Interesting data. But the numbers can have various interpretations. There are always many more merchant ships on the seas than military ships, so whenever you have unrestricted submarine warfare merchants are always going to be the ships that feature most often in lists of ships sunk.

Beery,

Its clear that the US admirals wanted subs to sink warships, throughout the war subs were sent on missions based on Ultra info to intercept IJN warships, in most cases however nothing came of it. The skippers that did manage to sink one did get extra renown but the ones that only sank merchants were not penalized.

In 1942, 15% of sub patrols wers sent to the area of Japan, east China Sea and Formosa, they bagged 45% of the ships sunk that year. Seeing that success, 50% of patrols were sent to that area in 1943.

So they wanted to bag glamorous warships, but they were quite happy to settle for unglamorous Marus.

Regarding specific priorities, AFAIR, there was the one in June 1943 to prioritize tankers. There was also another one in early 1944, to prioritize Destroyers.

Good to know. Perhaps there's scope there to adjust the messages.txt file to include messages ordering such priorities.

Wow, 7 CV's sunk by subs!! Presumably some of these were finished off after air attack?

I have all that info somewhere, I will track it down and report back, sir.

:ahoy:

You failed to point out that there was an average of right around 1 ship sunk per patrol.

Taiho, Shokaku, Shinano, and Unryo were sunk by subs in 1944.

CVEs Taiyo, Unyo, and Shinyo were also sunk in '44 by subs.

Thanks Tater :)

Should'nt there be a smiley in there COB? you are starting to remind me of my boss.

:ahoy:

Blimey you're right! Well spotted!

That would be great! Would such info have been transmitted to subs at sea, or was it the kind of thing that would only be done in port? If in port, then there's bound to be some way of getting the orders into the 'in port' screens.

From the profiles of the missions I can say that on an average mission a sub was sent to at least 4 different positions by ULTRA during a single mission. 3 out of 4 were on assumed battleship positions. The rest was merchant convois, however most convois consisted of 2/3 ships. It seems that single movers were never reported to the boats but I guess they were very welcome when they were out of fuel and still had torpedos. ;)

Agreed. I read this a couple of weeks ago. Very well written with strong characterization and excellent descriptive passages and detail about the war. Almost on a par with Iron Coffins. Calvert doesn't hold back, including passages about his extra-marital affair. One of the best retrospectives about the Pacific sub war I've come across.

I highly recommend it. :up: