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Post by boomboomf22 on Aug 15, 2018 1:11:34 GMT -6
Me, I just want to build a submarine aircraft carrier like I-400 or a submarine cruiser like surcouf
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 15, 2018 9:56:18 GMT -6
Me, I just want to build a submarine aircraft carrier like I-400 or a submarine cruiser like surcouf I agree, for some nations it would be beneficial to have such a ship. I hope its available.
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Post by jeb94 on Aug 15, 2018 13:26:12 GMT -6
Submarines really matured during this time leading up to the type XXI. Of course, it wasn't the highly advanced U-boat that launched the single most destructive torpedo spread ever fired by a submarine. That distinction belongs to this boat: Attachments:
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 15, 2018 13:46:55 GMT -6
Submarines really matured during this time leading up to the type XXI. Of course, it wasn't the highly advanced U-boat that launched the single most destructive torpedo spread ever fired by a submarine. That distinction belongs to this boat: Yup, one salvo sank the Wasp, O'Brien and hit the North Carolina- not bad for one salvo. Dumb luck, I think.
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Post by christian on Aug 23, 2018 8:30:11 GMT -6
the type xxi was surprisingly advanced featuring not only homing torpedoes 2 days of battery life and faster than its surface speed it also had an autoloader for the torpedoes and was surprisingly stealthy because of its shape and could dive deeper than other submarines at the time it was basicaly a 1950s sub in 1945
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Post by Deleted on Aug 23, 2018 9:06:05 GMT -6
the type xxi was surprisingly advanced featuring not only homing torpedoes 2 days of battery life and faster than its surface speed it also had an autoloader for the torpedoes and was surprisingly stealthy because of its shape and could dive deeper than other submarines at the time it was basicaly a 1950s sub in 1945 Yeah, and in time when most subs could make maximally 10kts or less while submerged, this could go almost 18kts. Thats even more than its surface top speed.
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Post by bcoopactual on Aug 24, 2018 22:22:52 GMT -6
Yeah but they got a whole what, one patrol out of the XXIs they managed to put together? It's a technological marvel maybe but you don't win wars with prototypes. I'll take a fleet of good subs like the American Gato through Tench boats over a handful of wonder-subs.
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Post by aeson on Aug 25, 2018 19:28:31 GMT -6
Personally, I don't think that the Type XXI was all that impressive for the period. What makes the Type XXI different, important, and so seemingly-impressive is that it was designed primarily for submerged rather than surfaced performance and endurance, unlike the overwhelming majority of its contemporaries and predecessors. Essentially, it's one of the first submarines which was designed as a 'true' submarine rather than as a submersible.
Incidentally, Britain built a submarine for the First World War which was capable of about 14 knots submerged - the R class, which if I'm not mistaken was also the first submarine designed for hunting other submarines.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 25, 2018 19:38:02 GMT -6
The estimate is that two type XXI U-boats cost the German's 5000 tanks and that could have saved the Eastern Front. I think the German's placed too much faith in technology and forgot the famous saying that "God fights on the side of the bigger battalions". I don't believe the German's had sufficient time and resources to properly test out the Type XXI U-boat. They might have been able to perfect it more if they had. They might be a lesson for war gaming.
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Post by boomboomf22 on Aug 26, 2018 7:32:12 GMT -6
The estimate is that two type XXI U-boats cost the German's 5000 tanks and that could have saved the Eastern Front. I think the German's placed too much faith in technology and forgot the famous saying that "God fights on the side of the bigger battalions". All I can say difinitivly is thank God that the Germans in WW2 can be summarized with the words: "massive inificiency, duplication of effort, reliance on wunderwaffen, and overwhelming levels of institutional infighting" Personally I love learning about WW2 and tend to gravatate towards the German side from an info perspective, but I am glad on many levels that I am not a wehraboo
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 26, 2018 8:49:27 GMT -6
The estimate is that two type XXI U-boats cost the German's 5000 tanks and that could have saved the Eastern Front. I think the German's placed too much faith in technology and forgot the famous saying that "God fights on the side of the bigger battalions". All I can say difinitivly is thank God that the Germans in WW2 can be summarized with the words: "massive inificiency, duplication of effort, reliance on wunderwaffen, and overwhelming levels of institutional infighting" Personally I love learning about WW2 and tend to gravatate towards the German side from an info perspective, but I am glad on many levels that I am not a wehraboo I think that the problem with the German's was, as in WW1, a lack of planning about how the war was going to proceed. Both they and the Japanese planned for a quick war and that did not happen, so they had to move to a war footing in their economic planning. They also had a poor Minister of Armament and War Production until Albert Speer took office. After that, things started to move ahead properly. I suspect that this kind of mistake can happen in war games.
