Is it possible to beat British navy with planes and subs?

[lwarmonger]

I would also like to point out that Japan was largely beaten by submarines and aviation (that was what had forced what was left of her fleet south in 1944). I don't see how the Royal Navy was magically immune to airpower, especially as their admirals were especially cognizant about how effective airpower was at sinking ships. I'd say submarines defeat Britain by effectively severing her merchant marine. No more oil, no more Royal Navy.

 

[Secret Master]

I would get your point Secret Master if we were talking a 4 year war..but the problem is time is against Germany from the very start. So it's unlikely that Germany will even have long enough to inflict the damage they need to. I'm skeptical to the extreme that Britain would fold if the US entered the war.

Well, it wouldn't take four years to sink the British merchant marine if Germany had the u-boats up front.

It took a long time to wear down Japan, but the US didn't commit 300 submarines to a rotational schedule raiding shipping on all or most routes leading to Japan. The distances to Japanese ports and shipping routes were longer, so there were routes that were safer. British shipping routes are much closer to Germany, making it easier to poach shipping of all kinds. (Of course, it also means that as the Atlantic Gap closes, its easier to hunt submarines...)

The First Happy Time in 1940 (before HuffDuff and RADAR were making a huge difference) saw Germany sink 282 merchant ships in a four month period with far fewer submarines than the 300 Donitz had wanted prior to the war. Can you imagine the damage that could have been done in that same four month period if Germany had twice as many submarines? If they had fixed the dud torpedo problem completely by July of 1940? If there was less progress on naval ENIGMA in 1940? These three items (more subs, better torpedoes, better encryption) are all things you can do in the game to win, and they are also things historical Germany might have also accomplished (Donitz more than once complains that the dud torpedo problem should have been fixed sooner if certain engineers ashore had listened to submarine crews).

I should also point out that even Churchill feared the u-boat. Bombing and Sea Lion didn't keep him up at night, and Ghandi never scared him: "...the only thing that ever frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril." I'm not saying he would give up, but even Winston "We'll fight them on the beaches..." Churchill considered the u-boat a real threat. (Maximum fun is reading Donitz's memoirs and having Donitz quote Churchill's other statement that Germany should have bet everything on the u-boat.)

If Britain is facing an acute crisis in supplies and shipping by July of 1941, she is in a bad situation. If the British Isles themselves are bereft of resources and starving for even basic necessities by December of 1941, and she does not have the merchant marine to supply her overseas bases, then even US entry into the war isn't a magic bullet. The US will spend years Lend-Leasing crap to the British and spamming twice as many Liberty ships just to keep Britain afloat, instead of shipping over bombers and the assets for Overlord. This gives Germany more breathing room than she had historically.

If the US isn't in the war and Britain is starving for food and resources, there is also the possibility that Commons throws in the towel.

Note: I still don't think Germany can win the war, but we're talking about beating the British, not winning the war in this thread.

 

[GermanPower]

To me the British outta the war equates German victory. Soviets outta the war equates German victory. So my perspective instantly is we are talking about Germany winning the war. The Soviets may be able to win the war against Germany without British help but I doubt without lend-lease and huge consumption of the German Air Force and men in Norway, France and Other areas the Soviets would win.

But back on track..it'd be great if Germany had the issue of enigma delayed and huff duff postponed. So instead of arguing I'd rather ask something before I blather on.

Let's say you Secret or whoever have absolute power of the Kriegsmarine bar all time travel mumbo jumbo. What would you do personally to make the German navy more effective? Be it buillding or strategy..and try to not use hindsight. I ask this because I find it more relevant to the topic of how to defeat the RN. Then saying well if only huff duff wasn't going on and Engima wasn't around or they finished the torpedo problem off. I don't mean to be insulting..I just think its a cop out. Maybe it'd help me if basics were explained more by what you mean...I could be uninitiated.

Edit: End part sounded dickish and that wasn't my intention.

 

[lwarmonger]

Let's say you Secret or whoever have absolute power of the Kriegsmarine bar all time travel mumbo jumbo. What would you do personally to make the German navy more effective? Be it buillding or strategy..and try to not use hindsight. I ask this because I find it more relevant to the topic of how to defeat the RN. Then saying well if only huff duff wasn't going on and Engima wasn't around or they finished the torpedo problem off. I don't mean to be insulting..I just think its a cop out. Maybe it'd help me if basics were explained more by what you mean...I could be uninitiated.

