Great question. Why didn't they develop faster torpedoes to destroy or disable them first? Even later on when they were getting sunk fast later in the war?
To their own shore came the world war Ingham and Gleaves leading the Bury West In their own track Came the Wolfpack Ingham and Gleaves leading them into the hornet nest Sabaton!
To heck with people trying to 'help' with your English...I find your Austrian accent to be charming. And in military matters, it adds gravitas to the situation. So there!
@@aVeryIntelligentDogSince you're a dog, which means you're like 15 at the oldest, I wouldn't waste my energy getting upset about things that happened before you were born.
Every time. I can't watch Das Boot (film or series) dubbed in English, it's just not authentic. Plus, "auf gefechtsstation!" sounds way cooler than Battle Stations.
Running silent, running deep, we are your final prayer, Warriors in secret sleep, a merchantman's nightmare, A silent death lies waiting, for all of you below, Running silent, running deep, sink into your final sleep.
Am i the only one who thought the movie really sucked? And fact that 90% of the movie is CGI equivalent to a Battlefield cutscene really took me out of it
A good video. Some details where new for me. One remark about Karl Dönitz sons. The soruce (Milner, Marc: The Battle of the Atlantic) you quote at 19:32 mentions, that Karl Dönitz only (!) son died in May 1943. He had two sons. Peter Dönitz died 19 May 1943 as a watch officer on board of U-954. Klaus Dönitz died when S-141 was sunk on 13 May 1944. It was his 24th birthday. After the death of Peter Klaus was permitted to withdraw from combat duties. He started his education as a naval doctor. Him taking part in the attack was sort of a birthday present from his comerads, whom he conviced to take him along.
Well you cant check everything. Ok you could but the amount of time you would need to invest is insane. I think you do and did an excellent job here and i learned a lot from your videos. So keep it going. :-) And thanks for the heart-thing you awarded my comment with.
Hrafn of Thule i think it stands for „Schnellboot“, which is the german word for speedboat. They were small boats mainly used for torpedoing coast shipping, but also for things like laying out mines. (So they basically were torpedo boats)
Later in the war, Allied ASW was so advanced that approaching the convoy to close distance was very dangerous if not suicidal. As the result, the Germans started developing pattern-running torpedo (called FaT, Flächenabsuchender Torpedo) which would run straight for a predetermined distance, then start zig-zagging along the convoy's course with hope of hitting something on the way.
To their own shore, Came the world war. Gleaves and Ingham, Leading the bury west. In their own track, Came the wolfpack. Gleaves led the convoy, Into the hornets nest. At the crack of dawn the second day, Bury stands in flames. Half the convoy sunk or disabled, Heading back to the shore. But below the north Atlantic, On the bottom of the sea. On the second night in the darkest hour, The kriegsmarine return. The wolfpack surface for a second time. To make the convoy face it's fate. To their own shore, Came the world war. Gleaves and the Ingham, Leading the bury west. In their own track, Came the wolfpack. Gleaves led the convoy, Into the hornets nest.
Everyone talks about the German submarine campaigns in WWI and WWII that ultimately failed. But little attention is given to the American submarine campaign in the Pacific that succeeded. American submarines virtually destroyed the Japanese merchant fleet and might have won the war even if the other battles had not gone as well for the American navy. This would make an interesting topic.
This. Japanese understanding and doctrine of Submarine warfare was pretty much purely focused on warships, with little consideration given to merchant ships. Thus, they rarely attacked Allied shipping, and likewise they also totally neglected the task of protecting their own shipping. What American submariners had to face as an adversary in their war was nothing like what Axis submarines had to face in the Atlantic & Mediterranean.
@@MilitaryHistoryVisualized you have Clay Blairs book down in the sources but you seem to still propagate some myths regarding the battle of the atlantic. As Blair points out and argues very successfully the uboats never posed a serious threat to allied shipping at all. 99% of allied shipping reached its intended destination. And when the allies actually bothered to try and make an effort against the u boats they utterly and totally defeated them with the Kriegsmarina suffering arguably the largest defeat of any arm of the axis powers the entire war being totally and utterly obliterated. Just curious whether you don't agree with his conclusions or whether you just chose not to mention it for whatever reason.
True. It was the only truly successful submarine campaign. British and Dutch submarines operating from the Australian city of Perth had success in the Indian ocean but on a small scale compared to the USN blockade of the Japanese home Islands. British submarines played their a part in the blockade of Germany in both wars. Not in the number of ships they sank but their part preventing them for leaving port. In the Meditation they sent a lot of Axis supplies to the bottom. In the end Germany was a land power and could not be defeated by a submarine campaign whereas Britain could.
Love this channel and the chaps accent. Makes it feel like I’m in a briefing from one of our (British) spies who has just returned from Germany in 1944!
Finally got around to watching this video while washing the dishes. Most informative, a good look at something that is never really explained and talked about. I have learned new things today.
I've read the 'Commander's Handbook' in its entirety and I was struck by how unaware B.d.U was of Allied technological advances. Considering it was written in 1942-43. For example the Handbook only mentions the asdic but by then the Allies had true centimetric radar, and mounted on planes at that. And they're still advising their captains to find the proper deep layers between cold and warmer water where asdic was known to lose accuracy. Ach, those poor U-boat crews of 1944-45!
3:24 There! The allies didn't pay attention to the detail, and messed it up. To be fair, it was incredibly difficult to get intelligence-led action right during WW2.
As usual an excellent video. Here is my question. Why did the wolf packs never take out the escorts? If the escorts are first attacked by 6? uboats - then there is no opposition to sink the convoy .
thank you, because escorts are more likely to change course, are more likely to notice if a torpedo passes by, are smaller, are faster, are far less, thus less likely to be a target of opportunity, are also very cheap, etc. So, there is every little incentive to destroy escorts, especially early on, when they were rather weak and later on, they were too many.
