the air war over Europe for 1943 and 1944."_
Cheers
Steve


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## GrauGeist (Nov 28, 2016)

Like I said a little earlier, Germeny did not fully prepare themselves for an all out war and didn't take production seriously until thier situation was dire. *HAD* they gone into full production in '37 or '38, then perhaps they might have been able to accomplish some of their goals. Instead, they were constantly short of men, materials and equipment and constantly working from behind. As it stands, their production peaked during 1944, even with bombs raining down on them constantly - which shows that they were more than capable of an all-out production, but this serious effort was far too late to make any difference at that stage of the war.

To give an idea of what the production numbers looked like, by year, visit this link (yes, I know it's wiki, but the numbers are solid and I don't have time to type it all out here): German aircraft production during World War II - Wikipedia

To also give an idea of what Germany was up against, the U.S. manufactured more aircraft in 1944 than all the other nations (Axis and Allied) combined.


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## bobbysocks (Nov 28, 2016)

they kept thinking they were going to completely crush their opponent and either completely conquer them or force them to sue for peace within a few weeks/months...and up to a point it worked.


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## tomo pauk (Nov 28, 2016)

stona said:


> Since this thread is about bombers, and to emphasise the point made above, the Luftwaffe started its campaign against the Soviet Union with* 200 fewer* bombers than it had commenced operations in the West in 1940.
> Murray summed up the consequences of German policy succinctly:
> _"Between July 1940 and December 1941, the Germans lost the air war over Europe for 1943 and 1944."_
> Cheers
> Steve



As UK or SU, Germany lost and then rebuilt it's aircforce several times during the course of war. Germany lost the war (air war included) the very minute their leadership decided it will be a good idea to declare the war on the USA, while being involved in the 3-front war against 2 other empires/'empires'.


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## stona (Nov 28, 2016)

tomo pauk said:


> As UK or SU, Germany lost and then rebuilt it's aircforce several times during the course of war. Germany lost the war (air war included) the very minute their leadership decided it will be a good idea to declare the war on the USA, while being involved in the 3-front war against 2 other empires/'empires'.



Yes, but whereas the Luftwaffe embarked, in the third year of war, on an invasion of the USSR, with roughly the same number of aircraft it had in early 1940, others, including the RAF were not just making good losses. They were expanding with the long term production and training programmes which the Luftwaffe did not have.


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## tomo pauk (Nov 28, 2016)

Making good the losses includes very much the production, along with purchase. Germany produced ~23200 aircraft in 1940 and '41 combined, the UK produced ~35100, the Soviet Union produced ~26300. Even discounting the part of 25000 aircraft produced in the USA that UK purchased, and allowing for UK to supply it's allies and have greater losses than Germany, it is obvious that Germany is more than *10000* (ten thousand) aircraft short just vs. the UK, both to cover the losses and to allow for expansion until the end of 1941.


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## Denniss (Nov 28, 2016)

It probably wasn't helpful for the Luftwaffe to build more bombers than fighters in 1941/42 - if you want to keep-up the numbers you also need sufficient fighters to protect the bombers.


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## tomo pauk (Nov 28, 2016)

Quirk is that Luftwaffe needs both, plus trainers, plus transports, plus what their Allies need if something is actually expected from them to contribute. In 1941, Germany plays role of both UK (fights & produces for itself and Allies) and Soviets (fighting in actual war) and of USA (production for it's and other nations, mostly UK, China, later USSR), and they can't even reach what UK is making.
Obvoiusly, any planing for increase of aircraft needs to take in account the increase of need for pilots and fuel, anf fuel is not just for operations but also for training.


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## stona (Nov 29, 2016)

Denniss said:


> It probably wasn't helpful for the Luftwaffe to build more bombers than fighters in 1941/42 .



It wasn't helpful, but could it be avoided? The Luftwaffe was trying, and failing, to make good the losses, largely incurred on the Eastern Front.
Commitments in the East meant that the Luftwaffe's bomber losses were running at between 10% and 20% of establishment every month from March until November that year, in December they peaked at 23.3%, almost one in four aircraft lost.

In terms of aircraft produced the US, Britain and the USSR (the latter with the best figures available) out produced Germany by a factor of 4.6 to 1. This ignores the Italian contribution. One of the fathers of operational research, Frederick Lanchester, in one of his best known equations*, has argued that to overcome a numerical handicap of 2 to 1 an armed force does not need to be twice as good as its enemy, as common sense suggests, but four times as good. Given the numerical disadvantage at which the Germans found themselves this would imply they needed a qualitative advantage of more than 20 to 1 in order to have any chance of prevailing.
I have said this before, but the real miracle is not how the Allies won the air war, but how the Axis powers were able to hold out for as long as they did. 