Edit: End part sounded dickish and that wasn't my intention.

Here is the issue. Germany's pre-war priorities were as follows.

First, the Army. They needed a strong army to intimidate their immediate neighbors (Czechoslovakia and Poland), and then beat their short term enemy (France) and their primary enemy (Soviet Union).

Second, airpower. They needed a strong tactical airforce in order to support the goals described above.

Finally, last and least, is the Navy. This is needed to support peripheral operations and interdict British merchant marine, but ultimately of little use in defeating their opponents on continental Europe.

The issue here is this is a zero sum game. Resources that are going into building submarines and ships are not going into building up the Wehrmacht or Luftwaffe, both of which started the war far short of where they felt they needed to be. And in fact, the Wehrmacht as it was did have serious flaws. A few powerful striking divisions (and even those with mostly obsolete tanks) and some extremely good line infantry divisions that immediately followed them were vastly outnumbered by a massive quantity of underequipped and undertrained divisions that had been recently raised and hastily armed. Their enemies were in substantially worse shape mentally for the conduct of this war, but physically they had more than sufficient combat power on the ground to stop the Germans.

So lets say that we pour resources into having our 300 Uboats. That now means that Germany has far less equipment for their infantry and panzer divisions. Or far fewer aircraft. Perhaps Poland takes 12 weeks instead of 6 to defeat. Perhaps, even probably, France doesn't get beaten at all. So now having 300 Uboats is balanced by the fact that you no longer have ports in France to base out of or the resources of all of Europe pouring in to sustain your war effort. Germany planning ahead to win the Battle of the Atlantic as a key piece of strategy relies on their first winning the Polish Campaign, then the French Campaign... all of which we take as a given now because it happened, but certainly weren't in 1939 or 1940.

 

[Wraith11B]

Well, if they had done that, would they not postpone their ground offensives? I always think that building some of the big-ticket items up front outweighs building the army up initially anyways.

 

[Katarian]

I have snipped the quote down to save space.

Well, it wouldn't take four years to sink the British merchant marine if Germany had the u-boats up front.
...
The First Happy Time in 1940 (before HuffDuff and RADAR were making a huge difference) saw Germany sink 282 merchant ships in a four month period with far fewer submarines than the 300 Donitz had wanted prior to the war. Can you imagine the damage that could have been done in that same four month period if Germany had twice as many submarines? If they had fixed the dud torpedo problem completely by July of 1940? If there was less progress on naval ENIGMA in 1940? These three items (more subs, better torpedoes, better encryption) are all things you can do in the game to win, and they are also things historical Germany might have also accomplished (Donitz more than once complains that the dud torpedo problem should have been fixed sooner if certain engineers ashore had listened to submarine crews).

That assumes the British just ignore everything Germany are doing and carry on just as they did historically, and the British attitude to convoy protection in the interwar period was already pretty stupid after their experiences in WWI. If the Germans start correcting all their idiotic convoy raiding problems in 1936 why wouldn't the British start solving all their idiotic convoy protection problems?

 

[Axe99]

The First Happy Time in 1940 (before HuffDuff and RADAR were making a huge difference) saw Germany sink 282 merchant ships in a four month period with far fewer submarines than the 300 Donitz had wanted prior to the war. Can you imagine the damage that could have been done in that same four month period if Germany had twice as many submarines? If they had fixed the dud torpedo problem completely by July of 1940? If there was less progress on naval ENIGMA in 1940? These three items (more subs, better torpedoes, better encryption) are all things you can do in the game to win, and they are also things historical Germany might have also accomplished (Donitz more than once complains that the dud torpedo problem should have been fixed sooner if certain engineers ashore had listened to submarine crews).

Everything you say is (hardly surprisingly, you're sharper than a well-maintained katana ) true. However, as Katarian also says (but I'm going to say slightly differently, so posting rather than just agreeing), I'm always a little wary of the "if the [insert nation here] make all these changes then they can beat [insert enemy nation here] more easily". If anything, the pre-WW2 and WW2 period reinforces how nothing happens in a vacuum, and so any action by one nation is very likely to lead to some kind of reaction by another nation (particularly the one that sees them as an enemy).

