Community hub
Recent from talks
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Tonnage war
A tonnage war is a military strategy aimed at merchant shipping. The premise is that the enemy has a finite number of ships and a finite capacity to build replacements. The concept was made famous by German Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz, who wrote:
"The shipping of the enemy powers is one great whole. It is therefore in this connection immaterial where a ship is sunk—it must still in the final analysis be replaced by a new ship".
Most anti-shipping strategies have had a relatively narrow set of goals. A traditional practice of the Royal Navy during wars between Britain and France was the blockade. By concentrating naval forces near large French ports, the Royal Navy was usually able to impede French trade to the point of creating significant economic difficulties. The opponent may focus on ships carrying strategically vital cargoes such as hemp and timber or, in modern times, oil and iron. The aim might be to attack ships carrying particularly valuable cargoes such as treasure or munitions and ships carrying less important cargoes or steaming in ballast are at first ignored.
These narrow strategies require the attacker to establish substantial control over an area. The British blockades of France were only possible so long as the Royal Navy retained the ability to defeat any French squadron venturing out from port. During the Siege of Malta in World War II, Axis air forces had air superiority and were able to prevent many Allied ships from reaching Malta with supplies, putting the island fortress in grave danger.
A tonnage war is a broad strategy. As a form of attrition warfare, it does not require the attacker to establish control over an area, merely that they sink ships more rapidly than the defender can replace them.
During World War II, three tonnage wars were fought. The largest and best known of them was Nazi Germany's U-boat campaign, aimed mainly against the United Kingdom. Less well-known campaigns were waged by Allied forces in the Mediterranean and Pacific theaters, neither of them deliberately planned as a tonnage war in the way that German U-boat campaign was, but both having that effect— and both were also very successful.
The German U-boat campaign, aimed mainly against the United Kingdom, was the largest and longest-running tonnage war of World War II. Although the primary venue for the campaign was the North Atlantic, Hitler sent U-boats and surface raiders to all corners of the globe in search of the most efficient way to sink the maximum number of ships at minimum cost. The U-boats campaign was very successful especially in the two "happy periods", of 1940 and of 1942, and was able to reduce the total shipping available to the Allies almost to a breaking point in 1943, when the tide of war started turning against Germany. On the other side, an important factor in the British anti-submarine effort was the success of the codebreakers at Bletchley Park in reading U-boat messages encrypted using the German Enigma machine. Even more important was the introduction of shipborne direction finders (known as HF/DF, or "Huff Duff").
It is maintained by some historians[who?] that the U-boat Arm came close to winning the Battle of the Atlantic; that the Allies were almost defeated; and that Britain was brought to the brink of starvation. Others, including Blair and Alan Levin, disagree; Levin states this is "a misperception", and that "it is doubtful they ever came close" to achieving this.
Hub AI
Tonnage war AI simulator
(@Tonnage war_simulator)
Tonnage war
A tonnage war is a military strategy aimed at merchant shipping. The premise is that the enemy has a finite number of ships and a finite capacity to build replacements. The concept was made famous by German Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz, who wrote:
"The shipping of the enemy powers is one great whole. It is therefore in this connection immaterial where a ship is sunk—it must still in the final analysis be replaced by a new ship".
Most anti-shipping strategies have had a relatively narrow set of goals. A traditional practice of the Royal Navy during wars between Britain and France was the blockade. By concentrating naval forces near large French ports, the Royal Navy was usually able to impede French trade to the point of creating significant economic difficulties. The opponent may focus on ships carrying strategically vital cargoes such as hemp and timber or, in modern times, oil and iron. The aim might be to attack ships carrying particularly valuable cargoes such as treasure or munitions and ships carrying less important cargoes or steaming in ballast are at first ignored.
These narrow strategies require the attacker to establish substantial control over an area. The British blockades of France were only possible so long as the Royal Navy retained the ability to defeat any French squadron venturing out from port. During the Siege of Malta in World War II, Axis air forces had air superiority and were able to prevent many Allied ships from reaching Malta with supplies, putting the island fortress in grave danger.
A tonnage war is a broad strategy. As a form of attrition warfare, it does not require the attacker to establish control over an area, merely that they sink ships more rapidly than the defender can replace them.
During World War II, three tonnage wars were fought. The largest and best known of them was Nazi Germany's U-boat campaign, aimed mainly against the United Kingdom. Less well-known campaigns were waged by Allied forces in the Mediterranean and Pacific theaters, neither of them deliberately planned as a tonnage war in the way that German U-boat campaign was, but both having that effect— and both were also very successful.
The German U-boat campaign, aimed mainly against the United Kingdom, was the largest and longest-running tonnage war of World War II. Although the primary venue for the campaign was the North Atlantic, Hitler sent U-boats and surface raiders to all corners of the globe in search of the most efficient way to sink the maximum number of ships at minimum cost. The U-boats campaign was very successful especially in the two "happy periods", of 1940 and of 1942, and was able to reduce the total shipping available to the Allies almost to a breaking point in 1943, when the tide of war started turning against Germany. On the other side, an important factor in the British anti-submarine effort was the success of the codebreakers at Bletchley Park in reading U-boat messages encrypted using the German Enigma machine. Even more important was the introduction of shipborne direction finders (known as HF/DF, or "Huff Duff").
It is maintained by some historians[who?] that the U-boat Arm came close to winning the Battle of the Atlantic; that the Allies were almost defeated; and that Britain was brought to the brink of starvation. Others, including Blair and Alan Levin, disagree; Levin states this is "a misperception", and that "it is doubtful they ever came close" to achieving this.