Challenge: Is that the worst they could do? U-boats in WW2

POD:

On 31 August 1939 Commodore Dönitz is attacked by a pack of wild boars and dies immediately.

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to credibly do worse than Dönitz as Führer der Unterseeboote. You have considerable influence on German ship production, as Dönitz did in OTL.
 

Cook

Banned
I posted this initially in the Stronger Italy thread, no one took it up but it’d be valid here:

During World War Two the German Kriegsmarine relied on the Enigma Machine to encrypt their messages in the belief that it was unbreakable. In this they were mistaken. Bletchley Park was able to break the Enigma code used by the German navy after acquiring an Enigma from a German U-boat.

The Italian Navy, the Regia Marina meanwhile relied on a form of One Time Letter Pad. This involves two books of pages of randomly generated letters, one on the ship and one retained at Headquarters. Messages are converted to random letters using the pages; there is no sequencing and is not even theoretically breakable because it is a one off, never repeated system.

The only drawback of using OTLP is that it is more time consuming to generate, although takes no longer to send in Morse than an Enigma.

This may have resulted in the Kriegsmarine using unbreakable encryption during the Battle of the Atlantic, the Royal Navy’s nightmare scenario.


No new equipment, just better encryption.
 
No new equipment, just better encryption.

While this is an interesting idea, please read the original post. It's easy to imagine various means for German U-boats to do better, this time the question is how could they do worse?
 
I posted this initially in the Stronger Italy thread, no one took it up but it’d be valid here:



No new equipment, just better encryption.

Hang on a sec... I thought the challenge was to screw up the Kriegsmarine to hell and beyond...

EDIT: Specifically, it's U-boat arm...
 

Cook

Banned
While this is an interesting idea, please read the original post. It's easy to imagine various means for German U-boats to do better, this time the question is how could they do worse?

Oh, sorry.

Around here if you say “Is that the worst you can do?” in a fight it means something different.

So we are trying to make the Kriegsmarine less effective?
 
If that wasn't bad enough... How about another flotilla of Seeteufels?

While this sounds excellent, there's also a disturbing side note. A German "X Flotilla MAS" might develop itself into a well-trained and disturbing entity if given enough time.

But, in general, Wunderwaffe technical projects are a good suggestion! Besides, a flotilla of Type XI U-cruisers carrying Seeteufels on a raid to an isolated British naval base would make an excellent bad movie!

Initially I thought also about the torpedo crisis but I think it was about as long drawn out as realistically possible. On communications security it's also quite difficult to "improve" German proficiency.
 
POD:

On 31 August 1939 Commodore Dönitz is attacked by a pack of wild boars and dies immediately.

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to credibly do worse than Dönitz as Führer der Unterseeboote. You have considerable influence on German ship production, as Dönitz did in OTL.

Tactics: the submarines should attack enemy warcrafts, not civilian trading ships. That should lead to far bigger losses, no chanse of starving Britain and be slightly plausible.

All submarines should report to base at a fixed time. Also slightly plausible, and making ASW far easier.

Micromanage the entire sub warfare. All subs must have permission form HQ to attack enemies, change patrol patterns etc.

Submarines: Build some "submerged cruisers" with heavy artillery. 2 20 cm guns, or something like that. Tried in WW1 with total lack of success. But we are Germans - we can make it work :)

Build the submarines answer to Maus. Something gigantic and totally useless. 8 torpedo tubes forward and 4 aft, demanding a crew of 300 men.

Dönitz didn't do so bad, considered what he had to work with. He wasn't alone in trusting Enigma and underestemating technological advances (radar).
 

Rubicon

Banned
Not insist on U-boats reporting convoys and not direct u-boats towards found convoys. i.e the (in)famous wolfpack tactic. Meaning that the U-boats would all to individually find and attack convoys.

Strictly follow the submarine protocols for search and seizure.

Verify the nationality of the merchants everywhere before attacking.
 
Torpedo the USS Texas and Yorktown when my skippers on have them in sights in early 1941 because Germany doesn't have enough enemies. Oh and I am not going to bother running comprehensive tests on the torpedoes no matter how many of my skippers tell me they run like crap and don't work

Im going to ban night attacks for fear of wasting ammunition... oh and ill operate in range of allied air power and send boats to really useless places looking for easy kills
 

elkarlo

Banned
Can you do the reverse? By that I mean, could less success be better?

The Germans after 42' don't put much mng/manpower into subs, saving that for other branches. Yet still do enough to ensure that the Allies do convoys and air patrols. I wonder how much they could get the Allies to waste resources wise, while min their own loses.


Convoys are pretty inefficent. Air patrols use a lot of fuel+maintenance, not too mention the fact that a lot of long range patrols dont come back.

Not that this would turn the tide, but interesting to consider.
 
Have Hitler fall in love with the original detonator from the US Mk. 14 torpedo and have him order that it, in its original form, be the only torpedo detonator used by the KM, no matter how defective it may be. That ought to mess up the U-boat arm. Bonus points if you can get him to mandate the use of the original depth-keeping mechanism as well.:)
 
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