Cheers

Steve

* See Lanchester's power laws.


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## stona (Nov 30, 2016)

parsifal said:


> the allies had temporarily cracked the Uboat Enigma ciphers



I was looking through_ 'Destroyer - An Anthology of First Hand Accounts of the War at Sea, 1939-1945' _and came across an account, typically understated, of the capture of the enigma machine and other intelligence from U 110. It is from David Balme, the man who led the boarding party from _HMS_ _Bulldog_. It is a long and full account, I quote just the portion relevant to enigma.

_"Meanwhile the telegraphist found the W/T office in perfect condition: no one had so much as tried to destroy books and apparatus. Codebooks, signal logs, pay books and general correspondence were all intact. A coding machine, too, was plugged in as though it had been in use when abandoned.It resembled a typewriter, hence the telegraphist pressed the keys, and reported to me that the results were peculiar. The machine was secured by four ordinary screws, soon unscrewed and sent up the hatch to the motor boat alongside.
At about 1430 hours, when we had been aboard for about two hours, I was sitting at the Captain's desk eating a sandwich sent over from Bulldog and going through all the papers when I came across a sealed envelope. It turned out to be the June settings for the coding machine, the Enigma. The May settings were probably in Lemp's pocket when he perished. Later the July settings were captured from the German trawler Lauenberg." 
_
Luck? Yes, but you can make your own luck.

Edit: I'll qualify this. Sub-Lieutenant Balme, who led the boarding party was Gunnery Control Officer on _Bulldog._ U-110 was forced to the surface by two patterns of depth charges, dropped by _Aubretia,_ appearing about 400 yards from Bulldog, who opened fire on the U-boat with every gun available.
Balme again

_"In those days we didn't have sophisticated control systems. My job was as Gunnery Control Officer was to call up the three 4.7 inch guns on my telephone headset, give the gun crew a bearing and range and tell them to open fire independently.
The noise was deafening, especially from our Lewis guns which were being fired from the bridge over our heads by anyone who could pick them up. However, it was undoubtedly the noise of all the shells and bullets hitting the U-boat which panicked the German crew, who all jumped overboard as fast as they could without successfully scuttling it."_

And that is how you make your own luck 

Historian John McCormick would write in 2000 of that day, with the benefit of hindsight.

_"That German slogan from earlier wars. 'Got mit Uns', was put in question by the apparent coincidences of 9 May 1941. If God was with anyone that day, He was with the British."_

Cheers

Steve

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## parsifal (Nov 30, 2016)

Capture of the U-110 enigma machine was very important, but it was not the first such machine to have been captured, not even the first Naval Enigma with the extra security features that had completely stumped Bletchley Park to that point. It was nevertheless sheer dumb luck as to how the British managed to secure a fully functioning version of the machine. The rotors were still missing when the machine was captured. A member of the crew had uplifted them and had them in his pocket when the British stormed aboard. the accounts I have read suggest the germans tried to dispose of these vital parts, but were prevented from doing so as the RN sailors wrestled them to the deck and prised the rotors from their fingers. German crewmen were shot in the boarding, we dont know why exactly but im willing to bet it had something to do with all of that.

The capture of the code setting did give the British a very temporary look into the vital Uboat codes, but it lasted only a few weeks. A far more significant event occurred with the capture of various weather ships before and after the U-110 episode.

RN people died recovering the u-110 stuff and the importance of the capture was known. the british (not the sailors doing the search, but certainly their commanders) knew that it was vital to secure this information. In that sense it was anything but luck, but in the sense of being able to grab the information before it was tossed over the side, it was just down to luck. even more luck dependant was that BDU did not cotton onto to what was happening as the british had to capture german ships of different types several times. it was lucky that the german did not realise what was happening. indeed, such was their confidence in their codes that they believed that even with an ENIGMA machine captured, the british would not be able to make much use of it. The british sank an enormous amount of resources to prove that assumption wrong.

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## parsifal (Nov 30, 2016)

German restrictions on numbers isn't just, or even mainly, a function of production. bombers in particular were limited by the training establishment supporting the front line forces and compared to the opponents German training resources were extremely weak.

Most of the instructors used to train bomber aircrew were exceptionally well trained and experienced pilots, who happened to use Ju-52s as their primary training mount. this aircraft was also use as the main transport type for the LW flown by these same instructors. Over the low countries losses in these units was very heavy, such losses continued throughout the first year of Barbarossa . at Stalingrad, the instructors were almost wiped out in the relief effort, leaving the LW with no choice other than to scale back its bomber training and expansion programs.

of course the shortages, particularly of fuel played a big part in this developing crisis.

