hey everyone, i'm somewhat of a submarine fanatic and i have always wondered about who's submarines were technically the best i mean the average fleet submarine.. the sherman tank of the sea.. i'm sure you fellows with your vast knowledge would have soem interesting things to say.. also, who would you sahad the finest submarine force? <i guess the answer to that last question might seem obvious but i'm not so sure>
The Type V-III was certainly the architypal U-Boat and, although I have no proof of this, sunk the most Merchant ships during the U-Boat's Heyday in 1941. My favourite is the snorkel equipped IXC. Like the one in Liverpool: I must say though that this comparison would be hard given that submariners rarely fought one another, (unless you believe the movie "U-571") The primary role for German Subs was Denial of supplies to the British, whereas for the Americans, it was for combat shipping. This carried also, differences in tactics and tonnage sunk. I don't believe we can really compare the two...ideas anyone?
If you look strictly on technical side then German Type XXI and Type XXIII were absolutely the best. But, they came into the service to late in the war to make any significant impact on the outcome. If you look on the average sub then again German Type VIIC was probably the best sub in early part of war. To be honest, it was a torpedo boat that could dive and get away To my opinion, American submariners were magnificent. Greatly underrated but made an enormous influence in the Pacific. German U-boot men were superbly trained and motivated. It is very hard to compare those, exactly because of reason Brat put. Different tactics, different strategies, different boats.
RN submarines are credited with sinking 36 Axis submarines in WW2, including one where both the attacker and the victim were submerged at the time of the attack ( as in the film U-571 ) Not so, the primary role of US submarines in WW2 was also Merchant shipping, Japanese Merchant shipping. It is only Japanese submarines in ww2 that had warships as their primary target, they did very poorly because of it. The main difficulty on working out who were the best submariners is that it depended to a great degree on how good the enemies Anti Submarine Warfare capabilities were. While US submariners had by far the best kill to loss ratio (23:1) they were also fighting against an enemy who had very little ASW capability. RN submarines while fighting in the shallow and heavily mined waters of the North sea and Med, had a kill to loss ratio of 9.3:1, but it must also be noted that German and Italian ASW while not as bad as the Japanese was still quite poor. The Germans while doing very well in the early part of the war,suffered later on, so that they ended up with a kill to loss ratio of 3.6:1. But it must be noted that they faced a navy with the best ASW capabilities in WW2, the RN. [ 09. January 2004, 06:24 AM: Message edited by: redcoat ]
That's good data on the RN subs mate, any chance on specifics about the actual sub to sub engagements? Given whats been mentioned then looks like the comparison is tonnage vs subs lost or # asw attacks vs subs lost I think the latter would be very hard to prove though
During the war 21 German Uboot was sunk by Allied subs, 13 of those by Brits. I don't know specific boats but I can give it a deeper research.
There's no doubt that the best submarine force was the German during WWII, simply because it was the most statiscally succesful one and achieved such success against the most powerful navy in the world, which, as redcoat said, had the best ASW. The German submarine technology was also the best in many aspects. No other medium submarine was as efficient as types VII. The heavy type IX was a very good one too. No other nation made such a submarine like the type XIX submarine tankers and let's not speak about types XVII, XXI and XXIII, the most advanced and revolutionary submarines of the war. Not to mention their electronic technologies, superior fire power and accuracy. And there is of course, that no other force in history has kept its morale so high as well as volunteers supply with a permanet loss rate of 2/3s... But one must not forget about the US submarine force in the Pacific. Technically these submarines don't have paralell with others (first because of their huge size and very long range). But American submarines in the Pacific did what Germans couldn't in the Atlantic: cut the enemy insular country's supply lines. So, I could say they were the most influential submarine force in history. This is, from 1943 onwards, which explains the tremendous increase in their statistical successes. As well as the American submarines early in the war.
Im not familiar with submarine records from other particiapnts in ww2 but, I would have to say the Uboats were the best followed closely by the Americans. Again, my opinion is based on what little I know about subs in ww2.
I think the Americans deserve the award, simply because they won their battle, and the Germans lost. They also have a better kill/losses ratio. However the Germans fought a much more formidable enemy... and of course it's correct, at the end of the war, the Germans were way ahead in submarine technology. It didn't help any more.
On technical merits, the Germans appear to take first place. Their Type XXI and the various Walther closed cycle HTP submarines were revolutionary. The perfection of the Dutch invented schnorkel was also something of a revolutionary device introduced in to service. It was largely a matter of poor production planning, failure to recognize the value of many of these innovations early in the war and, poor operational tactics that really served to cripple the German U-boat fleet. The US with their fleet boats would have to take the prize for most effective tactics and for best offensive electronics suite. US submariners were successful in good part due to excellent radar, sonar, ESM and, ECM equipment on their boats. This was an area largely neglected by the Germans and the most of the devices they did introduce were second rate in many cases. With WW II era submarines having to spend much of their time on the surface and being, in many ways more effective when surfaced, this is an important consideration. The Russians have to take last place among submarine forces losing more submarines than ships sunk by their submarines for a negative score!
The Japanese had the biggest subs built during the war. They were able to carry float planes and also smaller aircraft. They had extra long range and they were not known to the allies until after the war was over. Toward the end of the war they planned to blow up the Panama Canal but decided it was a bad idea and stayed in the western Pacific area until the end of the war. A good book to read on Japanese sub operations is called " I-boat Captain " It is in paper back . I forget the author's name but he was a Captain on one of the I - boats and he also tells the interesting tale of sinking a Russian sub in the Eastern area of the Pacific during WWII. He did not know why the sub was in that area at that time, but it was in the 1942 time frame.
why would he be sinking russian subs? maybe i misunderstood but if its 1942 then japan and the soviet union werent even at war.. from what i understand the japanese subs had terrible living conditions and were very noisy makign them susceptible to anti-submarine attack.. their torpedoes made everyone elses look like lollipops though
At the time he did not know it was a Russian sub. He thought it was American. After the war when he was researching the book he found out the sub was a Russian but still could not find out why it was so far from home.
Whadaminute...1942. I believe something called operation Babarossa kinda broke the German non-aggression pact with Russia. And like the alliance of France with Britain, when one goes to war with another country, the whole alliance joins in. Japan was part of the Axis so Japan surely would've been at war with Russia?
Its all in the wording The treaty signed between Germany and Japan stated that if either country was attacked by another country, they would come to their aid. However it stated nothing about what would happen if it was Germany or Japan which attacked another nation. So seeing it was Germany which attacked Russia, Japan was under no treaty requirement to come to their aid. Japan and Russian were not a war with one another until 1945, when Russia declared war on Japan.
Go to the search engine Google and type in Russian submarine L-16 and you will get several stories of how the Japanese sub I-25 sank the Russian sub off the US coast in 1942.
Well, given the Soviet submarine force's record in WW II maybe the Japanese sub captain felt sorry for the Soviet commander and was just putting him out of his misery! As to Japanese submarines: They were no noiser or quieter than those of other nations. At the point in development of technology submarines were at in WW II noise was not a particular concern. Most, if not all, submarines of this period were fairly noisy. The hull vents and top hamper (like AA guns, railings and what-not) alone were big contributers. On torpedos, just a note. The Japanese used 21" electric or steam torpedos like everyone else in their submarines. Their torpedos were roughly as effective as those of Germany or the US. No Japanese submarines had oxygen fuelled "long lance" torpedos. These were strictly a surface weapon. Oh, the Japanese also produced a small run of submarines similar to the Type XXI late in 1944 - early 45. They didn't see much action before the war ended however.
