Any Difference between the US Boats and the German U Boats ?

Seth35 SG

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gato_class_submarine

touchstone_2000 SG

German - AIP, smaller
US - nuclear, bigger

tankee1981 SG

Another difference is that being nucleared powered the US submarines are noisier compared to the German AIP submarines. But the US nuclear boats win outright in terms of range and endurance. Very Happy

baer SG

haha some can't read...
difference between Gato class and U-Boat circu WWII dah
I think these posts talking about Nuke non-nuke obviously need child proof screw caps..

red_amoeba SG

i thot in both wars (WW1 and WW2) the german U boats are technically and tactically more superior than the allies?

the only reason why they lost the Atlantic war was because their enigma code was broken? Also the commanders has lost faith in U boat warfare?

|-|05| SG

more like the US turned out more destroyers for escort duties,the wide spread use of SONAR and the fact that ship building was pretty low on the list of industrial priorities.

In terms of which is better i'm not sure but the US was pretty gd in building subs too.

chino65 SG

But boat for boat, were the German any more superior technical and skill wise?

For that matter, what about subs of Britain, Japan etc?

Again, WW2 only.

tankfanatic SG

if sub vs sub in WW2 the british were better armed and trained.

but U boat were built sturdy and efficient. Their tactics wee also very good

Fingolfin_Noldor SG

The trouble with WW2, is that the British had nothing to really shoot at in the Battle of the Atlantic except for a few German battleships, cruisers. Germany never needed convoys whereas the Brits did and they provided fat juicy targets.

But the Brits did have some success with their boats but ultimately, the Battle of the Atlantic was won with superior anti-submarine tactics and the elimination of the German Kreigsmarine by the Royal Navy, and of course, cracking the German codes.

chino65 SG

Any major submarine actions come to mind?

Fingolfin_Noldor SG

Aside from the usual wolf packs? No.

But.. I believe one of the most spectacular attacks was the attack on the Barham. The Queen Elizabeth class Battleship took 3 torpedoes on the stern and sank.

Laplace SG

Not between the US and Germany, but between the US and Japan.

I read that both nations had different ideas on the deployment of submarines. The IJN wanted their subs to hunt and destroy USN surface combatants. The USN wanted its silent service to instead go for Japanese merchantmen and tankers.

The results were telling - due to the lack of support, the IJN plan floundered and the USN never experienced a really punishing undersea threat in the pacific. USN boats on the other hand went on to score spectacularly throughout the remainder of the world destroying by far the largest percentage of Japanese shipping tonnage. Though widely overshadowed by the more prominent and glorious taskforce 38/58, modern scholars believed that the independent submarine missions again Japanese shipping contributed most to the eventual collapse of that nation's lines of communication to the outside world and starvation.