WI: No unrestricted submarine warfare in WWI?

There was no likelihood of the US entering the war without USW. Until that happened their relations with Britain were if anything worse than with Germany. Indeed, had someone like Bryan been POTUS (a distinct possibility had things gone a bit different in 1912) even USW might not have done it.

As for the consequences, these have been gone over ad nauseam on more threads than I can remember. But, keeping it short, they'd have been enormous - more like albatrosses than butterflies. The Entente would have missed out on several billion dollars in unsecured loans, and all the material these purchased, while absent the American tanker fleet, the RN would have been in grave danger of running out of fuel oil in 1917. All in all, a disaster.

I like the general look of this, though I am unsure as to the complete uncertainty of American involvement at some point. A lot of Americans in those days were Irish or German immigrants, or had been born of and raised by the same, and they hated the British with a passion. A lot of newspapers and the like were owned by pro-British folks, however, and the British themselves tried to limit the ability of Germany to get information into the hands of everyday Americans, which influenced public opinions quite a bit.

I think without unrestricted submarine attacks on merchant shipping of all nationalities, it is likely America keeps out of the war, at least unless something else huge happens to draw her ire.
 
I haven't read any of the other posts so forgive me if this duplicates anything. I think the OP only meant the third period of USW from 1917, but I'm assuming it means USW throughout World War I.
  1. IOTL a huge amount of resources were put into the Royal Navy to counter the submarine menace. First the ineffective Auxiliary Patrol and then the escorts for the gradual introduction of the trade convoy system. IOTL the resources could have been put into reinforcing the British Army;
  2. E.g. at the Armistice the RAF had about 200 squadrons, but about 50 of them and about 100 non-rigid airships were on ASW duty. No USW might allow the resources to be redeployed to supporting the BEF in France and the Independent Force;
  3. Large quantities of steel and labour had to be put into building new merchant ships to replace the ships lost, which if USW hadn't happened could have been put into manufacturing more munitions for the Army.
  4. USW forced the British Government to set up an organisation to salvage and repair damaged ships. This also consumed resources which could have been used elsewhere;
  5. To replace the lost merchantmen the British Government also bought ships on the second-hand market at inflated prices;
  6. The loss of British flagged merchant ships meant a greater proportion of foreign flagged ships had to be used to fill the gap, which reduced Britain's invisible exports;
  7. USW pushed up the freight rates, which increased the financial cost of the war, directly to the British Government and indirectly because it contributed to the higher rate of inflation during the war;
  8. There's the cargoes not delivered and the lives lost. There was also a financial cost to this because the British Government had to compensate the owners of the ships and the cargoes through the War Risks Insurance Scheme;
  9. The carrying capacity of the Merchant Navy was reduced. As wells as the loss of capacity through ships sunk there was also a loss of capacity when the convoy system was introduced as it reduced the number of trips each ship could make.
OTOH on the German side if no USW and they don't build up the U-boat arm as much as they did IOTL they could have built more munitions for the Army possibly including more tanks too.

In spite of that I think the British would get the better of the deal. If the resources absorbed by USW had been left in the Civilian economy the UK would have had a smaller National Debt because it spent less money during the Great War and received more money in taxes. In the 1920s HMG was spending over £300 million a year paying the interest on the National Debt (if only we were now!) and about £15 million a year on the Royal Air Force. A reduction of 5% in the National Debt would save £15 million a year in the 1920s, which was a lot of money in those days because it would have paid for 2 Nelson class battleships.

Had the resources absorbed by USW been put into the British Army instead the war might have been shortened.
 
I like the general look of this, though I am unsure as to the complete uncertainty of American involvement at some point. A lot of Americans in those days were Irish or German immigrants, or had been born of and raised by the same, and they hated the British with a passion. A lot of newspapers and the like were owned by pro-British folks, however, and the British themselves tried to limit the ability of Germany to get information into the hands of everyday Americans, which influenced public opinions quite a bit.

Agreed, but sympathy for someone is not at all the same as readiness to fight for them. American opinion was probably more anti-German in 1939-41 than in 1914-17, but it still took Pearl Harbour to bring the US in. Most foreign (including American) opinion in 1899-1902 sympathised with the Boers but nobody lifted a finger to help them. Ditto for Abyssinia in 1935-6, The Spanish Republic in 1936-9 and Finland in 1939-40. Similarly many Brits, French and others sympathised with the South in 1861-5, the Danes 1n 1864 and the Poles in 1863-4, but no-one was prepared to go to war for any of them. And as late as the end of 1916 Americans wouldn't even subscribe to an unsecured loan to Britain, much less take up arms.



