Where were they?
 

Fleet boats at The Battle of Midway that is,If we broke the Japanese code[which the allies did] why didn't we set up a net of fleet boats similar to a German Wolf Pack far in front of the island well before the IJN could launch thier carrier planes?

Hindsight is 20 20.

Not a bad idea but... well its history.

of 25 available boats only three made contact with the enemy

Cuttlefish caught site of a tanker reported its position by
radio and then dived, that ended her part in the operation.

Tambor running on the surface in the dark fell in with
four cruisers and two destroyers, didnt realize until
dawn that they were enemy, any way at first light
USN and IJN realized who was who and in the ensuing
maneuvers two of the cruisers collided. both were damaged
and one sank in the afternoon of the same day. but neither
they nor any of the others were hit by tambor.

Nautilis had a little better luck, she happend upon a
soryu class carrier that was previously damaged in an
air attack, her skipper fired a spread of three torps
He saw one hit and flames and water spout then he dove to avoid escorts
He claimed the kill and was awarded it but it was overturned
by Janac after the war, japanese witnesses verified two misses
and a dud, flames were apparently from the earlier air attack.

not a great turn out really but US doctrine was unrestricted anti
commerce warfare and they were, rightly ,organized and oriented towards
that end not fleet support maneuvers though there was some
obvious fleet support work done over the course of the war

M

Well not really hindsight,The USN new they were coming,they even new the target was Midway,I just feel they could have used subs as a stealthy deffence far in advance of the pending IJN attack.

@MM,I didn't know that about the Tambor,I bet that was a eye popping cup of coffee that morning when she realized here escrt party:lol:

Well--they knew they wer coming but they didn't know exactly where they were going to be. That left a lot of ocean to cover. And the USN was still learning how to best utilze submarines when Midway happened. :hmm:

There was a picket line formed IIRC and on time but little more
effect than the IJN picket line that formed after the US carriers
had passed through the area.

The USN had more than its fair share of sailors luck at point luck that
day, no complaints I think is fair, the subs can only see so far to the
horizon even with radar, and D/F wouldnt work with the invasion force
under blackout.

Check out:
"War Beneath the Sea: Submarine Conflict During World War II" by Peter Padfield

He has quite a bit of information on the roles US subs played during Midway in one section of his book.

Very good book overall, covering all the major combatants use of subs during WWII.
:)

By hindsight I meant... as Peto said.. that the americans were a bit uncertian as to the best method to use the submarines. Not to mention the 'political' aspects of whom actually commanded the silent service.

As it turned out allied forces put a definate crimp into the IJN's style at great costs and unimaginable sacrifice and bravery.

Lets not also forget the IJN's clever attempt at a diversonary force. What if they had fell for that?

I order to understand why they didnt send so many subs you have to realize the U.S Navy believed in big battleship confrontations with the Japanese,who started to build battleships for their own after their confrontation with the Russian Navy.

At the time U.S submarines were used as scouts,sweeping the seas of destroyers and other enemy vessels for the task force to be able to pass trough..U.S submarine crews were trained to be invisible at night and day,making the submarine less effective as a weapon..surfacing during the day was considered suicide.

The whole idea of raiding merchants was not popular amongst Navy Command and in particular Submarine Command so that left the submarine force divided.

The most important reason why so few submarines entered the battle of Midway or other Naval Engagements was because the U.S Navy didnt have a clear attack plan on how to use the submarines to any effect,the potency was there,the U.S subs were considered the most modern fighting vessels in the world,contrary to popular believe the U-boats were well build,but lacked the TDC making them less flexible during an attack,also u-boats ran slower than U.S subs and they had airconditioning inside the subs,making them far more comfortable,or as the Navy called it 'habitable'.So although the U.S had information they were not able to use submarines effectively,because of their small role in the whole act of Task Force angagements where they played a very modest role,to be honest submarines were seen as a bit of a joke,and at the lowest of Navy aristocracy..

So it took a while for the U.S Navy High Command to realize,(ironically because the whole concept of commerce raiding was invented by the Americans during the Civil War) that the best way to attack the Japanese was to destroy merchant vessels,the Germans showed how effective that was during the first world war,almost starving Great Britain to death..

So when the attack plan was made and the submarines were used to engage merchant convoys,and tankers in particular the effect was even bigger that anyone in the U.S Navy had hoped for,and was the third major reason why the Japanese lost the war..also a new more aggresive generation of submarine commanders rewrote the submarine manual,hunting for convoys at daytime with their radar and attacking at night,and escaping surfaced where they could outrun most destroyers.U.S submarines also operated in wolfpacks just like the Germans,and to great effect!

