German strategic blunders

Yup hitler plenty of careless mistakes the blitz,barberossa,ignoring rommle about dday he had experince fighting the allies and know every ally tactics from africa.

 

A major German mistake was the lack of an aircraft carrier and the lack of a long range bomber.

The Ju-88 and He-111 were good but having a bigger, longer-range bomber would have had such a devastating effect both in England and Russia that it may have changed the outcomes of both fronts.

Plus, having an aircraft carrier would have allowed more bombardment of England AND allowed for German influence in the Atlantic or Pacific.

Granted with limited resources these things were not entirely possible.

 

The idea of an aircraft carrier being incorporated into the Kreigsmarine is a pipe dream. Not just building one, but training aircrew and the crew of one was far beyond the capabilities of the Nazis. They simply started into the "game" too late to catch up. The Japanese were far advanced, but even they fell to the Americans inside of six months of war. And the Brits were the "teachers" in this field, everybody learned from them, we Americans included.

Like submariners, these are special crews in carriers. The pilots, the planes, and the deck crews. You cannot just have them "poof" into existence because you build a carrier. It takes years to perfect that "system", and pilots of exceptional skill. Not saying the Germans didn't have pilots of that skill level, but they didn't have the time to perfect that particular craft.

 

Very true, I heard they had a carrier in planning but scrapped it. Probably to concentrate more on the U-boats.

It's interesting to think that instead of concentrating on these things, Hitler would rather train SS men to win his race war. If Hitler wasn't so determined to destroy the Russian population (or any other population), maybe he could have focused more on the actual war. Just my 1 cent.

 

I geuss it is safe to say germany built some of the most advance submarines in ww2? They had subs in prototype stage that were quiet advance for their time but I could be wrong. The japanese built some pretty good subs but never used them properly.

 

It is safe to say this is incorrect. They had a couple of designs which were proven to be terrible when taken out of the prototype stage. The huge Japanese subs were interesting, but useless in the long run for what they were designed to do, i.e. be submersible air-craft carriers. They were big, they had long range, but they couldn't do the job they were designed for.

The best operational sub of WW2 was without doubt the Gato Class of the USN, long range, reliable, and deadly (once the torpedo problems were solved).

 

I am not a naval master so idont relly Know much about this stuff but I some stuff tho like wolf pack ect.

 

True, and this applies not only to training and doctrine, but basic carrier design, as well. The German design for the Graf Zeppelin was, to be charitable, quaint.

Not quite. The Japanese were about on par with the Americans but a bit behind in some technical design areas, like carrier survivability, and sensor technology. They also found that their operational doctrine needed tuning, and as Admiral Nagano said after the war, "We learned from the Americans." The British had lost their lead in carrier aviation and operation around 1930 because there was no group of naval aviation officers to champion naval aviation, thanks to the RAF taking over the Fleet Air Arm. The experience of the BPF late in the war showed just how badly British carrier aviation had deteriorated when compared to it's American and Japanese counterparts.

The main reason a German carrier made no sense was geography.

The only place a German carrier could operate with any hope of success was the Atlantic. But to get there, it would have to pass through the same gauntlet that The Bismarck and every other German raider had to run. In other words it would most likely have to fight a major battle just to get to it's operational area, and once there, there were no bases, other than those in France, to which it could turn for replenishment, repair, and refit. Therefore, a German carrier would be subject to British air attack coming and going, and this would present an impossible operational and logistical handicap to any significant operations in the Atlantic. Beyond that considerable drawback, even if it managed to break out into the Atlantic, the RN would be waiting with overwhelming superiority in every catagory of warship and the probability is that the GZ and it's escorts would be destroyed before it could accomplish much.

 

German submarine technology in WW II was a mixed bag. Their subs could dive deeper than any others until the very end of the war when US thick-hulled Fleet subs began to match them. German torpedo fire control technology was good but only about on par with the American Torpedo Data Computer (TDC). German optics produced just about the best periscopes of the war, although later war US periscopes weren't far behind.

However, German subs were not really well designed for the tasks they were asked to accomplish in the Atlantic. They were too short legged for patrolling the North Atlantic; The Type VII, the workhorse of German subs during the war, needed about double it's nominal range to adequately patrol the North Atlantic. The Type IX had enough range, but Donitz considered them too large, clumsy, and too slow to dive to be useful in the wolf pack attacks. During the war there were actually instances when German subs ran out of fuel and drifted around o the surface until another sub could transfer fuel to them. The Germans were forced to build U-boat tankers in order to use the Type VII's in the furthest reaches of the Atlantic; this requirement severely hampered the U-boat operations throughout the war.

Both types were plagued with diesels that frequently broke down under heavy use, and all German sub batteries were too fragile, often being shattered by depth charges and causing the sub to be lost. Crew habitability was very poor, degrading crew efficiency and performance, especially when German subs were forced, by Allied aircraft patrols, to use a snorkel device.

