>tfw reading about random U-Boats in WW2, their patrol logs

>>2939809
If you stop and think about it, u-boats are basically the terrorists/insurgents of naval warfare in the world wars.

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>>2939816
Battle of the Atlantic is terrifying desu for all sides
>be merchant ship crew member
>always have to worry 24/7 about being torpedoed by an U-Boat with no warning
>even being in a convoy, you're not 100% safe and shit can hit the fan any minute
>if you get hit, you have basically no chance of survival because no one is going to stop and rescue you because of the fear of getting torpedoed themselves
---
>be u-boat crewman
>spend weeks and even months in a cramped tin can which reeks of sweat, diesel and rotten food
>have to worry about constant air attacks
>even if you manage to spot a convoy and sink a ship, be prepared to get depth charged for hours until the escorts give up on you
>if you get sunk then no one will ever find you and your boat gets reported missing weeks after you die
>75% mortality rate

>>2939850
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Atlantic#Catapult_Aircraft_Merchantmen

>fleet can't spare aircraft carriers to protect the convoys from air attack
>they end up putting a single fighter on top of a giant rocket
>if enemy fighters are spotted, the rocket launches the fighter into the air
>there is no landing, so you have to ditch and hope somebody picks you up
>technically you're not even part of the military, it's just another job on the cargo ship

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>>2939942
Pretty sure these guys were military.

>>2939809
welp don't try and fight the world's 2 largest navies at the same time.

>>2939809

Dude, anytime you try to read about WW2 from the perspective of Axis soldiers, it gets super depressing really fast. It makes you aware of how many men died for absolutely nothing. I remember reading through "Japanese Destroyer Captain" and getting a sick feeling whenever a character from Hiroshima is mentioned, knowing that those characters ultimately are doomed to obliteration and radiation poisoning. I never expected to have this sort of reaction.

>>2941186
>The pilots for these aircraft were drawn from the Royal Air Force (RAF). The RAF formed the Merchant Ship Fighter Unit (MSFU) on 5 May 1941 in RAF Speke by the River Mersey in Liverpool.[1] Wing Commander E.S. Moulton-Barrett commanded the unit providing training for volunteer pilots, Fighter Direction Officers (FDOs), and airmen. After training, MSFU crews were posted to Liverpool, Glasgow, or Avonmouth where they assisted in loading their Hurricanes onto the catapults. Each team consisted of one pilot for Atlantic runs (or two pilots for voyages to Russia, Gibraltar, or the Mediterranean Sea), with one fitter, one rigger, one radio-telephone operator, one FDO, and a seaman torpedoman who worked on the catapult as an electrician.[1]

>MSFU crews signed ship's articles as civilian crew members under the authority of the civilian ship's master. The ship's chief engineer became responsible for the catapult, and the first mate acted as Catapult Duty Officer (CDO), responsible for firing the catapult when directed. The single Hurricane fighter was launched only when enemy aircraft were sighted and agreement was reached via hand and flag signals between the pilot, CDO, and ship's master.[1]

Legally, they were civilians.

There were also civilian aircraft carriers.

>>2939809
Let me guess- Blair's U-boat war duology?

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Virtually none of the submarines we lost during the War have or will ever be recovered. The Navy sent down divers to explore a couple in the 50s, and from what I was told by an old submariner I met when I myself was in the force, a couple was all it took. We don't go searching for those old submarines anymore. If you knew why, you wouldn't either.

>>2941289
This got real fucking dark

>>2939816
More like submarine warfare is the guerrilla warfare of the seas.

>>2941289
I don't get it

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>>2939809
>Be you 17yo German Sailor
>Captain takes Sub down deep after a convoy spots you
>You can here the depth charges splash above you
>First goes off, the sub shakes but she holds
>Lights go out
>Second one goes off
>The hull buckles, water starts pouring in
>All the men rush to the hatch, even though there is no hope
>You are helpless as the icy black sea water fills up the compartment

Hell of a way to go

if you're ever in Pearl Harbor they have the USS Bowfin, a ww2 era American submarine, set up as a museum ship with a very nice audio tour that has interviews from the crew, officers, and captain. I highly recommend it.

Things were a bit easier for american submariners in the pacific, compared to the germans in the atlantic but listening to what they had to say it sounded absolutely horrifying.

since subs back then couldn't recharge their batteries underwater and couldn't even move 1mph underwater, after an attack, whether it succeeded or not the sub would dive, and hide which meant they shut down nearly all of the sub's systems (including the air conditioning) which meant you were sitting at your post for 10+ hours in near darkness, 100 degree heat, and just waiting to either die from a depth charge or die from going beyond crush depth. Over 25% of all US subs were lost with all hands, which was the highest mortality rate of any job in ww2 for the americans.

