AHQ: U-boat sinking rate to achieve victory?

a. Ambush minefield. The British knew where it was and how to kill it.
b. Blundered into it.
c. Hells Bells. A much better navy with far superior submariners that did not blunder into ambush minefields or misuse their boats, once they figured out how to fight a successful submarine campaign. The only successful submarine campaign I may add.
a) A minefield is a static defense, it cannot move at all, unless it's a minefield made of drifting mines, which is physically impossible. What you are claiming here is that the RN set up the minefield in that exact spot because they knew U-480 was headed to that position. Which begs the question, did the RN use psychics to see into the future and know where U-480 was heading?
b) Which was not the purpose of the anechoic coating. The coating doesn't detect minefields, it only dampens the sub's internal noise and sonar echos from ASW ships.
c) The fact that it survived a cruise in the Channel in August 1944 is crazy to me. This is a time when the Channel is crawling with Allied ASW ships, as they need to keep the place safe for merchants delivering supplies to the Mulberries in Normandy. And it also survived a second cruise through the Channel as well, undetected.
 
I don't recall anyone saying that.
@McPherson and I said so when conducting a strategic marine analysis of a repeat of 1914 in 1930. You might be heavily interested in my first post in this thread, and McPherson's reply to it. You need to conduct the analysis before you know the fate of France and Norway. The relevant time period, as decided is by 1941 when our fucking economy collapses with the Heer stalled in France, that's if the Russian, sorry Soviets aren't through Poland and in Berlin.
 
Some days you are the windscreen, some days the fly

Lots of Escorts were sunk by u-boats in WW2 - dangerous job you know.
Thing is, the ASW probably wouldn't have been operating alone.
And by 1944, the Allies have already taken care of the U-boat problem.
The odds were heavily against U-480, though it managed to beat those odds, sink the corvette, a minesweeper, and 2 merchants before getting back to Norway in one piece.
All because of the anechoic tiles it had.
 

McPherson

Banned
1. 2020 Agogo.

Well. The sane part. Yeah. But 1861. 1789-1815. 1914 both ways.

How is sanity part of the three examples specified? Just curious.

4. Out of 40,000,000 tonnes global? About 30,000,000 tonnes.

5. Without Russian assistance and without France collapsing? About 1 year.

And 500 boats by 1939. Ha.

Well 4 patrols with 1 x 3000 tonne freighter sunk per patrol x 500 boats = 6,000,000 tonnes a year for 4 years =24,000,000 tonnes sunk and you might attain most of your goals and still lose the war on land. You would have to 4 x your average patrol performance per boat and you might bring 24,000,000 tonnes in the 1 year one has to achieve stalemate. This is the Doenitz tonnage war. Idiotic is it not? More on Kriegmarine naval competence in a moment.

Ancillary question, as the KM will not be a war winning tool to 1941: what is the best strategic use of submarine production capacities in terms of maximising the chance of the Fall of France by 1941, and, in causing misallocation of resources by the French and British such that Germany expends *proportionately* less (Including critical resources) of its economy than France and UK do of theirs over the mutual blockades. In other words: how can the KM achieve war assisting or prolonging bang for buck given it cannot win?

Without being facetious, the KM should retire ADM Raeder as soon as he proposes Plan Zed from Outer Space and Doenitz should join him in the next rubber room adjacent in the Krankenkopfhaus (Funny Farm) as soon as he proposes his 1938 U-boat plan. The best allocation of resources is a wholehearted political push and support of good relations with the West (impossible given the regime) or failing that possibility, building up an inside the regime conspiracy with the Herr to do in Goering and his Luftwaffe: try for a French knockout a la Schlieffen 2.0. It always makes more sense to turn the allied flank and get between the British army and the sea, sweeping that army up in scythe maneuver short of Paris and knocking the British army out without its cadres escaping to the UK as well as bundling the French in a huge encirclement north of the Seine.

Then, with France as in OTL corked, what does the KM do?

RIKKO, Sam, RIKKO. Got to get to the West of the UK and make it unsafe to send freighters through the Western Approaches. Deterrence more than sinkings Force the RAF to fight OVER WATER and splash them 3 to 2 as did happen in the BoB and run them out of pilots. Subs can help here, but it is a naval air war, with anti-ship attacks and mining the harbor approaches as the heart of the air campaign. Use the naval geography for instead of against Germany. 90 days to build a plane, 180 days to train an air crew. (9 months to build a U-boat and 1 year to train a crew.). The Germans have to win quickly or they lose the whole set, match and game.

