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Total rubbish. The Germans failed because the British and Canadians (with others) beat them.Originally posted by jetthelooter:
the germans failed because Doenitz demanded minute by minute updates and required his commanders to have constant contact and follow explicit orders. it didnt take rocket science to know where in general the uboats were in the atlantic by using RDF gear and concentrating ASW assets in those areas.
EDIT: The Germans had full knowledge of all the Atlantic convoys because of B-Dienst. The British radio intercept capability was far more limited.
2ndEDIT: The British knew when a U-Boat left port but not where it went thereafter.
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Total rubbish. The Germans failed because the British and Canadians (with others) beat them.Originally posted by jarmstroHX229:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by jetthelooter:
the germans failed because Doenitz demanded minute by minute updates and required his commanders to have constant contact and follow explicit orders. it didnt take rocket science to know where in general the uboats were in the atlantic by using RDF gear and concentrating ASW assets in those areas.
EDIT: The Germans had full knowledge of all the Atlantic convoys because of B-Dienst. The British radio intercept capability was far more limited.
2ndEDIT: The British knew when a U-Boat left port but not where it went thereafter. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
No, the Uboats failed cause the crew moral was low due to the lack of the 3 necessities for happy naval personel...
Booze, Women and Woman.
Seriously though, in point of fact, the majority of military historians will agree on the following points:
1) The war in the Atlantic was and continued to be in doubt until AFTER the Allies took the French ports where the Uboats were operating from.
2) When the uboat force was pushed back to operating from the German bases, while still an active and viable offensive military force, the transit to the shipping lanes through the north sea was considerably longer and much more difficult due to the heavier ASW patrols in these waters.
3) While the constant updates required by Doenitz was problematic when considering the RDF systems imployed by the Allies, Doenitz was also keenly aware that the ONLY hope he had at forcing the issue of the war in the Atlantic was to use the Wolfpacks.
4) The actual number of Uboats located and sunk using RDF was minimal at best. Unless the sub popped up and transmitted within 20 miles of a destroyer, by the time the ASW boys got to the location the some would have been long gone.
The only advantage the RDF systems offered was to give the convoy escorts an idea of where along the route to expect company.
5) Once a wolfpack had been set up to hit a convoy, only one sub transmitted between the pack and Uboat command. The others in the pack monitored and operated from a set of instructions relayed by the disignated pack leader.
Please note, this is the very same communication procedure used by ambush teams on the ground. Once you have your troops deployed, you were basically sending out target progress reports and the response from the ambush team is to key the handset.
Only after the ambush, either at sea or in the example I gave above, would anyone actually break radio silence to give a report.
AND NO UBOAT SKIPPER IS GOING TO DO THAT WHEN THERE IS AN ALLY ASW PLATFORM CLOSE ENOUGH TO USE THE RDF TO GET AN IMMEDIATE ATTACK SOLUTION.
In closing the Uboat war failed not because of lots of radio traffic, but because the Allies took the French ports they operated from.
In fact those ports and the crossbow sites were the high priority objectives for allied troops after D-Day.
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jif1961
Agreed. Although I think the writing was on the wall by mid 1943 probably. After that, Donitz really had no chance of getting enough boats to sea to force a descision.
I just can't understand why the British did not make an all out air effort to destroy the French sub bases prior to the Normandy landings?
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Bombs - very large concrete pens that took bombs like the tallboy Lanc delivered bomb to dent, I suspect. Not that many bombers available to deliver them - due to the sheer weight and size I bet you'd be restricted to Lancs, and possibly only some Lanc squadrons.... perhaps somebody knows if the Lanc bomb bay had to be modified to carry the Tallboy and Grand Slam bombs? (I suspect so). Anything less would probably bounce off the pens - so you'd perhaps have to target the surrounding docks and hope to do enough damage to slow up ops.I just can't understand why the British did not make an all out air effort to destroy the French sub bases prior to the Normandy landings?
There's also the question of how big a threat the U Boats were expected to be in the shallow waters of the channel, and were the navy confident they could hold any U Boat surge at bay if one appeared? Offset against that there was a lot of effort made to bomb the railway system to prevent reinforcement of the defences, reserve mobilisation etc in northern France - so I imagine it was decided that the railways were a higher priority.
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The 'B1 (Special)' Lancaster bomber could only carry one at a time and it had to be dropped from 22,000 feet (6700 m) which limited its accuracy.
The modifications were, removal of the bomb bay doors, making the area longer to hold the bombs and to enclose the area above the bomb.
Basically, these bombs were external ordinance.
Nor were they all that effective at knocking out sub pens.
They would go through the roof of the sub pen, but the construction of the pens actually limited thier effectiveness.
Please note, that even after the war, it was decided it was cost preventitive to dismantle these emplacements.
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Thanks for the very interesting replies and photo. That must be it. The pens were to all intents and purposes indestructible and the resources necessary were better justified elswhere.
Quite a few feeble bombing attempts were made but it's strange they never came up with anything novel to try such as a huge air launched torpedo or bouncing bomb (a la dambusters) to get inside the pens.
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