No Plan Z, early Uboat expansion

[Riain]

The GZ offered the option of a balanced task group in the North Atlantic from maybe 1942. it will mean that as well as the RN allocating 3 BBs to gaurd against the Tirpitz it will also have to allocate 3 CVs to gaurd against the GZ, 1 in refit and 2 available to ensure superiority. What happens to the rest of the war when so much RN carrier strength is tied up shadowing a ghost? Or do we, without the benefit of hindsight, just leave such a Task Group ungaured and then have it fall on a Russian convoy whhen we least expect it?

We know the German CAG will be shit, but is that fair assumption for thhe RN command to make in 1942?

 

[Atomo]

Do Newfoundland, HMG, & Canada, build an escort-refit yard in St John's? (There wasn't one OTL.) This would enable work otherwise done in Britain (already overstretched) or Halifax (far from the warzone) to be completed expeditiously.

Halifax will always have the main shipyard during a war, simple answer to why is logistics. Halifax has a rail connection. St.John's would need everything shipped in, therefore vulnerable to the same U-Boats.

 

[Riain]

Halifax will always have the main shipyard during a war, simple answer to why is logistics. Halifax has a rail connection. St.John's would need everything shipped in, therefore vulnerable to the same U-Boats.

Isn't it always the way, boring logistics is the science of reality.

 

[phx1138]

50 more for combat availability overall, as there would be about 150 total operational.

I'm basing the 1/3rd on station from the following:
http://uboat.net/ops/combat_strength.html

That's been my usual presumption, too, but I've also seen claims on this site for KM having a higher percentage in training.

I'd imagine we'd get an OTL spread. Not all of these boats would be in the Atlantic either, as the bigger boats would be able to travel farther into the South Atlantic, Indian Oceans, etc. which of course spreads British warships even further hunting down the greater threat.

Sensible. And adding .

This is a problem, but seeing as it was pretty much solved in 1941 anyway, I don't know what more effect it could have, especially as the decoding usually happened after the information was useful and the best effect was gained from triangulating the location of transmission.

Fair enough. (I do think emphasis on Enigma is overblown anyhow. DF could have done the job even if Enigma wasn't being read at all IMO.)

So lets say that by April, intelligence has some indication of what is happening. It could easily be June before the UK adjusts its strategy. So say Germany gets a 6 month jump on building, but the UK gets a 3 month jump on reacting. I think you will have to pull many British countermeasures forward in time.

That makes sense. Which means acceleration of DD construction, & of the corvette program. Also of Hedgehog, I'd expect.

More bombing focus on U-boats.

Is that necessarily so? Seeing it was a total failure OTL, is there no chance of senior officers changing direction?

Fleet carriers can be used to escort convoys.

Maybe. Maybe you accelerate the tanker-based CVs, instead of letting them sit on the shelf for more than a year.

More commando raids will be done.

More? When was there one targeting a U-boat base?

British drop out of war when they run out of food. About 1400-1700 calories per day per adult. September 1940 to December 1941 is a very short period of time to break the will of a nation. The first winter will not be too bad, and by the height of the second winter there is hope of the USA. Also, Churchill will starve India before giving up. He only removed 60% of merchant shipping from the India Ocean OTL. He likely goes well above 90% ITTL. And units on the defensive consume less supplies. And the UK does not really have to have tea and coffee. You just have to look at the details and make a call. For example, what % of tonnage that went to England IOTL was non-essential (tea, toys, clothes not required for survival, etc). And there are other ways to free up shipping. Not attacking Italian East Africa and keeping the troops in say Australia saves a lot of merchant tonnage.

All very true. Some things simply can't be stopped entirely. I proposed BC being grounded, but that's really not an option: some kind of striking back is politically essential for Winston's government.

I can even see USA and UK making a deal with Japan (no embargo). Churchill said he make a deal with Satan to stop Hitler. Tojo is nicer guy than Satan, and Churchill might have been speaking the truth.

Maybe. The embargo was intended to keep Japan quiet, & backfired... If Britain is more desperate, there might be pressure to get even tougher.

Italy does a lot better. With fewer supplies, UK does not attack into Libya. I doubt Malta is seriously defended.

