Starving Britain into Submission

  • Thread starter Deleted member 1487
  • Start date
For the Kriegsmarine, this was the least desirable strategy. For Raeder and Dönitz, the diversion of the Luftwaffe to these tasks was a wasted opportunity and interfered with the demands of the naval staff for support and reconnaissance in the Atlantic.[11] In July and early August 1940 they had convinced the OKL to strike at shipping and ports by mine-laying[12] and it had proven highly effective. The lack of resources meant these operations could not be decisive,[13] but naval staff hoped by striking at the most important centres of British sea communications, the ports of London, Liverpool and Bristol Channel, on top of mining could have decisive results.[14]"

Yes, IMHO Germans would have had a reasonable probability of forcing Britain out of war in 1941 if, and both of them are big if's:

1.) U-boat production is sustained at prewar planning levels. This results in a load of light surface combatants suitable for fighting naval war in waters in close proximity of Great Britain. German S-boots, torpedo boats and destroyers, while not at their element in ocean waters were very effective against their Allied counterparts in coastal waters up to 1944. This would have further lessened the availability of escorts to Atlantic convoys as destroyers would have been directed to British coastal waters.

2.) Strategic bombing campaign focusing on British sea lines of communication. No such stupidities as bombing airfields, factories or cities. Massive, pre-planned minelaying based on having prestocked quantity of mines (magnetic mines being held in reserve until significant number of them available) etc. Raids on port factories. Heavily escorted raids on coastal convoys.

The British industrial effort could have been crushed due to lack of coastal convoys alone. Germans would have had a reasonable chance of doing that. On top of this add difficulties of getting in supplies to Britain from overseas, less seapower in Mediterranean and much less well equipped forces in Middle East...
 
U-boat production is sustained at prewar planning levels. This results in a load of light surface combatants suitable for fighting naval war in waters in close proximity of Great Britain. German S-boots, torpedo boats and destroyers, while not at their element in ocean waters were very effective against their Allied counterparts in coastal waters up to 1944. This would have further lessened the availability of escorts to Atlantic convoys as destroyers would have been directed to British coastal waters.
I don't disagree, but I do wonder if you think Coastal Command couldn't have made up for lack of DDs with better coverage of the Bay of Biscay & (earlier) exits to North Sea, as well as inlets to Irish Sea & the GIUK Gap. As noted, & I agree, change the impact on Britain by Germany changing emphasis, you allow Britain to change her force distributions & priorities. (Yes, I'm a partisan for CC...;) )

I also wonder if this doesn't force an acceleration in corvette construction, in particular in Canada, & also of Canadian-built Liberty ships (or whatever they were called here...:rolleyes: Park ships?:confused:).
 
I also wonder if this doesn't force an acceleration in corvette construction, in particular in Canada, & also of Canadian-built Liberty ships (or whatever they were called here...:rolleyes: Park ships?:confused:).

Definitely, but on the other hand it's very hard to cover convoys against aerial attack without carriers. On issue of accelerating ship construction I'm not sure if it's possible in 1940-1941 timeframe as the yards were working as fast as they could in OTL. Some improvement might result, but on the other hand if German aerial and naval effort was concentrated against seaborne logistics this will probably outweigh the results.

One thing which would also help Germany would be systematic attempt to minimize chances of US intervention. Bombing mainly military targets would help, as would the concentration of U-boats on Eastern Atlantic.

All these require ASB's for German leadership, though.
 

Deleted member 1487

What about the declining fuel and material imports? Not only would Britain have to cope with sinkings by Uboats (aided by long range air reconnaissance (BV 138 for example) that could carry bombs or torpedoes), but also disruption by bombing and mining of ports, which would then be jammed up by convoys arriving in mass to reduced capacity berths, which in turn means more targets for bombers and random unswept mines.
There were limited numbers of areas that could sustain the necessary traffic (Bristol, Liverpool, the Clyde), which means that the Luftwaffe could concentrate against these targets, leaving no other options with the necessary berths, warehouses, or rail capacity to handle millions of tons of fuel, food, and raw materials (wood, metals, etc.). Soon British build up is affected, meaning limited fuel for patrols of aircraft or naval units, production is declining and the British ability to respond to these tactics is constrained.

