Submarine Warfare WW1 vs WW2 - Differences & Commonalities

let's take a short look at submarine warfare of the first and second world war in the Atlantic in the first world war the early successes of the submarines against warships convinced both the British and the Germans that the submarine was a formidable weapon soon after the British naval blockade of Germany in 1914 the Germans used their you would fleet to attack the British merchant shipping and was initially still falling price loss nevertheless these actions and several incidents led to international pressure thus for quite some time the Kaiser only allowed restricted submarine warfare this changed later on in the war due to various incidents like the sinking of the Lusitania the stance of the United States whose Imperial Germany changed and ultimately led the United States to the enter of the war on the sides of the Allies this was quite different to the Second World War by the kriegsmarine from the start of the war tried to use its u-boot primarily against merchant shipping in order to crib in the British economy its similary the International price laws were initially followed nevertheless even when those laws were not followed any more there are no frictions with the United States due to the fact that United States this time declared Europe of war zone and prohibited its merchant fleet to enter those areas this also included various ports in Africa yet later rules were took a more aggressive stance which led to several conflicts between Germany and the US Navy for further details on this check out my video on the allied and German Atlantic strategy a key difference on a strategic level was that the Germans had access to the complete French Dutch and Danish coast after fall of France in 1940 this allowed yubel's to be deployed and maintained closer to the Atlantic one key similarity was that both the German military and political leadership overestimated the submarine as a weapon system after the early successes in the wars probably one of the best-known measures to count the enemy submarines is the convoy system although this wasn't something new it was already used long before the world was yet the Royal Naval reluctantly adopted the system in 1917 to change from grouping ships into convoys led to notable reduction losses by october 1917 over 1,500 merchant ships in about 100 convoys had reached the british ass only thames were lost to u-boats by sailing in these convoys one ship out of 150 by comparison the loss rate of ships sailing independently inbound and otherwise was 1 in 10 convoy has several benefits first of a rather small number of escort ships can be used to protect a larger amount of non-combat vessels now this system has another benefit a large number of ships is concentrated in a rather small space as a result german submarine --is often couldn't find any ships after widespread use of convoys in world war 1 in case the encounter the convoy was escorted by ships to threaten the submarine and thus made any attack at least more difficult or outright dangerous hence the effectiveness of the submarine was limited it is important to note that even in Second World War most submarines were quite slow when submerged additionally merchant vessels were not always signed by torpedoes but also by deck gun or scuttling the sieving pressures to Piero's a close analysis of u-boat successes in World War one shows that they sank the overwhelming majority of Allied ships not by to Peru but by deck gun in British coastal waters under the Mediterranean Sea but maritime traffic was dense immediately after the outbreak of the Second World War the British adopted the convoy system but this time there was a counter used by the Germans the so called wolf pack's namely using several new boots in a coordinated deck on a single convoy why wasn't this approach used in the First World War well for several reasons first off there was no central submarine command in the German Navy in World War one thus submarine warfare in construction wasn't coordinated on a high level second the technically limitations namely radios didn't allow an easy and effective land-based coordination of several submarines now why was the Wolfpack tactic so successful against convoys well let's take a look here is a convoy and here's a lone submarine now if we just add three escort ships and a sub Maryna Tech's two escorts can go hunting for a submarine while one helps the attack ship now a similar scenario the several submarines attack the escorts are forced to decide if the split forces or not if they do for instance they hunt the attacking submarine deal or the other submarines to have an easier approach all the assisting and attack ship would make the escort far more vulnerable because no one knows how many submarines are still out there hence the convoy system against the coordinated attack is quite vulnerable unless sufficient number of escort ships is provided yet till 1941 when convoy of 45 ships that took the space of about 17 square kilometers only four to five escort ships were available also some of these ships had such limited performance that sometimes surface you boots were fast enough to escape them this problem was solved by the Allies over the course of the war by providing more escorts forming into support groups and various other measures yet one aspect that is often overlooked is the fact that a convoy can be steered around locations with reported submarine activity easier than several single vessels one major aspect of submarine warfare of course the art of how not to be seen which is also sometimes called the Monty Python doctrine there were various wrong assumptions in the beginning of the first world war it was assumed since submarines had to travel mostly surface that it could be easily detected and dust shot or rammed but detecting them when surfaced was quite the challenge yet an initially successful ramming attack and force disbelief and thus delayed the abandonment of this flawed assumption by the Royal Navy so let's look at various detection techniques and technologies involved was one crucial element of submarine warfare back then was visual spotting that landing is not a lake does they're quite some waves and the conning towers of submarines are quite small a common misconception about submarines in both world was is to Detroit mostly on the water but this is not true for a tional and strategic movement submarines almost exclusively travel surface after all the you boots except for the last germ so basically to peel boats that could dive they were not optimized for underwater movement even tactically submarines quite often especially in the early war attacked ones the first usually under the cover of the night or bad weather the Lord small conning tower is great for not being seen and also makes spotting the enemy ship quite difficult because the visual range is rather limited this was a major problem for the creeks marina especially since recon operations by the Luftwaffe were limited or impossible due to the range or area as a result the submarines had to spot for themselves if there was an estimated convoy nearby they were coordinated in a patrol line to cover an error to minimize ships and convoy passing through the maximum distance in good conditions was about 32 kilometers or 20 miles this is also a reason why the convoy system in the first world will had such a tremendous effect since the submarines weren't coordinated their chance of finding a convoy were quite limited because