Germany develops in-flight refueling.

I'm afraid you are badly misinformed about the CVE program. The first US CVE, Long Island, was commissioned 6/2/41. There were at least a dozen US and British CVE's commissioned in 1942. Most of the early CVE's were already launched before the war and just needed conversion to become carriers. If the Germans had perfected an inflight refueling method that required Allied CVE's as a counter, CVE's would have been produced in whatever numbers required.

Your statement that U-boats will simply patrol in the vicinity of the CVE's is extremely unlikely because that would make them vulnerable to ASW patrols from those aircraft carriers.

 

I would like to point out that in-flight refueling was not something that was an untried technology in 1939.

The first patent for in-flight refueling was issued to Alexander P. Seversky in 1921. The first actual in-flight refueling was accomplished later in 1921 when an American wing-walker named Wesley May climbed from one plane to another with a can of fuel strapped to his back. When he reached the second plane, he unstrapped the fuel can and poured the fuel into the second plane's tank.

A more practical method called the "looped hose method" was devised in 1923 by the US Army. This method was used by many private pilots to set endurance flying records. By July, 1930, the record was 647.5 hours, nearly 27 days in the air!

By 1934, an ex-RAF flyer established a firm, Flight Refueling Limited (FRL), to develop routine in-flight refueling procedures, including the necessary hardware. During WW II, FRL representatives came to the US to equip a B-24 as a tanker, and a B-17 as a receiver aircraft. However, the USAAF didn't use in-flight refueling during WW II even though the equipment and procedure had been developed and proven.

The German Luftwaffe was almost certainly aware of in-flight refueling methods in the late 1930's, and had they seen any positive benefits outweighing the drawbacks, they would have experimented with it. Since they, like the rest of the world's air forces, did not adapt any of their operational bombers or recon planes for in-flight refueling, it sems manifest that the benefits did not outweigh the problems.

See; Aerial Refueling

 

Good Points!

Also, I am under the impression the "jet-stream" was generally unknown until B-29's encountered it during missions over Japan in 1944-45

 

Jet stream was already known since the early 1930s and there is an on going circular weather pattern around the UK that generally allows planes to ride the currents north around the UK-Iceland area from france and towards Norway...which is probably why the FW 200 did this in the first place.

Most USA CVE were transfered to the UK and only had 3 Stringbags plus a a dozen Seahurricanes.This is 1940-42, not 1944. The Sea hurricane could only do 290mph top speed . The Ju-88 could also do 290mph on patrol and given the time for the Sea hurricane to climb to altitude, the Ju-88 has 25 miles lead ,so its probable the Ju 88 on patrol could out run any Intercpeting Sea hurricane and escape.

Like the other KM weapons it would be about attacking convoys with less escort. In 1942 North Atlantic there were atleast a dozen plus convoys on the go each way, so it would be more a case of selective attack of convoyes without CVE. Remember they don't have to stop every convoy, just enough to make a difference. Just reporting the position of the convoy would be enough. If a CVE on patrol in the Bay of Biscay was always there, it would be nothing to mount a three dimenional assault, with surface warships, Uboats and air attack to destroy such a predictable target.

Anyway reportedly only 2 CVE were commissioned by the end of 1941 & 16 through out 1942, many transfered to the UK and I doubt they would waste them on some random patrol in Bay of Biscay so close to land based LW assets. They were for escorting convoys and thats what they would be used for.

And yes the Germans did inflight refueling experiments in the late 1920s/ early 1930s period, so they were aware of it.

 

I am pretty sure that is correct, they (Jet Streams) had been suspected from the time of Wiley Post's high altitude flights in the thirties, and when American pilots noticed they had nearly 100 mph tailwinds when they flew from the US to the UK. The trans-Atlantic Jet Stream runs from west to east, approximately from the coast of Maine to the area between Greenland and Iceland. This flows at between 4.3 to 7.5 miles altitude (7 to 12 km), the winds speeds would vary between 50 knots all the way up to 215 knots!

