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Old 07-06-16, 05:03 PM   #1814
iambecomelife
Silent Hunter
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
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Thank you very much for the link! It is extremely useful because it shows which submarines were in what flotilla at a glance.

That way, in campaign mode, I can make sure the available U-Boats for each flotilla are correct.

The page also shows how unready Germany was for a submarine campaign early on - even though most people think of Germany as "the" submarine nation. The delays, lack of weaponry, etc I have read about in research for this mod are truly amazing.

A lot of it seemed to be because to some elite German admirals and politicians, submarines were just less prestigious than big battleships and battlecruisers. Like the British, many German strategists did not understand that the naval war would be about supply lines and blockades - not huge battleships pounding each other.

In my opinion, a decisive German defeat at Jutland or Dogger Bank might have forced the German Navy to behave more logically - allocating more research and funds to submarine construction, sooner. Instead, the tactical victory over Beatty's battlecruisers blinded them to simple facts - for instance, battleships are useless if you can't keep your nation well fed and provisioned. The successful British blockade was directly responsible for the naval mutinies that destroyed the HSF and took Germany out of the war.
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