AHQ: U-boat sinking rate to achieve victory?

[McPherson]

It sure does. Sam Dealey was one of the rare few. He's also a textbook case of how hard it is to pick good skippers, because he got bilged out of the Academy. (IDK why...) And there was somebody else (whose name I can't recall... ) who was bookish & mild-mannered, but one of the best the wartime Sub Force had. And O'Kane reportedly had a real braggadocio, but turned out to be ice cold under fire. Go figure.

William H. Brockman, who may have been the real life inspiration of that frankly incompetent, Captain Remius of "The Hunt For Red October". He went on to school many of PACFLTS good sub skippers right off the USS Nautilus.

The idea is never to let the can get that close, unless you have no choice. There are safer options than this.

Like turning back on him to get under and inside his hull acoustic shadow and sonar myopic search, get astern and beneath and then feed him a CUTIE from the stern tube up the screws. If he tries to counter-turn on you before you dive under him, its yo-ho-ho and a three spread into him broadside and a meatball painted on the conn overhead with the 102 other meatballs US submariners painted in a PACFLT Mexican Hat Dance outcome.

I wouldn't count on it. @McPherson & I once went back & forth a bit over deck-mounted rockets being an anti-escort weapon, & he correctly pointed out the tincan skippers were willing to risk their ships--if they're any good at all. IJN ASW was awful, but don't think their crews & skippers lacked nerve--just skill at the job. RN, RCN, & USN had both, so this won't work against them.

There are modern examples of stupid navies (Russians and Iranians) playing with the idea, but the chances of success are near zero and of own goal way too high to make this option even a banzai option.

You're making it harder to be successful... If that mine actually floats, it's going to swing on that tether like a kite, making it damned unlikely to hit the desired target, & more & more likely to foul the screws.

Do the Mexican Hat Dance.

Targeting an anti-escort mine?

Which was one of the first objections raised...

Know what Dewey did when he passed through the Spanish minefields at Manila Bay? Lookouts paired with his best marines to look for bobbing objects were stationed at the bow of the flagship. The marine riflemen shot at weird stuff they saw in the water. Might have hit a mine, might have not. Two exploded way short of the Olympia, so who is to say? I say it was excited Spaniards who detonated command mines too early, but ... maybe?

WW II CAPTOR.

It's hard, but not impossible. The key issue is probably thinking of doing it to begin with.

I think I concluded that the sea water battery tech was not quite ready.

 

[phx1138]

William H. Brockman

Not ringing a bell, but I won't argue him. Anybody who cares can go read Blair (which I'd recommend for anybody who's even a bit interested in subwar anyhow); when you get to the mention of Dealey & others being football players & that being considered a good thing, the name I'm thinking of turns up. (It's just been too long since I read Blair last... )

Like turning back on him to get under and inside his hull acoustic shadow and sonar myopic search

That works a trick even if you don't shoot. Breaking contact, you get to live & hunt another day.

chances of success are near zero and of own goal way too high to make this option even a banzai option.

We're going to keep disagreeing on this one, I think.

Do the Mexican Hat Dance.

IMO, it's asking for everything to go just right, & real life isn't a Clancy novel. You might pull it off enough to persuade somebody it's a good idea...but I wouldn't risk my boat on it. I get out of sight of HQ, I'm cutting the tether & calling it for safety of operation reasons.

Know what Dewey did when he passed through the Spanish minefields at Manila Bay? Lookouts paired with his best marines to look for bobbing objects were stationed at the bow of the flagship. The marine riflemen shot at weird stuff they saw in the water. Might have hit a mine, might have not. Two exploded way short of the Olympia, so who is to say? I say it was excited Spaniards who detonated command mines too early, but ... maybe?

That's just one more reason it's a bad idea.

I think I concluded that the sea water battery tech was not quite ready.

IIRC, it was a fail for being too costly given resource priorities, but not impractical. Given the other available options at the time, it would rank above turning Steve into Cap, but...

 

[Astrodragon]

A WW2 version of CAPTOR is possible, but has too many issues to be practical.
FIDO is available, but WW2 tech is FAR more fragile than modern systems, so stuffing it in a mine and leaving it is going to lead to a terrible failure rate. This stuff isn't that easy even with later systems.
And leaving loads of samples of you new A/S weapon sitting around in cases in enemy waters is just asking for one to be disassembled and countered.

And you can bet that the one which doesn't actually fail over time will take out one of your ships when you finally steam into the enemy port...

 

[McPherson]

IMO, it's asking for everything to go just right, & real life isn't a Clancy novel. You might pull it off enough to persuade somebody it's a good idea...but I wouldn't risk my boat on it. I get out of sight of HQ, I'm cutting the tether & calling it for safety of operation reasons.

