Hey dudes.

[nodlew]

Just wanted to say Hi to all you guys. Haven't posted in a while, reason=Silent Hunter 4. SH3 GWX etc. crashed on me wiping out my career just once too often. It was ridiculous. I think the game crashed when a convoy came close. Ain't that perfect? You spend two hours getting into position, plotting your courses, getting everything just right, then, just when it is all about to happen: Crash. Denied. Didn't save? Doesnt matter. Can't save when you're underwater anyway.
It reached a point of absurdity that made me say. I give up! Wait a minute, what about Silent Hunter 4?
So I've been playing SH4, and I have to say, I like it. I've only tried two real mods yet--RFB2.0 and OM etc. etc., wait, also RSRDC for 1.5. And this game kicks ass. The basic game was cool. Different. Better graphics. But, as always, the mods revolutionize the whole deal. It looked good. OMEGU makes it look fantastic. The new mission types were a neat idea--RSRDC takes that idea and realizes it.
Not a bad game at all. And it's nice to play as the Americans. You always hear about the German U-Boats (Das Boot) but little is still known about the Silent Service. I knew next to nothing about it and I'm a war nut. So, I'm learning again. It turns out that while the Carriers were holding center stage in the Pacific, there were all of these little Fleet Boats around that more than decimated Japanese shipping: they destroyed it. And it turns out that, Das Boot taken, the best U-Boot was not a U-Boot at all, but a Fleet Boat. Odd that the Americans, while disdaining submarines and submarine tactics, would have developed such awesome submarines ready for deployment in war before we were even attacked. This was not our modus operandi in that era. We didn't plan for the next war. Maybe WWI taught someone something that began to alter that passive stance.
Anyway, I don't know if this "Hey there" is even welcome here at the SH3 section. Especially one that speaks so glowingly of the competition.
Don't get me wrong. SH3 GWX Gold was a total revelation to me. I love SH3. I loved SH3 so much, I despised SH4, thinking it could only be a pale shadow. I was cruelly forced by software issues beyond my control to resort to SH4, and I found the game to be....AWESOME.
Silent Hunter 5, I have no idea how great it will have to be. It will probably come with it's own mini-submarine and an acre of ocean-front property.

[Ships-R-Us]

Welcom aboard Capt. Nodlew. Most people here now adays are too busy to welcome you aboard because they are feuding with each other.....Grab some popcorn and watch the show.......ShipsRus

[Torplexed]

Odd that the Americans, while disdaining submarines and submarine tactics, would have developed such awesome submarines ready for deployment in war before we were even attacked. This was not our modus operandi in that era. We didn't plan for the next war. Maybe WWI taught someone something that began to alter that passive stance.

I don't think we disdained such tactics considering the long American history with submarines. The Turtle made a submerged attack on a British warship during the Revolutionary War The Confederate Hunley on a Union ship in the Civil War. Officially, there have been submarines in the US Navy since the Holland VI was purchased in April 1900. This marks the 'official' birth date of the US Navy's Submarine Force anyway. Plus, some US subs were based in the Azores during WWI and occasionally tangled with U-Boats during that conflict.

But it was called the "Silent Service" and didn't get the press the glamorous fly boys got. :salute:

[nodlew]

