@incubus
Are you German? Seems like you have a bit of pro-U-Boat prejudice going there.
Or it could be a wealth of information on U-Boats vs a much less complete data set on American boats. That can have the same result.
Let's give the Germans this much. They originated and executed the first workable strategy for actually winning a war using submarines: strangle the enemy by denying him supplies. They evolved this strategy into a highly efficient, but unnecessarily fragile procedure. The fragility of their procedure resulted in their defeat. Unfortunately, the fragile parts of their strategy were key items, without which they could have no success at all. Once broken, they were reduced to an ocean of rats, scurrying for cover that no longer existed. I realize that is a pretty provocative statement so lets analyze it a bit.
The basis of U-Boat strategy was organized around the radio and the Enigma machine. The German mind tends to be very rules and systems oriented.
An American race driver traveled to a German racing school. The instructor walked his pupils around the track, pointing out the precise line they were to take. Then they took their cars around the track, following the instructor in these precise lines. Video taping the session made possible critiqueing (sp) of possible deviations from the perfect line. Then when on full-speed runs the American changed lines, resulting in an even faster lap. The German instructor took exception to this, asking why he came to be instructed in the proper way to race if he was not willing to follow instructions. The instructor had forgotten the purpose of the instruction was to teach the students to drive faster. He was so wrapped up in his "perfect procedure" he could no longer see the process or the result.
The exact same thing happened to the German submarine program in WWII. Early on, they decided that while at sea, triangulation would not be a problem because there were not enough listeners close enough to refine U-Boat positions to the point of danger. Rather than analyze U-Boat sinkings throughout the war to determine the truth of their assumption, they blithely chatted on the radio as if they were in a private conversation. And without the radio, they did not have a method to coordinate attacks anyway, as the U-Boat system was highly centralized, relying on coordination from base.
The U-Boats relied on a hole in the middle of the Atlantic, where they were safe from overflying aircraft and could transmit in comparitive safety. When the hole was plugged, their initiative was lost.
The worst hole in German strategy was their Enigma machine, supposedly unbreakable, but broken by the Czechs early in the war. They migrated to Britain, where a reasonable system was made to decode Enigma messages, but it was the Americans who produced huge decoding "bombs" which actually allowed the Allies to read the message before its intended recipient could. The Germans were so confident that the Enigma was unbreakable they instituted no monitoring systems to test its security.
German boats were similarly hampered by "securely confined within the box" thinking. In spite of repeated air attacks from nowhere, it never occurred to the brass that radar could be involved until way too late. Radar was too large to put in an aircraft, so the captains were wrong. German subs were denied active radar as well, although in a convoy situation where the Allies were ready, it is debatable how much advantage that would have given them. At least it would have leveled the playing field a little.
So the German story is a Shakespearean tragedy. Their strengths, strong code system, central coordination allowing wolfpack attacks and advanced convoy tracking, incredibly disciplined and well-trained personnel, and indominable spirit were the very weakness which resulted in their defeat. Had they eliminated these weaknesses, they would have been throwing away the very tools up which their early success depended.
Once the Americans organized their jeep carrier task forces, it was game over for the German submarine in the Atlantic. All that was necessary was to locate a boat once, draw the circle of death representing its max submerged range, cover that circle completely until sighting the sub again, draw a new circle, and tighten the noose until the sub was killed. The battle of the Atlantic was over.
It depended on several abilities not posessed by the Japanese:
Air superiority, more like sole air presence. The circle had to be covered like a blanket so any reemergence of the sub would not allow a battery recharge. The Japanese never had unchallenged air superiority.
Manufacturing capapbility to make a fleet of jeep carriers. The Japanese never demonstrated any ability to replace losses of naval fleet at any time during the war. They were in actuality defeated before the first bomb dropped on Pearl Harbor. They had no idea that during the height of German success in the Atlantic, America was building cargo ships faster than the U-Boats could sink them. There were not many months were losses exceeded production during the battle of the Atlantic.
Trained pilots able to execute the plan. The Japanese were always losing pilots quicker than they could train them. This was the major reason that toward the end of the war they used 2,000 Zeros for kamikaze missions. The pilots could barely fly the planes. They had no capacity at all to fight them. So they settled for dying in them. That would have happened anyway.
Yike! This is getting long. Advantages of the American boats:
Four engines, resulting in faster speeds than U-Boats and higher reliability. Radar. Nothing needs to be said there. Size, resulting in greater range and better sea-keeping abilities.
Care of the crew: air conditioning and ventilation systems, crew comfort, excellent food all resulted in a better fighting capability. Never discount the fighting advantage of a crew that is well taken care of.
Technical superiority: The American TDC/PK was a impressive enough, but the agility of American boats resulted from a vastly superior ballasting system. The German "crew forward" was replaced by a trim ballast tank system, which allowed compensation for unequal weight trim in the boat, supplementing the dive planes in controlling dive angles. 45 seconds to periscope depth was not slow by German standards, and American boats beat that when they had to. For such a huge boat, the American Fleet Submarine was plenty maneuverable.
Better tactics: This was a gift from the Germans. Americans quickly realized that the original strategy of the fleet boat was in the garbage when we lost an effective surface fleet at Pearl Harbor. So we anayzed the German sub tactics, immediately identifying their Achilles heel and seeking to eliminate it. Therefore, American boats kept strict radio silence unless absolutely necessary. Information flowed outward unhindered: everyone knew where the base was, but possible radio triangulation of American subs was guarded against. When they did transmit, the transmissions were very short and consise, not giving time for an accurate enough triangulation to endanger the sub unless the receivers were very close. Although the American brass was every bit as procedure imprisoned as the German sub command, American skippers were amazingly innovative in how they violated those procedures to produce results. The lack of discipline among American skippers contributed to their success.
Innovation: The American strategy was one of reacting quickly to opportunity and continual self-analysis for weaknesses. When Morton succeeded in his "down the throat" sinking of a Japanese destroyer (a desparation move) the technique was spread throughout the fleet very quickly. After a certain date in 1944 (date available at
ussubvetsofwwii.org) American strategy shifted to making Jap destroyers primary targets and merchies secondary ones. The Germans never did that. They would not have succeeded if they did, as the entire purpose of the U-Boat fleet was rendered impotent by the manufacturing capacity of the United States.
All this seems so obvious in retrospect, but we have to remember that it was not obvious at the time, either to the Allies or Axis. Both considered the war winnable and loseable. All the facts were not in, and managers did what managers always do: make decisions based on incorrect and incomplete information, because if you wait long enough for the information to be correct and complete, it is no longer useful. You are then reading a history book reciting the reasons you lost. How many fail to make the move that wins because they are afraid to make the mistake that results in defeat? Both sides can look back with satisfaction that this did not happen.