Probably the worst failure was the inability of the Germans to produce reliable search radars for the U-boats. This was partially the result of an erroneous radar doctrine which held that radar shouldn't be used because it would give away a vessel's presence, but it also meant that U-boats were forced to use excessive radio communications to coordinate convoy attacks. Unknown to the Germans, radio communications betrayed the sub's position even more readily than using radar would have done.

Contrary to what most people think, the German sub developments at the end of the war were not practical; the Type XXI was poorly designed and had many flaws which made it's use in combat very unlikely. And the Type XXIII was two small to have any effect; it carried only two torpedoes, with no reloads and it's range was such that it could barely patrol the North Sea adequately. The Walther boat used a technology that was tactically unsound because the hydrogen peroxide was not renewable at sea. Moreover, Germany could not produce enough hydrogen peroxide to support a fleet of Walther boats. After the war, the Walther principle was recognized as unsound and was not pursued by any of the world's major navies.

WW II Japanese subs had long range and high surface speed going for them, and used probably he best submarine torpedo of the war, but were too large, dove too slowly, had very primitive torpedo FC, and sensors that were, at best, inadequate. Japanese subs also generally were not able to dive as deep as American and German subs. They probably could have accomplished much more except that Japanese strategic doctrine held that submarines were adjuncts of the battle fleet and should support the fleet's combat operations. The USN had the same attitude prior to the war, but quickly abandoned it when it became apparent that subs were too limited in speed to fight with the fleet.

 

I worded that rather clumsily, and the intent of the sentence was lost as a result. I was comparing the Japanese to the Nazis efforts in that field. They were far advanced as compared to the Kreigsmarine, and only (as you mention) about on a par with the USN in some areas inferior.

As an Axis power they were the leaders in naval aviation is what I meant to convey. Opps, once again my failure to proof read and "hear" what I typed out led to my confused wording.

 

The Japanese were indeed the leaders in carrier aviation among the Axis powers; in fact, they were the ONLY Axis navy to build and operate big carriers. The Germans did send a team of designers to Japan to study Japanese carrier design and practice, but for some reason, they didn't seem to absorb much. For example, the compressed air catapult launch system the Germans saddled the Graf Zeppelin with had no counterpart in the Japanese Navy or any other navy, for that matter. It was slow, awkward, and severely restricted both the offensive and defensive capabilities of the GZ. It's difficult to imagine what the Germans were thinking when they adopted it.

The design flaws inherent in the GZ design, coupled with a lack of experience in carrier operation and doctrine, the ad hoc nature of the GZ's air group, and the profound disadvantages imposed by Germany's geographic situation, rendered the GZ's prospects of any kind of success extremely dubious.

 

Interresting point, but what do you base this on? Lack of resources? If the decision to invade Russia had not come, Germany could have focussed more heavily on the Med/Middle-East/North-Africa theatres, reaping the benefits from the Middle East.

 

Most notably natural resources like oil and gas. If the Germans had been able to drive the British from the middle east, the allied war production would have suffered. I may be wrong, this isn't really my area.

 

This has been discussed here for quite a bit in the past. The wells in the Mid East by this time had not been tapped, so there was no oil. Ethiopia on the other hand...

Then there is a question of how to transport of course...


Simply not possible.

 

Well you are incorrect, and allied war production wouldn't have batted an eye if the Nazis had taken the middle east, but that is excusable in this case without doubt. If you haven't read about or studied the area you might think that the middle east really was a player in the petro-world and always had been. The Persian Gulf was not nearly as significant an oil producer from 1939-1945 as it is now. In 1939, the US accounted for 60.4% of global petroleum production, and Latin America another 15.3%.

This shows that more than three quarters of the world's petroleum production was in the western hemisphere. The USSR accounted for a big chunk of the remainder, 10.6%. The rest is taken up by these areas.

Iraq & Persia (Iran) combinded; 5.4%.
the NEI (Dutch East Indies); 2.7%.
Romania; 2.4%.
the British Empire excluding Iraq and Persia; 2.0%

The Arabian and North African fields had mostly not been found nor developed. UK imports of petroleum early in the war were running around 11-12 million metric tons however. About half of this could be satisfied from internal Empire sources (mostly Malaysia, Burma, and perhaps British Borneo, as far as I know.) Latin America meant (then) Venezuela, I believe, but probably also included the Dutch Antilles (e.g., Aruba).

After June of 1940, they British Pacific holdings could surely could get as much as they wanted of the NEI production. But the US is a lot closer to the UK, and they can get high quality refined product from there, so they probably got as much as they could afford from the US. NEI = Borneo, and possibly Sumatra produced some, as well. Those areas were overrun by Japanese in early 1942.

These are British holdings/colonial production numbers from:

Atlas of the Second World War edited by John Keegan:

In 1941, 1942, 1943, 1944 (barrels of oil per year):

Persia (Iran) : 8 million, 10 million, 11 million, 15 million
Iraq : 3 million, 4 million 5 million, 5 million
Egypt: 1 million, 2 million, 2 million, 2 million
Saudi Arabia: 1 million, 1 million, 1 million, 3 million

British empire oil not mentioned I presume would include North Borneo, as I am unaware of any other locations producing oil inside the Empire. Nigeria wasn't a producer then.