I would ask if the answers are universal as generated above, someone would come to the correct conclusion and say "Keep the PEACE, you ___ ___ed fools!" and/or shoot the Berlin Maniac.

Well I did specify sane. We now have a working hypothesis of the competence and quality of mind of the German naval command don’t we? Because Adolf got his war. A sane military command is a large ask. Correspondingly note how Macnamara and his coconspirators didn’t price humanity or war crimes at certain levels, despite having a head for numbers. ObWI: how could Kennedy planning immanent offensive nuclear war cause a chiefs of staff coup d’état on the basis of military responsibility to avoid crimes against humanity?

The entire Berlin regime was metastasized into insanity. They were practicing fiat money, voodoo economics, Mackinder on acid, absolutely horrendous race war Social Darwinism as a political justification for their war-crimes of breach of the international peace and wars of aggression, not to mention their genocides, rapes, mass murders and general looting and pillaging. The German navy was in it, up to their ears, so they were filthy in the piratical commissions of atrocities on the high seas. The U-boat war can be seen as piratical by the law of the sea. Note that while it has become accepted that maritime exclusion zones make any warship which enters to test the blockade fair game to attack, current law of the sea still has a legal injunction against undeclared shoot on sight and sink merchant ships in war.

On the unrelated question of Kennedy and a criminal intent to launch thermo-nuclear war, I would hope the pipeline between Congress, the Pentagon and the 4th Estate gets a lot of people suddenly excited and the perpetrators of the conspiracy would be arrested and locked away in the looney bin. That is the way, it is supposed to work. McNamara was a war criminal. Westmoreland was a fool. Johnson? I have no idea why he lost control of his Defense Department and let lunatics loose to run it for four and a half disastrous years. I honestly still do not see how it happened.
 
Last edited:

McPherson

Banned
a) A minefield is a static defense, it cannot move at all, unless it's a minefield made of drifting mines, which is physically impossible. What you are claiming here is that the RN set up the minefield in that exact spot because they knew U-480 was headed to that position. Which begs the question, did the RN use psychics to see into the future and know where U-480 was heading?
b) Which was not the purpose of the anechoic coating. The coating doesn't detect minefields, it only dampens the sub's internal noise and sonar echos from ASW ships.
c) The fact that it survived a cruise in the Channel in August 1944 is crazy to me. This is a time when the Channel is crawling with Allied ASW ships, as they need to keep the place safe for merchants delivering supplies to the Mulberries in Normandy. And it also survived a second cruise through the Channel as well, undetected.

If you don't accept the facts and deliberately twist the arguments and facts I set forth for why the anechoic tile is not some magic cloaking device, then you just don't accept the facts as they existed. ENDIT.
 
How is sanity part of the three examples specified? Just curious.

I thought you were saying by "2020 agogo" that either using 2020 hindsight or using hindsight in 2020 meant that we would sanely be approaching the problem of a German naval blockade of France, Britain, and necessarily the Norweigan and US merchant fleets. With the substantive implication that the KM were *not* sane. I think we've agreed that Killing Hitler would be the sane option. There is a South Australian Television programme ("Danger 5") about a group of spies whose mission is to Kill Hitler. The plots in their television series are more credible than Doenitz' demand for 300 boats, or his belief that 300 boats would win the war. The plots in the television series involve men with the head of an eagle, a giant mecha-hitler from Japan, and werewolves.

Well 4 patrols with 1 x 3000 tonne freighter sunk per patrol x 500 boats = 6,000,000 tonnes a year for 4 years =24,000,000 tonnes sunk and you might attain most of your goals and still lose the war on land. You would have to 4 x your average patrol performance per boat and you might bring 24,000,000 tonnes in the 1 year one has to achieve stalemate. This is the Doenitz tonnage war. Idiotic is it not. More on Kriegmarine naval competence in a moment.

But experten! Their eyes shudder as they drink until they shit themselves while awake. Their voices quivvering with a vomit not from spirits and naval hijinks, but from the patrol, the men in the water. But Experten will surely solve your throughput problem, which will solve your quired problem. With 500 boats. In a single year. To bring in *short* of historical rates of blockade. Which didn't win the war, but enabled ground forces to achieve the right to be grossly incompetent in the face of the enemy and not lose.

