Article about WW2 Sub campaigns

[frenzied]

http://www.navy.mil/navydata/cno/n87...campaigns.html


While digging around for articles today I found the one linked above, and thought people here would be interested. It is an analysis of the effectiveness, in economic terms, of the German and American submarine campaigns during the Second World War. Interestingly, it comes to the conclusion that the German U-boat campaign didn't truly fail, as the allies spent roughly ten times the amount countering the U-boats as Germany did sending the U-boats out, while only having about four times the economic power.
There are also some interesting figures about just how badly the Japanese merchant fleet and economy was mauled - they were using 46% of their steel on merchant ships by 1945, in an attempt to keep things going.

[Seminole]

Folks do like to revise history according to their personal policy preferences... ...gadzooks...those are streches!

I ain't seen no Nazi U-Boats lately...they failed.

By late 1944 the Japanese were forced to try and get high performance fighters up to B-29 altitudes using 80 octane fuel made from sweet potatoes...what was left of the Jap fleet was forced to remain near their Dutch East Indies fuel supply 'cause the American submarines made it nearly impossible for more than a dribble to reach the Japanese homeland. American submarine campaign succeeded.

No more complicated than that.


I have heard those same folks try and make the case that the B-17 bombing campaign was a failure in spite of the fact that they pommelled Germany until the rubble jumped. They site the fact that German fighter production continued to rise (forget the fact that there were virtually no fully trained pilots to fly them) until 1945 when the supply of raw industrial materials was cut by the Russian advance as "proof" of the failure.


These peolpe don't realize just how dagnabbed hard it is to argue against true success.... ....but give 'em credit for trying I guess...

[LeeVanSpliff]

Seminole: While basically agreeing with your estimate on the success of the submarine war I would like to make an objection about the whole "arguing form success" point.

The second world war is a complicated matter - a lot of factors playing in and it is hard to separate one factor and say "that one did the thing". No options for recreating a similar situation in a lab either to test the theory. That the British won the air war does not mean that Churchill's idea to create carriers out of huge slabs of ice was a success .

According to Speer ("Inside the Third Reich" is one of the most interesting books I've read on the second world war ... really worth reading imo) the US raids on the ball bearing production in August '43 failed because they were not properly followed up. According to Speer it would have crucially weakened the the German armaments production after two months and could have brought the it to a complete standstill after four. Forgoing such a chance would be a failure in my book (well ... I guess failure is not very well defined), even though the raid in itself was probably considered successfull.

The air war itself was also won by the allies but it was not what brougth the nazi regime down - the armies did that. The question of whether or not this was a succes rests with some vague estimate of whether or not the same industrial resources and trained air crews could have brought the war to and end faster if they had supported for instance The Red Army.

Not saying for or against - just having a go at simple explanations!

-Lee

[Seminole]

If ,if, ifs...we won..they lost...trying to say the U-boats succeeded and the American Subs didn't is well..absurd....or ought to be in anybody's estimation.

Its like trying to say Pee Wee Herman succeeded in a fight against Mike Tyson because Pee Wee Herman kicked Mike in the shin as Tyson was ripping Pee Wee's head off.

[Orion2012]

Originally Posted by Seminole

If ,if, ifs...we won..they lost...trying to say the U-boats succeeded and the American Subs didn't is well..absurd....or ought to be in anybody's estimation.

Its like trying to say Pee Wee Herman succeeded in a fight against Mike Tyson because Pee Wee Herman kicked Mike in the shin as Tyson was ripping Pee Wee's head off.

:rotfl: OMG that was F-U-N-N-Y.

I'd pay to see Tyson vs Herman, as long as it's in a well-lite place, you know, no movie theaters or anything like that.