>>2941511
>Over 25% of all US subs were lost with all hands, which was the highest mortality rate of any job in ww2 for the americans.
Probably would have been lower if that fuckwit didn't tell a press conference the Japanese were setting their depth charges too shallow

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that's what you get for being annoying

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>>2941527
Holy shit, what a dumbass
Thank god he didn't have twitter

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>>2941539
The same guy is also famous for awarding military contracts to a company that made defective mortar shells that explode prematurely and getting paid for it

>>2941511
Don't forget the defective torpedoes and the ridiculously long time it took before the higher-ups started to believe their sub skippers that duds were the rule rather than the exception.

Also poor USS Tang...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Tang_(SS-306)

>>2942157
>Don't forget the defective torpedoes and the ridiculously long time it took before the higher-ups started to believe their sub skippers that duds were the rule rather than the exception.
The Germans had the exact same issues with the G7e, electric torpedoes were pretty shit in WW2

>>2942157
yeah that was something they talked about at the Bowfin museum, that it wasn't until late in the war that the torpedoes actually got better, so most attacks were made on the surface at night by using the deck gun. The captain also talked about an incident where they were caught out by two japanese destroyers and hastily dove while being depth charged. One depth charge hit a pocket of abnormally cold water directly above the sub causing it to prematurely detonate which may have saved all their lives.

When I was in Bremerhaven Germany I saw a type XXI U-boat they have set up as a museum there. That is a truly remarkable weapon, and if you're ever in northwest Germany I highly recommend checking it out. The type XXI was the first submarine designed to operate entirely submerged, only surfacing briefly for air and to use a diesel engine to recharge its batteries which would last for days on end. It was basically the first modern submarine.

Even though it was a remarkable feat of engineering it was, unfortunately for the Germans, little different from their other secret weapon projects like the V1 and V2 rockets, or the ME 262. Its development was an absolute black hole for resources, and the project was completed far too late in the war to have any kind of impact whatsoever, only 4 of them were ever launched.

Oh and btw, did you know that of the 1250 u-boats built by Germany during ww2 more than 2/3 of them were built after 1942. I always found that rather surprising, because the battle of the atlantic is usually thought of as an episode in the earlier stages of the war, but it really did go on every single day until the war's conclusion.

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>>2942207
The Type XXI had a lot more threat potential than the Me262 or V series and should have been a massive focus, but they only finished their absurdly massive concrete factory in March 1945 and then it promptly got grandslammed

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>>2942214
>and then it promptly got grandslammed
such a terrifying weapon, incredible to think you could use a bomb to create an earthquake that could then collapse bunkers, sub pens, or hydroelectric dams

>>2942207
Hitler never caught on to the potential of the U-boat until it was pretty much too late, it's rather remarkable that Donitz was able to wreak all that havoc with the limited number of subs he had at any given time. When he replaced Raeder as head of the Navy he finally got the resources to crank them out but by then the tide was turning in the Atlantic campaign and subs were being sunk as fast as they were built.

I went through a lot of the wiki pages of U-boats lost with all hands, quite a few of them were sunk on their first patrol, many without even sinking an enemy ship.

>>2942241
I wonder how many U-boats could have been made with the waste of time the Tirpitz and Bismarck were

>>2942241
>quite a few of them were sunk on their first patrol, many without even sinking an enemy ship

>german naval "intelligence"

>>2942244
Donitz wanted to scrap them and the rest of the capital ships to make more U-boats, Hitler was too in love with them even though he threatened that same fate a couple times.

>>2941381
I'm assuming finding a submarine full of rotting corpses in the dark depths of the sea is not a pleasant experience.

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>>2939809

Who cares? What's really heatbreaking is that 50% of Bomber Command crews were lost.

>go to Charleston and learn about a Confederate Submarine that sunk and was recently uncovered
Good god

>>2942241
>Hitler never caught on to the potential of the U-boat until it was pretty much too late
It's not really that. Hitler was always 'planning' to vastly increase the u-boat force, and as early as 1937, he was setting production targets of 25-30 a month. But until the defeat of France and at least the pushing away of the Soviets, the Luftwaffe and the Heer always had enormously higher priorities for the all-important steel allocation.

>>2942244
I'm not an expert on construction efficiency, but if you go by steel allocations, probably about 100 u-boats each.

>>2942302

I wonder how well preserved the remains are.

Still I'm willing to bet the main reason isn't necessarily the shock factor as much as the expense, deep sea excavation is costly as fuck. After all, people were pretty diligent with finding the remains of downed aircraft, and those sites weren't pretty either.

>>2942302
>>2943338
There's no point in searching for something you know is searching for you. Somewhere.

>>2939809
good, they were dicks

>>2941301

Typical made up /x/ shit

>>2941302
>>2939816

I don't get it. How is it like gorilla warfare or insurgency?