The 1943 film, "Action in the North Atlantic," created as a morale-boosting propaganda film, depicts a focused look on the lives, duties, and tactics of a group of U.S. Merchant Marines during WWII. The film was praised for its accurate depiction and promotion of the Allied Merchant Marine forces, even to the point that the movie was included as a training film by the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, as well as inspired the U.S. Merchant Marines to gift a victory flag to the films' creation-studio (Warner Bros.) president Jack Warner. During the course of the film, there is a depiction of a "wolf-pack" attack on an Allied convoy. These scenes are quite intense, and the film itself is definitely a highly recommended watch for anybody with an appreciation for WWII's Battle of the Atlantic.
17:08 "...to beer on the enemy." Man, that is savage! Not only sink them but to drink beer over their watery graves? That is cold! ;) Great video, btw!
Goering's proprietary attitude to the Luftwaffe is similar to Harris' attitude in the UK where the latter didn't like/want bombers used by or transferred to Coastal Command.
The drawback of having WP attacks co-ordinated from a land-based station is that the signal traffic could be detected. Even when the messages could not be decoded it was possible to determine when WP was forming up for an attack because of traffic analysis and RDF. Even with the change to 4 rotor Enigma machine, that stopped Bletchley Park from reading the messages, the already accumulated experience of U-Boat practice together with the growing body of messages meant that the weather codebooks could be reconstructed and the days Enigma settings could be found. It is a case where success for the U-Boats means more signal traffic that in turn makes it possible to read the signals - a case of success breeding failure. Of course, often knowing an attack was forming up could not prevent ships being sunk but it could help to redirect the convoy in some cases and alert the escort to the impending attack.
The HQ send twice a day to fixed times orders and messages to the U-Boats, so the signal traffic is there, with or without a WP attack. The HQ plan not every detail of an attack, its more like: course and position of a convoi and a attack time, move your ass and do your job
Could you make a Video about the “Ruhrkessel“? It´s very interesting- I red a book about it and even live in the Ruhrgebiet. You could explain defense tactics in 1945 by this example.
Would you do a video on intelligence services, particularly Axis/German intelligence? The rationale is because the Allied intelligence services are much talked about but it seems that their Axis counterparts are rarely mentioned, at least to laypeople like me.
Their intelligence arm, the Abwehr was primarily shit. Mostly because of the inherent weakness of the Prussian/German military doctrine that place less stress on intelligence. Their greatest blunders include not having Free Ireland join them because the agents responsible for that did it poorly and Operation Barbarossa which as done mostly with false and inaccurate information.
They had many coups which today are forgotten. They tapped the super secret transatlantic telephone line and listened in on The Fat Controller and Wheelchair Dude's chit chats. They also found and sank an enemy ship or thousand on the high seas by working out their position via radio intelligence. Google the Venlo incident.
The Nazis were stupid… low intelligence. They persecuted Jews and others who were very educated… because of religion, etc. Einstein, Oppenheimer, etc. Did not realize that codes are usually broken. No communication is safe. If they had any common sense - let alone real intelligence - they would not have invaded USSR which had a massive military, superior tanks, limitless manpower , energy, resources.
Granted navigation was an issue, but at least if a convoy was spotted the UBoats would have a radius to search inside given that the convoy could only move at the speed of the slowest ship. That would concentrate the search into 1,256sq mi (if the speed was 20mph and it took the UBoats an hour to get there) instead of several million - a much smaller haystack. If the course was /also/ known then the convoy would be within 20 miles on that course, hardly difficult to locate. Also they'd be unlikely to reverse course so it would be more like 633 sq mi at worst
No one ever mentioned that the US also utilized Wolfpack like tactics against Japanese convoys in Pacific WWII. They were also successful until their US Torpedoes failed them at the last moments, classic
Nice that you also mention the reconaissance units from the luftwaffe that worked with the uboats to search for convoys. A more Well known unit may be the fernaufklärungsgruppe 5, they where mostly equipped with the 4- engined JU-290 and had there base in Mont de Marsan. However these units where not that succesful, barely any convoy attacks where conducted with the information from the gruppe. Maybe the topic is intresting enough to make a video about it.
There is a great TV series on USA subs in the Pacific war. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell_Below_(TV_series) I highly recommend this one! There is a new series in production, which will cover the Atlantic war as well. I hope :)
The later tactics borrowed heavily from the German Wolfpack. The Japanese had been more concerned about protecting warships instead of merchantmen. They got a very rude awakening once the USN got a decent torpedo--which wasn't until 1944!
As early as the summer of 1939, Dönitz sent a memorandum to both the naval command and Hitler personally in which he demanded 300 boats with which he (rightly) believed GB could be brought to its knees and forced to negotiate peace by cutting off its supply of food and war materials from overseas (by 1941, the Reich government had received more than 20 peace offers through neutral intermediaries such as the Papal Nuncio, the King of Spain, the King of Sweden, the Swedish merchant Birger Dahlerus, the famous Swedish naturalist Sven Hedin, the government of Switzerland, but also directly to the British Ambassador to Spain Samuel Hoare and even through his personal lawyer Dr. Weißauer, all of which were rejected despite the (earnest) offer to withdraw from all occupied territories in Europe and even to vouch for the protection of GB's colonies, he merely demanded "a free hand in the East" against the arch-enemy of Bolshevism.) But Hitler went on 1940 or 1941 needed, not 1943, by then the British destroyers were equipped with ASDIC and radar and the hunters became the hunted! As Ritterkreutz carrier Reinhard Hardeggen correctly said, "Hitler stood with his back to the sea. The war was decided and lost at sea!"
From 1942 to the end of the war the U boats had become the hunted..75% of deployed boats were lost, and 66% of those had no survivors.. 33% were ó their first patrol..from Sep 42 to May 45 some 43500 merchant vessels crossed in the Atlantic convoys.. of the U boats sank approx 270. 99.4% of shipping on the North Atlantic convoys reaches destination. U boat concept never came anywhere near interrupting supply between USA and UK.. it was an ill conceived idea and maybe had Donitz been more pragmatic and less attached to the Fuhrer the tragic waste of lives on all sides might have been avoided.
