On the question of German submarine attacks during World War II

Depth: 150-350 meters.

Drainage: about 1000 tons.

Attack: Radar.

Tactic: Wolves.

Germany has not developed much in sonar and radar, relying on the head wolf to command the encirclement attack.

The essence of the "wolf pack tactic" is to concentrate the combined forces of weak and small ships to destroy heavy ships, and in the operation, several ships are generally sent to hunt at sea, generally attacking at night, and there is a "wolf head" ship to command the unified action of the "wolf pack". It is common practice for ships to stealthily pass through gaps or flanks of the opposing convoy when they are spotted, evading their fire barrier and approaching the target. During the day, the ships occupied favorable attack positions in all directions, concealed themselves underwater, and at night suddenly rose out of the water and simultaneously fired torpedoes at the target.

wolf pack tactics" hence the name.

German submarines usually operate on the surface, and there are special people responsible for using binoculars and sonar to find targets. After discovering the target, it will dive to the periscope depth, drive it with electricity, and then quietly approach the target, the captain calculates the advance and reports the data to the torpedo room, and then looks at the stopwatch and waits for the torpedo to work.

Completely rely on the surface visual search for the target, but also through the radio to receive the target information of the headquarters, after approaching the target, it is completely underwater attack, can only rely on the periscope to determine the distance, speed, course and other basic information, and then set the firing parameters for the torpedo, and finally launch a torpedo attack.

First, the best of the large ocean-going submarines put into mass production is the UXXI, the world's first submarine designed to be used entirely for underwater operations, and is the ancestor of modern attack submarines.

It is a monster with an autoloader that can throw 18 torpedoes in 20 minutes. The advanced sonar system made it possible to fire torpedoes without raising the periscope to aim. The streamlined shape design, not equipped with large-caliber naval guns, and the streamlined anti-aircraft defense turret ensured that its underwater speed could reach the highest knots, almost twice the underwater limit speed of other submarines at that time.

As long as the battery is recharged with a snorkel submersible state for 5 hours, it can continue to fight underwater for about 48 hours at a speed of 6 knots.

Moreover, the UXXI is the world's first submarine to use modular mass production manufacturing technology. Unfortunately, due to the immaturity of the technology and the impact of repeated Allied air raids on the production plans of submarine manufacturers in the later stages of the war, it actually took a lot of time to adjust the connection between the modules, resulting in only 4 submarines of this type entering service until the end of the war.

Second, there is almost no information about the food treatment of the German submarine forces in World War II, which can be found on the Internet. However, at least the treatment of the army units is well documented. Basically, the soldiers have a fixed ration of bread, meat (including fresh meat, bacon, sausages, canned food, etc.), vegetables (fresh or dried), potatoes, drinks (coffee, tea, etc.), and even tobacco and alcohol every day (whether they can be achieved in actual combat is another matter......).）

It is not easy to supply submarine forces, so there may be some differences in types, but the standard should be higher than that of the army. In addition, officers are always treated higher than soldiers.

In the movie "Das Boot", the officers on the submarine can still eat veal steak for dinner when they first set sail. After a few weeks of drifting, you can only drink tomato soup and bread.

The legendary Nazi submarines of World War II were called U-boats. Germany began building submarines in 1935. The Type A became the first combat-ready submarine of Nazi Germany, and after the Type A entered service, it mainly trained excellent crews and provided reliable data for the construction of submarines in the future.

Type A is not advanced, with a displacement of only 254 tons on the water, and it is a submarine of the problematic type, mainly with power plants and seals. The Navy decided to improve into Type B submarines. Type B thickens the thickness of the ballast chamber and increases the depth to 120 meters.

In addition, the length of the submarine was lengthened to meters. A total of 18 Type B vessels were approved for construction, numbering U-7 to U-24. A total of 20 Type B ships were eventually built.

After the B type was put into service, it became the main submarine of Germany at that time.

But their standard of food was much, much, much lower than that of the Allies. They really don't eat well...

At the beginning of World War II, there were 50,000 U-boat combat soldiers, and after the end of World War II, there were less than 10,000 left, which was called the "iron coffin".

