hipper
Banned
We had very informative discussions about the relevance of the convoys. Mostly @BlondieBC agrued that the convoy in itself is a victory for the U-Boots as it introduces inefficiencies to the system...
Also what "Air patrols" are you talking about? This is the Great War and not WWII. So air cover is much more in its infancy and less reliable. Also may ships did not have a wireless so the work for the subs is much easier.
We Did have a very interesting argument about U boats with BlondieBC
The figure he was discussing was that Convoys imply a 33% reduction in carrying capacity vs Peace time sailing efficiencies, However this reduces to 13% if you compare the efficiencies of independently routed merchant ships to Convoys in wartime. The reason being that ships would delay sailing if sinkings indicated presence of U boats.
However both ineffficencies are minor compared to the shiping capacity loss when a ship is sunk (it never carries any cargo again ever)
Thus the efficient thing to do is to reduce losses for which Convoy is by far the best means ships in convoy were safer than independently routes ships by one or two orders of magnitude.
It takes between 3 to 6 months for the reduction in losses to make up for the loss in efficency caused by Convoys
In WW1 only five ships were sunk in convoy when air escort and sea escort were present. About 600 aitcraft were in use-by the end of the war on ASW duties. Interestingly they could be more effective because german submarines were forced to attack near the Coast as they could not find merchant shipping in the Atlantic. The point being that the U boat would fear being spotted by the aircraft and refuse to attack
All you ever wanted to know about the U boat wars is online
,http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/NHC/NewPDFs/UK/UK, Defeat-of-Enemy-Attack-on-Shipping1939-1945.pdf
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