100 + times. I agree evade is better, but as long as the IJN skipper presents a turnout, why not feed his tin-cana fish and let him die of indigestion?

A WW2 version of CAPTOR is possible, but has too many issues to be practical.

FIDO is available, but WW2 tech is FAR more fragile than modern systems, so stuffing it in a mine and leaving it is going to lead to a terrible failure rate. This stuff isn't that easy even with later systems.

And leaving loads of samples of you new A/S weapon sitting around in cases in enemy waters is just asking for one to be disassembled and countered.

And you can bet that the one which doesn't actually fail over time will take out one of your ships when you finally steam into the enemy port...

All true of modern CAPTOR and one applies mitigation for it then as you do now. The antitamper feature is an old one for naval mines.

And if the choke point is important enough... Chu'uk, one can park the box too deep for divers, but shallow enough to give an IJN tincan a bellyache.

 

[Draconis]

WW2 U.S. Navy homing mine.

The torpedo scandal avoided thread has got me thinking as to what other technological improvements would have been feasible to help shorten the Pacific War. And possibly WW2 in general. One idea that came to mind is developing a heavily modified torpedo to be used as an acoustic homing mine...

www.alternatehistory.com

Here is an older thread I started about WW2 CAPTOR type homing mines. Some good comments in there.

 

[phx1138]

as long as the IJN skipper presents a turnout, why not feed his tin-cana fish and let him die of indigestion?

Oh, sure, if I get a good opportunity, I'll shoot. I wouldn't try it against the Brits or Canadians, I don't think, but against IJN? (IDK enough about the Italians to judge; if you're right about how good they are...no.)

It's just, that's not the way. Give me working Mark XIVs, even, never mind Cutie, & maybe let me steal Mush's TDC man (Frazee?), or Sam Dealey's (or, at least, have them train up my guy ), & I'm good to shoot.

A WW2 version of CAPTOR is possible, but has too many issues to be practical.
FIDO is available, but WW2 tech is FAR more fragile than modern systems, so stuffing it in a mine and leaving it is going to lead to a terrible failure rate. This stuff isn't that easy even with later systems.
And leaving loads of samples of you new A/S weapon sitting around in cases in enemy waters is just asking for one to be disassembled and countered.

And you can bet that the one which doesn't actually fail over time will take out one of your ships when you finally steam into the enemy port...

If I was doing it, I'd put a "sell by date" on it: some kind of seawater "clock", so if the weapon doesn't fire within a couple of months, it blows itself up. (Test the system for soak durability first, too; typical steam torpedoes didn't like being wet for even normal patrol durations, which is why external tubes were a bad idea. Because the fish weren't perfectly watertight? IDK.)

 

[McPherson]

WW2 U.S. Navy homing mine.

The torpedo scandal avoided thread has got me thinking as to what other technological improvements would have been feasible to help shorten the Pacific War. And possibly WW2 in general. One idea that came to mind is developing a heavily modified torpedo to be used as an acoustic homing mine...

www.alternatehistory.com

Here is an older thread I started about WW2 CAPTOR type homing mines. Some good comments in there.

I went back and read that one. It reminded me about the gasket issues the Americans had with their equipment.

 

[Zheng He]

I was going back through Clay Blair's books last night. I know some people don't like him but he makes a lot of interesting points regarding the Battle of the Atlantic and one of them is that in the first 28 months of the war (up until December 1941) over 98% of the ships sailing in convoy to Great Britain go there safe and sound. I realize things are more complicated than that - most sinkings were stragglers or lone sailings and there were other convoy routes. However, the routes to Great Britain were the most important and if over 98% of the ships in convoy were getting through then those SLOCs were never seriously threatened and if the Germans to be able to put enough sustained combat power into the Atlantic to seriously threaten those SLOCs they are going to have cut deeply into the resource allocations for the Army and the Air Force in a manner that a land power can't really do.

 

[McPherson]

I was going back through Clay Blair's books last night. I know some people don't like him but he makes a lot of interesting points regarding the Battle of the Atlantic and one of them is that in the first 28 months of the war (up until December 1941) over 98% of the ships sailing in convoy to Great Britain go there safe and sound. I realize things are more complicated than that - most sinkings were stragglers or lone sailings and there were other convoy routes. However, the routes to Great Britain were the most important and if over 98% of the ships in convoy were getting through then and if the Germans to be able to put enough sustained combat power into the Atlantic to seriously threaten those SLOCs they are going to have cut.

You know that is the heart of my argument, for the reasons why I regard the UbD West and "S" for Brains, may be considered incompetent?

Sims would be so proud of his ultimate vindication. Ingersoll, too,