So in conclusion,U.S submarines only played a minor role at the start of the war and a substantial role at the end..the big battleships and later the carriers were the stars of the show,offcourse that changed after the war and the situation is radically different today,where submarines play a major role in both attack,information gathering,lauching of special forces troops and nuclear detterance..

although most of thats true and I agree by and large I would point out that Chet Nimitz was the command in question and was a submariner. as such
had a fair concept of submarine strategic and tactical deployment.

Mush.

Seems Mush Martin was dead-on,They did have a picket fence set up with 19 or so boats,I found this from a Naval Historical site

Submarines
Rear Admiral Robert H. English, USN

Commander Submarine Force Pacific Fleet (ComSubPac)
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

Task Group 7.1 (TG 7.1)

Midway Patrol Group
USS Cachalot (SS-170)
USS Flying Fish (SS-229)
USS Tambor (SS-198)
USS Trout (SS-202)
USS Grayling (SS-209)
USS Nautilus (SS-168)
USS Grouper (SS-214)
USS Dolphin (SS-169)
USS Gato (SS-212)
USS Cuttlefish (SS-171)
USS Gudgeon (SS-211)
USS Grenadier (SS-210)

Task Group 7.2 (TG 7.2)
"Roving Short-Stops"
USS Narwhal (SS-167)
USS Plunger (SS-179)
USS Trigger (SS-237)

Task Group 7.3 (TG 7.3)
North of Oahu Patrol
USS Tarpon (SS-175)
USS Pike (SS-173)
USS Finback (SS-230)
USS Growler (SS-215)
I copied this info from this sitehttp://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq81-5.htm

It seems that in June of 42' the Silient Service was in it's infancy in group hunting tactics,unlike todays force.

From the Defence Tactical information Center website:

'U.S. submarine operational failure led to tactical insignificance at the Battle of Midway. This was a remarkable outcome since interwar U.S. policy, submarine design, and fleet exercises dictated fleet support by submarines. From today's view this failure is neither unique to a platform nor specific to an operation. It can and does cross all services. The operational failure at Midway resulted from the failure to abide by the operational art factors of synergy, simultaneity and depth, anticipation, and leverage. These were compounded by failure to provide adequate C31 system operational support.'

From the Naval historical Centre Site:

'TF 16 (Rear Admiral Raymond A. Spruance), formed around Enterprise and Hornet, departed Pearl Harbor on 28 May to take up a position northeast of Midway. Spruance replaced Halsey for this operation because Halsey was suffering from a painful attack of shingles. Two days later, Task Force Seventeen (TF 17) under the command of Rear Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher, formed around the quickly repaired Yorktown, and sailed from Pearl to join TF 16 northeast of Midway. When TF 17 and TF 16 joined about 350 miles northeast of Midway on 2 June, Rear Admiral Fletcher became officer in tactical command. The three American carriers, augmented by cruiser-launched floatplanes, provided 234 aircraft afloat. These were supported by 110 fighters, bombers, and patrol planes at Midway. As part of pre-battle disposition, 25 fleet submarines under the command of Rear Admiral Robert H. English were deployed around Midway'

It's a big ocean. The chance of any one submarine running into the Japanese fleet was fairly small, but as noted earlier at least one did. If they had followed strict doctrine and stayed near the US fleet it would have been worse, as the two fleets never saw each other.

The Atlantic and North Sea had u-boats everywhere. Why didn't they sink more British warships?

They did sink enough ships,but there is the roulation thing,not all u-boats could be at sea at the same time,roughly there was 1/3 on patrol,1/3 was being overhauled and 1/3 was on their way back from patrols...at the start of the war when Germany calculated they needed 300 boats to have 100 on patrol,but they had only 47 on patrol,and alot of them were send to the Mediterranean...

Then Hitler himself ordered the production of more and more u-boats and they got their figures right and they started to really have effect in the later part of 1942,but after that more and more u-boats were sunk and the Germans didnt know why...it was a combination of Enigma code cracking(called Ultra)and Asdic..in 1944 u-boats were pretty much sacrificed for the reichs glory,30.000 of the 40.000 sailors died,making it the unit with the highest loss ratio of any combat force in written history..

'Twas meant to be a rhetorical question, my point being that even with many boats at sea they would go for weeks on end without sighting something, much less sinking it. Even more true in the wide Pacific.