Without being facetious, the KM should retire ADM Raeder as soon as he proposes Plan Zed from Outer Space and Doenitz should join him in the next rubber room adjacent in the Krankenkopfhaus (Funny Farm) as soon as he proposes his 1938 U-boat plan. The best allocation of resources is a wholehearted political push and support of good relations with the West (impossible given the regime) or failing that possibility, building up an inside the regime conspiracy with the Herr to do in Goering and his Luftwaffe: try for a French knockout a la Schlieffen 2.0. It always makes more sense to turn the allied right flank and get between the British army and the sea, sweeping that army up in scythe maneuver short of Paris and knocking the British army out without its cadres escaping to the UK as well as bundling the French in a huge encirclement north of the Seine.

Even if required to go to war against France, and their offshore mate, we ought to have learnt from last time that giving free reign to the fantasies of unqualified amateurs with geopolitical urges shouldn't be tolerated.

Then, with France as in OTL corked, what does the KM do?

So you're starting your analysis of the second general war from the position that the Heer do better than last time, to the point of knocking our primary opponent out of the war?

RIKKO, Sam, RIKKO. Got to get to the West of the UK and make it unsafe to send freighters through the Western Approaches. Deterrence more than sinkings Force the RAF to fight OVER WATER and splash them 3 to 2 as did happen in the BoB and run them out of pilots. Subs can help here, but it is a naval air war, with anti-ship attacks and mining the harbor approaches as the heart of the air campaign. Use the naval geography for instead of against Germany. 90 days to build a plane, 180 days to train an air crew. (9 months to build a U-boat and 1 year to train a crew.). The Germans have to win quickly or they lose the whole set, match and game.

You have an almost Soviet love affair with long range naval reconnaissance / strike land based air craft. It is one that I generally agree with because it is more eyes over ocean. There are two problems for the KM here. One is the chief problem, the problem that we cannot manage to eliminate. The problem of our primary geopolitical enemy in any conflict. Goering.

Even *if* we managed to defeat him (and I'm not sure that we can), we then have to deal with a large intervening airstrip. Obviously after we defeat our historical land enemy in under a year. (HA!). So where are we going to fly out of? A strip of land incredibly close to the British? Hell, imagine, for one second, if we were capable of basing out of Norway. There's still fucking Scotland in the way. Imagine, for a moment, if we were in the situation of Napoleon in 1804. We control Europe. We do not control What Is Not Europe Namely a Small Reticient Island with a Broken Economy. Even with all the advantages of Napoleon, we cannot possibly build KM resources for that remote chance. Especially given we have to defeat Goering first.

I mean I can't even imagine how to get France's backdoor friend out of the war, with or without defeating France on land.

current law of the sea still has a legal injunction against undeclared shoot on sight and sink merchant ships in war.

Probably why the shitwit who murdered his own boys from 1943 got off so lightly.

On the unrelated question of Kennedy and a criminal intent to launch thermo-nuclear war, I would hope the pipeline between Congress, the Pentagon and the 4th Estate gets a lot of people suddenly excited and the perpetrators of the conspiracy would be arrested and locked away in the looney bin. That is the way, it is supposed to work. McNamara was a war criminal. Westmoreland was a fool. Johnson? I have no idea whay he lost control of his Defense Department and let lunatics loose to run it for four and a half disastrous years. I honestly still do not see how it happened.
I think these are limits best explored on another thread. I was trying to gesture to the problem of the KM being a sane agent in a society of insanity. Historically the joint chiefs and all "political" grade officers in the United States failed their tests. The correct answer isn't always to become overtly political oneself, but, most immediately, to resign one's commission due to the politicised nature of the unlawful acts required. "No sane or lawful KM" is how we get the 1939 situation.

And as I joked initially and you ruled out immediately: there is no reasonable historical way to get a sane german naval strategic command in the 1930s due to politics.

yours,
Sam R.
 