Even without those, at lower altitudes in the northern hemisphere, the trade winds alone would make refueling for a flight across the Atlantic more difficult than the Jet Stream which the Luftwaffe would be hard pressed to reach. But the lower elevation Trade Winds would be a battle, winds are named from the direction in which they originate, these winds in the northern hemisphere are called prevailing westerlies. So the Luftwaffe would be fighting a 10 to 15 knot headwind across the Atlantic toward Greenland, or even North America.

Flying west at any altitude would be a MAJOR difficulty for the Luftwaffe!

 

http://aviationweather.gov/data/iffdp/2506.gif

I think that you will see that if you study this long enough they can ride the currents west often adding 40-50knts and then with experience , shift the return leg to an alternative country and alternative altitude .That way they can negate or minimise that west wind on the return leg.

Remember the Germans were flying transaltantic flights through the 1930s and considered the Amerika bomber from 1936. It would not have be hard for them to have studied flight records to detect patterns in the winds , enough to exploite and gain range. All I have to prove is that its possible, and it clearly is. You guys can waste your time worrying about it how probably, thats not my concern. I leave that speculation to others since its rife with personal and cultural bias.

 

This does not square with what I have read. Do you have any documentation that claims the Germans were familiar enough with the jet-stream to use it to boost the range of operational combat aircraft? And I don't believe upper altitude winds between France and Iceland would really help the Germans attain the range necessary to patrol the "air gaps" in the rest of the Atlantic.

There were eight US CVE's transferred to Britain by 1942, and seven retained in the US. This does not count the British CVE's such as Audacity, commissioned by the RN in July, 1941. The Audacity carried only 6 aircraft, but the US-built CVE's transferred to Britain operated between 15-21 aircraft, almost exclusively F4F's (Wildcats) and TBM Avengers. The Avenger came into service in June, 1942. Wildcats were quite effective against all Luftwaffe bombers of the period.

In the first Twenty-eight months of the war (September, 1939, through December, 1941), there were about 900 cargo convoys which crossed the Atlantic to or from Britain. Of those 900 convoys, only 19 convoys lost 6 ships or more to U-boats and only 9 had losses in double digits. The vast majority of Allied convoys were not even attacked, and, in fact, there were seldom enough U-boats at sea to attack all of the convoys at sea (Clay Blair, "Hitler's U-boat War", Vol. 1, page 425).

In fact, throughout the entire war, merchant ship losses on the Atlantic run amounted to less than 2% to all causes. This was not even close to the level of losses necessary to impede the Allied war effort in Europe. Blair, in his book notes that the aerial reconnaissance provided by the Luftwaffe seldom proved useful to the KM because navigation over water was so difficult that the Luftwaffe position reports were usually so far off as to be counter-productive.

This is a what-if scenario; if you grant the Germans a change in histroy, then you have to grant the Allies similar changes, if it was reasonably in their ability to do so. It was certainly possible for both America and Britain to produce more CVE's earlier, and, in fact, several senior naval officers in both countries foresaw the need for CVE's and said so. Therefore it's reasonable to assume that, if the Germans were developing long range planes utilizing in-flight refueling, the Allies would be developing suitable counters, such as CVE's to not only guard convoys but to hunt refueling formations off the coasts of Europe.

Then you should be able to explain why the Germans saw fit not to utilize in-flight refueling, if, as you claim, it would have been of great benefit to them.

 

I think that we can safely assume that if the battle for the Atlantic has not been won by Germany by mid 1941, then it never will be, what with the Luftwaffe being called away to fight on the eastern front. So the consideration of ever increasing allied CVE production really is moot (IMO), as by the time these are beginning to make their presence felt, their won't be enough Luftwaffe planes left in theater to serve for decent target practice!

So lets keep the window between summer 1940 and summer 1941. If we are going to explore this, then lets keep it to the time frame when it was a 1 on 1 between the UK and Germany, because if the Germans cannot defeat the UK then, how can they defeat them while also fighting the USSR/USA?

