Unfortunately, there are few scholarly histories of the totality of US submarine operations in WW2. Roscoe (United States Submarine Operations in World War II, NIP) is one I know of, but it's also an internal Navy history, effectively. It includes JANAC information, but not any other post war analysis of japanese records (which is what Alden's book is, an attempt to improve upon the JANAC score-keeping). Other than that, most tend to be single boat narratives (though many are by the skippers or officers, so at least it's 1st hand).

Silent Victory is an excellent survey of US submarine operations in the PTO, IMO. That's what it is, a survey, and obviously you take those as such, it doesn't claim to be anything else.

When someone attacks the submarine war in a manner similar to Lundstrom's work on USN aviation in the first year of the war (the exceptional Firt Team books), or Chris Shores, et al and their work on Malaya/Burma/NEI (Bloody Shambles) I'll be the first one in line to get a copy. Until then, Roscoe and Blair are pretty much it short of taking a vacation to the archives to read raw patrol reports.

tater

If you go to a university those reports are not hard to obtain.

Yeah, well, have you read every single patrol report?

Rather a lot of work to answer the question "did US submarines usually fire spreads."

A quick look at any survey will show that they did as SOP. So would a look at Alden since it lists every single allied submarine attack in the PTO including the number of fish fired, and the number of hits (as well as the name and lat/long of the target wherever possible from US and japanese records).

tater

Which university? Just asking mind.

Currently at SBCC waiting to finnish my doctorate so I can start teaching at UCSB. I'm hired through the university, but they require professors who don't have doctorates to begin work at the city college.

I suppose you disparage primary sources
 

So you can attack historians based on arcane criterea which do not bear on their truthfulness, but toward some academic brownie point scale. War cares little for academia, unless it is a Military Academy.

But my sources are primary sources, not subject to academia's "qualifications." As most academics do, you merely ignore that which you cannot refute. The appeal to authority is one of the most egregious of logical fallacies. It certainly carries no weight in this forum.

To my list of primary historical sources, I have to add the novels of Edward Beach, which are veritable textbooks of WWII submarine strategy with lengthy discussions of the merit of one attack strategy vs. another. I would argue that for letting us into the mind of a sub skipper they are superior to any of the historical sources, as Beach not only tells you what was done, but why, and offers his commentary on the shortcomings of alternate schemes, even when they were official policy. Edward Beach, of course, was not just a novelist, but a premier WWII sub skipper of three subs who went on to command the USS Triton during her submerged circumnavigation of the Earth.

Beach comes down squarely on the attack of individual ships, not convoys. He is in favor of spreads in almost all circumstances, even after a lengthy, methodical approach with numerous checks for accuracy of projection vs. actual position.

There was one captain only whose motto actually was "one ship, one torpedo." Was it Fluckey or McCants? I'll have to check that when I get home and quote you chapter and verse. Whichever skipper this was, their results speak for themselves. My two candidates were two of the most outstanding skippers of the war. They also were willing and able to butt heads with Admiral Lockwood. But this deviation from policy (however rigid that policy may have been) implies that the policy of spreads was a true consensus of skippers, not merely obedience to orders. This would strengthen tater's point to the point of irrefutability. As such it would be an actual application of "the exception proves the rule" in the modern sense. That phrase was invented when "prove" meant to test with the purpose of showing something is false, a meaning quite different from our own.

Academic elitism carries little weight here but facts do.

How can a historian not know Woodrow Wilson's name? Something is rotten in Denmark. Methinks thine own words do betray you.

Furthermore, you engage in the fallacious strategy of requiring rigorous scrutiny of others' sources while citing none yourself, something a true historian would never do. No historian takes a non-falsifiable view such as you have. (hows THAT for internal contradiction! See? I can do it too):rotfl:But reading the entire thread shows more than you mean to reveal. Real historians are intrigued by differences and wish to understand them. They do not take an unsupported position and ride it to hell.

The shop is still trying to straighten out the dents in the Holy Grail. Monty Python is mightily upset with the situation and has threatened legal action against me as bailor. This is getting uncomfortable.

in theory that would work.. but the reality is that unlike a torpedo launcher on a DD, the torpedos on the sub would have to turn. that initial run before the turn might possibly throw off the solution if it has to turn too much.

actually i take that back. it seems to work really well. just make sure your crossing angles aren't too gross.


ok so here's how to try it out:

load up the torpedo attack tutorial with map contacts turned on. when it opens go silent running and turn left 20 degrees and stop. while turning setup your torpedos for fast (the enemy cruiser is going 9kts by the way).

go to your map screen and draw a line through his course. then pull out the angle tool. put the first point on yourself.. the second point on his course where it intersects yours.. and the third point somwhere on his courseline in the direction he is traveling. then move the center point along his course until it reads 90 degrees.

the bearing created from the line from your ship to the 90 degree point is your 0 point for your scope.

go to the scope.. and put it on that bearing and input it. now subrtract or add the firing angle from the table as needed and fire when he crosses it.

i can create a second video demonstration if needed.

