Ummm....max depth....the USS Chopper made it to 1011 feet at the bow and 720 ft. at the stern. 295 M is the Crush depth for a German U-Boat (VIIC IX was shallower) or about 885 feet.

I've seen both boats, U-505 in Chicago and the USS. Silversides In Muskegon MI. and I can say that the Fleet Boat is a much more impressive machine.
she had more tubes, more guns on average (counting AA and deck guns), better radar, deeper dive depth, sonar ranging systems, a better TDC, A/C, Refrigeration, and not to mention redundant Drivetrains.

Yeah, what Gimpy said. Shroeder, the propensity for a depth charged U-Boat to just give up and surface while not heavily damaged was SO prevalent that Daniel Gallery used it as the plan for capturing U-505. In his book, Gallery discusses that at length and attributes it to the morale of the crew, not the capability of the boat. Ability to stand up to stress is severely impacted by environmental concerns. Germans and Japanese gave no thought to creature comforts which can make tremendous differences in the outcome of stressful situations. It doesn't make sense in view of our tendency toward macho views of what a warship should be like (they fight better BECAUSE of the primitive conditions. If we take out the bathrooms they'll fight even harder! Hard conditions make hard men!:rotfl:), but it is very true. Well-rested, well-fed, comfortable men handle stress better than "hard men in hard conditions." That means they fight better too.

Doenitz would have killed to have a fleet of American fleet boats with radar. The presence of radar detectors does not make radar any less useful. You act like the radar detector evens the game. It does not. While the possessor of the radar knew the exact disposition of the enemy, the possessor of the radar detector knew only that someone with enemy radar was somewhere out there. Joe Enright in his book Shinano! tells how he ran his radar throughout the entire encounter even though he knew for a fact that the Japanese ships likely had radar detectors. They did and they detected his radar. What does Shinano say about that evening of the odds? Try "blub, blub, blub." Enright knew that leaving the radar on was the right thing to do. So should you.

Agreed with the radar Robbins.

U boats couldn't use the radars because of the air presence in the Atlantic, who were equipped with HF/DF units (ships also had this but air power was by far the most deadly).
If I'm not mistaken we had them pretty pegged on radar / radio detection and could even pinpoint the general location of the boats. I would assume they could pinpoint radar signals as well considering it is a form of electromagnetic wave

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HF/DF

But that aside, American electronics were far more advanced and this went the same for radar systems.

May I ask how they measured that? I think I haven't seen a Fleet Boat with an depth gauge that went to 1000feet.:o

Well there have been Flak-Uboats in Germany too, but they failed to provide decent anti air cover so the idea was droped again. I think no sub stayed voluntarily surfaced to gun it out with an aircraft. Well for the bigger weapons ask some people of the RFB team how important they were.;)

@Rockin Robbins
I didn't know about the stress situation leading to abondoning subs.:o
The living conditions on the Fleet Boats were better for sure (how much worse can they get compared to a German sub;)) but I didn't know that it had such an impact. But the demoralising is not only a matter of comfort. Maybe they had cracked just the same on a Fleet Boat under the circumstance that many of their fellow subs had been sunk and they might have had several close calls before (I don't know the details of U505 service life...yet).

For the radar detector. From what I know (or think to know) the radar detectors used by escorts could point to the direction from which the enemy radiation came. Therfore only two ships were needed that were some distance apart from each other to locate the radiation source (I think the British did that with normal radio traffic radiaton of the German subs too). So if you use your radar against Tommies things might have turned out differently as in the Pacific.

Again, I don't want to say the German subs were the best and that the Fleet Boats sucked. I just wanted to point out that (IMHO) there is no THE BEST submarine, tank, plane, weapon....etc.
It always depends on the situation and the environment. The Fleet Boats were definitly the boats of choice for the Pacific but I doubt that they would have been that successfull if Germany had used them in the Atlantic against the British.

There are other design trade offs. Heavier boat would likely require bigger motors, etc. We only lost 52 boats, and many of those in shallow water. Had we decided that our boats were being sunk for lack of depth, we'd have altered them.

Remember as well that the design for even the later war boats was gelled up during a period where USN intel knew that the IJN seems to set their DCs at a max depth well above what the subs could already do.

I've read that fleet boats were equipped with other methods of depth measurement.

here's a detailed breakdown: http://www.usschopper.com/Chopper%20...e%20Report.htm

and direction finding can be done with one aircraft and ship...it was even used as a navigation method on aircraft such ad the DC-3 (aka the C-47) and by using a round antenna or a special antenna the Brits were supposed to have you can point your way too a known nav station. This same method is used for finding submarines or, for that matter, anything that gives out electromagnetic waves in the specific bandwidth

I think it's very difficult to compare the performances since the quality of the ASW opposition was just so enormously different.

Strangely on this forum you get the feeling it's unpatriotic to say so.

Still after the ATO theater is fully developed for SH4, it should be easy to get a pseudo-test of these things! Driving a Gato in the Atlantic against the allies should be easy enough to mod.

how do you know this?

But then on the other hand the capture of U505 was in 1944, and the ASW the Germans received at that time was tremendously deadly. Knowing that your chances of escaping after being properly detected and located were at that time less than even, don't you think this would have a bigger influence on your decision to surrender than whether or not you had soft toilet paper?

The American experience was very different, since the Japanese ASW started out crap, got slightly better, but still far from good, and then became worse again as planes and destroyers were being eliminated. Why would an American skipper surrender, risking the lives of his crewmen trying to surface near a destroyer, when he knows his chances of successful evasion are so much better?

Now i personally love my creature comforts, and would also like to believe they make me a better warrior, but i think assessment of more rational influences explains things more satisfactorily.

