BISMARCK & TIRPITZ cause Germany to lose the Battle of the Atlantic

[Glenn239]

Hey, I still hold to my premise even though it is being dumped on so heavily in this thread. I do believe my hypothesis has merit to debate at least because that is all it is...just a theory. If I fold my position then how do we have any debate?

Stand your ground. Any Axis naval 'what if' on the internet gets heavily attacked for simply existing.

IMO, you need to tie the idea of a larger pre-war U-boat arm and U-boat production to a more coherent grand strategy, while at the same time, dropping the idea of a quick U-boat victory. Turbocharge this mo'fo.

Some thoughts on that grand strategy. You might like some, not like others, but all are intended to 'push' in the direction of your thread. -

1. Increased U-boat production as per your proposal.
2. Alliance with Soviet Union, no Barbarossa, no war in the East. Germany wants to trade political concessions (ie, Soviet territorial expansion against 3rd parties) and technology to Russia in exchange for oil, wheat, and naval war materials. (The Soviets were not good with submarine technology at this time, but they had massive industry that should be able to crank out vast numbers of increasingly sophisticated sea mines that the Axis could use in their commerce war. They can build large numbers of the relatively unsophisticated landing craft and small escorts needed for Sealion, their aviation industry could build small or moderate numbers of crude but useful long range 4-engine bombers that the Germans lacked. Their neutral shipping in the Atlantic and Pacific could provide an added intelligence network for the Axis. )
3. The Luftwaffe night time strategic bombing targets in 1940-1941 are the West coast UK seaports. Reduce capacity in order to undermine convoy tactics, (which required immense logistical support in the UK in order to unload so many convoyed ships at once).
4. Sealion 1941 has to be cocked and ready to go. Not because you intend to invade, but because with (2) above you can afford to deploy the threat of Sealion. All the posters talking about extra UK convoy escorts? Sealion pins about 100 of these permanently to anti-invasion alert duties from invasion season in May 1941 to October 1941. The bigger the threat of Sealion in 1941, the more UK destroyers and escorts are pinned to anti-invasion reaction forces.
5. Spain. Will enter the war, one way or another, such that the union of the Axis fleets can be made at the Iberian peninsula. During WW2 the Italians deployed about 30 submarines to the Atlantic, operating out of French bases. This campaign constituted the most successful non-German submarine offensive in WW2, as the Italians sank a million tons of shipping. So, take Spain such that the Italians can operate a much larger submarine fleet in the Atlantic.
6. France,

Index of Organizations

Check out the organization of the French Navy - France had a magnificent submarine force that the Axis just basically ignored historically. Alter your armistice terms with France in June 1940 that they keep their surface fleet, but must surrender all their submarines to Germany, along with the specialists in their crews. In compensation, let them keep Paris as their seat of government and let them keep their surface fleet in French hands and a state of full operational readiness. The idea is to have the KM take over the entire French submarine force as part of the armistice provisions, and then work them up with German crews for operations by 1941, using the French specialists to accelerate the process.
7. Japan. If the Japanese and US go to war, then war between Germany and the US is inevitable. For your scenario, therefore, you do not want the Japanese in the war. So Axis diplomacy should emphasize Japanese isolation in order to keep the US neutral. But, if war does come, then what the Axis want is for Japan to dispatch its long range submarine force to the Atlantic to join this campaign. Obviously, this gets easier if the Axis control the Suez Canal.

 

[prester.john208]

7. Japan. If the Japanese and US go to war, then war between Germany and the US is inevitable. For your scenario, therefore, you do not want the Japanese in the war. So Axis diplomacy should emphasize Japanese isolation in order to keep the US neutral. But, if war does come, then what the Axis want is for Japan to dispatch its long range submarine force to the Atlantic to join this campaign. Obviously, this gets easier if the Axis control the Suez Canal.

Interesting ideas.

Keeping Japan out of the war is tough, you need to find a way for the Dutch to continue to sell oil and other raw materials to Japan. The British and Americans leaned on them not to do this. Their embargo strategy was to paint Japan into a corner, give up your empire or we starve/collapse your economy.