in the vastness of the ocean a convoy is not really bigger than a single ship but the chances of running into one out of forty five ships is substantially higher than running into one convoy consisting of 45 ships now let's look at some technologies to D major rise of losses from submarine attacks in 1915 the British develop major resources to anti-submarine warfare this led to the use of Hydra phones which are early versions of passive sonar which is basically an underwater listening device the problem was that Hydra phones only work when the listening ship was not moving and even though the range and direction of a surface submarine was hard to determine when well the two started active sonar was developed and used in escort ships active Zona is basically sending out sound waves that are bounced back if they hit the solid object which is commonly referred to as pinging to give you a sample form and stayed on sonar the early war range of a sauna was around 1400 meters Midway at around 3,700 meters generally slower speeds of the searching vessels allowed for better detection a drawback of Zona was that they couldn't detect subs that work too close thus creating e-text gaps especially during Deaf charged attacks it probably a major drawback of active zonal was that it could only detect submerged submarines since the Germans initially write heavily on night attacks with surface submarines the Allied zonas couldn't detect any submarines even when they were in proximity which brings us to the next point radar which wasn't available in the First World War radar was one of the most crucial developments in naval and not just submarine warfare yet in 1939 the available types were mostly ineffective for the used against submarines due to reliability issues and throughout a small signature of u-boat conning toes additionally the number of equipped vessels was low this changed considerably over the course of the war and ultimately allow the detection of German submarines during night and bed-wetter which were once the primary cover for submarine attacks the captains were often unaware that they've already detected since the Fred Post beretta wasn't correctly identified by the German submarine command for some time radar became even more deadly when a sufficient number of Allied aircraft were equipped with radar that are not the detection of submarines after all submarines were still dependent of surface movement for operational and strategic movement this only changed when the snorkel was introduced in 1944 that allowed submarines to operate but taking air in while submerged yet its usefulness was limited in the open sea and provided only distinctive advantage in inshore waters let's look at another major source for detecting submarines and convoys signal intelligence in World War one radio transmissions were rather new yet the British excelled in the use of this technology additionally captured a German naval codebook early on thus they had an extensive knowledge of the German ship positions and often alter the composition of various flotillas furthermore the British perfected radio direction-finding and pinpoint various German transmitters and even this knowledge was of limited effectiveness since only a small number of German submarine were sunk although the Chairman's learned in interwar period about the compromised situation in World War one in the took various steps to prevent it from happening again yet they only succeeded to a limited degree signal intelligence operation involved with - regarding anti-submarine warfare was very dynamic there was a constant back and forth like the capture of Enigma codes by the Allies the improvement of enigma machines by the Germans the change of codes etc etc something that is clearly worth its own video additionally the Allies developed high-frequency direction-finding often called half-done which was an improved version of radio director finding that allowed the detection of range and beings of nearby submarines once the submarine sent a short message like a contact report which were crucial for the coordination of wolf pack's now a main difference between the two all of losted the British used a convoy system from the get-go in World War two thus he could use to gather intelligence effectively regular and timely reading of this ultra intelligence allowed convoys to be routed safely for much of the period and may have saved 300 Allied ships in late 1941 although there was sometimes serious suspicion on the German side that the encryption system was compromised internal assessment determined wrongfully that the system was secure one aspect that is rarely mentioned is the tracking of convoys by the Germans with the use of signal intelligence the German naval signal intelligence unit the B Dienst often provided crucial data on the size position and direction of the enemy convoys this information was crucial for setting up submarines and patrol lines to find and intercept enemy convoys furthermore by the time of the most crucial stage in the Battle of the Atlantic in 1943 the B Dienst was able to decipher the vital u-boot situation report this was radioed to convoy commanders at sea to tell them about the known and suspected positions of u-boats in the area now time to move a little bit up let's talk about the use of airplanes in both world wars airplanes involved with one were rather new technology does the range reliability and load was limited nevertheless the appearance of an aircraft was a submarine to dive thus it became basically immobilized and needed to use its battery power which was quite limited thus using airplanes for coastal convoy escorting could have had a significant impact but it wasn't used until April in 1918 in total nearly 500 aircraft and 75 blimps were used against German submarines in World War one yet there's only one confirmed kill out of a total of 178 combat losses and 39 other losses for a total of 217 submarines lost in comparison during world war ii the influence of aircraft in anti-submarine warfare operations was significant of the total losses of around 775 you boots lost during operations about 250 of those were lost to aircraft alone and around 42 aircraft and ship cooperation this is more than 35% of the losses was involve on the losses tariffs was less than 1% although initially the success of coastal command was limited to the lack of proper equipment and training over the course of the war the aircraft became the ultimate pain of the German submarines still for some time there was an air gap in the Atlantic which is out of the reach of land-based aircraft yet the May 1943 the air gap was finally closed only 50 b-24 liberators were needed to permanently fix the problem of the mid-ocean air gap furthermore in 1943 the attack by anti-submarine airplanes against submarines and transit became devastating even close to the French coast these attacks even happened during the night thus the U was ultimately became the hunted there was an attempt to use specialised anti-aircraft submarines to counter this but it was a disaster only bad weather provided some protection and the introduction of the snorkel in 1944 probably the deadliest form of airpower for anti-submarine warfare but a late war hunter-killer groups that consists of several destroyers and an escort carrier deployed by the US Navy the planes were equipped with def charges bombs in homing torpedoes they could patrol a vast area and the naval bombers often could cruise for several hours the British tried zipper which in