For the fighter arm, the replacement program was mostly constrained by fuel shortages. The first part of LW operations to be curtailed by this was their training program. This led to the disastrous decision of shifting advanced training out to the units themselves....pilots would be thrown in at the deep end and learn the hard way. Worked if your opponent was a pilot with only 20 or 30 hrs experience himself, but against a more experienced opponent, the rookie LW pilot was just cannon fodder.

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## parsifal (Nov 30, 2016)

U-110 is just a part of a wider drama that led to the cracking of the U-boat ciphers. this is an extract from the "This day In the War in Europe' thread

"_CLs EDINBURGH, MANCHESTER, and BIRMINGHAM after covering ML Opn SN.9 A met DDs SOMALI, RAN NESTOR, BEDOUIN, and ESKIMO, which had just refuelled at Skaalefjord, for Operation EB to search for a German weather vessel.
On the 7th, *weather ship MUNCHEN (Ger 306 grt)* was captured off Iceland. The British cryptologist Harry Hinsley then working at Bletchley Park realised at the end of April 1941 that the German weather ships, were using the same ENIGMA code books as were being used on the U Boats. The trawlers, which were transmitting weather reports to the Germans, were in turn being sent naval Enigma messages.

Although the weather ships did not transmit enciphered weather reports on ENIGMA machines, they still needed to have one of the machines on board if they were to decode the ENIGMA signals transmitted to them. Hinsley realised that if the code books could be captured from one of these vulnerable trawlers, the naval ENIGMA system could be broken, with British intelligence able to decipher messages to U-boats and discover their locations. The problem remained that if the navy were to attempt to capture one of the weatherships, the German crew would have time to throw their current Enigma settings into the sea before they were boarded. Hinsley instead reasoned that the following month's ENIGMA settings would be locked in a safe aboard the ship, and could be overlooked if the Germans were forced to hastily abandon ship. On being informed, the RN despatched seven ships to the NE of Iceland at the beginning of May 1941. The target was the MUNCHEN, one of the weather ships operating in the area. In the course of the raid, the weather ship, and the ENIGMA settings for June 1941 were captured. As a result, naval ENIGMA messages transmitted during June 1941 could be quickly deciphered.

Halfway through June 1941 the Germans replaced the “bigram” tables used in ENIGMA. This would have resulted in a code breaking blackout unless further settings could be captured. Hinsley and the Admiralty were concerned that capturing another weather ship might alert the Germans to their vulnerability and cause them to immediately alter them again. It was eventually decided to take the risk and on 25 June 1941 four warships were despatched to capture the codebooks from the LAUERNBURG, another weather ship operating north of Iceland, which Hinsley had selected. Among the mass of charts and signaling papers naval intelligence office Allan Baker discovered some vital information; he had come across three loose sheets that Hinsley had hoped he would find. Two of these were headed Steckerverbindungen (plug connections) and one was a list of the Innere Finstellung (inner settings) i.e.: the ENIGMA wheel order, and the settings for the rings around the wheels that could be altered only by fiddling around inside the ENIGMA machine. It was thanks to these documents that naval ENIGMA messages were read throughout the remainder of 1941_".

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## stona (Dec 1, 2016)

I have Baker-Creswell's official report, to Greenock, dated 10th May 1941, on the action during which U-110 was captured.

There is no mention of any British casualties from his ship (_Bulldog_).

As far as the attack on the surfaced U-boat, he reported.

_"Fire was immediately opened by 4.7 inch, 3 inch, 2 pounder pom-pom and stripped Lewis guns. One 3 inch shell struck the conning tower and men were seen abandoning the submarine. Fire was ceased by the heavier guns but the men were speeded on their way by small arms fire. HMS Broadway was then seen to be about to ram. The submarine turned stern on to her and Broadway only grazed the submarine and in doing so her port forward fuel tank holed. She dropped a depth charge close to the submarine's bow. Oil covered the water.
HMS Bulldog stopped within 100 yards of the submarine and sent away an armed whaler's crew. No sign of a white flag was seen and two men appeared to be manning the submarine's forward gun. Fire was again opened by the Lewis gun and two or three men were hit. My object was to keep the crew rattled. They already appeared dazed and uncertain what to do.By the time the whaler was alongside the submarine, the whole crew appeared to have jumped into the water.....The crew_ [of the whaler] _found the conning tower hatch closed. They opened it and went below without delay. (Their orders were to seize all books and anything that looked important.) Shortly afterwards they signalled that the U-boat had been abandoned, and appeared sound and in no danger of sinking. I therefore decided to take her in tow and passed her a 3" wire."_

The report gives further detail of actions that day and makes the point that various parties, including _Bulldog's_ Engineering Officer were sent to U-110 to facilitate the tow. The final party left the submarine at 1830 hours, some six hours after she had surfaced.