Your counter-points are taken, sir. Now that you mention the "Turtle," and the "Hunley," I remember that, historically, the US has been a seminal pioneer in the area of sub warfare. But, in my mind, I draw a sharp distinction between the Civil War Era US and Confederate navies and their tactics and philosophies (not to mention Revolutionary War Era US) and the US navy that began to fight the 2nd WWar. Distinction is a flimsy word for it. I don't think the two are really comparable--historically, geographically, nationally identical yes, but separated by a gulf of time and technological and political evolution which makes the latter a far distant relative of the former.
The "disdain" I speak of, refers to the attitudes of the entrenched Admiralty. Subs were viewed as, at best, sneaky weapons for the margins of the fleet. Support units to protect Battleships. Spy weapons. Sneak attack weapons. Too vulnerable and expensive, it was thought, for bold, aggressive tactics. Unlike the British (masters of the art of subterfuge), we Americans did not used to have such an affinity for "dirty trick warfare". Our faith has always been in supreme firepower. Simpler to disintegrate the enemy with overwhelming force, when you have that, than to outwit him. These are generalities of course with many exceptions.
At least, this is my impression--not a groundless one. But it turns out that between WWI and WWII, someone in the US Navy put a very high priority on developing extemely effective--the best in the world--submarines, to the point of creating a peerless torpedo fire-contrlol computer for them. Someone was thinking ahead. And that someone was thinking about doing to our next enemy exactly what the Germans did to GB in WWI--exterminating their merchant shipping. Immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the order went out to commence unrestricted submarine warfare against the Japs. Unlike the Germans, who eased into Total War with England, we jumped into Total War with the Japs from the start. Of course we were sneak-attacked, and we were out for blood...but I think there was a strong element of racial hatred involved. Think? I know that was the case.
So, anyway, while we were going into WWII with no understanding of the critical importance of armor, or how to employ it in combined arms, without even the technical knowledge to mount a decent cal. gun in a tank turret, on the other hand, we had subs that were better than the U-Boot Ubermenches themselves. Huh? Go figure.

[Randomizer]

Welcome aboard!

Actually America's attitude towards unrestricted submarine warfare was solidly rooted in the Freedom of the Seas dogma that started with the Founding Fathers and necessary for a free market economy. The USN was quick off the mark with the submarine, locomotive torpedo and moored mine all of which the RN considered "dirty" since they were effective equalizers for the inferior naval power.

After Pearl Harbor, pragmatism took over and the only offensive arm available was the submarine force. The conventions of warfare in place in 1941 held that retaliation in kind was legal so waging unrestricted submarine warfare against the Axis (read Japan) was considered acceptable even though America had gone to war against Germany in 1917 for conducting exactly the same sort of campaign.

The Fleet Boat was no design accident, rather the result of the repeatedly failed doctrine of submarines operating in conjunction with the battle fleet. The doctrine itself was never made to work but the requirements for the boats, high sustained cruising speeds, long range and a massive torpedo complement to defeat armoured warships made fleet boats ideal merchant ship killers. If Admiral Thomas Hart had had his way when he was on the General Board the USN submarine force may well have been built around much smaller boats with shorter legs and less firepower. This would have made the Pacific war that much harder to win.

[Torplexed]

At least, this is my impression--not a groundless one. But it turns out that between WWI and WWII, someone in the US Navy put a very high priority on developing extemely effective--the best in the world--submarines, to the point of creating a peerless torpedo fire-contrlol computer for them. Someone was thinking ahead. And that someone was thinking about doing to our next enemy exactly what the Germans did to GB in WWI--exterminating their merchant shipping.

They did indeed create a solid weapon platform. It's just a shame they fell down so badly on the weapon itself. The poorly tested MK 14 torpedoes US subs went to war with was a bureaucratic scandal of the first order, with failure inside of failure that took one and a half years of squandered opportunities to finally unwind.

[nodlew]

Well, that explains it. Clearly, succinctly, and authoritatively. Interesting. In order to fulfill its fleet support role, the Fleet Sub had to be good at everything that made it such an excellent independent hunter-killer after the fleet was put out of commission.
And by the time the fleet was back up to strength, the subs had demonstrated their capabilities to the point that the doctrine was transformed. While the fleet reclaimed the Pacific from the IJN island, by island, the subs destroyed the merchants wholesale, starving Japanese industrial power and war power at home. Exactly what the Germans tried to do (and nearly succeeded) to Britain, but in our case it worked.
Which begs the question, why did it work for us and fail for the Germans? The answer has to be, in a nutshell, the US is not Germany, and Japan is not Great Britain (ie, not a nation with the support of the United States). The US had a surface navy that rivaled the IJN--Germany did not have a surface fleet that could challenge the Allies for mastery of the Atlantic. Our resources (the Allies) were sufficient not only to conduct surface operations with battle groups, but also to conduct a concerted anti-merchant shipping campaign while simultaneously developing technology and tactics sufficient to inflict unsupportable losses on the U-Boats. It seems that tactics developed by nations out of necessity, or rather, as a compensation for their weakness (U-Boats), become truly devastating when they are conducted from a position of strength.
And it didn't hurt that we had broken both the enigma and the Japanese naval codes and could read their radio messages.

