The Third Reich’s Electric Submarine Fail(medium.com)
medium.com
The Third Reich’s Electric Submarine Fail
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/aba074f47363
14 comments
Yup. Like the decision to send the engineers and technicians working on jet engines to join the infantry in late 1940, because they'd be needed for the war against the Soviet Union and jet engines wouldn't be required in the short term anyway(!) -- a costly mistake which set them until the surviving skilled technicians could be hastily recalled. Or Hitler's demand for a jet bomber which forced Messerschmitt to hang bomb racks on the Me-262, delaying their first operational jet fighter for 18-24 months.
And some of the stuff they did pursue was absolutely barking. Like the Landkreuzer P. 1000 Ratte:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landkreuzer_P._1000_Ratte
TL:DR; the popular belief in the Nazi regime's inherent technological brilliance is a little misplaced.
And some of the stuff they did pursue was absolutely barking. Like the Landkreuzer P. 1000 Ratte:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landkreuzer_P._1000_Ratte
TL:DR; the popular belief in the Nazi regime's inherent technological brilliance is a little misplaced.
Or Hitler's demand for a jet bomber which forced Messerschmitt to hang bomb racks on the Me-262
Apparently, their insistence that new types be capable of dive bombing delayed and compromised many new designs, including the jet powered Arado bomber. It's interesting to note that the Nazis engaged in typical "Pointy Haired Boss" behavior. (Of course, the US did the same with the Space Shuttle and is now doing the same with the Senate Launch System.)
Apparently, their insistence that new types be capable of dive bombing delayed and compromised many new designs, including the jet powered Arado bomber. It's interesting to note that the Nazis engaged in typical "Pointy Haired Boss" behavior. (Of course, the US did the same with the Space Shuttle and is now doing the same with the Senate Launch System.)
I take some deal of comfort knowing that an evil and criminal regime was also stupid and irrational. It is kind of like that bank robber that hands in the note to the clerk and the note is a his bank receipt with his address on the bank.
It is good that they sent rocket scientists to die in the infantry. Good that they spent resources building that stupid tank. Good that they didn't take too much interest in the nuclear bomb.
It is good that they sent rocket scientists to die in the infantry. Good that they spent resources building that stupid tank. Good that they didn't take too much interest in the nuclear bomb.
I take some deal of comfort knowing that an evil and criminal regime was also stupid and irrational.
Apparently, the Nazi regime was into teutonic myth based occult woo, but I have no idea if that's more a modern distortion than an accurate portrayal.
I wonder if society in the US is any more rational. We gave up on Thorium so we could build bombs faster. The authorities sell us wars with the exact ease and facility that Herman Goering spoke about. Supposedly, GM started building cars larger in the post-war decades just so engineering managers could feel more prestigious. (Prestige came with volume of one's subsystem, apparently.)
Apparently, the Nazi regime was into teutonic myth based occult woo, but I have no idea if that's more a modern distortion than an accurate portrayal.
I wonder if society in the US is any more rational. We gave up on Thorium so we could build bombs faster. The authorities sell us wars with the exact ease and facility that Herman Goering spoke about. Supposedly, GM started building cars larger in the post-war decades just so engineering managers could feel more prestigious. (Prestige came with volume of one's subsystem, apparently.)
Wow, they couldn't even get the Maus to work right, could they?
Calling Type XXI failure is kind of (mo)ironic. Soviet submarines and to some extend western submarines are practically build on top of it. It is like saying jet-engines are failure :-)
I agree, and almost pointed this out myself. But the article isn't really calling the XXI itself a failure, but instead the whole strategy to design, build, and rely on the Type XXI to prosecute a commerce interdiction war that Germany couldn't actually win even with the Type XXI in service. The title would have been better as "The Failure of the Type XXI Strategy" I think.
Yes, this. The same can be said for the V2. Technologically, it was wildly successful, and today most Russian rockets and many American rockets can be considered its direct descendants. However there's no question that it hastened the end of the war for the Germans.
I've often wondered what the world would look like if Germany had had the same militaristic and expansionist policies, yet hadn't devoted so many of its resources towards genocide and wonder weapons. It may be that Hitler's obsession with these things actually spared the world from a far more effective Nazi Germany, and thus an even longer and bloodier war.
