Better German naval strategy 1930-1945?

[Reluctant Poster]

To be fair, a good portion of that was off the East Coast and later in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico in the period where the USN lacked the will and/or the numbers of escorts to establish a convoy system. Granted that adding 150% to ongoing patrolling subs would have greatly aided Kriegsmarine efforts at any time before midwar.

Enough to knock out the UK? Maybe, maybe not, it's hard to say, between the cryptology war, the technology war, and an increasingly aggressive neutral America. Does "shoot-on-sight" come earlier if Britons are going hungry?

I used to think that spamming U-boats would be a good answer, and it very definitely has the benefits you list, but whether that's enough if USA gets involved earlier and starts spamming cargo hulls and DEs and CVEs, I think that's too nebulous to say.

Actually its surprising how few submarines caused such devastation . Only 5 in the first wave less than a dozen in any month. You don't need to build 100s of u boats. Double the number of IX operating and the east coast shipping grinds to a halt.
The real problem is the tankers. 50 were lost off the east coast in the 1st half of 1942 which was a significant portion of the tanker fleet which was already in short supply. Tankers are much more difficult to produce than Liberty ships and demands for tanker were far greater than prewar . The US had less than 400 tankers at the start of the war. The US built 482 T2 tankers in WWII. There were large fleets of British and Norwegian tankers as well but those had already suffered heavily

From "Long Night of the Tankers"
"With regard to Britain, Caribbean oil shipments declined from 67 percent of total imports in 1941 to just 23 percent by 1943. At the end of that year oil stocks had shrunk to six months supply and shipments of refined gasoline by 20 percent. Royal navy stocks fell to danger level and Royal Air Force squadrons faced a severe shortage of vital high-octanes fuel."
In addition the Allies lost 22% of their bauxite fleet which impacted the aluminum industry. Although they recovered from that quite quickly further losses would have had a longer term impact.

From 'A History of the Petroleum Administration for War"

From War Progress June 17 1944

 

[Shortround6]

Thank you.
Changes the perspective a bit. Also shows that U-Boat commanders (or at least the good ones) were selective in targeting. With limited number of torpedoes and long travel distances they were looking for high value targets. Both in cargo carried and in difficulty replacing.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Actually its surprising how few submarines caused such devastation . Only 5 in the first wave less than a dozen in any month. You don't need to build 100s of u boats. Double the number of IX operating and the east coast shipping grinds to a halt.
The real problem is the tankers. 50 were lost off the east coast in the 1st half of 1942 which was a significant portion of the tanker fleet which was already in short supply. Tankers are much more difficult to produce than Liberty ships and demands for tanker were far greater than prewar . The US had less than 400 tankers at the start of the war. The US built 482 T2 tankers in WWII. There large fleets of British and Norwegian tankers as well but those had already suffered heavily

From "Long Night of the Tankers"
"With regard to Britain, Caribbean oil shipments declined from 67 percent of total imports in 1941 to just 23 percent by 1943. At the end of that year oil stocks had shrunk to six months supply and shipments of refined gasoline by 20 percent. Royal navy stocks fell to danger level and Royal Air Force squadrons faced a severe shortage of vital high-octanes fuel."
In addition the Allies lost 22% of their bauxite fleet which impacted the aluminum industry. Although they recovered from that quite quickly frther loos in ine the wuld have had a lnger term im[pact.

From 'A History of the Petroleum Administration for War"

View attachment 793516
From War Progress June 17 1944

View attachment 793519View attachment 793520

Yeah, I read Gannon's Operation Drumbeat a long time ago. The economy of force employed by the Germans was amazing.

 

[EwenS]

Thank you.
Changes the perspective a bit. Also shows that U-Boat commanders (or at least the good ones) were selective in targeting. With limited number of torpedoes and long travel distances they were looking for high value targets. Both in cargo carried and in difficulty replacing.

I don't see any basis for that asseertion. A lot has to do with the traffic in their designated patrol areas making it more likely that it was tankers that they would encounter. They were sinking whatever they came across. Tanker or merchantman, it was all the same to them and to Donitz. A sunk ship was a sunk ship and a loss to the Allies.