Your numbers are wrong, alone in september, october and november '42 U-Boats sank 329 ships. Even if you mean Sep 43 to May 45, it was still 379 ships. Also the war started '39 and not '43 and until '42 U-boats were very good in sinking more ships than the UK could replace. Even without sinking all ships, every sunken ship that coulndt be replaced caused less ships being able to transport supplys, wich becomes a huge problem for an island wich has to import almost everything. The UK didnt start the war with HF/DF, Ultra, cm radar, ect., it was the opposite, they even thought u-boats wouldnt play a role anymore and even allowed Germany to build a u-boat fleet as large as their own. Saying the u-boat concept was an ill conveived idea, looking from today at the war at '43, only shows how ignorant you are
Did Russia have a navy in WWII?How did the Purge change it? What made it different from the other naval forces of the time? Was it effective against the Germans?
They have, it's pretty much the same as it as during the first World War when it was called the Russian Imperial Navy save for cosmetic changes like names. Their primary warship class is the Gangut class which was from the early days of the Dreadnought hich some were refurbished. One, the Marat was sunk somewhere in the Black Sea and was used primarily as a artillery battery for Crimea; the other ships pretty much were kept in port. The Red Nvy as an organization was instrumental in some of the most ferocious battles in the Eastern Front, the biggest is the Defense of Sevastopol.
I notice you didn't mention the problems the Kriegsmarine had with their torpedoes at the onset of the war. As I recall there were problems with weak pistol detonators and depth settings. However UNLIKE the American torpedo problems (of which whole books have been written and even a movie made): Doenitz actually listened to his commanders and by mid 1940 the problems were resolved. I think the depth settings were due to salinity differentials between the Baltic, where the trials were conducted, and the Atlantic. Another in a long line of great presentations.
AFAIK it was the pressure differences inside of a u-boat, why the depht setting lost theyr calibration. The problem with the pistol detonators was when the angel of impact was to small, the pistol bend and jam. The problem with the magnetic detonator was, the magnetic field of the earth is not everywhere the same
I think the more interesting topic would be the tactics adopted to counter the "wolf packs". In a nutshell it was simply a matter of concentrating resources. Divide the north atlantic into grids. Instead of attempting to protect convoys and cover several grids over x periods of time. Attn. was concentrated on a single grid for x+ ten (or the number of days it took until subs moved to another grid). In this scenario thx to long range aircraft a sighting would typically mean a kill. Even this was after the English Navy by sheer balls and seamanship bested the "super killers" of the U boat fleet. U can divide u boat captains pretty much into two categories; super killers, numbering about 5 and others. The tonnage sunk by a very small number really was remarkable. If they could be taken off the table Britain could maintain ,however tenuously, it's Atlantic lifeline.
I read both Clay Blair books, The Hunters and The Hunted. Both were very comprehensive in detail but Blair’s extreme bias and agenda to slam the German U-boats and Kreigsmarine throughout the books was disgraceful and petty in my opinion. All that aside, they are still good reads.
Dude another great video! You are so dope :D And i have question, will you do the episode about Walther Wenck and his Berlin rescue, when he was saving civilians from the city and surrender to US
IIRC the visible distance to the horizon from sea level is 30 miles? Doesn't that also cut down the area to search - especially given that the smoke of the convoy would rise well above the horizon. If the previous comment was right, shouldn't the convoy then be visible?
Do you know of any instances of u-boats timing their attacks so that torpedoes impact at same time? In the movie Greyhound, they show two u-boats making a coordinated on the Greyhound Fletcher Class Destroyer. Do you think is realistic or know of any similar occurrences. It seems that it would be very hard to time torpedo strikes with 40's technology.
watching this video after dying on my third patrol in SH5 (may of 1942 artic) because i attacked a massive english task force. I did manege to sink a british heavy cruiser for 13000t and another ship for 4000t but was depth charged by multiple escorts for hours before getting one to the bow and dying. I feel like no captain would attack a convoy or task force so heavily defended like that on their own. Any thoughts? im just wondering what kind of tactics could have been used. Right now im shadowing a huge convoy but with little hope of actually engaging anything, at least four destroyer escorts and no support so i think ill pass that one.
Raeder had command over the whole german navy (OKM) and was Großadmiral (something like Admiral of the Fleet) and was senior to Dönitz who was at the time only rear admiral and also 15 years younger than raeder. Later Raeder was replaced by Dönitz.
Hi, I'm not sure if you have a video on this or not, but is there a comparison between the effectiveness of submarines in anti merchant or convoy shipping Vs air power? Pound for pound, cost effectiveness, etc?
Connected to: C. S. Forester Historical novel Horatio Hornblower From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Good Shepherd
First US edition cover Author C. S. Forester Country United Kingdom Language English Genre Historical novel Publisher Michael Joseph (UK) Little, Brown and Co. (US) Publication date 1955 Media type Hardcover & paperback The Good Shepherd (1955) is a nautical and war novel by C. S. Forester, best known as the creator of fictional Royal Navy officer Horatio Hornblower. Plot summary The hero of The Good Shepherd is Commander Krause, the captain of the fictional US Navy Mahan-class destroyer USS Keeling in World War II. Krause is in overall command of an escort force protecting an Atlantic convoy in the Battle of the Atlantic. He finds himself in a difficult position. The voyage in question occurs early in 1942, shortly after the United States's entry into the war. Although he is a career Navy officer, with many years of seniority, this is Krause's first wartime mission. The captains of the other vessels in the escort group are junior to him in rank, and much younger, but they have been at war for over two years. The story is told in third person entirely from Krause's point of view as he fights his ship, detailing his mood swings from his intense and focused excitement and awareness during combat to his resulting fatigue, depression, and self-doubt as his self-perceived inferiority and inexperience to the other captains under his command troubles him (although as the story progresses he is shown to be quite capable). He broods over his career; his wife left him partly because of his strict devotion to duty. He is troubled when the press of duty forces him to neglect his prayers (unlike most of Forester's other heroes, Krause is devout). He is troubled by recollections that the Navy review board had twice passed him over for promotion, returning a judgement of fitted and retained due to little or no opportunity in the prewar Navy. His promotion to Commander only came when the United States entered the war, leading him to fear that he may be unsuited to his command. The book illustrates the difficulties of the Atlantic war: the struggle against the sea, the enemy, and the exhaustion brought on by constant vigilance. It also details the problems of the early radar and ASDIC equipment available and the poor communications between the fleet and Adm
Here’s a thought 🤔 from the combined ship cost in resources to build and crew “Bismarck , Graf Spee and Tirpitz “ how many more U-Boats could’ve been built and crewed. Just a thought since the U-Boats were more successful.