McPherson

Banned
I thought you were saying by "2020 agogo" that either using 2020 hindsight or using hindsight in 2020 meant that we would sanely be approaching the problem of a German naval blockade of France, Britain, and necessarily the Norweigan and US merchant fleets. With the substantive implication that the KM were *not* sane. I think we've agreed that Killing Hitler would be the sane option. There is a South Australian Television programme ("Danger 5") about a group of spies whose mission is to Kill Hitler. The plots in their television series are more credible than Doenitz' demand for 300 boats, or his belief that 300 boats would win the war. The plots in the television series involve men with the head of an eagle, a giant mecha-hitler from Japan, and werewolves.

Why does that remind me of the Beach Boys?

Anyway, I think, when professional military staffs begin their planning on the basis of Wolke Kuckucksland (Cloud Cuckoo Land) directives from the chief of state; it is time to engender political reform a la Thomas Jefferson.

But experten! Their eyes shudder as they drink until they shit themselves while awake. Their voices quivvering with a vomit not from spirits and naval hijinks, but from the patrol, the men in the water. But Experten will surely solve your throughput problem, which will solve your quired problem. With 500 boats. In a single year. To bring in *short* of historical rates of blockade. Which didn't win the war, but enabled ground forces to achieve the right to be grossly incompetent in the face of the enemy and not lose.

So now we pin our hopes on Wonder Men (McNamara's Whiz Kids in the American example.) instead of centuries of lessons learned and this thing called logistical reality?

Even if required to go to war against France, and their offshore mate, we ought to have learnt from last time that giving free reign to the fantasies of unqualified amateurs with geopolitical urges shouldn't be tolerated.

Has one forgotten the Honor Oath to that ___ ____ed Amateur?

So you're starting your analysis of the second general war from the position that the Heer do better than last time, to the point of knocking our primary opponent out of the war?

Hey, if the Admiralstab (Direktion Für Marineplanungorf (German naval general staff) is smoking Turkish opium, why cannot the Herr's Kriegspläne Mitarbeiter (Operations and Planning) not pop a few dozen amphetamines and come up with Case Yellow?

You have an almost Soviet love affair with long range naval reconnaissance / strike land based air craft. It is one that I generally agree with because it is more eyes over ocean. There are two problems for the KM here. One is the chief problem, the problem that we cannot manage to eliminate. The problem of our primary geopolitical enemy in any conflict. Goering.

-- Hunting accident.

Even *if* we managed to defeat him (and I'm not sure that we can), we then have to deal with a large intervening airstrip. Obviously after we defeat our historical land enemy in under a year. (HA!). So where are we going to fly out of? A strip of land incredibly close to the British? Hell, imagine, for one second, if we were capable of basing out of Norway. There's still fucking Scotland in the way. Imagine, for a moment, if we were in the situation of Napoleon in 1804. We control Europe. We do not control What Is Not Europe Namely a Small Reticient Island with a Broken Economy. Even with all the advantages of Napoleon, we cannot possibly build KM resources for that remote chance. Especially given we have to defeat Goering first.

-- After Goering has his hunting accident, arrange for the Gentlemen's Flying Club, through covert means to deselect Hugh Dowding and put in that military genius, Trafford Leigh-Mallory and his fellow genius, Douglas Bader

I mean I can't even imagine how to get France's backdoor friend out of the war, with or without defeating France on land.
... Might try this apple polisher.

Probably why the shitwit who murdered his own boys from 1943 got off so lightly.

Now would we want Uncle Chuck compared to that "gentlemen" as a war criminal?

About Vietnam...

I think these are limits best explored on another thread. I was trying to gesture to the problem of the KM being a sane agent in a society of insanity. Historically the joint chiefs and all "political" grade officers in the United States failed their tests. The correct answer isn't always to become overtly political oneself, but, most immediately, to resign one's commission due to the politicised nature of the unlawful acts required. "No sane or lawful KM" is how we get the 1939 situation.

---Funny thing is that the USN admirals and the better American army generals DID resign. But if one was looking for sane Germans; in that era, they are few and found in the most unlikely places.

And as I joked initially and you ruled out immediately: there is no reasonable historical way to get a sane German naval strategic command in the 1930s due to politics.

yours,
Sam R.

As I remarked in another thread where the argument was departing reality and headed into fantasy conditions, Notzis are impossible in 1933 Germany forward. When parties like the DVPN and clowns like Franz von Papen actually lead to the same criminal psychotic outcome as one gets with the Maniac and his crew of thugs, i see no hope except for the bow ramps thudding down on Sword, Gold, Juno, Omaha and Utah beaches and the Russians coming from the other way to fix the critical planning problems the German KM faces in 1939.