[mookiemookie]

Which begs the question, why did it work for us and fail for the Germans? The answer has to be...(snip)

Not to mention the concerted efforts towards anti-submarine warfare that the Allies pursued, while the Japanese didn't consider it a priority.

[Randomizer]

Which begs the question, why did it work for us and fail for the Germans?

Just opinion...

Leaving aside the Allied technology that hamstrung the U-Boat arm, codebreaking, centimetric radar, airborne surface search radar and blah, blah, blah I think that a root cause of why the much smaller American submarine service succeeded where the KM failed was largely geographical.

All Japanese shipping bringing raw materials to the Homeland needed to pass through one or more maritime choke points. These included the Luzon Straights, Makassar Straights, Taiwan Straights, the entrances to the South China Sea and Yellow Sea to identify just a few.

Once COMSUBPAC started patrolling these areas (and others) the losses to Japanese shipping quickly assumed catastophic proportions particularly since this also corresponded to the final fixes for the Mk14 torpedo.

Convoys operating in the North Atlantic had room to manouever so the U-Boats needed to actively hunt and rely on HF radio instructions from BdU and with the Allies reading Enigma, open ocean operations were doomed to fail. Also Allied ASW was sophisticated enough from the start that U-Boats could not dominate such Allied choke points like the North and South Channels to the Irish Sea for any length of time.

Radar equipped Fleet Boats could park themselves for weeks near a choke point and their prey would come to them with far greater frequency than in the Atlantic. Without tankers, supply ships or an HF radio leash to worry about American boats had a degree of autonomy that only the Type IX's on distant stations had. Evidence that this is so lies in the success of many Type IX aces who did so well often stalking choke points far from home. Also a purely offensive IJN mindset which inhibited the creation of an effective escort force and poor technological base prevented Imperial ASW forces from even coming close to decimating the American submarine forces during the torpedo crisis and while the USN was still searching for an effective anti-shipping doctrine.

I'll shut up now.

[FIREWALL]

Welcome nodlew Good topic question. :up:

Thx to all for great imput and info. :salute:

[nodlew]

Of course.
Still, all of these things, technology, geography, doctrine, resources...in themselves and combined they look like good answers to the question "Why did we beat them?", but I think there are deeper and more subtle factors at work. Things like national character. Basic principles like Humanism. Evil Agents, like the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese, suffer from inner contradictions. In order to justify themselves, they manufacture lies which they must feed to their populations. The mentality of the entire national enterprise is hobbled from the very beginning. Creative thought, realism, honesty--these essential psychological capacities of a people trying to fight a war are undermined. What I'm aiming at is, contrary to the doctrine that Might Makes Right, actually, being Right has a tendency to increase your Might. Being Right wins you allies. Being Wrong (while shrilly declaring your virtues) alienates you. Evil societies are doomed ultimately because they cannot make the most sense for the most people. If they are not destroyed by other societies trying to protect themselves from threat, they collapse from within, lacking a raison d'etre which can long endure (Soviet Union).
I know words like Evil are not intellectually gold-standard these days. But I think a society which attempts to exist at the expense of others can be called Evil. A society which places its own racial heritage at the apex of a specious scale of value (both Nazis and Imperial Japan), and dehumanizes others is Evil, if there is such a thing. Which there is.

Of course, had Japan and Nazi Germany been liberal, humanistic societies, WWII would never had happened in the first place. Which I think can be expressed as a military doctrine which I will call The Nodlew Doctrine: To take military action which makes it necessary for most of the world to attempt to destroy you is to invite defeat.