There were no confrontations on the U-boat. The boarding party was led by Sub-Lieutenant Balme and comprised six seamen, a stoker and a signalman. Whilst they made their way to the U-boat, _Aubretia_ picked up the 34 (32?) surviving Germans. 15 seems to be the agreed figure for those lost, including Lemp. I have seen it claimed that he was shot either swimming back to, or re-boarding his boat in an attempt to scuttle it, but there is no such account in any contemporary British record.
The boarding party found the U-boat abandoned. Balme wrote in his official report.

_"As no small arms fire was opened up on the whaler from the U-boat, I was fairly confident that there was no one in the conning tower. This proved correct after having entered the conning tower through the opening on starboard side. The hatch down was closed tight. This hatch was 18" to 24" in diameter, spherical surface with wheel for screwing down; on unscrewing this, the hatch sprung open as soon as a clip was released.
I went down the ladder to the lower conning tower where there was a similar closed hatch. On opening this hatch I found the control room deserted, hatches leading forward and aft were open and all lighting was on. On the deck there was a large splinter from the conning tower. There was a slight escape of air in the control room but no sign of chlorine gas so gas masks which had been taken were now discarded. So also were the revolvers which now seemed more of a danger than an asset.
The U-boat had obviously been abandoned in great haste as books and gear were strewn about the place. A chain of men was formed to pass up all books, charts, etc. As speed was essential owing to the possibility of the U-boat sinking (although dry throughout), I gave orders to send up ALL books...."_

Much later, and more dramatically Balme would recall.

_"I climbed the conning tower, and at the top I took my Webley revolver out of its holster, I'd never fired it in my life.
I'm still haunted by my climb down that last vertical ladder, 15 feet into the bowels of U-110, now with the revolver holstered. I felt there must be someone below trying to open the sea cocks, or setting the detonating charges, but no one was there. There must have been complete panic in U-110, and she was left to us as the greatest prize of the war. But I still wake up at night 56 years later to find myself going down that ladder."
_
Reading these and other reports, it is clear that a combination of the initial depth charge attack by _Aubretia _(which forced the U-boat to surface), the depth charging and attempted ramming by_ Broadway _and the heavy attack by_ Bulldog _cause the German crew to panic. With the resulting loss of discipline no attempts were made to destroy any of the secret documents or equipment on the U-boat, nor to resist the British boarding party, as every man tried to save himself.

Cheers

Steve

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## pbehn (Dec 1, 2016)

Was there ever any discussion in Germany about whether weather ships and U boats were being targeted for enigma code books? That is how you make your own good or bad luck.


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## stona (Dec 1, 2016)

I don't know about the Germans, they never believed the code(s) had been broken. In the case of the U-110 the Germans survivors were deliberately hurried below decks to prevent them seeing the fate of their vessel.
The British most definitely did target such vessels. _Lauenburg_, mentioned earlier, was specifically targeted for this reason, though it could not be made to seem so. The British too trod a fine line, not wishing to do anything which would disclose to the Germans that the code(s) were compromised. If they charged around the North Atlantic seizing meteorological vessels willy-nilly, then the Germans would surely have noticed something was afoot.

Cheers

Steve


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## pbehn (Dec 1, 2016)

stona said:


> I don't know about the Germans, they never believed the code(s) had been broken. In the case of the U-110 the Germans survivors were deliberately hurried below decks to prevent them seeing the fate of their vessel.
> The British most definitely did target such vessels. _Lauenburg_, mentioned earlier, was specifically targeted for this reason, though it could not be made to seem so. The British too trod a fine line, not wishing to do anything which would disclose to the Germans that the code(s) were compromised. If they charged around the North Atlantic seizing meteorological vessels willy-nilly, then the Germans would surely have noticed something was afoot.
> 
> Cheers
> ...


That was the point I was making, certain aspects require luck, you cannot really guarantee depth charging a U Boat but not sinking it. With every vessel lost containing enigma code books the Germans should have become more suspicious to the point of paranoia but they didnt. That is where it ceases to be luck, the British were using a strategy that the Germans were not aware of but should have considered. I believe some mine laying operations "gardening" were also part of the strategy, aircraft detected were reported by enigma but using a specific set of codes, encoding a known code is exactly what you shouldnt do with a code set up.


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## pbehn (Dec 1, 2016)

duplicate


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## stona (Dec 1, 2016)

pbehn said:


> That was the point I was making, certain aspects require luck, you cannot really guarantee depth charging a U Boat but not sinking it. With every vessel lost containing enigma code books the Germans should have become more suspicious.



