In honesty, it isn't based on anything other than background knowledge. I had always thought it was one of those commonly accepted truisms but having looked a little deeper there doesn't appear to be substantiated. There seems to be evidence that Goering took a strong interest in the way that he looked even to the extent of wearing make up. I expect that has been blown out to being a full blown cross dresser.
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It is always worth making this point - it will afterall make our discussions more useful to all. I am often a little direct and I like to think that I am humble enough to apologise when people point out I have been unfairly.
My problem with @Jopa79's statements isn't in the exact wording but in the critical analysis and then rejection of an evidence based response. For example
This statement is basically taken to mean that the Allies cannot detect the type XXI. This is unquallified and makes no consideration of what 'stealthiness' actually is, why physical objects can be stealthy in the first place, the technical capability of allied ASDIC/SONAR, passive detection, air detection etc. My problem is that this is made with no critical analysis, no consideration of the reponse and is only used to justify the thesis that with this boat Germany could have won. Or rather, the thesis is that Germany could have won had they a true stealth submarine ... and Jopa is pushing the idea that the type XXI was that submarine but choosing to ignore the evidence higlighting that contradicts this view.
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In this context, Herman Meyer is a joke name aimed at Herman Goring based in the previous quote he made. They are the same person.
min WWI, Goring was formidable. By the time hostilities began in earnest in WWII, he is so drugged up as to be ineffective and others take his power openly while Fat Herman collects art.
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Reichmarshal Gorings use of makeup, his vanity, and love of the good life while floating in an opium cloud is known. But it is a big jump from wearing makeup to asking your subordinates to pee on you while wearing a dress. I'm not saying its wrong, just curious if it can be corroborated. Or is this one of those Gelli Rabaul mysteries that simply can never be solved because it is scrubbed clean and sterile by professionals wielding very long knives at night.
Regarding Hoover, you have a similar situation. It is a common belief, and there are multiple stories in Mafia circles that the Commission had compromising photos of Hoover cross-dressing and engaging in sexual acts he crucified others for committing. At one point in Playboy magazine as a lad I remember seeing a story that included a picture of him supposedly in a bad wig and dress. But you can't prove it, it has been scrubbed clean as well. The kicker is Hoover, for decades, denied the Mafia existed as anything other than street crime; right up until the Godfathers of the Five Families were caught meeting in a farmhouse in upstate New York. And then Kennedy's progrom against the Mafia when they got him elected threw gasoline in that fire. The OSS understands how the Mafia works, but the FBI didn't. Unless they didn't want to. Go figure.
Just curious, thanks.
The statement, literally, says 'the XXI was difficult to detect when submerged'.
Because, compared to its predecessors, wasn't it more difficult to detect running at full speed using the snorkel? But this comes at a cost of reduced speed to prevent breaking the snorkel, and the fact running diesel engines underwater made the brilliant German hydrophones stone deaf.
I think he is asking a question that, deployed en masse, could this have defeated Allied ASW capabilities. We have both mentioned, repeatedly, submarine v. ASW is a measure, counter-measure, counter-counter-measure situation. The best one is the fact it took the Allies five minutes to figure out how to drag a sled making a lot of noise behind a ship to defeat acoustic homing torpedoes.
I sense no ill intent in Jopa's statements, he is just an individual who likes to think things out and write them down. Sometimes I agree, sometimes I disagree; but i have learned a lot about Finland being around him. Without people like him, this forum gets very quiet very quickly.
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Thanks. I got that it was a joke name. Like saying my name would be mud if something bad happened.
Which comment is supposedly based on Dr Samuel Mudd, the physician who treated John Wilkes Booth's fractured leg. So yes, a very good example of the thing.
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I figured it was based on actual mud and how people don't like it, for obvious reasons.
Wikipedia:
Well, there we go - another case of 'everybody knows' being wrong. Perhaps 'a stupid twaddling fellow' is the reason for Star Trek naming Harry Mudd, or maybe they just liked the sound.
I'm always skeptical of reports of cross-dressing since that is a favorite slur of certain types of people against those whom they dislike or disrespect. From what I've heard, the Hoover report was based on a single 'witness' and given credence by his life-long live-in 'friend'. For myself, I think Goering was far too fond of uniforms to try a dress... but many a man has been, um, 'adventurous' once or twice in his life, so when the alcohol starts flowing, who knows? There's many a report of soldiers and sailors in drag, mostly just in good fun. My opinion is that it is like reports of Napoleon being short or Hitler uni-testicular: a not-proven slur that is just nasty enough to be enjoyable.
