Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Dixie

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But I get touchy when Brits claim their subs did anything CLOSE to what USN subs did in the PTO. Our subs, as Nimitz said, essentially beat Japan. They took the highest percentage casualties of any part of the USN. They dealt with long ranges, lack of advanced bases, crap weapons, old designs, short-sighted tactics, and diversion of resources to naval air. They produced seven Medal of Honor winners. They sank the Japanese merchant marine (and several fleet carriers.)

Of course they didn't, the RN was busy elsewhere. In the freezing waters of the North Sea. Or the shallow and confined spaces of the Med. Or the Baltic. The RN scores were lower because most of their opponents didn't have the large merchant marines that Japan (or the Allies) did. No-one has even said anything close to knocking Japan out of the war.

They dealt with short range boats, less advanced targetting equipment, short ranges and a lack of major targets. They had a simialr impact in the Med though, where enemy airpower was almost everywhere and poor training didn't help. Minefields were a common problem and accounted for more than 25% of losses. They sank 39 u-boats as well. The RN subs weren't exactly flush with advanced bases either, Malta is the only one that really springs to mind.

No-one is trying to deny the impact the USN subs had, the main point is that when they were faced with the chances the RN subs were more than willing (and capable) of taking them. By the time the RN could spare the subs the Jpanese merchant fleet was in tatters already. There were a few major successes though, hitting a moving target with 5 toprepdoes from 4,000 yards after dodging a destroyer attack isn't easy.

The RN took 81 submarine losses during the war, most in the shallow confined waters of the Med in a protracted campaign. Not just individual patrols into and then out of there.

There are more important things to get touchy about. Someone says that RN sub skippers should have a higher rating because Mush Morton went into the Inland Sea whilst they were doing comparable things? No need to get upset...

Some of the RN boats lasted through 5 years of front line action (HMS Porpoise), others lasted a few short months. But the one thing that they all have in common... None of them sound slightly rude (USS Growler and USS Snapper)

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ORIGINAL: Chickenboy
Well and true, Dixie, but what about the PTO RN subs that were deployed prior to the tattering of the IJN? Granted, not many, but are their ratings thoroughly unjustified as specific examples? Or are you using the exploits in other theaters to extrapolate how they actually did IRL in the PTO.

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ORIGINAL: wdolson

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ORIGINAL: cantona2

How many divisions did the British field in Europe and Africa? I didnt know there were so many!

edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_Divisions_in_World_War_II

Just found this link. I would assume a lot of the division in the UK were of low quality TA and HG soldiers. The regulars would have been sent overseas.

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ORIGINAL: Frank
ähmmmmm, MANY??????? about 80. Many of them have never seen any combat.

Germany had 40 Wehrmacht Pz Divisons alone! Additonally about 200 infantry divisions, 11 mountain divisions, etc. Add the SS- formations, then you´ll see many divisions. Not to speak of the Soviets btw.

The UK was a naval power, Germany and the USSR were both continental powers. The royal navy was the premiere service in the UK and they got the bulk of manpower. The British Army has never been huge and was structured to be primarily a colonial defense and policing army in 1939. Historically the British Army has been a colonial army and an expeditionary army, operating near the coast where the RN could support them. They were never going to be capable of going toe to toe with the Wehrmacht without help.

Bill

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ORIGINAL: Caractacus
OK, first of all I wish the juvenile 'my sub's better than your sub' guys would bugger off and start their own thread. Especially the SS fanboy and his German friend.

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Grateful for any responses on that

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ORIGINAL: Caractacus

OK, first of all I wish the juvenile 'my sub's better than your sub' guys would bugger off and start their own thread.
Grateful for any responses on that

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Or with low naval skills. With high standards of naval tradition/training and in war since 1939 all british warships should be better in exp than USN. British navy officers should be far better than what they are in game.

Bigger boys stole my sig

(in reply to Caractacus)

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ORIGINAL: Andy Mac

Most of those Divison EUBanana is referring to are the county coastal Divs or training Divs etc etc actually the British more than most of the other armies tried to keep fighting Divs up to strength.

Even going as far as cannibalising veteran Divs to keep others up to strength one of the few things the British were good at - more so than any other army a British Div after mid 42 tended to be at full strength and reserves were found to keep it at full strength - I think they actually landed Divisons over strength with a replacement draft landing alongside the invasion forces to enable assault Divs to keep goimg at full strength.

I think but dont know that the US did the same - The germans kept reducing the strength of their Divs to the stage where a Wehrmacht Div was about the size and support of a US RCT or a British Bde Gp in strenght

Feel free to drop by and chat about whatever is on your mind.

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ORIGINAL: Caractacus
[edit - I've just realised, much later, - I meant SS as in Nazis, not SS for submarines! - P Hausser was head of the Waffen SS!].

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ORIGINAL: EUBanana

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ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58
Not to beat a dead horse, but the quote below is yours. I took it as a sideswipe that you said "and lived to tell the tale." Look up how Morton and USS Wahoo died, and perhaps you'll understand this ex-submariner's pique.

OK.

