Post by miletus12 on May 20, 2023 12:02:30 GMT
Going back to the topic, the Kriegsmarine had 57 U-boats is service in 1939, even with all the crews of those U-boats going back to port and convert to the Type XXI, wich i asume will take time, there will still be some 240 + Type XXIs that will not enter service for a while and will be good targets for the RAF to hit.
Unfortunately in 1939, even if the allies find out about those new boats and where they are Bomber Command isn't in any type of state to attack them.
Definitely it will take time to convert from existing boats to the type XXI - even assuming that the latter come with any instructions, manuals and the like. Let alone trying to get new ones constructed or even repairing any flaws or providing new spares.
a. It snorts.
b. It makes a LOT of noise, enough so that hydrophone equipped ships can hear it a hundred nautical miles off while it snorts. Attacks have to be made on the battery. It has about 3 hours fast maneuver on tha battery.
c. Since submerged attack speed was never more than 5 knots in that boat, (12 knots today because of limitations of hydrodynamics for D/E boats) it was still capable of dying at the hands of conventional WWII ASW tactics. The WWII Germanophiles do not mention this problem when they claim that the ONE Type XXI which staged a mock successful attack was supposedly able to penetrate a British convoy screen at the end of the war. THAT was well after hostile action was over, and it is NEVER MENTIONED that the British destroyers were closing in on that idiot, who almost got his crew killed. He sheared off and ran just before the British began their attack runs, so according to doctrine the British escorts returned to their stations and escorted their convoy out of the danger area.
The Type XXI had pattern runners and acoustics for torpedoes. The pattern runners were foxed by random maneuver, and the acoustics were foxed by noisemaker para vanes. Question: to answer, how good was the Type XXI in executing an American style sonar generated attack (1941) where a submerged boat launched a salvo of torpedoes blind into a convoy? This was the type of attack the Germans planned, since they expected a periscope popping up to bring a SQUID barrage immediately down upon them if they were within torpedo range. They would launch by sound and hope for strikes.
It does not work. The hit chances are extremely improbable with 1945 technology. 1947? Sure, the French and Americans develop wake-chasers that finally work. Then you shoot optically blind and the torpedoes chases into the screw wash despite noise maker para vanes.
And then you get the Americans working on the seawater battery and the acoustic torpedo even faster than they did old timeline.
FIDO might still take a year, but it will be out there. What will the Germans do then?