U-Boat menace

What If the Germans had of won the Battle of the Atlantic and cut supplies to Allied nations, namely Britain, and then turned on the US East Coast and sunk all their shipping? In answering, let's say that the '50 ships in 50 days' proposition was failing badly-what happens now???

 

I'd think that the USA would be in a pickle--but seriously, with the size of out fleets and the air cover we had out---I really doubt that could happen--or have too serious of an effect to do much more than change amounts of tonnage in reaching their assigned ports for deposit.

 

This situation would have come to pass if the U-boat program had been 2 years in advance of its historical achievement.

The German tonnage warfare plan, to sink 750,000 tons of British shipping per month, was based on a fleet of 300 U-boats to carry it out.

(A fleet of 300 U-boats total means 150 on training or trials, and 150 operational, of which 50 would be hunting in their patrol areas at any one time.)

But the U-boat fleet only reached this size in July 1942, when it was already too late.

If Germany had 300 U-boats available from July 1940, then she would have brought Britain to her knees by late 1941, without a doubt.

Britain would be forced to sue for peace before America entered the war, and thus America would not be able to use Britain as a base for attacks on Germany.

But, fortunately for the Allies, in June 1940 the U-boat fleet numbered only about 50 - nowhere near enough for the job.

 

I think the Germans had enough U-Boats to do the job had it not been for the breaking of the Enigma code. All of the allied planes and destroyers would only be able to protect after a U-Boat struck if the code was not broken. With the breaking of the code, they were able to know in advance the locations of the U-Boat and therefore take proactive action to strike before the U-Boats could.

 

That's why this is called a what-if-let's say it is possible-what now???

 

I would say the United States would either have to transfer ships from the Pacific, giving Japan the edge, or abandon Britain, which would would be as if not more disasterous. If Germany won the Battle of the Atlantic, then in all liklihood the West would not present a serious threat to the Reich.

 

It was possible for sure. If the submarine service would have been given extreme priority in the 1930s instead of the useless powerful surface fleet. If Dönitz would have had 150 submarines in September 1939 and some other 200 in summer 1940, the Kriegsmarine would have made in autumn 1940 what the Luftwaffe couldn't: bring Great Britain to its knees because of starvation. And then, the US would not have been able to attack Germany in any way possible. And perhaps in 1941 if the US entered the war against Japan, Dönitz's U-boats could even have been transferred to the PTO...

And even in early 1943 it was possible. By this time there were a lot of U-boats. But the essential point is that the new submarine models were needed by this time. So, modern U-boats to divert the sheppard while the others hunt the sheeps... This could have avoided D-day. But by this time the war was decided and lost.