Battle of the Atlantic Feb. 1 to Aug 1, 2006

Admiral King had a reputation as somewhat of an anglophobe, and refused to believe Ultra intercepts, or allow the Royal Navy to pass on their hard learnt lessons to their coleagues in the USN.

Looking forward to seeing your build of U-82, sounds cool.

Karl

bobbaily wrote:

Jules (and others)-keep the history coming.  That is one of the things that make these Group Builds so enjoyable.  I'm trying to convience the wife to let me go to college with my son in 8 years and get a degree in history.  Still a lot of work to do on that project!

Yeah Bob in hindsight i wish i went to uni and grabbed a degree in military history but alas i have to many responsabilities at home and i need to keep the cash flowing in so any thought of going back to school quickly get put in the "if only i did that when i was younger book"

Oh and don't worry i have an absolute crapload of info on the Battle of the Atlantic, something like 12 books on the subject, at the moment i'm reading "Conflict Over the Bay" which deals with Coastal Command actions over the Bay of Biscay exclusivly....

The U-Boat pic i posted on the previuos page was sunk by an American Liberator attached to Coastal Command but get this half the Crew of the Liberator were Aussies...

The crew of the U-Boat and liberator met in 93 when the Boat was raised and lets say that all did not go well with the veterans when they first met but they did manage to forget the past animosities between them once they spent a little time together.....I guess it just goes to show that war scars people for life.....

Jules I can remember many years ago reading about a Coastal Command Sunderland operating over the Bay of Biscay being attached by 8 Ju88 long range fighters. In the ensuing melee the pilot of the Sunderland dropped to wave top height , and proceeded to engage each incoming Ju88 with the turrets and pom-pom guns in the beam positions.

If memory serves me, by the time the dog fight broke up, 4 Ju88s were in the bay, and another would crash on landing, while the Sunderland, though much battered, returned to base. No wonder the Luftwaffe called the Sunderland the 'Flying Porcupine'!

The Battle of the Atlantic, has to rank as one of the most protracted, and brutal of the second world war battles, but one that doesn't always appear to receive the recognition that it deserves.

Karl

jboutin wrote:

Darren I hope this works, here is the link to the page in the Canadian GB.  You have to scroll about halfway down to get to my pics.  Rick just posted his Seafury pics yesterday on the last page if you want to see his. http://www.finescale.com/FSM/CS/forums/18/404948/ShowPost.aspx#404948

Nice avatar Dave, good of you to finally let us really know what you look like! 

Oooh - whats that you say, go jump in a lake? why would I want to do that...?

jboutin wrote:

Nice avatar Dave, good of you to finally let us really know what you look like!  Oooh - whats that you say, go jump in a lake? why would I want to do that...?

That's not Dave that's Pingy!!!!

Amazing, I've just logged on from home using Firefox and everything looks to be working!!!!

Whooopeeee!!!!!

Karl

jboutin wrote:

Nice avatar Dave, good of you to finally let us really know what you look like!  Oooh - whats that you say, go jump in a lake? why would I want to do that...?

Ya...  just picture gollum with a full head of redish hair and your not far off!   (edit: and a couple of feet taller)

Good news on the firefox Karl.

the wild thing was when I was a kid going to Galveston Island (sort of at the mouth to the inlet to the Port of Houston where 90% of the oil here is produced) there were these huge metal rings looking like circular railroad tracks in the ground near the docks.  I asked my dad what they were and he told me they were for anti-shipping/anti submarine coastal guns... they must have been huge as the steel tracks are about 30 feet in diameter... that little fact didn't sink in till years later when reading the history of the Uboat packs off the gulf picking off shipping.  there are more than a few merchant wrecks off the mouths of the Sabine River and Galveston Bay from those attacks... and as was mentioned they would wait till night time and pick them off, highlighted against the glow of lights from the towns.  Eventually they got smart and began blacking them out, but not consistently...

Another story I thought interesting was where the Sabine River empties into Sabine Lake there is a Confederate Civil War fort.  In the early 1940's part of it was converted into an ammo storage dump for another set of coastal guns about 25 meters from the fort.  The war planners decided that it might be likely the Uboats would try to navigate up the Sabine River to shell the inland refineries and were trying to prepare in advance.  The magazines are still there, oddly enough without a marker explaining what they are.