Using the figures of a Bv 222 carrying an estimated 20 TTF (Tons Transferable Fuel), lets start putting things together. The figures I have for the empty & loaded weights for the various FW190's are about 2,000 lbs (if these figures are correct and represent fuel only, then a tanker could have fueled 20 FW190's). The FW190's, however, would never be a good choice for a long range escort with an on-board fuel supply good for just 500 miles, I cannot see them making it far enough out to escort the bombers. If they had drop tanks that could give them an extra 500 mile range, and were to tank (coming and going) at apx 200 miles off the french coast, this would still mean they couldn't have gone more than 600 mile from shore and still have been able to dogfight with allied carrier based fighters.

Now lets look at the Bf 110. The BoB version of this aircraft (w/o DT or MAR), had a loaded range of 1,500 miles.

In 1935 Kurt Tank made the suggestion of creating a long-range single-seat fighter under a private venture within Focke-Wulf. The idea was not to produce a heavy fighter or bomber destroyer like the Bf 110, but instead a long-range design that would have the performance of a single-seat design. Powered by the new 1,000 hp Daimler-Benz DB 600, it had an expected speed of 560 km/h (350 mph). The design was unveiled in 1936 at an exhibition of new weapons, prototypes and projects held at the Henschel factory at Berlin-Schonefeld, where it was viewed by a number of high ranking Nazi officials, including Hitler. However, the RLM rejected the design on the grounds that the single-engine Bf 109 had comparable performance but would cost roughly half as much. The need for a long-range design was not considered serious, as at the time it was believed bomber escort was simply not needed; "The bomber will always get through".

The first prototype, Fw 187 V1 (D-AANA) flew for the first time in late spring 1937 with Hans Sander at its controls. In testing it demonstrated 523 km/h (325 mph) despite the use of the low-powered Jumo engines. In fact, it was 80 km/h (50 mph) faster than the contemporary Jumo-powered Messerschmitt Bf 109B, despite having twice the range, more than twice the weight, and using two of the same engines. Members of the RLM complained that this was due to faulty airspeed instruments, but further testing ruled this out. The Fw 187's climb and dive rates were also on par if not superior to the single-seater.


1) However, the RLM rejected the design on the grounds that the single-engine Bf 109 had comparable performance but would cost roughly half as much.

2) The Fw 187's climb and dive rates were also on par if not superior to the single-seater.

These two sentences really spelled things out for me. The whole point of this thread is that the Germans developed long range aircraft, and the tactical success of any long range bombers is going to be tied to whether they have a good, long range fighter escort.

Unfortunately, I don't have the all important range info for what the FW187 might have been developed into by summer 1940 (other than the "double the range of the contemporary bf109's"). If we assume that the Germans made the other than historical choice, and did go ahead with this design, what might it have been like?

Lets assume that the Bf109, like the FW190, had a 500 mile range, and that this would mean a 1,000 mile range for the FW187. Now add in the DT and MAR. Say the FW187 gets up to a 2,000 mile range w/DT, and that MAR means that without any really big improvements, we could see FW187's dogfighting carrier fighters as much as 1,000 from the French coast and having the fuel to return to the tankers.

Lets remember too that the British carriers used biplanes to help sink the Bismark almost a year later, so I have to wonder what their carriers were using for fighters in the summer of 1940? And how would these fighters do against something equivalent to a BoB Bf109, but with the range issue reversed?

Any thoughts?

 

No, the point is that production of CVE's could easily have begun in 1938-39 because there were no technology restraints that precluded such conversions of merchant ships to CVE's, and naval leaders in both the US and Britain were aware of the utility of such ships. If Nazi Germany begins production of long range aircraft designed to operate over the Atlantic, it's going to stimulate the production, in the same time frame, of potential counters to those aircraft. And the most likely counter will be CVE's capable of operating modern fighters such as the F4F.

