AHQ: U-boat sinking rate to achieve victory?

[Colin Haggett]

Those are good ideas, except for one thing: the presumption that attacks on convoys are the only option. Attacks on single ships are safer & (for the duration OTL) more commonplace. How can those be increased? (I do like the idea of reporting agents in foreign ports, but that increases Enigma traffic, which isn't good for Germany.)

Ops research is an angle I hadn't thought of; that could very well increase the number of contacts.

How "talkative" were solo-sailing merchantmen? Could they be detected & tracked by a U-boat-borne DF set? (Yes, I know, that presupposes BdU would even believe that could be done, which OTL didn't happen. ) It would work against convoys...

To increase attacks on single ships a number of things need to have happened/been possible:

1. Convoys only for specific reasons i.e. troop, ammunition, munitions
2. The convoy system is never implemented or broken down
3. Longer range u-boats to attack ships before they reach the convoy assembly points
4. Smaller u-boats that can attack successfully in coastal waters around the west of the UK
5. Breaker the codes governing the routing of the Monsters

This is not an exhaustive list please feel free to add to it.

 

[BlackDragon98]

To increase attacks on single ships a number of things need to have happened/been possible:

1. Convoys only for specific reasons i.e. troop, ammunition, munitions
2. The convoy system is never implemented or broken down
3. Longer range u-boats to attack ships before they reach the convoy assembly points
4. Smaller u-boats that can attack successfully in coastal waters around the west of the UK
5. Breaker the codes governing the routing of the Monsters

This is not an exhaustive list please feel free to add to it.

Dedicated marine patrol aircraft with diesel engines,marine radar, and drop tanks under exclusive Kriegsmarine command to coordinate attacks for U-boats and guide them to their targets.
Breaking the Merchant Marine code and keeping it broken.
Keep Enigma secure.

 

[McPherson]

This thread orignally raised the question... (Yes, a bit of thread necro... )

MickeyM said:
If the Germans want to sink more shipping, they can either:

• Increase the number of U-boats (more pre-war production, better survivability, or give U-boat construction priority during the war)
• Increase U-boat time on patrol (better fuel economy, bigger fuel tanks, or underway replenishment)
• Increase tonnage sunk per U-boat per day at sea (OTL this number was about 750 tons. The Germans could increase this number by fixing their torpedoes during the opening months if the war, or by using effective air reconnaissance to vector U-boats towards ships, instead of U-boats having to make a picket line and hope to stumble on a ship)
• Increase the tonnage sunk through other means (mines, aircraft, surface raiders, etc) I have no clue how to do this.

These are the usual proposals.

Let me counter the usual.
--More U-boats is an obvious non-starter. The Brits will never go for it.
--Better fuel economy is problematic. (Diesels are pretty efficient, & carrying more fuel is a space issue.)
--More time on station actually isn't beneficial. Getting to the patrol station faster, or reducing turnaround time between patrols, is. Reducing the refit time safely is problematic, given the experience with Scorpion.
--That being so, faster U-boats is a good idea, & more powerful engines can be developed fairly covertly. Moreover, they have uses as railway engines, so there's an obvious excuse. So, a somewhat bigger U-boat (nearer a Type IX, to be able to reach the U.S.) that's also faster would be roughly ideal.
--More torpedoes isn't, necessarily, a good thing.
--Better torpedoes do require better testing prewar (not necessarily hindsight...). Larger warheads, able to sink ships with single shots, would be good. Better firecontrol gear, able to ensure more hits as a percentage of shots fired, would definitely help. (AIUI, German wartime gear was pretty crude by U.S. standards, & even then, the U.S. doctrine was spreads of three.)
--Increased use of submarine-laid mines, especially in the period when German torpedoes were problematic, would be good. Developing a better sub-laid mine, especially a magnetic mine, would be a good idea.
--Developing a method to track convoys by their TBS emissions would be an excellent idea.
--I'll leave off the schnornchel & electroboot ideas; they both seem to demand wartime experience with Allied ASW.

Did I miss anything?