Japan also depends on Wallies shipping for over half of their commerce.

They really have no good options, the picked arguably the worst one.

 

[El Pip]

I can also concede on certain points such as what Britain's actual oil reserves were? If 7.5months then no way Doenitz would have been successful but if only 2months then he just might have?

You've been told this before and ignored it, but what the hell lets try again.

UK Official History says that in 1936 the Admiralty had 3million tons of fuel oil in the UK, stocks built up a bit after that but were storage limited. This was reckoned as being a bit under 6months of wartime usage, though that was based on very pessimistic estimates of usage. The RN's actual average usage for the first 9 months of the war was just under 59,000 tons a week or 255,000 a month - so that 3 million tons would actually have lasted 12 months.

This assumes that absolute zero fuel gets into the UK and completely ignores all the fuel oil the Admiralty has stored up in non-UK bases, which was around another 3 million tons.

 

[Astrodragon]

In OTL, the fall of France with the possibility that the germans would get PART of their fleet made Congress pass the biggest naval building program ever.
Now imagine Britain falls, there is a possibility Germany gets control of the largest navy in the world, and British shipbuilding. They might not declare war, but having a concerted conniption fit an doing everything short of war seems rather likely

 

[steel_captain]

Stand your ground. Any Axis naval 'what if' on the internet gets heavily attacked for simply existing.

I must say the push back against my premise has been way more fierce than I anticipated however without enough allies to my position I do feel like Churchill telling the UK in his wilderness years that Hitler could not be negotiated with and be trusted to honor anything.

I am more than willing to admit that there have been many arguments presented here against my premise that are valid and a Germany victory in the Atlantic was pretty iffy even with the extra boats available on Sept. 1. We do know from history what 26 operable seagoing boats were able to start but we're never able to finish before it became too late. Would 30 additional boats been enough to do the job is the real question considering more building ways in Germany means a faster build up of boats to attack convoys?

Here are my parting questions for all the panel experts:

If no BISMARCK & TIRPITZ how does the Admiralty react? Fewer KGV's ordered?

Once it becomes apparent that Germany is building a real U-boat threat to Britain how does the Admiralty react to that beyond ordering sloops and corvettes?

Does Whitehall consider the u-boats a vastly more dangerous threat that the pair of BISMARCKs and change their priorities away from big gun duals at sea to trade protection? If so, how fast do they actually make the pivot?⁸

Since we know by history that the resources put into the two BISMARCKs netted Germany no return other than TIRPITZ tying down lots of RN ships by acting as a fleet in being, what should Germany have done with the resources that went into that pair which might have assured victory for Hitler?

And I still say that victory for Hitler only comes if the RN is neutralized by early 1941. How could Germany have possibly achieved this?

Signing off for now...

 

[vizzer]

If Germany is building a lot more U-boats pre-war the British may spend additional time & money on exercises to test the limits of ASDIC in case the Germans know something they don't.
Which could end up with things like faster sinking depth charges, squid & hedgehog being developed and deployed as counter measures. I.e. more U-boats end up as more being sunk. 😋

 

[mudhead]

Less food and less variety would have been tough, but doable. And it would still be far better in quantity and quality than what WW1 Germany endured for 4 years, and WW2 Occupied Europe, Germany and Japan endured for several years.

The Germans ate pretty well until autumn 1944. They were able to extract quite large quantitiies of food from occupied territories.

The British diet was dull, but adequate - better than pre-war in some aspects, since wholemeal rather than white bread became the standard.

WW1 Germany or the like seem like pushing "massive malnutrition but not massive starvation" hard from what I've read. The kind of thing that would leave marks on the children of the time, but not the sort of thing to actually see population plummet.

1917 Berlin joke: "There are no more rats left. From now on, we will have to eat ersatz rat."

 

[Coulsdon Eagle]

I expect the KGV's to continue as planned, as the RN still had to consider the Japanese and Italian navies. Perhaps cancel one. This doesn't give a lot of applicable resources back to building ASW escorts except in £ Sterling and a few more trained shipbuilders in the wrong locations - it's very much the mirror image of the Germans scrapping B&T for subs. Perhaps the slip now free is used for one of the larger CV's? We also need to see if resources are drained away from the British Army or (less likely) the RAF as these sloops will need crews as much as the subs do.