I agree Italy does better. Not sure if the Libya & Malta options are credible.

Probably cancel Greece operations too. I tend to think a truly desperate UK allows Italy to dominate Med without challenge.

I think the response will be ramped down. I don't think the Brits can just let the Italians run free.

Surprise for the invasion of USSR might be lost.

I don't see the connection.

USA could easily be changed. A lot of extra ships are being sunk.

This is the big one IMO.

A lot more people might be sent to Canada. I know the sent some children, but they could send all children and elderly not need for war if desperate enough.

This is an interesting option, & one I find really sensible. Put another spin on it: can you send people with skills who Britain can't feed, but Canada or India or Oz could?

If truly desperate, look at things to get more help from Empire.

I think this is the most likely response. Which makes production of ships & weapons (& radar...) in Oz & Canada more likely, at a greater than OTL rate.

Another butterfly is that you might find some of the quality issue with German subs and torpedoes earlier. More ships is more chance to figure out the torpedoes are not working right.

And more chance to blame ill-trained crews... I'd expect that to be the reaction of KM's BuOrd, just as it was for USN's.

You also get issues with torpedo production: more boats means more torpedoes fired means a potential production shortfall & need to rely on minelaying...or on guns, which increases exposure to escorts &/or a/c.

omber [C]ommand using bombers to hunt for U-boat and bombing the U-boat bases as #1 priority would help the UK a lot.

Bombing the bases was a total waste of effort. How does this help?

If the British think they can handle 100k tons of U-Boats and notice their prime potential enemy is increasing production of U-Boats, then they don't wait until 100k are manufactured or war breaks out before they begin to do something about it.

Existing doctrine held it was possible to hold off on building escorts til war began, so...

The British will probably be several months behind the Germans because it takes time to notice this and then formulate a response. But I don't think several months start will be decisive.

The Brits were critically short of escorts early in the war, & RCN was tiny prewar. Increasing the threat even a little is going to have serious consequences, & neither can respond immediately. It might be enough.

I'm also not sure why HMG would continue to ignore the fundamental fact: if supplies don't get through & Britain falls, that wonderful bomber force is so much junk... Small diversions of aircraft to NF & Iceland (fewer than half those lost on the stupid, futile raids against the sub pens!) would transform the A/S war in the North Atlantic.

By March 1941, the British were winning the Battle of the Atlantic.

Since when?

Of course, in a Second Happy Time scenario where the US goofs off and forgets to embrace standard ASW procedures in the first six months of their entry in the war, this could be real trouble.

Not could--will.

Using aircraft patrols more effectively, instituting convoys near US coasts, and increasing escort production are very simple to do.

Patrols & convoys, yes. Escort production, not so much. The lead time is longer...

 

[sharlin]

How would this huge increase of U-Boat production also affect the construction of tanks, planes etc. Germany does not have infinite resources.

 

[wietze]

maybe the germans take interest in the dutch O19 class subs, would def fix endurance issues. Maybe even order a batch in the netherlands?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_19_class_submarine

 

[King Augeas]

The problem with getting a strategic result from an intensified U-boat war is that there's a still a hard deadline of December 1941 to force the UK to the table, which only really gives you 15 months of U-boats operating from French ports. Given the size of the British and Allied merchant fleets, I don't think that the necessary sinking rates are credible.

We'd also have to assume that the US will not just stand by and watch - the USN was already attacking U-boats and escorting convoys well before December 1941, and Roosevelt won't just stand by and watch the UK pushed to the brink. While domestic politics make a US declaration of war on Germany tricky, acceleration of Lend-Lease to replace merchantmen and escorts is entirely plausible, while US convoys escorted by the USN all the way to the UK would put Germany in a impossible strategic dilemma.

This doesn't mean no change to OTL. But the changes would seem to be limited to a slower buildup of Bomber Command and fewer Arctic convoys in 1941-1942, along with unpleasant loss of life in the Merchant Navy. It seems likely that Black May would still occur on schedule. It's possible that disproportionate losses of tankers or troopships could cause further delays, but they'd seem to be on the scale of a few months at most.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

How would this huge increase of U-Boat production also affect the construction of tanks, planes etc. Germany does not have infinite resources.