Edit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leigh_light
It wasn't even tested until 1941.
 
Yes, IMHO Germans would have had a reasonable probability of forcing Britain out of war in 1941 if, and both of them are big if's:

1.) U-boat production is sustained at prewar planning levels. This results in a load of light surface combatants suitable for fighting naval war in waters in close proximity of Great Britain. German S-boots, torpedo boats and destroyers, while not at their element in ocean waters were very effective against their Allied counterparts in coastal waters up to 1944. This would have further lessened the availability of escorts to Atlantic convoys as destroyers would have been directed to British coastal waters.

2.) Strategic bombing campaign focusing on British sea lines of communication. No such stupidities as bombing airfields, factories or cities. Massive, pre-planned minelaying based on having prestocked quantity of mines (magnetic mines being held in reserve until significant number of them available) etc. Raids on port factories. Heavily escorted raids on coastal convoys.

The British industrial effort could have been crushed due to lack of coastal convoys alone. Germans would have had a reasonable chance of doing that. On top of this add difficulties of getting in supplies to Britain from overseas, less seapower in Mediterranean and much less well equipped forces in Middle East...

there are a few (actually more than a few!) problems with this.
German light forces can be as succesful as they like in the s/e coastal waters, the British can simply not use the port of london 9as they iddnt in OTL)
keeping a high uboat build for 1941 has 2 problems
(1) if they are building u-boats, they arent building tanks
(2) Training of crews takes uboats and time

Holding nag mines in reserves doesnt help the real problem, whic is there isnt enough production - they will still run out during a campaign before 1942, by which time its probably too late

the british war effort could not have been crushed by lack of coastal convoys. in OTL, during the early war they wrent in the channel/souther east coast, and german light forces cant get at teh ones further away, they will get hammmered and sunk in daylight
 
Definitely, but on the other hand it's very hard to cover convoys against aerial attack without carriers.
In the immediate threat area around Britain, I'm thinking land-based fighters can do the job.
On issue of accelerating ship construction I'm not sure if it's possible in 1940-1941 timeframe as the yards were working as fast as they could in OTL. Some improvement might result, but on the other hand if German aerial and naval effort was concentrated against seaborne logistics this will probably outweigh the results.
Even allowing a significant increase in effectiveness of LW air attack, U-boats were the bigger threat; master them with more Coastie a/c, the losses are acceptable. Actually, perhaps lower (more sunk U-boats), so the frantic shipbuilding might be more to increase strength than just replace. The edge in favor of the Brits just keeps climbing as they gain experience & more U-boats are built (lower German crew quality...).
All these require ASB's for German leadership, though.
With that, I entirely agree.;)

On Leigh Light, I'm presuming the weaknesses of ASV make clear something is required for "final approach" to attack. IDK if Turbinlight would do; it might.
 
Definitely, but on the other hand it's very hard to cover convoys against aerial attack without carriers. On issue of accelerating ship construction I'm not sure if it's possible in 1940-1941 timeframe as the yards were working as fast as they could in OTL.

Different priorities will see different things getting built.

There would probably also be less opposition from the Admiralty and Ministry of Trade to MAC ships...they were not all that happy about the idea at first.
 
