What made the US submarine fleet succeed where the Kreigsmarine

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Japan had much more rudimentary sonar and radar systems and no effective ASW aircraft, and never deployed their smaller carriers in an ASW role.

Meanwhile, Germany gradually lost the industrial capacity to replace the losses inflicted on their submarine fleet through the Allies' ASW programs, while the American sub forces in particular studied, adopted and improved upon many German tactics, especially wolf packs.

The long and short of it is, like most other things in the war, American industrial capacity proved overwhelming.

Japan didn't know the first thing about ASW, they didn't even implement a proper convoy system which is WW1 tactics, let alone all the technological advances like sonar/asdic, maritime radar, hedgehog, air patrols, and SIGINT (both codebreaking, and advanced direction finding).

>>34964138
In addition, we broke the German radio codes. The Japanese didn't break ours. We also controlled both sides of the Atlantic. The Japanese never could have ASW patrols over the entire ocean like the Allies.

>>34964138
Japan actually had the German Sonar. They just had bad depth charges and doctrine.

>>34964087
The Silent Service's success is pretty much entirely due to the surface fleet's success. It's easy to kill merchant ships when there's no destroyers, destroyer escorts, and aircraft constantly trying to kill you.

>>34964087

The UK had the advantage of having fought against U-boats before. The British had been forced to deal with the U-boats in WW1, and thus they already had a great deal of experience in countering them. And they'd spent the interbellum years on developing better ways to defend their ships and refining their strategies.

The U-boats that Hitler had in WW2 were quite superior to those which had been available to the Kaiser in WW1. The WW2 U-boats could dive deeper, stay underwater for longer periods of time, and they were more heavily armed. However, these advantages were largely negated by advances in anti-submarine weapons that the British was lovingly cultivated between the wars. Compare this to Japan, who had no experience in fighting submarines prior to WW2, and thus they had no idea how to counter the threat.

Geography also plays a big role in this. If you're a German U-boat, you're forced to patrol the entire North Atlantic to try and intercept shipping. On the other hand, American submarines could just lurk between Japan and Korea. American submarines also had the very critical advantage of having air cover. A German submarine has to be very afraid whenever it comes up for air because it might be spotted by British patrol aircraft. However, an American submarine doesn't have to worry about that so much because it knows that there are friendly aircraft nearby to kill any pesky patrol planes.

>>34964553
So it's all thanks to the aircraft carriers?

>>34964439
This is 90% of it basically. The Allies broke Jap and German codes. Heck, the US deciphered the Jap declaration of war before the Pearl Harbor attack, BEFORE the Jap embassy finished. Remember, at the time, sonar was in infancy and ships had a crapshot at killing subs with depth charges. Knowing where your invisible enemy are was a major advantage.

In addition to the other stuff people have mentioned, take a look at merchant tonnage of Japan vs Britain prewar.

UK - 6722 ships, 17,891,134 tons
USA - 2345 ships, 8,909,892 tons
Japan - 1609 ships, 5,996,607 tons
Norway - 1987 ships, 4,833,813 tons
Germany - 2459 ships, 4,482,662 tons
Italy - 1227 ships, 3,424,804 tons
British Commonwealth* - 2255 ships, 3,110,791 tons
Netherlands - 1523 ships, 2,969,578 tons
France - 1231 ships, 2,933,933 tons
Greece - 607 ships, 1,780,666 tons
Denmark - 705 ships, 1,174,944 tons

* The source only gives a combined figure for all the Commonwealth. No figures are available for the USSR.


Source: World War II Databook, J Ellis.

I would also guess (I don't know for sure, but I think it is a safe bet) that the UK had more industrial capacity as far as ship building goes, and could also ramp up the merchant tonnage more effectively. Japan was not able to build a very large amount of additional shipping tonnage. Furthermore, Britain was also being fed by many trade partners as well.

>>34965274
How much of a difference would it have made if Germany had captured Norway's king and parliament and forced them to issue orders to the Norwegian merchant marine to obey German orders, rather than having time to legally set up a government in exile? Any at all? Or would skippers' refusals to comply and British naval superiority have made it a non-issue?

>>34964087
Don't forget the importance of radar, HF/DF (Germany refused to believe that the latter could be miniaturized to fit on anything smaller than a BB; the Brits put it on their Flower-class corvettes), escort carriers, and long-range patrol bombers. Japan had practically none of those except for a small number of long-range aircraft.