Considering that IOTL Germany constructed over 200 subs a years from 1941 on without affecting tank production, I don't see what the problem is. Scrapping some of the further along ships that we talked about here will yield significant metals, as will stopping the West Wall in 1940 and pushing off the Atlantic Wall for 6 months. Also France when it fell yielded lots of resources that German industry put to use. One major source of metal that was wasted was French machine tools; IOTL they were taken back to Germany as surplus, but considering German stocks were already so high, they were never used and gathered dust for most of the war. If they were melted down they could be used for Uboats.

The problem with getting a strategic result from an intensified U-boat war is that there's a still a hard deadline of December 1941 to force the UK to the table, which only really gives you 15 months of U-boats operating from French ports. Given the size of the British and Allied merchant fleets, I don't think that the necessary sinking rates are credible.

December 1941 is a doable date as far as knocking the British out of the war. IIRC the Allies (Brits plus all allied fleets in 1940) had around 20 million tons of shipping and Britain+Commonwealth built just over 6 million tons from 1939-1945. Sinking half of the existing fleet would be a devastating blow, considering that Britain had commitments around the world that she needed to supply and the US was only helping with some of that pre-December 1941. However its not just the tonnage lost that is the problem, but also what is lost with the ships. Britain has to buy all of her goods from the US in cash until about May 1941 (LL started in March, but cash was still required until May), but IOTL Britain had run out of cash for the US by January 1941 and was relying on her Allies' bank accounts to pay for goods until LL started (the Belgians paid for UK purchasing until May 1941). So with more sinkings Britain runs out of cash sooner. Not only that, but they lose all of the goods in those ships, which were pretty critical to the British war effort like food (Britain at maximum production capacity could only feed 2/3rds of her population...by 1941, so in 1940 there could well be a significant shortfall). Fuel stocks in Britain were pretty low too after the fall of France (a bit over 3 million tons), while monthly usage was 10% of stocks on hand in August 1940. Tanker sinkings were appallingly high in 1940-1, so more sinkings especially of tankers is going to bite very deeply for the oil based British fleet. Its even more dangerous when we consider that the number one port in Britain, Liverpool, did not have a direct rail connection with the docks, so required trucks to bring goods from the docks to the rail yards for distribution to the rest of the country...no fuel means no distribution of goods. Of course we could always bring in horses, but those would come from farms, which lowers the crop yields, which starts a vicious cycle.

We'd also have to assume that the US will not just stand by and watch - the USN was already attacking U-boats and escorting convoys well before December 1941, and Roosevelt won't just stand by and watch the UK pushed to the brink. While domestic politics make a US declaration of war on Germany tricky, acceleration of Lend-Lease to replace merchantmen and escorts is entirely plausible, while US convoys escorted by the USN all the way to the UK would put Germany in a impossible strategic dilemma.

No, but even the expanded security zone was still outside the major battle zones in 1940 and early 1941. Remember though that there was a limit to what FDR could get away with in the escalation of the Uboat war, as the Republicans were ready to use any excuse to bludgeon him with the incidences going on in the Atlantic (why were US serivcemen put in danger mister president?). The public would tolerate only so much undeclared war before outcry became a problem. Too much too soon is going to cause a political backlash. As it was it took the Blitz to change American attitudes to supporting Britain, not the Battle of the Atlantic, which most Americans cared little about. Lend-Lease took until the Luftwaffe burned down the center of London on December 29-30th 1940 before FDR could get enough votes to even start to write the legislation, which took another 3 months.

This doesn't mean no change to OTL. But the changes would seem to be limited to a slower buildup of Bomber Command and fewer Arctic convoys in 1941-1942, along with unpleasant loss of life in the Merchant Navy. It seems likely that Black May would still occur on schedule. It's possible that disproportionate losses of tankers or troopships could cause further delays, but they'd seem to be on the scale of a few months at most.

I think it would cause more effect that just this.

