Quote:
Originally Posted by RodM
I have no pretence in understanding how these quoted reports affected production of the Elektroboote, and due to my limited knowledge on the subject of Elektroboote production have only included info on the prime shipbuilders and not sub-contracted component manufacturers. Compilations of similar sourced and translated German reports for bombing in the years 1943 and 1944 are available as AHB translations from TNA, Kew. These translations are limited to major raids only (i.e. were the number of participating aircraft and/or bomb load carried was significant enough for inclusion in the compilations).
regards
Rod
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Rod, The USSBS Report No. 92 on the German Submarine Industry provides the answer to your question. The bombing raids you list completely shut down Type XXI production by April 1945, but the Speer/Merker system had failed already by June 1944.
USSBS No. 92 German Submarine Industry Report.
16. The first raid against the submarine industry was carried out by the RAF on 18 May 1940 with an attack on Hamburg. When the US 8th AF began operations on 17 August, 1942, submarine facilities of all types were rated as top priority. Early attacks were made chiefly against operational bases, but in January 1943 the emphasis was shifted to shipbuilding yards, as experience indicated that attacks on the former targets were not achieving the desired end. As a result of the Allied victory at sea in the battle of the Atlantic in mid-1943, submarine activities were reduced in attack priority and did not again become a primary target until November 1944, when an effort was made to disrupt the Type XXI construction program.
17. Great destruction of the facilities of the submarine producing yards took place during the last three months of the war, as a result of both RAF and 8th AF attacks. Blohm and Voss and Howaldswerke at Hamburg ceased operations after the raid of 8 April 1945. Deutsche Werke and Kripp Germaniawerft at Kiel closed down as a result of the raid of April 9, 1945. Deschimag at Bremen maintained only a token activity after the raid of 11 March 1945. Thus production in the industry practically ceased.
18. The cumulative effects of attacks on steel, transportation in general, and the canal and waterway system in particular, became so serious that it now appears that production after April 1945 would have been seriously reduced, if not entirely stopped, by these factors alone, and quite apart from the effects of yard attacks.
19. The studies of submarine production indicated that attacks upon submarines on the building slipways caused relatively more damage than those upon machine shops and component plants.
20. Bombing destroyed 18 Type XXI boats at Deschimag and 11 at Blohm and Voss. This amounted to 2.6% of the submarines constructed from September 1939 to March 1945. A review of conditions that existed throughout the the Type XXI program revealed that bombing in late 1944 and 1945 in general so disturbed the intended production scheme that finally it fell short of its goal. Of the 119 boats (Type XXI - Tony) delivered to the naval authorities in June 1944 only one was used operationally. This amazing fact must be attributed to the gamble which the Speer Ministry consciously took in the large-scale production of submarines of new and untried design, and the use of revolutionary methods of construction, which were a failure.
21. Bombing attacks directed at the submarine industry before 1945 failed to obtain results comparable with the efforts made. The bombing of the transportation system and steel industry in the last part of 1944 and the first part of 1945 impaired the production of submarines as well as the production of other munitions. There was naturally a time lag between the the attacks on transportation and steel and the actual decline in submarine production. The attack on submarine production in the last days of the war was sufficiently heavy to reduce output, even if indirect effects had not reduced production.
Tony