OT: British Subs?

[Farkitt]

Hello lads,

I'm new to this forum, but i've been playing SH since SH2, and although i'm no Wolfpack Ace, I enjoy these sims immensely.

But I was wondering, being English myself, what role did British submarines play in WW2?

Cheers,

Farkitt

[Packerton]

British subs did engage whatever things they could find baseicly but they were mostly defensive subs.

And welcome to subsim

[GerritJ9]

In the Far East, their role was minimal initially- almost all RN submarines were either in Home waters or in the Med. It was not until much later that they started to arrive in significant numbers, operating from Ceylon and mainly active in the Malacca Straits and off Singapore and Sumatra.

[STEED]

Originally Posted by Farkitt

Hello lads,

I'm new to this forum, but i've been playing SH since SH2, and although i'm no Wolfpack Ace, I enjoy these sims immensely.

But I was wondering, being English myself, what role did British submarines play in WW2?

Cheers,

Farkitt

This site covers UK subs

http://www.britsub.net/

Heres some more

http://www.mikekemble.com/ww2/britsubs.html

http://diodon349.com/Site_Main_Pages/British_Sub_links.htm

PS: Welcome

[Captain Nemo]

Originally Posted by GerritJ9

In the Far East, their role was minimal initially- almost all RN submarines were either in Home waters or in the Med. It was not until much later that they started to arrive in significant numbers, operating from Ceylon and mainly active in the Malacca Straits and off Singapore and Sumatra.

They also operated out of Fremantle, Western Australia. My uncle served on HMS Tiptoe during WWII. Here you can find a commemorative plaque that lists all Allied subs that operated out of Fremantle http://www.museum.wa.gov.au/collecti...our/plaque.asp

Nemo

[Sailor Steve]

The Brits had subs?:rotfl:

No, really, there are almost certainly many good books about British submarine operations during the war; but one I would recommend you hunt down is War Beneath The Sea, by Peter Padfield. It gives a great overview of ALL sub ops by all nations; and all the sections are equally good.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/War-Beneath-...8402166&sr=1-4

[GerritJ9]

I don't have the book, but from the description on the Amazon website it would seem he left the Dutch submarine force out so "overview of ALL sub ops by all nations" is not quite true.

[tater]

The Dutch were pretty much shafted by the UK and US in the start of the war (ABDA). They were not consulted, and when the pointless UK strategy of throwing good forces after bad in Malaya and Singapore failed (which was certain from the start given their abysmal generalship), they were left swinging in the wind.

Amid this, their subs made some of the few real successes of the early war. I'd love to see Dutch subs.



tater

[GerritJ9]

Quite a few of our subs managed to escape from the NEI, but the majority were old/obsolete and not really suitable for anything but training/asdic target. Furthermore, they had a lack of range which was insufficient to operate from Fremantle/Ceylon and still carry out a mission of any worthwhile length. Only K.XIV, K.XV and O.19 really were sufficiently modern and had sufficient range (plus the O-21 class, but they were in European waters).
Compounding the difficulties was a lack of spare parts- there were considerable differences in equipment compared to USN/RN subs and all stocks of spares were lost when Java fell. Not having an own depot ship didn't help either, as USN/RN depot ships, not unnaturally, helped their own subs first.
I wouldn't go so far as to say that the British strategy was pointless as regards Malaya, though ABDA leadership certainly left a lot to be desired on all fronts (forces of all nationalities made a mess of things). I do think, however, that it is fair to say that once the US and UK had lost their territories (i.e. Philippines/Malaya)they lost all further interest in defending the area. Whether different leadership would have made any difference is something we can argue about until we are blue in the face, but we will never know.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by GerritJ9

I don't have the book, but from the description on the Amazon website it would seem he left the Dutch submarine force out so "overview of ALL sub ops by all nations" is not quite true.

I think you're right. If it wasn't there I didn't think about it...out of sight, out of mind; but I didn't do it on purpose, and I didn't lie about it...no, sir, not me.

[tater]

I'm not suggesting the NEI could have been saved, I think its loss wasa foregone conclusion. Percival's initial failures in northern Malaya made attempts to delay the inevitable harder and harder. The entire pre war mindset of the British in Malaya was at fault, really. The RN abandoned the Naval based pretty much right away, which was the entire point of Singapore. Holding at that point was only to tie up japanese forces, but that was botched badly on every level.

That said, had some of the resources thrown at Malaya been redirected, it might well have helped hold a little longer south and thrown some of the japanese timetables out of whack. The brits continued to send POWs to Malaya when they knew it was hopeless---I say POWs because that's all they were, future POWs, they had no time to be turned into useful formations.

[Hartmann]

i´m reading now this book ...

"One of our submarines" edward young

is about the british submarines (storm, seawolf...), training, med and artic operations and finally ceylon and malacca straits

[GerritJ9]

The resources Churchill sent to Malaya were too little and too late, and, arguably, in part the wrong kind. Surely, it could have been argued even then, a flotilla of "T" class subs would have been more effective than HMS "PoW" and "Repulse"? Leaving aside the "small" matter of air power, the IJN had ten battleships in service with "Yamato" nearing completion (unknown to the Allies). If necessary, the IJN would have sent the four "Kongos" to deal with "PoW" and "Repulse", together with a large screen of cruisers and destroyers- which the British ships did not have.
Certainly British leaders (Shenton Thomas, Brooke-Popham, Percival, Phillips) in Malaya were hardly the right men in the right place at the right time, but the same can be said of many other Allied leaders in the Malay Barrier area- MacArthur, Hart and, to a lesser extent, Helfrich.
A flotilla of "T"s would have been most welcome at that time, given the relative ineffectiveness of the US submarines, handicapped as they were by their less than adequate torpedoes and, for a time, strict orders not to attack in waters where the depth was less than 60 metres. Submarines- and lots of them- were the only way in which the Japanese advance could have been seriously blunted.

[Lafferty]

I've never heard of the restriction of 60 feet. How long was it in affect?

[GerritJ9]

My source for the restriction is note 67 on page 203 of Dr. Ph. M. Bosscher's "De Koninklijke Marine in de Tweede Wereldoorlog, deel 2" ("The Royal Netherlands Navy in WW2, volume 2). This refers to Hezlet's "Submarine and Sea Power", page 212, where it is mentioned that US submarines operating in NEI waters in February 1942 were, in principle, not allowed to attack in areas where the water depth was less than 90 metres (the 60 was a typo errror), or approx. 300 feet, and were preferably not to attack at "close range" if the target was escorted. It may well have been a restriction that applied ONLY to submarines of the Asiatic Fleet, originating from that fleet's HQ. Since the Asiatic Fleet is largely forgotten, it is not surprising that this order's existence is not widely known- I didn't know of it until I read the note in Bosscher's book.