Subs.
1. Sealed orders and one way shore to sub communication as technical control means.
2. A competent naval general staff that can plan a commerce war.
3. Base logistics.
4. Crew training in position simulators.
5. More crew training in an actual sub simulating a war patrol.
6. Simulators for everything used in a war-shot with mechanical feedback success and fail results sensory gratification rewards. War shots in peacetime are EXPENSIVE.
7. Near war training against REAL practice targets.
8 . Pass fail for 2., 4., 5., 6., 7., for officers and enlisted who cannot cut it.
Rikkos.
1. Air tasking orders based on a pre-battle recon search and attack profile section.
2. N-2s and A-2s who know what the hell they are doing and who talk to each other.
3. A-3 and N-3 who know how to prepare air tasking orders and a sub-sortie mission order.
4. A suitable reconnaissance-strike bird, capable or anti-ship search and attack. Suggested bird?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_Ju_90

to be developed into the Ju 290

Junkers Ju 290 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

=============================================================================

Won't happen because...

Nothing says three stooges like...

German Leadership - Göring, Keitel, Dönitz

Fatso, Keitel and "S" for Brains contemplating the Battle of the Atlantic.

 

[Colin Haggett]

N-2, A-2, A-3, N-3. Naval & Air staff officers?

 

[Colin Haggett]

One should also look at the whole picture, apart from what the Kriegsmarine and especially the BdU could do.
A concentrated effort by the Luftwaffe to attack and effectively burn down the docks at Liverpool would considerable hinder Great Britains ability to resupply.
Compared to the carpet bombing of London, this effort would aid the War of the Atlantic a lot more.
If you can't kill all the merchants destroy the infrastructure necessary to offload them.

At least one new port with associated rail connections was built on the west coast of Scotland 1940-41, others could have been built if the southern ports were reduced to uselessness.

 

[McPherson]

N-2, A-2, A-3, N-3. Naval & Air staff officers?

NATO nomenclature.

N-2 Intelligence/security
N-3/5 Operations/Plans

The French invented, Prussians adapted, Germans evolved and eventually the US standardized the numbered staff positions and sections system.

• 1, for manpower or personnel
• 2, for intelligence and security
• 3, for operations
• 4, for logistics
• 5, for plans
• 6, for signals (i.e., communications or IT)[10]
• 7, for military education and training (also the joint engineer)
• 8, for finance and contracts. Also known as resource management.
• 9, for Civil-Military Co-operation (CIMIC) or civil affairs.

(From the Wiki article.)

 

[phx1138]

There were a number of factors such as the inexperience of many crews manning new boats.

That makes sense, as does lack of aggressiveness by less-experienced skippers (especially ones who've suffered harassment from Allied air).

I'm hoping to gain more from attacks on single ships, rather than fight through convoy escort, wherever possible.

To increase attacks on single ships a number of things need to have happened/been possible:

1. Convoys only for specific reasons i.e. troop, ammunition, munitions
2. The convoy system is never implemented or broken down
3. Longer range u-boats to attack ships before they reach the convoy assembly points
4. Smaller u-boats that can attack successfully in coastal waters around the west of the UK
5. Breaker the codes governing the routing of the Monsters

This is not an exhaustive list please feel free to add to it.

Those would certainly help, especially breaking the routing code. (I think attacks before ships reach assembly points is a good idea, too.) I think you (like many, not least me until not so long ago) are underestimating the number of solos. It appears, convoys or no, there were quite large numbers--& not just the very fast liners.

I also heartily endorse the idea of attacks on British ports, & traffic stacked up outside them, by Luftwaffe.

1. Sealed orders and one way shore to sub communication as technical control means.
2. A competent naval general staff that can plan a commerce war.
3. Base logistics.
4. Crew training in position simulators.
5. More crew training in an actual sub simulating a war patrol.
6. Simulators for everything used in a war-shot with mechanical feedback success and fail results sensory gratification rewards. War shots in peacetime are EXPENSIVE.
7. Near war training against REAL practice targets.
8 . Pass fail for 2., 4., 5., 6., 7., for officers and enlisted who cannot cut it.

I like it, but, sadly, it's ASB on 5, 6, & 7, never mind the Drei Dummkopfs. Exercises were ump'd unfairly (inaccurately) in everybody's navy, AFAIK.

