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voor de liefhebbers van plaatjes en illustraties in Poolse duikbootboekjes :)
Dönitz's Last Weapon (1959)
aka Ostatnia bron Donitza [Miniatury morskie 044]
by Jan Piwowoncki
By the end of 1943 the German submarine war on Atlantic convoys was all but defeated, beaten by superior technology, code-breaking and air power. With losses mounting, Dönitz withdrew the wolfpacks, but in a surprise change of strategy, following the D-Day landings in June 1944, he sent midget subs into coastal waters, closer to home, where they could harass the crucial Allied supply lines to the new European bridgehead.
Caught unawares, the British and American navies struggled to cope with a novel predicament -in shallow waters midget submarines could lie undetectable on the bottom, and given operational freedom, they rarely needed to make signals, so neutralizing the Allied advantages of decryption and radio direction-finding. Behind this unpleasant shock lay an even greater threat, of radically new submarine types known to be nearing service in 1944. Dönitz saw these as war-winning weapons, and gambled that his inshore campaign would hold up the Allied advance long enough to allow these tiny but faster and quieter boats to be deployed in large numbers.
Publisher: Wydawnictwo Morskie
Series: Miniatury morskie - Epizody z Drugiej Wojny Swiatowej na Morzu
First published: 1959
Language: Polish
Format: PDF
Pages: 68
Size: 17 Mb
Thanks to Backfire66 & Starboard :)
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