The other issue is the "if [insert nation] had just fixed their [insert issue] problem", and assuming this would happen in a vacuum. If, for example, Germany had spent more effort on its torpedoes (and Germany had already spent more effort on its torpedoes than any other nation except Japan, as far as I've seen), then that effort isn't there to spend, for example, on its bomber or fighter program, or its tanks, or (more likely, given the inter-service rivalries) other elements of its submarine program. This is one of the reasons I like some of these counter-factuals dealt with in NFs rather than a tech tree, as the NFs tend to be designed a bit more along the lines of "OK, you can choose to have this, but now you don't have time/institutional capacity to do this other thing you wanted to". All nations during the war had their 'strong' and 'weak' areas, and generally speaking only had a certain amount of capacity for 'strength' across a certain range of areas. Giving Germany extra strength in three areas, while not adjusting the appropriate (as the capacity for strengths and weaknesses varied between nations due to pre-existing capacity, quality of institutions, conservativeness/'culture' of institutions and a bunch of other things) strength:weakness ratio for other nations, may not lead to plausible hypotheses about what would have occurred.

Of course, it's all counterfactuals, and just talking things out - feel free to take issue/ignore any/all of the above .

 

[Secret Master]

That assumes the British just ignore everything Germany are doing and carry on just as they did historically, and the British attitude to convoy protection in the interwar period was already pretty stupid after their experiences in WWI. If the Germans start correcting all their idiotic convoy raiding problems in 1936 why wouldn't the British start solving all their idiotic convoy protection problems?

Because the British assumed ASDIC solved those problems. They won't know any different until the shooting starts in 1939.

The real question you should be asking, though, is this one: If Britain knows Germany is building 300 u-boats, would she move to increase ships that can counter those u-boats?

The answer is probably yes. But I still think Donitz and Churchil are both right that the u-boat is the right answer.

Let's say you Secret or whoever have absolute power of the Kriegsmarine bar all time travel mumbo jumbo. What would you do personally to make the German navy more effective? Be it buillding or strategy..and try to not use hindsight. I ask this because I find it more relevant to the topic of how to defeat the RN. Then saying well if only huff duff wasn't going on and Engima wasn't around or they finished the torpedo problem off. I don't mean to be insulting..I just think its a cop out. Maybe it'd help me if basics were explained more by what you mean...I could be uninitiated.

Step #1: Do not build the surface fleet.
Step #2: Use those same resources to build submarines.
Step #3: Profit

That's as simple as I can make it. Raeder's plans for naval build up were the wrong answer for Germany in 1936, and Donitz's were right. No time travel necessary; just listen to a different navy guy.

So lets say that we pour resources into having our 300 Uboats. That now means that Germany has far less equipment for their infantry and panzer divisions. Or far fewer aircraft.

No.

If you get rid of the surface fleet, that frees up a ton of steel for use in submarines (not to mention crews).

Bismark weighs 41,700 tons dry (no fuel or ammo). A Type VII submarine weighs 769 tons surfaced. How many extra submarines could Germany get just out of Bismark and Tirpitz, never mind Graff Spee and the rest (let's also scrap ships like Graf Zepplin that did absolutely nothing)? Add to that the ease of construction (you don't need fancy drydocks and slipways to build submarines like capital ships), and you are not taking away resources from the army or air force.

 

[Joccend]

Bismark weighs 41,700 tons dry (no fuel or ammo). A Type VII submarine weighs 769 tons surfaced. How many extra submarines could get just out of Bismark and Tirpitz, never mind Graff Spee and the rest (let's also scrap ships like Graf Zepplin that did absolutely nothing)? Add to that the ease of construction (you don't need fancy drydocks and slipways to build submarines like capital ships), and you are not taking away resources from the army or air force.

Spoiler

 

[Pappnase]

To be fair, the pocket battleships were already ordered in the Weimar era, so the Third Reich basically inherited them.

So if you say "scrap the capitals, just build subs", this would have limited Germany's capabilities in other areas. No invasion of Norway, pretty much no control over the Baltic Sea vs. british or russian incursions. This would have greatly severed swedish resource shippings. Remember, these shippings were important enough to perform the Norway invasion on such a short notice. So i don't think it's safe to say that german capitals were good for nothing. At least they enabled control over sea lanes in their own backyard, and losing those would have really hurt Germany's war effort.

 

[Axe99]

Because the British assumed ASDIC solved those problems. They won't know any different until the shooting starts in 1939.

The real question you should be asking, though, is this one: If Britain knows Germany is building 300 u-boats, would she move to increase ships that can counter those u-boats?