Absolutely. I think that they were over confident in their codes and never seriously considered that they might be compromised, even when evidence to the contrary was available. Like all intelligence, it is the interpretation rather than the raw data that is so important. Maybe the Germans saw what they wanted to see (coincidence) rather than facing up to an unpalatable possibility (that the codes were being broken). It was a massive task to change codes in the middle of a war, as the British knew only too well.
Cheers
Steve


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## pbehn (Dec 1, 2016)

stona said:


> Absolutely. I think that they were over confident in their codes and never seriously considered that they might be compromised, even when evidence to the contrary was available. Like all intelligence, it is the interpretation rather than the raw data that is so important. Maybe the Germans saw what they wanted to see (coincidence) rather than facing up to an unpalatable possibility (that the codes were being broken). It was a massive task to change codes in the middle of a war, as the British knew only too well.
> Cheers
> Steve


From what I read the Germans were not surprised that the code was broken, they thought that breaking it could be done but would take so long that the information would be almost useless, they were astounded at huge numbers being intercepted and decoded in real time rather than the odd message figured out after two weeks.

Maybe it was just self interest, after selling a code that cannot be broken to Adolfs regime it may have been easier to pretend it wasnt being broken than admit that it could be.


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## stona (Dec 1, 2016)

They would have been surprised that along with the capture of various machines and other rotor settings tables etc. the British placed procedural failures and operator mistakes as the principle reasons that they could break the codes.
The machines themselves were fiendishly good encryption devices, as ever it was human failings that contributed to an enemy's ability to decrypt the resulting messages.
Cheers
Steve

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## stona (Dec 1, 2016)

The fingers are working well, so I thought I would reproduce some more of Sub Lieutenant David Balme's report. This is the part in which he gives his impressions of the U-boat, on which he spent several hours.

_"Here are some of my impressions of the U-boat: she was new and a fine ship, both in strength of the hull, in the fittings and instruments and in the general interior construction. Absolutely nothing 'Ersatz' about her. Excellent anti-aircraft armament abaft the conning tower, consisting of a Bofors and Oerlikon-type gun. Deck around the forward deck was wood. Spotlessly clean throughout. The wardroom was finished off in light varnished woodwork and all cupboards were numbered with corresponding key to fit. There was no sign of a safe and there was only one cupboard for which I could not find the key; this cupboard was over the Captain's desk so I broke into it and it revealed a medicine chest. In the Ward Room there were several sets of writing paper and envelopes, well printed and illustrated reading books, cards, dice and the usual art studies. Bunks were one on top of another both in the officers' and crew's spaces. A very compact receiver was in the W/T office with the names of about 200 stations printed on its dial.
Plenty of tinned ham, corned beef and three sacks of potatoes in the control room; also luxuries such as beer, cigars, Player's cigarettes (German printing on the packets), and a plate of shrimps were all found in the wireless room. A magnificent galley was forward of the wireless room.
There were no signs of voice pipes, but I think loudspeakers and telephones were used - definitely a telephone in the conning tower.
One Tommy-gun was found in officers' clothes drawer; another was found in the lower control tower with an anti-tank type of rifle. Officer gear consisted of very good clothing, including anti-weather garments.
In the engine room I noticed a plate of mashed potatoes as if ;'Action Stations' had been sounded suddenly while dinner was being taken from the galley to the after crew's space. The escape chamber was in the control room just abaft the upper hatch.
My original whaler's crew worked splendidly throughout the time. They comprised of:-
S. Pearce AB, C. Dolley AB, R.Roe AB, K. Wileman AB, A. Hargreaves Ordinary Seaman, J. Trotter Ordinary Seaman, A.Long Telegraphist, C. Lee Stoker.
I submit that service revolvers are far too cumbersome and dangerous for boarding and that small Police model automatics should be supplied to all boarding officers.
Possibly, in addition to ransacking the wardroom, the crew's quarters should have been thoroughly searched, but owing to frequent depth charge attacks continuing in the vicinity, I considered it safer to keep these water-tight doors closed.
The reason why no attempt to destroy any books or material was made is obviously because they thought the U-boat was certain to sink at once.The necessary demolition switches or other devices had been set; this was corroborated by statements from prisoners who had no idea that their U-boat had been boarded. But then again: why were both control tower hatches closed?
I have Sir the Honour etc. etc."
_
The British were keen to keep the boarding and capture of valuable intelligence secret. Lieutenant Seymour, Anti-Submarine Officer on_ HMS Nigella_ recalled._

"I was assisting with the decyphering of signals, and, in the afternoon following the midday attack by U-110, a signal (I don't remember whether from C-in-C Western Approaches or Admiralty) arrived to say that this incident was to be known as Operation 'Primrose' and that no ships having any knowledge of Operation 'Primrose' were to enter harbour until further orders!
We had visions of a permanent life on the ocean wave!"_

