Prefered Deckgun

[padi]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

I don't understand all this irrational romanticism about a failed weapon. Germans used deck guns because they couldn't carry enough torpedoes to get the job done. The deck gun was an admission that the war was already lost without a better U-boat, one that wasn't coming. Had the Type XXI ever seen battle it would have done so without a useless deck gun.

Also, very early in the war, armed merchies were non-existent and U-Boats were going to black holes where warships wouldn't oppose them. That didn't last long as, the British reasoned the equation out. Hundreds of hits from the submarine to sink a merchie. One hit from just about anything bigger than a popgun to the sub's pressure hull and they're an artificial reef with fish food.

German submarines, being unable to carry enough torpedoes to make a difference, were forced to use deck guns in really dangerous situations. The much better designed American submarines came loaded for bear with torpedoes and did the math to see that deck guns were more of a danger to their user than their target.

The american subs were poorly designed. A sub need to have a quick dive time and what did the americans have? 1 Minute? 55 Seconds?
In the Atlantic they were sunk during their first rendevouz with an enemy...

And second: They were build so high to have the guys protected from the water (german submariners were laughing about that needless luxury) that you can see them from great distances, even in the night in which german subs are invisible...

And third: They have so much needless luxury which cunsumes space that could be used much more efficient!

[Subnuts]

Originally Posted by padi

The american subs were ****ty designed. A sub need to have a quick dive time and what did the americans have? 1 Minute? 55 Seconds?

A submarine doesn't "need" to have a quick diving time to be effective. The American submarines had to be larger in order to make it from Pearl Harbor to the Western Pacific, and therefore, they couldn't dive as fast as a U-boat. They had a 21 knot maximum surface speed, and a faster submarine needs to be longer to reduce the amount of power needed to propel it through the water. A Type VII or Type IX would barely have enough fuel to make to make the journey from Pearl Harbor, to Japan and back. The fact that they had a fairly effective air search radar from the beginning of the war, and by the end of the war were able to crash dive in 35 to 40 seconds due to improved training.

In the Atlantic they were sunk during their first rendevouz with an enemy...

Only two American submarines were lost in the Atlantic during World War II. The R-12 sank during a training exercise on June 12, 1943. The Dorado was lost off Panama in October, 1943, presumably after having ran into a mine.

Unless you're referring to the encounter between the S-33 and U-571...

And second: They were build so high to have the guys protected from the water (german submariners were laughing about that needless luxury) that you can see them from great distances, even in the night in which german subs are invisible...

Where did you read that German submariners were laughing about the high freeboard of American submarines? Again, American submarines were larger because they had much longer ranges and greater surface speeds. The conning towers of American submarines were substantially cut down after the first few months of the war. Far from being visible "from great distances," fleet boats were becoming tremendously effective in night surface attacks by the end of 1944. Finally despite being "invisible" at night, many U-boats were actually spotted and attacked at night. "Invisibility" didn't mean much by the time the Allies were employing effective radar on most of their escorts.

And third: They have so much needless luxury which cunsumes space that could be used much more efficient!

What exactly on the Fleet boats was needlessly luxurious? People keep referring to them as "luxury yachts," but I've actually been aboard the Lionfish and it seemed awfully spartan. The air conditioning wasn't terribly effective, and was basically there to remove enough moisture from the air to keep electronics from shorting out. There were enough bunks for the entire crew, but that doesn't seem like a huge "luxury" to me.

I think you need to sit down and read Norman Friedman's US Submarines Through 1945: An Illustrated Design History or John D Alden's The Fleet Submarine in the United States Navy to get a better idea about why these submarines were designed the way they were.

[padi]

Only two American submarines were lost in the Atlantic during World War II. The R-12 sank during a training exercise on June 12, 1943. The Dorado was lost off Panama in October, 1943, presumably after having ran into a mine.

Unless you're referring to the encounter between the S-33 and U-571...

If the american subs have changed place with the germans they were sunk on their first battle...

[Subnuts]

Originally Posted by padi

If the american subs have changed place with the germans they were sunk on their first battle...

American and German submarines never successfully attacked each other during the war, so I'm not sure what the argument is.

