ORIGINAL: Charles_22
ORIGINAL: mdiehl
Seems pretty lax to me.
Then you'll have to be more specific as to who or what aspect was "lax." If your argument is that there weren't enough escort class ships and that 'expenditures for escort ship construction were lax' then fine. That's a fair remark. The DDs were on the way but there simply weren't enough of them to go around as I've agreed numerous times.
But if "laxity" is supposed to apply to the level of training and skill pre-war or, as AM suggests, throughout 1942, that'd be manifestly wrong. It is quite true to point out that the state of the art of ASW in Dec 1941 1stQ 1942 was not so compelling and that subs had the advantage. But USN/USCG escorts were quite skilled. There were some substantial organizational changes that had to be made in early 1942 to give US escort groups better CAC. Starting in February 1942 the USCG 327s (for example Campbell) and 265s (for example Modoc) were sent for month-long refits (addition of Sonar/asdic for escorts that lacked same, in the 327s, addition of DC racks to those not yet equipped with same, addition of 6x K-guns -- 3 port 3 starboard) and, importantly, a kind of "advanced ASW school" training for skippers and XOs under Royal Navy tutelage. So the assertion that UK advice and knowledge was across-the-board spurned is pretty suspect. As with most blanket generalizations, the truth is more complex and less overstated than the propaganda.
See, for example:
Walling, Michael
2005 Bloodstained Sea. McGraw Hill. ISBN: 0071424016
One thing that catches my eye is the ease with which escorts are getting torpedoed. If there's a kernel of truth to the breast gashing going on, it's that the overall intensity of submarine and anti-submarine activity seems too high. Subs make contact too easily, get off accurate shots too easily, and as a result are getting counterattacked often.
Let me remind you of your erroneous, or mis-stated view:quote:
I think the supposition of a pre-war "lax" mentality is wrong from the get go. ASW was one of the things that RN, the USN, USCG, RAN and RCN took quite seriously. It was an area in which the Allies pre-war excelled and far outdid any of the Axis players.
The subject is pre-war, not 1942. Have I not provided sufficient evidence that PRE-WAR it was lax? The British, the supposed masters, were having to live with the results of that lax approach quite a while before '42 came.
I don't lump lack of ASW ships as necessarily lax, though it's certainly a symptom, but more the obvious ones of virtually untrained crews and that nobody bothered to learn the convoy lessons of WWI. You spoke of pre-war as though they were doing some 'really serious' work. but it sure didn't pay off in what was possibly the 3 most critical areas, things the military ITSELF could control (though I blame the military for only two of them), such as training crews and keeping the WWI convoy lessons in mind. The military couldn't control how much ships they were alloted.
And now a few interesting quotes form Submarines at War by Edwin P. Hoyt
page 109 somewhat into the last paragraph:The plunger was also the first U.S. undersea boat to undergo a really arduous depth-charging and survive. In the waters off Japan she was attacked by a Japanese destroyer whose crew showed they knew a lot more about antisubmarine warafre than the Americans did at that stage of the war. The destroyer dropped twenty-four depth charges on the Plunger, one so close that it broke open the alcohol tank in the after torpedo room. The Japanese did not have American sonar but they did have their own echo-ranging system, which was accuarte to 3,000 meters. The old-fashioned hydrophones were able to obtain a bearing at 5,000 meters.
Page 184 which earlier mentioned early '43:The Japanese had radar. It was not yet installed on ships and warships, but it was coming. They were adept at the use of radio direction finders. The submarine that came to the surface and made a long transmission to Pearl Harbor might find that it had raised a nest of hornets. The Japanese had another device not duplicated in the United States, the jikitanchiki, a magnetic detector used by Japanese aircraft. It sensed the presence of a large metal object below the surface of the sea, so that low-flying pilots could sometimes find and then track a submarine that was submerged.
However, at this stage of the war the major Japanese anti-submarine weapon was the sonar system. The Japanese sonar was technically superior and their employment of the echo-ranging techniques was excellent. Also, as the war continued, more Japanese merchant ships were armed with deck guns that were a constant threat to any submarine trying to attack on the surface.
Most important at this stage of the war was the increase in Japanese production in antisubmarine vessels. The most effective of these were the kaibokans. These vessels were small, under one thousand tons. At first the Americans thought they were only coastal freighters but they carried highly trained antisubmarine personnel, and three hundred depth charges were a standard allotment.
BTW, my grand campaign as JA is on about 12/17 now, and I remember accelerating two destroyers with the heavier depth charge loads and the first CL that had a radar set. I thought my earliest warship was coming in like 30 days at least, and unaccelerated the CL I picked was either 80 or 120 days at best, and yet I just got one, maybe not the same one, in Tokyo. Did I just miss it or are accelerations supposed to be that radical (it may had been accelerated for a week)?
No offense to Hoyt but if they were this good why did their merchant marine get the shite kicked out of them?
