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Maybe not Wright or P&W. What about from the stash of LeRhone engines they used on the Me-323?Unsure what the argument here is? In order to force the UK out of the war, the subs would have to on average cause unsustainable losses.
That they maybe achieved that for some brief moments doesn't win them the battle of the Atlantic. At best it might prove that without appropriate Allied countermeasures they had the capability to do it.
Absolutely. In general, not only for subs vs ASW, with some certainly notable exceptions, the Allies out-innovated the Germans.
I agree, and that does present the Germans with quite a conundrum how to efficiently find the convoys.
That's certainly a good point. And indeed they had many great radials to choose from. Say, if the R-1340 is too weak for a full-featured ASW chopper, there's, say, the R-1820 & R-1830.
Unlike the US Boats, the Germans didn't have a bathythermograph onboard to measure it properly and typically couldn't plan on thatThis was a major advantage of German U-boats - it allowed subs to much more-reliably take advantage of differing temperature water layers to break up Allied sonar signals, and to attenuate sub-generated noise below what ASDIC could usefully detect.
View attachment 792515Kayaba Ka-1 Autogyro.
From the Imperial Japanese Army, used for spotting USN Subs from the Army's Escort carrier
View attachment 792517
Because the IJN was so bad at that job and Interservice cooperation all but dead halfway thru the War
One was the Kumano Maru, another was the Yamashio Maru.
Unsure what the argument here is? In order to force the UK out of the war, the subs would have to on average cause unsustainable losses.
That they maybe achieved that for some brief moments doesn't win them the battle of the Atlantic. At best it might prove that without appropriate Allied countermeasures they had the capability to do it.
Absolutely. In general, not only for subs vs ASW, with some certainly notable exceptions, the Allies out-innovated the Germans.
Without revamping history too much things would be in the middle. I would note that Plan Z was doomed as the planners don't seem to have taken radar or long range search aircraft into account.
Well the thread is about a better German naval strategy. Given what was known at the time (much of the 1930s) we could get one answer. Using what was know in the late 40s with all the collected data we could very well get a different answer.
One strategy was Plan Z that was ordered 1939 for completion in 1948 so that was one extreme. Other extremes from modern thinking (post WW II) claim the Germans should only have built U-Boats or perhaps just used small craft (mine sweepers and coastal escorts?).
Without revamping history too much things would be in the middle. I would note that Plan Z was doomed as the planners don't seem to have taken radar or long range search aircraft into account. Why would they as radar was only being fitted for trials in most navies in 1938-39 and long range aircraft (flying 1000 miles, patrolling for several hours and flying 1000 miles back) were not operational. Prototypes yes.
The No (or smaller ) Navy ideas needs the Weimar Republic to squash the Navy either before the Emden or after the Kolns or somewhere in the Deutschland cycle (ship 1 or 2 or 3?) .
We also have to consider what the British/French response to any major change in German strategy/building program/s.
The British were not as slow as some people think.
Hunt class escort destroyers, from Wiki.
Flower class corvettes
The Loss of France meant that not only did the 1939/40 allies loose scores of escort ships but the German use of French bases made the U-boats much more effective being able to speed days longer on patrol vs transiting back and forth. Trying to figure that into German navy 1935-39 thinking is hard.
German type IX boats were sort of a mixed bag. They had a lot range, but crew comforts were not good and the torpedo capacity is something of an illusion.
wikipedia said:Twelve torpedoes were stowed internally and ten were in the topside deck containers.[1] In order to get the torpedoes into the forward or bow torpedo room, the torpedoes were lifted over the U-boat by a crane. The crew would then pull the torpedo inside the vessel using a cradle that was set at an angle to allow the torpedo to slide into position inside the torpedo room. To reload a torpedo tube with a torpedo from one of the above-deck canisters, the submarine would have to surface in calm water. Then the torpedo would be pulled out of the compartment with winches and lowered into the forward or bow torpedo room. This process could take several hours for just one torpedo, during which the U-boat was unable to dive, making it an easy target for Allied aircraft.
However not contesting the RN at sea, somehow, releases an awful lot of Allied war capacity to be used in other ways.
There is a good chance the US would have to allow the Japanese to consolidate their conquests in the PTO if they still went with the Europe First idea. Would the US be willing to give up its holdings in the Western Pacific?
But you can't give Donitz the 300+ hulls he wants until '41 at best because Germany doesn't have the lead smelting capacity until then. So, if Hitler goes to war against Poland in Sept '39 you'll never get there because UK goes to war again Germany (As S Shortround6 says UK wasn't too stupid - they knew if they left the Kriegsmarine's U-boat construction unhindered, they would have the ability to strangle British Isles. So, UK declaring war on Germany upon the invasion of Poland has to happen).I still think the best bet is listen to Donitz and give him the 300+ hulls he asked for, along with the supporting logistics ships and long-range maritime aircraft. It would (I think) significantly slow down the US getting over to Europe in any strength, and might allow the Germans and Italians to win in the MTO. In the original timeline the US adopted the Europe First strategy and treated the PTO as secondary, but would that have been the decision if the choice had meant that most of the shipbuilding effort built had to be deployed in the Atlantic and ETO/MTO to counter the U-boat threat? There is a good chance the US would have to allow the Japanese to consolidate their conquests in the PTO if they still went with the Europe First idea. Would the US be willing to give up its holdings in the Western Pacific?
