A recent comment from /u/an_ironic_username drew my attention to a German attempt during the First World War to use submarines for mercantile shipping in a bid to get around the Allied blockade. A fascinating idea.

Can either of you tell us about other possible unorthodox uses to which submarines were put during either war?

During the world wars did submarines from opposing sides often come into contact with each other? I am under the impression that this was planned to be the case during a warming up of the Cold War, and wondered why U-864 was the only submarine to betorpedoed by another (or so I have been told).

Random question...

I geeked out recently on the subs used during the U.S. Civil War, and wondered when and where the new modifications were made, and what were the modifications, from those early designs leading to the WWI models. Basically, what was going on in the late 19th to early 20th century to improve subs so drastically?

Which type of supplies would a U-boat run out of most quickly?

How long would it take for a U-boat to be forced to return to base or meet with a resupply submarine?

What are your opinions on Das Boot? Were there any glaring inaccuracies or things that the movie portrayed surprisingly well?

(WWII)

Were any U-Boats fired on (or sunk?) by United States Navy forces before the actual declaration of war?

Any information you can give me on the U Boat bunkers on Heligoland and their role in the two world wars would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks for doing an AMA guys, much appreciated. I have a question for both of you, regarding identification of ships from a U-Boat perspective. In both wars there were neutral ships at sea, and although many (particularly in WWI) were sunk, surely there were steps in place to attempt to mitigate this, and appropriately identify the spotted ship? How concerned were the captains of torpedoing a neutral ship? Was there a culture of shoot first, check later, or the other way around?

Thank you for your time!

When I hear discussion of U-boats, it is sometimes as though they were the only submarine causing consistent problems at the time. What sort of submarines did they face, and how did they deal with them? Were they equipped to handle it, or not?

What was the experience to die on a u-boat that was depth charged. What was the death process of the submarine itself?

Not too long ago, I bought a copy of Red Star Under the Baltic, a Soviet submariner's WWII memoir. What did Soviet submarines do in the Atlantic during the war, and can you recommend sources?

What differed (or similarities) in the attitudes and capabilities of the Royal Navy to the German Imperial Navy to their Submarine arms in WW 1 and did this have an impact subsequently in the development and expansion of those arms in WW2?

Did U-Boats play any role in the Mediterranean theater at any point during the first or second world wars?

Were any U-boats present during the battle of Jutland? If so, what role did they play in the battle?

I was wondering if there's been research into the psychological effects of submarine warfare on the submarine crews themselves. I recently read an interesting article about lobotomies on WW2 veterans with PTSD-like symptoms and it felt like the majority of men subjected to the treatment were in the airforce, more specifically in bombers. Now of course, this could be due to the material the writer had access to, but I can see why bomber crews would be specifically affected - being stuck in such an inhospitable environment, miles above the ground with no safe escape, often under heavy fire against which you're essentially helpless, not to mention the mental strain caused by the fact that they were often bombing civilian centres... It's more than enough to cause extreme mental strain, even compared to ordinary combat.

I was wondering if there's a parallel with submarine warfare, where instead of helpless miles above the ground, you're helpless miles below the sea. And where instead of bombing cities, you're hunting down and sinking merchants. Regardless of the validity of the comparison, is there anything known about the mental state of submarine veterans?

One of the "forgotten battles" of the First World War was the struggle for control of the Black Sea between the Ottomans/Germans and the Russians. Asides from Nekrasov's excellent early '90s book North of Gallipoli, are either of you aware of any other English sources that deal with Black Sea naval combat, and the use of submarines therein, between 1914 and October 1917?

Battle of St. Lawrence was a battle that i read about where the U-Boats inflicted heavy damage in a span of few months. Are there any such definitive battles where the U-Boats came out as clear winners? Also What books would you suggest I read to know more about the U-boats and the men who commanded and called the U-Boats their home?

Are there any numbers (or general proportions) on how much of Germany's economy was devoted to the U-boat campaigns? Without going too far down the 'what if' rabbit hole, how much more would Germany have had to spend in this area to get a more decisive result?

Also, how was recruiting done for U-boats? Was it an all volunteer force, or could one be drafted into the service? If it was volunteer, how difficult was it for Germany to find these volunteers? Did it become more difficult as the two wars went on, especially with the high casualty rates in WWII?

What were the differences between WWI and WWII for U-boats?

How did U-Boats in WW1 navigate before the advent of radar or sonar?

I think in Castles of Steel the author claims that the nearest Britain came to losing either of the World Wars was in 1917 prior to the institution of the convoy system when they were only a couple of weeks away from running out of food. However, demonstrably they weren't really close to losing the war, the system had been proposed and once enacted ended the u boat threat of ending the war.

Do you think its accurate to make that claim on the grounds that the U Boats could have ended the war and if so does that mean that the policy of unrestricted submarine warfare was a wholly justifiable and nearly successful one?

Ham radio operator here. What sort of radio gear did early u boats carry, and how reliable was it?

Those small Biber submarines. Are there any reported successes? Let's say in the area of the Scheldt.

First question: Where there any/many "blue-on-blue" attacks or sinkings on submarines during either WWI or WWII?

Second question: IIRC The British had more submarines at the start of the war than Germany. What did they do with them? Was there much impact from their use?

This might seem like a silly question but...why were U-boats called U-boats? What differentiates them from the submarine?

In Operation Drumbeat (or Second Happy Time) the German U-boats were surprisingly effective at sinking U.S. merchant ships off the US coast.

Reading the wiki page, it almost seemed like the U.S. had no answers to fight them off - is this true? And if so, why did the attacks stop?

Is Clay Blair's two volume history on WWII Uboats decent? I think it's about the only thing I've read aside from very general accounts.