Anyway, we are a long way off the elektroboot.
In WW2, sonar (or asdic) was a newly-developed technology. Ships could not profitably use it above a crawling speed and aircraft (to my knowledge) did not have anything like the sonobuoys developed later. So it seems reasonable to me that a U-boat capable of remaining submerged for much longer times, and able to manage a high underwater speed for short periods, would have had a better survival rate than a type VII. It represents an improvement, not a shield against detection, but it would have been an advantage.
Experiments post-war (with USS Albacore among others) showed it was possible to achieve very high speeds underwater by adopting a delphinoid or teardrop hullform. Post-war developments in ASW also pointed out that it was not speed but noise that could get a sub targeted and sunk. This is why nuclear subs worry about noise from reactor pumps, why propeller design was so important that supercomputers were needed to solve their math, and why very fast subs like the Akula were eventually abandoned as a dead end. In modern anti-submarine warfare, if you can hear it you can kill it - and modern ASW has Dumbo-sized ears with detectors on ships, planes and on the ocean floor.
So I think that noise was undesirable in WW2-era submarines, but - since the goal was not so much to kill subs as to drive them off and away - a high escape speed might help a sub slip away from an escort that had to return to its convoy. Once the Allies got air-cover in the mid-Atlantic, the U-boat war was - barring some great forward leap - decided, though not over. The Elecktroboot might have prolonged German successes, but given Allied superiority in escorts, aircraft and the ability to build merchant ships, I can't see that it was going to turn the tide. That's a highly if-maybe answer, but that's the best I've got.
Now again, this is just my opinion, but I think that IF Germany was going to 'win' a U-boat war, we need to define 'win'. A complete victory - isolating Britain by reducing her imports to the point that the British government must seek peace - seems to me to have been unachievable. You'd need a substantially larger pre-war German U-boat fleet, an Admiralty unwilling to build escorts or convoy, and perhaps some other pro-German events in order for that to happen and I think the chances of all that being true are slim-to-none.
But a narrower definition - winning by an attrition strategy, costing the Allies more men and materiel than Germany was losing - might have been achievable. You'd still need a better-prepared U-boat fleet (and one that didn't alarm the British into building more escorts to counter it), less intelligent defensive preparations and so on. In this case, developing the next generation of U-boat early and switching production intelligently would have reaped benefits. Forcing the Allies to build even more shipping and materiel, and to lose more ships and cargo, could pay off... but first, I think there are too many things Germany would have to do right and Britain do wrong for even this narrower success to be achieved. The best you could do would be to inflict the same kind of pain as the bomber campaign.
Now, if you add up the costs of the Allied bomber campaigns, add in the cost of German fighter and AA defenses, add in (somehow) the German lives and productivity lost, then balance that against the cost of the U-boat campaign for the Allies in sailors, aircraft, merchant ships and escorts. minus the cost of producing and crewing the U-boats... well, then I don't know. I lost myself somewhere in all those qualifiers. But the stark fact is that Britain went to a bomber campaign because she had no other effective way to hit Germany, and Germany conducted a U-boat campaign because, lacking heavy bombers, it was an effective way to hit Britain. Some people on each side might have thought bombers or subs would be a war-winning weapon but most, I think, just wanted to hurt the enemy.
Given the production advantage of the US-UK-USSR alliance, a German U-boat campaign would have had to be much more effective than a bomber campaign to yield the same percentage of production invested versus destroyed, in order to be labeled a victory. I'm not aware of anyone having done that cost/benefit survey for the two campaigns, but if anyone has - please let me know. I suspect it would not favor Germany and I am unable to come up with a strategy that benefits her more.
Just my opinion here - but IF Germany was going to extend the high tonnage losses inflicted on the Allies early in the war, they would have needed something that could minimize detection by air and strike accurately from some distance. The Elektroboot was probably the best they could do toward the former, although they needed them in large numbers and early on - say in 1942-43 - so that even-more-improved models would be entering service in 1944-45. (The thought of trying to deploy a fleet of Walther turbine U-boats is terrifying - for their crews.) And Germany would have needed a reliable homing torpedo developed and deployed in numbers at the same time. Thirdly, Germany needed really good intelligence on where convoys were, accurate and early enough to be able to concentrate a wolfpack - and they needed the Allies to NOT be able to figure out where the U-boats were gathering.