It is very briefly mentioned in this video that one attack tactic was to get within the convoy to attack the merchant vessels. This U-boat tactic spreads confusion in the convoy, but also makes it difficult for an escort to counter-attack the U-boat. I feel this does not get the attention it deserves in this video.
Dönitz had two sons not one. His second son died on a Speedboat the 13th of May 1944. de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_D%C3%B6nitz#Entlassung_aus_dem_Gef%C3%A4ngnis_und_Lebensabend
Why didn’t Germany pirate allies’ shippings? Wasn’t that far better than sinking enemy ships given the resources transported by the Allies would mean far more to Germany than to the Allies?
From what I've gotten, France mostly won the naval war, only to lack the ground troops to support a land invasion, or the number of vessels necessary to fully blockade.
I have a question that would make for an interesting discusion: Why did the German navy (kriegsmarine) not make much use of the potential of airsoft carriers? I know they built several during the war in cluding the Graf Zeppelin, Weser and Jade class and yet they sore relatively little action or focus during the war. I know the obvious anwsers would be, allied naval supremecy, lack of reasonces and Hitlers focus upon the land war and u-boats, but surely there is more to this? Alot of the following suggestions were only really true in the mid-late war and British superemecy didn't stop Germany from trying to use its battleships (Bismark I am looking at you). Surely German carriers would have been useful in Russian waters to try and counter the British artic convoys and could be used to distract British escort carriers thus allowing the U-boats to close in without the risk of getting spotted and struck by carrier launched aircraft? Source: 'The Winning Edge: Naval technology in action' (1997) pp. 3 - 10.
Ahh okay I definitely will, should have assumed you already have covered this topic in the past. It should help a bit with my research into the use of airsoft at sea during the war.
![โฮ่ง! (SUGOI) - LYKN [ OFFICIAL MV ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/nFp4zjAARFs/mqdefault.jpg)
![Wolfpack - German U-boat Tactics - Sabaton History 054 [Official]](/img/n.gif)
Since the question came up a few times: Why not sink the escorts first? Answered on my second Channel: th-cam.com/video/Gl3akH1ZJTQ/w-d-xo.html
Great question.
Why didn't they develop faster torpedoes to destroy or disable them first?
Even later on when they were getting sunk fast later in the war?
"Going down renders you blind and helpless."
Remember to quote the Handbook when explaining this, folks.
🤢
Simo I’ve called the police already wierdo
569 makes contact and leads them
u 94 scores a kill in the dark
u124 sinks 4 in two aproaches
406 suffers failure to launch
To their own shore came the world war
Ingham and Gleaves leading the Bury West
In their own track
Came the Wolfpack
Ingham and Gleaves leading them into the hornet nest
Sabaton!
Isn´t it "Gleaves and the Ingham leading them into the hornets nest"?
It is ^^
Under fire,
Under water.
May 42 when,
Bury did fail the test.
To their own shore
Came the world war
Gleaves and the Ingham leading them into death
You, my friend, have earned a like.
To heck with people trying to 'help' with your English...I find your Austrian accent to be charming. And in military matters, it adds gravitas to the situation. So there!
You can hear the inner militarism
As long as he's not a corporal...
Mikhailia Gacesa awww
But on the subject of u-boats sinking allied caravan ships it just makes me angry.
@@aVeryIntelligentDogSince you're a dog, which means you're like 15 at the oldest, I wouldn't waste my energy getting upset about things that happened before you were born.
Your accent adds credibility to the content. Who watch's Das Boot dubbed in English ? U-Boots and German go together.
Every time. I can't watch Das Boot (film or series) dubbed in English, it's just not authentic. Plus, "auf gefechtsstation!" sounds way cooler than Battle Stations.
Yes experts should always call them ooh boats. I'll have no U's
I just watched it with German subtitles. It makes it more authentic. I watched Stalingrad and Berlin Babylon that way too.
Running silent, running deep, we are your final prayer,
Warriors in secret sleep, a merchantman's nightmare,
A silent death lies waiting, for all of you below,
Running silent, running deep, sink into your final sleep.
From the no prayer for the dying. If I remember correctly
Military History Visualized spot on MHV. Running silent, running deep from 1990's No prayer for the dying. By the one and the only Maiden.
Is there only one maiden alive now? Victorian values have slipped somewhat...
Wooah a climatic on!
I love how in depth you go into areas of WW2 that other channels only scratch the surface of.
Hehe 'in depth'
Here after Tom Hanks' new film.
Me 2
Me 3
Who else learned to make Captains lunch. ie. Corn beef onion sandwich.
Am i the only one who thought the movie really sucked? And fact that 90% of the movie is CGI equivalent to a Battlefield cutscene really took me out of it
Fake Hollywood film!
Political correctness crap!
The last time I was this early there were hardly any Uboats in the Atlantic.
Your girl said your always this early
Dimes On His Eyes wow rood
Though the power of German Space Magic I was able to reply early.
1914? I'll get the Queen to send a telegram on your 200th birthday.
So how effective is this ooooooof pack tactic?
A good video. Some details where new for me.