Take out the escorts and the convoy is yours or select two big ones, wounding the enemy means no renown sink them and you get renown.

But everyone has there own tried and tested method. :yep:

i normally fire 3 torps at merchants, unless its small or a tanker i might opt for 2.

uhm...ok. So I don't know how to spell Woodrow...wow. Amazing. You refuted my entire life's work with a single word.

My field is European History anyway. American history is filled with arrogant hub-bubs.

Ok kid. I can see you're getting hot headed and ego mined in your rant. But now you're just finding random ways to try and, I don't know...discredit me. Cite sources for what? That Blair is not a historian? Why don't you just look up the definition of a historian? Blair is a war novelist. He uses historical writings in his books, but his books themselves are not history textbooks. They are collections of information. This is what we call a secondary source. Blair's writings on his personal experience are minimal, and typically crowded around factual information brought by other writers.

I'd like you to find me a professor who disagrees with me on primary and secondary sources. Go calm down, drink a soda....maybe go play the game for a while.

Most typical argument from anyone faced with academic authority: "academics don't matter in x" (throw in any variable circumstance)

Interesting that you say that since being a primary source is the only qualification.

Obviously you forgot your Ying and Yang....because so is the rejection of authority.

We used to read documents from him in my old ww2 naval history class. His documents are primary sources. Blair's weren't...that was my original point.

No one likes academics because they show you rationality in the face of your idealism.

Ok men, how a tactics thread turned into an academia discussion is beyond me. At any rate, I believe we can safely say three torps (on average) were sent out in a spread as the order of the day. Skippers were advise to get in very close for the shot. Many torpedo firings were done at over 2000 yards and many successfully. Did I miss anything?

Nope I'm done with catering to childish antics. Sorry 'capin.

What's your source for it being rare (I'll assume you really didn't mean never by "but not beyond 2000 yards") to fire spreads past 2000 yards, BTW?

tater

just noticed that mark18 torpedos are like 29knots, making this table is useless for them. the table was made for the standard torpedo (31kts/46kts).

i'll update the table soon for other speeds.

any other torpedo speeds i need to be aware of? i dont have access to all torpedo types yet and the manual (if you can call it that) is sorely lacking.

I take a simple approach - I go for a max of 2 ships in front and 1 behind. I usually try to time it so that the torps all hit at roughly the same time eg. I shoot at the furthest first, then estimate when to shoot at the closer ship. I try to do this with the stern shot as well (if applicable). Otherwise, the rest of the convoy will start zig zagging immediately which will throw off your spread. I learned this the hard way when I fired all 6 torps (2 per ship), hit the first and watched the rest of the convoy commence zig zagging such that the other 4 torps have some watery grave somewhere in mid-pacific. :(

Doesn't always work (I roughly guess) but does most of the time. Sure there is a scientific approach ie. velocity = distance x time blah blah blah but meh...to much maths for me :P

it doesn't get much more arrogant than the divine right of kings. The only difference between American and European history in regards to "arrogant hub-bubs" is that in European history there are more of them owing to the longer time period.

And I would expect someone specializing in European history to know the name of the American president during WWI, especially considering the fact that the man was a prime mover in getting the League of Nations to be adopted into the Treaty of Versailles, which led to his Nobel Peace Prize.


As for Blair: nobody here ever asserted that Blair's opinions were made of gold. Yes, Silent Victory is a secondary source. But it contains an insane amount of primary source material in the form of dry patrol report excerpts. So much so that most people who pick it up put it right down if they aren't truly interested in the topic.

Why don't you refute the information instead of merely shrugging off the source. Skippers routinely engaged beyond 2000 yards, and spreads were SOP. This information comes from the patrol reports themselves, and from the excerpts as compiled by Blair among others.

Just because you don't care for his work or you find that he editorializes too much and is a poor researcher doesn't mean that Silent Victory is not to be taken seriously. But seeing as how you think he specialized in writing about U-boats when he did nothing of the sort should lead all of us to believe that your opinion on his work is somewhat less than informed.

did you even watch the SHIV video? that is exactly what i did.