 

[TxCoatl1970]

I'm following the discussion about Bomber Command and problems with bombing the U-boat pens. IMO y'all are missing the obvious solution to this- dropping mines. The same bombing missions that barely dented the concrete in Le Havre would've put the Uboat bases out of commission for months if they dropped (and kept dropping) mines. Being an asshole, I'd also do my best to sink every small craft in NE Europe I could to cripple the KM's ability to sweep 'em. Sucks for the French, Norwegian,and Dutch fishing fleets, but that's life.

As a sailor, mines are the ultimate dirty pool. Cheap, annoying as heck to sweep, but best bang for the buck in sea denial.
Follow that up by finding and taking out the Condor spotter planes and oilers/tenders to refuel/rearm/resupply the U-boats and they become a bunch of uncoordinated snipers that do damage but nowhere near OTL's happy time w/o changing tonnage in escorts. More U-boats won't help that problem.

FWIW more escorts, escort carriers, and better convoy/ASW coordination still do a lot to ruin the wolf-packs' whole day but don't really get rolling until 1942, barring ASB intervention. Night ops makes that more of an even game.

Germany investing in longer-range boats that can make the South Atlantic more hazardous to shipping would make it a lot more interesting. Still, this gives the Allies more reasons to build up airfields and ASW forces in Dakar, Ascension, Azores, Cape Town, and Rio to combat the threat. Brazil gets enough into the war earlier to get a Security Council seat afterwards! Plus, if you go for longer-endurance boats, that means a lot more resources per boat, therefore less boats. it took a LOT of tinkering to get to the Type XII with snorkels and so forth. No question with proper handling and tactics, they'd be nasty.

Admiral King gets a lot of tomatoes thrown at him for being an Anglophobic douche that allowed the U-boats free rein for six months until he decided to get serious about ASW. A lot of merchant mariners and other sailors would be alive if he hadn't had his head up his rectum.

So LSS- Coastal or Bomber Command getting a clue to the weaknesses of the U-boats make the increased U-boat numbers irrelevant.
Germany hoped it could build enough cheap Type VII boats to strangle the UK and maybe, they could have, if the US still takes a year-long ASW holiday and the Brits completely donate their brains to Aryan Science. Possible but unlikely.

 

[sharlin]

TXL this is a post about the Germans doing well in WW2, such things tend to happen in a bubble, the Germans do X, Y and Z whilst the rest of the world spends the years leading up to WW2 and during operations going DOI HOI HOI and smashing their faces off their desks for kicks or as a way of attracting the person next to them.

 

[Garrison]

TXL this is a post about the Germans doing well in WW2, such things tend to happen in a bubble, the Germans do X, Y and Z whilst the rest of the world spends the years leading up to WW2 and during operations going DOI HOI HOI and smashing their faces off their desks for kicks or as a way of attracting the person next to them.

Well of course; after all the Allies didn't win the war the Germans lost it.

 

[BlondieBC]

Is that necessarily so? Seeing it was a total failure OTL, is there no chance of senior officers changing direction?

There are two windows that the bombing could be a lot more effective. One is bombing while the pens are being built. If more aware of the problem of U-boats early, it is possible. After the pens are built, you don't go for the pens, but flatten the roads and RR in the French towns near the pens to make logistics harder. IOTL, the UK was unwilling to carpet bomb theses small French towns/cities. ITTL, it will get serious consideration. IMO, the UK never really got to the "we are about to lose this war if we don't do everything possible to win" point.

Maybe. Maybe you accelerate the tanker-based CVs, instead of letting them sit on the shelf for more than a year.

You do both. Now once you have enough CVE's, you use the fleet carriers for other roles. IMO, if we take Wiking POD, the UK is likely to do anti-submarine warfare first, and worry about the Italians/Japanese second.