The Weimar light cruisers and other light stuff (steam torpedo boats and destroyers) are still going to be very useful. They did a lot of mine laying for one thing. The 3 armored ships also gave the British a lot of heartburn during the 30s and into 1940. Something like 19 ships to chase down the Graf Spee alone. It is in the 30s that they seem to have come off the rails. How many times did they have to refuel the Prinz Eugen during the Operation Rheinübung? Twice after leaving the Bismarck? An ocean raider it was not. And the early bow on the Hipper and Blucher? Again, where were they going to operate it? In the Baltic? And the Machinery was crap. It may have had the most powerful 8in guns of any WW II cruiser (or 2nd) and it may have had the most armor but it couldn't operate in bad weather and need a fleet of tankers to even run around in the North Atlantic? Long range light cruisers with 6-9 15cm guns might have been a better bet. The ugly twins were a better deal. They force the French to reply and they need a lot more attention than simply adding an extra couple of cruisers to the hunters. Is a Hipper worth 2 or 3 Countys if you don't have BC handy? Scharnhorst forced deployment of capital ships. B & T maybe more questionable. Anything past the Tirpitz is a waste. The British can out build the Germans, Forcing them into certain path is one thing. Making the path a little wider or thicker may not give good return on investment.Radar was probably a bit of a black swan event that couldn't have been foreseen, particularly how quickly they were able to miniaturize it sufficiently to mount it on said search aircraft. But aircraft? Sure, such long range patrol aircraft didn't exist then, but they should have been able to extrapolate the range, speed, and load carrying capacity of aircraft over time and see that (potentially!) long range patrol aircraft could cover quite a lot of ocean in a few years time.
As for the Weimar naval building program, I wouldn't worry about it too much. If, hypothetically, the nazis decide to go all in on u-boats the capital outlay so far on the Weimar surface fleet program is in the grand scheme of things quite modest. The door is still mostly wide open for pivoting in all kinds of wild directions, if they so wished for whatever reasons.
They were a stop gap and they really were not that good. They needed a lot of repairs/refitting and they had lousy sea keeping. Deal was made because many of the Escorts the British ordered back in 1939 were still under construction. Of the 20 Hunts ordered in March April of 1939 only about 8 had been "completed" as of the signing of the "Destroyer deal". And most of them were only under 8 weeks old, crews were still training/making maiden voyages. Much like the Buffalo fighters, the British needed something/anything to hold them over while the things they really wanted were built. And much like Buffaloes, the Towns were running late and needed work before use.They also got 50 US WWI-era destroyers (rechristened the Town class). Obviously not as capable as a then modern fleet destroyer, but with some modest modifications adequate for convoy escort duty.
Plan Z required a fleet of tankers/supply ships floating around in the North Atlantic invisible to search planes, Old cruisers scouting around and/or RN submarines patrolling the NA looking for them. RN subs attached to the home fleet ( but not based in Scapa) were actually tasked with scouting in the North Sea and close to the Norwegian and Danish coasts. Perhaps their tactics were not the best (tended not to fire full salvos) but they put torpedoes into quite a few German ships in or at the end of the Norwegian campaign. I think the Germans had a rather exaggerated idea of what could you hide in the North Atlantic for long periods of time.Indeed. And they probably didn't count on conquering Norway either. Which sort of makes Plan Z even more bizarre; what where they going to do with all those surface ships, sitting there in Wilhelmshafen or Kiel, boxed in like in WWI?
long range (or even medium range ) boats with more tubes/internal torpedoes. Why the Germans waited for the Type XXI to put 6 tubes in the bow is something of a mystery.That being said, after the initial successes with the surface raiders, long-range u-boats were probably their best bet for raiding further away than the north Atlantic. They might have needed a better next generation long range boat to replace the Type IX. In any case, such long range raids are more of a nuisance thing rather than a war-winning strategy (which doesn't mean it wasn't worth it for them to do it, few things are war-winning by themselves, but many small streams etc.).
Easiest thing is to can the carrier before it is laid down. It was more a case of "keeping up the the Jones's " than a real operational need.Indeed. So, put down your stake and say what you think the Germans could have done better (given what they knew then)?
I don't think America would have to give up anything in the WestPac. Donitz's 300 subs would have been very, very bad for us, but escort carriers and more importantly B-24s made the mid-Atlantic dangerous. More U-boat targets? More Allied shipping losses? Probably both. And meanwhile the CVs, BBs, and a million or so troops -- who can't fight subs anyway -- are going to be hitting at Japan's perimeter all the same.
But you can't give Donitz the 300+ hulls he wants until '41 at best because Germany doesn't have the lead smelting capacity until then.
Unless France falls, the distances to great for '30s MPA to fly around British Isles to get into Atlantic and still have useful payload/time on station. (More/less same issue as U-boats, cruisers & destroyers). As the technology of the day didn't allow it, Goring didn't waste significant resources having Luftwaffe develop the functionality. If you're planning for both Poland and France to fold like houses of cards, they have padded rooms for you.
Developing air to air refueling is probably important to KM. No idea on how to rearm in addition to refuel, so combat planes may stay on station longer/attach more.
The MTO is probably as important for Germany as strangling UK in Atlantic - getting the critical minerals from North Africa e.g. Cobalt is vitally important to the war economy.
Closing Suez Canal can probably be done with block ships. What does it take for Axis airpower/Italian navy make it logistically impossible to operate from Gibraltar in MTO?
I'm also looking at what doesn't it take from KM to close Murmansk and Arkhangelsk/open a "Northern Front" for Heer.
Escort type carrier(s) with CL for close protection/BB for distant protection?? If Heer may be supplied by Naval forces but Russian force must be supplied by rail, Germans can win the logistics battle.