hipper
Banned
No, that is not correct. I provided multiple detail sources that you rejected. You instead had a single source of lower quality.
your description of the Admiralty monograph on the defeat of the U boat in two world wars as a single source of lower quality makes it hard to debate with you. Do you have a better source on UK shipping losses? Numerous naval historians have written about the U boat campaigns in both world wars, I'm not aware of any that claim that Convoy was not the decisive tactic against the U boats. Do you have any sources that do?
sniped things I'll deal with seperatly
OK, now to your convoy point. I went through the data month by month. While there are boat loads of British Admirals that like to talk how the convoys work and there are enthusiast who love to talk about how it works, it is just not supported by the data. Among the flaws.
- If the Germans go with merchant warfare sooner, the counter technology just had not been developed. It would not be like turning a switch and the losses go down. And the data shows this to be true.
Before 1918 most escorts had only 2 depth charges, the effective weapon was the gun and the ram.
Aircraft escort is perhaps the onlyeffective anti U boat measure that would take time to develop
as to the effect of Convoy it was indeed like a switch.
listen to Karl Doneitz who may be assumed to know something of the topic
In the First World War the German U boat arm achieved Great successes; but the introduction of The Convoy system in 1917 robbed it of its opportunity to become a decisive factor. The oceans at once became bear and empty for long periods at a time the U boats acting individually would see nothing at all and then suddenly up would come a concourse of ships 30 or 50 Or more of them surrounded by a strong escort of warships of all types,
Read the whole thing here
https://www.amazon.com/Memoirs-Ten-Years-Twenty-Days/dp/0306807645
The data shows precisely that the introduction of Convoy and the reduction in losses are very well correlated. If you have meaningful contradictory data it would be worthy of academic attention.
- Most of the gains come after the Americans join the war in force. Many of the gains relate to things like seizing interned German merchant shipping in neutral and formerly neutral ports. This effect is not due to the convoy system. It is due to more shipping. Some of the benefits are due to the USA enforcing restrictions on exports to Germany after joining the war. Some effects are due to the USA organizing the economy.
The reduction in shipping losses caused by the introduction of Convoy .
- You like to look at stats of ships protected by convoys. These stats don't matter since the Entente never had enough DD to protect all the merchant shipping. It only matters to the extend the UK has enough warships to protect enough freighters to impact the sinkings per day per U-boat.
after the defeat of the attack on ocean convoys the U boats turned their attention to mostly unescorted costal shipping. These ships were progressively convoyed using minor vessels and increasingly air cover. Which was a very effective counter to U boats.
- Finally, you ignore that convoying reduces the ability to ship by 1/3 due to lower speed and port inefficiencies. Even if an ASB gives the UK enough warships and fuel to protect all merchant shipping, the Entente loses the war faster. This 1/3 loss is actually much higher than the losses from my ATL which take many months to even begin to get close to this level. So even I am wrong on every single point above, if the UK convoys earlier and the USA does not enter the war earlier, the Entente have a severely impacted peformance.
You have identified a very real statistic. However the 1/3 drop in efficiency compares wartime Convoy to peacetime shipping performance,
it takes no account of delays on individually routed ships caused by the war. Ships often delayed in port if there were reports of U boats sinking ships in the vicinity. These delays reduced the efficency drop caused by convoys. Besides a ship sailing in Convoy is much more efficent than one that has been sunk