[horatio]

This is the version most people over here are familiar with. I do not know whether it is actually better than the Director's Cut, I only faintly remember that there are more character scenes and that a six-part miniseries enhances of course the feeling of familiarity with these folks.

About Akula's points, it is indeed helpful to remind oneself that not everybody was a nazi back then. I have grown up in a village and one day somebody in the family told me that a particular pub in the village was actually a well-known meeting place for gay folks during the nazi reign (and probably already during Weimar). And they obviously got away with it.
On the other hand I do not like the public emphasis on resistance by people like Stauffenberg. Yes, these guys weren't nazis and they tried to stop Hitler's self-destructive madness but they did not stop his rise to power and were initially totally with the nazis.
So the distinction between honourable WWI soldiers and wicked nazi troops is artificial at best. Without the former the latter would have never come to power.

[Akula2ssn]

Originally Posted by Saquist

No doubt...over 1200 U boats constructed and held of the allied fleets and supplies untill the code was broken and they began sinking them by the hundreds.

Bad play by Hilter.
He really was insane.

The cypher actually had to be broken numerous times. I think it was sometime in 1942, the Kreigsmarine introduced a new version of Enigma that had a fourth rotor added to it. Also the U-boats began to limit the length of their transmissions to evade radio direction finders which gave the Allies limited number of characters to analyze. Took nearly a year before regular deciphering of U-boat message traffic could resume.

On top of cracking Enigma, the US Navy began deploying hunter killer squadrons consisting of escort carriers and destroyer escorts. The aircraft from these squadrons were outfitted with sonobuoys and acoustic homing torpedoes in addition to bombs and depth charges. These squadrons were devastating to the U-boats. None the less, the fact that such a small boat often required large amounts of resources to combat speaks to the magnitude of just the threat of a single submarine. To this day, submarines and mines still are the weapon of choice for nations that for whatever reason cannot afford to build and maintain a large navy.

In the end the loses reached the point where it wasn't an issue of being able to build enough U-boats, but rather finding enough personnel to crew them.

[Akula2ssn]

Originally Posted by Saquist

No doubt...over 1200 U boats constructed and held of the allied fleets and supplies untill the code was broken and they began sinking them by the hundreds.

Bad play by Hilter.
He really was insane.

The cypher actually had to be broken more than once. Even though the Nazis were confident in the security of Enigma, in early 1942 the Kreigsmarine introduced a new version of Enigma that had a fourth rotor added to it. Also the U-boats began to limit the length of their transmissions to evade radio direction finders which gave the Allies limited number of characters to analyze. Took nearly a year before regular deciphering of U-boat message traffic could resume.

On top of that, the US Navy began deploying hunter killer squadrons consisting of escort carriers and destroyer escorts. The aircraft from these squadrons were outfitted with sonobuoys and acoustic homing torpedoes in addition to bombs and depth charges. These squadrons were devastating to the U-boats. None the less, the fact that such a small boat often required large amounts of resources to combat speaks to the magnitude of just the threat of a single submarine. To this day, submarines and mines still are the weapon of choice for nations that for whatever reason cannot afford to build and maintain a large navy.

In the end the loses reached the point where it wasn't an issue of being able to build enough U-boats, but rather finding enough personnel to crew them.