the early war but had severe losses and use their huge and expensive fleet carriers was the escort carriers were usually just converted merchant ships and carried only about 20 to 30 planes additionally the US Navy was using a more offensive approach by actively hunting submarines and not merely protecting convoys one weapon that usually gets neglected as an anti-submarine weapon is the mine on world war 1 a bit more than 25% of German submarine combat losses were caused by mines and thus was the second largest cause after detect from surface ships mines could be used offensively by denying the enemy the use of certain areas these were well documented in carefully placed mines then they were the offensive minefields which were usually laid during the night operations in known sea lanes and other places where the enemy was anticipated yet the initial attempts of the British to mine the channel were of limited success or world the British minds were of limited quality as a result the double barrage could claim only a single u-boat before November 1917 and better mind some based on captured German designs became available and around-the-clock patrols were established was involved with one about 25% of dual-boot losses with you to mines this number was just about 5% involved but to one main difference in the early stages was that the British were successful in mining the Dover straight so that it couldn't be passed by submarines thus forcing them around to British eyes in order to reach the operational errors in the Atlantic although after the fall of France this effect was natural probably the best-known anti-submarine weapon is the DEF charge it is a high explosive charge they set to explode at a certain death the F charges were introduced in channel 1916 one of the problems with them was that since they were basically just dropped into the water and then exploded that the deploying ship had to get a considerable speed not to damage itself additionally only a few were issued does the effectiveness was rather limited in 1916 only two out of 29 submarines were lost to the DEF charges yet in 1917 and 1918 the kill rates increase significantly yet another major problem was even if more ordnance was available the lack of reliable means of detection would have kept the probability of a kill extremely low as long as targeting a u-boat depended mainly on what had been last seen any chance of success for craft carrying only a couple of death charges required that it be almost literally on top of the enemy when it was sighted that is within 140 feet of it I took the introduction of hydrophones and more important larger loadouts for separation text to make the Deaf charge effectively a single most productive viewboot killer in World War one yet for the Second World War the deadliness wasn't valid anymore the submarines were more maneuver on the water and more resistance than involved with one due to wallet instead of riveted house thus prior to the Second World War it was wrongly assumed that a single death charge attack could destroy a submarine nevertheless experienced commanders realized about the DEF charge the cumulative damage would eat a sink a submarine or force it to the first and face the escorts gunfire over the course of the war various improvements were made to increase the effectiveness of staff challenges by adding weights for faster sinking increasing the set of death combining various death settings increasing the range and upgrading to a stronger explosive charge and auto improvement nevertheless the massive problem of the final 200 yard run to the target still remained while attacking ship zona was too close to here you would and be aware of any last minute evasive action adding forward firing weapons like the Hedgehog and later squid close this gap in front of the ship whereas the Hedgehog was a direct contact weapon the squid was basically a deaf charged motor it is important to note that although we often take a look at hunter-killer group's signal intelligence and deaf charges that behind him there was a bigger system deployed by the Allies the British established in the first world war trade defense system which was further extended in Second World War naval control shipping operated like a modern air traffic control or every movement every was planned assigned a monitored NCS ensured that shipping could be protected either by routing its evil away from danger or by assembling it into convoys so it could be escorted so similar to the ducting of not to be seen there was a doctrine of not being caught with your pants down these ends of British great defense was avoidance of the enemy what I'm propaganda risk clothes escorts like the Traverse Bay as the first line of defense but that was a necessary falsehood the escorts only fought if the intelligence fleet operations and routing failed before we finish this up let's take a look at the tonnage sank and submarine lost in both world wars important take these letters as a guideline because they're from different sources and different counting schemes this is the reason why there is a different number here for the total loss is given than in the aircraft section for the first world war with a total allied and neutral shipping sank of 12 million eight hundred fifty one thousand tons and 217 submarines lost for the Second World War the total shipping sank was 40 million two hundred forty two thousand tons and 674 submarines lost now as you can see the losses of submarines was three times higher in World War two than involve one but the Allied shipping losses were not significantly increased this is also reflected by the tonnage sank versus u-boats lost yet the picture becomes more interesting if we look at the development of the tonnage sank versus there's you was lost over time as you can clearly see the peak in the First World War was reached in 1916 and was slight below the peak value of the first period in World War two in 1917 the value was almost the same like in 1916 and then it went down more than 50% in 1918 was involved with to devaluate up steadily and reached extremely low numbers which brings us to the final part of this video and this is all from these numbers involved with one the you would never stop to be a serious threat and remain a potent force whereas in the second world where around late 1943 the impact of German submarines dropped considerably in contrast involved with one the allied losses could only be contained in 1917 by adopting a convoy system yet the number of German u-boats was still increasing was in the end of the Second World War the German submarines were mostly hunted and posed no threat to the Allies anymore although still a considerable force was needed to contain their operations the best that the you would fleet could claim in 1945 was the tied-down enormous Allied forces some 800 aircraft and one vessels alone were needed to contain the intro u-boat threat in the British eyes by the end of the war whereas in World War one the u-boats defeat at the strategic level of war BS empathizing because it can be argued with considerable force that the Allies never quite managed to defeat the German submarine fleet technically or technically true you would losses in absolute terms went up very significantly 1917 and 1918 but these gains become less significant but it is realized that thanks to new construction the over size of you would fret remained fairly constant as always all sources are in the description thank you for watching and see you next time you