So that's my take: Germany could not gather the strategic and operational intelligence they needed OR keep the Allies from having the intelligence that they needed. For me, that's the real critical point, and the Elektroboot did not address it. Additional tactical strength was not going to redress a loss of strategic and operational intelligence.
I'm always skeptical of reports of cross-dressing since that is a favorite slur of certain types of people against those whom they dislike or disrespect. From what I've heard, the Hoover report was based on a single 'witness' and given credence by his life-long live-in 'friend'. For myself, I think Goering was far too fond of uniforms to try a dress... but many a man has been, um, 'adventurous' once or twice in his life, so when the alcohol starts flowing, who knows? There's many a report of soldiers and sailors in drag, mostly just in good fun. My opinion is that it is like reports of Napoleon being short or Hitler uni-testicular: a not-proven slur that is just nasty enough to be enjoyable.
Anyway, we are a long way off the elektroboot.
In WW2, sonar (or asdic) was a newly-developed technology. Ships could not profitably use it above a crawling speed and aircraft (to my knowledge) did not have anything like the sonobuoys developed later. So it seems reasonable to me that a U-boat capable of remaining submerged for much longer times, and able to manage a high underwater speed for short periods, would have had a better survival rate than a type VII. It represents an improvement, not a shield against detection, but it would have been an advantage.
Experiments post-war (with USS Albacore among others) showed it was possible to achieve very high speeds underwater by adopting a delphinoid or teardrop hullform. Post-war developments in ASW also pointed out that it was not speed but noise that could get a sub targeted and sunk. This is why nuclear subs worry about noise from reactor pumps, why propeller design was so important that supercomputers were needed to solve their math, and why very fast subs like the Akula were eventually abandoned as a dead end. In modern anti-submarine warfare, if you can hear it you can kill it - and modern ASW has Dumbo-sized ears with detectors on ships, planes and on the ocean floor.
So I think that noise was undesirable in WW2-era submarines, but - since the goal was not so much to kill subs as to drive them off and away - a high escape speed might help a sub slip away from an escort that had to return to its convoy. Once the Allies got air-cover in the mid-Atlantic, the U-boat war was - barring some great forward leap - decided, though not over. The Elecktroboot might have prolonged German successes, but given Allied superiority in escorts, aircraft and the ability to build merchant ships, I can't see that it was going to turn the tide. That's a highly if-maybe answer, but that's the best I've got.
Now again, this is just my opinion, but I think that IF Germany was going to 'win' a U-boat war, we need to define 'win'. A complete victory - isolating Britain by reducing her imports to the point that the British government must seek peace - seems to me to have been unachievable. You'd need a substantially larger pre-war German U-boat fleet, an Admiralty unwilling to build escorts or convoy, and perhaps some other pro-German events in order for that to happen and I think the chances of all that being true are slim-to-none.
But a narrower definition - winning by an attrition strategy, costing the Allies more men and materiel than Germany was losing - might have been achievable. You'd still need a better-prepared U-boat fleet (and one that didn't alarm the British into building more escorts to counter it), less intelligent defensive preparations and so on. In this case, developing the next generation of U-boat early and switching production intelligently would have reaped benefits. Forcing the Allies to build even more shipping and materiel, and to lose more ships and cargo, could pay off... but first, I think there are too many things Germany would have to do right and Britain do wrong for even this narrower success to be achieved. The best you could do would be to inflict the same kind of pain as the bomber campaign.
Now, if you add up the costs of the Allied bomber campaigns, add in the cost of German fighter and AA defenses, add in (somehow) the German lives and productivity lost, then balance that against the cost of the U-boat campaign for the Allies in sailors, aircraft, merchant ships and escorts. minus the cost of producing and crewing the U-boats... well, then I don't know. I lost myself somewhere in all those qualifiers. But the stark fact is that Britain went to a bomber campaign because she had no other effective way to hit Germany, and Germany conducted a U-boat campaign because, lacking heavy bombers, it was an effective way to hit Britain. Some people on each side might have thought bombers or subs would be a war-winning weapon but most, I think, just wanted to hurt the enemy.
Given the production advantage of the US-UK-USSR alliance, a German U-boat campaign would have had to be much more effective than a bomber campaign to yield the same percentage of production invested versus destroyed, in order to be labeled a victory. I'm not aware of anyone having done that cost/benefit survey for the two campaigns, but if anyone has - please let me know. I suspect it would not favor Germany and I am unable to come up with a strategy that benefits her more.