One remark about Karl Dönitz sons. The soruce (Milner, Marc: The Battle of the Atlantic) you quote at 19:32 mentions, that Karl Dönitz only (!) son died in May 1943. He had two sons. Peter Dönitz died 19 May 1943 as a watch officer on board of U-954. Klaus Dönitz died when S-141 was sunk on 13 May 1944. It was his 24th birthday. After the death of Peter Klaus was permitted to withdraw from combat duties. He started his education as a naval doctor. Him taking part in the attack was sort of a birthday present from his comerads, whom he conviced to take him along.
Oh well, I guess I need to start distrust my sources even more 😩
Well you cant check everything. Ok you could but the amount of time you would need to invest is insane. I think you do and did an excellent job here and i learned a lot from your videos. So keep it going. :-) And thanks for the heart-thing you awarded my comment with.
Just keep reading. It's worked well so far.
Fanatic Productions what does S stand for in S-141?
Hrafn of Thule i think it stands for „Schnellboot“, which is the german word for speedboat. They were small boats mainly used for torpedoing coast shipping, but also for things like laying out mines. (So they basically were torpedo boats)
Later in the war, Allied ASW was so advanced that approaching the convoy to close distance was very dangerous if not suicidal. As the result, the Germans started developing pattern-running torpedo (called FaT, Flächenabsuchender Torpedo) which would run straight for a predetermined distance, then start zig-zagging along the convoy's course with hope of hitting something on the way.
To their own shore,
Came the world war.
Gleaves and Ingham,
Leading the bury west.
In their own track,
Came the wolfpack.
Gleaves led the convoy,
Into the hornets nest.
At the crack of dawn the second day,
Bury stands in flames.
Half the convoy sunk or disabled,
Heading back to the shore.
But below the north Atlantic,
On the bottom of the sea.
On the second night in the darkest hour,
The kriegsmarine return.
The wolfpack surface for a second time.
To make the convoy face it's fate.
To their own shore,
Came the world war.
Gleaves and the Ingham,
Leading the bury west.
In their own track,
Came the wolfpack.
Gleaves led the convoy,
Into the hornets nest.
was singing this while listening
JA!
Everyone talks about the German submarine campaigns in WWI and WWII that ultimately failed. But little attention is given to the American submarine campaign in the Pacific that succeeded. American submarines virtually destroyed the Japanese merchant fleet and might have won the war even if the other battles had not gone as well for the American navy. This would make an interesting topic.
Cause the Japanese ASW sucked. There was no back and forth.
This. Japanese understanding and doctrine of Submarine warfare was pretty much purely focused on warships, with little consideration given to merchant ships. Thus, they rarely attacked Allied shipping, and likewise they also totally neglected the task of protecting their own shipping.
What American submariners had to face as an adversary in their war was nothing like what Axis submarines had to face in the Atlantic & Mediterranean.
Why wouldn't they protect their transports and convoys? That seems pretty stupid...
@@MilitaryHistoryVisualized you have Clay Blairs book down in the sources but you seem to still propagate some myths regarding the battle of the atlantic. As Blair points out and argues very successfully the uboats never posed a serious threat to allied shipping at all. 99% of allied shipping reached its intended destination. And when the allies actually bothered to try and make an effort against the u boats they utterly and totally defeated them with the Kriegsmarina suffering arguably the largest defeat of any arm of the axis powers the entire war being totally and utterly obliterated. Just curious whether you don't agree with his conclusions or whether you just chose not to mention it for whatever reason.
True. It was the only truly successful submarine campaign. British and Dutch submarines operating from the Australian city of Perth had success in the Indian ocean but on a small scale compared to the USN blockade of the Japanese home Islands. British submarines played their a part in the blockade of Germany in both wars. Not in the number of ships they sank but their part preventing them for leaving port. In the Meditation they sent a lot of Axis supplies to the bottom. In the end Germany was a land power and could not be defeated by a submarine campaign whereas Britain could.
Ur accent makes me feel like im in a kriegsakademie lecture :D
"U32, Boot von Berthold, der hat'n Geleitzug entdeckt, nich weit von hier, 10 Stunden müsst'n wa dort sein!" *Das Boot soundtrack intensifies*
Love this channel and the chaps accent. Makes it feel like I’m in a briefing from one of our (British) spies who has just returned from Germany in 1944!
Finally got around to watching this video while washing the dishes. Most informative, a good look at something that is never really explained and talked about.
I have learned new things today.
I've read the 'Commander's Handbook' in its entirety and I was struck by how unaware B.d.U was of Allied technological advances. Considering it was written in 1942-43. For example the Handbook only mentions the asdic but by then the Allies had true centimetric radar, and mounted on planes at that. And they're still advising their captains to find the proper deep layers between cold and warmer water where asdic was known to lose accuracy. Ach, those poor U-boat crews of 1944-45!
3:24 There! The allies didn't pay attention to the detail, and messed it up. To be fair, it was incredibly difficult to get intelligence-led action right during WW2.
great, now I have 5 books about U-boats on my amazon watchlist :)
As usual an excellent video. Here is my question. Why did the wolf packs never take out the escorts? If the escorts are first attacked by 6? uboats - then there is no opposition to sink the convoy .
thank you, because escorts are more likely to change course, are more likely to notice if a torpedo passes by, are smaller, are faster, are far less, thus less likely to be a target of opportunity, are also very cheap, etc.
So, there is every little incentive to destroy escorts, especially early on, when they were rather weak and later on, they were too many.
The 1943 film, "Action in the North Atlantic," created as a morale-boosting propaganda film, depicts a focused look on the lives, duties, and tactics of a group of U.S. Merchant Marines during WWII. The film was praised for its accurate depiction and promotion of the Allied Merchant Marine forces, even to the point that the movie was included as a training film by the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, as well as inspired the U.S. Merchant Marines to gift a victory flag to the films' creation-studio (Warner Bros.) president Jack Warner.
During the course of the film, there is a depiction of a "wolf-pack" attack on an Allied convoy. These scenes are quite intense, and the film itself is definitely a highly recommended watch for anybody with an appreciation for WWII's Battle of the Atlantic.
Damn, your videos are SO Captivating ... You are an Artist Extraordinaire!!