The beneficiaries of B&T existing are the Italian & Japanese players - great for a game where you are playing as the Axis player, but not if the German. They tied down a number of major fleet units of the RN, and on occasion the USN, as well as removing Hood from the OOB. Not just battleships (after Rheinubung the RN man-marked Tirpitz with 2 KGV's or 1 KGV + 1 USN BB) but consider the CV's involved in the attacks on him(?) in 1943/44, plus a number of Bomber Command squadrons. Ideally build one of them and never let them go further than Norway.

Whilst I hold the same view as the majority of posters, I don't believe that more U-boats is a good outcome for the Allies. Both sides would suffer an increased number of casualties, and whilst Britain may not be starved out, it is likely that the Allied timetable is delayed, with the US build-up on the Eastern side of the Pond slower, and perhaps Operation Torch being amended, rescheduled or dropped. I doubt it would change the outcome of the European war, but could cost more civilians, PoW's and camp inmates their lives, and perhaps the Iron Curtain being a little more westward - although if Overlord is postponed does Operation Bagration take place? Butterflies, butterflies...

 

[thaddeus]

Not building B & T would be a mistake, almost as bad as trying to build more subs conventionally pre-war, so only the option to gain (sectional) shipbuilding experience, all over Germany's heavy industry could yield the potential of a surprise, fast, mass production of U-boats, but even that still makes many assumptions.

disagree since the KM planned to return to diesel propulsion (with the H & O classes), they could have built a second pair of Scharnhorst-class and incorporated the planned 15" guns.

as far as some kind of mass production with pre-fabricated sections? I would say the best first case for that would be something other than u-boats. they had the 1935 class of m-boats which could be eclipsed by the 1943 class*(using pre-fabricated sections historically.) the MFPs/AFPs (termed landing craft but used for everything) are another good candidate? just the tolerances and complexity of submarines seem difficult to achieve (at least initially) by non-maritime manufacturers?

if the goal becomes numbers of u-boats, do not dismiss coastal size vessels, an enhanced Type II deploying magnetic mines (if an accompanying program for those was pursued with more resources) could be very effective.

*meaning a 1935 class of m-boats built as the 1943 class was devised

 

[thaddeus]

Some thoughts on that grand strategy. You might like some, not like others, but all are intended to 'push' in the direction of your thread. -

1. Increased U-boat production as per your proposal.
2. Alliance with Soviet Union, no Barbarossa, no war in the East. Germany wants to trade political concessions (ie, Soviet territorial expansion against 3rd parties) and technology to Russia in exchange for oil, wheat, and naval war materials. (The Soviets were not good with submarine technology at this time, but they had massive industry that should be able to crank out vast numbers of increasingly sophisticated sea mines that the Axis could use in their commerce war. They can build large numbers of the relatively unsophisticated landing craft and small escorts needed for Sealion, their aviation industry could build small or moderate numbers of crude but useful long range 4-engine bombers that the Germans lacked. Their neutral shipping in the Atlantic and Pacific could provide an added intelligence network for the Axis. )
3. The Luftwaffe night time strategic bombing targets in 1940-1941 are the West coast UK seaports. Reduce capacity in order to undermine convoy tactics, (which required immense logistical support in the UK in order to unload so many convoyed ships at once).
4. Sealion 1941 has to be cocked and ready to go. Not because you intend to invade, but because with (2) above you can afford to deploy the threat of Sealion. All the posters talking about extra UK convoy escorts? Sealion pins about 100 of these permanently to anti-invasion alert duties from invasion season in May 1941 to October 1941. The bigger the threat of Sealion in 1941, the more UK destroyers and escorts are pinned to anti-invasion reaction forces.
5. Spain. Will enter the war, one way or another, such that the union of the Axis fleets can be made at the Iberian peninsula. During WW2 the Italians deployed about 30 submarines to the Atlantic, operating out of French bases. This campaign constituted the most successful non-German submarine offensive in WW2, as the Italians sank a million tons of shipping. So, take Spain such that the Italians can operate a much larger submarine fleet in the Atlantic.
6. France,

