U-Boats only?

Hi all I went out last night with some mates and we got around talking about the Germany Navy an interesting idea was put forward should Germany had only built U-Boats?

And not bothered with Battleships would this have at least boosted the numbers of U-Boat production?

As Germany was part of main land Europe and once the German army swept across Western Europe the only threat came from England and with a greater number of U-Boats could they have achieved there goal to starve England out the war?

Well I don’t really know what do you think?

 

well, that would have been effective, but in my opinion, i think all militarys should have some actual boats in their fleet. i dont think you could run on U-boats alone...

 

Interesting I would like to here more before I decide.

 

Hitler himself admitted he did not understand much of the sea war. Anyway, the German navy was destroyed in 1918 so they had to built it all from the beginning , I think they were allowed to build new ships in 1935. And building a fleet takes a while so actually I think the Germans did a great work with the building of Bismarck and Tirpitz and the pocket battle ships.

Propaganda wise and militarily losing Graf Spee and Bismarck were big hits after which Hitler was even more careful and did not let the ships go much hunting, and after the failed sinking of a convoy Dec 1942 Raeder was kicked out/resigned and Hitler wanted the ships to be destroyed and turned the steel into planes and tanks. I think Dönitz managed to change Hitler´s mind on this.

Anyway, Hitler should have let Raeder to do his job and not interfere which seems to have been Hitler´s favourite hobby.

In order to challenge RN Kriegsmarine would have needed a lot more ships so probably the Germans should have concentrated in other ways like the subs if they wanted to rule the seas. Also I think they had rather good speedboats (?)

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWnavyG.htm

 

Keep them coming good read.

Kai-Petri are you referring to German E-Boats and the savage attack they carried out in 1944 Slapton Sands shooting up all those American GI's?

 

yes it is the Schnellboot arm a very succesful arm of the Kriegsmarine. The arm should of been enlarged greatly and the succession of newer boots built and pressed into service.

Operation Tiger seemed to be a victory for the S-Boot flotille taking part and so much so it was almost singled out for aerial attacks while the S-boots were in port before Normandie.

 

side note :

check this out

http://www.mikekemble.com/ww2/slapton2.html

I was honored in providing the German KM S-boot materials

E

 

The Forgotten Dead
By Ken Small

Yes I got that book it's in my queue of books for me to get around to reading, looking forward to that one.

 

good book

 

Erich any good books on the S-Boot flotille?

 

Depends actually............

the Freiburg ARchiv's has in brief the Flottille histories of all of them on all shores

Schnellboote by Volkmar Kuhn a classic

Schnellboot 1914-1945 by harold Fock, someitmes this comes in multi volumes, relased in English sometime ago, hard to find. more on the boat and teechnical matters.

E-Boat Threat by friend james Tent. this covers the disaster that befell the boats shored up in the French ports dueing Normandie, an interesting read

Schnellboote Vor ! operations in the Finnish coast during 42-43. In German propaganda camera and film crew with Hugo Bürger. One of the fienst wartime books with many rare pics and some colored ones as well. a phjoto album actually, produced during the war.

SOS manuals of some 30 to 125 pages run in the 1950's. All in German, some excellent first person short accts.
Die I. S-Boot Flottile # 57
Schnellboot S-42 # 99
Schnellboote vor ! die I. S-Flottille im Schwarzen Meer und S-Boot S-199 # 86

KM Schnellboote, warship pictorial # 15

Schnellboot in Action/squadron signal # 18: this is actually volume 1 of a 2 part series, the second volume will cover operations of the Flottilles and bios of RK winners. I will be personally involved in this work........

Die GEschicte Der 1. Schnellbootsflottille 1931-1945 in Bildern. Authored by DK winner GErhard Behrens. many rare fotos within, 172 pages and unfortunately OOP. this is a great find . Mine is signed by Gerhard

S-Boote, German E-boats in action 1939-45 by the French firm Histoire and Collections. English translated. An excellent volume, 175 pages, thick with pics, diagrams, boot profiles. A few errors but we can't have everything...

Die Deutschen Schnellboote im Zweiten Weltkreig, in German by noted KM author Gerhard Hümmelchen. the finest book written on the Kleine Boots. maps, first person accts, RK and DK winners listed, photos, great appences and listings of materials to further search. 257 pages a book that needs to be republished in ENGLISH ! thanks to friend and forum member Stevin O. for this fine work.

Several other much smaller pieces.

Gerhard H. also did a small Profile series booklet on the S-boot years ago and can still be found on e-bay from what I have heard. not sure just what the title is

WW2 photo album by Paul BEaver, E-boats and Coastal Craft. Long out of print but a nice littel companion booklet with pics and captions, 96 pages, produced by the defunct Aztex Corportaion

there are others of course, several printed out during the war years

 

Thanks Erich I shall check them out.

 

good info erich

 

As for the U-Boat issue I shall mention your views see what my mate makes of them let know.

 

U-boats were a huge waste of resources… there's no way you can just starve and defeat the world's greatest naval power, which in any case was receiving a lot of aid from the world's second greatest naval power, by just using submergible torpedo boats (the word 'submarine' is an euphemism).

As T. A. Gardner magnifficently mentioned in another thread, it was the German Admiralty's lack of vision and stupid conservatism what doomed the entire German naval effort. Admiral Raeder still thought in Jutland-like fleet versus fleet decisive battle (as did the Italian, French, American, Japanese and British admiralties in the 1930s, but to lesser extents). In 1939 the German surface fleet was to be laugh at when compared to the Royal Navy. In 1940, after the Norwegian disaster (when it was shown that the Kriegsmarine was not only smaller, but lacked the excellence of the British Navy), it was even in worse shape.

Admiral Raeder's lack of vision prevented the Germans from using one of their very, very few industrial advantages over the Western Allies: their naval ship-building methods were far more efficient and their iron production was greater than the British. If, instead of hundreds of U-boats and the Bismarck or Tirpitz, had the Germans built some four aircraft carrier groups (with their respective cruiser and destroyer escorts) and equipped them with their superior aircraft (Me-109s and Ju-87s), they could have achieved naval and air superiority over the North Atlantic in matter of 5 years, leaving the Royal Navy way behind.

 

I laugh every time someone mentions the Me-109 as a carrier aircraft.
Its possibly the worst aircraft that could be considered for the role.
With its narrow undercarriage, and vicious landing and take-off characteristics it was totally unsuitable for use in carrier operations in the Atlantic.

 

Aircraft Carriers now that's interesting after all it was now their time, Pearl Harbour 1941 Midway 1942 are just two examples, I wonder if England would have sat there and watched that one unfold?

 

Hi all my mate saw the posts he thinks England would have been knocked out the war if the U-Boats concentrated their strength only in the Atlantic.

Over to you.

 

why don't you have your mate come over to the forum's and join up instead of responding through you ............ what a concept.

It is quite obvious for the KM to have a balanced navy that it equip itself with more than U-booten and a/c carriers. the navy in itself was not on high-top priority with the Kleine Austrian Gift-zwerg so it simply floundereed on it's own een with some early competent leadership. By 1945 it was up to individual schiff Kommandeur's to exist almost on their own even with surrounding an able Flottille personell and equipment

 

Eric a bit tricky he's blind and does not have a PC.

The Navy was always in third place when it comes to money allocation.