Kriegsmarine focuses submarines to Pacific

[Guy2]

What if Kriegmarine had focused most of it's submarines to Pacific, to help Japanese? Do you think that successful Sealion would have been necessary to this strategy?

[Shaby]

Where is this coming from?

How could uboats, a purely indirect form of warfare help Japanese? Their problems could be solved only by a dozen flat tops a year and the air complements to go with them with trained pilots. Anything else would be useless.

Quite aside from the fact that Germans had their own uses for their scarce uboats. Until at least 1942 they could hardly spare a duck to send anywhere outside Western approaches and Atlantic.

And always popular logistics also make this highly unprofitable course to take for Kriegsmarine. It is one thing to send an odd boat or two to Pacific as a token gesture. Quite another to send a meaningful force.

[Gunnarnz]

Getting them there will be a big problem in itself, it's not as if there's a chain of friendly bases for them to use on their trip around either the Horn or the Cape of Good Hope. I'd also suspect that boats designed for the North Sea and Atlantic might be of somewhat less use in the Pacific, although I'm not sure on that - they might be ok. Even once they get there, however, they'll be thousands of miles from the nearest sources of spare parts unless they rely on the already over-stretched Japanese supply system.
There's also the question of why would the Germans do this? They badly needed their submarines to be in the North Sea and Atlantic, and would recieve absolutely no value from sending them halfway around the world.
The one thing they could send relatively easily was information, and this - in the form of designs, tactical doctrine, etc - could actually have helped the Japanese. Unfortunately by the time the Germans were in a position to do this, the time was probably past when the Japanese could have derived the most benefit from it. The logistical crunch was well and truly upon them, and even if they were capable of adopting any useful ideas and technology it's an open question as to whether these ideas would have got any attention from the IJN.

Just as an aside, you might not have noticed but on these boards anything involving a successful Sealion is likely to meet a fair degree of scepticism. This goes double if a successful Sealion is an essential precursor for the notion.

[MattII]

The Japanese would do a lot better copying German tactics than trying to borrow some actual equipment.

[gigalocus]

Aren't type VII's restricted by their range? Getting to the Pacific is a big enough problem, but operating in the largest ocean, especially in earlier configuration is an even greater problem.

Type IX's are the only option, but even then they'd be better suited to the Indian Ocean. But operating out of Sepang, as in OTL, comes with its own abundance of problems.

The Kriegsmarine is going to benefit from maintaining their focus on the Atlantic.

[sloreck]

AsMAttII said sending some advisors for teaching and ride along (assuming the Japanese would listen) would do way more good than U-Boats which are not designed for Pacific Ops & are way far from all logistic support. The Japanese had excellent subs with range and excellent torpedoes, they just never used them properly. For example, putting sub tenders at Wake and in the Solomons would have allowed the Japanese to attack merchant traffic going to Australia, Hawaii, and even make some nuisance along the US West Coast & possibly an occasional "oops" at the western end of the Panama Canal.

While none of these are war winners, it would require the setting up of a more rigorous convoy system in the Pacific, and the deployment of more ASW assets to that theater (and since there are only so many of these they come at the expense of Atlantic/Caribbean assets helping the KM). Using subs as scouts/warship hunters, transports, and later carriers for suicide minisubs & kaitens was a colossal waste of a useful asset.

FWIW the habitability factor of U-Boats that did go to tropical waters &/or Indian Ocean was dreadful.

[Rubicon]

Originally Posted by sloreck

AsMAttII said sending some advisors for teaching and ride along (assuming the Japanese would listen) would do way more good than U-Boats which are not designed for Pacific Ops & are way far from all logistic support. The Japanese had excellent subs with range and excellent torpedoes, they just never used them properly. For example, putting sub tenders at Wake and in the Solomons would have allowed the Japanese to attack merchant traffic going to Australia, Hawaii, and even make some nuisance along the US West Coast & possibly an occasional "oops" at the western end of the Panama Canal.

You'd need a PoD sometime in the early 20-ies at the latest to get the Japanese naval doctrine away from the fixation of 'the decisive battle' to ensure the Japanese would be willing to even consider to use their submarines from other then scouting for the main force and making attacks of opportunities on the American battle fleet.
Of course such an PoD would create immense butterflies throughout the Japanese society and on the Japanese foreign and domestic policy.

[Kissinger]

I believe that the US had no convoy system in the Pacific since in 1945 a Japanese skipper who was attacking Ulithi cursed every transport, freighter, and tanker that passed him saying that one sunk freighter was worth two battleships. He was let loose a few weeks later and got ten kills

[MUC]

Originally Posted by Guy2

What if Kriegmarine had focused most of it's submarines to Pacific, to help Japanese? Do you think that successful Sealion would have been necessary to this strategy?

Two ASBs in two sentences!!!

"Kriegsmarine focusing the submarines in the Pacific" and "Successful Sealion"


1. The U-Boats were the biggest threat / menace to Great Britain the German war machine could field during the war. The Blitz had failed, Sealion was not an option and the N. Africa campaign was lost by late 1942. However the U-Boats managed to cause lots of trouble to the British untim mid 1943 and still tied down lots of allied forces later on. If Germany focuses its subs in the Pacific, it loses the single weapon it had to put pressure on the British.

