It's Been said......

Brian W

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Despite their success, the Germans also had torpedo problems: http://www.uboataces.com/articles-wooden-torpedoes.shtml.

JR
Yes, that was one of my points. The US knew about the German problems,--the Brits had serious problems, too--but still failed adequately test their ignition system. That's bad, but what's worse (and head should have rolled over this) is that they didn't test them after the war started, but instead blamed the skippers, killing some young officers' careers in the process. The Germans fixed their problems in six months; it took the US a year longer, and our resources were far greater than Germany's.

It was a two year cluster fuck of the highest order, and cost the allies thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of lives.
 

Brian W

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Not quite. It is a bit like sports. You are judged on championships (overall effect)...ie tonnage sunk. Doesn't matter the season was not perfect...doesn't matter that there could have been a better torpedo for the US.
That excuses all sorts of failure. This failure cost thousands of marines their lives on islands across the Pacific. If you start adding in the potential Chinese, Burmese, Indonesian, and Filipino lives into the calculation, we are taking hundreds of thousands of lives.

We don't have to even mention the lives lost because of it. I bet if you were one of the commanders of a boat and had your career ruined over it you'd feel a bit differently about it.
 

Yuri0352

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Not quite. It is a bit like sports. You are judged on championships (overall effect)...ie tonnage sunk. Doesn't matter the season was not perfect...doesn't matter that there could have been a better torpedo for the US.

I suspect Donitz himself would have happily traded one aspect of 'his' advantages for more Allied merchant ships at the bottom of the sea.
Pretty spot on analogy.

Were there glaring deficiencies/defects with early U.S. torpedoes? Absolutely.
Was the U.S. Navy's response to the problem conducted rapidly and effectively? Certainly not.
Were American sailor's lives lost as a direct result of the initial response to the torpedo issue? No doubt.
Did the U.S. submarine force eventually succeed in sinking more Japanese shipping than the surface fleet and carrier aviation combined? Yes.

Pretty decent end results considering the 'broad spectrum of incompetence' as alleged to have existed within the WWII U.S. Navy.
 

Justiciar

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BW: >That excuses all sorts of failure. This failure cost thousands of marines their lives on islands across the Pacific. If you start adding in the potential Chinese, Burmese, Indonesian, and Filipino lives into the calculation, we are taking hundreds of thousands of lives.

We don't have to even mention the lives lost because of it. I bet if you were one of the commanders of a boat and had your career ruined over it you'd feel a bit differently about it.<


The lives lost are at the feet of the Axis. Nice try. Go around again...
 

daniel zucker

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Grenadine? Are you making cocktails? I'll have a Shirley Temple, please.

JR
hear, why don't you try the newest cocktail? It's call the 'Duck and Cover!'.....it's a blast, knock you right off, put you in the ground; forget about the hangover...you'll be all over.
 

Barking Monkey

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I'm inclined to agree with the Liberty ship and enigma answers above. For US forces I'd also throw in the C&K rations as a likely answer.
 
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