Not much Dave the U-boats didn't really do much during the Spanish civil war, In fact only 2 boats the U-33 commanded by Freiweild and the U-34 Grosse were sent and on the 27/28th of November 1936 they entered the Med and despite several attemps had no luck in sinking any Republican ships...Both boats were ordered home on the 10th of Dec and while on it's way home on the 12th U-34 sighted the republican submarine C-3, Grosse dived his boat and fired a single torpedo at C-3 which tore it in two and sent it to the bottom of the Med, of a crew of 40 only 3 sailers survived from the C-3....That was the only Republican naval vessel sank by the U-Boats during the Spanish civil war that i know of......

Tom It actually sounds like overkill adding coastal guns around that area but it shows great foresight on the part of the planners when you consider how the U-47 managed to sneak past all the blockships and what nots to get into Scapa Flow undetected.....

Something else that i wonder about is why the Germans never embraced the Escort carrier as a means to sink merchant shipping, imagine how much damage they could have done if they  carried 12 or so Stukas and maybe 6 of those navalised 109's to protect the carrier from any allied aircraft......

j.s.harrison wrote:

Something else that i wonder about is why the Germans never embraced the Escort carrier as a means to sink merchant shipping, imagine how much damage they could have done if they  carried 12 or so Stukas and maybe 6 of those navalised 109's to protect the carrier from any allied aircraft......

Jules - I think the overkill was based on large scale paranoia and fear at the beginning of the war.  From what my older relatives described there was a Hun or Jap behind every tree waiting to jump out in some peoples minds... I think adding the coastal guns was wise seeing it all in restrospect.  The fact that the Uboats were able to get so close to (at that time) at least 95% of the nation's oil supply and refineries is a bit scary.  All it would take as you said, is another scapa flow incident.  At night the anti-sub aircraft would be hindered, and as far as I know the only naval ships were about a half hour away even at flank speed.  30 minutes would allow a lot of damage from the 88 or 105 deck guns on the Uboats....  even if it were sunk the psychological damage as well as loss of irreplacable resources would have had a major, if only temporary impact on the US.

Both the decision to pull the Uboats out of the Gulf coupled with better anti-sub measures later made the guns obsolete.

tho9900 wrote:

Jules - I think the overkill was based on large scale paranoia and fear at the beginning of the war.  From what my older relatives described there was a Hun or Jap behind every tree waiting to jump out in some peoples minds...

Imperator-Rex wrote:

j.s.harrison, in fact Germany sent more U-Boats than those two to patrol off the Spanish coasts as part of the “Non-Interventionist Committee”. No less than fifteen U-boats were used – U.14, U.19, U.23 and U.25 to 36. U.33 and U.34 were to play a different role: they were engaged in a clandestine patrolling mission in Spanish waters in November and December 1936: this was called Operation Ursula... Here's a nice article that tells the stoy better than I could do: http://uboat.net/articles/?article=59 Regards, Chris U.35 & U.32 in February 1938, preparing for another patrol to Spain (note the large, white numerals on the coning tower, removed upon outbreak of the war)

Chris Thanks for the info, i had a feeling that there may have been more boats sent to Spanish waters but couldn't find any info in my books except the half a page which mentioned U-33 and 34...I'll check out U-boat.net and have a look.......

Karl I think a Spanish Civil war GB would be cool, I've always wanted to do a 109D in Condor Legion Markings......

And yeah i agree there was a real threat of Axis Invasion even in this country there was a scare of invasion from the Japanese but thankfully the Japanese failed to take Port Morseby.....Iv'e heard rumors which i'm not sure a true on not that the Japanese even had money printed for use in occupied Australia....

My own personal opinion is and i have to say that this is my own feelings that any invasion of the UK, US or Australia by the Axis would have failed, i mean the Germans were planning on useing canal barges to invade England and they would have had to hit the beaches fighting and at this stage of the war no army had any real experience of what it took to invade a country by a seaborne assault....and even if the Germans managed to destroy the Royal Air Force Fighter command they still would have had to contend with for the most part the intact bomber command and i don't think that the Royal Navy would have sat still in Scapa flow while german Troops and supply ships were going back and forth from Dover to Calais.......