Anyway from the US Operational Submarine History "It would do well for all Submariners to humbly ponder the fact that Japanese Anti-Submarine defenses were not the best. If our Submarines had been confronted with Allied Anti-Submarine measures, the casuality list of the Submarine force would have been much larger, and the accomplishment of Allied Submarines less impressive."

Anyway, I repeat my question about engines - what is the comparative advantage of a diesel-electric over diesel direct drive?

It's directly referred to in the patrol reports submitted by the commanders of the boats.

Fair enough, but of course you'd be foolish to report that the icecream maker and decent food was just a useless waste of space! The USN might decide they may better serve in their own homes!

Secondly, how do you assess the actual effect, did those men in the smelly sugar-boats report they wanted to surrender because of it?

Thirdly, and possibly at some contradiction to myself, in one of my books i have, it reports that submarines of all nationalities tended to be given better than average food for the purpose of making up for the lack of other comforts on a submarine.

The Japanese submarines had the best food the navy could afford for them, fresh rice, miso soup, pickles and tinned clams for example.

No, but the reports are abundantly clear (and blunt, for that matter) that living conditions on board S boats were poor. Living on a boat that was cold and dripping wet for months on end, sleeping on wet and moldy mattresses (and working with equipment that accumulated mold as well) were all commonplace with these boats.

Just to go along with what Luke is saying, here is a excerpt from Silent Victory on S-Boat conditions:

The bunks beyond the wardroom are filled with torpid, skivvy-clad bodies, the sweat running off the white, rash-blistered skin in small rivulets. Metal fans are whirling everywhere-overhead, at the ends of the bunks, close to my ear....I am playing cribbage with the skipper, mainly because I don't like to wallow in a sweat-soaked bunk for most of the day.
I have my elbows on the table near the edge and I hold my cards with my arms at a slight angle so the sweat will run down my bare arms...without further soaking the pile of cards in the center. Overhead is a fine net of gauze to catch the wayward cockroaches which prowl across the top of the wardroom and occasionally fall straight downward...they live in the cork insulation that lines the subs hull. We've killed over sixteen million roaches in one compartment alone. The control room floor is littered with towels, used to sponge up the water dripping off the men and the submarine itself. The food is routine...something canned. The dehydrated potato's, powdered onions and reconstitued carrots have the same general taste...like sawdust.

That has to have a negative effect on the mindset.

S boats are pretty much u-boats in terms of comfort, right?

I'm currently reading Pigboat 39, I'll letcha know how it is.

So far, there has been a lot of introducing the crew. It's interesting since the book was written by the wife of the pigboat submariner, and she had followed him to the Philippines. Loads of stuff about the wives, girlfriends, etc. I think my wife might actually like to read it, lol. Not my usual military history, but it certainly put a human face on things.

BTW, she said her husband would come home from the boat and stink.

I expect it is true that quality of life has a difference in the long-term running of a boat, but i do not think you are making a case that these difference outweigh more simple life/death calculations when it comes to hugely important and high-risk decisions such as surrendering in the middle of a depth-charging, or being able to perform a tracking calculation.

I'd say that good conditions likely reduce the possiblity of mutiny, maybe even keep overall performance up particularly over the very long pacific voyages, and help reduce friction between crewmen.

Kylesplanet is confusing "having an effect on the mindset", which can be anything, like what the guy in the next bunk said to you this morning, and the kind of decision making that would go on when assessing your chances of survival.

LukeFF has been in the forces.

Lets put the following scenario to him. He's trapped behind a rock and he's alone without a radio and out of ammo. The nearest real cover is 50 yards away. There are five guys about 100 yards away with AKs pointing at his rock.

The options available are - surrender, and accept the risk of being shot in the act of surrender or being shot summarily after.

Or try to run 50 yards in the open for the better cover and hope they miss.

Let's say our man knows that the five guys are poorly trained and the rifles don't seem to work well, and our man can run pretty fast. He sees that bullets rarely even come close to his rock and the guys sound like they're drunk. He's also heard they are pretty cruel bunch and like to shoot dead prisoners. Would this knowledge change his perception of his chances?

Let's say our man sees that these guys are very well trained and every time he puts an eye over the top of rock, a bullet whistles past missing by millimeters - he also sees they are maneuvering in a competent manner for a better position. He's also heard that if he did surrender he'll be treated fairly. Would this knowledge change his perception of his chances?

Let's say our man has clean silk underwear and had a good breakfast of ham and eggs, and that furthermore the spot behind his rock happens to be nicely in the shade and there's a cool breeze. Would this change his perception of his chances?

If the answer is yes to all, would you care to prioritse?

Comparing submarines is always fun to do.

However, don't forget to include the 'battlefields' they were intended to fight on.
For the Germans it was merely running out of the port and fight. So, they didn't need to have six tubes forward and 4 aft. With the load the VIIC could carry it was more than enough to send them out, run into the enemy, which they knew was there, attack, get back into port and run out again in a couple of weeks. The US had to first sail to their area of operation, and then find the Japanese, which had no regular running convoys.
Then they would attack and when empty had to sail the whole !@#$ route back.
Of course after so many days at sea the overhaul time was longer for the fleetsubs, where the Germans only took some weeks.

Also keep in mind that it was thanks to bright characters like Admiral Nimitz, that the fleetsub had all the luxury like airconditioning. Before WW2 other Navy staff didn't think it was a good idea, it would only 'spoil the crew'. But, maybe Nimitz knew about the new Dutch submarines that came to the Dutch Indies (now Indonesia) in 1938. They already had airconditioning, and a snorkel, and a half-automatic torpedo loading system...

Anyway, compare all subs if you like, but also take into account the role they were meant to play.

groetjes,

All that, and the roaches were big.

Was that from Silent Victory? Sounds like a passage from 'My War in the Boats'?