The episode gives an order-of-magnitude comparison: roughly 5,000 Allied merchant ships, about 15,000 merchant sailors, 104 warships, and around 61 Q-ships were lost. It sets those figures against 217 German U-boats and roughly 6,000 German submariners. These totals keep the campaign from becoming an abstract contest in gross registered tonnage. Opening here shows its material and human scale immediately before Holtzendorff's political promise to the Kaiser.
Notable Point · 33:50-34:21
The U-boat war in ships and lives
The episode pauses to compare the approximate Allied merchant, naval, and personnel losses with the German U-boats and crews lost in the campaign.