General Discussions
This is the place to discuss general issues related to the U-boat war or the war at sea in WWII.
RE: Why did the Type XXI not see combat service
Posted by:
J.T. McDaniel
()
Date: April 04, 2001 12:51PM
<HTML>It\'s doubtful that Dönitz had much option when it came to sending out the VII and IX boats. They were already type certified, and had been in service for several years. With the XXIs, on the other hand, it was possible to argue \"they\'re not quite ready, but should be soon,\" or, \"Well, the boats are ready, but we haven\'t got the crews trained yet and the designs are too radically different to be safe until we do.\"
It\'s much easier to throw an untested tank into combat. If it doesn\'t work out, you\'re out a relatively small financial investment and three or four men. With a U-boat, if it fails, you\'ve lost a piece of equipment costing as more than an entire tank battalion, and a lot of expensively-trained men who\'d be a much more useful to the war effort alive, even if only by putting them into obsolete, but functional boats.
And, probably, Dönitz realised well enough that it was too late to really affect anything. If he\'d been able to send out a fleet of perhaps 200 Typ XXIs around the time of the Normandy invasion it might have been possible to affect the outcome of the war in the West. By the time a large number of boats were becoming available, it no longer was. After the collapse of the Ardennes Offensive the war was essentially over, and the only real reason remaining to continue fighting was to give the residents of the eastern provinces time to escape from the Red Army.
A few advanced boats, sent to sea in early 1945, might have caused a lot of trouble, but it\'s doubtful they\'d have been able to affect the outcome of the war, or even delay the inevitable very much. My own fictional speculation on that topic (With Honour in Battle) is listed toward the bottom of the new releases page, though they didn\'t yet have the book linked to Amazon when I looked a little earlier.</HTML>
It\'s much easier to throw an untested tank into combat. If it doesn\'t work out, you\'re out a relatively small financial investment and three or four men. With a U-boat, if it fails, you\'ve lost a piece of equipment costing as more than an entire tank battalion, and a lot of expensively-trained men who\'d be a much more useful to the war effort alive, even if only by putting them into obsolete, but functional boats.
And, probably, Dönitz realised well enough that it was too late to really affect anything. If he\'d been able to send out a fleet of perhaps 200 Typ XXIs around the time of the Normandy invasion it might have been possible to affect the outcome of the war in the West. By the time a large number of boats were becoming available, it no longer was. After the collapse of the Ardennes Offensive the war was essentially over, and the only real reason remaining to continue fighting was to give the residents of the eastern provinces time to escape from the Red Army.
A few advanced boats, sent to sea in early 1945, might have caused a lot of trouble, but it\'s doubtful they\'d have been able to affect the outcome of the war, or even delay the inevitable very much. My own fictional speculation on that topic (With Honour in Battle) is listed toward the bottom of the new releases page, though they didn\'t yet have the book linked to Amazon when I looked a little earlier.</HTML>
| Subject | Written By | Posted |
|---|---|---|
Why did the Type XXI not see combat service
|
Kurt | 03/26/2001 04:53PM |
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RE: Why did the Type XXI not see combat service
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Rainer Bruns | 03/26/2001 06:19PM |
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RE: Why did the Type XXI not see combat service
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Joe Brennan | 03/27/2001 07:38AM |
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RE: Why did the Type XXI not see combat service
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John | 03/27/2001 07:58AM |
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RE: Why did the Type XXI not see combat service
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Lawrence | 03/27/2001 08:28AM |
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RE: Why did the Type XXI not see combat service
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kurt | 03/27/2001 04:28PM |
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RE: Why did the Type XXI not see combat service
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tl | 03/27/2001 04:46PM |
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RE: Why did the Type XXI not see combat service
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J.T. McDaniel | 04/04/2001 12:51PM |