I might also point out that it appears that you think that the only factor that kept Germany from "defeating" Britain in 1940-41 was the inability of their U-boats to find the convoys that sustained Britain. This is a highly questionable premise. In actual fact, Germany seldom had enough U-boats at sea during 1940-41 to even attack all the convoys it did find. Far from ravaging British shipping between September, 1939 and Decemeber, 1941, the U-boats were atually losing ground.

In September, 1939, Britain controlled 17,784,000 tons of merchant shipping. By December, 1941, British controlled merchant shipping amounted to 20,693,000 tons, a net increase of almost 3,000,000 tons (Clay Blair, "Hitler's U-boat War" Vol. 1, page 99). During the period you seem to think was so vital to Germany's chances, it was actually losing the Battle of the Atlantic because of a scarcity of U-boats.

Furthermore, as I have already pointed out, there was the problem of precise over-water navigation which would have hampered not only the refueling of the recconnaisance planes, but the reporting of convoy positions. You have simply chosen to dismiss this very significant problem which, historically, severely reduced the value of Germany's airborne search efforts.

 

I've got to stay out of this, since the time-frame eliminates the FW-190 as an option as fighter cover (earliest operational May-June '40), and none of the rest of the Luftwaffe fighters, dive-bombers, or bombers could (or did) display any success against shipping unless it was stationary in port.

At sea the Luftwaffe was notorious in its misses at moving ships.

 

It was known but not a whole lot was known about it. The Japanese turned out to have been the ones who did the most research on it. I believe it was one of the reasons they thought the baloon bombs would work. But nobody really had a good idea of what it was like.

 

And in so doing burn up enough fuel that it won't make it home or maybe even to it's target. Then of course if the Ju-88 is spotted by Chain home or a DD or even another CVE and it's location and course radioed ahead of time...

Oh and how much damage is a (that is one) Ju-88 going to door even a couple of dozen?

 

Some thoughts for this part:
1) CVE's can be built (converted) rapidly and in quantity.
2) The idea that "Germany builds long range aircraft designed to operate over the Atlantic", is somehow known to the allies.
3) CVE's as a counter for Luftwaffe aircraft? Not unless we are granting that the Brits have foreknowledge of the fall of France in that time frame.
4) Usefulness of CVE's anyway.
5) Scale of the battle.

1-First off, no matter how fast a conversion is from a partially constructed merchantmen, it is still going to take quite a bit longer for the allies to be able to deploy the extra handful of planes that each can carry, than it is going to be for the Germans to deploy many more aircraft (and without all the material costs of a CVE). The Brits can build all the CVE's that they want, but this will prove to be counter productive as the Germans couldn't help but be able to expand their deploy able force much faster than the UK could, as they are just having to build the aircraft, and not the carriers.

2-Even if the Brits get an idea that the Germans aircraft are a bit longer ranged than historically, it doesn't follow that they would deduce the true purpose of this, when the planed use of MAR and DT is not exactly going to be detectable from any distance by just looking at the planes. Most especially if the Germans are going to make this effort a top secret one. The Germans would know that the British could not help but to try to counter such an effort, if they learn of it, and would bend every effort to keep their plans a secret until the planes actually head out into the Atlantic.

3-Your premise is that the Brits, in 1938, see the Luftwaffe planes (with a slightly longer range than historical using on-board fuel supply only), are going to be mated to DT and use MAR to go out and sink their merchantmen, when the planes haven't even been finished building yet (to say nothing of seeing them in action), and while France stands in the way of any such plan. I don't think so. More likely, the Brits do not get an inkling about the MAR/DT aspect, and assume that they need just build more land based fighters to be able to oppose the Luftwaffe from being able to strike over a greater length of their home isles. Basically, the flaw I see in your reasoning is that it presupposes that the dramatic strategic changes brought about by the fall of France, and the opening of the way to even try to gun for the merchantmen, is going to be accurately foreseen by the UK, two full years before it happens.

