Which sub force was better in WWII (USA or German)

[Platoonist]

What I gleaned from it was that he went out of his way to write a "provocative" book in order to make sales

It worked. I bought one. [:D]

[juliet7bravo]

Yup, me too. They went to the used book store as trade-ins.

[Dereck]

This may not be politically correct, but the truth of the matter is that the Pacific War was a war between Japan and the United States. The American generals and admirals saw to that.

British involvement was mainly limited to SEAC -- when Churchill sent the Royal Navy to the Pacific it was to become part of the US Navy as task force only. The best British admiral, Admiral Fraser, sat unused in Australia because there were only a few American admirals who outranked him and the American JCS (namely Fleet Admiral King, wasn't about to that).

[Dereck]

Radio transmissions were a 2 edged sword for Germany. They were the only thing that allowed the woldf pack strategy to work; without them the German subs would have been far less effective. But they also gave away a sub's position. Starting in late 1942 this was a real problem since the Allies had local HFDF capability and decent radar, enabling them to run down any radio transmission source.

As far as German radio transmissions don't forget one important thing: Ultra. Bletchley Park in England was READING every radio transmission the Germans made (usually before the Germans themselves) so it was easy to reroute convoys AWAY from U-Boats and ASW forces TOWARDS the U-Boat.

[juliet7bravo]

ORIGINAL: dereck

This may not be politically correct, but the truth of the matter is that the Pacific War was a war between Japan and the United States. The American generals and admirals saw to that.

British involvement was mainly limited to SEAC -- when Churchill sent the Royal Navy to the Pacific it was to become part of the US Navy as task force only. The best British admiral, Admiral Fraser, sat unused in Australia because there were only a few American admirals who outranked him and the American JCS (namely Fleet Admiral King, wasn't about to that).

It's not only politically incorrect, it's just plain incorrect. I don't think the Aussies will agree with you at all, for one. More to the point of this thread, the British and Dutch subs acquitted themselves well in the Pacific.

[Dereck]

I would suggest you read some history books. The Americans did there best to keep the Pacific War between Japan and America.

I never said other forces were not involved. But they were not used to their full abilities. A good example is how MacArthur relegated very good Australian troops to backwater mopping up instead of using them to help with the invasion of the Philippines and other invasions. After New Guinea the only use of Australian forces were mopping up and that's all the further part they played in the war.

[spence]

The Aussies landed in Borneo in 1945 I believe. Don't really know whether there was any heavy fighting there. Certainly there was heavy fighting in the Philippines and I wonder whether the Aussies, after 6 years of casualties, including the loss of a whole division at Singapore, were all that keen to get involved in really heavy fighting (especially to retake a American colony). I do remember reading somewhere, possibly Churchill, about the need to negotiate the commitment of various Commonwealth forces to battle in general.

[madmickey]

ORIGINAL: spence

The Aussies landed in Borneo in 1945 I believe. Don't really know whether there was any heavy fighting there. Certainly there was heavy fighting in the Philippines and I wonder whether the Aussies, after 6 years of casualties, including the loss of a whole division at Singapore, were all that keen to get involved in really heavy fighting (especially to retake a American colony). I do remember reading somewhere, possibly Churchill, about the need to negotiate the commitment of various Commonwealth forces to battle in general.

In Canada Troops who fought against the German had to volunteer again to fight against the Japanese. In 1941 a couple of Battalion of British troop were sacrificed for the British Empire in an indefensible position in Hong Kong.

[esteban]

ORIGINAL: madmickey

In Canada Troops who fought against the German had to volunteer again to fight against the Japanese. In 1941 a couple of Battalion of British troop were sacrificed for the British Empire in an indefensible position in Hong Kong.

But I guess if those Canadians hadn't been sent to Hong Kong, they probably would have been sent to Brunei or Singapore, and would have ended up in the bag anyway.