The U-boat is well-made, easy to operate, and the diving speed is the fastest submarine even today. In the early years of World War II, the Allies suffered heavy losses because they did not receive enough attention. A total of 2,779 merchant ships and warships were sunk, adding 14.1 million tons of scrap iron to the sea.

The most famous of these is U552, nicknamed the Red Devil. Finally, in 1943, the Allies began to plan to solve the submarine threat at the Casablanca Conference, began to send frigates to the sea, and the British deciphered the German "fan" cipher machine, and the U-boat began to be unlucky. The U-boat, which used to be a hunter, became the prey, making the U-boat the second highest rate after the Japanese "kamikaze".

Even so, U-boats still write a page in the history of the world's bloodiest naval warfare that no one can match.

Submarine operations also depend on the length of the cycle, and how much man-machine technology can submarines guarantee you during World War II?It's good to be able to guarantee performance, and stay in an iron coffin in the sea for a few days or even months, so it is said that submariners are more men than armored soldiers.

During World War II, in addition to the German army and air force in the battlefield achieved good results, in the naval battle, Germany's submarine forces caused great losses to the Allied ships, therefore, Germany's submarine forces were called "ghost troops" by the Allies, however, the Allies were not fools, and various anti-submarine tactics also made Germany's submarines suffer huge losses.

According to post-war military statistics, Germany committed 1,113 submarines during the war, and during the war, a total of 704 submarines were sunk, not counting those that sank themselves, surrendered after the war, and seized by the Allies.

In addition to the loss of a large part of the German submarines, it also lost a large number of crews, according to statistics, more than 20,000 submariners died or were captured.

During the entire World War II, the worst year for German submarine losses was 1943, in 1943 alone, Germany lost about 10,000 submariners and 240 submarines, including a son of German submarine commander Dönitz.

During the Second World War, the German Navy committed 1,113 new submarines (minus the 57 submarines that existed before the outbreak of World War II). In addition to those who sank themselves, surrendered after the war, and were seized, the number and reasons for the losses of German submarines were as follows: 264 were sunk by enemy ships, 250 were sunk by enemy aircraft, 37 were sunk by enemy ships and aircraft, 46 were missing, 43 were destroyed by air raids in the harbor, 3 were captured, 35 were sunk by mines, 25 were sunk by accident, and 1 was sunk by the army.

A total of 704 ships.

Submariner losses were as follows: 26,971 submariners died while the submarine was sunk. Together with losses in other battles, about 28000 German submariners died, and thousands more were taken prisoner.

The German Navy during World War II, the losses of submarines and the death of sailors were as follows:

On September 1, 1939, World War II broke out. In just a few months in 1939, the German Navy lost 9 submarines and 204 submariners died.

In 1940, the German Navy lost 24 submarines and 643 submariners died.

In 1941, the German Navy lost 35 submarines and 887 submariners died.

In 1942, the number of submarines in Germany exceeded 300 units. Of these, nearly 200 can be used for combat. The losses of the German Navy in this year were twice as high as in 1941, with the loss of 86 submarines and the death of 3248 submariners.

1943 was a devastating year for the German submarine forces. A total of 240 submarines were lost and 10,065 submariners were killed (in May 1943, the number of German submarines lost was 42 more than in the whole of 1941).

In 1944, the German Navy lost 231 submarines and 7,876 submariners died.

In 1945, although only five months later, the German Navy still lost 124 submarines and 4,048 submariners died.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Germany declared war on the United States, and Dunlitz began to carry out "all-out unrestricted submarine warfare" against the United States.

Since Germany declared war on the United States, some countries in the Americas have also entered the war, and the war has spread to the entire Western Hemisphere. Previously, the battlefield of submarine warfare was only in the British Isles and the Mediterranean, but now Dunritz's submarines can move westward without fear and open up new battlefields. Germany built large submarines that could operate in the ocean, and it was complemented by giant fuel supply submarines with a displacement of 2,000 tons and nicknamed "Cows".

There are a total of 163 ocean-going submarines of the second and third types, which are similar in performance to large submarines, except that the displacement of ocean-going submarines is about 500 tons larger than that of large submarines, the length is 10 meters longer, and the number of personnel has increased by 10 people; Due to the increased amount of fuel, its endurance can reach 10,000 nautical miles, and the number of torpedoes carried has also increased by 2 or 3.