ObssesedNuker said:
Uh... not exactly. What Nimitz had a mania for when it came to submarines was using them to sink every Japanese vessel they could find.
Yeah, that's why he had them covering the approaches to every damn IJN anchorage in the Pacific, instead of concentrating on the most productive patrol areas: Bungo & Kii Suido, Tsushima Strait, Yellow Sea, & Luzon/Formosa Strait.
ObssesedNuker said:
The biggest hiccup was the numerous mechanical faults in the torpedoes of the time.
The Mark XIV was much less important than usually credited. Doctrine played a part. The biggest problem was the nitwit in San Francisco Customs who caused Japan to change her
maru code,
which ONI was reading at the time;


OP-20-G didn't break it again until January 1943.
ObssesedNuker said:
What? Once the resources and range was available, Nimitz ordered the navy to mine the shit out of Japanese ports.
So why didn't he use Withers/English's boats to mine the approaches, rather than waste boats on close surveillance?

He could have done that from the first day he took charge. This would have bottled up IJN units very nicely, & avoided the repeated TGBs & wasted patrols.

Not to mention losses from operating off the most heavily defended places in the damn Pacific.

bsmart said:
puts several subs in place on 'reconnosance' before war is declared then activates them to attack the task force when it is returning to base
After attacking Pearl Harbor? Still a major defeat for the U.S.
Plus, do you have any idea how damn hard it is for a fleet boat to close & attack a task force?


Fast, heavily escorted ships in company, with disciplined crews--&, in these conditions, air overhead.

In 1941? Most USN skippers wouldn't have come up above 150 feet to shoot; they'd have done what doctrine called for, fired on sonar bearings, & counted on the Mark XIVs to work (which, since they were designed for use against warships, they might just have...)--& cursed when one of six hit (if that many actually did, & 4-5 didn't premature).
bsmart said:
And if the American S boats in the Philippines were laying off the invasion beaches and sunk most of the transport force before the landings took place
Why Asiatic Fleet's boats weren't stationed off known harbors in Formosa, ready to intercept the transports, IDK. Why there was all of one

Sugar boat in Lingayen Gulf (Chapple's
S-38?), IDK. Wilkes or Hart (IIRC Blair blames Hart) appears to be an idiot...
bsmart said:
I was also thinking of a Submarine patrol line North and west of Hawaii
English tried that before Midway, with more boats than he had in '41. Didn't work at all...
CalBear said:
The Asiatic Fleet had ..[f]our ..."S" boats,
I'd have sworn there were more...& Blair puts the number at six in Oct '39 (still way less than I recall...

), all in SubDiv 201.