McP.
 
What I have not quoted I broadly agree with.

Now would we want Uncle Chuck compared to that "gentlemen" as a war criminal?

This is an excellent example of competence versus incompetence. Both commands are equally criminal ***AT SEA***. Both commands have a love affair with their boys. Both commands inappropriately sacrifice their boys through lack of test and inservice test regiemes. The one thing to be said for the yanks is that OPFOR moved into criminality first providing reciprocity. Manilla is with unannounced attacks on economic targets.

For someone whose political predisposition is to put fascists in front of liberals… Chuck deserves his place. Both in terms of the political responsibility of a flag commander, his responsibility was lesser than that of our boy murdering pal, but also in terms of *his competence of command.* Doenitz's failure to conduct negative appraisal tests, hostile role plays, etc. is beyond my comprehension. "Why have we fucked up so bad?" is a question that needs roleplaying by even, and especially, "a successful" group in any circumstance. Add on to this that Doenitz has sent spawned "noobs" to die…without even the comprehension of success that Chucky faced as a war criminal (and on the lower end of the specrum, everyone obviated cruiser law). …

Meanwhile, at and as the core, there is no way for German strategic naval aims to succeed. Even with the fantasy of the elimination of the French. It is just a matter of blood and time.

yours,
Sam R.


i see no hope except for the bow ramps thudding down on Sword, Gold, Juno, Omaha and Utah beaches and the Russians coming from the other way
 

McPherson

Banned
Keeping tongue in cheek.

This is an excellent example of competence versus incompetence. Both commands are equally criminal ***AT SEA***. Both commands have a love affair with their boys. Both commands inappropriately sacrifice their boys through lack of test and inservice test regiemes. The one thing to be said for the yanks is that OPFOR moved into criminality first providing reciprocity. Manilla is with unannounced attacks on economic targets.

A war-crime is a war-crime. The USN subs may not have technically been as piratical in the legal circumstances by restricting their attacks on a flagged enemy in a clearly declared blockade zone (Western Pacific), but machine gunning enemy sailors helpless in the water was recorded in several patrol reports: CAPT Withers, ADM English, ADM Lockwood and ADM Christie did not dis-endorse or recommend the sub commanders
responsible for courts martial or even relief of command. They are therefore accountable by the same rules that were properly applied to Karl Doenitz. The German lawyer defending Doenitz managed to get Uncle Chuck to write him a letter that said the Americans were doing about the same thing and that went a long way toward convincing the tribunal sitting on him to go easy on old Karl.

Now as to incompetence in weapon proof. The Germans court martialed their clowns. The Americans sent their bastards to England to enjoy the cocktail circuit. I would have court martialed Stark and sent him to the Naval Disciplinary Barracks along with the director of the Goat Island torpedo factory and the entire Rhode Island and Connecticut congressional delegations and about everybody in Bu-Ord even remotely connected to weapon proofing bombs, shells and TORPEDOES, but that is just me.

For someone whose political predisposition is to put fascists in front of liberals… Chuck deserves his place. Both in terms of the political responsibility of a flag commander, his responsibility was lesser than that of our boy murdering pal, but also in terms of *his competence of command.* Doenitz's failure to conduct negative appraisal tests, hostile role plays, etc. is beyond my comprehension. "Why have we fucked up so bad?" is a question that needs roleplaying by even, and especially, "a successful" group in any circumstance. Add on to this that Doenitz has sent spawned "noobs" to die…without even the comprehension of success that Chucky faced as a war criminal (and on the lower end of the spectrum, everyone obviated cruiser law). …

I have said my say on cruiser law and mass murder at sea. Uncle Chuck was dealt a bad hand and as an operational commander he was sort of ducked in the oyster by the Navy Bureaus which held the power of life and death in a USN sailor's career clear through WWII. What Chuck could do along with his buddies: Chester Nimitz and Ray Spruance, was ruck them in the foyals postwar when Congress got around to "lessons learned". The Bureaus were SCREWED when those three got hold of the levers of power in the USN.
Meanwhile, at and as the core, there is no way for German strategic naval aims to succeed. Even with the fantasy of the elimination of the French. It is just a matter of blood and time.