Cheers

Steve

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## Old Wizard (Dec 1, 2016)




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## stona (Dec 1, 2016)

There was one life lost in this entire engagement. It started when, at 1201 hours, the merchantmen _Edmond _was torpedoed, followed 'a few seconds later' by _Bengore Head._
All of _Edmond's_ crew were saved, picked up by _Aubretia.
Bengore Head_ was a small ship of 2,609 tons and her back was broken. She sank rapidly but 44 survivors were taken aboard _St Apollo_ and the Norwegian _Borgfred_. It was one of _Bengore Head's_ crew that was lost.
Cheers
Steve


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## parsifal (Dec 1, 2016)

Most of what you see are based on the official admiralty report on the incident, which for the most part appears to be an accurate account of the events that transpired. however there are inconsistencies and gaps in these accounts that have never been satisfactorily addressed. it is probably too involved and controversial to tackle in a forum such as this....

The second point to raise is the german response to these security threats. There were strong suspicions that security had been breached, either by cryptoanalysis or by some form of treason. both turned out to be true actually, and the report by vice admiral Maertens in November was fairly strong in voicing its concerns. however OKM managed to convince BDU that such concerns were not insurmountable. Changes were made to the uboat communications security that led to the slaughter of 1942 as RN escort Command was again blinded for the best part of a year. The americans were so far behind this issue that they managed almost single handedly to lose the war in 1942 from their ineptitude. only the amazing replacement capabilities of the US shipyards managed to just save them, though the ability to undertake a cross channel assault was yet again delayed by the abysmal performance of King and the forces he commanded, which were woefully prepared for this. The US was so fixated on wreaking revenge on the Japanese that they were almost prepared to lose in the Atlantic to do it. Lucky the president intervened and gave King a direct order to take the situation in the Atlantic seriously since about 60% of US outputs depended on keeping the Atlantic sea communications open 

The following is an extract from an article that deals with DKMs response to the secuity issues. its only a part of the report, as you have to pay to see the article. 

The German Navy Evaluates Its Cryptographic Security, October 1941 on JSTOR


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## stona (Dec 2, 2016)

parsifal said:


> Most of what you see are based on the official admiralty report on the incident, which for the most part appears to be an accurate account of the events that transpired. however there are inconsistencies and gaps in these accounts that have never been satisfactorily addressed.



They are the reports submitted* to* the Admiralty by the officers involved (on_ Bulldog_ and others) the day after the incident.

Since there is no way these could have been influenced at the time, though officers on the same ship might collude to get their stories straight, particularly regarding the machine gunning of the men allegedly attempting to man the U-boat's forward gun, making a point that there was never a formal indication that the submarine had surrendered, they could hardly have concocted a story to suit the Admiralty. Is there a suggestion that the reports, which incidentally were classified 'Top Secret', were somehow 'edited' by the Admiralty? I have never seen or heard any evidence that any of the officers involved has made any suggestion that their submitted reports were altered in any way. 

I'm just interested to know why on earth a 'Top Secret' report would need to be edited in such a way. The over riding priority was to keep the knowledge of the capture of the machine and other intelligence from the Germans, but this is all included in black and white in the reports. What was supposedly being concealed?

Both Baker-Cresswell and Balme were decorated for their actions that day, receiving the DSO and DSC respectively. The King, according to Balme, told him that they would have received honours more appropriate to their deed, if it were not for the risk of tipping off the enemy, and that this would be put right after the war. It wasn't, the Cold War saw to that.
The telegraphist, Long, was awarded the DSM and all the rest of the boarding party were Mentioned in Dispatches.

Cheers

Steve

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## Elmas (Dec 2, 2016)

Two coincidences are a clue and two clues are a test, so Agatha Christie used to say said. Already in 1941 Supermarina started to suspect that there was something strange in the slaughter of the convoys to Libya. The British Secret Services circulated a voice saying that within Supermarina there were some spies, a voice that was quite plausible because the Italian Navy always had been against the war with Nazi Germany. This story of the spies circulated for years after the war, until the Bletchley Park activities were unveiled. The culprits were the Luftwaffe codes, by far more easily broken than those of the Kriegsmarine.

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## stona (Dec 2, 2016)

Elmas said:


> The culprits were the Luftwaffe codes, by far more easily broken than those of the Kriegsmarine.



This was also largely due to poor procedural discipline. Luftwaffe operators, for what ever reason, maybe just laziness, repeatedly encrypted using the same rotor settings. Repetition in any form gives an advantage to those seeking to decrypt the resulting signals. If the operator encrypts the same or similar information (like meteorological reports) using the same settings it at the very least gives the would be decryptors something to start with. 
Cheers
Steve


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## pbehn (Dec 2, 2016)

True Stona but two days ago there was a report issued which said that the most popular 8 digit passwords today are 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H.