Note that all the figures above equals 98.8%, thus this covers essentially the entire world. Saudi Arabia, Gulf States, Libya, North Sea (all those places that are big producers now) were nothing back then.

Do you notice that even those mid-east millions of barrels of oil from '39-'44 were a "drop in the bucket" compared to the oil (both crude and refined) which the UK received and used from the "Americas" (Canada included). All production combined from the mid-east from 1939 to 1944 doesn't even equal the oil production of even Venezuela for some single years in that time frame.

Between 85/90% of Britain's oil used on the home islands during the war came from the western hemisphere. Even tiny Venezuela was one of the world's leading exporters of crude oil from after "The Great War" (WW1) to post-Korean "conflict", when they fell slightly behind the mid-east states.

If you wish to convert barrels to tons, then remember that a gallon of light sweet crude weights in at 7 pounds per gallon.

The standard bbl of oil is measured in 42 gallon sizes, not 55 gallon sizes. This 42 gallon corresponds to the 35 imperial gallons originally used to ship salted fish, and made the standard size a LONG time ago, and adopted by the US petroleum industry in the 19th Century when we (America) were setting the petroleum supply standards.

So if you figure a standard barrel of crude is 42 gallons (US), and sweet light crude weighs 7 pounds per, then a barrel equals 294 pounds (not counting the container). A short ton (used in this field is 2000 pounds), an English, or metric ton (not widely used in the petro-world) is 2,204 pounds). Using those standard petro-numbers, a short ton of oil is 6.802 barrels of crude

For the UK, British Isles oil imports in 1939 were as follows:

46.2% - Caribbean - mainly Venezuela, but includes Trinidad and Mexico
30.8% - Middle East - Persia (Iran), & Iraq
19.2% - US
(the rest came from Rumania)

Then with Italy entering into the war in mid-1940, and the Central Med. became a war zone, middle east oil became more expensive since it had to be shipped around the Cape. In consequence by 1942, no middle east oil was sent to the home islands, both Persian and Iraqi oil production/refining was scaled back short term (civil unrest didn't help), and that which was produced was used "in house", i.e. the MTO and the CBI, especially after the loss of the Far East oil producers; NEI, Burma, Borneo and Malaya to the Japanese. So this is the picture for UK petroleum by 1942:

60.0% - US,
40.0% - Trinidad, Venezuela and Mexico (Rumanian oil purchases stopped in 1940, but they had accounted for only 4.2% of British imports that year)

By 1944, 79% of Britain's oil imports would be from the US; 21% from the Caribbean, as those sources could be shipped cheaper. The Suez Canal have been of no import to the UK for supplying the home islands (they had been shipping over 85-90% of all goods around the Cape since the opening days of the war), since Italy was holding Ethiopia and "air-patrolling" the southern entrance to Suez only warships and supply ships for the troops in Egypt used the canal, the UK didn't receive any substantial percentage of their oil from their holdings in the mid-east after 1940.

The British Isles themselves got most of their oil and petro-products for most of the war from the US, still the world's leading oil exporter at the moment. The US supplied (from our own fields) nearly 75% of all the oil and its products used by ALL the western allies for the entire war.
How very different the petro-world was then!

 

Interresting that the US had such a large production at the time in contrast to the rest of the world. i had no idea the ME had little value at the time, my mistake.

 

In comparing the Gato's to the VIIC's and IX's one must consider that the Gato's are almost twice the size of the VIIC's therefore one can really only compare the Gato's to the IX's which I think still dived faster and had much longer range.

 

Not really.

The Type VII's could generally crash dive in about 30 seconds as a rule. The US Gato/Balao class Fleet boats could usually crash dive in 34-35 seconds, or less. The Type IX boats struggled to get under in less than 45 seconds, and once under water were far less maneuverable than either the Gato/Balao class or the Type VII's.

The Type VIIC's range was 6,500 NM at 12 knots, the Type IXC's range was 11,000 NM at 12 knots. The range of the Gato/Balao class was between 11,000 and 12,000 NM at 10 knots (later boats in the class had slightly larger bunkerage tanks). But Friedman states in his US Naval Design History series (Submarines, Vol.1), that it was common practice for US submarines to have their ballast tanks refitted so that they could carry fuel oil in them, giving US Fleet boats a range of 16,000 miles or more.

Essentially, the only thing that the German U-boats could do better than the US Fleet boats was dive deeper. This was true only until the thick-hulled Fleet boats made their appearance in mid-1943. The test depth of later fleet boats was officially set at 600 feet, but the USN deliberately set the test depth well above the actual designed crush depth which Friedman states was something like 1,200 feet. Freidman implies that US boats routinely operated below 600 feet but that the skippers denied this in their patrol reports to avoid censure for going below official safe depth.

 

Bruce,
I was thinking about the IXD2's as very long randed subs.