A new research article entitled "One Torpedo, One Ship. An appraisal of Otto Kretschmer's U-boat tactics, 1939-1941" was recently published in The Mariner's Mirror. The article is available at: [doi.org] (subscription required).


From the Abstract:
Otto Kretschmer was the most successful U-boat commander of the Second World War. While his wartime actions have been narrated several times, his tactics, summarized by the famous motto ‘one torpedo, one ship’, have never been systematically analysed. In this work, Kretschmer’s success is appraised through the analysis of the key characteristics of his attacks, and the conditions of the battlefield in which he operated. In doing so, both the effectiveness and limitations of Kretschmer’s tactics are clarified and put into the context of the Battle of the Atlantic.