This just might be your best video ever! Keep it up MHV!
17:08 "...to beer on the enemy." Man, that is savage! Not only sink them but to drink beer over their watery graves? That is cold! ;)
Great video, btw!
trauko1388 it better is. I'm not gonna drink warm beer
Thank you for making such interesting videos
20:10 I love the "navigational errors" logo. Hic!!!
I stopped reading mein kampf for this
Goering's proprietary attitude to the Luftwaffe is similar to Harris' attitude in the UK where the latter didn't like/want bombers used by or transferred to Coastal Command.
The drawback of having WP attacks co-ordinated from a land-based station is that the signal traffic could be detected. Even when the messages could not be decoded it was possible to determine when WP was forming up for an attack because of traffic analysis and RDF. Even with the change to 4 rotor Enigma machine, that stopped Bletchley Park from reading the messages, the already accumulated experience of U-Boat practice together with the growing body of messages meant that the weather codebooks could be reconstructed and the days Enigma settings could be found. It is a case where success for the U-Boats means more signal traffic that in turn makes it possible to read the signals - a case of success breeding failure. Of course, often knowing an attack was forming up could not prevent ships being sunk but it could help to redirect the convoy in some cases and alert the escort to the impending attack.
The HQ send twice a day to fixed times orders and messages to the U-Boats, so the signal traffic is there, with or without a WP attack.
The HQ plan not every detail of an attack, its more like: course and position of a convoi and a attack time, move your ass and do your job
“Loss of three U Boats was a DISASTER”?? I wish we had the technology then to slowly sink each one of the U Boats and hence slowly kill Germans.
Excellent work! Like always a well deserved THUMBS UP!
Gray wolf is hungry
Could you make a Video about the “Ruhrkessel“?
It´s very interesting- I red a book about it and even live in the Ruhrgebiet.
You could explain defense tactics in 1945 by this example.
Till P yes please!
Till P still waiting ;=
Would you do a video on intelligence services, particularly Axis/German intelligence? The rationale is because the Allied intelligence services are much talked about but it seems that their Axis counterparts are rarely mentioned, at least to laypeople like me.
Their intelligence arm, the Abwehr was primarily shit. Mostly because of the inherent weakness of the Prussian/German military doctrine that place less stress on intelligence. Their greatest blunders include not having Free Ireland join them because the agents responsible for that did it poorly and Operation Barbarossa which as done mostly with false and inaccurate information.
Nazi intelligence was embarrassingly shit during the war. Let's just leave it at that.
They had many coups which today are forgotten. They tapped the super secret transatlantic telephone line and listened in on The Fat Controller and Wheelchair Dude's chit chats. They also found and sank an enemy ship or thousand on the high seas by working out their position via radio intelligence.
Google the Venlo incident.
The Nazis were stupid… low intelligence. They persecuted Jews and others who were very educated… because of religion, etc. Einstein, Oppenheimer, etc. Did not realize that codes are usually broken. No communication is safe.
If they had any common sense - let alone real intelligence - they would not have invaded USSR which had a massive military, superior tanks, limitless manpower , energy, resources.
Last time I was this early, France still had an empire.
Örigins 😂😉 nice Vid
Granted navigation was an issue, but at least if a convoy was spotted the UBoats would have a radius to search inside given that the convoy could only move at the speed of the slowest ship. That would concentrate the search into 1,256sq mi (if the speed was 20mph and it took the UBoats an hour to get there) instead of several million - a much smaller haystack. If the course was /also/ known then the convoy would be within 20 miles on that course, hardly difficult to locate. Also they'd be unlikely to reverse course so it would be more like 633 sq mi at worst
Thanks for not doing this earlier; I've got a love for logistics & obscura. "It takes big balls to play small ball."
Another good video herr kaleun
No one ever mentioned that the US also utilized Wolfpack like tactics against Japanese convoys in Pacific WWII. They were also successful until their US Torpedoes failed them at the last moments, classic
Approved by Complicated.De. I'll remember that when fixing a German car! ;-)
u 169 makes contact at eleven
u 94 scores a kill in the dark
124 sinkin four in two approaches
406 suffers failure at lauch
Not going to lie, these tactics are useful in my gameplay as a submarine
Perfect topic for a Visualized video.
Nice that you also mention the reconaissance units from the luftwaffe that worked with the uboats to search for convoys. A more Well known unit may be the fernaufklärungsgruppe 5, they where mostly equipped with the 4- engined JU-290 and had there base in Mont de Marsan. However these units where not that succesful, barely any convoy attacks where conducted with the information from the gruppe. Maybe the topic is intresting enough to make a video about it.
Can you do a video of American submarine tactics?
T5rux Lee, later with a bit of earlier.
There is a great TV series on USA subs in the Pacific war. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell_Below_(TV_series) I highly recommend this one! There is a new series in production, which will cover the Atlantic war as well. I hope :)
thinman46 I would also like to see the modern version of this
George S. Patton women apparently
The later tactics borrowed heavily from the German Wolfpack. The Japanese had been more concerned about protecting warships instead of merchantmen. They got a very rude awakening once the USN got a decent torpedo--which wasn't until 1944!
Very well done.
.
As early as the summer of 1939, Dönitz sent a memorandum to both the naval command and Hitler personally in which he demanded 300 boats with which he (rightly) believed GB could be brought to its knees and forced to negotiate peace by cutting off its supply of food and war materials from overseas (by 1941, the Reich government had received more than 20 peace offers through neutral intermediaries such as the Papal Nuncio, the King of Spain, the King of Sweden, the Swedish merchant Birger Dahlerus, the famous Swedish naturalist Sven Hedin, the government of Switzerland, but also directly to the British Ambassador to Spain Samuel Hoare and even through his personal lawyer Dr. Weißauer, all of which were rejected despite the (earnest) offer to withdraw from all occupied territories in Europe and even to vouch for the protection of GB's colonies, he merely demanded "a free hand in the East" against the arch-enemy of Bolshevism.) But Hitler went on 1940 or 1941 needed, not 1943, by then the British destroyers were equipped with ASDIC and radar and the hunters became the hunted! As Ritterkreutz carrier Reinhard Hardeggen correctly said, "Hitler stood with his back to the sea. The war was decided and lost at sea!"