Channel: Military History Visualized

Views: 279,413

Rating: 4.958271 out of 5

Keywords: History, Education, Visualized, Submarine, Atlantic, Differences, Commonalities, Versus, First, Second, ww1, ww2, submarine warfare, vs, versus, world war, Documentary, Great War, First World War, World War 1, Second World War, World War 2, Wolfpack, Dönitz, Admirality

Id: _WtFyl98SlM

Length: 23min 45sec (1425 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 15 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/YTisLoveYTisLife]

A video that covers submarine warfare in both World Wars and shows the developments, differences and commonalities in areas like depth charges, mines, tactics, strategic differences and especially on the different impact and ending of the submarine forces. Uses several academic sources like the Cambrigde History of the Second World War and Germany & The Second World War Series.

[u/Devolve33]

Thank you for putting the length of the video on the title! Saves me from starting it to see how long it is. Looking forward to watching it when I get home.

[u/Madeline_Basset]

He does seem to under-estimate the role of air-power in WW1. True, the airplanes and airships sank virtually no U-boats, but their usefulness in forcing U-boats to submerge and guiding surface warships to them can't be underestimated.

Records indicate that during the war, U-boats sank only one ship that being escorted by am airship. - Castle, Ian (2009) The British Airship 1905 -1930 p.44

[u/ratshack]

Interesting but not so much a video more like a PowerPoint presentation.