Das Boot or the American Fleet Boat

[Rockin Robbins]

Re: Radar. Let's take a tactical look at the situation. You're on a submarine, tracking an aircraft carrier by radar. Perhaps you even know that the enemy can detect your radar. What do you do? What did the real skippers do?

As the user of radar, you know the course and speed of every enemy on the scope. You can plan attack and evasion with great flexibility. You can be much less optically visible by remaining at radar depth as you do so, or retain 21 knot speed by remaining on the surface.

The enemy with a radar detector such as the Japanese used in WWII knows only one thing: there's an American sub out there. This could be crucial information, but it is also a double-edged sword, sometimes pressuring the commander of the target into deadly blunders.

Read Shinano by Joe Enright, skipper of the Archerfish and you'll see that the above situation is not fictional, it is exactly true. Enright knew the enemy could detect his radar and so left it on! The enemy, detecting the radar, reasoned that a sub would only have its radar on if it were shadowing and spotting for a large wolfpack looking to sink the Shinano.

Based on that erroneous decision, the Japanese admiral aboard Shinano proceeded to make decisions which resulted in Archerfish being in the exact position for a very high probability spread. Had the admiral just kept a straight course and accelerated, Enright never would have had a chance.

The decisive factor? Enright had a complete combat picture, where the Japanese had only one fact to deal with. Advantage Radar. Blub! Blub! Blub!

The American fleet boat took enough ordinance to battle to equal a Type VII PLUS a Type IX. What's a sub with four forward torpedoes going to do confronted with a convoy of 500 ships? Not a lot. What are 20 subs going to do? Not a lot. In practice they got one spread off and were driven harmlessly to that extreme depth the Germans were so proud to boast about.

A submarine driven deep is a harmless thing, moving slow. It cannot keep up with the convoy and the battle is over. Deep diving capabilities, rather than being tactically useful, were little more than an "ours is better" talking point.

AA guns on submarines are good for sinking sampans, something the Germans didn't have to shoot at so their weaponry was useless. By their intimidating appearance, they encouraged the poor captain to decide to shoot it out on the surface.

So the big expensive submarine shoots down a cheap replaceable airplane. Before the attack the airplane radioed the positon of the spotted submarine, which had foolishly remained on the surface to demonstrate its manhood. What do you think happens next? Blub, Blub, Blub! One expensive, hard to replace submarine, filled with irreplaceable highly trained crewmembers traded for a couple of popcorn-like aircraft. What a bargain! That's called owned nowdays.

The U-Boats chatted on the radio like a gaggle of Japanese schoolgirls, secure in the knowledge that the superior German intellect could not be outwitted by the hapless Brits or soft Americans. This "superior feature" alone doomed the entire fleet.

Time after time the supposed advantages of the U-Boats were central to their defeat. Even their 2 to 1 hits percentage superiority had no effect because they did not have enough firepower to make a difference.

I would say a very good argument can be made that U-Boats were a total waste of money and good men for the Germans who could have used the resources to make a decisive difference in the ground war.

In fact, I would say that the Germans, equipped with a fleet of Balaos, would still have lost the Battle of the Atlantic decisively. The Americans with a fleet of Type IXs would have had a much more difficult time defeating the Japanese.

This is not to say that the U-Boats were not marvelous and fascinating machines. They were. They accomplished WAY more than anyone, especially the Brits, expected. In spite of that, from the first "torpedoes los" the German submarine fleet was doomed. Reallocating resources to beef up the ground war MIGHT have made a decisive difference. Thank God it didn't happen.

[Bilge_Rat]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

The U-Boats chatted on the radio like a gaggle of Japanese schoolgirls, secure in the knowledge that the superior German intellect could not be outwitted by the hapless Brits or soft Americans. This "superior feature" alone doomed the entire fleet.

very good post RR.

On that last point, the Allies were observing how the German U-Boats were being handled, centralized control, regular radio reports, propaganda articles full of details on particular patrols and the US submarine service decided to go the other way, namely total secrecy.

It was too easy to break naval codes and read radio traffic, plot the location of U-Boats through RDF and glean info on tactics through newspaper articles.

That point was driven home in the early winter of 43 when a new sub commander took over in Australia who insisted that his subs send in daily location reports so he could control their movements. Within a few weeks, 3 fleet boats disappeared north of New Guinea. It was surmised that the new orders might be the reason, so the subs went back to near total radio silence and the said commander was shuffled off to a non-combat role.

After looking through the japanese records after the war, it was surmised that the location of the subs had been pinpointed by the excellent japanese RDF network.

A big part of the reason why US submarines were so successful in WW2 was due to smart leadership.

[Noren]

Thats a great post, but how can you be so sure of yourself?

First: the japanese fleet knew that there wasa sub out there somewhere and radio/radar-detectors could generally give the bearing. If they have numerous bearings simultaniously they can triangulate the subs position and locate it.
Even without triangulation, the captain could have sent a patrol of destroyers after the sub. This is all only theories but logical ones and the japanese commander made an error.