Geez Dave get your act together will you, I can't believe you let such an obvious discrepancy in the GB Icon get through your QA

Chris welcome to the build.  It looks like between you and Jules we should have all our U-boat questions covered off.

Btw all you submarine guys have you seen this little baby on Squadron?

http://www.squadron.com/ItemDetails.asp?item=rm0384

Karl a Spanish civil war build sounds great.  I know Classic Airframes are releasing a series of early model 109s which would be perfect for the period.

Cheers

---edit---

Jules I agree wholeheartedly on your reasoning as to why Operation Sea lion would have failed, add to that the weather in the channel and lack of clear landing zone and the Germans would have faced disaster

Darren - yeah I have been watching this baby and interested to see how accurate it is... I have a Gato class sub down the road from me.  The USS Cavalla (sank the Shokaku in the Battle of the Phillipine Sea) was later converted to an SSK (hunter / killer) I want to do her like the original Cavalla... now she looks closer to a Nautilus class sub. mainly the main sail.  But inside and on the main hull I have the best reference possible.. the original!!!

j.s.harrison wrote:

Karl And yeah i agree there was a real threat of Axis Invasion even in this country there was a scare of invasion from the Japanese but thankfully the Japanese failed to take Port Morseby.....Iv'e heard rumors which i'm not sure a true on not that the Japanese even had money printed for use in occupied Australia....

The Germans, particularly the SS were well advanced in their planning for the occupation of the UK, with primary and secondary arrest lists already drawn up. Len Deighton draws on much of this in 'SS GB', his fictional account of Britain under occupation, and a very good read.

I think Admiral Raeder was fully aware of the limitations of the Kreigsmarine, particularly after Norway, and more importantly the strength of the Royal Navy. So much so that the innitial troop estimates were a mere fraction of what would have bee required to mount a meaningful invasion, and without any heavy equipment until a port had been secured. Even with air superiority the Luftwaffe would have been powerless to stop the RN attacking their flanks at night, and bombarding the invasion beaches, much as the RN did during D Day.

Looks like I need to set up a Spanish Civil War GB, does anyone have any preferences for dates? I'm looking at late 2006 - early 2007.

Karl

Yeah Karl i think i recall reading somewhere that when war broke out Raeder sent a message to his navy telling them to die with honour, and if memory serves me correctly The Kreigsmarine were planning for a war to start in 1946 not 39.....Didn't Donitz say that he needed 300 operational U-Boats to defeat Britain.....

Oh yeah late 2006 should suit me OK for a Spanish Civil war GB, maybe the old Revell 1/125 type VII U-boat for that one, the only thing is i'd have to by the cutaway U-47 for the correct conning tower and the U-99 for the hull cause i wouldn't build the highly inaccurate U-47 with the interior, even then i'd have to cover up the cutaway section in the U-47 conning tower.....

Hitler had promised Raeder that there would be no war in Europe until at least 1946, allowing Raeder time to build up the Kriegsmarine to something like parity with the RN, if not in surface vessels, at least in subs.

The Norwegian campaign alone proved extremely costly for the Kriegsmarine, especially after Warspite's little cruise up the fjiords. Have a look at the site below for a table of German losses in Norway:

http://www.geocities.com/shipwrecks_magazine/narvik.htm

After that there is no way Raeder could have supported Sealion.

Karl

I just love it when the mail man has to get out of the truck and walk to the front door....means a package

So Dave, it is official I am down for an He 115 C-1, 1/72 Hobby kit.  The raised panels line are barely visble they are so fine so they will make an excellent guide for a rescribe.  And I am really looking forwrd to masking all that glass.  Flash everywhere you look and a warped wing...mmmm fun.  I can't wait

Marc I'm not sure that your definition of 'FUN' coincides with mine!

Dave are you using the WEM PE set for the Sunderland? I've seen this set used on a couple of kits, and it totally transforms the Sunderland's interior.

I'll get a sticky set up for the Spanish Civil War GB later next year.

Karl