No german U-boats in WW1

One of the greatest mysteries of WW1 was the complete failure of the German Navy to appreciate the possibilities of the recently invented submarine. Although the Navy was dominated by gunnery officers, the neglect of submarines cannot be entirely or even mostly attributed to conservatism. Indeed Germany was the leading developer of mine warfare during the period and its innovations such as the magnetic mine had a huge impact on WW1. Germany was also the leading developer of motor torpedo boats, initially only rivalled by Italy although the British necessarily responded during WW1. No, the neglect can best be explained by the unfortunate incompetence of a few designers and officers who destroyed the morale of those trying to create a potentially war winning instrument. The memoirs of one of the survivors of Germany's submarine programme noted, "There are many dangers in operating a submarine and we encountered all of them: floods through jammed hatches and torpedo tubes, buoyancy tanks that failed to empty, miscalculations of the centre of gravity or defective hydroplanes that sent the submarine too deep, miscalculations of the crush depth or defective construction, chlorine fumes or explosive hydrogen from batteries, endless engine failures punctuated by fuel explosions together with the normal dangers of collision or grounding encountered by all ships." The result of this sad history was that the only serious contribution of German submarines to WW1 were the activity of a few transport submarines constructed in 1916-8 which did fulfil the useful function of transporting a limited quantity of goods such as rubber from the USA or Brazil.
 
It's all Tirpitz' fault. He was so obsessed with "his" battle fleet that he not only neclegted sub-marine devolpment but outright sabotaged research into this new arm.
Although he had grown up in the torpedo arm, he had mutated into a fierce advocate of the big grey ships.
 

MrP

Banned
One of the greatest mysteries of WW1 was the complete failure of the German Navy to appreciate the possibilities of the recently invented submarine.

Not really. That's like saying that one of the greatest mysteries of WW2 was the complete failure of the Americans to appreciate the possibilities of nuclear weapons. The Germans certainly could have done more with subs (ISTR in some areas the Brits and French were ahead), but when one considers that it was the era when a great power was measured by its army and battlefleet, not by its submarines, the mystery all but evaporates.

Even IOTL Admiral Jellicoe was predicting (wrongly, it turned out) that the German submarine blockade would so reduce British supplies that it would be impossible to continue the war with offensives in 1918. So even IOTL it was considered a significant problem by the chap in charge of coordinating the British fleet.

One could increase sub power only at the cost of international prestige - and also risking one's success on an untried technology rather than a (relatively) proven one. I'm sure you can increase the number of boats Germany starts the war with (29 commissioned, says a glance at The WWI Databook), but I doubt one could augment the force to anything approaching the number of commissioned boats at the war's end (171, op.cit.). Even doubling the number would require a radical pre-war policy shift which would be obvious to foreign observers, giving them longer to consider mechanisms for ASW - and the RN isn't always going to rule out convoys in such circumstances.
 
Oh I would say they knew damm well the potential of the U-boat - here are the WW1 M/V losses




August 1914 – December 1914 312,0672 tons Average 62,534 tons/month

January 1915 – June 1915 440,163 tons Average 73,336 tons/month

July 1915 – December 1915 812,108 tons Average 135,351 tons/month

January 1916 – June 1916 795,570 tons Average 132,595 tons/month

July 1916 – December 1917 1,532,726 tons Average 255,287 tons/month

January 1917 – June 1917 3,667,531 tons Average 611,255 tons/month

July 1917 – December 1917 2,568,347 tons Average 428,057 tons/month

January 1918 – June 1918 1,798,038 tons Average 299,673 tons/month

July 1918 – November 1918 868,904 tons Average 173,780 tons/month


Unrestricted submarine warfare reintroduced Feb 1st 1917

The interesting figures are after convoy has been introduced after April 1917, the figure are still horendous.
 
?Is this suppose to be a Double Blind WI?, First two posts seem that way.


It's all Tirpitz' fault. He was so obsessed with "his" battle fleet that he not only neclegted sub-marine devolpment but outright sabotaged research into this new arm.
Although he had grown up in the torpedo arm, he had mutated into a fierce advocate of the big grey ships.
I don't agree, after all the first Submarines had just been developed in 1911, And Germany needed to make choices.
And when the Treaty of Stockholm ending the war forbid Germany from Capital ships, They put a lot of resources into developing Subs in the interwar years.
 
You just made US intervention in WW1 very unlikely.
Yes that was my plan. I distrust PODs requiring intelligence, so I tried incompetence.

There were good engineers available, so I suggested that they were distracted into developing magnetic mines and fast torpedo boats. Magnetic mines were deployed by Britain in 1918 http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WAMBR_Mines.htm, so they would be just possible pre-war. Unsweepable offensive mine fields would be rather attractive to Germany. We have 1939-40 to give an idea of the potential British loses but in 1914-8, the cross channel traffic would be an additional target. Perhaps in 1917-8, we could imagine Zeppelins and Gothas laying mines.
 
I don't agree, after all the first Submarines had just been developed in 1911, And Germany needed to make choices.
And when the Treaty of Stockholm ending the war forbid Germany from Capital ships, They put a lot of resources into developing Subs in the interwar years.

They really should have listened to their Austro-Hungarian allies about deploying submarines. In a few short months the Austrians swept the Allies from the Adriatic and severely threatened their operations in the Aegean. When the Italians attempted to enter the war they lost three dreadnoughts within the span of two weeks.

Of course one of their greatest WWI submarine aces was Georg von Trapp, who went on to become Chief of Staff of the Austrian Federal Navy during the Second World War.
 
They really should have listened to their Austro-Hungarian allies about deploying submarines. In a few short months the Austrians swept the Allies from the Adriatic and severely threatened their operations in the Aegean. When the Italians attempted to enter the war they lost three dreadnoughts within the span of two weeks.

Of course one of their greatest WWI submarine aces was Georg von Trapp, who went on to become Chief of Staff of the Austrian Federal Navy during the Second World War.

??? Georg von Trapp, husband of Maria (of Sound of Music fame) doesn't seem to have worked for the Austrian navy after Austria lost her sea-coast. Is there ANOTHER Georg von Trapp? ???:confused:
 
Top