I recommend, as always, the excellent book Black May, which covers the technologies, training, planning, and other factors that decided the Battle of the Atlantic.

>>34964087
German Submarine War
>have to go around the british isles to raid
>enemy has no major naval force to worry about and can spread their carreirs out to hunt your subs (or just build smaller ones)
>enemy knows that subs are the largest problem and continually develops tactics to beat you
>Code is broken and allies can read everything you send


American Submarine Effort
>broke Japanese code early in war
>japan refuses to use convoy system for years
>Japan needs to keep most of its carriers together to be able to respond to american incursions
>japan's merchant fleet is much smaller and is nowhere near the size or production capability of the Allies

TLDR:Germany tried to beat the world using submarines while america had to beat one country using subs

>>34964087
My friend's dad helped sink a U-boat with a Blimp

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>>34964087
>could the Japs just not into anti-sub warfare?

This was part of it. For about half the war, the Japanese depth charges detonated at too shallow a depth to actually harm US submarines. They had literally no idea that this was happening until this faggot boasted about it like a retard. Soon thereafter, the Japanese fixed their depth charges to detonate properly destroying 10 US subs and killing 800 sailors. Loose lips sink ships.

>>34965986
>"Hey you work for me now, use your boat to do this."
>"Lol okay."
>Fucks off to Britain.

>>34964087
>hat made the US submarine fleet succeed where the Kreigsmarine failed at blockading and starving out an island nation?
Allies had x30 more of ASW assets. Japan was simply too poor to afford such.

>>34964087
Japan started implementing convoy system by 1944, had those convoys been worth shit and USN would probably send USS Alaska with some light cruisers to raid them(since they could easily overpower any escort convoy could had). This however was never a problem since that convoy system was rudimentary at best.. Their ASW measures were also very primitive.

Turns out that being all-in Mahanian doesn't work that well in real naval warfare.

>>34964087

Kriegsmarine had a vastly larger and more open water source to police. Plus the fact that Britain had more merchant naval shipping/ tonnage than the next 4 nations combined AND a navy ontop of that meant any kill was a drop in the ocean where as Japan had 1/4th as many ships and all clustered in a single area that made it easy to ambush them.

Plus the American subs were laughing at the Japanese depth charges for the majority of the war while the British knew exactly how to fuck with submarines after WW1.

>>34965986
Given they tried the same with France, not well. Britain would have sank the entire fleet at port or seized the ships at sea. There's no chance that they'd allow Germany to offset their primary advantage.

>>34964087
U.S. actually had surface ships to screen movement and mid mission resupply while the Germans had like no surface ships.

>>34964138
>no effective ASW aircraft

Nigga the first effective ASW aircraft were helos.

>>34965986
How would they force them? By threatening to kill them? Even Nazi Germany wouldn't have done something so retarded.

>>34969325
>Given they tried the same with France, not well. Britain would have sank the entire fleet at port or seized the ships at sea. There's no chance that they'd allow Germany to offset their primary advantage.
Mers-el-kebir happened before Germany made any attempt of that.
The bongs also tried the same to the French fleet at Dakar, and got well received for their trouble.

All for nothing anyway, once the Germans attempted to seize the French fleet immobilized at Toulon in 1942, the French scuttled it all.

>>34969194
>Turns out that being all-in Mahanian doesn't work that well in real naval warfare.
US subs success was a direct result of their main force destroying the enemy main force, i.e. Mahan was right, as you would expect of someone who was stating the obvious.

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>>34969338
>Hi senpai! It's me, the USS Bogue! My twelve TBF Avengers and six F6F Hellcats sank eleven U-boats and two Japanese subs, making mine the most effective ASW task force of the war! Tell me again how there were no effective ASW aircraft before helicopters, 'nigga'!

>>34969653
>>34969338
People don't know that WWII subs needed to surface...

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>>34969338
>>34969653
>"Whoa there, niggas! Don't forget about me! My VLR, PB4Y and SB-24 variants sank 93 U-boats and closed the Mid-Atlantic Gap in RAF, RCAF, U.S. Navy and Army Air Forces Antisubmarine Command hands! Let's see some pussy chopper do that!"

>>34964087
Simple answer is radio silence, German subs were required to constantly be in radio contact with command and allies had excellent radio direction finding abilities. Not even counting breaking their codes.

>>34964087
If you are really interested read Clay Blair's, 2 volume "Hitler's U-boat War", and his "Silent Victory , The U S Submarine War Against Japan".