Early U-boat losses could damage Germany's training cadre

Béarn is considered more likely to find useful work escorting convoys across the Mid-Atlantic gap. Any resulting increase in U-boat losses during 1940 would affect a still comparatively small German force. Those experienced submariners provided the personnel who trained the much larger fleet built later in the war. Additional early losses could therefore interfere with that expansion as well as reduce the boats available for current operations.