[joegrundman]

Boy, RR, it's tough discussing something with someone who can't/won't read what has been written.

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

The freedom of information in an open society as opposed to restriction of information of a closed society is part and parcel of what earns the societies their designations. The axis societies were much tighter controlled than western ones. We had American companies doing business with Germany until the day war was declared by Hitler!

With Japan, the problem was not only one of a more guarded society but an extreme culture difference which made it next to impossible to imbed spies or to have Americans in trusted positions during peacetime. They had hundreds of merchant ships of which we had no knowledge at all. Yes, they did purchase some of them from European countries and some of those dimensions would have been known. But masthead heights, funnel arrangements and heights, and cabin configurations were easily and frequently altered.

well, this still seems to be your opinion drawn on imagination, rather than anything supported by evidence. Neither Germany nor Japan were particularly closed in the years preceding the war, in the way that, say, the USSR was during the cold war. There were wartime exigencies, of course, which applied equally to the allies. Much of Japan's shipping had been built over a span of decades, long before wartime tensions came into play, and the point that US companies were involved in important deals with Nazi Germany until quite late demonstrates rather the opposite of what you hoped to say.

Finally, the allies could also indulge in disguising ships characteristics, and i repeat my point that, like the Americans, the Germans also rarely had exact information regarding merchant ships.

I'll bet the Americans sneered when they encountered the multisyllabular unpronounceable gizmo I have called the OLC GUI device in U-505. Of course they failed to recognize the sheer ingenuity of the process! The Americans had radar, which made all such primitive nonsense obsolete. Except that both the Germans and Americans had salt water, which has unfortunate effects on electrical technology.

i repeat myself again. The US periscopes also had an AOB finder device that was exactly analogous to the German ones. I also repeat that both Germans and Americans preferred to judge AOB by eye. So it is unlikely that they would have been particularly impressed by the ingenuity. Most likely the Americans adopted it as a design feature after one of the u-boats visited the US in the years after ww1.

Regarding radar: Obviously the allies had better radar and were always one step ahead, but it was also a generational change. The U-boat war was ending as the US submarine war was starting. Noone had effective radar until 43 - both did at the end. You use the technology you have at the time.

But the ones evaluating U-505 were desk jockeys, dealing with theory of devices used in best-case conditions. Technology is an addictive drug which sometimes blinds us to its limitations. If anyone not a desk jockey was evaluating the German targeting device, I'll bet they sneered only until the next time their radar failed at a critical moment!

Is any of this true, actually? Or relevant? Please demonstrate how

You also have to keep in mind that the American military system punished risk-taking and enforced adherence to protocol, while the German military emphasized front line initiative, giving commanders in the field much more latitude to make decisions. On land, the result was that one German unit was equivalent in combat effectiveness to approximately 3 American similar units. They were simply much more flexible and unpredictable than we were.

on land maybe, but US submarine units had a high degree of autonomy and personal initiative, and i don't see the relevance anyway.