Doenitz Gets His Way

[Geon]

Last night I watched a documentary on the Battle of the Atlantic. At the time the battle began Germany had approximately 100 U-Boats ready for action. (please correct me if this number is wrong)

Churchill was more concerned according to some sources with the U-Boat threat then he was with the threat of Nazi invasion.

I know some of this has been discussed before but assume two PODs.

1. Doenitz persuades Hitler to scrap the Z-Plan and concentrate on building U-Boats.
2. The British sink U-570 without recovering the Enigma Cipher machine on board.

Would these two events have radically changed the Battle of the Atlantic?

 

[naraic]

3 simple points

1. If Nazi Germany has 300 U-boat when ww2 starts the fall of France will probably be averted. 300 U-boat is a lot of resources.
2 . If Britain knows (and it will) what Germany is building towards it will react by changing its building plans.
3. At any point it desires Britain can move 50-200 strategic bombers to a maritime patrol tasking and the threat of U-boat will collapse.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

On Sept 39 they had 59 with 50 building and not all 59 would have been immediately available or even suitable with some being older smaller boats

Again we butt up against the limitations of the AGNA - the Anglo German Naval Agreement - which was an import arms limitation agreement for the British and an important Tacit agreement by the British to 'officially' allow Germany to abandon the earlier Versailles limitations.

Abandoning it for whatever reason would allow Germany to build what it liked but the implications are huge - for example within a month of abandoning it OTL in April 1939 Britain introduce the Limited Conscription Act!

So by all means they could have done this and had more boats ready in Sept 1939 but how much more ready would the UK be?

Ultimately the BotA was dictated by Geography, and the 2 largest navy's in the world with the largest ship building economies.

It might result in earlier better successes by the KM but it then results in earlier changes of strategy by the British and USA

Even with the 2nd Happy time for example OTL it still took until March 43 before suitable numbers of Liberators were retasked as LRMPAs to cover the Black Gap

 

[thevaliant]

Would these two events have radically changed the Battle of the Atlantic?

Yes, because there won't be a Battle of the Atlantic as Germany will be defeated by France in early 1941; and Poland will be far closer than it was OTL.

(We've done this to death before, and as a member of ten years I'm surprised you've not seen it)

 

[Vabasion]

Last night I watched a documentary on the Battle of the Atlantic. At the time the battle began Germany had approximately 100 U-Boats ready for action. (please correct me if this number is wrong)

Churchill was more concerned according to some sources with the U-Boat threat then he was with the threat of Nazi invasion.

I know some of this has been discussed before but assume two PODs.

1. Doenitz persuades Hitler to scrap the Z-Plan and concentrate on building U-Boats.
2. The British sink U-570 without recovering the Enigma Cipher machine on board.

Would these two events have radically changed the Battle of the Atlantic?

These events would have crippled German ability to even try Anschluss nevermind anything more. Let’s go step by step.

Germany not bound by naval treaties, building a submarine force is a direct gun pointed at Britain. Said Britain will not be likely to appease anyone in Germany in regards to anything. They’ll stand with the Czechs. They’ll do their damnest to prevent Anschluss. All this will damage confidence in Hitler and leadership.

You can’t hide building of 300 submarines. Submarines are also expensive compared to their tonnage. They not only need to float but dive and operate underwater. Germany announces 300 submarines - Britain announced 2100 flower corvettes to be built. At 7-1 cost they can afford it and would neuter the submarine threat.

Reading German communications is neat but they can locate submarines trough triangulating the radio waves. Germans were very chatty compared to other nations in their naval communiques.

 

[Post]

Just a few months ago there was a thread on this

What if Germany followed Donitz's proposals to build a force of 300 U-boats?

IOTL the Kriegsmarine with just 46 U boats at the beginning of the war (of which only around half or so could actually be deployed to Atlantic operations) managed to do severe havoc on the Royal Navy, sinking the Ark Royal, Courageous, and Royal oak and around 110 merchant ships with such...

www.alternatehistory.com

And on the first page of that topic there are two more threads quoted with the same subject this year.

 

[cardcarrier]

they lose the war much faster because the entire uboat war was a waste of resources no matter how many boats they built

it would have been far more productive in terms of commerce warfare to just build long range heavy bombers to burn out the ports; at least the bombers could be dual functioned to support the army, a little bit anyway

donitz was the dumbest person in Hitler's inner circle, by a lot; he had the IQ of a colonoscopy prep

 

[kmmontandon]

The best thing the Germans could've done is build fewer U-boats, not more. The entire U-boat campaign was doomed to failure, so best just to not even bother (with the benefit of hindsight, of course). And no, it doesn't matter how much in the way of British or American resources were soaked up combatting it ... the Allies could afford to spare those resources to fight U-boats far more easily than the Germans could afford to build them. Asymmetric warfare is only useful if you can use it to win.