 

[BlondieBC]

December 1941 is a doable date as far as knocking the British out of the war. IIRC the Allies (Brits plus all allied fleets in 1940) had around 20 million tons of shipping and Britain+Commonwealth built just over 6 million tons from 1939-1945. Sinking half of the existing fleet would be a devastating blow, considering that Britain had commitments around the world that she needed to supply and the US was only helping with some of that pre-December 1941. However its not just the tonnage lost that is the problem, but also what is lost with the ships. Britain has to buy all of her goods from the US in cash until about May 1941 (LL started in March, but cash was still required until May), but IOTL Britain had run out of cash for the US by January 1941 and was relying on her Allies' bank accounts to pay for goods until LL started (the Belgians paid for UK purchasing until May 1941). So with more sinkings Britain runs out of cash sooner. Not only that, but they lose all of the goods in those ships, which were pretty critical to the British war effort like food (Britain at maximum production capacity could only feed 2/3rds of her population...by 1941, so in 1940 there could well be a significant shortfall). Fuel stocks in Britain were pretty low too after the fall of France (a bit over 3 million tons), while monthly usage was 10% of stocks on hand in August 1940. Tanker sinkings were appallingly high in 1940-1, so more sinkings especially of tankers is going to bite very deeply for the oil based British fleet. Its even more dangerous when we consider that the number one port in Britain, Liverpool, did not have a direct rail connection with the docks, so required trucks to bring goods from the docks to the rail yards for distribution to the rest of the country...no fuel means no distribution of goods. Of course we could always bring in horses, but those would come from farms, which lowers the crop yields, which starts a vicious cycle.

You are doing the finances wrong. It improves UK finances. I thought the same way, until I worked through the details of my TL. Ok, lets take some very rough ballpark numbers for WW1. WW2 looks much the same. You start off with 10 million tons servicing empire and 3.5 million tons arriving in UK each month. Now lets say you sink 1% more ships, this means on the next cycle, you buy one 1% less goods. So the next cycle is 3.47 million tons, then 3.44 million tons. And with less buying, you lower prices due to less demand. The UK will not run out of money in your scenario.

 

[Grimm Reaper]

On British bombers OTL "Bomber" Harris was unable to accept the lack of success enjoyed by Bomber Commanad in reality so there seems no reason that a weaker UK would continue to indulge his fantasies.

 

[BlondieBC]

Well of course; after all the Allies didn't win the war the Germans lost it.

You are creating a false either/or choice. The Allies both did many good decisions to win the war, and the Axis made bad decisions that lost the war. It happens this thread is about things the Germans can do better. There are threads such as The Whale where allies do better.

 

[amphibulous]

1
Originally Posted by wiking
This would also be before the US enters the war and the convoy system gets good at sinking German subs.


This was the American approach. The Brits preferred to avoid, thinking (correctly IMO) the convoy getting through was more important.

Excuse me - you're saying tha US controlled convoys steered FOR u-boats??? Do you have a source for this?

Also: wiking is wrong too. The RN was already "good" at sinking U-boats before the US entered the war. That's why the u-boat crews called the US's entry "The Second Happy Time" - it was the return of easy pickings.

In fact, the USN never got its act together on ASW - there are whole papers on why this is, blaming everything from Adm King's love-hate of his British mother to poor cooperation between US air and sea assets.

 

[amphibulous]

An easy mistake to make is to think that cancelled battleships can be converted into u-boats. But this isn't true! The constraining resources on u-boat production and deployment were not the availability of large shipyards and tons of steel. You have to find a lot of very specific precision engineering capability and train specialist crew. There's a pretty decent discussion of the concsiderable issues involved here:

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=181575

 

[Garrison]

You are creating a false either/or choice. The Allies both did many good decisions to win the war, and the Axis made bad decisions that lost the war. It happens this thread is about things the Germans can do better. There are threads such as The Whale where allies do better.

And they are few and far between; though generally better constructed than the naziwanks like this one.

 

[M79]

If timetables for production are moved up what about the rate and scale of sumbarine development? Does this mean that more research also goes into submarines and, if so, newer models get pushed out / upgraded at the same rate as OTL (- 1 year)?

 

[Garrison]

Ok sorry if I'm coming across as grumpy but really how often does this 'what if the Nazi's build more U-Boats?' idea need to be rehashed.

The Nazi's did not lose the war from a lack of U-Boats or jet fighters, or rockets. They lost because their leadership were a bunch of egotistical kleptocrats and delusionals working for a megalomaniac. They got lucky for a few years and when the luck ran out Germany was pummelled into the dirt. This sort of thread is just 'rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic'.