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Model Forum / General / Models / January 2006Submarine warfare
Maybe this question would be more appropriate in a military history group, but modelers seem to be pretty knowledgeable in that area, so I will ask here. I have never served a day on a submarine, never even been in the navy, but I have seen I don't know how many submarine movies: "Run Silent, Run Deep," "Destination Tokyo," "The Enemy Below," "Das Boot," "U-571," the old TV series "The Silent Service," etc. etc. In almost every one a submarine comes under heavy depth-charge attack, the charges sometimes seeming to detonate with a few feet of the submarine, practically on its deck at times. The destroyers attacking the subs seem to have an unlimited supply of depth-charges. Yet how subs many are sunk? None. They spring leaks, quite ferocious ones at times, yet all manage miraculous escapes. Yet at the same time, I read that casualties in the submarine service were sometimes quite high, for example about 75% among German crews in WW II. So, my question is: Was the depth-charge really that ineffective a weapon, or is this all Hollywood bull? > Maybe this question would be more appropriate in a military history >group, but modelers seem to be pretty knowledgeable in that area, so I [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > So, my question is: Was the depth-charge really that ineffective a >weapon, or is this all Hollywood bull? yes and no. when they were on target, they blew holes in submarines. the on deck ones would have severly damaged and probably sunk them. i'm not sure of the distance, ut water really knocks the force of an explosion down. but near hits should do much damage. other weapons did more. hedgehog exploded on contact. they could kill a sub, especially when 2-3 hit. and they were used a lot. many subs were sunk by gunfire and bombs. each has it's obvious advantage. a bomb, even small one, on contact can make a sub undiceable. a couple of good hits make it sink. subs did survive amazing damage. subs also sank at seeming trivial damage. there's no easy answer, but it ain't like the movies. >> So, my question is: Was the depth-charge really that ineffective a >>weapon, or is this all Hollywood bull? [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] >really knocks the force of an explosion down. but near hits >should do much damage. One U-Boat carcass found in the Gulf of Mexico was examined a few years ago and the conclusion was that a depth charge landed on the deck when the boat was attempting to dive out of range. The charge rolled on the deck till it got hung near the bow, and blew. The whole bow was blown open and the boat sank almost instantly. Stephen Bierce >>> So, my question is: Was the depth-charge really that ineffective a >>>weapon, or is this all Hollywood bull? [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > >Stephen Bierce and the rest of the boat was amazing. i expected guys to wave from the wintergarden. Who/what do you think killed all the German subs? Keep in mind that, in a movie about submariners, they've got to survive the depth charging to keep the plot of the movie intact. JM Keep in mind that , tv/movies are ENTERTAINMENT , NOTHING is true , it's only purpose is there to make money . No different than cartoons . Now lets shut off the idiot box and build some models . noddy At that point in history this sort of warfare was just at its beginnings and progress was made throughout the war. In that era the ideal depth charging was the result of a pattern of charges going off at the same time, the combined concussion would breach the hull of the sub, A large percentage of successful sinking of subs was done by aircraft using depth charges , bombs and gun fire, I did read that a u-boat that went through the English Channel in the last year of the war had more depth charges dropped on it that the total depth charges dropped during the first year of the war, it survived to tell the story. I guess if you keep dropping them in mass sooner or later a sub will get sunk, apparently some attacks on the subs lasted for many hours so ships mush have carried quite a good supply of depth charges , maybe there was also a system of resupply at sea ? I think you will get a much more accurate account of this by reading factual books on the subject, I have just finished reading H.M. U-BOAT by John B Drummond about a captured U-boat put into Royal Navy service as HMS Graph. books such as this will give you a better insight to subs hope this helps regards JimboD > Maybe this question would be more appropriate in a military history > group, but modelers seem to be pretty knowledgeable in that area, so I [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > So, my question is: Was the depth-charge really that ineffective a > weapon, or is this all Hollywood bull? I understand that "Region R" ie kill range for a depth charge was about 6 feet. > Maybe this question would be more appropriate in a military history > group, but modelers seem to be pretty knowledgeable in that area, so I [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > So, my