Welcome to the WWII Forums! Log in or Sign up to interact with the community.

Submarine Warfare in the Pacific ?

Discussion in 'The War at Sea' started by Skua, Sep 30, 2004.

  1. Skua

    Skua New Member

    Joined:
    Aug 12, 2003
    Messages:
    2,889
    Likes Received:
    0
    Location:
    Norway
    via TanksinWW2
    I understand American operations in the Pacific to begin with was hampered by poor training, problems with the command structure and faulty torpedoes. I´ve also read that, like their Japanese counterparts, the American submarine skippers regarded warships as they primary targets, and that US subs sunk only a fraction of what the Germans managed to sink in the same period ( the initial phase of the Pacific War ) with fewer subs.

    One British sub, HMS Storm, was creditet with 20 Japanese cargo ships, one destroyer and four escorts. 19 of the 20 cargo ships were sunk by gunfire. Were torpedoes reserved for warships ? Didn´t this expose the submarine to an unnecessary risk, an armed cargo ship could very well sink a surfaced submarine ?
     
  2. Ebar

    Ebar New Member

    Joined:
    Apr 27, 2004
    Messages:
    2,006
    Likes Received:
    1
    Location:
    On a space station in geosynchronous orbit above y
    via TanksinWW2
    Surfacing did expose a sub to attack so as a general rule a sub captain would only try to sink a merchant vessel by gun fire if it was mounting nothing bigger than machines guns.

    Why attack on the surface boils down to expanding your options. If your on a sub that carries, say, ten torpedos then the maximum number of ships you can sink without resupply is ten and that is assuming that you have no misses, malfunctions and ships that take more than one fish to sink. So by attacking something helpless with your gun you can save your torpedos for something juicier.

    During the hunt for the Bismark Ark Royal and Renown sailed right past a submerged U Boat. That U Boat had fired it's last fish into a small merchant ship. Had the captain held that torpedo back he might have prevented Ark Royal from launching the fatal air strike at Bismark.

    The down side of attacking on the surface is of course that a sub is really flimsy kind of warship. If it takes a hit from almost anything its up the creek. Hence the British started bolting almost any old guns they could get their hand on, onto merchant ships to reduce the options of a U boat.


    Post WW2 guns got ditched by most subs because the increasing few times it would be safe to prat around on the surface didn't justify the amount of under water drag guns caused.


    Does that rambling explanation cover it?
     
  3. Skua

    Skua New Member

    Joined:
    Aug 12, 2003
    Messages:
    2,889
    Likes Received:
    0
    Location:
    Norway
    via TanksinWW2
    Thanks Ebar. :)

    On further reading I noticed that the "S" class ( of which the HMS Storm belonged to ) sub only carried 12 or 13 torpedoes. I don´t know if she carried the 3-in or 4-in gun though. Anyway, I guess that Japanese cargo ships weren´t as heavily armed as the Allied cargo ships travelling the Atlantic.
     
  4. PMN1

    PMN1 recruit

    Joined:
    Apr 23, 2004
    Messages:
    1,032
    Likes Received:
    1
    via TanksinWW2
    Japanese convoying

    It didn't help the Japanese that they regarded convoys as defensive and so not worthy of their culture - they learned the need for them in the end but it was far too late for them by the time they did.

    They had nothing like the system the allies had across the Atlantic - i've often wondered how the US subs would have fared against a nation who took convoying seriously.

    Waiting for the depth charges from our US cousins...

    :smok:
     
  5. Tiornu

    Tiornu Member

    Joined:
    Apr 29, 2004
    Messages:
    928
    Likes Received:
    23
    via TanksinWW2
    Re: Japanese convoying

    I don't know if convoying was culturally repugnant to the Japanese. I think it's more a case of having a blind spot. Their strategy was for a quick war in which strategic targets like merchant traffic were not seen as that important. Oops.
    The Americans, fighting the Japanese primarily, were the most successful submariners of the war in terms of loss rate and loss-to-kill. The British came in second; German ASW was almost as bad as Japanese.
     
