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nodlew · 01-21-10, 07:16 PM

Well, that explains it. Clearly, succinctly, and authoritatively. Interesting. In order to fulfill its fleet support role, the Fleet Sub had to be good at everything that made it such an excellent independent hunter-killer after the fleet was put out of commission.
And by the time the fleet was back up to strength, the subs had demonstrated their capabilities to the point that the doctrine was transformed. While the fleet reclaimed the Pacific from the IJN island, by island, the subs destroyed the merchants wholesale, starving Japanese industrial power and war power at home. Exactly what the Germans tried to do (and nearly succeeded) to Britain, but in our case it worked.
Which begs the question, why did it work for us and fail for the Germans? The answer has to be, in a nutshell, the US is not Germany, and Japan is not Great Britain (ie, not a nation with the support of the United States). The US had a surface navy that rivaled the IJN--Germany did not have a surface fleet that could challenge the Allies for mastery of the Atlantic. Our resources (the Allies) were sufficient not only to conduct surface operations with battle groups, but also to conduct a concerted anti-merchant shipping campaign while simultaneously developing technology and tactics sufficient to inflict unsupportable losses on the U-Boats. It seems that tactics developed by nations out of necessity, or rather, as a compensation for their weakness (U-Boats), become truly devastating when they are conducted from a position of strength.
And it didn't hurt that we had broken both the enigma and the Japanese naval codes and could read their radio messages.

01-21-10, 07:16 PM	#7
nodlew Engineer Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Virginia Posts: 202 Downloads: 572 Uploads: 0	Re: Randomizer Well, that explains it. Clearly, succinctly, and authoritatively. Interesting. In order to fulfill its fleet support role, the Fleet Sub had to be good at everything that made it such an excellent independent hunter-killer after the fleet was put out of commission. And by the time the fleet was back up to strength, the subs had demonstrated their capabilities to the point that the doctrine was transformed. While the fleet reclaimed the Pacific from the IJN island, by island, the subs destroyed the merchants wholesale, starving Japanese industrial power and war power at home. Exactly what the Germans tried to do (and nearly succeeded) to Britain, but in our case it worked. Which begs the question, why did it work for us and fail for the Germans? The answer has to be, in a nutshell, the US is not Germany, and Japan is not Great Britain (ie, not a nation with the support of the United States). The US had a surface navy that rivaled the IJN--Germany did not have a surface fleet that could challenge the Allies for mastery of the Atlantic. Our resources (the Allies) were sufficient not only to conduct surface operations with battle groups, but also to conduct a concerted anti-merchant shipping campaign while simultaneously developing technology and tactics sufficient to inflict unsupportable losses on the U-Boats. It seems that tactics developed by nations out of necessity, or rather, as a compensation for their weakness (U-Boats), become truly devastating when they are conducted from a position of strength. And it didn't hurt that we had broken both the enigma and the Japanese naval codes and could read their radio messages.