Deleted member 1487
I did a thread a while back about a reinforced 'Operation Paukenschlag' which was a what if Hitler hadn't held back at least 20 Uboats to defend against a non-existent potential invasion of Norway:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/paukenschlag-reinforced.370756/
I've been reading about British Operations Research recently and it focused heavily on the Battle of the Atlantic, citing numerous German mistakes that saved the Allies from major problems in 1942; since I've already covered some of the aspects of getting Britain to do better, this thread is about fewer mistakes on the German side.
What if instead of diverting to the Mediterranean the German navy kept it's Uboats in the Atlantic, so had their entire operational force ready for the first 'beat' in 'operation drumbeat'?
IOTL there were about 12 operational Type IX long range Uboats available for the operation along the US East Coast, but only 5 were able to be sent due to half of what was available being in the Mediterranean and 1 having a mechanical failure at the last moment. I'm counting 29 Uboats sent to the Mediterranean, including the 6 Type IXs. Considering 5 Type IXs sank about 157,000 tons of shipping in less than 1 month, more than doubling their number should at least double their kill total given the enormous missed chances due to how limited their numbers were in the very rich shipping area and needing to focus on only the richest of targets as a result. That's not even counting the potential impact of the 23 extra Type VII Uboats (though they would all be forgoing their historical kills in the Mediterranen, which weren't that great AFAIK).
IOTL the US didn't really respond quickly at all and Admiral King was focused on sending all escorts and aircraft to the Pacific. Would greater losses much earlier arrest that shift West? What would the consequences of that be? If not then the Uboats would run riot it would seem, they sank over 3 million tons of shipping with their limited numbers during the operation. What impact on the Allies would it have had to suffer say double the historical losses in 1942? As it was the US launched something like 11 million tons of new shipping that year, but they still had a major shortage of shipping until 1943 IOTL. Thoughts?
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/paukenschlag-reinforced.370756/
I've been reading about British Operations Research recently and it focused heavily on the Battle of the Atlantic, citing numerous German mistakes that saved the Allies from major problems in 1942; since I've already covered some of the aspects of getting Britain to do better, this thread is about fewer mistakes on the German side.
What if instead of diverting to the Mediterranean the German navy kept it's Uboats in the Atlantic, so had their entire operational force ready for the first 'beat' in 'operation drumbeat'?
IOTL there were about 12 operational Type IX long range Uboats available for the operation along the US East Coast, but only 5 were able to be sent due to half of what was available being in the Mediterranean and 1 having a mechanical failure at the last moment. I'm counting 29 Uboats sent to the Mediterranean, including the 6 Type IXs. Considering 5 Type IXs sank about 157,000 tons of shipping in less than 1 month, more than doubling their number should at least double their kill total given the enormous missed chances due to how limited their numbers were in the very rich shipping area and needing to focus on only the richest of targets as a result. That's not even counting the potential impact of the 23 extra Type VII Uboats (though they would all be forgoing their historical kills in the Mediterranen, which weren't that great AFAIK).
IOTL the US didn't really respond quickly at all and Admiral King was focused on sending all escorts and aircraft to the Pacific. Would greater losses much earlier arrest that shift West? What would the consequences of that be? If not then the Uboats would run riot it would seem, they sank over 3 million tons of shipping with their limited numbers during the operation. What impact on the Allies would it have had to suffer say double the historical losses in 1942? As it was the US launched something like 11 million tons of new shipping that year, but they still had a major shortage of shipping until 1943 IOTL. Thoughts?