Index of Organizations
Check out the organization of the French Navy - France had a magnificent submarine force that the Axis just basically ignored historically. Alter your armistice terms with France in June 1940 that they keep their surface fleet, but must surrender all their submarines to Germany, along with the specialists in their crews. In compensation, let them keep Paris as their seat of government and let them keep their surface fleet in French hands and a state of full operational readiness. The idea is to have the KM take over the entire French submarine force as part of the armistice provisions, and then work them up with German crews for operations by 1941, using the French specialists to accelerate the process.
7. Japan. If the Japanese and US go to war, then war between Germany and the US is inevitable. For your scenario, therefore, you do not want the Japanese in the war. So Axis diplomacy should emphasize Japanese isolation in order to keep the US neutral. But, if war does come, then what the Axis want is for Japan to dispatch its long range submarine force to the Atlantic to join this campaign. Obviously, this gets easier if the Axis control the Suez Canal.

my speculative scenario is that the USSR (Stalin actually) wanted a battleship fleet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovetsky_Soyuz-class_battleship for which Germany and possibly Italy could have built parts or entire ships.

one feature of cooperation with the Soviets is easier access to China, IDK that allying with Japan would be wanted or needed?

 

[jlckansas]

You still haven't talked about what doesn't get built when you build the extra UBoats. All the specialized equipment to build the bits and pieces to build the boats need to be expanded or be built from scratch to begin with. What you use to make steel for a BB, like you canceled Bismarck and Tirpitz, is not the same steel you need to use in a submarine. You also need different set of tools to make the steel from raw stock to finished plate and shapes needed. You also need expand you facilities to make the individual pieces like electrical systems, batteries, switches, light bulbs, and such; things like radios, kitchen equipment, bedding, periscopes, torpedoes, and even the food processing for the long term on board. In some cases you would have to build new factories from scratch because the existing ones would not be able to be expanded, like periscopes which were an actual precision device from beginning to installation and breaking in.

 

[SealTheRealDeal]

100 U-boats wouldn't be anywhere near enough to overwhelm the RN

 

[sparky42]

Now now, we havent raided Scapa yet...

Maybe they can use an island to use as the invasion point, nobody would expect that…

 

[Alien and Sedition Bat]

This thread is turning away from the Battle of the Atlantic and whether Germany would have been more successful blockading Britain is it started the war with more operational seagoing u-boats which I can't prevent however it would be nice if it could remain on topic

Remaining "on topic" means accepting a rigged scenario without exploring any alternatives. PODs, however, will always result in multiple new alternatives aka "topics." Why waste any more time on trying to persuade a single individual who is clearly obsessed with a single fixed idea?

I am removing my questions that followed about steel_captain's use of an inapropos quote from Nathan Bedford Forrest, since, as a result of steel_captain's 11:37 AM decision to wind down this debate, these questions (not accusations) serve no useful purpose here. For the record, his decision to wind down was made before I posted my description of Forrest and thus that description could not have played a role in his decision, which he spelled out plausibly on completely unrelated grounds.

 

[steel_captain]

Good effing lord...I just used a quote from the man which is apropos to this thread. Because I did, now I am both a Nazi and Confederacy sympathizer. Sheesh!

 

[Finbarr the Fair]

Hey, I still hold to my premise even though it is being dumped on so heavily in this thread. I do believe my hypothesis has merit to debate at least because that is all it is...just a theory.

It’s an interesting POD but the criticism you object to is the big gap between:

A) Germany does something different from OTL in 1936 (?) to 1939. Namely, built X more U-boats

Z ) The situation in late 1940 is identical to OTL and therefore the extra U-boats bring the British Commonwealth and Empire to its knees at some point in the first half of 1941.

. If I fold my position then how do we have any debate? I can also concede on certain points such as what Britain's actual oil reserves were? If 7.5months then no way Doenitz would have been successful but if only 2months then he just might have?

I suggest that you first work out what happens in the intervening years what happens that could be different from OTL. In terms of how Britain reacts to this development, what might change in British shipbuilding strategy as a response. Then think about how that might change its approach to German demand to absorb all territories with a German speaking population in 1938 and later.