Which is why terrorism is doomed to failure. Terrorism can only be practiced by a dehumanzed, mentally crippled sort of person. A Fanatic. A person willing to blow himself up on the basis of a bunch of hogwash fed to him by manipulators who put no stock in the value of individual human life at all. Perhaps such people will always exist, but they will always be a sliver of humanity. Even in the poorest and harshest communities on Earth, the majority of human beings possess too much common-sense to buy into that crap.

[Randomizer]

Things like national character.
Please don't think that I am cherry picking something out of context, national moods and mores certainly play their part but counting on them might prove to be disasterous. Several historians have taken up this theme:

Victor David Hanson - Carnage and Culture and Ripples of Battle;
Wolfgang Schivelbusch - The Culture of Defeat; and
Grady McWhiney - Attack and Die

All these (and others, these three just spring to mind) reference military outcomes to social factors normally ignored or overlooked in military historical narratives. While I certainly would not reject this methodology entirely, I think it best used with caution and in context of the times.

Remember that everybody looks at events through a cultural lens, in 1800 the Chinese were totally disdainful of the barbarians from the West while a mere 100-years later a handful of Europeans full of moral hubris had the worlds most populus culture firmly under their hob-nailed boots. And 100-years after that...

I would suggest that there is no evidence to suggest that American submariners held any overall character advantages in bravery, competance, skill or initiative over German submariners in WW2.

Edited to clairify a point.

[nodlew]

I would suggest that there is no evidence to suggest that American submariners held any overall character advantages in bravery, competance, skill or initiative over German submariners in WW2.


Perhaps not. But what about his national leadership? Do you think the Nazi Party was a place where a man rose according to his true competence, or was that heavily influenced by his standing in the Nazi Party--a vile organization sure to be at odds with German military leaders (or anyone else) of competence, integrity, and understanding?

What about the industry building his submarine? Was the average German factory worker as motivated and committed to the war effort when his motivation was provided by Goebbels' Nazi propaganda as was an American factory worker whose motivation was Pearl Harbor and the salvation of the free world? How motivated were the slave laborers in Poland and France? No question about the commitment of the Japanese work force, of course, but industry in Japan was infantile compared to the United States. How much innovation was provided by Japanese industry throughout the couse of the war? Compared to the US, Jap innovation didn't exist. The US began the war essentially with WWI technology, and we ended it with the Atom Bomb.
The difference between the two--Japan was a Medieval society attempting to make use of the technology of modern warfare. The US was a Modern Society for which technological innovation and industrial production were the core of our national being.
American industrial and technological ascendance in WWII was the consequence of what kind of society we were--one which rewarded competence without regard for social status, one which valued good ideas whatever their source, and one which dealt in realities more commonly than in ideologies and mythologies (myth of Jap superiority/divinity/Samurai myth--myth of Aryan racial superiority--myth of Democratic decadence/weakness).
Where did a lot of our pool of Genius come from? From Europe, from everywhere, fleeing the Nazis and the Japs to our shores to work for us to destroy their oppressors.
I'm just saying that Good Societies (humane, democratic, liberal) are ultimately stronger than Evil Societies, because at their core they are more rational. Being more rational, they appeal to and win the support of more people, and they tend to make better decisions at all levels.

The U-Boat crews were brave, sharp, competent, and well-equipped. But they were doomed for the same reason that the German foot solder with his trusty Kar 98 was doomed, because they were an instrument of an evil Political Entity which had incurred the wrath of the entire free world plus the Russians.

[psykopatsak]

erhaps not. But what about his national leadership? Do you think the Nazi Party was a place where a man rose according to his true competence, or was that heavily influenced by his standing in the Nazi Party--a vile organization sure to be at odds with German military leaders (or anyone else) of competence, integrity, and understanding?

i think that allthough the nazi's were in many ways incompetent for their jobs (not at least hitler as millitary leader) germany have been practisers of "best in befehl ist befehl" - which made many of their ordinary orginasations (german army (wehrmacht)) rather competent. though ultimatley there were some moron with a swastika, who had the army goose-walk in to death...

