To know roughly where the U Boats were, or to know roughly where the the convoy was, was totally worthless . You had to know where they were precisely .The U Boat search lines could mostly not find the convoys they knew were in the area, not because of Ultra, but because the only thing the U Boats knew was that a convoy was in the area .And the area was too big .
About Doenitz :
he knew where the convoys started : NY,etc, but could not attack them there , he also knew where they were going (Liverpool ) ,but did not attack them there. He attacked them where he could not find them : in the Atlantic .
Not an intelligent strategy .
He knew that if he did not find them,he could not attack them,but still refused to change his strategy .
And , then, he had the ''brilliant ''( haha ) idea to attack the stronger one (US ) by sending his U Boats to the eastern/southern coasts of the US (Drumbeat ),knowing very well that going and returning would consume most of their fuel, meaning that they could operate only a short time .And he knew very well that the oil tankers that were lost had as destination,not Britain, but the eastern states of the US and Canada : Britain did not import ONE ton less of oil because of Drumbeat, thus, Drumbeat was nothing more than a wast .
Oil was Britain's Achilles Heel, most of the other products could be made in Britain .Attacking Britain's coastal shipping could have obtained better results,but he failed to do it .
Why ?
Because he was obsessed by the idea that the only thing that could force Britain to capitulate,was to sink more,while the truth is that it was not a question of quantity, but of quality .Not : how much, but what .
I would love to know when you are going to start researching a topic from more than one source, before letting everyone know just how little you do know
To know roughly where the U Boats were, or to know roughly where the the convoy was, was totally worthless .
You clearly haven't taken up the suggestion I gave you to research Rodger Winn and the tracking team.
A quote from War Beneath the Sea '
Donitz would listen to the third staff officer on enemy shipping, almost exclusively from decrypts supplied by B-Dienst.'
Contrary to your firm statement above, B-Dienst had broken the RN codes and they remained broken until mid 1943. So Donitz had an excellent understanding as to where to position his U Boats to intercept the convoys.
Interestingly in these early years of the war it was the British who hadn't broken the navy codes and were relying on '
intelligent guesswork' which is their own description of their work. The kind of information that you describe as '
totally worthless'. This totally worthless information enabled quite a lot of success.
Another quote from 'War Beneath the Sea'
Despite B-Dienst's frequent successes, the last minute evasive routing practised by the trade division of the Admiralty to Winns plots increasingly cancelled out their efforts.
So the worthless information had a lot of worth saving many ships their crews an cargo's
And , then, he had the ''brilliant ''( haha ) idea to attack the stronger one (US ) by sending his U Boats to the eastern/southern coasts of the US (Drumbeat ),knowing very well that going and returning would consume most of their fuel, meaning that they could operate only a short time .And he knew very well that the oil tankers that were lost had as destination,not Britain, but the eastern states of the US and Canada : Britain did not import ONE ton less of oil because of Drumbeat, thus, Drumbeat was nothing more than a wast
I admit that I was taken aback by this section. The tankers that were going to the UK came from the eastern seaboard of the United States. By intercepting them at their most vulnerable the Germans achieved the maximum damage for the minimum cost and it did have an impact on the Battle of the Atlantic. Are you aware the the RN had to reverse lend lease quite a number of AS vessels to the USN at a time when the Battle of the Atlantic was far from over. The morale of the US leaders was significantly shaken and yes fewer tankers were sent to the UK because the US priority was the US and Britain didn't have a problem with oil supplies.
Oil was Britain's Achilles Heel, most of the other products could be made in Britain .
Clearly you missed / ignored my previous posting in that oil was never a problem to the British. Indeed there were times when we had to reduce imports of certain types as we had run out of storage capacity. I invite you to support your statement with evidence. If you want to check my statement I suggest you look up the minutes of the Oil Committee which are available from the National Archives
Attacking Britain's coastal shipping could have obtained better results,but he failed to do it .
Why ?
If you don't know the answer to this then its clear that your knowledge of the subject is negligible. A submarines biggest threat is aircraft and the RAF had a number of short/medium aircraft in Coastal Command but a massive shortage of long ranged AS aircraft. Go close to shore and you are playing into the hands of the RN and Coastal Command. Submarinne losses will skyrocket and the chances of success fall dramatically as the convoys will be have far better protection
So to sum up your statement you couldn't really have been more wrong if you tried.
a) Donitz had an excellent idea as to where the convoys were
b) He set his wolf packs into positions to intercept which sounds like a good strategic approach to me
c) The
totally useless information (your quote) was good enough to enable the British to avoid the worst of the German attack
d) The other parts of your posting are self explanatory and totally wrong