Reluctant Poster
Tech Sergeant
- 1,643
- Dec 6, 2006
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.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.
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
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