I think without unrestricted submarine attacks on merchant shipping of all nationalities, it is likely America keeps out of the war, at least unless something else huge happens to draw her ire.

I'd call it certain. If there's anything else that would do it, I haven't a clue what it would be.

Indeed, it would probably suffice to avoid American ships. I don't see Congress declaring war (or Wilson even asking it to) because a Dutch or Norwegian ship got torpedoed.
 
Had the resources absorbed by USW been put into the British Army instead the war might have been shortened.

Trouble is that No USW doesn't mean no stepped up submarine campaign. Tonnage sunk was already rising from Oct 1916, well before USW was proclaimed. Simply not proclaiming it makes little difference to the resources absorbed on both sides.
 
Last edited:
Trouble is that No USW doesn't mean no stepped up submarine campaign. Tonnage sunk was already rising from Oct 1916, well before USW was proclaimed. Simply not proclaiming it makes little difference tot he resources absorbed on both sides.
I interpreted the OP as no stepped up submarine campaign. But fair enough. However, there were one or two periods of USW before October 1916.
 
Re Blondie's data, if a convoy straggler is sunk, does this count as a loss from the convoy or does it count as a non-convoyed loss? You can argue either way, and it will probably have a significant influence on convoy effectiveness statistics.
 

hipper

Banned
Issues.

  1. I am using tons sunk not ships sunk. I strongly suspect that while concentrating ships in convoys decrease contacts with U-boats, it also allows the U-boat to target bigger average ships. These factors should partially offset.
  2. You have a proximate cause issue. How do you explain the 4 month delay in tonnage sinking going down? If the convoying system caused fewer losses, why was the effect not immediate?
  3. My theory is the improvement of expertise of the Royal Navy was the cause, of which convoys are lesser part. This fits the data better.


So think about what is happening in 1917:

  • Sure the convoy system was implemented. But you also get.
  • USA entering war and increasing the number of warships in the Entente.
  • Increased naval aviation.
  • Increase experience of RN crews.
  • Introduction (Wider use of) depth charges
  • Early Sonar
  • Potential for less experience crews on U-boat due to losses.
  • Germany is suffering from tighter blockade due to the USA entering the war. Surely, the shortages hampering the German army also effected effectiveness of the Navy.
  • H-L economic plan messing with the economy. More supply shortages.
  • Lower German morale due to USA entering the war. Maybe the U-boats did not press the attack as hard?

We have lots of factors, and I just don't see you conclusion in the data. Or put another way, I see little possibility the convoy system was responsible for more than 25% of the reduction of loss rates that shows up only in September of 1917. Unless you can explain the 4 month of delay in effectiveness, you have an issue showing even correlation. And without correlation, you lack causation. So what change to convoy system happened in September 1917 that reduced losses form a range of 414 to 661 tons per patrol day to the 245 of September?


To answer your point about the effectiveness of Convoy there is a very nice table in "the defeat of the enemy attack on shipping"

Whist is a reprint of Naval staff History 1A and 1B

In it there is a table (table2) showing some statistics on the losses of ships over 500 tonnes in the Atlantic and uk waters.


It makes the following point from about ship losses from February 1917 to October 1918.

of Ships in Convoy only 257 out of 83958 were lost 0.3%

Of ships that sailed independently 1500 were lost 5.93%

So I make the statement that ships in Convoys were 18 times safer than independent ships
and that this fact was the prime factor in the reduction of shipping losses in the third quarter of 1917
I think this fits the data very well.

To answer your point in bold Convoys were introduced Gradually between May and September first on incoming convoys then on outgoing convoys.

regards Hipper
 
It makes the following point from about ship losses from February 1917 to October 1918.
Of Ships in Convoy only 257 out of 83958 were lost 0.3%
Of ships that sailed independently 1500 were lost 5.93%.
So.

1500 ~= 6%, so 250 ~= 1%, so 25,000 independants? As opposed too 83,958 in convoys? And this would give us about 110,000 cargo trips, total, covering Feb 17 to Oct 18?
 

hipper

Banned
So.

1500 ~= 6%, so 250 ~= 1%, so 25,000 independants? As opposed too 83,958 in convoys? And this would give us about 110,000 cargo trips, total, covering Feb 17 to Oct 18?

Yes including only ships over 500 tonnes in the Atlantic and UK Waters.
 
Top