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## stona (Dec 2, 2016)

pbehn said:


> True Stona but two days ago there was a report issued which said that the most popular 8 digit passwords today are 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H.



Along with 'password' and 'qwertyui', by any chance? 

Cheers

Steve


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## stona (Dec 2, 2016)

For information. This covers the period of the attacks. Operation 'Primrose' was the attempt to salvage and tow U-110 to Iceland.






Note that _Aubretia_ only closed with the boats containing _Esmond's_ survivors after she had made her two full pattern (10 depth charges) attacks on U-110.

Cheers

Steve

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## Old Wizard (Dec 2, 2016)




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## MiTasol (Dec 9, 2016)

Glider said:


> I know that it sounds simplistic but at the end of the day the German economy and its limited raw materials, meant that the Luftwaffe didn't have the choice. They could either have the tactical airforce they had, or they could have the heavy four engined bomber airforce, not both.
> The Luftwaffe grew from nothing to being a formidable force in a very short space of time, to grow even further would be asking too much.



AND Hitlers requirement that domestic goods must remain a top production priority (for propaganda/civil morale reasons) also severely reduced the ability of the LW to obtain not just existing types of aircraft and components
To have many of the country's top design engineers purely engaged in civil production will have significantly restricted the LW's ability to get the qualified engineers develop airframes, engines and components which used the same technology as used in domestic goods ranging from cars/trucks to electric appliances and to have those civil items given greater priority for materials than the LW will have significantly multiplied the actual material shortages.
Likewise having production tooling that could be used to make aircraft parts being used to make household appliances and personal vehicles was a massive handbrake on aircraft development and production.
Had domestic manufacturing been almost abolished as in Britain the LW may well have been able to design and produce not just better existing designs but a successful long range heavy bomber force. Fortunately for us that never happened.


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## Fighterguy (Dec 19, 2016)

Much has to do with the early application of airpower theory versus doctrine/dogma. The Germans learned a lesson from the Allies in WWI, the Air Battle of St. Mihiel, the brain child of Billy Mitchell, was a formative example of what air power was capable of. The Germans later used these methods in Blitzkrieg campaigns. Lightning war does not require strategic bombing. They remained focused on the immediate needs of operational and tactical spheres. Allied thinkers, on the other hand, had already taken the theoretical concepts of Giulio Douhet and Mitchell to the next level. Considering the quantities, 12,700 B-17's, 19,200 B-24's, and 7,300 Avro Lancaster's, the allies remained committed to the concept of a sustained strategic bombing campaign. Prior to U.S. entry into WWII, a study was commissioned to estimate the number of aerial bombs required to destroy Germany's war production capabilities. (Sadly, I am unable to find reference to this study. It was pointed out in the U.S.A.F. Enlisted Promotion Study Guide years ago.) The numbers were quite accurate. The Germans, as has been pointed out earlier, had little chance of being able to reach and target allied war production facilities even if they had an equivalent platform.


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## Shortround6 (Dec 19, 2016)

Fighterguy said:


> The Germans, as has been pointed out earlier, had little chance of being able to reach and target allied war production facilities even if they had an equivalent platform.



This varied considerably depending on year and intended target.
From 1935-1939 the Luftwaffe was certainly able to reach and target most of the war production of it's intimidate potential enemies, which were pretty much it's neighbors, Czechoslovakia, France, Poland and the low countries (declared neutrals). In 1938-39 large parts of Britain could be added to the target list even without taking French territory. The Luftwaffe's reach also extended further into the Balkans should it have been needed. Hitting Russian targets was pretty much out of the question. Only a few bombers in the world could hit Russian industrial targets from German territory in in 1938-39. It is about 680 miles from the German Border to Keiv and a mere 580 miles from the German border to Minsk. It is about 940 miles from the Border to Moscow. Or roughly the distance from London to Warsaw. 

German Ability to hit US targets was zero and vice versa for the entire war (American bombers operating from North America) 

In 1940 The Germans could hit Northern Ireland from the low countries or Northern France. Keiv was around 400-440miles from Hungarian, Romanian or captured Polish territory. The German 2nd Generation bombers (or 3rd depending on how you count the Do-11,13,23 and Ju 52) pretty much fell on their faces and left the He 111 and JU 88 to carry the load with some help from the Do 217 (sort a generation and 1/2 aircraft). 
With the relocation of some of the Russian industry to beyond the Urals ( and pre-war construction of some industry there) the Germans would have needed the equivalent of B-29s to mount an effective bombing campaign. it is around 830-850miles from Stalingrad to Chelyabinsk (Tankograd) so the use of lesser bombers would require quite the crystal ball to predict how far the German Army could penetrate into Russia and when. It is about 1100 miles from Kharkiv to Chelyabinsk for instance. 
The Germans could call a program the "Ural bomber" and write all the specifications they wanted, it wasn't going to be practical. 