question is: Was the depth-charge really that ineffective a > weapon, or is this all Hollywood bull? > I understand that "Region R" ie kill range for a depth charge was about 6 > feet. I would think to some extent it might depend on depth and the relative angles of the charge to the submarine when detonated, but of course, 6 feet would be a good enough average? Depth charges, especially early in the war, were little changed from their origins in World War I. While effective to a point they required a lot of skill and luck to be delivered accurately. It's much like trying to kill specific fish in a shallow pond with cherry bombs. If you throw enough, long enough you will probably connect eventually. Early in the war, the allied ships regularly set their charges to explode too shallow to hit submerged U-Boats. Additionally the goal early in the war wasn't neccesarily to sink the u-boat, but to drive him from the convoy and protect the merchant ships. In 39-42 there were barely enough escorts to do the job, they were slow, illequiped, underarmed, undertrained, and provided with little intelligence. It wasn't smart for a single escort vessel to futz around in the north atlantic hounding a contact after the convoy had sailed on. Some of these convoys only had 4 or 5 escorts for 50-60 ships. Many of the late war kills were delivered using more effective delivery methods, such as aircraft, and weapons such as the Fido homing torpedo and hedgehog mortars, as well as aircraft guns and rockets and very shallow set depth charges for dealing with surfaced U-boats. The real killers though were sigint and mass production. After mid 1942 the allies began to have enough escort vessels to devote groups of DEs and CVEs in hunter killer groups whose only goal was to hunt down, and hound these boats until they were gone. Based on Enigma code breaking and HF/DF sigint, improved weapons tactics and training, and simply having enough ships planes and men in place to do the job broke the back of the U-Boat fleet. > I understand that "Region R" ie kill range for a depth charge was about 6 > feet. [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] >> So, my question is: Was the depth-charge really that ineffective a >>weapon, or is this all Hollywood bull? Thanks much for an informative answer. > Depth charges, especially early in the war, were little changed > from their origins in World War I. While effective to a point [quoted text clipped - 47 lines] > >> So, my question is: Was the depth-charge really that ineffective a > >>weapon, or is this all Hollywood bull? > Maybe this question would be more appropriate in a military history > group, but modelers seem to be pretty knowledgeable in that area, so I [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > So, my question is: Was the depth-charge really that ineffective a > weapon, or is this all Hollywood bull? The statistics leave out quite often the incredible toughness and sacrifice of camera crews. You know, they suffered the same astonishingly high attrition rate, and yet their enthusiasm never dimmed. Remember, for every movie that came back, a dozen more went down with their boats, and never saw the dimmed lights of world cinemas. Ah, the tragedy... and that doesn't even cover the tales of horror, such as the men lost while filming DC attacks latched onto the conning tower with primitive pressure suits, and those run over while floating to take shots of the attacking ships. Grisly stuff. ...a long day at the office... -- Gernot Hassenpflug (gernot@rish.kyoto-u.ac.jp) Tel: +81 774 38-3866 JSPS Fellow (Rm.403, RISH, Kyoto Uni.) Fax: +81 774 31-8463 www.rish.kyoto-u.ac.jp/radar-group/members/gernot Mob: +81 90 39493924 > The statistics leave out quite often the incredible toughness and > sacrifice of camera crews. You know, they suffered the same [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > conning tower with primitive pressure suits, and those run over while > floating to take shots of the attacking ships. Grisly stuff. LOL! Thanks. guest wrote: > The statistics leave out quite often the incredible toughness and > sacrifice of camera crews. You know, they suffered the same [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > conning tower with primitive pressure suits, and those run over while > floating to take shots of the attacking ships. Grisly stuff. Let's not forget Thomas Argets famous head-on shot of a running torpedo. ;-) One of my favourite lines in a sub movie come from "Operation Pacific". The crew are sat around watching "Destination Tokyo" "These guys can do really amazing things with a submarine!" A case of Art imatating Art? Taylor, what kind of a mowie you'll have if you kill the main actors in first dept charge attack ? It's just Hollywood. best regards, Slider > Maybe this question would be more appropriate in a military history > group, but modelers seem to be pretty knowledgeable in that area, so I [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > So, my question is: Was the depth-charge really that ineffective a > weapon, or is this all Hollywood bull? |
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