For example, Feb 1942 you will find a cluster of sinkings around the Venezualan coast (where there were oil fields) and another around the Dutch Antilles (where there were oil fields and refineries). However, further north between Cape Hatteras & New York the sinkings were much more varied. You can see and analyse the shipping losses over on Uboat.net:-

Ship losses by month - uboat.net

The U-boat War in World War Two (Kriegsmarine, 1939-1945) and World War One (Kaiserliche Marine, 1914-1918) and the Allied efforts to counter the threat. This section includes over 21.000 Allied Warships and over 11.000 Allied Commanders of WWII, from the US Navy, Royal Navy, Royal Canadian...

uboat.net

The tanker traffic on the US east coast in 1942 wasn't just intended for convoys to Britain. A substantial part of it was hauling oil from the oil fields and refineries in Texas to the North East USA for internal use in that region, just as it had been pre-war and as noted in the articles posted. One of the effects of this U-boat campaign was a decision to build pipelines to avoid the need to use ocean tankers, a project already in the planning but on which work only began at the end of June 1942, again as noted in the articles. A lot of oil needing to be moved = a lot of tanker traffic presenting juicy targets, without a U-boat captain needing to actively select them over something else.

Big Inch - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Reluctant Poster]

IIRC during the battle of the Atlantic, about 10% of convoys were attacked, and of those, about 10% were hit (ships sunk?). So overall that would be a loss rate of 1%. Annoying, expensive, and tragic, but I imagine quite far from forcing the UK out of the war.

So what kind of loss rate would the subs have to inflict in order to achieve that? 5%, or even 10%? But expanding the sub fleet by a factor of 5-10x sounds far from realistic. So what to do?

Lies, damn lies and statistics.

That 1% is for the entire war, after May 1943 losses dropped dramatically. Much more relevant is the year of 1942 when merchant ship losses peaked.

Battle of the Atlantic Statistics

Battle of the Atlantic statistics

www.usmm.org

Merchant Ship Losses 1939 to 1943

Allied Merchant Ship Losses 1939 to 1943

www.usmm.org

As you can see 1942 was extraordinary bad for the Allies. This continued on in to 1st quarter of 1943. The time for the Germans to strike was in that period before the Allies technology (HF/DF, centimetric radar , long range aircraft) made the situation untenable.

The other thing that is not given enough thought is the effect on morale. Being in the merchant navy was one of the most dangerous occupations in WWII including combat, with about 30,000 deaths, ~ 10,000 of them in 1942. Actually I am surprised morale didn't crumble. Acceptable loss rates are set by men sitting in comfortable chairs over port and cigars. The men being scalded to death by steam or clawing at steel bulkheads trying escape from drowning or diving into a pool of oil hoping it doesn't catch fire or watching the convoy sail off into the distance leaving you to freeze to death in the cold water may have had a different opinion.

I have found an example of morale cracking
From Long Night of the Tankers
"By late April 1942, tensions between some 50 Chinese stokers and the Curacaose Shipping Firm Maatschappij (CSM), caused by the sudden loss of dozens of tankers since mid-February, exploded into what the Curacao historian Junnes Sint Jago has called " one of the greatest mysteries of our nations history" in a tragic series of events "fifteen Chinese sailors were killed and dozens more wounded " by police bullets at a camp outside Willenstad. The so-called bloedbad, or "blood bath" was brought about by the shipping company's failure to address the growing fear of the Chinese stokers."
That's one way to deal with bad morale.

I wonder if there were more examples of crews refusing to sail. I'm sure there were examples of sailors jumping ship.

 

[marathag]

One of the effects of this U-boat campaign was a decision to build pipelines to avoid the need to use ocean tankers, a project already in the planning but on which work only began at the end of June 1942, again as noted in the article

And this, til the pilelines were built

USA had almost 150k tank cars, but the demand meant around 15,000 obsolete tank cars were put back into service instead of being scrapped in 1942

 

[don4331]

Sending all your farm horses to the front to be slaughtered leads to a drastic reduction in agricultural production, who would have thought?

Using horses for plowing the fields was only true for a short period of history. For the majority of time, cattle have/are used for plowing the fields. When your horses are requisitioned by the army, you go back to using cattle to plow the field

If the army takes your horse(s), you keep steer(s) to become oxen that you would have otherwise sold for meat.

The problem​

Lies, damn lies and statistics.

That 1% is for the entire war, after May 1943 losses dropped dramatically. Much more relevant is the year of 1942 when merchant ship losses peaked.

