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Post by rob06waves2018 on Dec 4, 2018 6:28:53 GMT -6
I'm British so I tend to think of the Axis as mainly Germany and Italy. I forgot about Japan's imperial shipping. My bad.
But compared to Germany and Italy, Britain shipped a lot more across the oceans, just to stay alive. The reason, touched heavily upon in another thread, that Allied shipping didn't lose more is because of the countermeasures developed. It would be interesting to see the amount of shipping lost compared with relative fleet size.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Dec 4, 2018 9:18:13 GMT -6
I'm British so I tend to think of the Axis as mainly Germany and Italy. I forgot about Japan's imperial shipping. My bad. But compared to Germany and Italy, Britain shipped a lot more across the oceans, just to stay alive. The reason, touched heavily upon in another thread, that Allied shipping didn't lose more is because of the countermeasures developed. It would be interesting to see the amount of shipping lost compared with relative fleet size. It is easy to forget that the Japanese had far more raw materials to ship from the South Pacific to Japan than Germany and Italy ever had. Italy biggest shipping lane was from Naples to Bizerte for the North African Campaign. Germany was not reliant on overseas supplies even for oil which she got from Romania and the production of synthetic oil. The British had far more shipping requirements across the Atlantic from the US than anywhere else.
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Post by archelaos on Dec 4, 2018 13:20:41 GMT -6
While nowhere near UK or Japan, Germany had a lot of ship traffic - on Baltic and along the coat of Norway, while Italy was sending a lot of ships not only to Africa, but also between shores of Adriatic and to all the Greek Islands and garrison therein. There was also a lot of coastal traffic along the Italian Peninsula and connecting Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Dec 4, 2018 13:28:32 GMT -6
While nowhere near UK or Japan, Germany had a lot of ship traffic - on Baltic and along the coat of Norway, while Italy was sending a lot of ships not only to Africa, but also between shores of Adriatic and to all the Greek Islands and garrison therein. There was also a lot of coastal traffic along the Italian Peninsula and connecting Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica. Yes there was, to bring the Swedish iron ore to Germany. With the war in Russia, they had to use Narvik, which caused the Norwegian campaign. The story of the movement of the iron ore along the coast of Norway is interesting.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Dec 4, 2018 15:17:33 GMT -6
As we have moved through our discussion of Axis shipping, we must now realize that no major power was more dependent on ocean shipping than the Japanese. Her entire economy including basic materials for industry and extra staples required to feed and clothe her people were dependent on ocean shipping. She had no raw materials, her coal was no of coking quality and the most important raw material for her Navy, merchant marine and air force had to be imported. Japan in 1937, had 4.5 million tons of shipping in her merchant fleet carrying about 54 percent of her foreign commerce. With Pearl Harbor and the Southern Operation there was an expansion of territory under her control with a wide scattering of her armed forces in the field and this placed a formidable burden on supply by merchant ships. The conquered territories were long distances from Japan and these new resources had to take the place of prewar trade imports like the 80% of her fuel from the US transported by US tankers. Needless to say, due to prewar reduction by the Allies in trade with Japan over China, the shipping situation for Japan was not very good and nearly 4,100,000 tons of her 6,000,000 tons of shipping were assigned to the military. Allied offensives began to reduce Japanese shipping in as early as 1942. As the Japanese forces moved south, they began to take merchant losses around Singapore, and the Philippines due to aircraft and submarines. One issue for the Japanese was their decision not to develop convoy escorts and use convoys. This was predicated on the US’s avowed dislike of unrestricted submarine warfare. However, what the Japanese did not understand was that this was a political maneuver to satisfy other nations. The Navy, upon Nimitz becoming CINCPAC, declared unrestricted submarine warfare. Even though our commanders were not the best initially and the torpedoes, eventually by 1943 the game had changed. Around Guadalcanal the Japanese merchant fleet took heavy losses from which they never recovered.
So, the Japanese had not planned for unrestricted submarine warfare and with limited shipbuilding resources, in most cases dedicated to repair of damaged warships and building replacements, the shipping industry suffered and therefore the economy.
