British naval doctorine and pride

[TarJak]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

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

WWI Subs may not have been used in the same numbers as they were in WWII but their effect was marked. The sinking of the Lusitania on its own has been quoted as receiving much of the credit for promting the US to join the war. I'd say submarines certainly had an impact on WWI albeit nowhere near as great as the submarine forces of WWII.

I agree Clay Blair's book has some interesting insights into the military doctrine of all side. it must be said that Hitler and Raeder certainly underestimated the impact that submarines would have on the war and this is highlighted by Donitz' frustration in not being able to field as many boats as he would have liked at any time during the war. Much of this was due to the prevailing attitudes that big warships would be war winners.

As far as the British opinion at the start of the war there was significant division within the RN about ASW and their response was largely driven by the time it took to overcome those divisions.

[horsa]

Interesting debate on the notion of morality in war.

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'

It must be remembered that European warfare in 1914 was regarded as a legitimate extension of politics with its own rules and notions of honour. It wasn't just a British thing. Four years of escalating slaughter, hatred and bitterness changed peoples perceptions from ideas of limited warfare to the ugly reality of Total War.

The British actually had more submarines than Germany at the start of WW1. Significantly they were seen ( by both sides) as another type of warship designed to attack warships.

It seems quaint now that the Uboats were initially used against British merchants as a reprisal for their naval blockade of Germany’s maritime trade. Incredibly there were “rules” for how this should be done. Amongst other things, the merchant was to be correctly challenged and identified, and evacuated of its crew, before sinking it by gunfire from the uboat. This requirement meant that Uboat attacks were always made surfaced. The British then retaliated with the “ungentlemanly act “ of installing small guns on its merchants. This forced more of the Uboats to attack submerged with torpedoes, leading increasingly to the loss of merchant crews. Significantly there were more “international incidents” caused by missidentified neutrals. The Germans maintained that the British had only themselves to blame for the loss of “innocent seamen” because they had “escalated” the conflict. Later, the drift into total unrestricted Uboat warfare came about because even passenger liners were perceived as carrying contraband goods ( ie war related supplies).