SUBSIM Radio Room Forums - US fleet boats - best frontline sub of ww2?

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Nisgeis is spot on, as is RR regarding "agility."

Allied A/S doctrine was to hold enemy subs down longer than they could remain submerged, at which point they'd have no choice but to surface. Any time during this period they could be sunk, as well, obviously. If you know where a sub attack was, you saturate the area with ASW assets and it's gotta stay down. That area is a circle around the last contact point equal to the distance it can travel underwater given the amount of air it might have. Surface attacks mean that it has fresh air when it does dive, as well as massively increasing the area needed to be searched since the speeds are literally like 10X higher.

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Originally Posted by joegrundman
This is kind of a side question - -could someone explain in easy language what the comparative advantage is of a diesel-electric drive train over a direct drive diesel engine?

The electric motors provide a non-mechanical link from the propellors to the engines. If the propellor shaft moves or shifts suddenly, without the electric motors to absorb the shock, it could cause harm to the engine(s) moving parts. The electric motors had fewer moving parts and could take more punishment than an engine. Having electric cables connecting the electric motors to the engines could also mean that you were better able to jury-rig a way to get yourself moving than having a heavy mechanical connection.

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Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

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Originally Posted by Gino

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.
groetjes,

Gino, that's fine, but they were out there without the ability to change the war because they didn't have near the right amount of firepower. Throughout the war, German submarines succeeded in sinking a total of 1% of the shipping in Allied convoys. I would argue that the Germans had a need for ten forward torpedo tubes and four aft torpedo tubes.

Your best chance to tag a victim is during your first salvo, before the enemy knows that there is a sub out there and exactly where it is. Especially in the hostile environment U-Boats operated in they needed to fill the water full of torpedoes instantly, through many torpedo tubes in order to have the slightest prayer that their sacrifice was worthwhile.

Also, the German U-Boat was fatally crippled by lower speeds both surfaced and submerged than fleet boats. Often people refer to the "agility" of the U-Boat. It was a one-dimensional agility. Once submerged in that awful hurry, all the U-Boat could do was wallow around like Fat Albert in a wading pool. An S-Boat was agile. The U-Boat was a sitting duck once submerged. It could not evade well and it could not run for position submerged. Much is said of the "daring" surface attack methods of the U-Boats. It was much less daring and much more the only effective way they could attack because of inadequate submerged speed.

Finally, not having enough torpedoes forced the U-Boats to run the gauntlet into and out of port more often than necessary. This was arguably the most dangerous part of each cruise, and they had to do it much more than necessary. What was the percentage of U-Boats sunk without having sunk a single target, in spite of their immediate and target rich environment? How many were sunk without even having fired a single torpedo?

Even the decision to use U-Boats at all for offensive purposes was flawed because they were the wrong kind of boat, the British weren't shipping their supplies on their own bottoms and use of the U-Boats guaranteed the entry of the United States into the war. The Germans, with their cold-minded calculation, should have seen this in 1939 and made the decision to use U-Boats for defensive purposes only and pursue the war with the aim of keeping Britain and the US out of the war. Any other use of the things guaranteed defeat. You can't torpedo a truck convoy crossing Kansas, even if you don't have enough torpedoes to sink more than a couple!

The question you asked as to how many U-boats were sunk without even firing a torpedo. That has more to do with the fact that the Allies knew exactly where the Uboats were and simply sailed around them because we cracked there Enigma machine and read all of their naval traffic. When that was not possible the U-boats scored well. An example of this is in 1941 when they changed the Enigma machine and added another code wheel to it. After we lost the ability to read their codes the U-Boats success went right back up.

It hs more to do with the situation surrounding the Atlantic war than any short comming of the subs themselves. If Germany had built more Type VII's and Type IX's and trained there crews in the beginning of the wart the outcome might have been differant for England. As it is in 1940 a whoafully inadiquate U-boat force that was 1/10th of what Reader had wanted to put against England almost brought England to submission. 2 weeks of vital supplies left for the Island. ASW in the Atlantic was completly superior to what was encountered in the Pacific.
Even aircraft were more of a threat because there were more of them and they had all the latest ASW technology.

but honestly, as a fighting machine...I don't see a reason why the Fleet Boat wasn't better.

the german subs were antiquity designed granted, but were talking what was best design wise, not tactically

Well the Fleet boat was huge by German standards and took up alot of raw materials for a war that was supposed to be against England a much smaller type VII was more than adequate to do the job. Also people keep acting as if the U-boats were WW1 boats. They were not, They were built in the mid 1930's just like the fleet boats. The larger type IX was Germany's version of a fleet boat and suited the navy's needs quite well while again using less men and materials.

There wasnt any technological gap in German and American sub desighns of the 1930's. They both used basic improved upon WW1 knowledge. The allies had better radar. THe Germans had better torpedo's with the acoustic homing, Lut and FAT desighns.

All and all both capable fighting machines.

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Originally Posted by Freiwillige

yes tactically they were....but Raw Materials were not a problem in america...
the VIIC is supposed to be an updated WWI sub...it's practically identical

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_..._III_submarine

http://www.uboat.net/wwi/types/images/ubiii.gif

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Originally Posted by Freiwillige

Again, Freiwillege, no U-Boat took enough torpedoes to war to do enough harm to be a meaningful threat. That 1% sinking rate is a devastating testimony to the impotence of the huge U-Boat fleet. Where the allies had many engineering advancements in the 1930's the Germans had next to none. Their Type VIIC was pretty much identical to the technology and capability of a WWI boat. Even the American S-Boat was MUCH faster underwater and we consider them total losers.