Something like live fire exs, with "grenade" DCs & actual use of tincans, would also be hideously expensive. Plus you're likely to give the game away to the Brits--unless you can cut a deal with Stalin & do it in the Caspian or somewhere... (He might even give you a deal on fuel, in exchange for the right tech... It might not be impossible. It still pushes ASB pretty hard, IMO.)

1. Air tasking orders based on a pre-battle recon search and attack profile section.
2. N-2s and A-2s who know what the hell they are doing and who talk to each other.
3. A-3 and N-3 who know how to prepare air tasking orders and a sub-sortie mission order.
4. A suitable reconnaissance-strike bird, capable or anti-ship search and attack. Suggested bird?
[Ju 90]

Sold on all counts. You'd probably have to push Fat Hermann under a Benz 770... I could live with that.

I'd add a radio- or radar-guided glide bomb as an optional weapon, relying on Spanish Civil War experience. (I prefer IR, but that might be beyond German tech.)

Given Heer's got a decent staff system, you'd think KM would have stolen some of it.

And if we're improving communications, we absolutely have to improve them between industry, science, & military, or anything like radars on masts or really good sub RWRs are a non-starter.

 

[Gillan1220]

The problem was the U.S. can replace their loses while the Germans would have a hard time. The only way this can push through is that the U.S. has an isolationist President in the White House that would not even send Lend Lease materiel to Britain, Free France, and the USSR.

 

[MUC]

The Luftwaffe was not strong enough to do this. Other west coast ports were available also.

And, as the RAF found out in the "battle of Berlin" , concentrating air raids on a single target makes it easier for the defence to blunt the offensive. Bear in mind the need to keep the Luftwaffe up to strength for Barbarossa.

Liverpool was very important for the GB-bound convoys. Decrease the rate the ships can offload (or even hit ships in harbor) and you will put additional pressure.
Concentrated night raids against Liverpool will fare better results than bombing Coventry or whatother irrelevant target purely for psychological reasons.
I am not saying that these raids will be effective enough to win the war for the Germans. But the thread is examining possible approaches to win the war of the Atlantic. And to win that war early, you need concentrated efforts by all involved parties, the surface ships of the KM, the submarines, the recon flights over the Atlantic and the Luftwaffe hitting Coastal Command bases (as someone already proposed), defending U-boats over the Bay of Biscay and bombing ports.

Making Britain sue for terms early in the war is the only way for the Germans to guarantee a one-front-war (since they will invade the Soviet Union in 1941). This can only be achieved by a limited number of options:

a) invasion/occupation of GB via Sealion -->ASB
b) capture the entire BEF, cause massive political instability in GB (Churchill has to go somehow) --> the new government asks for terms
c) massive success in North Africa, Italy routs the British Army drives all the way to the Middle East --> ASB
d) war of the Atlantic won by the Axis

We are examining possible ways to get d) to work out.
In OTL some Germans thought that terror bombing GB will also make them sue for terms. It didn't work out and was a huge waste of resources. Reallocate this resources and you may boost d).

 

[phx1138]

Liverpool was very important for the GB-bound convoys. Decrease the rate the ships can offload (or even hit ships in harbor) and you will put additional pressure.

Politically on HMG, but also on the shipyards to replace losses.

Luftwaffe hitting Coastal Command bases (as someone already proposed)

That would be me. Thx for noticing.

Making Britain sue for terms early in the war is the only way for the Germans to guarantee a one-front-war (since they will invade the Soviet Union in 1941).

I'm not sure it's actually possible to achieve German victory no matter what happens in the Atlantic, between the Sovs & U.S. aid to Britain. That 42mo window was as big a one as looked credible for BdU to manage the task; doing it before 12/41 looks impossible. It might not be, given a drastic acceleration of U-boat building and a dramatic improvement in sinking rate (7:1 over OTL is prima facie impossible...but 3.5:1? {Indeed, 7:1 might not be impossible, at that; it just looks so fantastic.}).

Reallocate this resources and you may boost d).

IMO, that's a virtual certainty. The attacks during the Battle of Britain were so diffuse & ill-planned, they had almost no hope of achieving the stated goal. Attacks from Norway by X. Fliegerkorps on East Coast ports would have made FC's job harder more often. So would attacks on Coastal Command's bases.

