General Discussions
This is the place to discuss general issues related to the U-boat war or the war at sea in WWII.
Surface fleet
Posted by:
SuperKraut
()
Date: April 28, 2001 03:02PM
<HTML>You are expecting much too much from the puny German surface fleet. The battleships were outnumbered more than 10:1 and we do not even talk about cruisers. The pocket battleships were nothing but glorified heavy cruisers and reclassified as such early in the war. Scharnhorst and Gneisnau were not real battleships, not with 11 inch guns, so that leaves Bismarck and Tirpitz as the only real battleships. Bismarck was lost early on and Tirpitz never got the chance to do a real crew work up, so there was never more than one battleship combat ready.
\">What do you guys think the outcome would\'ve been if Dönitz achieved Raedel\'s (spelling? -sorry) position earlier?<\" By the time Doenitz replaced Raeder, Germany was producing as many U-boats as the shipyards could build. The negligence was already prewar, but Hitler told his admirals that there would be no naval war until 1944. The German-British naval treaty also severely limited the U-boat tonnage, but the U-boat fleet of August 1939 was below what was allowed in the treaty. A few dozen more U-boats could have been available for the beginning of the war with a bit of cheating on the treaty.
\">Would he had redirected funding to the Uboat fleet, building it massively great before the Allies turned the tide of the Battle?<\" Depends on when you consider the tide had turned. In 1943 the problem was not number of U-boats, but obsolete design. Twice the number of conventional U-boats would have meant twice the casualties, but not necessarily twice the number of ships sunk. 1943 was much too late to start working on the Type XXI electroboat. It needed to be operational in early 1943 at the latest.
Regards,
SuperKraut</HTML>
\">What do you guys think the outcome would\'ve been if Dönitz achieved Raedel\'s (spelling? -sorry) position earlier?<\" By the time Doenitz replaced Raeder, Germany was producing as many U-boats as the shipyards could build. The negligence was already prewar, but Hitler told his admirals that there would be no naval war until 1944. The German-British naval treaty also severely limited the U-boat tonnage, but the U-boat fleet of August 1939 was below what was allowed in the treaty. A few dozen more U-boats could have been available for the beginning of the war with a bit of cheating on the treaty.
\">Would he had redirected funding to the Uboat fleet, building it massively great before the Allies turned the tide of the Battle?<\" Depends on when you consider the tide had turned. In 1943 the problem was not number of U-boats, but obsolete design. Twice the number of conventional U-boats would have meant twice the casualties, but not necessarily twice the number of ships sunk. 1943 was much too late to start working on the Type XXI electroboat. It needed to be operational in early 1943 at the latest.
Regards,
SuperKraut</HTML>