4-Correct me if I'm wrong, but pretty much every CVE had less than 30 fighters (US CVE's, in the pacific, carried 12 fighters and 18 bombers IIRC), and I would suppose that the 1941 versions wouldn't do much better. Also, the CVE's were in no way as survivable as the fleet carriers, and their losses would be much greater as a result.

I grant that action begets reaction, but not secret plan not yet put into operation, begets counter plan years before hand. So basically, no new carriers built because the UK cannot see it being possible for the Luftwaffe to reach the Atlantic in the first place. Once the Brits experience the heat from the Luftwaffe, then, and only then, can they begin to do as you have said (and in fact, I would be amazed if they didn't build many times the numbers of CVE's as historically), as you yourself postulated. The problem is, by the time any of these new CVE's start making their presence felt, the issue is likely resolved, by either the total devastation of the merchant marine, or the redeployment of the Luftwaffe to the eastern front.

5-We seem to have a difference of perception of the scale of the battle, as well. When I say "fight the BoB" and the "battle of the Atlantic" as one and the same, I envisage hundreds of Luftwaffe aircraft, bombers w/fighter escorts, and tankers w/fighter escorts, heading out daily (whether permitting, naturally) to ravage the convoys. You seem to be postulating that a CVE, with its bare handful of fighters, are going to merely have to fend off an unescorted bomber or two.

Another thing I may as well toss in here, even though it really isn't part of this thread. My information is that, all throughout the war, the allies never were able to provide escorts for more than 40% of the merchant shipping, and thus 60% of merchantmen sailed alone and unescorted! While this was fine for diluting the threat from u-boats, it would lead to wholesale slaughter in the face of air attacks carried out by wave after wave of land based aircraft.

Not really, what I believe is that the Nazi's really did a poor job of building up a military that was capable of winning the war they started, lol. Germany had what, 90 some odd u-boats at the start of the war, and basically 1/3 would be on station, 1/3 in transit back to base, and the other 1/3 would be replenishing/heading back out? So roughly 30 boats on station (when they really needed, what, about a minimum of 100 or so)? So you see, it isn't that I think that the u-boats were some awesome force, but I do think that they could have used all the help they could get. Also, the u-boats could have been made more effective if they could have been given precise info for specific types of ships that needed sinking, say tanker ships for instance. The unsupported u-boats could never tell where the next tanker was, but with a strong air arms support in combat and reconnaissance, they could have been ideally positioned to make the most of the boats they did have.

The highlighted sentence.
What part of my belief (that summer 1940 to summer 1941), wasn't the critical period of the war, in the sense that, before this, Germany couldn't have used long range air to attack the UK merchantmen, and that after Barbarossa, they never again would have the strength to do so, do you actually disagree with? Germany definitely couldn't have killed any crushingly massive amounts of the UK's merchantmen by trying to fly over an undefeated France, and after the invasion of the USSR, when do you think they would have sufficient spare air-power to attempt to do so?

I have to believe that I am correct in this assessment, but if you wish to offer an alternative time frame, where the Germans could have had better chances, please do so.

I don't think that Germany could have won the war she fought, but I do think that Germany could have won the war I would have had her fight (no USSR/USA at all, lol). I'm neither pro Nazi nor pro German, just a lover of the whole 'David and Goliath, epic battle thing'.

Not at all, I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

Enough for now.

By the way, thanks for the interest in this subject. I am looking forward to continuing this.

 

But what if the CVE's just plug the gaps where no fighter escort is possible other wise. Iceland has can serve as a base so can Northern Ireland. That doesn't leave a huge gap in air coverage and how are the German planes going to get to the line between Ireland and Iceland?

 

How are they going to find the winds? How are they going to tell if they find them?

That doesn't mean that there's enough information for them to plan on them. Navigation during that time period was not an exact art and weather prediction was a black art even if you had lots of data which the Germans weren't. My uncle taught navigation for a while before he went over to Europe for his combat tour. IE he was a very good navigator and he had a couple of bad experiances with unexpected winds before he even got to Europe. At that point the allies had weather resources that were well above anything the Germans had.

