The German Navy builds submarines instead of battleships.

[Bgile]

If the German Navy builds submarines instead of the two battleships, do they win the North Atlantic battle, or can the British respond effectively?

If I were in charge I'd suspend the KGV program and build CVE's, but I don't know whether that would actually happen due to the British battleship culture and other factors.

[Karl Heidenreich]

Bgile:

Excelent thread!

I´ll say the German could have a great edge of winning prior summer 1941. But first of all, the assumption goes in the way that every resource of the Bismarck Class went directly to build ocean going U Boats and that they were in service September 1939...

Best regards

[dunmunro]

The RN needed the KGVs to counter the RM and IJN BBs, not to mention S&G. IIRC, the Anglo-German treaty limited KM sub building to equal the RN. Any move prior to 1939 to exceed the treaty limits would have been met with a strong RN response. The RN/RCN/Commonwealth was actually quite able to build escorts in large numbers, especially given a few years lead time.

[Bgile]

OK, so we are hypothesizing here that the Germans have to give up Bismarck and Tirpitz to make a substantial increase in U-boat constrution, and you think the British have the money in their defense budget and the building capacity to increase escort production significantly without giving up anything?

If so, why didn't they just (for example) triple the production of Spitfires in view of the German buildup of aircraft?

[Karl Heidenreich]

Bgile:

OK, so we are hypothesizing here that the Germans have to give up Bismarck and Tirpitz to make a substantial increase in U-boat constrution, and you think the British have the money in their defense budget and the building capacity to increase escort production significantly without giving up anything?

If so, why didn't they just (for example) triple the production of Spitfires in view of the German buildup of aircraft?

People think that allied countries behaved in peace as they did during warfare. The allies (GB+France) were the ones that, for not having a war against Germany, separated Chezcolovaquia and give it her to Hitler as a present. "Peace in our times" remember? Chamberlain was happy to see Hitler satisfied.
The Germans make plain evidence of their intervention in Spain and what did the allies did? Bomb Munich?
They did nothing.
The Germans, by 1939 were training the best army that had stood over planet Earth since the Romans, were manufacturing tanks, fighters and Battleships and what new defense program did the Great Britain had... KGV? Wow... They didn´t even reffited Hood properly, they sent it to fight Bismarck with a Dreyer Table and with a leaking hull....
If the Germans build 70 or 100 more subs Chamberlain would have done? Nothing. They only moved when the German Army was joy riding over Poland...

Best regards....

[dunmunro]

Bgile:

OK, so we are hypothesizing here that the Germans have to give up Bismarck and Tirpitz to make a substantial increase in U-boat constrution, and you think the British have the money in their defense budget and the building capacity to increase escort production significantly without giving up anything?

If so, why didn't they just (for example) triple the production of Spitfires in view of the German buildup of aircraft?

People think that allied countries behaved in peace as they did during warfare. The allies (GB+France) were the ones that, for not having a war against Germany, separated Chezcolovaquia and give it her to Hitler as a present. "Peace in our times" remember? Chamberlain was happy to see Hitler satisfied.
The Germans make plain evidence of their intervention in Spain and what did the allies did? Bomb Munich?
They did nothing.
The Germans, by 1939 were training the best army that had stood over planet Earth since the Romans, were manufacturing tanks, fighters and Battleships and what new defense program did the Great Britain had... KGV? Wow... They didn´t even reffited Hood properly, they sent it to fight Bismarck with a Dreyer Table and with a leaking hull....
If the Germans build 70 or 100 more subs Chamberlain would have done? Nothing. They only moved when the German Army was joy riding over Poland...

Best regards....