The answer is probably yes. But I still think Donitz and Churchil are both right that the u-boat is the right answer.

I agree about the second and third paragraph, but I'd be very surprised if someone in the UK didn't see Germany building all those u-boats and think "hang on, they know we have ASDIC, and they're still building u-boats, what do they know that I don't?" and look into it further. This is what I mean about the potential pitfalls of assuming that one nation (Germany in this case) assumes differently, but that this assumption has no impact on the approach of its enemy. There are a heap of examples of reactive technology based on enemy builds (or suspected builds) - I'd expect an expanded u-boat program would have lead to both more destroyers and greater refinement of ASDIC and ASW in response, or at the very least some 'anti-establishment' research that could be relatively quickly adopted when conservative elements realised the issue.

 

[Katarian]

Because the British assumed ASDIC solved those problems. They won't know any different until the shooting starts in 1939.

The real question you should be asking, though, is this one: If Britain knows Germany is building 300 u-boats, would she move to increase ships that can counter those u-boats?

The answer is probably yes. But I still think Donitz and Churchil are both right that the u-boat is the right answer.

Mainly I was trying to say of course the German convoy raiding is going to far more effective if you fix every technical, tactical, and strategical error and mistake and you assume the British just carry on blindly ignoring their issues.

If the Germans increase their subs by X amount from the historical level to 300 U-boats, what would the British do? Increase their overall output of convoys and convoy protection by X amount as well? So they start the war with more merchant ships and more destroyers, corvettes, frigates, etc... with better ASW capabilites. Actually test out ASDIC to see how well it works operationally? Actually develop some convoy escort tactics beyond form up a convoy and give them some escorts?

That is exactly what I do when I am playing HoI as the UK.

 

[Denkt]

Submarines can be very effective if the enemy do not take many countermessures against them such as the Japanese navy, but if countermessures are used against them they are much less effective,

Submarines should not be used to hunt warships, sure you may get lucky sometimes but like Japanese use of submarines show, submarines are much better left attacking weakly protected convoys.

I don't think numbers are as important as USA did alot with rather few submarines, what is important is the right situation and building more submarines may just encourage more countermeasures from your enemy.

A good strategy is to use many differen't kinds of raiders. A submarine is weak against destroyers but destroyers are weak against heavy cruisers so if you use both submarines and heavy cruisers you force the enemy to invest in several differen't ships.

 

[shri]

@Secret Master has already provided a wonderful postulation, it is not only the Tirpitz and Bismarck and those 2 carriers it was also the H-41 BB's which were planned, altogether nearly 150000+ Tons of Steel and other raw material and over 4000 or so trained crews became a total waste.
type VII had some 4 officers and 40+ crew, and weighed approx. 800 tons, this means a 200 subs can be built using all that Steel and 100 of them can be manned by those same crew.
This extra 200 Type VII in 1939 means that Germany had 5 times more Type VII subs and resulting increase in convoy destruction.

 

[Gort11]

Thing is, though, if Germany doesn't build any surface threats for the Royal Navy and instead puts everything into submarines, what stops the British from just building destroyers instead of larger ships? Destroyers break submarines in half, literally.

I'm with Denkt - if you want to beat the Royal Navy as Germany you need to invest in surface ships as well as submarines so the British can't just hard-counter you with massive quantities of destroyers.

 

[lwarmonger]

No.

If you get rid of the surface fleet, that frees up a ton of steel for use in submarines (not to mention crews).

Bismark weighs 41,700 tons dry (no fuel or ammo). A Type VII submarine weighs 769 tons surfaced. How many extra submarines could Germany get just out of Bismark and Tirpitz, never mind Graff Spee and the rest (let's also scrap ships like Graf Zepplin that did absolutely nothing)? Add to that the ease of construction (you don't need fancy drydocks and slipways to build submarines like capital ships), and you are not taking away resources from the army or air force.

Ok, so then you prioritize the interdicting merchant marine and reduce the capability for peripheral operations.

I'd also argue that requires a degree of foresight that really does operate from hindsight. Just because we know battleships were obsolescent now doesn't mean that any institution was willing to go all in on that assumption. And for those of you who will (rightly) point out that there were people saying that prior to this timeframe, I would point out that there were people saying that armies and navies were irrelevant because the bomber would always get through, or people who said that nukes made aircraft carriers unnecessary in the 40's and 50's, or people today saying tanks aren't necessary because we will never fight tank on tank again... there are always people arguing for extreme solutions to new problems posed by technical advances. The problem is, most of them are wrong. Picking the ones that are right ahead of time is very hard, which is why institutions normally try to find a middle solution.