 

[Astrodragon]

I have problems with the idea of accelerating the U-boat build to do more damage early in the battle.
Ignoring for the moment that the RN were keeping a close eye on U-boat production, and would have screamed loudly if they saw that ramping up, where do the resources come from? Read Tooze. A U-boat consumes resources that are in desperately short supply (not so much the steel, things like rubber, copper, etc). Germany cant aquire more. So, what doesn't get built? Allocate too much away from the Army and you might get bogged down in France. The German low priority for U-boats until France falls was the correct one imo.

In OTL, the program accelerated fast late 1940, but these boats wouldn't arrive for a year (longer allowing for crew training). By which time the British are churning out escorts at a rate of knots, and have centimetric radar coming. Remember, in OTL the RN had, if not won, at least bettered the U-boats by 1941. American involvement is a double edged sword - you get the easy US targets in 1942, but you also get a huge supply of liberty ships.

So if we can't get more U-boats, we need better ones (or ones used better). Personally I don't think better training and deployment would make a huge difference until the U-boats start surging in late 41 (the peacetime boats obviously had better trained crews). Better more realistic training is certainly achievable, the actual resources are doable apart from one thing - fuel. Germany was short of fuel all through the war, every litre used to train a U-boat is one that isn't driving a tank around. The interesting question is would investing in better training butterfly away the wolf pack? This was a tactic with two aims - mass destruction by overwhelming the escorts, also hitting the merchant crews morale, and compensating for the poorer crews by the weight of attack. There is also the issue of crewing the U-boats. Better training implies more training time. IIRC, the U-boast were the only submarine force that had to draft in sailors - all the others were volunteers to serve in subs. This is one of the big reasons the quality and commitment fell off in later years. If you have more U-boats, this problem just hits you faster.

Better air support would be possible until Russia is attacked (maybe even after that to some extent). It rather assumes the British sit back and let this happen - Britain wasn't short of aircraft in 1941, just that a lot were being misused. Losing a battle tends to concentrate the mind, and long range fighters, more raids against the airfields, and panic production of escort and merchant carriers are on the cards. As are more LRMP aircraft, with the Atlantic supply link under serious threat, Bomber Commands theories about strategic bombing will get little support until things are safer.

It also needs to be remembered that Britain, while considering the Atlantic Battle crucial, could have allocated considerably more resources to it. Of course, that means you aren't doing something else, but once your crucial supply link is under serious threat, priorities change.

Overall, I do think the U-boat force could have been adjusted to do more damage, and by forcing changes in resource allocation affect other operations, but I don't see them winning this battle.

 

[BlackDragon98]

I have problems with the idea of accelerating the U-boat build to do more damage early in the battle.
Ignoring for the moment that the RN were keeping a close eye on U-boat production, and would have screamed loudly if they saw that ramping up, where do the resources come from? Read Tooze. A U-boat consumes resources that are in desperately short supply (not so much the steel, things like rubber, copper, etc). Germany cant aquire more. So, what doesn't get built? Allocate too much away from the Army and you might get bogged down in France. The German low priority for U-boats until France falls was the correct one imo.

In OTL, the program accelerated fast late 1940, but these boats wouldn't arrive for a year (longer allowing for crew training). By which time the British are churning out escorts at a rate of knots, and have centimetric radar coming. Remember, in OTL the RN had, if not won, at least bettered the U-boats by 1941. American involvement is a double edged sword - you get the easy US targets in 1942, but you also get a huge supply of liberty ships.

So if we can't get more U-boats, we need better ones (or ones used better). Personally I don't think better training and deployment would make a huge difference until the U-boats start surging in late 41 (the peacetime boats obviously had better trained crews). Better more realistic training is certainly achievable, the actual resources are doable apart from one thing - fuel. Germany was short of fuel all through the war, every litre used to train a U-boat is one that isn't driving a tank around. The interesting question is would investing in better training butterfly away the wolf pack? This was a tactic with two aims - mass destruction by overwhelming the escorts, also hitting the merchant crews morale, and compensating for the poorer crews by the weight of attack. There is also the issue of crewing the U-boats. Better training implies more training time. IIRC, the U-boast were the only submarine force that had to draft in sailors - all the others were volunteers to serve in subs. This is one of the big reasons the quality and commitment fell off in later years. If you have more U-boats, this problem just hits you faster.