Battle of the Atlantic Statistics

Battle of the Atlantic statistics

www.usmm.org

Merchant Ship Losses 1939 to 1943

Allied Merchant Ship Losses 1939 to 1943

www.usmm.org

As you can see 1942 was extraordinary bad for the Allies. This continued on in to 1st quarter of 1943. The time for the Germans to strike was in that period before the Allies technology (HF/DF, centimetric radar , long range aircraft) made the situation untenable.

The other thing that is not given enough thought is the effect on morale. Being in the merchant navy was one of the most dangerous occupations in WWII including combat, with about 30,000 deaths, ~ 10,000 of them in 1942. Actually I am surprised morale didn't crumble. Acceptable loss rates are set by men sitting in comfortable chairs over port and cigars. The men being scalded to death by steam or clawing at steel bulkheads trying escape from drowning or diving into a pool of oil hoping it doesn't catch fire or watching the convoy sail off into the distance leaving you to freeze to death in the cold water may have had a different opinion.

I have found an example of morale cracking
From Long Night of the Tankers
"By late April 1942, tensions between some 50 Chinese stokers and the Curacaose Shipping Firm Maatschappij (CSM), caused by the sudden loss of dozens of tankers since mid-February, exploded into what the Curacao historian Junnes Sint Jago has called " one of the greatest mysteries of our nations history" in a tragic series of events "fifteen Chinses sailors were killed and dozens more wounded " by police bullets at a camp outside Willenstad. The so-called bloedbad, or "blood bath" was brought about by the shipping company's failure to address the growing fear of the Chinese stokers."
That's one way to deal with bad morale.

I wonder if there were more examples of crews refusing to sail. I'm sure there were examples of sailors jumping ship.

Canada was using press gangs in Nova Scotia to "recruit" sailors. Jails were empty* as your sentence would be x transists. MPs patrolled the shores to ensure anyone jumping ship was promptly returned.

It became an issue with the repair yards - press gangs were taking labourers who were supposed to be fixing ships. The result was those individuals who were supposed to be building the Tribal class DDs, were reassigned to the repair yards, which set the destroyers back.​

*Except for the truly dangerous criminals and the mentally insane.

 

[z42]

Actually its surprising how few submarines caused such devastation . Only 5 in the first wave less than a dozen in any month. You don't need to build 100s of u boats.

The Germans built around 700 Type VII and 200 Type IX u-boats, and they still lost the battle of the Atlantic. So if they intend to win, they need to do more or better, somehow. More u-boats, better u-boats, better tactics / strategy for deploying them, etc.?

That being said, it does seems that the u-boats were a good investment, at least by a simple tonnage comparison. Those 900 u-boats totaled around 750000 tonnes (0.75 million tonnes), and sent something like 30 million tonnes to the bottom during the war (around 15 million GRT, and very roughly 1 GRT implies around 2 tons).

 

[z42]

I don't see any basis for that asseertion. A lot has to do with the traffic in their designated patrol areas making it more likely that it was tankers that they would encounter. They were sinking whatever they came across. Tanker or merchantman, it was all the same to them and to Donitz. A sunk ship was a sunk ship and a loss to the Allies.

For example, Feb 1942 you will find a cluster of sinkings around the Venezualan coast (where there were oil fields) and another around the Dutch Antilles (where there were oil fields and refineries). However, further north between Cape Hatteras & New York the sinkings were much more varied. You can see and analyse the shipping losses over on Uboat.net:-

Ship losses by month - uboat.net

The U-boat War in World War Two (Kriegsmarine, 1939-1945) and World War One (Kaiserliche Marine, 1914-1918) and the Allied efforts to counter the threat. This section includes over 21.000 Allied Warships and over 11.000 Allied Commanders of WWII, from the US Navy, Royal Navy, Royal Canadian...

uboat.net

The tanker traffic on the US east coast in 1942 wasn't just intended for convoys to Britain. A substantial part of it was hauling oil from the oil fields and refineries in Texas to the North East USA for internal use in that region, just as it had been pre-war and as noted in the articles posted. One of the effects of this U-boat campaign was a decision to build pipelines to avoid the need to use ocean tankers, a project already in the planning but on which work only began at the end of June 1942, again as noted in the articles. A lot of oil needing to be moved = a lot of tanker traffic presenting juicy targets, without a U-boat captain needing to actively select them over something else.

Big Inch - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Did the Germans go (well, sail) to those places because they had figured out that hitting a key bottleneck resource could have outsized effects, or just because they knew there was a lot of lightly protected (or not protected at all) shipping in those areas that represented easy pickings?

As for those pipelines, it's indeed incredibly they built thousands of km of pipeline in just a few years.