Well, it wasn't intended as a sideswipe, so if you took any offence, I'm sorry. It only was intended to compare performance. Wahoo is the benchmark of just what excellence in Allied submarines means - hence why Mush has skill 90 no doubt, he was the acknowledged top man.

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ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58
Again, no hard fellings taken or intended.

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ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58


Look up how Morton and USS Wahoo died, and perhaps you'll understand this ex-submariner's pique.

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ORIGINAL: EUBanana

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ORIGINAL: d0mbo
And there i was thinking the dutch sub captains (all 4 of them) were the best in the world.......

Heh.

211 British submarines fought in WW2. Thats not really the point, though, is it.

The USS Wahoo sank 15 ships in WW2. But HMS Truant sank 15 ships in WW2 as well (and lived to tell the tale). Mush Morton has naval skill 90, the guy on board Truant has 60. In fact, nobody in the entire RN submarine arm has naval skill 90. Or even 80, for that matter.

That is the point.

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ORIGINAL: Wirraway_Ace

<snip>

Bottom line: While the shortages of modern equipment and a thinning of the leadership talent pool in British Asia were understandable, the overall lack of a wartime mindset, professionalism and sophisticated staff processes, which should have been the benefit of two years of war, were still surprising. The developers seem to have been able to reflect these weaknesses in low experience and generally low leadership values.

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ORIGINAL: Wirraway_Ace
Against the same opponent, Haggard on Truant sank 2 japanese vessels in more than 7 months of patrols. Mush on Wahoo did rather better...

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ORIGINAL: mariandavid

WirrawayAce: It is very easy to forget that although Britain had been at war for two plus years its units in the Far East had not. The problem being that, due to the acute lack of shipping, there was virtually no movement of experienced and battle-trained officers and men from west to east until well after the Japanese declared war. There was a constant movement the other way, not just of units but of drafts upon units. For example the British battalions in Burma (you will know this from Allen's book) had lost about one third (in the case of the Gloustershire Regiment over one-half of its senior cadre) and were therefore notably less effective than would normally be expected.

Their performance was also very variable - some of the ex frontier police battalions in Burma and the Argylls in Malaya did exceptionally well - others were a disaster, such as the Hyderabad State battalion that shot its colonel!  My judgement would be that on average the British, Indian and Dominion Army performance equated to that of the United States Army in late 1941 and the first half of 1942 - that is very poor with a few glorious exceptions. I suspect that the US performance increased somewhat more quickly in the next few months, if only because of superior training facilities.

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As for the RAF: To be perfectly honest (and I have read Shore's books) I cannot detect any major difference in sophistication between the RAF, RAAF, RNZAF and the USAAF in 1942. The only time they fought side by side (in Rangoon with the AVG and a few RAF units) the performance seems broadly comparable. Sophistication in tactics only came with the widespread introduction of mobile radar sets.

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The one relative weakness that has not been considered here is the abominable performance of USN torpedo planes. Not I hasten to add because of lack of competance or bravery on the part of the aircrews but rather the utterly incomprehensible incompetance of the men responsible for designing the torpedoes they carried. I am reading "Midway: Dauntless Victory" by Peter C Smith and he relates that when 105 torpedos were dropped in carefully controlled tests in perfect conditions 36% ran cold, 20% sank, 20% ran the wrong way and 18% did not keep the right depth. Only 31% performed properly. What is truly staggering is that this test was carried out in 1943!!!! All this seems to have been covered up, easier since they had finally got the Mk. XIII working properly in mid 1945.

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ORIGINAL: Mark Weston

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ORIGINAL: Wirraway_Ace

<snip>

Bottom line: While the shortages of modern equipment and a thinning of the leadership talent pool in British Asia were understandable, the overall lack of a wartime mindset, professionalism and sophisticated staff processes, which should have been the benefit of two years of war, were still surprising. The developers seem to have been able to reflect these weaknesses in low experience and generally low leadership values.

When you try to expand your army from six divisions to sixty while simultaneously fighting a war you face an insuperable problem. You now need ten times as many officers and senior NCOs as you did pre-war, but where the hell are they going to come from? You can start training junior officers in as large numbers as you like, but all your senior unit COs and staff officers will be coming from the pool with pre-war training and experience. That means that every pre-war officer is guaranteed a job, no matter how useless or incompetent. War exposes large swathes of incompetent, inflexible and careerist officers in every army, but how can you sack them when you have no-one to take their places? The best you can do is move them sideways into staff and second echelon jobs where at least they're not getting men killed. But that's not going to do much for the quality of your staff-work or your logistics. And hey, if you have a large empire that needs to be garrisoned, but most of which is a long way from the fighting, then that's an ideal place to dump all the failures who you don't want anywhere near the front lines.

Ideally your regular army can provide both cadres for new units and a learning environment for new recruits. Except that there's a war on, and your allies need help now. So your best sources of experience and leadership end up on the front line being atrited away in combat while you've only just started training their replacements.

Sometimes it's a wonder to me that the British army performed as well as it did, never mind asking why it was sometimes as bad as it was.

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ORIGINAL: Wirraway_Ace

I agree with you; however I found the similiar performance surprising considering the RAF as a whole had two years of wartime experience to draw on.