Otto Kreschmer attacked on the surface by night between the lanes. Very successful.
From 1942 to the end of the war the U boats had become the hunted..75% of deployed boats were lost, and 66% of those had no survivors.. 33% were ó their first patrol..from Sep 42 to May 45 some 43500 merchant vessels crossed in the Atlantic convoys.. of the U boats sank approx 270. 99.4% of shipping on the North Atlantic convoys reaches destination. U boat concept never came anywhere near interrupting supply between USA and UK.. it was an ill conceived idea and maybe had Donitz been more pragmatic and less attached to the Fuhrer the tragic waste of lives on all sides might have been avoided.
Your numbers are wrong, alone in september, october and november '42 U-Boats sank 329 ships.
Even if you mean Sep 43 to May 45, it was still 379 ships.
Also the war started '39 and not '43 and until '42 U-boats were very good in sinking more ships than the UK could replace. Even without sinking all ships, every sunken ship that coulndt be replaced caused less ships being able to transport supplys, wich becomes a huge problem for an island wich has to import almost everything.
The UK didnt start the war with HF/DF, Ultra, cm radar, ect., it was the opposite, they even thought u-boats wouldnt play a role anymore and even allowed Germany to build a u-boat fleet as large as their own.
Saying the u-boat concept was an ill conveived idea, looking from today at the war at '43, only shows how ignorant you are
Germany: *Googles Unrestricted Submarine Warfare*
Austro-Hungary: “Why are the Americans here?”
Manning a submarine that’s being hunted would be terrifying
this video inspired me to watch Das boot again
"Greyhound, Greyhound, this is the Grey Wolf...*
Did Russia have a navy in WWII?How did the Purge change it? What made it different from the other naval forces of the time? Was it effective against the Germans?
They have, it's pretty much the same as it as during the first World War when it was called the Russian Imperial Navy save for cosmetic changes like names. Their primary warship class is the Gangut class which was from the early days of the Dreadnought hich some were refurbished. One, the Marat was sunk somewhere in the Black Sea and was used primarily as a artillery battery for Crimea; the other ships pretty much were kept in port. The Red Nvy as an organization was instrumental in some of the most ferocious battles in the Eastern Front, the biggest is the Defense of Sevastopol.
I always thought Wolfpack Tactic was Destroyers working together...I was wrong Subs are almost invisible
a torpedo is a rather complicated affair. lol 10:33
Why didn't the sub commanders target the Escorts so the Merchant men were more vulnerable and they wouldn't have to worry about depth charges
Please make a video about u-boat warfare AFTER May '43. I have always been so curious about what they did and how they did it after that crucial time.
I notice you didn't mention the problems the Kriegsmarine had with their torpedoes at the onset of the war. As I recall there were problems with weak pistol detonators and depth settings. However UNLIKE the American torpedo problems (of which whole books have been written and even a movie made): Doenitz actually listened to his commanders and by mid 1940 the problems were resolved. I think the depth settings were due to salinity differentials between the Baltic, where the trials were conducted, and the Atlantic. Another in a long line of great presentations.
AFAIK it was the pressure differences inside of a u-boat, why the depht setting lost theyr calibration.
The problem with the pistol detonators was when the angel of impact was to small, the pistol bend and jam.
The problem with the magnetic detonator was, the magnetic field of the earth is not everywhere the same
Many juicy kills were lost as a result.
Churchill on the Nelson was spared when three duds hit her.
I think the more interesting topic would be the tactics adopted to counter the "wolf packs". In a nutshell it was simply a matter of concentrating resources. Divide the north atlantic into grids. Instead of attempting to protect convoys and cover several grids over x periods of time. Attn. was concentrated on a single grid for x+ ten (or the number of days it took until subs moved to another grid). In this scenario thx to long range aircraft a sighting would typically mean a kill. Even this was after the English Navy by sheer balls and seamanship bested the "super killers" of the U boat fleet. U can divide u boat captains pretty much into two categories; super killers, numbering about 5 and others. The tonnage sunk by a very small number really was remarkable. If they could be taken off the table Britain could maintain ,however tenuously, it's Atlantic lifeline.
I read both Clay Blair books, The Hunters and The Hunted. Both were very comprehensive in detail but Blair’s extreme bias and agenda to slam the German U-boats and Kreigsmarine throughout the books was disgraceful and petty in my opinion. All that aside, they are still good reads.
My grandfather served on a US destroyer that escorted troops and supplies through the Atlantic. USS Hilary P. Jones DD-427
You forgot to mention when enigma was cracked! I think it was one the main reason why Germany lost!
*Me playing silent hunter 3*
Write that down! Write that down!
*Guten Morgen, Greyhound*
Awesome Video!!
Nice video once again
Dude another great video! You are so dope :D And i have question, will you do the episode about Walther Wenck and his Berlin rescue, when he was saving civilians from the city and surrender to US
Thank you Commander…..🏴☠️🫡
IIRC the visible distance to the horizon from sea level is 30 miles? Doesn't that also cut down the area to search - especially given that the smoke of the convoy would rise well above the horizon. If the previous comment was right, shouldn't the convoy then be visible?
Here after greyhound movie. Thanks for the likes
Greywolf vs Greyhound. Who knows?
I respect this mans so much
Propuloosion system!
Do you know of any instances of u-boats timing their attacks so that torpedoes impact at same time? In the movie Greyhound, they show two u-boats making a coordinated on the Greyhound Fletcher Class Destroyer. Do you think is realistic or know of any similar occurrences. It seems that it would be very hard to time torpedo strikes with 40's technology.