  6. canambridge

    canambridge Member

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2004
    Messages:
    1,649
    Likes Received:
    7
    via TanksinWW2
    U.S. Submarines were seriously hampered by poor torpedoes in the first half of the war, but training and command were not a problem. Nimitz was actually a submariner and took command at Pearl Harbor on a submarine. The Germans had corrected their torpedo problems by 1942, the U.S. didn't really take care of it until the end of 1943. U.S. subs were given an anti-shipping role from day one and were not hampered by the doctrinal problems of the Japanese. Warships were high priority targets, not primary targets. U.S. subs were highly effective in attriting the Japanese merchant marine through out the war. 55% of the 8.6 million tons (2,345 ships) of merchant shipping lost bythe Japanesee were sunk by submarines. U.S. submarines had effectively isolated the home islands bythe end of 1944, something the Germans only ever threatened to do, and never came that close to doing, even if they did cause many sleepless nights for Churchill. The U.S. had 140 submarines at the end of December 1942, the Germans 440.
     
  7. corpcasselbury

    corpcasselbury New Member

    Joined:
    Nov 30, 2003
    Messages:
    4,356
    Likes Received:
    0
    Location:
    High Point, North Carolina, USA
    via TanksinWW2
    Actually, there *was* a command problem in the American sub forces during the war. The first COMSUBPAC was Admiral English, who was unimaginative and something of a negative force within his command. He died in a plane crash and was succeeded by Charles Lockwood, who showed as little imagination as English had initially, but who did manage to get up to speed. And finding competent, aggressive skippers for the subs remained a big problem for the Navy throughout the war.
     
  8. canambridge

    canambridge Member

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2004
    Messages:
    1,649
    Likes Received:
    7
    via TanksinWW2
    I thought the biggest command problem was that ComSubPac and ComSubSoWesPac had no official connections or common leader. Didn't Lockwood start out as ComSubSoWespac and replace English as ComSubPac when he died? Wasn't lockwood also instrumental in solving the torpedo problems? I thought Lockwood was the one that authorized the live fire tests that verified the depth and exploder problems. Was there really a big problem finding aggresive sub commanders, they were volunteers same as the rest of the crew weren't they? This usually results in highly motivated and aggresive individuals. Were "Mush" Morton, Dick O'Kane, and "Red" Ramage the exceptions?
     
  9. corpcasselbury

    corpcasselbury New Member

    Joined:
    Nov 30, 2003
    Messages:
    4,356
    Likes Received:
    0
    Location:
    High Point, North Carolina, USA
    via TanksinWW2
    Lockwood did everything you said, although, IIRC, he spent the whole war at COMSUBPAC.

    Yes, the US Navy had a lot of trouble finding aggressive, competent skippers for the boats. Men like Morton, O'Kane, and Ramage were not precisely exceptions, but they were also not the rule, either. Being willing to volunteer for submarine duty did not automatically mean you were going to be a good skipper. What made matters worse was that the Bureau of Personnel kept telling the skippers that if they wanted to make flag rank, they needed to leave subs and get experience in other sectors of the Navy. This led to a number of successful captains doing precisely that, which only made the problem worse.
     
  10. canambridge

    canambridge Member

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2004
    Messages:
    1,649
    Likes Received:
    7
    via TanksinWW2
    What a shame that the USNs most effective weapon (submarines) were deprived of the best skippers. Given that reliable torpedoes were not available until the end of 1943 could this have been something of a blessing in disguise? Peraps more aggresive skippers would have just succeeded in getting more subs sunk. I've read that prior to 1944 there was only a 20% chance of sinking a target. From 1944 on that increased to 50%.
    Funny that subs are now the glory arm of the USN.
     
  11. corpcasselbury

    corpcasselbury New Member

    Joined:
    Nov 30, 2003
    Messages:
    4,356
    Likes Received:
    0
    Location:
    High Point, North Carolina, USA
    via TanksinWW2
    They earned that in 1943-45, when they did most of their damage to the Japanese. American sub losses rose sharply during that period as well, a source of much concern for COMSUBPAC.
     

Share This Page