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Originally Posted by bigboywooly
What you have to remember is that the first world war wasnt long gone and up until then Submarines hadnt been used to any effect
Even then the Uboats were targeting warships at the start till they switched tactics
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U-boats sunk almost 13 million tons of allied and neutral shipping in WW1.
While that isn't a lot percentage wise, consider the "fear factor" and the disproportionate amount of allied resources devoted to the U-boat threat.
Clay Blair goes into a lot of the reasons behind why the Brits were slow to really do anything about ASW in Hitler's U-Boat War (the first one). Disadvantages of convoying, underestimating the actual threat U-boats posed (or correctly estimating it, depending on which side of that argument you stand on), the sticky politics of waging unrestricted submarine warfare...etc
I'd recommend picking up that book for an in depth discussion of it. The first 100 pages or so go into a lot of detail regarding WW1 and the run-up to WW2