Just my opinion here - but IF Germany was going to extend the high tonnage losses inflicted on the Allies early in the war, they would have needed something that could minimize detection by air and strike accurately from some distance. The Elektroboot was probably the best they could do toward the former, although they needed them in large numbers and early on - say in 1942-43 - so that even-more-improved models would be entering service in 1944-45. (The thought of trying to deploy a fleet of Walther turbine U-boats is terrifying - for their crews.) And Germany would have needed a reliable homing torpedo developed and deployed in numbers at the same time. Thirdly, Germany needed really good intelligence on where convoys were, accurate and early enough to be able to concentrate a wolfpack - and they needed the Allies to NOT be able to figure out where the U-boats were gathering.
So that's my take: Germany could not gather the strategic and operational intelligence they needed OR keep the Allies from having the intelligence that they needed. For me, that's the real critical point, and the Elektroboot did not address it. Additional tactical strength was not going to redress a loss of strategic and operational intelligence.
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Complete victory to isolate Britain, using their historical attrition strategy looks un-achievable. Metaphorically; they were playing a cat and mouse game with the Allied navies where they have to destroy so much cat food that the cats will give up and they couldn't do it. A different strategy where they go for the outright destruction of the allied navies, basically tricking or goading the cats guarding the food and hunting the mice into getting killed in catastrophic ambushes; might have eventually allowed for better sub raiding generally or a "no mans land" type situation to develop and deter/decrease convoy shipping volume. I doubt they'd be successful in this without divine intervention. High leadership would have to devise and implement this plan, and have epic successes with it over and over.
Yeah. The intelligence is very critical to all of it and the Allies had a huge advantage. AFAIK the Germans didn't even know they needed to adapt to their intelligence deficiency.
The trouble with a 5kt speed is that it is slower than an even a 'slow' convoy. That means to intercept a convoy you have to start in front of it and to maintain contact you have to be either 'noisy' or surfaced. As such, it remains difficult for German submarines to maintain an efficient series of attacks against a convoy. When you add this to the difficulty of actually sinking a ship with torpedoes it is hard to see any possible way for the Germans to possess the hundreds of operational submarines, required at the same time, to actually stand a chance of choking off Britain.
The type XXI was a potentially very good weapon, but like the Me-262 and V2 it was not available in time or in sufficient numbers, nor was capable of being manufactured in sufficient numbers to actually make a difference. No single piece of technology was ever going to change the outcome of the war - even if alien space bats gave the Germans plans for an atomic bomb in 1942 there was no way they could refine enough uranium or build a sufficiently reliable delivery system in time to save themselves.
You were in playboy as a lad!
... sorry
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@Henry IX - yes, hence my coming around to the the opinion that Germany needed good intelligence to wage effective war in the Atlantic, though a better tactical weapon would have helped curb their losses.
He was in Playboy as a lad. He wrote one of those articles we bought the magazine for, but somehow never read... LOL.
He was in Playboy as a lad. He wrote one of those articles we bought the magazine for, but somehow never read... LOL.
For what its worth, I see no ill intent in what Jopa has said. What I take issue with is that he is basically saying that 'It was hard to detect, because I say it is and therefore I am right Germany winner!' without taking the time to question whether it was actually difficult to detect. One thing I love about these forums and questions is that I love getting into the technology, the facts, the numbers and how they all tie together. I love the research and using that research to inform an answer. What I find jarring/difficult is when the statement 'it was hard to detect' is made without any real critical analysis.
Was it hard to detect? Why was it hard to detect? Why did it need to be hard to detect, if it was hard to detect, was this because the 'detection' capability wasn't good enough or was this simply a case of changing frequency/bandwidth. My own research and my understanding of the physics of waves seems to suggest that it was more difficult to detect, but only by percentages and not by orders of magnitude. As outlined in some of the sources, later generation Soviet submarines made far more noise than what is being implied. Now, if the question is 'what if Germany had a modern attack submarine' then I would be a little more forgiving. But the Type XXI was an iteration and not an evolution.
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Sorry to split your post up, I just wanted to add a few bits of information.
To put this in context, while the German systems could detect and provide a rough bearing to an allied ship/convoy, that ship would be able to more precisely determine the bearing and range to the target (and depth after 1943) before the submarine could move into an effective firing range (as stated earlier, it was favoured to attack within 700m). Even if the type XXI is half as detectable, it still doesn't have the edge.