 

The Allies don't even need CVE's or carriers. They simply need good search radars. If the Allies use their radars and have decent reporting on formations spotted they can simply track these until they are in range for land based interception.
What would happen to a dozen Ju 88 laden with bombs when 10 or 20 P 38 show up 300 miles out to sea as the Ju 88 approach the US? Radar negates much or all of the surprise aspect of a strike using refueling to reach the US.

As an unrelated problem, the Germans don't know where military and industrial targets in the US are. This would mean any strike would be done for either its propaganda value or as simple retaliation. The probability that a German strike would actually effect production in any useful way is essentially zero.

 

How many CVE's do the British really need though? If the convoys go by way of Iceland and pass north of Ireland they have air cover for a good bit of the time and the Germans don't have a direct route to intercept them. Then there's the program that put Hurricanes on merchant men. No way to recover unless they are near a CVE or airbase but a potential problem for attacking German bombers.

But they also tended to be death on subs and the LW doesn't really have the potential of launching a very powerful raid on them. IE we've been talking about single planes not strike groups.

What resources do the Germans really have that they can put in a postion to do the British serious harm during this period. They can pretty much forget doing anything in the winter. Early spring and late fall are also propblematic. How many planes do they start with. What's their attrition rate likely to be? Operational losses are likely to be pretty high even without British airplanes. Then what happens if they accidently attack a US CVE or DD in 40 or early 41?

Where an unexpected storm front could wipe out whole squadrons.
You also seam to be forgetting that the British can see these formations forming up over France. If they go far enough South of Britain that they can't be intercepted then will they have the range to get back far enough north to attack the convoys and get home? Note that this puts them over empty ocean for quite a bit of time.

Fast merchants weren't escorted nor were merchants in safe areas.

according to: Axis History Forum • View topic - Strong german kriegsmarine

And some of those are not really sea going boats. Indeed just a quick look at uboat.net - U-boat Types shows that about half were coastal boats. Here's a list for Oct of 1940 from:
Axis History Forum • View topic - Seelöwe - let's discuss German naval escorts

 

Ah, some nice links!

 

You seem to think the Germans can just snap their fingers and conjure up in-flight refueling capabilities for their entire air force. It doen't happen that way. If the Germans are going to have wide-spread in-flight refueling capabilities for the majority of their bomber force, they have to start the process at least two years prior to operational capability. TRhat will give the British not only time to detect the German effort, but time to devise, and produce counters, including sufficient numbers of CVE's if that's what they decide they need.

A bit longer ranged? Hell, historically, German airvraft couldn't even reach the western part of the British Isles, and suddenly they have bombers and recon planes showing up over the mid-Atlantic? That's a dead give-away; the Brits weren't stupid, they are going to realize that something has changed technology-wise with the German aircraft and it won't take them long to deduce it is in-flight refueling. They will also realize that being able to operate over the Atlantic gives them the ability launch air attacks on convoys and that will certainly set the alarm bells off.

My premise is that once the Germans start testing the capability and training the flyers to use it, the British will quickly realize the threat and will take measures to counter it. They won't give a damn that the actual bombers aren't built yet, it will be the capability that triggers British response. It doesn't matter how long the Germans wait to actually use it, the British will be ready to counter it.

CVE's carried up to 30 aircraft, normally a combination of fifghters and patrol bombers like the Avenger. In actual operations, most CVE's operated (as opposed to carrying) no more than 24 aircraft. Unfortunately, for the Germans that is going to be more than enough to frustrate both the U-boats and the few bombers that the Germans will be able to concentrate against each convoy.

As for CVE "survivability" it was, in fact, much less than purpose bult CV's, but unless the Germans manage to concentrate superior surface forces or heavy air attacks, it's not going to be a serious issue. In the Pacific war, CVE's proved they could defend themselves against much heavier attacks than the Germans will be able to mount.