I wouldn't call this nothing:

http://www.sfu.ca/~dmunro/RNbuildup.pdf
http://www.sfu.ca/~dmunro/RNbuildup2.pdf

The idea that the UK gave away the Czechs at Munich might be true, but the idea that they were doing nothing was demonstrably false. The UK was building up the RN faster than all three axis powers combined, in a building surge that was greater than that before WW1.
Prewar the Canadian government had made proposals to buy more DDs from the UK, in exchange for the UK buying more escort ships from Canada, this was turned down, in part because the KM was restricted in its ability to build large numbers of u-boats. The Commonwealth was actually well positioned to build large numbers of low tech escort ships, and a move by Germany towards unrestricted u-boat construction would have been met with a vigorous counter by the Uk and Commonwealth. Germany could justify capital ships as a response to threats from France, Italy and the USSR, but u-boats, in large numbers could only mean an intended war with the UK and this would have caused great consternation throughout the Commonwealth - and a reply in accelerated numbers of ASW ships and aircraft.

[RF]

This needs to be put into perspective - not just more submarines but better submarines, that have faster underwater speed and can stay submerged longer. In other words development of the Electro-boot several years earlier than it was.

[lwd]

OK, so we are hypothesizing here that the Germans have to give up Bismarck and Tirpitz to make a substantial increase in U-boat constrution, and you think the British have the money in their defense budget and the building capacity to increase escort production significantly without giving up anything?...

My impression was that they were giving up some of and/or slowing down the construction of the KGVs. If they can come up with a way to quickly convert merchants to jeep carriers that would make a huge difference as well and could probably be done fairly cheaply if you are doing primarily ASW flight ops. IE an air group of around 12 Swordfish or equivalant.

[Bgile]

My impression was that they were giving up some of and/or slowing down the construction of the KGVs. If they can come up with a way to quickly convert merchants to jeep carriers that would make a huge difference as well and could probably be done fairly cheaply if you are doing primarily ASW flight ops. IE an air group of around 12 Swordfish or equivalant.

I agree that CVEs would be a good idea, but that was an idea which came into it's own much later in the war. The UK wasn't trying to build them pre war, so they might have just tried to produce more escorts. IMO the u-boat wasn't really defeated until the convoys could have air cover all the way across the North Atlantic.

[lwd]

Well if the Germans start a massive U-boat building program before the war I think the RN will take notice and adjust to at least some extent. Air cover was recognized as very useful from at least early in the war if not before. Witness the Cargo ships that could launch a single plane but not recover it. Given a bit more time some sort of quick conversion scheme could be developed for at least some cargo ships. Some of the planes which by most standards would be obsolete might work well in such a roll.

[Bgile]

There is one significant factor here which I hadn't thought of and that is the defective torpedo exploders.

I don't think the British would have built merchant carrier conversions because they didn't do that in the actual event.

Would additional escorts have posed a manning problem? I don't know about smaller escorts but a destroyer typically has a crew of several hundred men.

[lwd]

...I don't think the British would have built merchant carrier conversions because they didn't do that in the actual event....

Historically they didn't see the Germans conducting a massive prewar uboat building campaign. They also did do merchant conversions. The were either to armed merchant men or only capable of launching a single aircraft but given more time and planning I think it not unreasonable. It does depend on how big the German program is and when it's known.

[Bgile]

...I don't think the British would have built merchant carrier conversions because they didn't do that in the actual event....

Historically they didn't see the Germans conducting a massive prewar uboat building campaign. They also did do merchant conversions. The were either to armed merchant men or only capable of launching a single aircraft but given more time and planning I think it not unreasonable. It does depend on how big the German program is and when it's known.

Not what I meant. They didn't build them in 1942 or 1943 or 1944. They had lots of time after the war started and the u-boat threat became serious. The catapault on a merchant thing wasn't even close to being a substitute for a small carrier.

[Karl Heidenreich]

I wouldn't call this nothing:

http://www.sfu.ca/~dmunro/RNbuildup.pdf
http://www.sfu.ca/~dmunro/RNbuildup2.pdf

Those are 1939 papers, hardly a year before war starts. And they were bluffing: which BBs? Saint Andrews Class?