That doesn't mean the Germans couldn't attack allied (Mostly British) War Production. They certainly did and with surprisingly good results at times given the numbers of aircraft involved. They failed to follow up very well, German target damage assessment seems to have been little different than the British target damage assessment in 1940/41 (bad to nonexistent)

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## Robert Porter (Dec 20, 2016)

Shortround6 said:


> Depends on how you look at. Somebody once said in regards to artillery. "the shell is the weapon, the artillery piece (tube) is just the delivery system."
> Improvements in Torpedoes could make a substantial difference in a submarine fleet's effectiveness. As could improved sonars, snorkels, passive radar receivers, improved diving depth (stronger hull not only increases dive depth, it slightly reduces the lethal radius of depth charges.) I would note that the US built essentially the same submarine from about 1939/40 to 1951. And kept the wartime design of diesel engine (although uprated) till the last of the diesel boats were built after a _new _design turned out to be a dud.
> Granted the Japanese never had the anti-sub capability of the RN and US Navy in late WW II.


Our own experience in the pacific with flawed torpedoes shows the necessity and efficacy of improving weapons systems and components on a continuous basis. The US sink rate went up dramatically when newer torpedoes were introduced. As far as our submarines, I agree the Fleet Boat standard was only incrementally changed during WW2 all the way until 51. After that we built and launched numerous new classes. I seem to recall someone describing US WW2 subs as shoddy surface ships that could occasionally sink themselves and refloat themselves. Not knocking our sub mariner force at all, but part of the problem was the role that the BB Admirals wanted to constrain the boats to.


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## Robert Porter (Dec 20, 2016)

stona said:


> We can argue all day about_ how_ close a thing the Battle of the Atlantic was. By your estimates, a 5 million ton buffer by the end of 1941 would support the contention I made earlier that the KM had its best chance in 1940/41. After that it had lost the Battle because, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, it could not sink enough ships, consistently enough, to prevent a steady increase in the tonnage available to the Allies.
> Cheers
> Steve


The US produced 2,710 Liberty ships during the war. And there were other classes and types built all over so I would have to say unless U-Boat production ramped up incredibly the chance of Germany starving Britain of supplies and men was unlikely. Up until 1942 the Germans certainly caused a great deal of concern. But the advent of mass production of ships, escort carriers, convoy systems, land based bombers with increased range, radar etc. The U-Boat was doomed to failure by the sheer weight of production and advancement in our ability to both defend ships and target the wolf packs, greatly helped by cracking their communications as well. So I would have to agree with you that while the losses were horrific initially, the end result was that Germany could not effectively attack shipping on the scale necessary to win the war by denying material and man power to England.


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## Shortround6 (Dec 20, 2016)

Parts of the "problem" is the distances the US had to operate over. While the BB Admirals may have desired subs that could operate with the Battle Fleet ( a requirement that became ludicrous with the advent of the North Carolina class in 1936-37) you need large subs to operate at 10,000-11,000 mile ranges and running 75 day patrols. Big boats take a while to submerge and offer bigger targets to anti-sub weapons. However if you can't reach operational areas or can only stay for a few days it doesn't matter how advanced your submarine is.

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## Fighterguy (Dec 24, 2016)

Shortround6 said:


> This varied considerably depending on year and intended target.
> From 1935-1939 the Luftwaffe was certainly able to reach and target most of the war production of it's intimidate potential enemies, which were pretty much it's neighbors, Czechoslovakia, France, Poland and the low countries (declared neutrals). In 1938-39 large parts of Britain could be added to the target list even without taking French territory. The Luftwaffe's reach also extended further into the Balkans should it have been needed. Hitting Russian targets was pretty much out of the question. Only a few bombers in the world could hit Russian industrial targets from German territory in in 1938-39. It is about 680 miles from the German Border to Keiv and a mere 580 miles from the German border to Minsk. It is about 940 miles from the Border to Moscow. Or roughly the distance from London to Warsaw.
> 
> German Ability to hit US targets was zero and vice versa for the entire war (American bombers operating from North America)
> ...


Agreed! You clarified my point perfectly. Allied bombing of German industrial targets (spurred on by American airpower advocates) was a sustained, long term, and unrelenting operation. German bombing efforts seem concerned with immediate outcomes, based on short term operational and tactical needs. The resource requirements that sustained the Allied bombing campaign were enormous, as were the casualties. I get the impression, German leaders weren't willing to risk resources in this manner.


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