So you think that the German air force would be able to develop, test, and install in-flight refueling hardware on a major portion of their maritime patrol planes and bombers without arousing some suspicion. And further, they will be able to test this hardware, develop and in-flight refueling doctrine, and train large numbers of pilots in using it and making long over-water flights with the appropriate navigational skills. And that finally they would be able to deploy these special aircraft and highly trained squadrons without actually testing the whole process. I don't think that whole long process is going to happen without the British getting some word of what is going on and being able to take timely action to counter it.

Excuse me, but that appears to be rather amusing. The Luftwaffe is going to not only mount large-scale bombing attacks on Britain, but at the same time, put "hundreds" of patrol and bomber aircraft, escorted by like numbers of fighters, supported by huge numbers of tanker aircraft over the Atlantic convoys? Where do all these extra planes come from?

In actuality, the Luftwaffe, if it can be persuaded to do so, will be hard pressed to put even one recon plane over a convoy, and any bombers it manages to get over a convoy will be gravy. Historically, where the Luftwaffe did manage to get bombers over convoys, as in the Arctic, they attacked in single-digit numbers and had trouble with even the AA armaments of the surface escorts. CVE's, with even five or six fighters, will annihilate such forces, and their patrol planes will keep U-boats from making effective attacks.

How about quoting some references to document your information? And while you're at it, explain where Germany is going to get "wave after wave of aircraft" to attack these convoys. It's not like you can keep those attack bombers just circling out over the Atlantic while your patrol planes look for convoys. It's a fantasy to think, even if in-flight refueling could be made o work, that problems like navigation and weather could be overcome so easily.

Donitz would have been in Heaven had he anything close to 90 operational U-boats when Germany went to war in 1939. In fact, the KM counted 27 ocean-going U-boats, two of which were large experimental boats, not really suitable for combat operations. In addition, there were 30, 250-ton Type II training boats suitable only for operations in the Baltic and coastal North Sea. For all of 1939 and most of 1940, the KM was lucky to have eight or nine U-boats at sea on patrol. Frequently, there were more convoys at sea than U-boats. Furthermore, German U-boats were poorly designed and had insufficient range for longer patrols. Effectively, they could only interdict convoys as they approached the British Isles where Allied ASW assets were concentrated.

The Germans planned to build more subs, of course, but even under the most optimistic plans, the KM wouldn't have reached 100 U-boats until mid-1942 when 118 subs were projected. But this assumed no losses in the first three years of war, and still included 32 training subs, the two experimental boats, and 7 minelayer and cruiser types. Only 77 would have been Type VII's and Type IX's. It would have been late 1942 before the Germans cold have expected to have an average of 25 ocean-going U-boats constantly on patrol even if things had gone entirely their way. This is still too few to cover the entire Atlantic, North Sea, Arctic, Med, and South Atlantic, as the Germans tried to do historically.

So better maritime air recconnaisance isn't going to solve Germany's problems with attacking Allied convoys in 1940 or even 1941, even if the Germans could have solved the problems of over-water navigation and unsuitable weather. And the massive effort required for in-flight refueling to put a sufficient number of recon planes and bombers over the Atlantic would not be be repaid with commensurate losses of Allied ships.

The idea that Germany had anywhere near enough aircraft to deploy a sufficient number over the Atlantic and still carry out all the other missions they felt necessary to their war effort. Putting a handful of patrol planes and a couple of squadrons of bombers over the Atlantic is going to require huge numbers of tankers and still isn't going to result in sinking enough Allied ships to seriously damage the Allied buildup. What is required is a vast number of planes AND an effective U-boat arm. Germany had neither in 1939-1942. In fact, Germany never had the planes nor the U-boats to win the Battle of the Atlantic.

Well, I would suggest that you "get around to it" soon because, in my opinion, the inability of the Luftwaffe to accurately predict the Atlantic weather, and the inability of every air force of the period to perform precise navigation on long over-water flights are two very major holes in your theory. Until you can provide satisfactory answers to these problems, every thing else is nothing but fantasy.