I'd say that is ultimately the solution to players doing unrealistic things that paradox will never implement because it would make too many players unhappy. Place a similar set of constraints on players that actually exist for real governments. Your institutions have priorities of their own, and are imperfect ways of enforcing your will, and have their own momentum. You can't simply stop building battleships and put it all into carriers or submarines, because nobody who is involved in making it happen wants it to.

 

[Jeremy971]

And what about mixed fleet ?

For instead, one carrier full of interceptors to prevent ennemy carrier to sink your battleship, 3 or 4 battleships and screens.

I've never tried this composition in HOI3 but with the new options with CAG, it's possible to have 70 interceptors and fight against an ennemy with 3 carriers having 20 interceptors.

It's just an idea ?

 

[Katarian]

@Secret Master has already provided a wonderful postulation, it is not only the Tirpitz and Bismarck and those 2 carriers it was also the H-41 BB's which were planned, altogether nearly 150000+ Tons of Steel and other raw material and over 4000 or so trained crews became a total waste.
type VII had some 4 officers and 40+ crew, and weighed approx. 800 tons, this means a 200 subs can be built using all that Steel and 100 of them can be manned by those same crew.
This extra 200 Type VII in 1939 means that Germany had 5 times more Type VII subs and resulting increase in convoy destruction.

Where, when and how are Germany going to build 200 more Type VII before 1939? They save all that steel and crew but that doesn't mean they can just switch and build a shed load of subs really quickly. obviously HoI lets you do that in the interests of fun rather then the soul crushing realism of the actual logistics and politics involved.

If you think that is possible then what if the British don't build their new battleships and build Convoys, Destroyers, Corvettes, Frigates, Escort Carriers, better planes, etc...

 

[Kovax]

Germany still needed to build some sort of viable surface threat, otherwise the UK could focus its efforts on ASW, aircraft, tanks, and artillery. The Bismarck served as a major threat, and the UK was concerned enough to invest in more Battleships to counter it. Tirpitz, along with the last one or two heavy cruisers and any serious effort on following ships, could probably have been relegated to the back burner. The mere existence of those projects (and some work on the basic shells with little or no actual armor plate added) would still make it appear that the UK needed to counter it, while most of the more valuable materials and effort went into a significant expansion of the submarine program.

The results would probably not have been decisive, but likely much better than having two large capital ships instead of one as "threats in being", and not doing much else. Of course, Epimetheus gets no credit elsewhere, but in war history circles he absolutely trounces his more popular sibling.

 

[Secret Master]

I'd also argue that requires a degree of foresight that really does operate from hindsight.

Of course, Epimetheus gets no credit elsewhere, but in war history circles he absolutely trounces his more popular sibling.

Not quite.

I'm not advocating anything that Donitz wasn't advocating before the war. I understand that is appears to be hindsight, but even looking at the stupidly ambitious plans Germany created for naval expansion included input from Donitz that asked for far more submarines. Sure, Plan Z was kind of a pipe dream given German economic limitations in the pre-war era, but that 300 submarine number before the shooting starts isn't mine. It's Donitz.

Instead of it being hindsight, it's closer to "Hitler should have listened to viewpoint Y instead of viewpoint Z when formulating German naval strategy in the 30s." And Donitz wasn't a homeless man yelling about submarines and conspiracy theories on the side of the road, either.

Now, I do understand that Bismark and Tirpitz served other purposes besides actually sinking enemy ships. And yes, Britain could easily switch building tactics and focus on ASW instead of building more battleships. This is why I don't think going for full submarines actually wins the war for Germany. But I do think it is a more efficient way to fight the war. Britain still need some new battleships and carriers even without the German surface fleet, since Britain has Japan and Italy to think about.

As for securing the Baltic, I am not sure Germany needs to actually do that beyond some destroyers to sink Soviet submarines (which did exist). If Germany is actually at war with the Soviet Union, the winning move is to secure the Baltic coastline and Leningrad, rending any Soviet naval assets in the region largely irrelevant. Once the Baltic is secured this way, with some destroyers around to sink Soviet submarines acting as hold outs, the Baltic can be used to ship stuff to the army through Leningrad. But you don't need capital ships to do any of this.