Your basic analysis is quite accurate. Taking the three elements, Germany never had a chance to achieve numerical superiority, even at the beginning of the war, so that one goes to the Allies by default.

The Germans were ahead in tactics at the beginning, but that could not last due to Doenitz\'s single minded pursuit of the wolf pack tactic, which, given the technical limitations of the U-boats was the only viable strategy for finding and sinking enough targets. Doenitz had found the perfect solution for re-fighting WWI, but he had failed to find a bulletproof tactic in the technology context of WWII after 1940. The wolf pack was a case of the tactics no longer fitting the technological environment. The only viable tactic was for the U-boats to shut up or at least to limit themselves to very short squirt communications which could not be DFed with sufficient accuracy. The classic wolf pack tactic was killed by HF-DF which Doenitz knew about, but basically ignored. He thought the squirt transmission was enough.

This brings us to the all important technology issue. Submarine warfare is, together with air warfare, the most technology dependant part of war. Some of the Allied ASW technologies had tactical answers, but the only answer to radar was the electroboat and that was not a short term solution. This required the creation of a whole new class of U-boat and that would have taken at the very least 2 years to get to a viable, but far from mature solution. Note that the XXI benefited from the Walter project, so the basic hull design was already on the table when the project started. On the other hand, it was not the ideal hull shape for a full time U-boat.

The technical solution to radar and to a large extent HF-DF was the electroboat together with the concept of fighting with your ears and not your eyes. Advanced passive sonar which the Germans had by 1943 (the 48 sensor GHG) could pick up a ship farther away than a lookout, so there was no need for the U-boat to remain on the surface in order to find its target. This next generation in underseas warfare was missed by Doenitz although all the elements were visible in the late 1930s if someone had looked and it was obvious by 1941.

\">…(the magnetron, the bombe, Collossus, HF/DF)…<\" An interesting collection. The magnetron was not used on the first generation shipboard radar, but it was vital to airborne radar and significantly improved the performance of shipboard radar. The bombe was an interesting development which could have been easily countered by changing the Enigma rotors periodically (that is another long story). The bombe was useless without the stolen disks. Collossus was irrelevant to the day to day U-boat war. It was used to break Fish, a high level electronic ciphering system for teletype used between various German headquarters. Collossus took advantage of an unavoidable periodicity in the way Fish worked and which was not applicable to an Enigma with frequently changing rotors. HF-DF was underestimated by Doenitz and told the British roughly where U-boats were to be found, however, they still needed radar and/or large area ASDIC sweeps to actually locate the U-boat. The accuracy of an HF-DF intercept depended on the length of the signal, so electroboats using ultra short squirt messages would have been relatively safe.

\">With that perspective, it\'s hard not to notice the far reaching consequences of Operation Barbarossa, and the net effect the war with Russia had on Germany\'s ability to compete in those three categories.<\" Not really. The land war was basically irrelevant to naval tactics and naval technology. It had a certain effect on numerical strength, but numerical strength was no longer relevant by 1943 when more U-boats just meant more German casualties. In fact, with the right technological edge, the Kriegsmarine could have won the Battle of the Atlantic with fewer U-boats than they built during the war because the losses would have been at least 10 times lower. The only way to win once radar was on the scene was through relatively small numbers of very sophisticated U-boats with highly trained crews who came back regularly. Sending out masses of obsolete U-boats with inexperienced crews was a waste of resources and lives and a clear sign of incompetent leadership.

Regards,
SuperKraut