Decoy Ship Tows Submarine

[Brag]

On one of the other posts someone asked about towing a U-boat so that it would not be detedcted.

I pinched this item from today's Wahington Post's Achenblog, originally posted by Curmudgeon.

June 23, 1915: Perfidious Albion: German submarine U-40 (Capt. Furbinger) surfaces to attack the British trawler Taranaki, never realizing the trawler is a decoy and is towing submerged British submarine C-24 (Lt. Taylor). Before Furbinger can line up his surface shot, Taylor torpedoes and sinks U-40. When he is fished from the water, Furbinger furiously protests this “dirty trick.”

[mookiemookie]

I always thought it was so quaint and funny that war was fought in a "gentlemanly fashion" back then. No sneak attacks, submarines were thought unfair and things like this.

[Jimbuna]

Another British ruse was for a fishing trawler to tow a submerged submarine connected to the trawler by telephone. When the German U-boat approached the decoy, the British submarine would surface and attack the U-boat by gunfire. At least one U-boat fell to this ruse; U-40 in June 1915. The British submarine was C24, which was towed by the Taranaki.


http://www.westernfrontassociation.com/great-war-at-sea-in-air/69-r-navy/136-brit-stealth-ships.html

[WilyPete]

Never understood why the Germans were always sticklers for sticking by the book while the British employed schoolboy tactics such as these. Once something like this was done, the rulebook went out the window, you'd imagine...but yet the Germans would always do it by the book. If it was me, I'd have fun inventing dastardly ways to surprise/upset the "enemy". i.e. Mess about with the flags...put a British flag on a German destroyer and approach British ships by pretending you'd "like a word".

[papa_smurf]

Look at another of the brits dirty tricks during the first world war - Q-ships. The germans were NOT happy with those.
(Although they did conduct unrestricted submarine warfare in the later stages of WW1)

[Ford Prefect]

That "dirty trick" would have likely been considered rather un british at the time. The very idea of using wooden decoy tanks in southern england and north africa to fool the germans into thinking forces were concentrated there instead of else where was highly frowned upon at first. It was only after the merits of such tactics were proven by victory that they gained real approval. Even the early SAS were seen as being sneaky and ungentlmanly because they avoided front line combat and instead struck the undefended rear of the enemy.

[PavelKirilovich]

All militaries save for a very select few kept losing sniper expertise for the same reason. The British developed effective sniper/skirmishers during the Napoleonic War in the form of the Rifle Regiments, and these units were well regarded because they fought in a conventional manner, as elite skirmisher formations. With the introduction of the rifled, metal-cartridge-fed and breech-loading rifle, the marksmanship ethoes extended to the entire British Army. By contrast, the guerillas (Peninsular War campaign) were not looked upon as being good sports because of their asymmetrical tactics; not unlike the SAS example given earlier. The British seem to have a love for roving actions like that though; "Jock Columns" in the Western Desert, the wide-ranging operations of the 11th Hussars, etc. Perhaps only acceptable when the purpose is reconnaissance, not to (literally) throw a grenade in the latrines during, ahem, use by the enemy.

Therefore, when the time came to develop snipers in WWI after a few lessons delivered courtesy of the Boers earlier in the century, the British had a good pool of marksmen to select from, but there was significant opposition in the form of various officers and even the men themselves not liking having the snipers around. Success again proved their merit and they became accepted, but the troops didn't like having sniper loopholes in the vicinity, as they would attract the attention of German sharpshooters, German minenwerfers (lit. mine-throwers, fig. mortars), even the field and heavy artillery at times. So when WWI ended, snipers were one of the first things to go out the window. The cavalry of course, stuck around. :hmmm:

This happened in the entirety of the British Empire and in America. The enthusiasts kept the skill set alive, so we were able to resurrect it in WWII. By contrast, the Germans maintained a cadre of snipers and expanded upon it when the Wehrmacht received all of the Nazi's attentions, and the Soviets recognized the merit of snipers very early on and made them an integral part of their order of battle and even tactical organizations; the Russians are notable for deploying the forerunners of what we would today call "Platoon Designated Marksmen" and the more-in-line-with-western-doctrine sniper teams. The Russians had no scruples about gentlemanly conduct at any time, and the Nazis threw theirs out the window very early on.

So we see with one other example that it's not just the Royal Navy and Kriegsmarine being oddly gentlemanly. Though; the Kriegsmarine did typically have a large number of "heritage" officers whose fathers and grandfathers served before them in the Navy and the RN was similar to this, the Naval Mess tends to be a bit more gentlemanly than the Regimental Messes because of the lack of sporadic shelling and battlefield losses, so on.

Did the Q-ships happen before or after unrestricted submarine warfare commenced? After, I can see this being perfectly plausible from a British "honour" standpoint. Beforehand, it denies the Germans the chance to follow Prize Rules and allow the crew to take to lifeboats, etc, but that's only if they surface to attack in the first place.