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Post by axe99 on Aug 26, 2018 16:03:06 GMT -6
The estimate is that two type XXI U-boats cost the German's 5000 tanks and that could have saved the Eastern Front. I think the German's placed too much faith in technology and forgot the famous saying that "God fights on the side of the bigger battalions". I don't believe the German's had sufficient time and resources to properly test out the Type XXI U-boat. They might have been able to perfect it more if they had. They might be a lesson for war gaming. I suspect that quote is a little unfair, and might be better phrased as "the Type XXI program" (or, at the very least, would be a more useful quote if it talked about the program as a whole) - Germany had scores of Type XXI's partially completed, and others working up with some more in Norway very close to ready to go on patrol. One of the big issues they had was the bombing of production centres and transport infrastructure (the Type XXI was built using different components, which sped up manufacturing but also meant that construction needed to be transported around a country whose infrastructure was taking a pummelling) as well as the mining of the Southern Baltic, their core training and work-up area. At least according to The Naval War in the Baltic (written by a Dane, and it didn't strike me as Anglo-centric, but it is only one source so interpret with caution) the mining/bombing campaign substantially delayed the introduction of the XXI into service, and then limited the numbers available when it was operational. Optimistically, the Germans had plans to carry on the fight from Norway after Germany fell, and were still sending Type XXIs north as late as (I think, I can look up but about then) May 5th - but thankfully (not least for Norway!) Doenitz saw reason. That said, in terms of submerged speed I've recently read an interesting article on the US post-war GUPPY program(s) - the program to improve the capabilities of a number of remaining Balao and Tench class submarines which, while well-designed and built, were very much of the "submersible torpedo boat" rather than "true submarine" approach. The GUPPY II's in particular had underwater top speeds of 16 knots, and snorkel speeds of 9 knots (which compares well with the Type XXI's wartime snorkel speed of, from memory, around 6 knots). That said, they only had half (or so) the underwater endurance of a Type XXI, which could stay submerged for three days without ventilating, travelling along at 4kts. The most effective British conversions of their T class also got fairly good underwater performance, of 15.4kts. The other sub to keep in mind, of course, is the Japanese Sen-Taka which, while not as capable as the Type XXI, was designed (at least according to Bagnasco's Submarines of World War Two) fairly independently as a true submersible, had a top underwater speed of 19knots (which it could sustain for about 17 miles), although its overall endurance and maximum diving depth were much less than the Type XXI. This isn't to take away from the Type XXI if course - it was the outstanding submarine design of the war - but I found it interesting how a significant proportion of the performance gap could be made up with conversions of submarines of the 'classic' submarine design.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 26, 2018 18:21:41 GMT -6
One of the best historical analysis of the U-boat situation after Speer took over for Todt, is by Adam Tooze in “Wages of Destruction” pages 612 through 618. He states that by May 1943, Doenitz, despite having more than 200 U-boats available for operations, had to abandon the battle in the main shipping lanes of the Atlantic. The answer for Doenitz and Speer was the Type XXI U-boat. The problem as related by the book was the time required to develop the design into a “fully functional” weapon for mass production. It was estimated that the earliest one could expect the first production was in November 1944.
The production solution was to break down the construction into three stages. Stage one was the hull which had to be manufactured out of heavy sheet metal and was divided into eight sections. Each section was assigned to a group of inland steel construction firms. The Second state was to deliver the huge steel cross-sections by special freight cars to the dockyards there they were fitted out. The three sections were then transported by rail to the three dedicated assembly yards.
The hope was that by the summer of 1944, thirty of the new submarines would be available and thirty more on the production line. Unfortunately, the man in charge of the U-boat’s production tried to rush the mass production and by the end of 1944, not one boat was fit for action. At the end of January, only four boats were ready for operations and only two were sent to sea.
The assessment is that again, trying to push a new design into production without testing it extensively, did not work. My assessment is that it was simply too little, too late. An advanced design such as this, needs to be tested and debugged extensively. It might have been better to have taken some of the advanced technology and merged it with the older boats to improve the boats whose design was already thoroughly tested. I don't know if this was possible, probably not; either that, or just save the steel and production facilities, and build more tanks. Blohm and Voss did object to the method construction and predicted that it would fail. Someone wasn't listening I guess.
Just a quick note: I have read in a few spots that the design of this boat was used by the US, UK and the Soviets after the war. I haven't really delved into this and I don't know if it was just the hull and conning tower design or what.