I've often wondered what the world would look like if Germany had had the same militaristic and expansionist policies, yet hadn't devoted so many of its resources towards genocide and wonder weapons. It may be that Hitler's obsession with these things actually spared the world from a far more effective Nazi Germany, and thus an even longer and bloodier war.
It's one of the problems with the idea of using a time machine to kill Hitler. The problem is the Nazi party and Germany might actually end up with a more sane, capable and effective leader and end up winning the war.
Perhaps the previous, competent, dictator was replaced by Hitler.
>It may be that Hitler's obsession with these things actually spared the world from a far more effective Nazi Germany, and thus an even longer and bloodier war.
are you really sure that a far more effective Nazi Germany would lead to even longer and bloodier war? Lets imagine that Germany won Battle of Britain and occupied it in 1940 (with resulting full control of North Atlantic) and took Moscow in the Fall of 1941 and Stalingrad - summer of 1942 with resulting control over Caucasus and the plains until Mongolia. What war we would be talking about after that? The world would look of course completely different. In some sense having that bloody war we were spared from living in that different world.
are you really sure that a far more effective Nazi Germany would lead to even longer and bloodier war? Lets imagine that Germany won Battle of Britain and occupied it in 1940 (with resulting full control of North Atlantic) and took Moscow in the Fall of 1941 and Stalingrad - summer of 1942 with resulting control over Caucasus and the plains until Mongolia. What war we would be talking about after that? The world would look of course completely different. In some sense having that bloody war we were spared from living in that different world.
I doubt it. I'm not a historian, but my sense is that absent the death camps and and silly wonder weapons, Germany would have been perhaps 10% or 20% more effective -- not 100% more effective. Stalingrad would probably have wrapped up a bit more quickly -- but Moscow, London, and points beyond would all have become the new Stalingrads. Which would not have been a happier outcome, on the whole.
[Edit]: Also, it's not entirely clear who would've been the "bad guys" in this alternate-history. The German death camps were certainly the evilest single element of the war -- but the Allied policy of mass-firebombing civilian population centres was arguably the second evilest element of the war, and the Russians were very nearly as nasty as the Nazis to whomever they occupied. Absent the death camps, the moral clarity of that war would have become significantly muddier -- although Germany would certainly still have been the aggressor.
[Edit]: Also, it's not entirely clear who would've been the "bad guys" in this alternate-history. The German death camps were certainly the evilest single element of the war -- but the Allied policy of mass-firebombing civilian population centres was arguably the second evilest element of the war, and the Russians were very nearly as nasty as the Nazis to whomever they occupied. Absent the death camps, the moral clarity of that war would have become significantly muddier -- although Germany would certainly still have been the aggressor.
in big picture, at very coarse grain, we can see that one of the main themes of the 20th century was the battle between totalitarian and democratic states. WWII was a huge piece of it. Totalitarian approach was defeated, though as we clearly see today only specific forms of it were defeated while the approach itself was dealt only temporarily setback and starts to emerge in new shapes today.
Btw, obligatory to our discussion http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1034314/ . No technical prowess can defeat a society build on principle "Yes, she can" :)
Btw, obligatory to our discussion http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1034314/ . No technical prowess can defeat a society build on principle "Yes, she can" :)
The article isn't calling the submarine a fail; it's calling the Reich's use of it a fail.
Spend too much time keeping your weapons in development and you may find that by the time they are ready your strategy for implementing them is no longer relevant or, worse, that you have already lost the war.
A good analogy for the importance of getting to market with what works, not what is perfect.
A good analogy for the importance of getting to market with what works, not what is perfect.
> A good analogy for the importance of getting to market with what works, not what is perfect.
I would argue they were already "at market" with what works - older subs, bullets, torpedoes and tanks, and while doing that, they were trying to innovate something better. They obviously weren't aiming for perfect, because they did get it finished - it would never have been done if the goal was "perfect".
Had they not tried to innovate something better, we'd be criticizing them now saying "this is a good analogy for the importance of continual improvement of your product that's in the market"
I would argue they were already "at market" with what works - older subs, bullets, torpedoes and tanks, and while doing that, they were trying to innovate something better. They obviously weren't aiming for perfect, because they did get it finished - it would never have been done if the goal was "perfect".