[Raverdave]

Spence, the operation to retake Borneo is seen as a waste of time and good men (then and now). Borneo should have been left much like Rabal was, to wither on the vine. However there were political considerations such as being seen to continue being involved in the war, as at that time Australia had a number of troops pretty much sitting around doing nothing. The reason that Australia was not involved in the operation to retake the PI was mainly due to Dugout Doug wanting it to be an all american operation.

[Arsaces]

ORIGINAL: dereck

Radio transmissions were a 2 edged sword for Germany. They were the only thing that allowed the woldf pack strategy to work; without them the German subs would have been far less effective. But they also gave away a sub's position. Starting in late 1942 this was a real problem since the Allies had local HFDF capability and decent radar, enabling them to run down any radio transmission source.

As far as German radio transmissions don't forget one important thing: Ultra. Bletchley Park in England was READING every radio transmission the Germans made (usually before the Germans themselves) so it was easy to reroute convoys AWAY from U-Boats and ASW forces TOWARDS the U-Boat.

This is a fundamental point in any meaningful comparison. The German effort was poleaxed by the broken code. Moreover many u-boats were lost because the allies knew where to find them. As in the Pacific, ASW proficiency was not only due to the excellent training and equipment of the Allies...

The USA built the finest ocean-going submarines of the war, in massive quantities, technologically superior to any other operational submarine.

The german type VII uboats were based on a finnish design for Baltic sea operation. They were ill suited for oceanic campaigns - too small, too cramped, too slow, as many posts have remarked. Yet they constituted the backbone of the German fleet. The type IX were much better, but were too expensive, took too long to build and took too much materials from the failing german war economy - they were never built in large quantities. The type XXI prototypes were never operational.

One can only wonder at what the Kriegsmarine achieved with such inferior equipment.

Cheers,

[juliet7bravo]

ORIGINAL: dereck

This may not be politically correct, but the truth of the matter is that the Pacific War was a war between Japan and the United States. The American generals and admirals saw to that.

I would suggest you read some history books. The Americans did there best to keep the Pacific War between Japan and America.

I never said other forces were not involved. But they were not used to their full abilities. A good example is how MacArthur relegated very good Australian troops to backwater mopping up instead of using them to help with the invasion of the Philippines and other invasions. After New Guinea the only use of Australian forces were mopping up and that's all the further part they played in the war.

Personally, I'd always thought Australia played a fairly significant role in WW2, and in the war against Japan, especially considering the percentage of her male population that'd been sent off to the wars elsewhere. I'd always thought the Dutch and Brit subs made a pretty good showing in the Pacific too.

I read this history book (just one!) and it showed all these Americans staging in Oz, bases, Aussie ships, planes and stuff. I guess I just assumed that Australia had played some fairly important role in the war from the purty pictures. Obviously, it must have been written by some Australian revisionist trying to take some of the credit rightfully due the US of A, when in reality it was just a cool place to go chase wimmen and drink beer on R&R. Aussie involvement...I guess the ones that got capped must have been "not using their full abilities". They only get half credit for dying in an unimportant backwater where American political manuevering sent them.

I'm glad you've corrected me. I realize now that they really were kinda unimportant and only made an extremely limited contribution to the war effort in the Pacific...hardly worth mentioning in fact, since the war was really between the US and Japan. Dunno why WitP even bothered to label the place on the map. Heck, now that I've been educated, I'm not even certain why they included the place on the map!

[Tiornu]

"The german type VII uboats were based on a finnish design for Baltic sea operation."
Just to clarify, the Finnish boats were built by Crichton-Vulcan (Aabo), a company owned by Krupp (behind some Dutch and Swedish camouflage). The design came from IvS, ostensibly Dutch but quite German in personnel and ownership (specifically Germaniawerft, with some Krupp interest and others as well).
In any event, yes, the boats were less than perfect for ocean-going work.

