General Discussions
This is the place to discuss general issues related to the U-boat war or the war at sea in WWII.
Comments
Posted by:
SuperKraut
()
Date: August 14, 2001 09:43AM
<HTML>\">Because U-boat types were nearly perfect weapons till 1942.<\" Not quite, the happy days were over in 1941 when a sufficient number of British escorts had on board radar. The statistics for efficiency (tons sunk per U-boat per month) and U-boat losses per tons sunk were already in decline in 1941. 1940 was by far the best year the U-boats had on the basis of individual performance. The sinking peak in 1942 was due to a much larger number of U-boats in service and the incompetence of US ASW in the first half of 1942.
\">Penicillin was positively tested in 1923 but produced in substantial amounts only in 1941.<\" This is a good illustration of an invention having to wait until the \"state of the art\" catches up. The big problem with penicillin was scaling up from lab quantities to mass production quantities. It took that long to get large scale fermentation technology up to speed and a substantial US military contract did not hurt.
\">(I am positively sure Superkraut had a different answer: because the Germans believed to win the war(s) in six months)<\" I am a bit lost by this statement. Just to clarify my position, the idea of winning both WWI and WWII in 6 months was indeed present in the minds of the supreme leadership in both cases.
In the case of WWI, all the participants expected to be home for Christmas. The reason they were not was because the generals had not done their homework regarding the effects of heavy artillery, the machine gun and logistics. The high casualties inflicted by those two weapons should have been obvious to anyone who closely studied the Boer War, various colonial battles and the American Civil War. That, together with some basic theoretical analysis, would have predicted trench warfare, however, the generals thought they knew everything. On the German side, Wilhelm II, unlike Bismarck, had failed to appoint top officers to leadership positions in the General Staff, but chose mediocre aristocrats instead.
In WWII the German Heer had overcome their technical problems by developing the Blitzkrieg doctrine, a concept developed for France and other medium sized countries. However, Blitzkrieg did not apply to Britain and the Soviet Union due to geography. Hitler failed to realize this and threw away a victory. At least the Kaiser realized in 1915 that he was in for a long war. Hitler did not realize it until late 1942, after 3 years of war. Until then, Hitler thought he was fighting a series of individual campaigns.
As for building electroboats, Doenitz was obviously the wrong man to think up new technology and he apparently had no military advisors who were capable of it either. In fact, his advisor on radar was an incompetent who did not bother to consult with the radar experts in industry or in the Luftwaffe. A competent analysis of radar and the cause of U-boat losses in 1941 should have made it obvious that radar could locate surfaced U-boats at night and that the answer was to stay underwater. Considering Hitler\'s ignorance of naval matters, it should have been possible for Doenitz to convince him of the need to develop electroboats in 1941. Given the personalities involved, I agree it is unlikely that such a program would have been possible before 1941 on the basis of a proactive approach. That would have required a competent supreme leadership.
Regards,
SuperKraut
</HTML>
\">Penicillin was positively tested in 1923 but produced in substantial amounts only in 1941.<\" This is a good illustration of an invention having to wait until the \"state of the art\" catches up. The big problem with penicillin was scaling up from lab quantities to mass production quantities. It took that long to get large scale fermentation technology up to speed and a substantial US military contract did not hurt.
\">(I am positively sure Superkraut had a different answer: because the Germans believed to win the war(s) in six months)<\" I am a bit lost by this statement. Just to clarify my position, the idea of winning both WWI and WWII in 6 months was indeed present in the minds of the supreme leadership in both cases.
In the case of WWI, all the participants expected to be home for Christmas. The reason they were not was because the generals had not done their homework regarding the effects of heavy artillery, the machine gun and logistics. The high casualties inflicted by those two weapons should have been obvious to anyone who closely studied the Boer War, various colonial battles and the American Civil War. That, together with some basic theoretical analysis, would have predicted trench warfare, however, the generals thought they knew everything. On the German side, Wilhelm II, unlike Bismarck, had failed to appoint top officers to leadership positions in the General Staff, but chose mediocre aristocrats instead.
In WWII the German Heer had overcome their technical problems by developing the Blitzkrieg doctrine, a concept developed for France and other medium sized countries. However, Blitzkrieg did not apply to Britain and the Soviet Union due to geography. Hitler failed to realize this and threw away a victory. At least the Kaiser realized in 1915 that he was in for a long war. Hitler did not realize it until late 1942, after 3 years of war. Until then, Hitler thought he was fighting a series of individual campaigns.
As for building electroboats, Doenitz was obviously the wrong man to think up new technology and he apparently had no military advisors who were capable of it either. In fact, his advisor on radar was an incompetent who did not bother to consult with the radar experts in industry or in the Luftwaffe. A competent analysis of radar and the cause of U-boat losses in 1941 should have made it obvious that radar could locate surfaced U-boats at night and that the answer was to stay underwater. Considering Hitler\'s ignorance of naval matters, it should have been possible for Doenitz to convince him of the need to develop electroboats in 1941. Given the personalities involved, I agree it is unlikely that such a program would have been possible before 1941 on the basis of a proactive approach. That would have required a competent supreme leadership.
Regards,
SuperKraut
</HTML>
| Subject | Written By | Posted |
|---|---|---|
Technical deficiencies in U-Boote
|
Io Chrysafidou | 08/06/2001 06:05PM |
|
RE: Technical deficiencies in U-Boote
|
walter M | 08/06/2001 07:46PM |
|
Comments
|
SuperKraut | 08/14/2001 09:43AM |
|
RE: Technical deficiencies in U-Boote
|
David W | 08/06/2001 10:15PM |
|
RE: Technical deficiencies in U-Boote
|
kurt | 08/07/2001 01:26AM |
|
RE: Technical deficiencies in U-Boote
|
Comments | 08/14/2001 10:14AM |
|
Ooops
|
SuperKraut | 08/14/2001 10:41AM |