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Post by aeson on Aug 26, 2018 20:15:14 GMT -6
Which advanced technologies? Radar detectors had been fitted to existing U-boats starting c.1942, snorkels were experimentally fitted to German U-boats in 1943 and were in operational use in 1944, the Type XXI's batteries were mostly just larger and so couldn't really be fitted to existing U-boats, and I'm pretty sure that streamlining was something that was an ongoing process in the German submarine fleet as it was elsewhere - not to the extent of the post-war USN GUPPY or similar programs elsewhere, but still being done nonetheless. They could maybe have fitted the Type XXI's torpedo loading system or a derivative thereof to existing U-boats, but the existing system was adequate and replacing it with the new one sounds like the kind of thing that could take a lot of yard time when the U-boats were needed at sea and the yards were needed to build new U-boats.
I would also say that it's rather debatable whether the Type XXI program cost Germany 5000 tanks; whether or not the Type XXI program went ahead or not, it is very likely that there would have been increasing demand for U-boat production, unless the Kriegsmarine (and Hitler and Nazi Germany in general) were willing to concede defeat at sea beyond 1943. Furthermore, even had the Nazis had conceded defeat at sea and so given up on the U-boat programs, that could very well translate into that much more production on the Allied side going towards tanks, trucks, artillery, and aircraft for the land war and that many more Allied personnel released from duties on convoy escorts instead going into ground combat units or off to fight Japan. Counterfactuals are messy things; giving up one thing doesn't only free resources up for your own use but also releases many of the resources your opponent would have used countering whatever it was that you would have been doing, and as a result whether or not something is a net gain can be difficult to evaluate correctly.
Also, any tanks gained by the elimination or significant reduction of the Type XXI program would in all likelihood arrived late enough in the war that they may not have helped that much - Stalingrad and Kursk would in all likelihood already have been lost, for example, and while additional production could have helped replace materiel losses it could not have replaced personnel losses.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 26, 2018 20:39:41 GMT -6
Which advanced technologies? Radar detectors had been fitted to existing U-boats starting c.1942, snorkels were experimentally fitted to German U-boats in 1943 and were in operational use in 1944, the Type XXI's batteries were mostly just larger and so couldn't really be fitted to existing U-boats, and I'm pretty sure that streamlining was something that was an ongoing process in the German submarine fleet as it was elsewhere - not to the extent of the post-war USN GUPPY or similar programs elsewhere, but still being done nonetheless. They could maybe have fitted the Type XXI's torpedo loading system or a derivative thereof to existing U-boats, but the existing system was adequate and replacing it with the new one sounds like the kind of thing that could take a lot of yard time when the U-boats were needed at sea and the yards were needed to build new U-boats.
I would also say that it's rather debatable whether the Type XXI program cost Germany 5000 tanks; whether or not the Type XXI program went ahead or not, it is very likely that there would have been increasing demand for U-boat production, unless the Kriegsmarine (and Hitler and Nazi Germany in general) were willing to concede defeat at sea beyond 1943. Furthermore, even had the Nazis had conceded defeat at sea and so given up on the U-boat programs, that could very well translate into that much more production on the Allied side going towards tanks, trucks, artillery, and aircraft for the land war and that many more Allied personnel released from duties on convoy escorts instead going into ground combat units or off to fight Japan. Counterfactuals are messy things; giving up one thing doesn't only free resources up for your own use but also releases many of the resources your opponent would have used countering whatever it was that you would have been doing, and as a result whether or not something is a net gain can be difficult to evaluate correctly.
Also, any tanks gained by the elimination or significant reduction of the Type XXI program would in all likelihood arrived late enough in the war that they may not have helped that much - Stalingrad and Kursk would in all likelihood already have been lost, for example, and while additional production could have helped replace materiel losses it could not have replaced personnel losses.
I was just having fun with some numbers about the Type XXI U-boat. It weighed 1621 tons. Now, they built 118 boats so that is 191,278 tons of steel. Now a typical Mark IV tank, the most widely deployed tank in the German army weighed in about 25 tons. So, that means they could have built about 7651 Mark IV tanks or 4250 Panther tanks which weighed about 45 tons. Hey, it works.... almost. Whew, the math was stressful, but fun. Who knows what might have been, I will leave that to the counterfactual historians. I am not entirely certain that anything would have saved the Germans from defeat however that is just my considered opinion. More about submarines. Note: Navweaps has a good piece about German U-boats with actual production figures. They state that 576 Type XXI were ordered, 200 under construction, 165 launched and 145 delivered. That changes all my numbers, but I will let you mathematicians do that math. So, the 5000 tanks idea, is actually could have been accomplished. I wonder how many U-boats could have been built if they had not built the Bismarck and Tirpitz. ich, too much math for me. www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-050.php
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