Where did you hear that the first encounter between a Fleet boat and a German warship ended with the American submarine being sunk?

[Julhelm]

He means if the germans had used fleet boats instead of u-boats the fleet boats would have been sunk.

Which is funny since the fleet boats had much better radar and far superior fire control. Not to mention more weapons.

[cloadmcally]

I really don't like this conflicts and debates, it' s like The Yamato vs Iowa duel, everyone has it's own strong points, The american subs can Store more torpedoes, they are faster and they had good surface and air radar since 1942
On the other hand german subs could dive in a short time, and they could reach deeper depths, if I recall correctly the fleet boat that dove the deepest was the USS Pampanito with about 600 fts. While the German subs could dive up to 750 fts. Or more (about 228 mts.)

I'm sure they have a lot of other qualities but anyways I don't like your aggressiveness padi, it almost seemed insulting to me..

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by Subnuts

Where did you hear that the first encounter between a Fleet boat and a German warship ended with the American submarine being sunk?

Actually the Japanese ASW capability was limited, although they learned as t he war went on to be quite dangerous.

In contrast, the Germans had NO ASW capacity at all! Zero. Zilch. Nada. No way to hunt and destroy submarines. Their only defense was to hightail it out of there fast enough that the submarines couldn't catch them.

So it's another baseless statement there by padi.

The German U-boat campaign was the best Allied attack of the war. It alone was sufficient to ensure the defeat of Germany. Every man in a U-boat was wasted precious manpower that would have worked for Germany instead of against, had they been employed on land. Every worker who built and repaired U-boats, every ounce of steel, fuel, ordinance was one that would not contribute to German war aims. They were all working for the Allies and a fine job they did.

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

The German U-boat campaign was the best Allied attack of the war. It alone was sufficient to ensure the defeat of Germany. Every man in a U-boat was wasted precious manpower that would have worked for Germany instead of against, had they been employed on land. Every worker who built and repaired U-boats, every ounce of steel, fuel, ordinance was one that would not contribute to German war aims. They were all working for the Allies and a fine job they did.

Ahem: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?p=2349007#post2349007

My recollection is scanty but Hans Goebler, "Steel Boats; Iron Hearts book should be on your required reading list along with Michael Gannon's Black May and the two volume: Clay Blairs' Hitler's U-boat War . Bottom line: is a wonderful forum dedicated to "died of a theory" emulation of a lost cause! ie That a 'Master Race' existed and offset war against the American/British combined navy was winnable. Strangely, the Fuhrer did not lie when he said "at sea I am a coward" the last place to be so when you are conquering a world which is 3/4 water....the German naval campaign of the two world wars was a political and military disaster...under both the petulant Kaiser and the Bavarian corporal...

Your right! The deck-gun was a symbolic if impractical Arms of Krupp holdover of what caused the (2 phase) Great War of German Containment 1914-1945 to begin with. The Kaiser's "place in the sun" & colonial "Gun boat" diplomacy... and everyone villainously participated in it! Your right about the impracticability but SH's would be boring without deck guns, just shooting eels, and then we wouldn't have a nice submarine forum

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by Aktungbby

Ahem: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?p=2349007#post2349007

Wow, that is one nasty hole in the side of U-505. But if you've read the books, Gallery's and Goebler's, you know that incident was a completely different incident from the surfacing and surrender of an essentially undamaged U-boat which was still full of fight and its capture and towing back to the US. U-505 had been repaired and had no hole in the side when Gallery added her to his collection.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

There was a meeting between an American Submarine and a U-Boat in the Atlantic. The U-Boat was blown to smithereens. I'll let you research that as you're the one taunting.

I've looked and I can't find it. Probably my fault, but a link would be appreciated.

As for taunting, I took it to mean that US boats would be helpless against British and American ASW.

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

In contrast, the Germans had NO ASW capacity at all! Zero. Zilch. Nada. No way to hunt and destroy submarines. Their only defense was to hightail it out of there fast enough that the submarines couldn't catch them.

