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Originally Posted by Incubus
I have a question- I have heard that one reason England didn't invest as heavily into submarines/ASW warfare early on was because British naval doctorine considered the concept of a submarine attack 'dishonorable'. I'm not really sure this is true or not.
I'm puzzled because it seems baffling how the submarine can be proven to be excellent for its intended role (sinking merchants) and through the use of inferior tonnage, manpower, and survivability still inflict amazing results. The sheer number of merchants sitting in the bottom of the atlantic is a testament to that. Sure the Allies beat the Germans, but I wonder how many lives were lost unecessarily, due to pride and misguided concepts of 'fairness' in warfare.
Tom Clany mentions this disparity of fairness in warfare in one of his books, comparing it to a man clubbing a baby seal. Sinking a merchant is kind of similar- usually the merchant doesn't have a chance. Just sucks for the Allies they were so crazy about battleships/surface vessels they didn't deal with it sooner.
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I think the allies didn't invest in subs so heavily because they really didn't need them that much. Germanys strategy was to cut off britain from supplys to starve them till they had to surrender. This is something britain just couldn't do to germay as germanys supply-routes were mostly land-based. So there was just no need for britain to invest in anti-merchant naval-warfare.