Had they not tried to innovate something better, we'd be criticizing them now saying "this is a good analogy for the importance of continual improvement of your product that's in the market"
A fair counter-point, I acknowledge that there is a fine line between investing too much and too little in R&D (but I suppose we all knew that).
Reminds me of PG saying startups are largely about boring grunt work techies often don't want to do, like going out and interviewing clients about what their problems actually are, etc.. Germany made technological marvels, but lost because they distracted from basic, boring things like logistics.
The article is not very good.
At the time (1943) the war was already lost for Germany(not for Japan). The US had entered the world fresh after watching people in Europe kill themselves for more than 2 years, and US industry was just too powerful for a country that was already weakened by two years of war.
US at the time was the biggest saver in the world, and one of the leaders in industry production, while not in weaponry, change to weapon manufacturing is easy when you have industry.
You can compare it with China today, while the US products were not as good as the Germans, they learned fast and they could simply outproduce them. For every good quality German tank, they could manufacture 10 not as good but who cares, American tanks, same with planes.
Another important thing is that after two years of war and more planes on the air that today, supplies became scarce, specially for Germans, so they had to get by with less quality components out of necessity.
Again, this is very normal in any war, at the start uniforms, and vehicles are new, morale is high, not so after years of seeing your country, your family, your friends destroyed.
At the time (1943) the war was already lost for Germany(not for Japan). The US had entered the world fresh after watching people in Europe kill themselves for more than 2 years, and US industry was just too powerful for a country that was already weakened by two years of war.
US at the time was the biggest saver in the world, and one of the leaders in industry production, while not in weaponry, change to weapon manufacturing is easy when you have industry.
You can compare it with China today, while the US products were not as good as the Germans, they learned fast and they could simply outproduce them. For every good quality German tank, they could manufacture 10 not as good but who cares, American tanks, same with planes.
Another important thing is that after two years of war and more planes on the air that today, supplies became scarce, specially for Germans, so they had to get by with less quality components out of necessity.
Again, this is very normal in any war, at the start uniforms, and vehicles are new, morale is high, not so after years of seeing your country, your family, your friends destroyed.
History is littered with examples of superior forces failing to achieve victory due to mismanagement or deception. Anyone who's tried to seriously play competitive games will say the same thing: it's not over until it's literally impossible to win.
You're correct that the Germans had a supply problem. But that might not have been as decisive as Hitler's decision to sacrifice the entirety of the 6th Army at Stalingrad for mere prestige, for example.
It was a stroke of luck that Hitler was so stupid as to not listen to his commanders and make so many blunders. Some have called Hitler our best ally in the war, since his mismanagement was responsible for so many strategic mistakes.
If a different type of person had been in charge in 1943, there is a sizable chance the war could've been won. The production problems were hard, but not decisive to the point of making victory vanishingly unlikely.
You're correct that the Germans had a supply problem. But that might not have been as decisive as Hitler's decision to sacrifice the entirety of the 6th Army at Stalingrad for mere prestige, for example.
It was a stroke of luck that Hitler was so stupid as to not listen to his commanders and make so many blunders. Some have called Hitler our best ally in the war, since his mismanagement was responsible for so many strategic mistakes.
If a different type of person had been in charge in 1943, there is a sizable chance the war could've been won. The production problems were hard, but not decisive to the point of making victory vanishingly unlikely.
> It was a stroke of luck that Hitler was so stupid as to not listen to his commanders and make so many blunders. Some have called Hitler our best ally in the war, since his mismanagement was responsible for so many strategic mistakes.
The British agreed with this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Foxley
"The plan was submitted in November 1944, but was never carried out because controversy remained over whether it was actually a good idea to kill Hitler: he was by then considered to be such a poor strategist that it was believed whoever replaced him would probably do a better job of fighting the allies."
The British agreed with this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Foxley
"The plan was submitted in November 1944, but was never carried out because controversy remained over whether it was actually a good idea to kill Hitler: he was by then considered to be such a poor strategist that it was believed whoever replaced him would probably do a better job of fighting the allies."
History does repeat itself, all this means is that US hight tech weapons and hardware will be useless against cheap Chinese missiles dime a dozen.