Wrong. Plain and simple, wrong. German destroyers were equipped with depth charges, and active sonar (S-Gërat), as well as hydrophones. Several attacks were made on suspected submarines. Oil slicks were sighted on more than one occasion, but no actual confirmation. I'm not saying the Germans were anywhere near the Allies' capacity. They were in fact far behind. But "NO ASW capacity at all! Zero. Zilch. Nada."? Yes, they did.*

The German U-boat campaign was the best Allied attack of the war. It alone was sufficient to ensure the defeat of Germany. Every man in a U-boat was wasted precious manpower that would have worked for Germany instead of against, had they been employed on land. Every worker who built and repaired U-boats, every ounce of steel, fuel, ordinance was one that would not contribute to German war aims. They were all working for the Allies and a fine job they did.

Sorry, but to me this seems opinionated and very much an overreaction. Of course that's just my opinion.

* M.J. Whitley, German Destroyers of World War Two, Naval Institute Press, 1991

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

I've looked and I can't find it. Probably my fault, but a link would be appreciated.

Actually the Germans lost 24 submarines to Allied submarines during the war. British subs knocked off the biggest score with 13 kills. Among the American kills, the last one was USS Besugo bagging U-183, Op Monsun boat, two weeks before the German surrender. The USS Flounder also scored another OP Monsun U-boat, U-537. Sub vs sub was very one-sided an favor of the Allies.

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

As for taunting, I took it to mean that US boats would be helpless against British and American ASW.

Interesting. I didn't read it that way. That is a much more intriguing angle. The Germans made a huge mistake using U-boats in WWII. They sent their boats out into a sea completely controlled by the Allies, beyond the range of any air support. Therefore, with the American jeep carrier hunter-killer groups, no diesel-electric sub could possibly survive, neither German nor American. Even the Type XXI would have been doomed (if it worked properly, a fact never established). So as I've said before, American subs could not win the German war. Subs were not appropriate for their war at all. They had a key but it didn't fit the lock.

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Wrong. Plain and simple, wrong. German destroyers were equipped with depth charges, and active sonar (S-Gërat), as well as hydrophones. Several attacks were made on suspected submarines. Oil slicks were sighted on more than one occasion, but no actual confirmation. I'm not saying the Germans were anywhere near the Allies' capacity. They were in fact far behind. But "NO ASW capacity at all! Zero. Zilch. Nada."? Yes, they did.*

The problem was that other than the Med, Germans had very little area to run their destroyers in. The German navy was completely inexperienced in ASW and had no demonstrated capability. You can have a garage full of tools but that doesn't make you a mechanic. Not a single kill is evidence of no capability.

Edit: although they didn't sink any submarines, the only German warship ever to operate in the Med, the destroyer ZG3 did induce the HMS Splendid to surrender and its crew scuttled the sub. A quote from Wikipedia which proves both points, some limited success and no ability to use the 19 total destroyers the Germans deployed in WWII. Edit: 19 plus 22=41 German DDs total. The US gave 50 to the British before the war even started!

The Greek destroyer Vasilefs Georgios was captured in damaged condition after the fall of Greece, then repaired in Greece with assistance from the Germaniawerft and commissioned by the Kriegsmarine as the ZG3 or the Hermes. She was the only major Kriegsmarine surface ship in the Mediterranean Sea during World War II, and she was involved in escorting convoys to North Africa and the Aegean Islands.
Hermes detected and depth charged the Royal Navy submarine HMS Splendid off Capri, Italy, on 21 April 1943, forcing it to surrender; Splendid was scuttled by her crew. Hermes was damaged by air attacks off Tunisia. Hermes had to be scuttled in La Goulette, Tunis on 7 May 1943.

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Sorry, but to me this seems opinionated and very much an overreaction. Of course that's just my opinion.

I must admit I'm never hesitant to share a room with a strong opinion. Maybe I just worded it wrong. <rewind....> How is a strategy of sinking ships of several dozen nations other than the one you are at war with, operating on a huge ocean with submarines suited for coastal defense only and of a drastically outdated design, consuming Germany's best resources and manpower in a submarine war that sunk less than 5% of Allied shipping possibly justified?