Do the maths

Not a feasible scenario
Do the maths.
Donitz reckoned that he needed to sink 600k tons of British merchant shipping per month for at least 12 months. And for that he needed 300 operational U boats.
In 1939 he had 32. He produced a plan to produce 658 boats (to give him the 300 net of losses and training boats) which was rejected as the materials were not available except at by diverting production from that necessary to attack France, mainly ammunition and the 26% increase in the size of the Heer.
But anyway by end 42 he had around 330 with 150 odd losses i.e. net roughly half what he thought was needed with 75% of the planned total of boats. Of these 450 were produced in 1941-42. Or after the Fall of france when the materials were available.
His best sinking rate amounted to 40% of what he believed was necessary and for only 10 months. By summer 41 i.e. with his 300 boats and before major US involvement the sinking rate was 100k tons per month with all the disruption to UK production following the fall of France.
And just to put that in perspective 600k*12 months = 7.2 million tons which with British domestic production would leave the UK with a merchant fleet of merely 2 million tons larger than when the campaign started without chartering and foreign flagged ships.
The supposition behind this thread is that Germany could produce between 1936 and 1939, 20 times the number of boats it actually did and maintain ground force of the size it did, and increase Luftwaffe production and introduce different types, most of which are useless unless operating from bases in France, and that Donitz was right in the first place.
If the German economy is 100% larger than it ever was and if it had access to all the raw materials it needed and if no one noticed and reacted, basically if it was the USA, its plausible. Otherwise – Sealion territory.
 

Rubicon

Banned
Not a feasible scenario
Do the maths.
Donitz reckoned that he needed to sink 600k tons of British merchant shipping per month for at least 12 months. And for that he needed 300 operational U boats.
In 1939 he had 32. He produced a plan to produce 658 boats (to give him the 300 net of losses and training boats) which was rejected as the materials were not available except at by diverting production from that necessary to attack France, mainly ammunition and the 26% increase in the size of the Heer.
But anyway by end 42 he had around 330 with 150 odd losses i.e. net roughly half what he thought was needed with 75% of the planned total of boats. Of these 450 were produced in 1941-42. Or after the Fall of france when the materials were available.
His best sinking rate amounted to 40% of what he believed was necessary and for only 10 months. By summer 41 i.e. with his 300 boats and before major US involvement the sinking rate was 100k tons per month with all the disruption to UK production following the fall of France.
And just to put that in perspective 600k*12 months = 7.2 million tons which with British domestic production would leave the UK with a merchant fleet of merely 2 million tons larger than when the campaign started without chartering and foreign flagged ships.
The supposition behind this thread is that Germany could produce between 1936 and 1939, 20 times the number of boats it actually did and maintain ground force of the size it did, and increase Luftwaffe production and introduce different types, most of which are useless unless operating from bases in France, and that Donitz was right in the first place.
If the German economy is 100% larger than it ever was and if it had access to all the raw materials it needed and if no one noticed and reacted, basically if it was the USA, its plausible. Otherwise – Sealion territory.

Since you are relatively new here let me give you one piece of free advice: Check your numbers and sources or you will get ripped to shreds.

There are numerous faults both with your facts and with your reasoning.
Dönitz had 25 large ocean-going submarines of the Type I, Type VII and Type IX u-boats, as well as 29 coastal submarines of the Type II u-boats available on September 1st 1939. That makes it 54 submarines. Of course not all of them were available for combat operations, and some had to be held back for training purposes.
Of these u-boats, 20 ocean going, and 11 coastal u-boats were available for immediate combat operations on 1/9 -39. (1)

During all of 1940, German u-boats sank a total of 2.462.867 tons worth of tonnage. (2)
During all of 1941, German u-boats sank a total of 2.298.714 tons worth of tonnage. (3)
That's roughly 200.000 tonnage every month, twice your claim.

Now, my source is: Blair, Clay "Hitler's U-boat war - the hunters, 1939-42", 1996.
What is yours?



(1) page 54
(2) page 771, appendix 18
(3) ibid
 
Since you are relatively new here let me give you one piece of free advice: Check your numbers and sources or you will get ripped to shreds.