 

[z42]

The other thing that is not given enough thought is the effect on morale. Being in the merchant navy was one of the most dangerous occupations in WWII including combat, with about 30,000 deaths, ~ 10,000 of them in 1942. Actually I am surprised morale didn't crumble. Acceptable loss rates are set by men sitting in comfortable chairs over port and cigars. The men being scalded to death by steam or clawing at steel bulkheads trying escape from drowning or diving into a pool of oil hoping it doesn't catch fire or watching the convoy sail off into the distance leaving you to freeze to death in the cold water may have had a different opinion.

I would guess that both for the Allies and the Axis, those doing the drowning part weren't made aware of the loss rates. Of course rumors would circulate that so and so many ships were lost etc.

By the end of the war something like 75% of the German u-boat sailors were KIA. Hard to imagine the sailors knowing the odds they were up against.

 

[MikeMeech]

Did the Germans go (well, sail) to those places because they had figured out that hitting a key bottleneck resource could have outsized effects, or just because they knew there was a lot of lightly protected (or not protected at all) shipping in those areas that represented easy pickings?

As for those pipelines, it's indeed incredibly they built thousands of km of pipeline in just a few years.

Hi
Pipelines on both sides of the Atlantic and then into France after D-Day via PLUTO.

(Source: 'Britain's War Machine' by David Edgerton)
Mike

 

[EwenS]

Hi
Pipelines on both sides of the Atlantic and then into France after D-Day via PLUTO.
View attachment 793580
(Source: 'Britain's War Machine' by David Edgerton)
Mike

PLUTO's part in delivering fuel to the Continent has been a bit overstated over the years because of the engineering feat that it represented. While it delivered 370,000 tons that amount represented only 8% of the fuel delivered to the Continent in 1944/45 (5.4 million tons), and virtually all of that was via the Dumbo system that didn't open until late Oct 1944. Bambi failed after less than a fortnight and was abandoned because the war had moved on.

Operation Pluto - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Edit:- To put 370,000 tons in context, it represents only about another 25 T2 tanker loads.

 

[Reluctant Poster]

Hi
Pipelines on both sides of the Atlantic and then into France after D-Day via PLUTO.
View attachment 793580
(Source: 'Britain's War Machine' by David Edgerton)
Mike

They also reversed the flow of several product lines and used them to ship crude to the big refineries in Philadelphia and New Jersey and dug up old pipelines and reused the pipe.

 

[marathag]

Using horses for plowing the fields was only true for a short period of history. For the majority of time, cattle have/are used for plowing the fields. When your horses are requisitioned by the army, you go back to using cattle to plow the field

Horses could pull plows faster than an ox team.
A Farmer might be able to plow 1-2 acres a day with Oxen.
Horses, could do 7

The short period of time for Horses occurred because Oxen were needed for the strength to pull the early wooden and then iron plows at the start of the 19thC, that really hadn't changed since medieval times for overall design

John Deere's Steel moldboard plow changed all that.

Took far less power to turn the soil over, even virgin prairie, than the old plows. That opened things up for Horses, and by the 1880s, most industrialized nations had switched over to horse drawn plows, that a team could even do two rows at a time doubling the work done in a day.

So yeah, the German could go back to oxen, and take the productivity hit.

But the Germans shouldn't have been using so many horses for farming by 1940.
Steam traction engines would have been fine-- used 1870s technology, powered by Coal that they had plenty of.

US farmers got an immediate 30% yield boost in moving to mechanization, as typically 30% of his field was set aside for fodder to feed the local animals. Machines? use those acres for food production instead.

 

[z42]

But the Germans shouldn't have been using so many horses for farming by 1940.
Steam traction engines would have been fine-- used 1870s technology, powered by Coal that they had plenty of.

US farmers got an immediate 30% yield boost in moving to mechanization, as typically 30% of his field was set aside for fodder to feed the local animals. Machines? use those acres for food production instead.

As has been mentioned in several threads, a "war-winning strategy" for Germany would have been to kick out the nazis, and direct the stimulus spending that lifted the country out of the economic crisis to building tractors, synthetic fertilizer plants, trucks, etc. instead of weapons. And then not start the war in the first place.

We can quibble whether they should have gone for steam tractors, or tractors with Otto engines and coal gas generators.

Of course, without a military buildup what are they going to do when Stalin comes knocking on their door spreading the joyful message of communism?