People often credit the Elektroboot as having revolutionised submarine design, but really it was the development in anti-submarine warfare which drove this change and following WW2, the idea of massed fleets of submarines sinking large convoys of merchant vessels was really at the end. Submarines of the post war era had very different roles than before. Roles that demanded a change in technology.
As another note, air-deployed sonobuoys were used extensively and featured quite prominently in the Battle of Biscay (Jopa's Valley of Death). The non-academic random internet articles I have read seem to suggest they were very effective, but happy to be corrected here.
The main difference from my perspective is that the allied bombing campaign has been shown (Tooze) to have negatively affected German economic growth from 1942 onwards. I am not sure that I have seen a similar perspective from the Uboat campaign? I would be happy to see one.
This isn't strictly true. The British had developed ASDIC since WW1 and had developed it to the point that at the outbreak of war, every Royal Navy destroyer was fitted with an ASDIC capability. By 1943 the ASDIC/SONAR capability was good enough that the Anti-Submarine Warfare Mortar - Squid - was automatically fired from the SONAR range/bearing/depth. By 1943, they had detection ranges of around 2000m to 2500m depending on sea states and running speed. This contrasted to a range of 500-700m for the German GHG system. Essentially, the use of different frequencies, bandwidth and modulation schemes allowed the ASDIC/SONAR systems to obtain very effective range and bearing.
To put this in context, while the German systems could detect and provide a rough bearing to an allied ship/convoy, that ship would be able to more precisely determine the bearing and range to the target (and depth after 1943) before the submarine could move into an effective firing range (as stated earlier, it was favoured to attack within 700m). Even if the type XXI is half as detectable, it still doesn't have the edge.
People often credit the Elektroboot as having revolutionised submarine design, but really it was the development in anti-submarine warfare which drove this change and following WW2, the idea of massed fleets of submarines sinking large convoys of merchant vessels was really at the end. Submarines of the post war era had very different roles than before. Roles that demanded a change in technology.
As another note, air-deployed sonobuoys were used extensively and featured quite prominently in the Battle of Biscay (Jopa's Valley of Death). The non-academic random internet articles I have read seem to suggest they were very effective, but happy to be corrected here.
The main difference from my perspective is that the allied bombing campaign has been shown (Tooze) to have negatively affected German economic growth from 1942 onwards. I am not sure that I have seen a similar perspective from the Uboat campaign? I would be happy to see one.
With all due respect, internal changes to the management of the workforce feeding the German economy beginning in January of 1942 directly contributed to this decline in addition to the infrastructure damage done by the Allied bombing campaign. The 'Emmigration to the East' and subsequent 'Evacuation' of tens of thousands of highly skilled workmen in the Berlin area alone previously exempted from special treatment following the new policies flowing from Wannsee, in addition to diverting badly needed men and material to the secret project, directly affects the bottom line. The leadership of the Reich was willing to accept the loss for the betterment of the nation after the war was done.
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Were WW2 sonobuoy contacts persecuted sucessfully with anything except the Fido ASW torpedo? That seems to have been the usual culprit at least. And being faster than Fido is at least one use for Type XXI's high underwater speed.
The buoys were also passive and as such susceptible to being less effective against a more quiet sub.
The buoys were also passive and as such susceptible to being less effective against a more quiet sub.
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Actually, I would say that sonar or asdic was a new technology - new in years, new in capabilities that were not fully developed and new in capabilities that were not fully understood - or actually misunderstood. Possession of asdic was seen by some in the Royal Navy as a trump card that rendered the submarine almost useless as a weapon of war. Due in some part to asdic's early limitations this turned out not to be the case - it isn't always wise to slow down to 6 knots while listening for a sub; the smake can turn.
Scientific development of search and attack patterns, the replacement of depth charges with weapons like squid and hedgehog, and of course improvements in the system and in the training of its operators, all helped make it a good weapon for discouraging and driving off submarines - which is all you really need to do. Subs that can't sink ships are actually more of a net loss than subs that get sunk, representing lost man-hours, petrol, etc and so forth. It's the same logic as wounding soldiers versus killing them - the wounded ones require men to take them to the rear plus medical supplies, etc and so forth.
Compared with where it stood in 1944 or 45, asdic/sonar was simply not very good in the first two years of the war. That's why I say it was a new system.
Can you suggest a source on the noise level of the XXI?
