British sub losses were high in ETO

[Bubblehead1980]

Pretty much a noob on British subs. Did some reading but nothing too in depth yet, any thoughts on why British sub losses were so high in the ETO? Was German/Italian ASW that good or ?

[sergei]

Oh man Bubblehead1980, I've just answered you in another thread :DL
Hold on, I'll do a cut and paste

The Italian ASW wasn't up to much initially.
Their DDs had only passive gear to hunt subs with, and were in the habit of dropping depth charges periodically around convoys to 'warn off submarines'
Obviously this had the exact opposite effect. The exploding charges could be heard for miles, and alerted Brit sub commanders to the presence of a convoy.

Once the Germans started to get involved it got a lot more dangerous.
I'm sure they trained the Italian DD crews and gave then sonar technology.
I'm not sure how directly the Kriegsmarine got involved (haven't read a lot about it, just 2 books).

Shallow water operations in much of the Med has to have played a part in the high loss rate.
Often they could not dive deep enough to be totally invisible from the air (the Med has pretty clear water), or get under a sonar beam.

[cptroyce]

While not an expert by any means...I have read that because of the strong accelerated current entering the Med through the Straight (Bernulli Principle?), most subs couldn't exit the Med submerged..had to stay surfaced to do that. Perhaps that accounted for a higher loss rate.

Royce

[WernherVonTrapp]

Pretty much a noob on British subs. Did some reading but nothing too in depth yet, any thoughts on why British sub losses were so high in the ETO? Was German/Italian ASW that good or ?I honestly don't know much about it so, I'm going to speculate here. Their high losses may have been partially due to the fact that there were no great axis convoys to hunt down. There also wasn't any vast merchant marine fleet for the Brits to sink. Therefore, their forays must have taken them deeper into enemy home waters and ports, looking for capital ships. This, of course, would've have made their subs more vulnerable to mines, sub nets, shallows and aerial attack.:hmmm:

[sergei]

This, of course, would've have made their subs more vulnerable to mines, sub nets, shallows and aerial attack.:hmmm:

Good point WernherVonTrapp.
I recall that areas of the Med were mined extensively.

[Hooch]

ok, there were plenty of losses to minefields as minefields where pretty extensively laid by both sides on the north sea. also most of the battles where takeing place in shallow areas and yes the british were more and in close battle navy.
ie hunting supply vessels around italy, german u boats from france. the straits where a hazard.
The top british sub ace vanished in the med, conficting reports are either he ran into a minefields or a destroyer actually sunk him but there is no definate proof either way.

[sidslotm]

I wonder just how good the brit sub designs were for the med, The class T was a big boat with only one rudder and in 50 meters of water would have made my lovely bottom pout. Talk about remaining undetected, speaks for itself.

[Randomizer]

Just some ideas suspect at least some of it was due to design and construction issues with the boats themselves. Most were rivetted not welded, their optics were greatly inferior to those of the USN and KM and most classes had periscopes made of bronze (an ill-concieved attempt to save weight and minimize compass interference) which limited diving depth while increasing vulnerability to damage since the periscopes were also comparatively short.

Also British boats lacked the ability to program gyro angles into their torpedoes and the fire control was far more primitive than that found in the Fleet Boats or U-bootwaffe. This required the entire boat be aimed at the firing angle since off-angle shots were impossible and made long shots difficult. There's no real excuse for this shortcoming since the RN's gunnery computers were as technically good or better than any other navy's.

Another issue in the Med was the fact that few merchants sailed alone so most British boats mostly had to operate against convoys. As the Allies demonstrated so well, submarine operations against convoys brought the submarines to the escorts and pitted stealth against strength. In the Aegean Sea where there was more independent sailings the RN boats caused great havoc while suffering fewer relative losses.

Peter Padfield in War Beneath the Sea is pretty critical of the Royal Navy leadership's treatment of their submarine force in the interwar period and not all of the problems could be solved in wartime. Great credit to the RN crews and the very fine Mk8* submarine torpedo for being as successful as they were.

[Red Devil]

Most british subs were used in secret mssions. In the Med, the waters being so shallow, it was a hell of a lot easier for enemy forces to detect and attack british submarines. The Med was once a plain, protected from the Atlantic by a cliff face across the Straits of Gibraltar. When this was breached in an earthquake the Med came into existence and so did the farming land now under the Black Sea. Submarines could, and did, enter the Med under water. In the case of German subs they had too as the straits had 100% surface security with destroyers criss crossing their patrol routes leaving little or none uncovered. Few U boats were risked in this way. As with our subs operating a strict radio silence, many fates were 'guessed' on the intelligence of activity in the Med.

Regarding equipment, british subs were not technically front line as with the KM or USA, we had surface fleets and carriers big enough and strong enough to deal with most problems. As I said earlier, subs were mainly used for clandestine work, agents, resistance, supplies etc. The only time Brit subs went on the 'attack' so to speak, was to control axis supply routes to Africa.

Britsh Subs in WW2 (http://www.secondworldwar.org.uk/britsubs.html)