There are numerous faults both with your facts and with your reasoning.
Dönitz had 25 large ocean-going submarines of the Type I, Type VII and Type IX u-boats, as well as 29 coastal submarines of the Type II u-boats available on September 1st 1939. That makes it 54 submarines. Of course not all of them were available for combat operations, and some had to be held back for training purposes.
Of these u-boats, 20 ocean going, and 11 coastal u-boats were available for immediate combat operations on 1/9 -39. (1)

During all of 1940, German u-boats sank a total of 2.462.867 tons worth of tonnage. (2)
During all of 1941, German u-boats sank a total of 2.298.714 tons worth of tonnage. (3)
That's roughly 200.000 tonnage every month, twice your claim.

Now, my source is: Blair, Clay "Hitler's U-boat war - the hunters, 1939-42", 1996.
What is yours?



(1) page 54
(2) page 771, appendix 18
(3) ibid

Those figures actually show that the Germans were losing the BoA :)
The 1940 figures are of course improved by the near-absence of escorts for 4 months after Dunkirk.
In 41, with a lot more U-boats and French bases, they sunk fewer ships. In fact, less than the Empire was building...!!
 

Rubicon

Banned
Those figures actually show that the Germans were losing the BoA :)
The 1940 figures are of course improved by the near-absence of escorts for 4 months after Dunkirk.
In 41, with a lot more U-boats and French bases, they sunk fewer ships. In fact, less than the Empire was building...!!

Losing? Germany lost the Battle of the Atlantic on 7th September 1939 with the reintroduction of the convoy system.
However these numbers are with atrociously defective torpedoes and with a very small number of U-boats available. In fact Germany had about the same number of available u-boats during the summer of -40 (happy times) as they did when the war began due to losses and the low amount of newly constructed u-boats.
 
Something that I dont think has been mentioned yet, is that this kind of operation simply isnt within the mind-set of Hitler. He was never a very subtle man and didnt like the slow, measured, strategic approach to problems. He wanted the big win, the grand gesture. The one-punch knock-out so to speak. He got frustrated enough with the battle of britain as it was because it wasnt working fast enough, so no reason to think that this operation would make him any happier.

This approach would take time to work (assuming it would work) and it would be a big risk too. If it didnt work then Germany has seriously weakened their ground fighting abilities by diverting essential resources and manpower to their navy rather than the army. Resources and manpower that would have taken significant losses as the British fought back.
Even if it did work, there would most certainly have been a necessary delay for them to prepare their ground forces for an attack on Russia, postponing it for at least another year which would give the soviets more time to prepare.

All in all, while this kind of operation can work, it would never have been something that the Nazis would have done properly without some major PODs from actual events.
 
Losing? Germany lost the Battle of the Atlantic on 7th September 1939 with the reintroduction of the convoy system.
That about covers it.;) Most of the losses were in ships not in convoy, & the loss rate in convoy for the duration was only 0.7%.:eek: That said, the losses & the "only 2 million tons bigger" don't take account the drastically increased demand due to war, nor the disruption of having shipping in convoy, which amounted to about a one-third reduction in capacity in itself. (Don't recall where I saw that, tho, & don't have it in front of me....) Also, bear in mind, the losses had a significant psychological effect on the Brits, enough so, in March '43, they seriously considered abandoning convoys.:eek::eek: (Yes, they were winning. Yes, I find it crazy. That's the point.)
 
I think one thing not taken into account is British counter measures

Convoys, big or small are difficult to find, so it would make more sense for the British to adopt very large convoys to reduce the total number of hunting targets for the U-boats

and with a large convoy, they can concentrate powerful defenses... if it was really bad they would detach fleet carriers and there would be a considerable destroyer force tasked

and by late 41-early 42 there are escort carriers which means the u-boats days are numbered
 

Rubicon

Banned
nor the disruption of having shipping in convoy, which amounted to about a one-third reduction in capacity in itself. (Don't recall where I saw that, tho, & don't have it in front of me....)

The 1/3 reduction of British imports number comes from Churchill, unfortunatly he isn't the most reliable of sources.
 
Top