WI U-boats sink 20% more Allied tonnage in 1941-43

[Saphroneth]

No you don't need a big change. You just need a part or two changed in the warhead. The USA had some issue with the strength of the metal in the firing pin. So this is a simple POD. We still have OTL stuff. Norway ships get away, etc. France still falls. Then we get to after France is clearly falling. We have the reports of bad torpedoes. An Admiral tells the people to retest the torpedo. It fails. You get a series of rapid, minor changes in the factory, the problem is fixed.

It is really a no more complicated change than the scrap metal the USA welded on tanks to fix a problem. Something is not working. You get reports. Reports taken seriously. You try to fix. You fix it.

The cost is actually negative. You have to go out and fire a small number of torpedoes (say 20). You start recovering the used ammo every time a German captain does not need to use an extra torpedo to sink a ship. You gain U-boats everytime you don't lose a U-boat to a battle after a fail torpedo.

Right. But in order to have a situation where reports ARE taken seriously, then you need to have a generally better attitude in the system, basically. That means that they put more effort into testing things which DID work OTL - for starters.

 

[cpip]

Right. But in order to have a situation where reports ARE taken seriously, then you need to have a generally better attitude in the system, basically. That means that they put more effort into testing things which DID work OTL - for starters.

Are we sure it's a generally systemic problem and not individual?

 

[Saphroneth]

Are we sure it's a generally systemic problem and not individual?

For Nazi Germany? The place where management policy was "have eight subordinates with overlapping portfolios, the strong will survive"?

 

[Michele]

2) If the torpedo factory in Germany are destroyed by French agents, the Germans still sink the same number of ships since they just find some way to compensate.

I'm sorry to have to repeat this again.

The Allies - and more accurately the USA - are the ones for whom rebuilding a factory is no swell. They are the ones with the room to afford rebuilding a factory.
The Axis are already running the war on a ridiculous budget in OTL. Any waste is hard on them.

Your logic is simply wrong. You take a valid point that once a POD happens, the impact is significant, and after some period of time, there tends to be counter measures which tend to reduce the effectiveness of the POD. You are basically arguing for predestination which I have only seen argued in salvation issues in a small % of Christian Churches and the Axis do better ideas.

Then you just need to read more. I might suggest Guns, Germs and Steel, by J. Diamond.

Then you can go back to WWII, and notice the many ingenious novelties the Axis - and more accurately the Germans - managed to throw in, notwithstanding that shoestring budget. Noticed them? Fine. What happened then, did they win the war? Or did the side with more GNP, more manpower, more territory, more raw resources, more oceans and waterways under their control, more industrial output simply brush these clever innovations aside?

 

[Tallil2long]

I'm sorry to have to repeat this again.

The Allies - and more accurately the USA - are the ones for whom rebuilding a factory is no swell. They are the ones with the room to afford rebuilding a factory.
The Axis are already running the war on a ridiculous budget in OTL. Any waste is hard on them.



Then you just need to read more. I might suggest Guns, Germs and Steel, by J. Diamond.

Then you can go back to WWII, and notice the many ingenious novelties the Axis - and more accurately the Germans - managed to throw in, notwithstanding that shoestring budget. Noticed them? Fine. What happened then, did they win the war? Or did the side with more GNP, more manpower, more territory, more raw resources, more oceans and waterways under their control, more industrial output simply brush these clever innovations aside?

Umm, German war-related production continued to expand into 1944. So yes, the Allies have much superior production capacity. But the situation through 1944 is more complex than "the Germans can't do anything to increase production". Yes, in the long term the German case is hopeless. But they repeatedly surprised the Allies in the process.

 

[Michele]

The cost is actually negative. You have to go out and fire a small number of torpedoes (say 20).

That's a third of the pre-war monthly production of torpedoes in Germany. It looks small to you.

You start recovering the used ammo every time a German captain does not need to use an extra torpedo to sink a ship. You gain U-boats everytime you don't lose a U-boat to a battle after a fail torpedo.

I was talking about the initial costs. The costs for which some bureaucrat would say, "what, spend one million Reichsmarks to fix something that is not broken?!".

 

[Michele]

For Nazi Germany? The place where management policy was "have eight subordinates with overlapping portfolios, the strong will survive"?

Exactly, that sort of thing.