Lightning Guy said:
Just out of curiosity, what sort of AA fire power are we talking about here?
The American submarines might carry a couple of 40mm as well as a couple of 20mm. While that isn't a bad load, it is completely inadequate to stop a determined attack. Where the U-boats any better armed?
Lots of good info on WWII submarines can be found at
http://uboat.net.
Genrally they were kinda similar. German subs tyically carred 2 x 20mm and perhas another 2 x 20mm or a 37mm, and an 88 or 110 mm deck gun. There were only a handful of "flak" subs with more AA on them, and these were not usuable for anything but escorting other subs out of the Bay of Biscay, a concept which was a failure, the experiment lasting only about 6 months from May-Nov of '43. From 1943 on, Aircraft were increadibly deadly to u-boats, and accounted for over half of u-boat kills. You can check the loss data yourself at:
http://uboat.net/fates/losses/
US subs had the following (general) armament:
Gato class (77 ships): 1 x 3" gun, 2 x .50 BMG's, 2 x .30 BMG's.
Balao class (118 ships): 1 x 4" deck gun, 1 x 40mm Bofors, 2 x .50 BMG's.
Tench class (35 ships): 1 x 5" deck gun, 1 x 40mm Bofors, 1 x 20mm (?), 2 x .50 BMG
The 40mm bofors, from late 1943 on, probably was more effective than all the guns on the U-boats combine, even the Flak boats, due to the proximity fuse.
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US submarines were unquestionably the best in the world, even at the start of the war. They included an advanced targeting computer, welded construction allowing deep (for then) dives of 300-400 feet (more if the captain was feeling lucky), and were the only subs to be airconditioned. Relatively early on (1943 I think) they were also equiped with radar, greatly improving their ability to find and track their prey.
Airconditioning is a huge asset in a submarine. When you dive, in order to keep the pressure as ballanced as you can, you increase the pressure inside the sub. This increases the temperature, which is why on accurate movies like Das Boot (a great film!) you will notice they are always sweating like pigs. This is not just hard on the crew, it's also hard on the equipment as condensation forms on and in everything, causing corrosion, especially damaging to electronics.
On the otherhand, due to what can only be considered pure stupidity, the Mk-14 torpedo carried by virtually all US submarines was nearly useless for the first 18 months of the war. During the 30's, only two live fire tests were carried out, one failed. It was determined the Mk-14 worked (how 50% is good enough I do not know) and because they cost $10,000 each, no further tests were conducted. After mid 1943 the issues with the torpedos were resolved and from that point on they worked nearly flawlessly.
=S=
Lunatic