The American ballasting system was far in advance of anything the Germans took to war. The diesel-electric American system compared to the German direct drive clutch system is like comparing a Lamborghini to a farm tractor. American all-welded construction was light-years ahead of the German riveted hull. You are ignoring virtually every single aspect of the submarine, looking at them with unfocused eyes and declaring them equal because they are the same color blur. Look at the details, system by system and the American sub is technically MUCH better at least 3/5 of the time. I'm being too charitable with that 3/5.

AND the use of the U-Boat guaranteed the loss of the war. Since England did not ship its supplies on its own bottoms, the normally sober-minded Germans chose to ignore the certainty that unrestricted submarine warfare would bring the United States into the war. The very use of U-Boats in unrestricted warfare was the doom of Germany in the war. Once Britain and the United States lined up against Germany, the war was lost and the only question was in what manner were they going to die. Perhaps the stupidest decision in a war of stupid German decisions was the decision to fight Britain and the US.

The U-Boats should not even have been built. All those raw materials would have been better used to make tanks, artillery, vehicles and planes. But WWII was not a war of sane people fighting for reasonable objects with attainable goals. It was the war of a psychopathic god, busily finding creative ways for his people and himself to commit suicide, taking as many others with them on their way to Valhalla as possible, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory again and again. This he called glory.:rotfl:

Okay it is based on a ww1 desighn but it was modernised to quite an extent. Modern building techniques were utilised such as all welded hull construction as opposed to riveted ww1 desighns making the Type VII have a much deeper diving depth than its UBIII ww1 bretheren it was based on. So in essance you take a proven WW1 desighn (UB III) and modernise it with 25+ years of technological advancement and you have the proven and succesfull Type VII.

The question is how much differant were the fleet boats to their predisessors?
Other then size not much until you begin adding the gadgets.:up:

Lets face it submarine warfare had not changed much in 30 years until one takes into account minor improvments such as improved hydrophones and radar.

The forum needs a "worst sub. of WWII" thread-like the Italian subs that took nearly three minutes to crash dive.

still...

more tubes, more range, more gadgets, more crew comfort, deeper dive, and more tonnage sunk etc.

how can we argue against the fleet boats??

The same point has been made a couple ways on both sides of the argument.

That the theater of war mattered. Meaning that different boats might be better for different theaters.

Dissect that a little. The argument for the u-boats is that due to the nature of the ATO, the u-boat was a superior, or at the very least an equally capable platform. This might be true assuming you neglect a single, important factor. The purpose of the submarine force.

Results matter.

The KM sank many more tons, but RR alludes to this, and he is 100% correct—the increase in tonnage they sank was not enough. Not NEARLY enough.

Thought experiment:
Say the u-boats that saw service could have magically carried twice as many torpedoes. Seriously, magic—a Star Trek transporter that beamed them a full load as soon as they were out. They'd have maybe sunk 2% of convoyed traffic? What % was required to do the bottom line job assigned the KM—choke off Allied supply from the West to the extent that the Germans had a chance? A damn sight higher than 2%, that's how much.

So holding even twice as many fish—with no change in performance at all— would still not have made them the right tool for the task, though more would only have been better given the gauntlet they had to run.

It's a tribute to their crew quality that they did so well, actually (I won't say doctrine, because I believe their radio-centric doctrine was their most critical failure).

This is becoming fruitless as many just outright ignore facts.

Fact: German U-boats had an advanced welded hull construction. Not the Type VII nor any other WWII boat had Rivets. See my post above on the type VII's evolution from the WW1 UB III

Fact: German U-boats have on a few occasions exceeded 300 meters depth and a couple of times by a scary margine. 300 meters is 984.5 feet. The type VIIC\41 had a thicker Pressure hull and could go deeper than any other U-boat.

Fact:The U-boats sank 3,476 merchant vessals during WW2 with the peak in 1942.

Fact: Admiral Doenitz had wanted 300 U-boats to go to war with England. He had stated that any less would make a blockade of England near imposable.
When WWII broke out he had 57 and of those the majority were the small coastal boats! Only 27 were sea boats available to blockade England.

So one could equate tha it wasnt that the tool wasnt right for the job just that there were not enough tools to do the job right in the first place.

So speed goes to the fleet boats surface and underwater.
# of torpedo tubes goes to the fleet boats.
Dive time goes to the U-boats
Depth goes to the U-Boats
Resource alotment goes to the U-boats both in men and materials
Tonnage sunk goes to the U-boats
Technolegy goes both ways. Defensive Fleet boats. Offensive U-boats.

The fact of the matter is that Germany needed the numbers more than any other factor to make a differance in 1939' 40' 41'. Those needed numbers never materialised but they put to damn good use what they did have available in that time period.

That would make a larger differance than to make a fleet boat equivelant when they could make two Type VII's for every fleet boat.

Plus one more major factor. If the Kreigsmarine had the common sense to realise that the Enigma machine had been broken and changed their coding system. Many had suspected that the allies were reading their codes but the arrogance of the German high command in beleiving that the Enigma was un breakable led to its continued use and continued U-boat losses resulted.

Freiwillige
I'll buy the resourses issue the way you framed it, actually, point taken.

Basically, though, short of starting hostilities with 2-300 boats, they were hosed. Note though that had they sunk even more tons early on (before Dec 11, 1941), they would have eventually made a mistake, and the US would have entered the war, IMO.

Frankly, I think instead of the 300 U-boats Germany should have looked into long range naval aviation. Using those bases in Norway and France they probably could have cut off the sea approaches to Britain by swamping them with squadrons of long range torpedo planes or eventually with anti-ship missiles launched from planes similar to the one they used to polish off the Italian battleship Roma. Britain on her own probably couldn't have built enough escort carriers to counter this threat.

Even just having a decent search plane program to aid the U-Boats search would have helped.