A review of what could change in events such as the Norwegian campaign would also help.

Then consider how If the British faced higher loss rates in 1941 than OTL, what would they do in response? Look at how they responded to the “Second Happy Time” and the bitter convoy battles in late 1942 and early 1943.

There are lots of constructive comments above you could use as starting points for this exercise. Please, don’t give up, try to flesh out the consequences of the POD.

Or, go in a completely different direction here. I really doesn't matter in the end

Well, Alternate History is basically a fun exercise. Where people commenting on proposed TLs play a part in making them better rooted in real history. I don’t think anyone is disputing that Nazi Germany could have built more U-boats in 1936-1940 than OTL, but the requests are for you to think about the implications of this.

 

[Elfwine]

Well, Alternate History is basically a fun exercise. Where people commenting on proposed TLs play a part in making them better rooted in real history. I don’t think anyone is disputing that Nazi Germany could have built more U-boats in 1936-1940 than OTL, but the requests are for you to think about the implications of this.

I would heartily second this. "What if Germany went full tilt into U-boat production from 1936 on?" is not exactly a boring question to ask, and IMO it can be a wonderful way to learn things like how the British did deal with the possibility of being starved out or whether Hitler intended war with them to ask questions like that.

But if one brushes aside things like "So how will the British respond?", those implications don't stop looming large for everyone else.

 

[Alien and Sedition Bat]

It’s an interesting POD but the criticism you object to is the big gap between:

A) Germany does something different from OTL in 1936 (?) to 1939. Namely, built X more U-boats

Z ) The situation in late 1940 is identical to OTL and therefore the extra U-boats bring the British Commonwealth and Empire to its knees at some point in the first half of 1941.

I suggest that you first work out what happens in the intervening years what happens that could be different from OTL. In terms of how Britain reacts to this development, what might change in British shipbuilding strategy as a response. Then think about how that might change its approach to German demand to absorb all territories with a German speaking population in 1938 and later.

A review of what could change in events such as the Norwegian campaign would also help.

Then consider how If the British faced higher loss rates in 1941 than OTL, what would they do in response? Look at how they responded to the “Second Happy Time” and the bitter convoy battles in late 1942 and early 1943.

There are lots of constructive comments above you could use as starting points for this exercise. Please, don’t give up, try to flesh out the consequences of the POD.

Well, Alternate History is basically a fun exercise. Where people commenting on proposed TLs play a part in making them better rooted in real history. I don’t think anyone is disputing that Nazi Germany could have built more U-boats in 1936-1940 than OTL, but the requests are for you to think about the implications of this.

If you insert a point of departure (POD ) in the past of Our Time Line (OTL), you create a new time line which includes from its first moment a cascade of tiny butterflies that inevitably result in large butterflies, and not just the POD one. Among other things it creates radically different behavior among people disadvantaged by the POD. This seems to be the basic "logic" of alternate history scenarios and of alternate history novels although the writer may "censor" the effects so s/he can explore changes in various OTL events (e.g., Pearl Harbor--even though the prior butterflies in a World War Two scenario may strongly imply that Pearl Harbor would never occur or would occur in a radically different way about which the writer suppresses her/his imagination). A good example is at the end of Vol. 2 of The Whale Has Wings, David Row's superb "Brit wank" on the war, in which Pearl Harbor is left as in OTL for the sake of a more entertaining Battle of Midway. Thus the logic of PODs is rarely completely consistent. And it is not logic in the conventional sense--it's more like a literary convention, although it should probably be compared to principles found in modal logic, especially in the work of David Kellogg Lewis on counterfactuals and plurality of worlds logic. Someone should create a handbook on the writing of alternate history that would explain how to handle PODs and butterflies and how to evade them for literary effect either with or without Alien Space Bat interventions. Also, how to craft ASB interventions in more sophisticated ways, not just with teenage bats (always boys) saying, oh, wouldn't it be nice to give nation X future weapons to use against nation Y as part of our class project?