Hows much co-operation there was between German U-Boats and finnish navy/radio intelligence or did they ever use finnish ports as bases? I know of some visits to ports such like Vaasa to extract personnel etc but wouldn't mind more knowledge of such operations.

One question for each of you!

For /u/an_ironic_username: I read an adventure novel at another user's suggestion called "The 39 Steps", and it includes a part where a German spy secretly arrives in England by submarine. Are there any notable examples of this actually happening? Did it ever?

For /u/RyanGlavin: Just how frustrating is the movie "U-571" for you to watch, and why? I guess this assumes it IS frustrating but I feel pretty safe in that.

My grandpa captained a sub chaser in WW2 -- I believe it was a late WW1 ship pressed into service after Pearl Harbor. He served in the North Atlantic, and, either before or after, worked on the development of sonar. A few questions:

What was the role of a sub chaser in convoy duty? How could a single ship effectively defend a group of larger ships (any strategy)? And, what can you tell me about the development of sonar? Are there any good book recommendations?

I know it's a little late, but I would really appreciate any information. I've always been curious, but grandpa didn't like to go into detail.

Hi y'all, interesting field you guys have.

I'm somewhat familiar with aerial submarine warfare from world war two. What sort of methods did airplanes have to harass submarines (if any) from the first world war?

Were there any cases of U-boats (crews) defecting or turning their priorities wildly away from the mission at hand?

My great uncle served as an ASDIC operator three Norwegian U-boats during WWII; HNoMS Ula, Uredd and Utsira. I have a couple of questions:

1. It seems that HNoMS Ula was the allied U-boat that sunk the most enemy tonnage in the Atlantic during the war (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong!). How is it that a U-boat patrolling the Norwegian coastline winds up being one of the most successful allied U-boats during the entire war? I was wondering if it might be due to the large-scale transportation of iron ore from Narvik, but that's just speculation on my part.

2. How active would an ASDIC operator typically be during a patrol along the coast? My relative said that they actively listened quite frequently as a precautionary measure, but I'm not sure how often that actually might have been. Sorry if this is a bit too specific!

Thanks!

(For anyone that might be interested, HNoMS Ula's sinking of the German U-974 U-boat on 19 April 1944 is a very interesting read!)

Just how bad did a Uboat and crew smell at the end of a patrol?

Please some insights on the "USO" found in the Baltic Sea !

Sorry for not being directly related to U-Boats, but experts are saying it was an anti-submarine "secret Nazi" weapon. BTW thanks for the contribution !!

I was told by relatives that my great grandfather sunk German U-boats in WWII. I was just wondering what exactly the process for finding and sinking these would have been like back then as he never really talked about it. I just want to know what it would have been like for him during the war.

Any information would be appreciated! Thanks!

Is the movie Das Boot as realistic as it seems to be? If not, which aspects are dramatized the most?

I had a relative serve on the Alexander Hamilton, a US Coast Guard Vessel that was sunk near Iceland right after the US entry into WWII.

Can either of you tell me the role of the US Coast Guard in the War and how it compared to US Navy roles in the Atlantic?

I've heard that the main reason U-Boats were less effective in the later stages of WWII at disrupting Allied shipping was due to the adoption of a convoy system.

How accurate is that?

Do we know what officers and seamen thought about unrestricted submarine warfare?

How much of a role in anti-submarine warfare did the "Huff-duff" system of triangluation play, versus the information provided by the enigma decrypts? Was the huff-duff system fast enough to warn a convoy of a nearby u-boat that had sent a sighting report?

Modern submariner here (RN, SSNs)! Did submariners in the two wars suffer any particular ill effects, long term or short term, from the in board atmosphere? We put such high stock on scrubbing equipment nowadays the atmosphere in a nuclear boat is probably cleaner than fresh air, but with the diesels donking away all day in an early boat were exhaust fumes an issue? Or were the ventilating regularly enough for it not to be a problem?

Also, escape. Are there many examples of submariners successfully escaping stricken boats, or were they the unforgiving death traps I've always assumed they are?

My great-grandfather was actually sunk and killed by a U-Boat on 27th April 1941. The U-Boat was the U-552, commanded by Erich Topp, while my great-grandfather was on a fishing trawler, the Commander Horton. My great-grandfather's vessel was the smallest craft sunk by Topp and the U-552.

While there are some sources that claim that the Commander Horton was an Admiralty vessel, we know, and have confirmed that this was not the case (Wikipedia is one such site that claims that the Commander Horton was an Admiralty vessel), though the Commander Horton had been used as an armed trawler by the Admiralty in 1917-1919 and (possibly) for a brief period in 1940.

We suspect that Topp targeted the Commander Horton for propaganda reasons, given the role of Admiral Max Horton as Commander-in-Chief Western Approaches Commander - the ability to boast that he had "sunk Commander Horton".

Is this likely, or were trawlers routinely targeted, or would Topp have had reason to believe that the Commander Horton was armed/an Admiralty vessel?

I play Silent Hunter 3 and there was a little debate among the community about whether WWII U-Boots periscope sigh was stabilized or not IRL. What do you think about it?

I know I'm waaaay late, but I'm hoping you might check back here and answer some more.

In just about every US WWII Pacific submarine commander's memoir, there's a mention of a US senator or congressman who gave a press conference in which he refuted Japanese claims of sinking our boats, by publicly announcing that the Japanese depth charges were set too shallow, a problem that the Japanese quickly rectified.

Is this story apocryphal, or was it a real incident, and if so, did it have as dramatic an impact on US losses as commanders believed? And again, if so, did the person who made the announcement suffer any political or legal repercussions?