SUBSIM Radio Room Forums - View Single Post - Silent Victory

02-20-12, 01:02 PM

I think that you guys are, in general being far too hard on the pre-war USN. If they were wedded to the false god of A.T. Mahan, they were certainly not alone and in many respects the USN proved to be doctrinally superior to everybody else where it mattered.

It was the belief that the submarine could act in concert with the Battle Fleet that lead directly to the design of the Fleet Boat. This resulted in the near perfect marriage of submarine design and unrestricted warfare doctrine that made the USN's operations in the Pacific the only truly successful submarine campaign to date. Without the extraordinary range, firepower and growth potential that was built into the Fleet Boat designs it is arguable that the submarine war against Japan would have been much different. Admiral Hart, himself a submariner who had studied German sub ops in the Great War, wanted smaller boats, S-Class sized but the Navy General Board insisted that only bigger boats would be compatible with fleet operations. Thus it was a happy coincidence that designs produced for a role they could never effectively fulfill were superbly adapted for duties that had been inconceivable before Pearl Harbor.

So, while it's easy to laugh at the Gun Club with 20/20 hindsight, it's important to recall that after 27-months of total war no battleship had been sunk by aircraft while at sea and only one sunk by submarine when under weigh, HMS Barham lost a month before Pearl Harbor.

Also one should not forget that the peacetime USN got it's air-sea doctrine pretty much on target. Seven months after Pearl, Midway, fought with pre-war aircraft using pre-war doctrine, training and commanders won perhaps the decisive naval battle of the war at Midway.

At Midway, submarines on both sides contributed to the outcome of the battle performing as adjuncts of the Fleet much as envisioned by the pre-war theorists. With I-168 scoring essentially the only Japanese success of the battle; sinking Yorktown and Hammann this tended to reinforce Japan's battlefleet oriented submarine doctrine. Meanwhile the Silent Service's lack of results in the battle provided the USN with further evidence that submarines were largely ineffective in the fleet support role and could serve best as commerce destroyers.

02-20-12, 01:02 PM	#3
Randomizer Stowaway Posts: n/a Downloads: Uploads:	I think that you guys are, in general being far too hard on the pre-war USN. If they were wedded to the false god of A.T. Mahan, they were certainly not alone and in many respects the USN proved to be doctrinally superior to everybody else where it mattered. It was the belief that the submarine could act in concert with the Battle Fleet that lead directly to the design of the Fleet Boat. This resulted in the near perfect marriage of submarine design and unrestricted warfare doctrine that made the USN's operations in the Pacific the only truly successful submarine campaign to date. Without the extraordinary range, firepower and growth potential that was built into the Fleet Boat designs it is arguable that the submarine war against Japan would have been much different. Admiral Hart, himself a submariner who had studied German sub ops in the Great War, wanted smaller boats, S-Class sized but the Navy General Board insisted that only bigger boats would be compatible with fleet operations. Thus it was a happy coincidence that designs produced for a role they could never effectively fulfill were superbly adapted for duties that had been inconceivable before Pearl Harbor. So, while it's easy to laugh at the Gun Club with 20/20 hindsight, it's important to recall that after 27-months of total war no battleship had been sunk by aircraft while at sea and only one sunk by submarine when under weigh, HMS Barham lost a month before Pearl Harbor. Also one should not forget that the peacetime USN got it's air-sea doctrine pretty much on target. Seven months after Pearl, Midway, fought with pre-war aircraft using pre-war doctrine, training and commanders won perhaps the decisive naval battle of the war at Midway. At Midway, submarines on both sides contributed to the outcome of the battle performing as adjuncts of the Fleet much as envisioned by the pre-war theorists. With I-168 scoring essentially the only Japanese success of the battle; sinking Yorktown and Hammann this tended to reinforce Japan's battlefleet oriented submarine doctrine. Meanwhile the Silent Service's lack of results in the battle provided the USN with further evidence that submarines were largely ineffective in the fleet support role and could serve best as commerce destroyers.