[Randomizer]

Compared to the US, Jap innovation didn't exist. The US began the war essentially with WWI technology, and we ended it with the Atom Bomb... The difference between the two--Japan was a Medieval society attempting to make use of the technology of modern warfare. The US was a Modern Society for which technological innovation and industrial production were the core of our national being.
The idea that America begin the war with WW1 technology is easily debunked. The vast majority of weapons systems that won America's war were designed and in many cases in production before Pearl Harbour and even in 1939 when Europe went to war. Even the atom bomb project started before the U.S. joined the fight although it would not become the Manhatten Project until later. The B-29 bomber that would destroy Hiroshima with that bomb was on the drawing board before Pearl so the idea that America advanced so far just during the war is disingenuous at best.

All the liberal democracies proved more efficient at fighting a total war than the fascists. There are many reasons for this phenomenon not the least of which is that the democracies were not expending industrial and military resources to subjugate and murder their own citizens and those of captured territories.

America brought a native flair for innovation and a huge surplus in manufacturing capacity to the table but had no monopoly on the former characteristic compared to the other allies or even the axis countries. America was the world's biggest economy so once it ramped up to full wartime capacity the Axis was doomed.

I think you are mixing embedded cultural traits with national economic and scientific acumen and there is not always a tangable correlation. Likewise the concept of "Good Societies" is entirely dependant entirely on your point of view, to a Japanese of 1941 Japan would likely have been a "Good Society" and an America, which did not share his cultural lens would probably be irrational and "bad". Good and bad are reletive concepts, to consider them as absolute leads to national hubris and that has always historically lead to disaster. Stomping the Nazi's and the Japanese junta flat with high explosives was entirely correct in my opinion but looking at events with a simple good vs. evil mindset creates a very distorted picture of events.

I am fairly certain that there were also millions of disenfranchised Black Americans in 1941 who might not have placed their country in the "Good" column in most respects. That so many would flock to the colours of a country that legally denied them precisely those democratic values that you say characterize America as a 'good society" indicates the power exerted by the "American Dream" but one should never confuse a dream with reality.

Cheers

[psykopatsak]

IMO the reason the US sucseeded is many reasons. the geographical reasons, and such stated earlier but also very imortant: the japanese took a very long time to realize that their merchants were being sunk and the freighter pool drying up, and also convoy escort was not seen as a proper task for the IJN.

allied countermeasures were more advanced and sucessful than the few - if any produced by japan at the time.

[nodlew]

Hate it when that happens. I'll respond in more detail after I've had some time to consult my vast library of historical references (read: Wikipedia).

[Dread Knot]

No question about the commitment of the Japanese work force, of course, but industry in Japan was infantile compared to the United States. How much innovation was provided by Japanese industry throughout the couse of the war? Compared to the US, Jap innovation didn't exist. The US began the war essentially with WWI technology, and we ended it with the Atom Bomb.

I disagree with the notion that Japanese innovation didn't exist. They argueably had the finest carrier fleet in the world in 1941. They had by far the best torpedo of WW2. The Zero fighter came as a shock to the Allies. Even late in the war under crippling bombardment, they managed to come up with some of their best aircraft designs. The Ki-100 Tony for example. The aircraft came as a nasty surprise to Allied pilots. One squadron destroyed 14 Hellcats in a single engagement without loss. Fortunately for the Allies, by 1945 the Japanese were unable to produce the Ki-100 in any great quantity and were short on good pilots.

Japan's biggest stumbling blocks were industrial and geographical. Being located on mountainous, crowded resource-poor islands fighting a powerful opponent among many who occupied a vast, distant continent rich in resources and with a industrial heartland immune to air attack was a huge disadvantage for her. Her smaller industrial base made it immposible to keep up in every field like electronics and radar while replacing losses in aircraft and ships. Yes, you can blame the feudal bushido mentality for a lot of problems, but Japan would never have lasted as long as she did without it.