2. How do the U-Boats get to the Pacific?

3. What are the U-Boats supposed to do in the Pacific? Attack US support vessels? Attack Soviet-bound merchants? Attack allied combat fleets?

4. What does Japan give Germany in return?


The only way I see German boats operating in the Indian/Pacific ocean in large numbers, is after Germany has either beaten G. Britain out of the war or Germany has captured Egypt/Middle East.
Both of these are ASB.

[Rubicon]

Originally Posted by MUC

The only way I see German boats operating in the Indian/Pacific ocean in large numbers, is after Germany has either beaten G. Britain out of the war or Germany has captured Egypt/Middle East.
Both of these are ASB.

Nope, both are feasible.
Great Britain out of the war does not equal invaded, conquered and occupied.

And Egypt getting captured was quite possible, just a matter of logistics.

None of which requires magic, time-travel or aliens giving Germany vastly superior technology.

Hard? Sure.
Impossible? No.
Requires magic, time-travel or aliens? Absolutely not.

[MUC]

Originally Posted by Rubicon

Nope, both are feasible.
Great Britain out of the war does not equal invaded, conquered and occupied.

And Egypt getting captured was quite possible, just a matter of logistics.

None of which requires magic, time-travel or aliens giving Germany vastly superior technology.

Hard? Sure.
Impossible? No.
Requires magic, time-travel or aliens? Absolutely not.

You need an early pre-war POD in order to allow Germany to succeed in something like that. After 01.09.39, I don't see how this can happen.

[sharlin]

Mmm...un-airconditioned short range u-boats in Pacific heat. It was bad enough in the Atlantic in terms of living onboard the boats, make that even worse by a factor of LOTS and you still won't be close to how terrible it would be to be a crewman onboard a U-boat.

You've then got to get the supplies for the U-boats over to Japan, none of their subs parts would even think of working with the Germans parts. So keeping the boats in service is going to be an issue.

Also the U-boats are not long legged enough for Pacific service.

[HMS Warspite]

What would the purpose be for the Germans to do so? There were no targets and no strategical reasons for such a move, as the Allied Supplylines were very, very far away from Japanese controlled waters in mostly the South Pacific and through the Indian Ocean. More logical and far more proffitable would be a focus on the Atlantic, which was much more used for supplyroutes and simply had much more shipping to target.

[Rubicon]

Originally Posted by MUC

You need an early pre-war POD in order to allow Germany to succeed in something like that. After 01.09.39, I don't see how this can happen.

There's quite a few stories around on these boards where either event happen, with a PoD after September 3rd 1939.

I can think of two-three PoD for either one that might lead to one of them happening.

Both happening are harder, but far from ASB.

[MUC]

Originally Posted by Rubicon

There's quite a few stories around on these boards where either event happen, with a PoD after September 3rd 1939.

I can think of two-three PoD for either one that might lead to one of them happening.

Both happening are harder, but far from ASB.

That's interesting, please post some links.

[BELFAST]

It would be a waste of time. Japanese sub were used to resupply island or attack capital ships.
U boats were used to attack merchant ships.

The Germans did not have enough uboats for their own use.

[Rubicon]

Originally Posted by MUC

That's interesting, please post some links.

I'm not running around with a bunch of links handy for those lazy enough to not use the search function. But of the top of my head:

For a story where Great Britain is out of the war (for a while) is CalBear's 'Anglo-German war'. Though I personally dislike it, quite a few others praise it.

And a story where Egypt is conquered by the Axis is BlairWitch's 'Manstein in Africa'.

[Thegn]

Originally Posted by Guy2

What if Kriegmarine had focused most of it's submarines to Pacific, to help Japanese? Do you think that successful Sealion would have been necessary to this strategy?

I have to agree with the other posters that sending German U-boats into the Pacific would have been a terrific waste of resources, besides which they didn't have the legs to get there (11,400nm max for the Type-IX/C-40).

However, the Germans did use a significant fraction of their Type-XI fleet in the Indian Ocean-- not primarily to help the Japs, although that was a side-benefit, but mainly to interdict Brit supply lines. Personally I think the entire Type-XI program was a waste, & those resources could have been put to better use building more Type-VIIs for use in the N. Atlantic-- or better yet, building either an improved Type-VII (intermediate in size between the Type-VII & the Type-IX, with Schnorkel, higher submerged speed, greater crush-depth, & 2 stern tubes) or an earlier Elektroboot.

[As a side-issue, if it was felt to be strategically sound to have U-boats operating in the I.O., then after about Feb. 1942 I wonder about the feasibility of basing them out of either Singapore or Djakarta, or both. Seems a waste to bring 'em all the way back to France to refit when there were perfectly good dockyard facilities in both Singapore & Djakarta. Fuel could be bartered from the Japs, since it was produced in Indonesia (questionable whether or not the Japs would be willing to part with any, since they were short), or sent out with torpedos & spare parts in blockade runners operating out of France. German auxiliary cruisers continued to break out into the N. Atlantic until late '42, so the Brit blockade would have an effect, but it wouldn't prevent this.]

...but the decisive theatre for the U-boat was the N. Atlantic. It was the only German weapon that gave the Brit high command sleepless nights, & the Germans' only chance to strangle the Brits into neutrality.
--Thegn.