 

[Cryhavoc101]

Stand your ground. Any Axis naval 'what if' on the internet gets heavily attacked for simply existing.

IMO, you need to tie the idea of a larger pre-war U-boat arm and U-boat production to a more coherent grand strategy, while at the same time, dropping the idea of a quick U-boat victory. Turbocharge this mo'fo.

Some thoughts on that grand strategy. You might like some, not like others, but all are intended to 'push' in the direction of your thread. -

1. Increased U-boat production as per your proposal.
2. Alliance with Soviet Union, no Barbarossa, no war in the East. Germany wants to trade political concessions (ie, Soviet territorial expansion against 3rd parties) and technology to Russia in exchange for oil, wheat, and naval war materials. (The Soviets were not good with submarine technology at this time, but they had massive industry that should be able to crank out vast numbers of increasingly sophisticated sea mines that the Axis could use in their commerce war. They can build large numbers of the relatively unsophisticated landing craft and small escorts needed for Sealion, their aviation industry could build small or moderate numbers of crude but useful long range 4-engine bombers that the Germans lacked. Their neutral shipping in the Atlantic and Pacific could provide an added intelligence network for the Axis. )
3. The Luftwaffe night time strategic bombing targets in 1940-1941 are the West coast UK seaports. Reduce capacity in order to undermine convoy tactics, (which required immense logistical support in the UK in order to unload so many convoyed ships at once).
4. Sealion 1941 has to be cocked and ready to go. Not because you intend to invade, but because with (2) above you can afford to deploy the threat of Sealion. All the posters talking about extra UK convoy escorts? Sealion pins about 100 of these permanently to anti-invasion alert duties from invasion season in May 1941 to October 1941. The bigger the threat of Sealion in 1941, the more UK destroyers and escorts are pinned to anti-invasion reaction forces.
5. Spain. Will enter the war, one way or another, such that the union of the Axis fleets can be made at the Iberian peninsula. During WW2 the Italians deployed about 30 submarines to the Atlantic, operating out of French bases. This campaign constituted the most successful non-German submarine offensive in WW2, as the Italians sank a million tons of shipping. So, take Spain such that the Italians can operate a much larger submarine fleet in the Atlantic.
6. France,

Index of Organizations

Check out the organization of the French Navy - France had a magnificent submarine force that the Axis just basically ignored historically. Alter your armistice terms with France in June 1940 that they keep their surface fleet, but must surrender all their submarines to Germany, along with the specialists in their crews. In compensation, let them keep Paris as their seat of government and let them keep their surface fleet in French hands and a state of full operational readiness. The idea is to have the KM take over the entire French submarine force as part of the armistice provisions, and then work them up with German crews for operations by 1941, using the French specialists to accelerate the process.
7. Japan. If the Japanese and US go to war, then war between Germany and the US is inevitable. For your scenario, therefore, you do not want the Japanese in the war. So Axis diplomacy should emphasize Japanese isolation in order to keep the US neutral. But, if war does come, then what the Axis want is for Japan to dispatch its long range submarine force to the Atlantic to join this campaign. Obviously, this gets easier if the Axis control the Suez Canal.

Thats a very tall if tree!

 

[DougM]

