The Royal Navy and Anti-submarine Warfare, 1917-49An essential new account of how anti-submarine warfare is conducted, with a focus on both historic and present-day operations. This new book shows how until 1944 U-boats operated as submersible torpedo craft which relied heavily on the surface for movement and charging their batteries. This pattern was repeated in WWII until Allied anti-submarine countermeasures had forced the Germans to modify their existing U-boats with the schnorkel. Countermeasures along also pushed the development of high-speed U-boats capable of continuously submerged operations. This study shows how these improved submarines became benchmark of the post-war Russian submarine challenge. Royal Navy doctrine was developed by professional anti-submarine officers, and based on the well-tried combination of defensive and offensive anti-submarine measures that had stood the press of time since 1917, notwithstanding considerable technological change. This consistent and holistic view of anti-submarine warfare has not been understood by most of the subsequent historians of these anti-submarine campaigns, and this book provides an essential and new insight into how Cold War, and indeed modern, anti-submarine warfare is conducted. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Mastering the submersible 193943 | 28 |
countering the schnorkel 194445 | 45 |
Tactics refined from experience | 56 |
Prospects of the Uboat war | 63 |
Assessments of the Russian threat | 93 |
Antisubmarine problems of the future and attackatsource | 119 |
Submarine tactical and technical development | 129 |
Antisubmarine trials at sea | 140 |
7 | 147 |
joining up the dots 19449 | 170 |
Notes | 177 |
Bibliography | 201 |
Other editions - View all
The Royal Navy and Anti-Submarine Warfare, 1917-49 Malcolm Llewellyn-Jones No preview available - 2005 |