Yup.
 

McPherson

Banned
Can I get a definitive answer from the community as a whole on this stuff? Because it makes me refrain from participating it a discussion when I don't understand what folks are talking about. Am I correct in my understanding that the two posters are indeed coming from different places, in that one is talking about a specific sub, while the other is not?

Help! :)

I'll keep it simple. The Germans put rubber tiles on the U480. These tiles were a one-off test case. The boat went out on 4 patrols and survived. It was ATTACKED twice, so the goddamned tiles did not protect it from detection.

What the boat crew REPORTED was that the deeper the boat dived, the greater the crush pressure on the tiles and that pressure closed the baffle chambers (bubble holes) in the tiles that were so instrumental in absorbing the PING of British sonar. This in effect neutered the tiles ability to absorb sound at depths greater than ~100 meters. They were tracked deep... easily.

The Germans never solved that one or the sound short that put noise into the water from the prop shaft chirping on the seals or the cavitation (popping noise) that U-boats' screws put into the water.

The Americans built an acoustic torpedo called FIDO that homed in on U-boat screw noises and hull flow noises and that "chirp".

The British did not have it, so they did the next best thing. They found U480's home port and laid an ambush minefield. Many years later explorers found the wreck of that U-boat and the British finally proven to have killed it with their ambush minefield.

The Germans kept trying with about ten other boats, Mostly Coastal Type XXIIIs because the tiles would work somewhat in the shallows. One Boat was tracked despite its tile, was driven down to the sea floor, worked over by two British corvettes and barely survived to creep off to surrender first chance it got. Another one was caught snorting and was bombed and sunk by Coastal Command aircraft in the Bay of Biscay. Others were bombed in port or trapped by minefields, or were still under construction when the final surrender occurred.

Now add that the Germans have to find enough rubber to coat about 1,000 U-boats with anechoic tiles and a glue that will keep the tiles stuck on under actual war conditions in oceanic weather. See the problems?

McP.
 
Use surface raiders to scatter convoys and the U-boats will do the rest.

After the setbacks of 1941 the Germans were reluctant to send battleships or cruisers into the Atlantic.

It's pretty risky operating that close to India and Ceylon especially. Japanese assistance would probably be required for it to be successful.

For axis subs, the Indian Ocean was probably the most remunerative and least risky hunting ground, down to about mid '44. The Japanese let the Germans use Penang and Surabaya.
 
Last edited:
current law of the sea still has a legal injunction against undeclared shoot on sight and sink merchant ships in war
The operative law at the time was, merchants acting as de facto auxiliaries were exempt from the protections. Since Brit merchies were ordered to report sub sightings, they were exempt. Also, most of them were armed, the other way to make yourself exempt... Convoys, of course, made merchants fair game, even if they were escorted by "neutral" nations, because of the naval escort--which also, AIUI, made the escorts fair game, too. (The Neutrality Patrol was selling bullshit, but nobody who actually understood the issue would be buying it.)
You need to conduct the analysis before you know the fate of France and Norway.
Actually, you don't. The numbers don't change. What changes is what it takes to achieve them. The fall of France will make it easier. Norway's merchant fleet falling into British hands, harder. Since neither can be predicted, it will obviously have to be dealt with, as it was OTL, "on the fly".

Don't forget, it shouldn't take the destruction of the entire British merchant fleet to achieve victory in the BotA, either. The U.S. sank about two-thirds the available tonnage.
Well 4 patrols with 1 x 3000 tonne freighter sunk per patrol x 500 boats
Let's be clear. It's not "500 boats". It's 500 patrols. 500 boats will make more than 500 patrols in a year; it's going to be more like 6 or 8 patrols/boat/year (maybe as few as 4), or (at the OTL rate) about 25000 tons/boat/year (times the sustained force on station). Given U-boats are more effective, it's likely not to be that low, either. Recall, it took the Pacific Fleet Sub Force eight torpedoes to sink a ship, & that was with the lousy Mark XIVs. The Germans shouldn't need anything like so many--& if we're giving them radar firecontrol, fewer still. Is two/ship too good a score? So seven ships per successful patrol? Which brings the sustained force down from 85 to more like 20... Split the difference & call it 40?
the 1 year one has to achieve stalemate.
One? More like three, isn't it? 1940, 1941, & 1942. Or, allowing British ASW ramps up radically (& that presumes BdU does nothing in response, which is pretty absurd), 1940 & 1941.

