Quote:
Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat
very good post RR.
On that last point, the Allies were observing how the German U-Boats were being handled, centralized control, regular radio reports, propaganda articles full of details on particular patrols and the US submarine service decided to go the other way, namely total secrecy.
It was too easy to break naval codes and read radio traffic, plot the location of U-Boats through RDF and glean info on tactics through newspaper articles.
That point was driven home in the early winter of 43 when a new sub commander took over in Australia who insisted that his subs send in daily location reports so he could control their movements. Within a few weeks, 3 fleet boats disappeared north of New Guinea. It was surmised that the new orders might be the reason, so the subs went back to near total radio silence and the said commander was shuffled off to a non-combat role.
After looking through the japanese records after the war, it was surmised that the location of the subs had been pinpointed by the excellent japanese RDF network.
A big part of the reason why US submarines were so successful in WW2 was due to smart leadership.
|
Another big part of the Japanese failure/US success was the fact that the Japanese just didn't understand the use of the submarine. They were too pig-headed about sticking to their Mahanian doctrine and using the sub as a scout. And on the flip side, the Japanese just didn't respect the submarine and that was reflected in their attitudes regarding ASW duty and protecting merchant shipping. I guess they didn't get the memo regarding the German u-boats and anti-commerence.