Better air support would be possible until Russia is attacked (maybe even after that to some extent). It rather assumes the British sit back and let this happen - Britain wasn't short of aircraft in 1941, just that a lot were being misused. Losing a battle tends to concentrate the mind, and long range fighters, more raids against the airfields, and panic production of escort and merchant carriers are on the cards. As are more LRMP aircraft, with the Atlantic supply link under serious threat, Bomber Commands theories about strategic bombing will get little support until things are safer.

It also needs to be remembered that Britain, while considering the Atlantic Battle crucial, could have allocated considerably more resources to it. Of course, that means you aren't doing something else, but once your crucial supply link is under serious threat, priorities change.

Overall, I do think the U-boat force could have been adjusted to do more damage, and by forcing changes in resource allocation affect other operations, but I don't see them winning this battle.

U-boats split into different prefab pieces, with those pieces being built in secret factories and then assembled under in a covered dockyard.
Meanwhile, Nazi propaganda emphasizes the construction of new capital ships, drawing attention away from U-boats.
Big problem here is getting those Nazi bigshots to cooperate on this project.

In terms of training, German destroyers/escorts and U-boats should have done training exercises together before the war.
Destroyers/escorts hunt for U-Boats while the U-boats try to score a "kill" on the escorts and the ships they're protecting (merchant raiders can be used to fill the role of merchant ships in a convoy)

 

[Colin Haggett]

Once the British had regular photo-reconnaissance coverage of the u-boat building ports they always new when a U-Boat was due to be launched. The Germans helpfully only camouflaged the portion of the slipway in use. As the u-boat sections were added fore and aft the camouflage netting was extended and then not long before launching a section in the centre was removed to install the conning tower. From "Evidence in Camera" Constance Babington-Smith. Chatto and Windus, 1958

 

[BlackDragon98]

Once the British had regular photo-reconnaissance coverage of the u-boat building ports they always new when a U-Boat was due to be launched. The Germans helpfully only camouflaged the portion of the slipway in use. As the u-boat sections were added fore and aft the camouflage netting was extended and then not long before launching a section in the centre was removed to install the conning tower. From "Evidence in Camera" Constance Babington-Smith. Chatto and Windus, 1958

Maybe the Luftwaffe does a training mission over a U-boat building port before the war and notices how easily they spotted the construction?
Massive tarp go up as a response.

 

[ArtosStark]

U-boats split into different prefab pieces, with those pieces being built in secret factories

Didn’t we establish earlier in the thread that this is a bad idea for a vessel that is meant to be submerged? Unless you mean creating some of the components elsewhere and transporting them to be assembled into the hull.

 

[BlackDragon98]

Didn’t we establish earlier in the thread that this is a bad idea for a vessel that is meant to be submerged? Unless you mean creating some of the components elsewhere and transporting them to be assembled into the hull.

Sorry about the confusion.
My point is that U-boats would have their components standardized and then built in various places.
These components would then be transported to the slip where they were then assembled into a whole U-boat.
U-boats are welded, so as long as the pieces are actually up to standard, this shouldn't be a problem.

Speer tried to do this and failed in OTL because Germany was heavily reliant on slave labor by 1944.
Sabotage was almost everywhere and it was impossible to spot as quality control dropped sharply in favor of higher production rates.

 

[McPherson]

It was done. The Germans were whacked during something called the Combined Bomber Offensive.

 

[phx1138]

My point is that U-boats would have their components standardized and then built in various places.
These components would then be transported to the slip where they were then assembled into a whole U-boat.
U-boats are welded, so as long as the pieces are actually up to standard, this shouldn't be a problem.

For the Liberty/Victory ships, that proved possible. For U-boats, I'm not sure it could be, ever. Even allowing stockpiles of engines, torpedo tubes, & such, they have to be installed on slip, & that can only be done so fast. (How the U.S. built so many fleet boats so fast, IDK...but it looks like U.S. yards were comparatively slow.)

I have problems with the idea of accelerating the U-boat build to do more damage early in the battle.

Your analysis is depressingly on target.