The allies were out manouvered by Hitler in the last half of the thirties. Great Britain didn´t even had enough fighters to fight the Blitz! How was that they were going to built a massive DD force? Aren´t there complete threads about Hood reffiting, for instance? What about Swordfish planes? They can hardly be called, even for 1939, high tech in air naval warfare... And have any of you remember something called "Lend Lease"... which meant that Great Britain was in need of vessels from other countries in order to fill their gaps for supplying the main island.
Remember, also, that Neville Chamberlain and the labor party was in power in GB, it was not Winston Churchill. Churchill and his advisers would surely recognize the menace of a U-Boat expanded building program and could have act in order to pre empt it. But not Chamberlain, who saw the German Army build up with his own eyes and still proclaimed that he brought "Peace in Our Times" to his people.
Hitler could have scratched the Bismarck Class building (even as a sign of good faith to his pal, Neville) and build a group of 100 U-Boats (to "compensate" in diplomatic terms) which could, added to the real existing ones, change the balance in the North Atlantic by 1940... even win the war against GB...

Best regards.

[dunmunro]

I wouldn't call this nothing:

http://www.sfu.ca/~dmunro/RNbuildup.pdf
http://www.sfu.ca/~dmunro/RNbuildup2.pdf

Those are 1939 papers, hardly a year before war starts. And they were bluffing: which BBs? Saint Andrews Class?

The allies were out manouvered by Hitler in the last half of the thirties. Great Britain didn´t even had enough fighters to fight the Blitz! How was that they were going to built a massive DD force? Aren´t there complete threads about Hood reffiting, for instance? What about Swordfish planes? They can hardly be called, even for 1939, high tech in air naval warfare... And have any of you remember something called "Lend Lease"... which meant that Great Britain was in need of vessels from other countries in order to fill their gaps for supplying the main island.
Remember, also, that Neville Chamberlain and the labor party was in power in GB, it was not Winston Churchill. Churchill and his advisers would surely recognize the menace of a U-Boat expanded building program and could have act in order to pre empt it. But not Chamberlain, who saw the German Army build up with his own eyes and still proclaimed that he brought "Peace in Our Times" to his people.
Hitler could have scratched the Bismarck Class building (even as a sign of good faith to his pal, Neville) and build a group of 100 U-Boats (to "compensate" in diplomatic terms) which could, added to the real existing ones, change the balance in the North Atlantic by 1940... even win the war against GB...

Best regards.

The RN buildup began in 1936, but was in full swing by 1938/39. It was a lack of pilots that was the limiting factor during the BofB, not aircraft, and the UK was outbuilding Germany in aircraft by mid 1940. Yes, the UK left rebuilding the fleet too late, but they did completely rebuild 3 BBs and one BC, they built 5 KGV,s and 7 fleet CVs and laid down 2 Lion class BBs, and planned 2 more which would have been completed by 1942, with no war. You are forgetting that the most cost efficient ASW ships were corvettes and frigates, and these were low tech designs that could be built rapidly, and Canada, alone built about 250 corvettes and frigates. It would be relatively easier for the RN/RCN to respond to increased u-boat construction, prewar, than increased BB production, since low tech ships could be built almost anywhere in the Commonwealth, and in large numbers, quite cheaply, but it is highly doubtful that any move by Germany to build large numbers of u-boats prewar, would not have met with a strong UK response. A UK that detected large numbers of u-boats under construction would have been far more likely to have gone to war in 1938 (in alliance with France and the USSR) rather than sign the Munich pact, for example, so part of Hitler's out maneuvering the Allies was keeping the UK complacent, by not building large numbers of u-boats.

The Swordfish was a radar equipped, all weather day/night strike bomber. Yes, it had low performance, but it got the job done and any existing monoplane design would have suffered greatly with a radar retrofit (Swordfish located Bismarck with radar in May 1941...), and would have been very difficult to fly off CVs in North Atlantic conditions. But the Swordfish was due for replacement with the Albacore, which entered production in 1939 and although it was also a biplane, it's actual, loaded performance was very similar to the existing Devastator and A5N, USN and IJN monoplane torpedo bombers.

Neville Chamberlain was a Conservative and headed a majority Conservative government but it included some Labour members, but the majority of seats in the House of Commons and cabinet were Conservatives.