How badly can the improved BdU hurt the Brits in even two years?

And I'm going to keep asking until I get an answer: what about crippling the British economy by sinking every tanker BdU can find? That's not a 20 million ton project, & at 25000 tons/boat/patrol, it ain't gonna take 3 years, neither. As noted above, it's likely to be a lot more than 25000 tons/boat/patrol...
Force the RAF to fight OVER WATER and splash them 3 to 2 as did happen in the BoB and run them out of pilots. Subs can help here, but it is a naval air war, with anti-ship attacks and mining the harbor approaches as the heart of the air campaign. Use the naval geography for instead of against Germany. 90 days to build a plane, 180 days to train an air crew. (9 months to build a U-boat and 1 year to train a crew.). The Germans have to win quickly or they lose the whole set, match and game.
This I entirely agree with.
Johnson? I have no idea why he lost control of his Defense Department and let lunatics loose to run it for four and a half disastrous years. I honestly still do not see how it happened.
I can't, either, but he appeared to think he could treat the war like a political campaign & reason with Ho & the DRV as "good Christians"... :rolleyes::confounded: How he came to that delusion, IDK.
 

thaddeus

Donor
And I'm going to keep asking until I get an answer: what about crippling the British economy by sinking every tanker BdU can find? That's not a 20 million ton project, & at 25000 tons/boat/patrol, it ain't gonna take 3 years, neither. As noted above, it's likely to be a lot more than 25000 tons/boat/patrol...
their operations in the Caribbean were a missed opportunity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Neuland, more damage there would have raised the stakes for the tankers

highlights the fact they did not have auxiliary cruisers in numbers or coordinated with u-boat operations
 
500 boats will make more than 500 patrols in a year; it's going to be more like 6 or 8 patrols/boat/year (maybe as few as 4), or (at the OTL rate) about 25000 tons/boat/year (times the sustained force on station). Given U-boats are more effective, it's likely not to be that low, either. Recall, it took the Pacific Fleet Sub Force eight torpedoes to sink a ship, & that was with the lousy Mark XIVs. The Germans shouldn't need anything like so many--& if we're giving them radar firecontrol, fewer still. Is two/ship too good a score? So seven ships per successful patrol?

As Mulligan noted in his book on Henke, two thirds of U-boats failed to make a single successful attack. Already by late '42 there was a significant increase in the number of unproductive patrols, especially among VIIs.
 
And I'm going to keep asking until I get an answer: what about crippling the British economy by sinking every tanker BdU can find? That's not a 20 million ton project, & at 25000 tons/boat/patrol, it ain't gonna take 3 years, neither. As noted above, it's likely to be a lot more than 25000 tons/boat/patrol...
As soon as Germany makes a concentrated effort then oil tankers will be positioned at the centre of all convoys and it will essentially be impossible to get a hit on a tanker.
 
I'll keep it simple. The Germans put rubber tiles on the U480. These tiles were a one-off test case. The boat went out on 4 patrols and survived. It was ATTACKED twice, so the goddamned tiles did not protect it from detection.

What the boat crew REPORTED was that the deeper the boat dived, the greater the crush pressure on the tiles and that pressure closed the baffle chambers (bubble holes) in the tiles that were so instrumental in absorbing the PING of British sonar. This in effect neutered the tiles ability to absorb sound at depths greater than ~100 meters. They were tracked deep... easily.

The Germans never solved that one or the sound short that put noise into the water from the prop shaft chirping on the seals or the cavitation (popping noise) that U-boats' screws put into the water.

The Americans built an acoustic torpedo called FIDO that homed in on U-boat screw noises and hull flow noises and that "chirp".

The British did not have it, so they did the next best thing. They found U480's home port and laid an ambush minefield. Many years later explorers found the wreck of that U-boat and the British finally proven to have killed it with their ambush minefield.

The Germans kept trying with about ten other boats, Mostly Coastal Type XXIIIs because the tiles would work somewhat in the shallows. One Boat was tracked despite its tile, was driven down to the sea floor, worked over by two British corvettes and barely survived to creep off to surrender first chance it got. Another one was caught snorting and was bombed and sunk by Coastal Command aircraft in the Bay of Biscay. Others were bombed in port or trapped by minefields, or were still under construction when the final surrender occurred.