Put all those wasted resources into land based military capability. How many planes can you make with the materials used in a single U-boat? How many tanks? Machine guns? Keep in mind that construction of a U-boat took much more time than constructing a ****e-Wulf. Or a hundred ****e-Wulfs. Good thing this is Subsim, not AvSim! Think of the incredible skill and fortitude of the U-boat crews. What would they have accomplished on land? They were the best of the best in the German military.

Then reflect that without U-boats there wouldn't have to have been a war with America and the war against the British might well have been avoided too. Yes, this was all in the hands of a madman, but theoretically, without the U-Boat the Germans could have pursued more fruitful means of conquest. They would have had a much wider range of options available both militarily and diplomatically. That would have been bad. It's tempting to say it was a tragic waste, but mistakes in the pursuit of evil are not tragic but fortuitous.

And then there were the ice cream machines!

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by padi

If the american subs have changed place with the germans they were sunk on their first battle...

There was a meeting between an American Submarine and a U-Boat in the Atlantic. The U-Boat was blown to smithereens. I'll let you research that as you're the one taunting.

People who are right don't need to taunt. U-Boats had no meaningful impact on the shipping between the new world and the old world because there weren't enough of them, they were too slow, they didn't carry enough firepower to make them effective, they chatted on the radio like a bunch of schoolgirls with cell phones. The Type VII was a coastal defense boat designed in WWI, not updated, and then pressed into ocean duty for which it was totally unsuited.

The American boat had twice as many motors, had a much better diesel/electric system, actual food preservation and preparation, valving systems that made sense and worked much better than the German systems, they were quieter, they were faster both on the surface and submerged, they carred enough armament that it made sense to send them the distances they had to go to do battle, there were no jokes like externally stored torpedoes that could help any depth charges sent their way, the crews had much higher morale and resolve (there was not a single case of an American submarine unhurt and surfacing to surrender like dozens of U-Boats did), great enough range to cover their assigned territory and a design newer than 1915!

Padi that is a very incomplete list of the absolute superiority of the American Submarine over the German U-Boat. No, the Germans could not have won the war with American submarines. Submarines were not appropriate for German war ends and the type of submarine that lost the war was an irrelevant detail. Daniel Gallery would just have had to draw a bigger circle to kill them.

But the American submarine was absolutely necessary for victory in the Pacific. German U-Boats would have been as useless as a screen door in a submarine. The American S-boats proved that beyond any shred of doubt. They shared some of the defects of U-boats while beating the U-boat in underwater speed.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Subnuts

A Type VII or Type IX would barely have enough fuel to make to make the journey from Pearl Harbor, to Japan and back.

I completely agree with you on the merits of the US boats and their purpose. I just wanted to point out that the Type IX had a longer cruising range than the Gato, and just as slow a dive time.

[Subnuts]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

I completely agree with you on the merits of the US boats and their purpose. I just wanted to point out that the Type IX had a longer cruising range than the Gato, and just as slow a dive time.

Yeah, I'm not sure why I didn't remember that the Type IX had a greater range at 10 knots when compared with the Gato and Balao.

Let's assume that one morning in 1944, all the Gatos and Balaos in the USN disappeared and were replaced by Type IXCs. Yes, we'd have a boat which could dive slightly faster and had a slightly longer surface range, could dive deeper, and have a smaller surface profile. We'd also end up with boat which was two to three knots slower on the surface, carried 12 fewer torpedoes internally, and didn't have effective surface or air search radar. We'd also end up sending boats without a shower, refrigerated storage, air conditioning, or sufficient bunks for the crew, into humid tropical waters for weeks on end. Sounds like a bum deal to me.

The funny thing is, despite how "huge and yachtlike" the fleet boats were, the Bureau of Ships were designing submarines even bigger than the Gato and Balao in 1945. Two of their designs submitted in May 1945 displaced between 330 and 490 tons more than the Tench class, featured an extra pair of stern torpedo tubes, six athwartship tubes for anti-escort torpedoes, much more powerful diesels, and thicker hulls giving a crush depth around 800 feet. Of course, these designs were put together before the Allies had a chance to examine the Type XXI.

Sorry this is getting off-topic.

[Jimbuna]

Don't forget the ice cream making machine