I'd like to see numbers on the economic cost/benefit ratios of strategic bombing and u-boat campaigns, but I'd also have to know exactly what got counted, and in which column. The cynic in me suggests both campaigns would have been continued regardless, simply because neither side would give up hitting at the enemy even if it was hurting themselves more.
Scientific development of search and attack patterns, the replacement of depth charges with weapons like squid and hedgehog, and of course improvements in the system and in the training of its operators, all helped make it a good weapon for discouraging and driving off submarines - which is all you really need to do. Subs that can't sink ships are actually more of a net loss than subs that get sunk, representing lost man-hours, petrol, etc and so forth. It's the same logic as wounding soldiers versus killing them - the wounded ones require men to take them to the rear plus medical supplies, etc and so forth.
Compared with where it stood in 1944 or 45, asdic/sonar was simply not very good in the first two years of the war. That's why I say it was a new system.
Can you suggest a source on the noise level of the XXI?
I'd like to see numbers on the economic cost/benefit ratios of strategic bombing and u-boat campaigns, but I'd also have to know exactly what got counted, and in which column. The cynic in me suggests both campaigns would have been continued regardless, simply because neither side would give up hitting at the enemy even if it was hurting themselves more.
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Apologies to be persnickety but I am going to argue against this. The idea of using underwater sound wave propagation to detect ships goes back centuries with the often quoted Leonardo DaVinci - "If you cause your ship to stop and place the head of a long tube in the water and place the outer extremity to your ear, you will hear ships at a great distance from you." [shamelessly taken from Wikipedia]. The major technology advances that allowed the development of ASDIC/SONAR was the piezoelectric transducer, but this technology was developed in the midst of the first world war. Take this in contrast to RADAR, and the Cavity Magnetron which was a similar level of development was only developed in 1940.
I have never heard of ASDIC/SONAR being limited by speed of the vessel - would you have some source of this? It seems to contradict the tactic (at least with the 144/147 which was introduced in 1941/42, whereby the escort would charge ahead at high speed in order to intercept a target.
I would recommend looking at the Technology Readiness Levels (TRL). It had its origins in the second world war and was used to understand the development process necessary to take technology from 'prototype' or initial operational capability (i.e. Type XXI) to full operational capability (i.e. Type 144 ASDIC). As an example, ASDIC/SONAR of 1939 was by the TRL measurement standards at full operational capability (hence, should not be thought of as a new capability). It provided a 2D position fix against which escorts had developed the tactics necessary to render the undersea attack capability greatly reduced. There were further technical innovations which expanded the capability - e.g. in 1943, ASDIC/SONAR was capable enough to provide an automatic firing solution for SQUID. This didn't make it a new technology, but an iteration of existing technology.
Strangely enough, Doenitz disagrees with you. He wrote a pamphlet in 1939 about how the Uboats needed attack merchant ships while surfaced and at night because of the British ASDIC capability. Incidentally, Britain had been openly announcing this capability. Indeed, the principal German tactic on the early war years was to attack at night and on the surface. The conclusion here being, that ASDIC
Not specifically. I have searched, but found it very difficult. I suspect that this is because most militaries do not wish to disclose this information. What I have found however, is a report which estimates the noise levels of Soviet classes of submarines:
What is known about the character of noise created by submarines? Appendix 1 - The Future of Russia's Strategic Nuclear Forces - by Eugene Miasnikov, Center for Arms Control, Energy And Environmental Studies at MIPT
Source noise levels of Russian SSBNs.
www.armscontrol.ru
The most pertinent probably being the Zulu class which whose design was similar in many respects to the type XXI and this ship is considerably loud. Of course, we should also be interested in the ability to actively detect a submarine. Passive listening was not the way allied escorts hunted submarines.
You might also like to read:
Though I wont pretend to have read the entirety of this.
Listening to sounds underwater is not the same as projecting or receiving a sound for the determination of range and bearing. Asdic was a new technology, developed in great secrecy at the very end of WW1, not widely fitted until the mid-1920s, and under-developed compared to where it would be by the end of WW2, not to mention the Cold War. One key Allied improvement was in setting up schools to determine the best way to use it when attacking subs and to train officers in those methods... If it had been a fully-developed, tested and proven technology there would have been no need to figure out how to use it once war began.
Own-vessel screw noise interfered with Asdic/sonar, as did water noise, weather, thermal layers, target screw/cavitation and other factors. And - critically - sonar contact would be lost if the target position was abaft the beam. This is why prosecuting attacks with two escorts was deemed crucial in the early years of the war - one to track and one to pass over for a depth charge attack. That requirement was mitigated by the use of Hedgehog and similar systems, but it was a serious complication.
