Major Naval blunders of WW2; kept secret

[hammy]

What this is , is proof positive that Convoys work , even when the escort is less than the optimum size , the case up to mid 1942 or so .

..... Agree 100 pct ..... provided that the opponent is not reading your mail.


Byron

But they were reading it , weren't they . There's another lesson for us . Just because you know all about something , doesn't mean you can do anything effective about it .

Bit like the Crete thing ( same week as the Bismark ) Poor old Freyburg is getting a very clear picture of what is coming at him from information aquired through Bletchley Park's codebreakers , but with complete German air superiority over the island by day , and with the old Island road network ( tracks that an Appalachian moonshine brewer would think a bit difficult ) he cant move his forces around , so they end up in penny packets everywhere and he's strong nowhere .

[Byron Angel]

What this is , is proof positive that Convoys work , even when the escort is less than the optimum size , the case up to mid 1942 or so .

..... Agree 100 pct ..... provided that the opponent is not reading your mail.


Byron

But they were reading it , weren't they . There's another lesson for us . Just because you know all about something , doesn't mean you can do anything effective about it .

..... Mostly a bit of tongue-in-cheek.

It has been a while since I studied the sequence of periods during which one side was reading the other side's mail during the Atlantic U-Boat campaign, but I do recall that Allied convoys suffered their heaviest losses during the periods when the Germans were able to read UK naval and merchant codes and direct a concentration of subs against a compromised convoy. The consequences were most dramatic during the early period when escorts were numerically and technically weak - akin to delivering a herd of sheep to the wolfpack. Later in the war, Allied improvements in escort numbers, A/S technology, A/S experience and air coverage tactically nullified most of the benefits the Germans might have expected to gain from any intelligence breakthrough.

BTW, allow me to recommend a very good book covering the Canadian contribution to the A/S war:

"The U-Boat Hunters - The Royal Canadian Navy and the Offensive against Germany's Submarines", by Marc Milner; University of Toronto Press, 1994, ISBN 0-8020-0588-8.

A very fine piece of research and writing.


Happy New Year,

Byron

[lwd]

...
Dead right old boy , but you are reading the wrong lesson from this .
What this is , is proof positive that Convoys work , ....

But if they are working then Britain isn't all that close to defeat. Remember the quote that started this whole line is:

The U-boats did come close more than once to forcing Britain over the brink. ....

Now admittedly "close" is a rather subjective term but I simply don't see Britain any where near the point that they were discussing what terms to offer due to the effects of the U-boats.

[Paul L]

I have not heard good things about Clay Blair's "Hitler's U-boat War", but since I have not read it I will keep my lips sealed.

However just going on the post it refers to late 1942 to the end of the war. If you reference the Operations group 51 ASW study you will see this is the dividing line between success and failure in the Uboat war. Further the posting I made on the B-Deists work underlines the point that prior to 1943 the Germans cracked most allied codes especially the merchant marine codes, and were able to read the bulk of the messages up until that time. After this the bottom falls out as did the morale of the KM etc. So that period of the war is not of any interest to us. We are looking at the first half of the war, since thats the period where Germany has the most chance of 'winning' any war.

Like I said the evidence points to massive loss of world wide shipping capacity up until this point. Infact I was leafing through "The Oxford Companion to World War II" and their assement is even more bleak. They see the world wide drop from 40 million ton down to 28 million tons in this period. It would not take too much more to have pushed this down to 20 million tons which would have meant make or break for the UK. I suspect the situation would resemble Malta with survival beingd on when the next Tanker is able to reach the embattled island.

Finally I would point out that westerns make the mistake of reducing everything to strategic termsand then leave it at this level, when the Germans fought in operational terms. The difference is that while overall statistics of an annual capacity may not indicate a problem overall the month to mouth functioning may open doors to operational possiblities that ultimately are the events that accumulate to win or lose a war. You can have all the strategic advantages in supply munitions troops and armaments,but if you can't translate this into operational success you are stuck fighting a prolonged war of attrition.

[lwd]

... They see the world wide drop from 40 million ton down to 28 million tons in this period. It would not take too much more to have pushed this down to 20 million tons which would have meant make or break for the UK. ....

Not take too much more??? You are almost doubling the losses!!! And that's with the most negative assessment to date.

[Paul L]

... They see the world wide drop from 40 million ton down to 28 million tons in this period. It would not take too much more to have pushed this down to 20 million tons which would have meant make or break for the UK. ....

Not take too much more??? You are almost doubling the losses!!! And that's with the most negative assessment to date.

Such is the nature of sources. The 'Operations group' work is immediate post war analysis, while the 'Oxford Companion' is 2005 , so some time to improve the assessments.

[hammy]

Churchill is on record as saying that the only thing that really frightened him and made him doubt as to the Allies winning the War was the Atlantic Battle .
I'm no Winnie worshipper , he was a complete drama queen who spent a good deal of the time boozed up , but he is a key witness and knowledgeable in regard to naval technology and strategy , and I think you have to believe him when he says that was his view of the situation .

[lwd]

The Battle of the Atlantic was clearly an area of concern. There were times when it looked like the trend was very much in the wrong direction. However Britain's defeat was never imminent. IE if things had continued the way they were going several months or years Britain would have lost.

[Karl Heidenreich]

lwd:

The Battle of the Atlantic was clearly an area of concern. There were times when it looked like the trend was very much in the wrong direction. However Britain's defeat was never imminent. IE if things had continued the way they were going several months or years Britain would have lost.

How inminent (or not) it was is very hard to determine. But according to Winston Churchill the situation was critical when the U Boats reached their climax. The Germans were close to a victory in several episodes of the war and the allied powers were definetely worried about that.

[Bgile]

lwd:

The Battle of the Atlantic was clearly an area of concern. There were times when it looked like the trend was very much in the wrong direction. However Britain's defeat was never imminent. IE if things had continued the way they were going several months or years Britain would have lost.

How inminent (or not) it was is very hard to determine. But according to Winston Churchill the situation was critical when the U Boats reached their climax. The Germans were close to a victory in several episodes of the war and the allied powers were definetely worried about that.

Germany made two huge mistakes. One was invading Russia while Britain was still undefeated and defiant. The other was the alliance with Japan, which was inevitably going to force the US into the eventual "official" alliance with the UK against Germany.

[Karl Heidenreich]

Bgile:

Germany made two huge mistakes. One was invading Russia while Britain was still undefeated and defiant. The other was the alliance with Japan, which was inevitably going to force the US into the eventual "official" alliance with the UK against Germany.

I tend to agree, specially with the Japan`s alliance part. To be ally of the potential enemy of the world`s greatest industrial power is not that good a policy. Also not destroying or neutralizing Britain was certainily a mistake, which I tend to atributte more to Goering than to anybody else.

Best regards, Steve, and Happy New Year from your dissident friend!

[Bgile]

Best regards, Steve, and Happy New Year from your dissident friend!

Happy New Year, Karl!

[Gary]

Happy new year Karl and Bgile

[Karl Heidenreich]

Gary,

The best wishes for this 2010!

[alecsandros]

Interesting thread guys,

A happy 2010 to all of you!