Now add that the Germans have to find enough rubber to coat about 1,000 U-boats with anechoic tiles and a glue that will keep the tiles stuck on under actual war conditions in oceanic weather. See the problems?

McP.
You SERIOUSLY need to check your sources before you start going on a tangent about false information.
U-480 was attacked once on the 13th of June 1944 by a RCAF Canso. The attack failed and the Canso was shot down.
Did you travel to U-480's position in a time machine and attack it a second time?

Your claim about the ambush minefield is total BS.
U-480 was sunk at position 50.22N, 01.44W, is located southwest of Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight.
U-480 was based in Norway.
Why is your so called "ambush minefield" right off the Isle of Wight then?
Shouldn't it be located right off Norway instead?
Minefields are defensive weapons. They don't grow legs or fins and swim around the ocean looking for targets, unless it's a drifting mine, which would be impossible to turn into a minefield.

And your claims about the 10 other boats are unsubstantiated.
Where are your sources?

True, there was a problem with the glue, but evidently it worked well enough that it kept the tiles on U-480 all through it's career.
 
Last edited:

McPherson

Banned
I checked my sources BD. Ambush minefield is still an ambush minefield. And here is why it was laid.






NOW WHY DO YOU SUPPOSE THE BRITISH PUT THE AMBUSH MINEFIELD THERE? (2nd attack) Look at the maps.
Fate[edit]
U-480 left Trondheim, Norway, on 6 January 1945 for its third and last patrol. It did not return. In 1997, the wreck of a Type VIIC U-boat was discovered by accident by divers at 50°22′4″N 1°44′10″WCoordinates:
17px-WMA_button2b.png
50°22′4″N 1°44′10″W, 20 kilometres (12 mi) southwest of the Isle of Wight. The following year, it was correctly identified as the Alberich-coated U-480 by nautical archaeologist Innes McCartney. Subsequent research by the Naval Historical Branch established that it had fallen victim to the secret minefield 'Brazier D2' some time between 29 January and 20 February. A mine had damaged the stern of U-480, sending it to the bottom 55 metres (180 ft) down. The entire crew of 48 was lost. Helmsman Horst Rösner only survived because he had been left behind in Norway for training.

From the very wiki article I cited.

As for the anechoic tile?

The coating[edit]

A close-up view of an Alberich tile, which illustrates the holes pattern
The Germans developed a 4-millimetre (0.16 in) thick sheet of synthetic rubber anechoic tile.[5] The coating reduced echoes by 15% in the 10 to 18 kHz range.[6] This frequency range matched the operating range of the early ASDIC active sonar used by the Allies. The ASDIC types 123, 123A, 144 and 145 all operated in the 14 to 22 kHz range.[7][8] However, this degradation in echo reflection was not uniform at all diving depths due to the voids being compressed by the water pressure.[9] An additional benefit of the coating was it acted as a sound dampener, containing the U-boat’s own engine noises.[6]

The rubber contained a series of holes, which helped break up sound waves. There were problems with this technology: the material performed differently at different depths, due to the holes being compressed by water pressure, and securing the tiles to the submarine's hull required a special adhesive and careful application. The first tests were conducted in 1940, but it was not used operationally until 1944, with U-480. According to the Naked Science television episode "Stealth Submarine", U-480 had a perforated inner rubber layer covered by a smooth outer one. This formed air pockets with the right separation and size to muffle sonar waves.

ENDIT.
 
Last edited:

thaddeus

Donor
not to wade into middle of a duel but I've seen footnotes that the rubber matting was at least planned for Type XXIII boats, which actually seems a more appropriate sized project?
 
I checked my sources BD. ENDIT.
But why did your sources state there were 2 attacks on U-480 when there was clearly only 1?
And your ambush minefield claim is also incorrect.
How did the RN know that U-480 was headed towards that exact spot?
Because if they knew U-480's position then they would hunt it with ASW ships and planes, not plant a minefield.
U-480 simply blundered into a random minefield while looking for targets of Portsmouth.
There was no ambush involved and the RN did not know where U-480 was homeported, otherwise it would have destroyed U-480 as it left the harbor in Norway.

And thus, this is proof that the Alberich system was a success, as long the the glue kept the tiles on the sub.
 
Top