COA = Committee Operational Analysis.
CBO = Combined Bomber Offensive.
"AFA Battery Works, Hagen"
"Supplier of all U-boat batteries"
Batteries in the sense of for underwater power and also for torpedoes too. The soup to nuts mix.
SUBMARINE BATTERIES AS WILL BE INTUITIVELY UNDERSTOOD A CRITICAL MANUFACTURING CAPABILITY OF THE GERMAN DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR. THE IMPORTANCE OF THOSE FACILITIES PRODUCING BATTERIES AN ASPECT OF THE ALLIED COMBINED BOMBER OFFENSIVE SEEMS TO HAVE MORE OR LESS TOTALLY MISSED BY ALLIED PLANNERS.
See thanks to the wiki a listing by priority of those targets as deemed vital to the German war effort and obvious targets for the allied Combined Bomber Offensive.
"In 1941 and in the Pointblank-Directive 1943 the Allies under-estimated the importance of this industry and its production of U-boat batteries. The Hagen plant was the only known production site that the Allies had information about. The Hanover and Posen plants were not discovered by the Allies until 1945."
"After the war, the Allies commented that their under-estimating of the production of U-boat batteries was a great failure because the consequential elimination of the Hagen and Hanover plants would have resulted in a reduction in the shipbuilding of U-boats and would have had serious consequences for the operational fleet as well"
"It must be said that the Kriegsmarine was particularly dependent upon the AFA and its production of batteries for their U-boat needs, and in hind sight the Allies suffered a missed opportunity to cripple the U-boat fleet's effectiveness much earlier in the war than was done."
THE HAGEN PLANT NOT BOMBED UNTIL RELATIVELY LATE IN THE WAR. THE OTHER TWO PLANTS PRODUCING BATTERIES NOT EVEN KNOWN ABOUT UNTIL AFTER THE WAR!!
A submarine battery consisting of over one-hundred cells [the image accompanying this blog of a single cell] the dimensions and weight of which were:
"Each cell about 54 inches high [1.4 meters], 15 inches deep [.4 meters], and 21 inches wide [.5 meters, and weighs about 1,650 pounds [750 kg]."
And thanks to the U-Boat.net Internet web site.
coolbert.