Next you speak of convoys of 500 ships? Only in the very end of the pacific war have I heard of such concentrations of ships, namely american taskforces. Early in the battle of the atlantic, convoys were often 10-50 ships and lightly protected, so even few uboats could wreck havoc there (like Kretschmer did during nightattacks).

One could argu that if Döntiz had even more uboats, with working torpedoes at the onset of the war, before effective asdic, DC, fast shipbuilding, enigma codebreaking and naval aircraft patrols perhaps England indeed would have been severly cut of - like Churchill feared.

Shift resources from the navy to the army? The navy was small to begin with. I dont think what would have much an impact, perhaps a few more panzer divisions and perhaps 10 more infantry divisions but it would'nt had halted the russians or made much of a strategic differance when germany was fighting on 3 fronts.

[Dowly]

Not this BS again.

[Gammelpreusse]

yeah, nationalistic polemics had to happen in such a thread eventually, as much a pity as that is.

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

very good post RR.

On that last point, the Allies were observing how the German U-Boats were being handled, centralized control, regular radio reports, propaganda articles full of details on particular patrols and the US submarine service decided to go the other way, namely total secrecy.

It was too easy to break naval codes and read radio traffic, plot the location of U-Boats through RDF and glean info on tactics through newspaper articles.

That point was driven home in the early winter of 43 when a new sub commander took over in Australia who insisted that his subs send in daily location reports so he could control their movements. Within a few weeks, 3 fleet boats disappeared north of New Guinea. It was surmised that the new orders might be the reason, so the subs went back to near total radio silence and the said commander was shuffled off to a non-combat role.

After looking through the japanese records after the war, it was surmised that the location of the subs had been pinpointed by the excellent japanese RDF network.

A big part of the reason why US submarines were so successful in WW2 was due to smart leadership.

Another big part of the Japanese failure/US success was the fact that the Japanese just didn't understand the use of the submarine. They were too pig-headed about sticking to their Mahanian doctrine and using the sub as a scout. And on the flip side, the Japanese just didn't respect the submarine and that was reflected in their attitudes regarding ASW duty and protecting merchant shipping. I guess they didn't get the memo regarding the German u-boats and anti-commerence.

[nikimcbee]

Plus there's ULTRA, that helped put them in a good spot to intercept.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by Dowly

Not this BS again.

Yes sir! My boats better'n your boat, my boats just better than ur'ins boat, my boats better.....

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

Yes sir! My boats better'n your boat, my boats just better than ur'ins boat, my boats better.....

Hah, exactly.

[SteamWake]

Hey with the right skillz and some good soup you can dive, turn, and surface in the blink of the eye. Regardless of what boat.

I maxed out those skills just to see and holy crap I can dive in less than 10 seconds

So.. uhh.. how can you really make any kind of comparison?

[Dread Knot]

Originally Posted by Noren

Shift resources from the navy to the army? The navy was small to begin with. I dont think what would have much an impact, perhaps a few more panzer divisions and perhaps 10 more infantry divisions but it would'nt had halted the russians or made much of a strategic differance when germany was fighting on 3 fronts.

A few extra panzer divisions would have made a HUGE difference in August 1941 when the Germans had to make a choice between taking Kiev or Moscow. Panzergruppe Guderian was diverted south to help Runstedt take encircle Kiev and the Germans lost their best bet to take Moscow before winter set in.

[Gammelpreusse]

Had there not a been a couple of diversions and botch ups by the italian allies, these devisions would have been available. But war is highly dynamic, you never know what to actually plan for as all predictions can be thrown over within a moment, as such these what ifs are pretty much senseless. This becomes more true the longer a war drags on.

[Ducimus]

Originally Posted by Dowly

Not this BS again.

Heh, i thought exactly that the first i saw this thread. I admit comparisons are fun, so long as they are fair and proper. However, all to often people are far too eager (or too ignorant) and start comparing fleet boats to type 7's, that's like comparing an SUV to a sports car, or comparing type 7's to type 9's. In general this topic is rather interesting or frustrating, depending on the level of ignorance displayed by either side of the argument. Regardless it is a topic has been beat into the ground with a pile driver.

[MGR1]

Originally Posted by Ducimus

Heh, i thought exactly that the first i saw this thread. I admit comparisons are fun, so long as they are fair and proper. However, all to often people are far too eager (or too ignorant) and start comparing fleet boats to type 7's, that's like comparing an SUV to a sports car, or comparing type 7's to type 9's. In general this topic is rather interesting or frustrating, depending on the level of ignorance displayed by either side of the argument. Regardless it is a topic has been beat into the ground with a pile driver.

Don't forget thread drift - always entertaining!

I see we've migrated from a comparison of subs, to discussing German Panzer divisions....

Mike.

P.S. Who chose the order of the Avatars? I see I've been shipwrecked!

[coasterdigi]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

Yes sir! My boats better'n your boat, my boats just better than ur'ins boat, my boats better.....

...because she eats Kahlen Ration!

Originally Posted by MGR1

Don't forget thread drift - always entertaining!

Yep. And now we're on dog food puns.