I disagree with the reasoning.
The article makes it clear these subs were very advanced, and after the expected teething problems expected with any new design, they worked well. Of course they were expensive (time and resources) because they were new and advanced. They were vastly superior to other subs at the time. Had the war continued for another few years, I think it's safe to say these subs would have been extremely successful in their missions. You can't go into a project like "design the future of submarines" under the limitation that your side might lose the war any day.
Obviously when undertaking any task it's important to have a balance of "do what we've always done" and "innovate to find better ways". They would be equally criticized if they didn't try to advance anything and just kept building old tanks and bullets. The headline would be "The Third Reich's Failure to Innovate"
Did they aim for too much innovation with these subs? Maybe, but you can't blame the sub for that.
The article makes it clear these subs were very advanced, and after the expected teething problems expected with any new design, they worked well. Of course they were expensive (time and resources) because they were new and advanced. They were vastly superior to other subs at the time. Had the war continued for another few years, I think it's safe to say these subs would have been extremely successful in their missions. You can't go into a project like "design the future of submarines" under the limitation that your side might lose the war any day.
Obviously when undertaking any task it's important to have a balance of "do what we've always done" and "innovate to find better ways". They would be equally criticized if they didn't try to advance anything and just kept building old tanks and bullets. The headline would be "The Third Reich's Failure to Innovate"
Did they aim for too much innovation with these subs? Maybe, but you can't blame the sub for that.
I'm not sure the analogy is so bad, to be honest.
The USN submarine force was extremely successful in the Pacific... eventually. But they went to war with pre-war submarine designs, and used a strategy of pumping out the same old submarine types, with only minor improvements as the war went on. It wasn't until the end of WWII and the start of the Cold War that the US started to integrate features from the Type XXI and really try to push the state of the art of submarine technology.
But the point is that the Gato and Balao-class submarines were good enough for what the USN was doing, the important thing was actually getting the boats out to the theater of war. An advanced upgrade project would have risked the ability to do that at the very time such risk was unaccepted.
That was Germany's problem as explained in the article: Even with the assuredly-better Type XXI submarine, Germany would still need many other things to go right to prosecute an interdiction war. It would have needed command and control improvements to account for the submarines being submerged more often (especially if they wanted to use the effective "wolf pack" tactics), better maritime reconnaissance to find convoys in the first place, etc.
Its sonar would have been useful, but the flipside to that is that Allied sonar and ASDIC would also have been useful (defeating ASDIC was one of the reasons German U-boats operated on the surface in the first place). In short, the Type XXI really did counter a lot of the Allied advancements in antisubmarine warfare, but it still would not have been enough. Those resources could have been profitably employed elsewhere, perhaps in other new weapons development projects.
On the other hand, aviation represented an area where new development was instrumental (and cost-effective) throughout the war. The German jet fighters would have been very dangerous if they could have worked them into their Luftflottes sooner.
The USN submarine force was extremely successful in the Pacific... eventually. But they went to war with pre-war submarine designs, and used a strategy of pumping out the same old submarine types, with only minor improvements as the war went on. It wasn't until the end of WWII and the start of the Cold War that the US started to integrate features from the Type XXI and really try to push the state of the art of submarine technology.
But the point is that the Gato and Balao-class submarines were good enough for what the USN was doing, the important thing was actually getting the boats out to the theater of war. An advanced upgrade project would have risked the ability to do that at the very time such risk was unaccepted.
That was Germany's problem as explained in the article: Even with the assuredly-better Type XXI submarine, Germany would still need many other things to go right to prosecute an interdiction war. It would have needed command and control improvements to account for the submarines being submerged more often (especially if they wanted to use the effective "wolf pack" tactics), better maritime reconnaissance to find convoys in the first place, etc.
Its sonar would have been useful, but the flipside to that is that Allied sonar and ASDIC would also have been useful (defeating ASDIC was one of the reasons German U-boats operated on the surface in the first place). In short, the Type XXI really did counter a lot of the Allied advancements in antisubmarine warfare, but it still would not have been enough. Those resources could have been profitably employed elsewhere, perhaps in other new weapons development projects.
On the other hand, aviation represented an area where new development was instrumental (and cost-effective) throughout the war. The German jet fighters would have been very dangerous if they could have worked them into their Luftflottes sooner.