No, thats pure fiction, u-boats didnt coordinate their attacks, especialty not on escorts. Escorts were very low priority targets.
watching this video after dying on my third patrol in SH5 (may of 1942 artic) because i attacked a massive english task force. I did manege to sink a british heavy cruiser for 13000t and another ship for 4000t but was depth charged by multiple escorts for hours before getting one to the bow and dying. I feel like no captain would attack a convoy or task force so heavily defended like that on their own. Any thoughts? im just wondering what kind of tactics could have been used.
Right now im shadowing a huge convoy but with little hope of actually engaging anything, at least four destroyer escorts and no support so i think ill pass that one.
Do you think the ships in the convoy took turns on the outer edge or back of the pack, which i have to imagine is the most vulnerable?
No, the most valuable ships were in the middle, the smaller on the sides
I like how the "navigation error" icon kind of looks like a wine bottle...
Is that a broken "baguette" shown for the Fall of France in 1940 ? ;)
I wanna garlic baguette
I thought Raeder had direct command of the UBoats not Doenitz - albeit Doenitz was senior to Raeder.
Raeder had command over the whole german navy (OKM) and was Großadmiral (something like Admiral of the Fleet) and was senior to Dönitz who was at the time only rear admiral and also 15 years younger than raeder.
Later Raeder was replaced by Dönitz.
And here we are today
Hi, I'm not sure if you have a video on this or not, but is there a comparison between the effectiveness of submarines in anti merchant or convoy shipping Vs air power? Pound for pound, cost effectiveness, etc?
I love history tactics
Needs more Sabaton.
The Good Shepherd (novel)
Connected to:
C. S. Forester
Historical novel
Horatio Hornblower
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Good Shepherd
First US edition cover
Author C. S. Forester
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Genre Historical novel
Publisher Michael Joseph (UK)
Little, Brown and Co. (US)
Publication date
1955
Media type Hardcover & paperback
The Good Shepherd (1955) is a nautical and war novel by C. S. Forester, best known as the creator of fictional Royal Navy officer Horatio Hornblower.
Plot summary
The hero of The Good Shepherd is Commander Krause, the captain of the fictional US Navy Mahan-class destroyer USS Keeling in World War II. Krause is in overall command of an escort force protecting an Atlantic convoy in the Battle of the Atlantic. He finds himself in a difficult position. The voyage in question occurs early in 1942, shortly after the United States's entry into the war. Although he is a career Navy officer, with many years of seniority, this is Krause's first wartime mission. The captains of the other vessels in the escort group are junior to him in rank, and much younger, but they have been at war for over two years.
The story is told in third person entirely from Krause's point of
view as he fights his ship, detailing his mood swings from his intense
and focused excitement and awareness during combat to his resulting
fatigue, depression, and self-doubt as his self-perceived inferiority
and inexperience to the other captains under his command troubles him
(although as the story progresses he is shown to be quite capable). He
broods over his career; his wife left him partly because of his strict
devotion to duty. He is troubled when the press of duty forces him to
neglect his prayers (unlike most of Forester's other heroes, Krause is
devout). He is troubled by recollections that the Navy review board had
twice passed him over for promotion, returning a judgement of fitted and retained due to little or no opportunity in the prewar Navy. His promotion to Commander only came when the United States entered the war, leading him to fear that he may be unsuited to his command.
The book illustrates the difficulties of the Atlantic war: the
struggle against the sea, the enemy, and the exhaustion brought on by
constant vigilance. It also details the problems of the early radar and ASDIC equipment available and the poor communications between the fleet and Adm
why is there a comment from 4 days ago
ion know maybe it's drunk
Patreon Early Access: www.patreon.com/mhv
We can not understand the past unless we learn the lessons from the future.
Neil Wilson i think that suppose to be the other way around
Because we're filthy free-loading peasants, Tim. The Patrons are worth exactly four days more than us.
Thank you. ^^
Shot out like a torpedo but hit like a baguette
Imagine if an American V-boat clashed against a German U-boat.
Outstanding
Here’s a thought 🤔 from the combined ship cost in resources to build and crew “Bismarck , Graf Spee and Tirpitz “ how many more U-Boats could’ve been built and crewed. Just a thought since the U-Boats were more successful.
It is very briefly mentioned in this video that one attack tactic was to get within the convoy to attack the merchant vessels. This U-boat tactic spreads confusion in the convoy, but also makes it difficult for an escort to counter-attack the U-boat. I feel this does not get the attention it deserves in this video.
"... Since oceans became empty"
My
The math in the Sub, geometry mostly?
Dönitz had two sons not one. His second son died on a Speedboat the 13th of May 1944.
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_D%C3%B6nitz#Entlassung_aus_dem_Gef%C3%A4ngnis_und_Lebensabend
Why didn’t Germany pirate allies’ shippings? Wasn’t that far better than sinking enemy ships given the resources transported by the Allies would mean far more to Germany than to the Allies?
On a (slight) tangent: what happened on the seas during the franco-prussian war? I think I've never heard anything about that.
From what I've gotten, France mostly won the naval war, only to lack the ground troops to support a land invasion, or the number of vessels necessary to fully blockade.
I have a question that would make for an interesting discusion: Why did the German navy (kriegsmarine) not make much use of the potential of airsoft carriers? I know they built several during the war in cluding the Graf Zeppelin, Weser and Jade class and yet they sore relatively little action or focus during the war. I know the obvious anwsers would be, allied naval supremecy, lack of reasonces and Hitlers focus upon the land war and u-boats, but surely there is more to this? Alot of the following suggestions were only really true in the mid-late war and British superemecy didn't stop Germany from trying to use its battleships (Bismark I am looking at you). Surely German carriers would have been useful in Russian waters to try and counter the British artic convoys and could be used to distract British escort carriers thus allowing the U-boats to close in without the risk of getting spotted and struck by carrier launched aircraft? Source: 'The Winning Edge: Naval technology in action' (1997) pp. 3 - 10.
See my video on the Graf zeppelin
Ahh okay I definitely will, should have assumed you already have covered this topic in the past. It should help a bit with my research into the use of airsoft at sea during the war.