Germany cant aquire more. So, what doesn't get built?

At the risk of demanding Hitler actually be sane, less civilian goods?

So if we can't get more U-boats, we need better ones (or ones used better). Personally I don't think better training and deployment would make a huge difference until the U-boats start surging in late 41 (the peacetime boats obviously had better trained crews).

Huge, maybe not. Perceptible, IMO, yes. I do still think the benefit of getting to & from station faster is underestimated by most. (So, if we've only sped up transits for the existing number of boats {more/less; say somewhat fewer, given they're *Type IXs, not Type VIIs}, there's still a gain for the Germans.) I also can't help wonder how much more-accurate shooting matters, because that's (apparently) the easiest to improve dramatically (without crimping something else in the German war effort).

every litre used to train a U-boat is one that isn't driving a tank around.

That was true OTL, too, so... I also wonder about fuel quality; couldn't diesels use lower grade than even "pool petrol" used by Heer?

The interesting question is would investing in better training butterfly away the wolf pack?

That's a very interesting proposition. I'd suggest not, because of the size of convoys: when there are so many targets, it makes sense to have more boats (& more firepower) concentrating around them.

Better training implies more training time.

That's liable to be curtailed in wartime in any event. If we presume BdU starts with better-trained crews (&, more important, better-trained skippers), the starting "score" is going to be higher. If better skipper training is maintained (& it can be, without undue fuel use, IMO), the "dead wood" issue is reduced (if not eliminated). Better skipper training need not take inordinately longer; the key, IMO, is selection for aggressiveness, less than purely technical competence. (How you test for that, IDK... At the time, AFAIK, nobody had an ideal way. Enlist the best psychologists & psychiatrists in Germany... {url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven-Per-Cent_Solution_(film)"]"Tell them I was murdered by my mathematics tutor."[/url] })

My question is, did BdU exchange tactical data between skippers & HQ as standard? Did tactics change in response to Allied threats? (I'm honestly ignorant of that, I'm embarrassed to say. ) I do know it was SOP for Pac Fleet skippers; I'd presume it for the Germans.

Did BdU "redistribute" experienced men into new boats? That was SOP for Pac Fleet, too: typically, about a third of a new-construction boat's crew would be "old hands". Training was ongoing & continuous, too; it appears BdU took a view crews had to approach perfection before they'd be released for operations.

This is one of the big reasons the quality and commitment fell off in later years.

Drafts were also a function of high losses. How much of that was because of a focus on convoy attacks, rather than a "commerce raider" approach? (How much would changing that actually reduce sinkings...?:' )

Better air support would be possible until Russia is attacked (maybe even after that to some extent). It rather assumes the British sit back and let this happen - Britain wasn't short of aircraft in 1941, just that a lot were being misused. Losing a battle tends to concentrate the mind, and long range fighters, more raids against the airfields, and panic production of escort and merchant carriers are on the cards. As are more LRMP aircraft, with the Atlantic supply link under serious threat, Bomber Commands theories about strategic bombing will get little support until things are safer.

You're entirely right. It does demand an answer to what Germany sacrifices; the first thing that comes to mind is bombing suppression of Malta: the a/c to do it are unlikely to be on hand.

The flipside is, changing the emphasis for TTL's Battle of Britain might just reduce a/c losses. The question to answer is, how did Göring persuade Hitler a shift away from FC bases was a good idea? And who persuaded Göring it was a good thing to convince Hitler of (& how was that done)?

I do think the U-boat force could have been adjusted to do more damage, and by forcing changes in resource allocation affect other operations, but I don't see them winning this battle.

Care to offer an estimate of how much more?

 

[Cryhavoc101]

To increase attacks on single ships a number of things need to have happened/been possible:

1. Convoys only for specific reasons i.e. troop, ammunition, munitions
2. The convoy system is never implemented or broken down
3. Longer range u-boats to attack ships before they reach the convoy assembly points
4. Smaller u-boats that can attack successfully in coastal waters around the west of the UK
5. Breaker the codes governing the routing of the Monsters

This is not an exhaustive list please feel free to add to it.