This post cites a much better article by Marcus Jones on the boat and the context in which the boat was developed: http://www.usnwc.edu/getattachment/dd165021-2812-40ba-847f-d...
Jones's article is better in the sense that it is more reasoned and without single-paragraph overstatements like "But everything about the Type XXI was a mistake." It also, unfortunately, takes more effort to parse.
Jones's article also has different take: "...this paper argues that the U-boat Type XXI was nonetheless not nearly so unrealistic a solution as [Tooze's] account suggests...", and also suggests that while the Type XXI was an evolutionary solution, it's accelerated development was revolutionary.
Jones's article is better in the sense that it is more reasoned and without single-paragraph overstatements like "But everything about the Type XXI was a mistake." It also, unfortunately, takes more effort to parse.
Jones's article also has different take: "...this paper argues that the U-boat Type XXI was nonetheless not nearly so unrealistic a solution as [Tooze's] account suggests...", and also suggests that while the Type XXI was an evolutionary solution, it's accelerated development was revolutionary.
There seems to be some inaccuracy involved regarding the engine: At least following to the (quite extensive) German Wikipedia article, the Walter propulsion[1] never reached production state and the design was altered in order to fit a conventional Diesel-electric engine. For this the boats became even longer and bigger and the inner hull design was changed from an ideally circular cross-section to the unique 8-form, which introduced some other problems.
Anyway, it was a significant fail by the Nazi industrial system. From 118 boats produced, not a single one met the standards and all of these had to be reworked. (Most of these were only used for training missions, none of them saw combat action.)
[1] The Walter engine would have used in deed a hydrogen peroxide fueling system, and was the system that was deemed unworkable. The note at the end of the article has this right.
Anyway, it was a significant fail by the Nazi industrial system. From 118 boats produced, not a single one met the standards and all of these had to be reworked. (Most of these were only used for training missions, none of them saw combat action.)
[1] The Walter engine would have used in deed a hydrogen peroxide fueling system, and was the system that was deemed unworkable. The note at the end of the article has this right.
Aside from the broader war strategy questions, this appears to be a good example of the second-system effect.
"This mentality amounted to a “disease” in German war ... Germany built radical weapons that would fail to turn the tide against an inevitable defeat brought about by larger economic, political and technological disadvantages."
Luckily, dictatorial "leader"-based regimes aren't compatible with the freedom required for creative geniuses... but, have they stumbled upon some kind of primitive nuclear weapon and strapped one on top of a V2... instead of a "disease" this "radical weapons" thing would have been the "winning bet" ?
<joking>This seems written by Captain Hindsight</joking>
edit:syntax
Luckily, dictatorial "leader"-based regimes aren't compatible with the freedom required for creative geniuses... but, have they stumbled upon some kind of primitive nuclear weapon and strapped one on top of a V2... instead of a "disease" this "radical weapons" thing would have been the "winning bet" ?
<joking>This seems written by Captain Hindsight</joking>
edit:syntax
Reminds me of the uboat in Cryptonomicon, the V-1,000,000.
Speaking of Cryptonomicon, haven't many historians concluded that the ULTRA program (Anglo-American breaking of Germany's Enigma cyphers) was also a significant factor in the decline in U-boat effectiveness?
This is not addressed or even mentioned in the article.
This is not addressed or even mentioned in the article.
[deleted]
That was a different type of u-boat [1].
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Type_XVII_submarine
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Type_XVII_submarine
I've been through the one in Bremerhaven. You can walk through it. It costs about €6 if memory serves me rightly:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_submarine_Wilhelm_Baue...
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_submarine_Wilhelm_Baue...
The author mentions "Type XII" U-boats several times...this should actually be Type VII.
Technology does win wars, but it isn't magic. If Hitler had followed Karl Doernitz' recommendations and had 300 submarines on hand before going to war, Britain would have fallen to commerce losses to submarines. It was a series of top level decisions to defer the development of revolutionary weapons on the part of the Germans combined with a concerted pursuit of advanced technology by the allies, like RADAR aboard anti submarine airplanes, that decided the war.
If it weren't for such decisions, the V2 and Type 21 would have appeared sooner.