Thread 18009086

been learning about life in ww2 submarines. it seems like hell on earth. i wonder how they didn't go completely insane

>>18009086 (OP)
submarine service in general is bad for your mental health and only the truly crazy embark on it

>>18009086 (OP)
The WWI submarine war is the one I can't wrap my head around. It's like a mandela effect phantom rather than a real conflict. Why does it seem like U-boat warfare barely changed between wars? The entente had a few shitty countermeasures and then stopped all research like "we'll never have to deal with those again" it's bizarre.

>>18009086 (OP)
It was all the diesel fumes/low oxygen conditions. The mind cant go crazy if it can barely function at all.

>>18009086 (OP)
When I visited the USS Bowfin Museum at Pearl Harbor (highly recommend visiting if you ever get a chance) there was information there about how the submarine service in the USN was voluntary, but it was heavily promoted to sailors as the arm of the navy that was going to be the real workhorse of taking the war to the Japs, and they encouraged sailors who had been present at pearl harbor when it was raided to do it. As a result submariners disproportionately were either people who had been present for the raid or knew people who had been killed during it.

That was a very interesting museum, and gave you a good sense of how grim and precarious the job was. Even though that particular boat was quite lucky and went the whole war with only 1 sailor who accidentally broke his leg, and no deaths. There is an audio tour with recordings from the sub's sailors and officers. One of them talks about a tight spot they got into where after attacking a Japanese merchant vessel they were spotted and went into a dive. Two Japanese warships dropped depth charges, and one was right on target, but hit a random pocket of cold water right above them and detonated prematurely, likely saving their lives. Just about 25% of US submarines were destroyed with all hands lost at sea. The highest fatality rate of any job in the US military in ww2.

Though for the Germans that was nothing, since they lost 75% of all U-boats. When you have some time take a look through the wikipedia pages of the ww2 German subs. 2/3 of them were launched in the last 2 years of the war and you go down the list and just see sub after sub destroyed by allied warship on first voyage, 0 enemy tonnage sunk, all hands lost at sea. They were just spamming sub after sub, sending out inexperienced and overmatched crews into a meat grinder for no reason in a desperate hope that this would somehow turn the tide of the war.

>>18009108
Probably concerns about repeating another dreadnought situation. Maintaining some stability in order to rebuild their economies and stave off the decline from loss of empire was top priority, especially once the great depression rolled around.

>>18009137
Run Silent, Run Deep is a great movie about the first guys. Almost as good as Das Boot.
>>18009146
Imagine the cold war submarine arms race happening in the 1930s... just fuck my shit up. skyscraper sized iron peapods imploding with everybody inside.

>>18009151
>skyscraper sized iron peapods imploding with everybody inside.
"Yes"

>>18009108
It really is astonishing that the British Navy basically had to completely relearn all the painful lessons of how to deal with Submarines it mastered in WW1. Recently I learned that towards the end of the war they had so completely shut down U-boats that of the 1882 trans-atlantic voyages carrying the 2 million US soldiers to France (more than half of which were on British transports) not a single one was sunk by a U-boat. Every single ship reached France safely.

>>18009156
What incredible schizophrenia gripped the world. You start off thinking there's something wrong with Germans, and end up unravelling centuries of America derangement and later Napoleon derangement syndrome. The final phase of European expansion was remarkable and the world war period was insane. We think of the moon landing as a great achievement, imagine living in a state that's actively trying to leap ahead of its time in all aspects. Trying to be like steam in the roman era, ICBMs in the 1940s.

Here's a tough question, which country would you rather fight for besides USA in this clusterfuck? Britain has a lot of main character energy but I wouldn't want to be in their military.

>>18009108
Are you insane?
Britain put a lot of effort into counter-submarine warfare during the interwar period.
That's why the Germans lost the battle for the Atlantic.
British SONAR was groundbreaking technology, which had developed during the interwar period, and was a key reasons why attacking convoys was a double-edged sword for German uboats because they could barely escape a destroyer once detected. The submarines had nor been keeping up with development during the interwar period to counter this. They could move while being submerged which was a huge improvement from ww1 submarines, but movement was extremely slow and thus many times not enough to escape.
It was also the development of depth-charges. Yes they were used in late-ww1 but they were rare and underdeveloped. By ww2 they had been standard issued on board virtually every RN destroyer and corvette and specifically designed for their use.
And the British almost immediately reintroduce the convoy system which had only briefly been put into practice by the end of ww1, and they reintroduced it specifically because they had analyzed its importance.

The British were also far better than the Germans at using its airforce to cover the Atlantic. A substantial amount of Geeman submarines were lost to the British fleet Air arm.

>>18009186
Are you having a stroke? What the hell are you talking about?

I wouldn't have wanted to be on a boat, so fuck submarines.

>>18009186
>Britain has a lot of main character energy but I wouldn't want to be in their military.
Funny considering Britain had an exceptionally low casualty rate during ww2. This was largely due to the fact that Britain was democratic, her generals did not commit to a fight unless they had a clear advantage and proper exit strategy. Britain was also perfectly prepared to abandon all her heavy equiptmrnt (which they did twice) simply to avoid casualties, this was largely unthinkable for the German army.

Add that to the fact that nearly half of the British armed forces were non-British, meaning your chances of survival as a British enlisted is quite exceptional compared to the German military where you basically had to fight until you were wounded, killed or captured. Don't even try to look up German navy casualty ratio, it's going to blackpill you.

>>18009108
Donitz talks about how Uboats in WW1 were totally incapable of communicating and coordinated actions. That was one of the major changes between both wars.
British developed sonar and figured that made submarines effectively obsolete.
WW2 Uboats countered this by using Uboats as surface attack vehicles that could escape or hide temporarily by diving. Surface attacks at night were fast & hard to see, it took advancements in radar and planes to counter this strategy (which led to late war development Uboats like the Type XXI, and upgrading existing Type VIIs by giving them reinforced AA & armour + snorkels that let them use diesel engines while submerged near the surface)

The late 1930s design U-boats had become totally obsolete by the end of the war and U-boat missions were essentially suicide ones. Newer U-boat designs were developed but the war ended before they could be put in production.

>>18009086 (OP)
They only hired people who already were completely insane.

>>18009375
Explain the dodecanese campaign then.