First internet search I ran yielded this:
uboat.net
I have read that under some conditions sonar was not useful above 6-12 knots, and given the above quote that it was not useful at all above 18 knots, that seems reasonable. Given that running from an attacker was a tested, workable way to avoid the attack (target screw cavitation interfered with sonar), and given that a surface attacker could not pursue at a speed above 18 knots at best without losing sonar contact completely, the high speed of the XXI would be an asset in escaping an attack.
Surely you are not saying that sonar peaked in 1939 and made no further improvement to the present day? I take that quote to mean that the system was ready for deployment in operational units and areas. Many, many systems could be at 'full operational capability' without being perfected - fighter direction systems pre-and-post radar assistance, for one example. I haven't disputed that sonar was ready to go into the field, and in fact it was deployed on just about every surface combatant below capital ship size.
I'm saying that, compared to its introduction in the 20s it was still a new technology in 1939. Its capabilities were over-estimated then - it was not a magic bullet for U-boat killing but rather a useful tool in some but not all circumstances. Sonar was improved during the war, including developing better methods for its tactical and operational use. Whatever the readiness capability of sonar was rated at in WW2, improvements in materials, electronics, computers and the increasing use of special bow domes markedly improved it during and post-war. Therefore, I do say that, at the outbreak of WW2, sonar was a new technology and not nearly as capable as it would be later. This seems self-evident to me and I'm not going to continue to debate it.
I'll just say again that I see the XXI as an incremental tactical and operational improvement, but one that could not offset German weakness in gathering intelligence on convoys and securing their own movements from Allied codebreakers.
Own-vessel screw noise interfered with Asdic/sonar, as did water noise, weather, thermal layers, target screw/cavitation and other factors. And - critically - sonar contact would be lost if the target position was abaft the beam. This is why prosecuting attacks with two escorts was deemed crucial in the early years of the war - one to track and one to pass over for a depth charge attack. That requirement was mitigated by the use of Hedgehog and similar systems, but it was a serious complication.
First internet search I ran yielded this:
ASDIC / Sonar - Technical pages - Fighting the U-boats - uboat.net
The U-boat War in World War Two (Kriegsmarine, 1939-1945) and World War One (Kaiserliche Marine, 1914-1918) and the Allied efforts to counter the threat. This section includes over 21.000 Allied Warships and over 11.000 Allied Commanders of WWII, from the US Navy, Royal Navy, Royal Canadian...
I have read that under some conditions sonar was not useful above 6-12 knots, and given the above quote that it was not useful at all above 18 knots, that seems reasonable. Given that running from an attacker was a tested, workable way to avoid the attack (target screw cavitation interfered with sonar), and given that a surface attacker could not pursue at a speed above 18 knots at best without losing sonar contact completely, the high speed of the XXI would be an asset in escaping an attack.
Surely you are not saying that sonar peaked in 1939 and made no further improvement to the present day? I take that quote to mean that the system was ready for deployment in operational units and areas. Many, many systems could be at 'full operational capability' without being perfected - fighter direction systems pre-and-post radar assistance, for one example. I haven't disputed that sonar was ready to go into the field, and in fact it was deployed on just about every surface combatant below capital ship size.
I'm saying that, compared to its introduction in the 20s it was still a new technology in 1939. Its capabilities were over-estimated then - it was not a magic bullet for U-boat killing but rather a useful tool in some but not all circumstances. Sonar was improved during the war, including developing better methods for its tactical and operational use. Whatever the readiness capability of sonar was rated at in WW2, improvements in materials, electronics, computers and the increasing use of special bow domes markedly improved it during and post-war. Therefore, I do say that, at the outbreak of WW2, sonar was a new technology and not nearly as capable as it would be later. This seems self-evident to me and I'm not going to continue to debate it.
I'll just say again that I see the XXI as an incremental tactical and operational improvement, but one that could not offset German weakness in gathering intelligence on convoys and securing their own movements from Allied codebreakers.
Listening to sounds underwater is not the same as projecting or receiving a sound for the determination of range and bearing. Asdic was a new technology, developed in great secrecy at the very end of WW1, not widely fitted until the mid-1920s, and under-developed compared to where it would be by the end of WW2, not to mention the Cold War. One key Allied improvement was in setting up schools to determine the best way to use it when attacking subs and to train officers in those methods... If it had been a fully-developed, tested and proven technology there would have been no need to figure out how to use it once war began.