[mogami]

Hi, In WWI German U-boats sank 4,837 ships. In WW2 German U-boats sank 2,771 ships

[Nikademus]

During WWI, there was never really a true technological counter to the Uboat unlike WWII. True by midwar there was the new Depth Charge and hydrophone tech was introduced but it never was able to hunt uboats at more than very limited ranges. Dont have the source onhand at the moment but for somewhere around half or more of all uboats sunk surcombed to mines . (themselves not very effective overall in bottling up the subs) Only convoying proved effective as it reduced the # of targets spread out in the hunting ground and made it more difficult for uboats to approach for attack.

WWII would see a far different submarine war.

[madmickey]

ORIGINAL: Arsaces


This is a fundamental point in any meaningful comparison. The German effort was poleaxed by the broken code. Moreover many u-boats were lost because the allies knew where to find them. As in the Pacific, ASW proficiency was not only due to the excellent training and equipment of the Allies...



Cheers,

As I pointed before Doenitz kept using tactic in 1943 onward that worked earlier (using a lot of radio communication) he should have questioned it. With those U-boat losses, he should have changed and questioned if his code was broken. A great fighting force adjust its tatctics if it facing problems.

[madmickey]

ORIGINAL: esteban

ORIGINAL: madmickey

In Canada Troops who fought against the German had to volunteer again to fight against the Japanese. In 1941 a couple of Battalion of British troop were sacrificed for the British Empire in an indefensible position in Hong Kong.

But I guess if those Canadians hadn't been sent to Hong Kong, they probably would have been sent to Brunei or Singapore, and would have ended up in the bag anyway.

In Hong Kong the Japs had several combat division just over the river from Hong Kong when Candian were deployed.

[madmickey]

ORIGINAL: Raverdave

Spence, the operation to retake Borneo is seen as a waste of time and good men (then and now). Borneo should have been left much like Rabal was, to wither on the vine. However there were political considerations such as being seen to continue being involved in the war, as at that time Australia had a number of troops pretty much sitting around doing nothing. The reason that Australia was not involved in the operation to retake the PI was mainly due to Dugout Doug wanting it to be an all american operation.

The Philippines was also really not strategic to beating the Japanese. The Americans felt they had a political obligation. For air control they just may have need Leyte and invaded a poorly defended Island to the southwest of Lauzon.

[DrewMatrix]

1) Tonage sunk or ships sunk is a poor way to measure the effectiveness of US subs. The limit on tons or ships sunk wasn't the skill of US crews, the technical quality of US subs nor the wisdom of US doctrine. The limiting factor was that the Japanese ran out of ships to provide as targets.

2) When you say "which is better" you should not look at technical specs of the ships in isolation. "How good were they at the role for which they were intended" is a better question and the ideal answer isn't "overwhelmingly perfect in every way" since that winds up with you making ships (or tanks or jet aircraft) of superb qualtiy but in numbers far to few to be as effective as a lot more less sophisticated items. That seems to have been a German failing in all areas of WWII hardware. They were constantly stopping the production lines of tanks to change to a new design (featuring a slightly better FM radio or some such nonsense) when what they need was TANKS not a halted productionc line.

The US subs (like the US Sherman tanks) were "good enough" and once a reasonable design was there the goal was more with some incremental improvements, not constantly changing designs. As a result the US had lots and lots of subs that were good enough and the Japanese had no merchant shipping left at all.

Wargamers tend to focus on details of hardware specs rather than how the whole weapons system fits into naval or air or land doctrine and into the available resources. They tend to pick a tank with a 152 mm cannon rather than one with a 150 mm cannon because (to paraphrase Nigel Tuffnel in Spinal Tap) "this cannon goes to 152" rather than thinking that the 150 mm cannon will get about the same effect at 1/2 the cost so you have twice as many tanks.

[TulliusDetritus]

In my humble opinion, you really can't compare them. Just because the ASW capacity of japanese was very low if you compare it with british and american ASW techniques. And weren't german submarines facing huge convoys very well escorted? The japanese convoy escorts were mostly laughable. In other words, japanese doctrine was an authentic disaster -or should I say "suicide"-.