I didn't say that they were. You are inventing a strawman.
You very strongly implied it by comparing the lack of privately owned automobiles to Uboat engineers, which is frankly comparing apples to hammers. And speaking of strawmanning arguments, you've done a nice job cherrypicking my post.
This is true of any skill. However, there is always a limited rate at which you can do this - and trade-offs have to be made. These have nothing to do with battleships!
What is the rate then? In 1940 Germany trained 54 crews and had 50 Uboats under construction, in 1941 with 199 Uboats completed they trained 250 crews. That is a massive increase in a single year and indicates that it was the lack of planning for training expansion that limited the numbers of crews rather than any other factor. Unless you have contrary information the point stands.
http://uboat.net/men/training/effect_of_war.htm
War caused a change in the training program, for it was no longer practical to indulge in training at Flotilla level; such training was now reduced to a "practical" for prospective U-boat commanders under the eye of the most experienced captains. At the same time training capacity required for the expanded submarine war program had to be greatly increased. Thus on 16.11.1939 training was laid down for the following numbers of crews yearly:
1940 - 54 crews
1941 - 250 crews
1942 - 350 crews (and similarly per year thereafter).
If pre-war the training program was expanded and planned for a major expansion there is no reason that these numbers could have been scaled up sooner.
Yes. But the point - AGAIN! - is that what was reasonable to do in 1941 was NOT necessarily reasonable to do earlier! There were genuine constraints on u-boat building that it would have been foolish to ignore - and these had nothing to do with battleships!
Why not? You keep claiming it, but providing no evidence other than unsupported statements. What are these contraints? I've already demonstrated how your earlier points were not valid, as it was not the shortage of labor, dock space, engineering capacity, metal, etc, but rather the prioritization within the shipbuilding industry that was the constraint.
What does the situation before WW1 have to do with anything? You're planning to man the u-boats with retired steam engine mechanics?
That industry did not just evaporate, nor did the talent or experience. Germany was building ships both military and otherwise without pause between 1914-1945, though in the interwar years there was some slowdown, the capacities were there because the facilities were not destroyed and the workers not murdered. The people manning the Uboats would be the people that were used IOTL: sailors that were trained for the purpose as needed.
http://www.amazon.com/Neither-Sharks-Nor-Wolves-1939-1945/dp/1557505942
A very good history of the men of the Uboat arm. It delves into their training, their background (educationally too), and really digs into the German personnel files. The Kriegsmarine didn't destroy their files at the end of WW2, so the complete records are available to historians and Tim Mulligan does a social history to get into the guts of the training program, casualties, the expansion, etc. Basically it undercuts your hypothesis that there were limits on the crew side for how quickly men could be trained.
Just very nearly so. There was a reason why the Germans had to plan on using **river barges** for Sea Lion!
They didn't plan on invading Britain, so didn't build troop transports. Simple answer to that question, as it was not capacity, but planning. Britain didn't have a modern strategic bomber force at the start of WW2 either, but it wasn't because she lacked the capacity to build one.
And the UK was the progenitor of radio, sonar and radar. It still had to import valves from the USA in WW2: one thing has nothing to do with the other - inventing something doesn't mean that you'll produce sufficent supplies of it under all circumstance for all eternity.
Radio was developed in multiple countries at the same time, Germany invented radar in 1904 and then reinvented it in 1934. Sonar was developed by Germany and Britain independently within months of each other (1912-3).
My point is that Germany based her economy on these types of things and Britain was behind Germany in electrical engineering as an industry. As a result Germany had the capacity to build the types of equipment for the Uboats that no other nation at the time had the capacity to do so. Even between the wars Germany was building submarine components like electrical engines for other countries or clandestinely in the Netherlands.
While you're right that inventing something doesn't give you the permanent lead, the cartel system in place in Germany from its conception and through WW2 did give them a virtual monopoly in Europe on that type of production.
The point is not, as you seem to think whether the Germans had ANY engineering capacity, but whether they were CONSTRAINED by the finite capacity they did have. And whther the constraints could be removed by stopping production of a few battleships. These are very different questions!
Its not that they had unlimited capacity (thanks for strawmanning my argument again), but the capacity was under-utilized/could be built up relatively quickly once prioritized. The finite capacity proved to be around 200 Uboats a year once the prioritized Uboats over all other naval construction. They just needed to prioritize them to reach capacity, which could happen sooner if given that priority. Preventing three battleships, an aircraft carrier, two cruisers, three battlecruisers, several light cruisers, and several other vessels from starting construction between January 1939-October 1939 all of which were eventually scrapped and tied up valuable materials, dock space, skilled labor, engineering capacity, metal working capacity, forging capacity, etc. while also delaying the build up of training establishments for Uboat crews, delaying the build up of component construction, diverting labor, material, and engineering capacity for about a year all had a delaying effect on the ability of the Uboat arm to reach capacity earlier than it historically did.
As it was all of the ships started and cancelled, which again was three massive battleships dwarfing the Bismarck class ships, three battlecruisers, an aircraft carrier, 6 light cruisers, 3 heavy cruisers, and scores of smaller vessels, cost valuable materials, labor, space, time, etc.
Avoid having those resources poured into cancelled projects and the subsequent effort to scrap that work and the Uboat arm can start its expansion much earlier, nearly in fact one year earlier, especially as the new Uboats didn't need to be engineered/designed like the surface vessels did. The Uboats were completed on template, as they were nearly all of the same class, Type VIIC by 1939, enabling Germany to build up economies of scale, rather than needing to focus on building custom parts for a variety of different major warship classes of which there were only a few per class.
