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July 1, 2005

Das Boot: A Brief History of Submarines

I was reading aloud the back cover of a Dirk Pitt novel on which author Clive Cussler mentions how he and his National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA) buddies once raised a Confederate submarine, the C.S.S. Hunley, from its watery grave.

"Confederate submarine?!" Shane exclaimed, disbelievingly. "What Confederacy are they talking about?"

"Ours, I presume," said I. "Kind-of like Old Ironsides or whatever that submersible floating can was."

"I thought the Germans had the only ones in the War, thus the name U-Boat," replied Shane.

"No, I'm pretty sure subs have been around longer than that. I think it had more to do with the fact that Britain had the misfortune of being an island, and the U-Boats were able to prey on supply caravans of ships and such. It was their tactics, not a monopoly on subs, that made the German U-Boats so successful."

Thus we decided that I should follow-up on my cryptography article, which featured the German Enigma machine used on German U-Boats, with a brief history of submarines to resolve this confusion.

Now clearly my naval history sucks. Old Ironsides is the nickname for the thick-skinned naval ship the USS Constitution, a large frigate that won its notoriety in the War of 1812 and is currently moored in Boston on display. Oops on that one. But silly nicknames aside, I was right about the history of submarines. They are a lot older than World War II.

Discounting Robin Hood and his clever use of river reeds, the first seeds were sown in the 1580's. Englishman William Bourne, whose drawings put one in the mind of Da Vinci's helicopter ideas, is considered to have had the first inklings on the construction of a working submersible, and he was followed by others.

However, it's the Americans who are credited with building the first real submarine. In 1776, David Bushnell built a one-man sub which was actually able to attack an enemy warship, albeit unsuccessfully, since he was unable to penetrate the British ship's hull. About 25 years later, Robert Fulton had better success with his Nautilus, and coined the term torpedo.

It wasn't until February 17, 1864, that a submarine ever successfully sunk a warship. The CSS Hunley attacked USS Housatonic, but then mysteriously disappeared with all hands. It was not found again until 1995, presumably by Clive Cussler and his NUMA buddies. It had sank within 1000 yards from the scene of action.

For the next 50 years, submarines and torpedoes got bigger and better. By the turn of the century, the sub shape we have all come to know was becoming a reality, but a lot of problems had to be overcome, including power, pressure, fresh air, safety, and underwater navigation. Naval military agencies of the United States and Europe as well as private contractors continued to work on sub construction.

In 1906, the first German U-Boat (U-1) was launched. In fact, the Germans did not jump at adding submarines to their naval forces. By the time they added a second boat, U-2, to their fleet, the French navy had 60 subs, and the British had about the same. But by the time the Germans had 40 subs, they were making significant leaps in sub design. Their newest line carried multiple torpedoes and a range of almost 8000 miles. But it was the Americans with their E-Boats (diesel) that first crossed the Atlantic in 1912.

On the eve of World War I, the stage was set for subs to get their first real opportunity for use in battle. However, with submarine naval tactics being a fledgling concept, navies had a very hard time finding qualified personnel to man the ships.

Submarine-history.com provides some great stats on the naval usage of submarines at the beginning of WWI:

Prior to the war, the submarine was more of a nautical curiosity than a weapon of destruction, but by the close of the war the usefulness of the submarine had been proven beyond doubt. The first Battle of the Atlantic gave everyone a chance to test out their submarine technology - and pointed out some of the innovations needed. Sonar, used for underwater navigation and ranging of targets, was one such invention. Many of the successful crews would become the "experienced" crews in World War II, including German U-boat skipper Karl Doenitz.

The Treaty of Versailles didn't just demobilize the German standing army, it also crippled their navy. The Treaty explicitly stated that no submarines were to be included in their military. The only way that the Germans were able to keep up with submarine technology was to design and develop commercially for the international market. These efforts would also serve as the prototypes for the newest fleet of U-Boats. The Germans continued to operate in a clandestine fashion up until the beginning of World War II.

Meanwhile, Karl Doenitz was developing new submarine tactics for the German navy like "Wolf Packing" (gangs of subs converging on a target - the more defenseless, the better) and "Tonnage War" (targeting of merchant ships). These tactics, combined with an heretofore unheard-of implementation of cryptography in the form of the German Enigma machine, would render the German navy almost unstoppable during the Second World War.

There is no one reason why the Second Battle of the Atlantic eventually ended in the favor of the Allies. The German sub tactics worked exceedingly well early on when convoys were often unprotected. Later, American military vessels accompanied the convoys as military escort. The Allies also began sweeping the Atlantic with sea-scanning radar and Leigh Lights - which were basically high powered flashlights fitted onto aircraft - which could spot U-Boats when they emerged at night to recharge their
batteries.

However, the most significant element to the Allied victory in the Atlantic was the cracking of the German Enigma code. The German tactics had been formed on the assumption that the Enigma code was absolutely unbreakable. By 1943, the code had been broken and more and more German naval traffic was being decoded. The Allies knew where the packs were forming and sent in the anti-sub ships to destroy them. The fact that the German Navy closely directed their U-Boat operations over the wire and didn't believe their messages could be deciphered became a fatal flaw in tactics.

The hunters became the hunted and the German U-Boat fleet began to experience heavy losses. Despite the fact that U-boat losses dropped every time a new version of the Enigma policy was introduced, the Germans did not catch on to the fact that their code had been compromised. Over the course of a couple of months, the vast majority of the U-boat fleet was sunk.

And that, my friends, is a brief history of submarines up until the Cold War Era. And that is for a different day.

Much of this information came from a couple of websites on submarine history.

Submarine History
Answers.com: Submarines
Confederate Submarine
UBOAT.NET
British Submarines of World War II

The images above are from the Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Catalog (PPOC).

Posted by sorsha at July 1, 2005 8:09 AM