a few comments
-You absolutely CAN NOT expect to increase the number if U-Boats drasticaly without the RN taking steps to counter this. the RN was neither stupid nor blind. so you WILL get more smaller anti sub ships.
-GB odds are will not conpletly counter the U-Boat build up with sub hunter, but they will build enough yo counter a good percentage, ao you numbers hould get better for Germany, but Not enough better
-The US will also start a program to counter the U-Boats.
-The best year pre war for U-Boat production was 20 boats total, some of which where not long range boats, so you are asking for. a huge increase, this will needs a build up os slipways and factories
-These slipways and factories will cost money,
-You cant pay for both the factories, slipways, and boats from the savings of mot building 2 BB
-you have absolutely ZERO evidence that 100 U-Boats will bring GB its knees
-The head of all U-Boats said he needed 300 to do what you say will take 100.
-The head of the U-Boat was probably being optimistic in that he wanted to make himself look better and a SMALLER number helps him look better. so if anything the was UNDER estimating what it would take.
-As far as we can tell we have no reason to believe you have a better grasp of the numbers needed then Donitz had. So unless you can show otherwise this on fact would indicate thatbvyou are way off the mark and that your number will jot work.
-By. all indications the U-Boats where not having such an impact that these additional boats would see enough oilers taken out
-By all indication GB had 6 month's to 1 year worth of oil on hand so even if you sink all tabkers in the first year you still have mobths of oil, and based on math you will not get anywhere close to that.
-All escorts and what have you can refuel for half the work in the US you cant stop that.
-Your increased number of U-Boats means an increased numbers sunk, not enough for GB to offset the biild up, but enough to make finding crews and captains more of an issue and enough to start damaging moral.
-These extra Boats are drastically increasing the likelihood of encounter US ships, you do NOT want that.
-The US has fought a number if wars over interruption of sea trade. Once against Germany Heraelf. So odds are you get the US into the war sooner, this is a very very bad thing.
-Increased losses of merchantmen sooner just means the Liberty Ship program will happen sooner, as it cam about oretty fast after the losese started to pile up, so an increase in losses sooner will see this program kick off sooner.
-Even IF you get GB to end the war you will not get catastrophic peace treaty like with France as you CANT INVADE GB. So mo you will not get GB fleet nor its merchent shipping.
-If somehow you did get a catastrophic treaty the government and the Navy and the merchants will relocate to Canada, Then once the US is up yo full steam they will return to the war. As you cant force Canada or Australia or New Zealand or What have you out of the war by blockading GB itself.
-Odds are if you start to. starve GB (as unlikely as that is) the US will step up to help them, So you probably jaut get the US on you case sooner.


BTW I am not sure who you folks are talking to about German food supplies by, but my familys stories run counter to yours. My dad was a kid in Hamburg who spentvhis summers in the country with his Fathers sister or his mothers Pararents (two different small towns) one was a farming community the other was based around a limestone mine and narrow gauge railroad. And he told a completly different story.
As did my Grand Parants, My Uncle, my dada cousins and you can Add in my Great Aunt. All of whom i PERSONALLY talked with.
And they all said that food started to be an issue in late 42, and was a big issue by 43.
My father said he went to be hungry EVERY NIGHT for at. least three years. maybe a bit more, His doctors said he had some minor health iasues related to chronic malnutrition aa a child, and that he was a bit shorter then you would exoect based on his Dad his cousins and his brother (all older them him so not subject yo bad nutrition while grrowing) And how much taller then him his kids are. Comparing everyone my dad looked yo be 3 to 4 inches short, but that is a guess.
So all of my family living in 4 distinctly different areas ranging from small villages to huge cities all say they had many years of short food and it was really bad in 44 and beyond.
It was so bad that some folks were eating cats on purpose. And that some animal (I think rabbit) was only sold with the head attached so you knew ut was a rabbit and not a cat. BTW cats where called roof rabbits,

So not. really sure where the idea that Germany was not going hungery.
Another story. My dad in 43 was heading yo his Grand Parents on a train, He was hanging on outside ((they actually sold tickets to do that i guess) he had a second belt yo strap himself to the train, Said he perfered the outside as he could jump if the train was strafed. Anyway a train going the other was was mostly destroyed neer some small village and there train atopped as it was damaged and had to be repaired or the tracks were damaged or some such. (short fix only a half hour or so) They noticed the damaged train was shipping food, and aoone most the folks on his train and from the village were at the damaged train raiding it of food. My dad said it looked like ants at a picknic on something sweet,
My dad didn't talk to much about the war (or his time in Korea) but he would NEVER send us to bed without supper. In fact on more then one occasion we were in our rooms for whatever reason because we missed dinner time, where being punished or didn't feel well he would actually bring us food in our rooms (we were normally mot allowed food in our bedrooms) because in his own words he had had yt go to sleep hunfpger firctoo many years to inflict that on us. And this was back when a belt was considered normal in punishing kids and going to bed without food was not uncommon as a punishment in some houses (no my dad never used a belt but was was a threat)
A lot of these stories came out as we talked while i took care if him while he was terminally ill.