 

[SaparotRob]

I would guess that both for the Allies and the Axis, those doing the drowning part weren't made aware of the loss rates. Of course rumors would circulate that so and so many ships were lost etc.

Especially in the union halls of the merchant marine.

 

[ThomasP]

My dad was born in 1913, and my 2 uncles in 1906 & 1916 respectively. They grew up on the family farm and our family used horses for the field work until after my dad got back from Dunwoody. My dad went to Dunwoody and the UofM (beginning at age 16 and initially just during the winters) for engineering, machining, and mechanics. When dad got back in 1936 (after 2 years full time at school) our family and 3 other farms invested in a steam tractor and assorted implements. With the steam tractor the 4 farms were able to do nearly all the field work they had been doing with the horses and still rent tractor & driver time for other farmers to a degree.

They still did some of the work with the horses - mainly what my dad called detail work - in areas were the tractor could not go, or where horsed did the job well enough. My dad said that he enjoyed driving the steam tractor, but he really loved the Allis Chalmers model 'A' tractor they got before the war. He and my uncle kept the old 'A' in operating condition and used it until they both died in the mid-1970's. The steam tractor was retired in 1948 (I think). Although I do not remember any horses on the farm (I was born in 1958) they kept the horse paddock and shed until until the mid-1960s, occasionally renting it out to people who needed a place to "store" their horse(s) .

For those of you not familiar with the Dunwoody Institute: "Dunwoody College of Technology - Wikipedia" Although it was/is a private school they work with other colleges and schools on joint programs. A lot of manufacturing engineers go to Dunwoody for their vocational training and to the UofM for their engineering training.

 

[GrauGeist]

As has been mentioned in several threads, a "war-winning strategy" for Germany would have been to kick out the nazis, and direct the stimulus spending that lifted the country out of the economic crisis to building tractors, synthetic fertilizer plants, trucks, etc. instead of weapons. And then not start the war in the first place.

We can quibble whether they should have gone for steam tractors, or tractors with Otto engines and coal gas generators.

Of course, without a military buildup what are they going to do when Stalin comes knocking on their door spreading the joyful message of communism?

The Weimar Republic was starting to come apart - if the National Socialist party failed, the next strongest party would have filled the void.

That party was the Social Democratic Party (SPD)...

 

[marathag]

When dad got back in 1936 (after 2 years full time at school) our family and 3 other farms invested in a steam tractor and assorted implements. With the steam tractor the 4 farms were able to do nearly all the field work they had been doing with the horses and still rent tractor & driver time for other farmers to a degree.

That's the way My Granddad operated the Farm, traded a percentage of the Crop for the Traction Engine to stop by for plowing and Combine work.

Some Horses were around when I was a Kid, but really weren't needed for operation, and were done with them while I was in Gradeschool.
By that time Tractors had long taken over for Farm work. Horses were Tradition at that point, but were a huge pain in the ass to take care of, and only missed them somewhat. It sucked in Winter, I'll tell you, for chores on them. But was fun to ride and all that part in Spring and Summer

But doing farm work with them?
No Thanks.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

As has been mentioned in several threads, a "war-winning strategy" for Germany would have been to kick out the nazis, and direct the stimulus spending that lifted the country out of the economic crisis to building tractors, synthetic fertilizer plants, trucks, etc. instead of weapons. And then not start the war in the first place.

Sure but that's at a much higher level than oxen-vs-horses, which is an individual farmer's decision based on things like property wealth, family size, herd size, and so on.

It's very similar to saying Japan would have won at Midway if they hadn't started the war with America. They wouldn't have, because there wouldn't have been a war. But of course, where would they get oil? Tin? They couldn't get those resources without foregoin their invasion of China, which was predicated much on seizing Chinese rice to feed the burgeoning Japanese population, Again, agricultural issues.

What you advise is not a "war-winning" strategy, but a peace-keeping strategy, which is all fine and well. But when you consider that Germany could not feed itself from its own agricultural output (just like Japan) and still had to import foodstuffs, and that that German industry devoted to domestic farm tractors is not industry devoted to generating foreign currency exchange, what do you do then? Your economy is going to overheat anyway, as you're spending a lot internally and still piling up external debt while you sort out your farming equipment.

I'm struggling to think of the last time a general population had this sort of economic insight. America and the UK also floundered trying to cope with the Depression. even into the late 30s. Neither Japan nor Germany had the internal resources to support their growing populations. That pressure had to go somewhere.