Operating in UK Coastal waters rapidly became suicidal for Uboats and by 41 had pushed the battle into the Atlantic and increasingly into an ever smaller potion of it until by mid 43 the black gap (the area Mid atlantic where a convoy could not expect air cover from shore based MPAs during day light) - was totally snuffed out by a combination of increasing numbers of better longer ranged MPAs and Escort carriers.

 

[McPherson]

McPherson said:

1. Sealed orders and one way shore to sub communication as technical control means.
2. A competent naval general staff that can plan a commerce war.
3. Base logistics.
4. Crew training in position simulators.
5. More crew training in an actual sub simulating a war patrol.
6. Simulators for everything used in a war-shot with mechanical feedback success and fail results sensory gratification rewards. War shots in peacetime are EXPENSIVE.
7. Near war training against REAL practice targets.
8 . Pass fail for 2., 4., 5., 6., 7., for officers and enlisted who cannot cut it.

I like it, but, sadly, it's ASB on 5, 6, & 7, never mind the Drei Dummkopfs. Exercises were ump'd unfairly (inaccurately) in everybody's navy, AFAIK.

Something like live fire exs, with "grenade" DCs & actual use of tincans, would also be hideously expensive. Plus you're likely to give the game away to the Brits--unless you can cut a deal with Stalin & do it in the Caspian or somewhere... (He might even give you a deal on fuel, in exchange for the right tech... It might not be impossible. It still pushes ASB pretty hard, IMO.)

McPherson said:
1. Air tasking orders based on a pre-battle recon search and attack profile section.
2. N-2s and A-2s who know what the hell they are doing and who talk to each other.
3. A-3 and N-3 who know how to prepare air tasking orders and a sub-sortie mission order.
4. A suitable reconnaissance-strike bird, capable or anti-ship search and attack. Suggested bird?
[Ju 90]

Peacetime exercises in the Baltic Sea would be good enough to hide from the Allied commission, or maybe the Black Sea. It is the subs that would be difficult to procure and hide. Probably have to train with a partner using a sort of British Perisher and American PCO course exchange program. (Postwar, that is for the Wallies.). The Russians and Germans were already playing footsie with tanks. (Devil’s Bargain: Germany and Russia Before WWII). Odessa?

Source?
Saakashvili attempts a Napoleon in Odessa - New Cold War ...

One might not be able to operate akin to the Americans in the 1930s (5, 6 and 7.) (Fleet Problem annual exercises.) but convoy tabletops and mechanical feedback simulators are pre-war doable. Just get the Russians to pay for it. Plus the Germans did run a torpedo boat school with corvettes as stand-in for U-boats in mock convoy battles to simulate wolf pack tactics under the guise of "convoy defense" exercises.

McPherson said:

1. Air tasking orders based on a pre-battle recon search and attack profile section.
2. N-2s and A-2s who know what the hell they are doing and who talk to each other.
3. A-3 and N-3 who know how to prepare air tasking orders and a sub-sortie mission order.
4. A suitable reconnaissance-strike bird, capable or anti-ship search and attack. Suggested bird?
[Ju 90]

Sold on all counts. You'd probably have to push Fat Hermann under a Benz 770... I could live with that.

I'd add a radio- or radar-guided glide bomb as an optional weapon, relying on Spanish Civil War experience. (I prefer IR, but that might be beyond German tech.)

Given Heer's got a decent staff system, you'd think KM would have stolen some of it.

And if we're improving communications, we absolutely have to improve them between industry, science, & military, or anything like radars on masts or really good sub RWRs are a non-starter.

Considering that the U-boaters have to get their act together a full decade before WWII to see positive results, I'll suggest that the air component which "S" for Brains overlooked or did not emphasize enough, I am also more concerned with the staff problems than an impossible to create or use before 1940 aerial wonder weapon. Tactics overcome gee-whizz gimmickry. The FW Condors were dropping (conventional high explosive (CHE) free-fall ordnance well enough to get it done. What they were not doing was flying search overlaps and talking to BdU West (Western Submarine Command) or "S" for Brains and his staff was not paying attention to what the LW reported.

On the wonder/wander weapon front, the German torpedoes(and bombs) were CRAP. A decent wet-heater with contact pistol in 1939 that worked 80% of the time would have been better than magnetic influence exploder electrics that failed 50% of the time in 1940.