Own-vessel screw noise interfered with Asdic/sonar, as did water noise, weather, thermal layers, target screw/cavitation and other factors. And - critically - sonar contact would be lost if the target position was abaft the beam. This is why prosecuting attacks with two escorts was deemed crucial in the early years of the war - one to track and one to pass over for a depth charge attack. That requirement was mitigated by the use of Hedgehog and similar systems, but it was a serious complication.
First internet search I ran yielded this:
uboat.net
I have read that under some conditions sonar was not useful above 6-12 knots, and given the above quote that it was not useful at all above 18 knots, that seems reasonable. Given that running from an attacker was a tested, workable way to avoid the attack (target screw cavitation interfered with sonar), and given that a surface attacker could not pursue at a speed above 18 knots at best without losing sonar contact completely, the high speed of the XXI would be an asset in escaping an attack.
Surely you are not saying that sonar peaked in 1939 and made no further improvement to the present day? I take that quote to mean that the system was ready for deployment in operational units and areas. Many, many systems could be at 'full operational capability' without being perfected - fighter direction systems pre-and-post radar assistance, for one example. I haven't disputed that sonar was ready to go into the field, and in fact it was deployed on just about every surface combatant below capital ship size.
I'm saying that, compared to its introduction in the 20s it was still a new technology in 1939. Its capabilities were over-estimated then - it was not a magic bullet for U-boat killing but rather a useful tool in some but not all circumstances. Sonar was improved during the war, including developing better methods for its tactical and operational use. Whatever the readiness capability of sonar was rated at in WW2, improvements in materials, electronics, computers and the increasing use of special bow domes markedly improved it during and post-war. Therefore, I do say that, at the outbreak of WW2, sonar was a new technology and not nearly as capable as it would be later. This seems self-evident to me and I'm not going to continue to debate it.
I'll just say again that I see the XXI as an incremental tactical and operational improvement, but one that could not offset German weakness in gathering intelligence on convoys and securing their own movements from Allied codebreakers.
Own-vessel screw noise interfered with Asdic/sonar, as did water noise, weather, thermal layers, target screw/cavitation and other factors. And - critically - sonar contact would be lost if the target position was abaft the beam. This is why prosecuting attacks with two escorts was deemed crucial in the early years of the war - one to track and one to pass over for a depth charge attack. That requirement was mitigated by the use of Hedgehog and similar systems, but it was a serious complication.
First internet search I ran yielded this:
ASDIC / Sonar - Technical pages - Fighting the U-boats - uboat.net
The U-boat War in World War Two (Kriegsmarine, 1939-1945) and World War One (Kaiserliche Marine, 1914-1918) and the Allied efforts to counter the threat. This section includes over 21.000 Allied Warships and over 11.000 Allied Commanders of WWII, from the US Navy, Royal Navy, Royal Canadian...
I have read that under some conditions sonar was not useful above 6-12 knots, and given the above quote that it was not useful at all above 18 knots, that seems reasonable. Given that running from an attacker was a tested, workable way to avoid the attack (target screw cavitation interfered with sonar), and given that a surface attacker could not pursue at a speed above 18 knots at best without losing sonar contact completely, the high speed of the XXI would be an asset in escaping an attack.
Surely you are not saying that sonar peaked in 1939 and made no further improvement to the present day? I take that quote to mean that the system was ready for deployment in operational units and areas. Many, many systems could be at 'full operational capability' without being perfected - fighter direction systems pre-and-post radar assistance, for one example. I haven't disputed that sonar was ready to go into the field, and in fact it was deployed on just about every surface combatant below capital ship size.
I'm saying that, compared to its introduction in the 20s it was still a new technology in 1939. Its capabilities were over-estimated then - it was not a magic bullet for U-boat killing but rather a useful tool in some but not all circumstances. Sonar was improved during the war, including developing better methods for its tactical and operational use. Whatever the readiness capability of sonar was rated at in WW2, improvements in materials, electronics, computers and the increasing use of special bow domes markedly improved it during and post-war. Therefore, I do say that, at the outbreak of WW2, sonar was a new technology and not nearly as capable as it would be later. This seems self-evident to me and I'm not going to continue to debate it.
I'll just say again that I see the XXI as an incremental tactical and operational improvement, but one that could not offset German weakness in gathering intelligence on convoys and securing their own movements from Allied codebreakers.