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Post by axe99 on Dec 4, 2018 15:29:45 GMT -6
Historically, the Axis Powers had the upper hand when it came to raiding as they hade some bases to operate from but they didn't have to ship as much material in vunerable convoys as the Allies did. Incidently, this is why the U-boat was so effective. I seem to recall that the Axis lost more shipping then the Allies did in WWII. However I was unable to confirm if this was true because it's basically impossible to google axis shipping losses except for Japan. No google, if I type "German merchant marine" I am not asking for information about uboats. The only information I could find was painfully indirect. As best as I can tell Japan lost about 10 million tons, Italy 2 million before their surrender but the figure for the rest of the Axis including Germany is really hard to say, not the least because the Germans looted so many ships from not only the people they conquered but also their former allies. However it seems very plausible to me that Axis tonnage losses were more then the ~21 million tons the allies lost. And while the absolute numbers are hard to pin down it's certainly true that the Axis powers lost a far, far higher proportion of their shipping. And in terms of effectiveness, that definitely goes to the American submarines. They sunk one third the tonnage but they did so with one quarter as many submarines in a shorter period of time and with 1/15th the losses. This suggests to me that the means of effectiveness is actually having a wide variety of options. If you can only attack with submarines, submarines will be sent on some missions with low effect. If you have alternative options you wont send the submarines out on some missions. As Oldpop's numbers will show (don't have time to look now, but I'm pretty confident it's a good link), while the Japanese did indeed lose a far higher proportion of their shipping, the Allies lost far more tonnage overall. In terms of looking at German U-boats effectiveness vs that of the US submarines, it's important to keep in mind that the U-boats generally faced far more difficult circumstances than those of the US subs - the Allies had both far better ASW technology and tactics, and many more ships and aircraft (this is a very rough guess, and I don't have a reference to back it up so this is no more than a gut feeling, but I'd wager Britain had more ships on ASW duties in 1939-1940 than Japan did at any stage in the war).
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Post by axe99 on Dec 4, 2018 15:32:05 GMT -6
As we have moved through our discussion of Axis shipping, we must now realize that no major power was more dependent on ocean shipping than the Japanese. Her entire economy including basic materials for industry and extra staples required to feed and clothe her people were dependent on ocean shipping. She had no raw materials, her coal was no of coking quality and the most important raw material for her Navy, merchant marine and air force had to be imported. Japan in 1937, had 4.5 million tons of shipping in her merchant fleet carrying about 54 percent of her foreign commerce. With Pearl Harbor and the Southern Operation there was an expansion of territory under her control with a wide scattering of her armed forces in the field and this placed a formidable burden on supply by merchant ships. The conquered territories were long distances from Japan and these new resources had to take the place of prewar trade imports like the 80% of her fuel from the US transported by US tankers. Needless to say, due to prewar reduction by the Allies in trade with Japan over China, the shipping situation for Japan was not very good and nearly 4,100,000 tons of her 6,000,000 tons of shipping were assigned to the military. Allied offensives began to reduce Japanese shipping in as early as 1942. As the Japanese forces moved south, they began to take merchant losses around Singapore, and the Philippines due to aircraft and submarines. One issue for the Japanese was their decision not to develop convoy escorts and use convoys. This was predicated on the US’s avowed dislike of unrestricted submarine warfare. However, what the Japanese did not understand was that this was a political maneuver to satisfy other nations. The Navy, upon Nimitz becoming CINCPAC, declared unrestricted submarine warfare. Even though our commanders were not the best initially and the torpedoes, eventually by 1943 the game had changed. Around Guadalcanal the Japanese merchant fleet took heavy losses from which they never recovered. So, the Japanese had not planned for unrestricted submarine warfare and with limited shipbuilding resources, in most cases dedicated to repair of damaged warships and building replacements, the shipping industry suffered and therefore the economy. Sorry for the double-post - another element of shipping that's often overlooked is coastal convoys - all of the powers in the second world war, including German and Italy, relied heavily on coastal convoys - but again, none moreso than Japan. Iirc, about 50% of their coal was transported from mine to place of use via coastal traffic. The heavy mining of Japan's coastal waters during devastated the Japanese economy, and has been argued by some (US and Japanese officers at the time, can't remember which ones) to have had a greater effect on Japan's decision to surrender than the atomic bombs.
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AiryW
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Posts: 183
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Post by AiryW on Dec 4, 2018 19:56:13 GMT -6
As Oldpop's numbers will show (don't have time to look now, but I'm pretty confident it's a good link), while the Japanese did indeed lose a far higher proportion of their shipping, the Allies lost far more tonnage overall. Japan != The Axis. I was specifically talking about how frustrating it was to get the numbers except Japan. I am annoyed.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Dec 4, 2018 22:12:16 GMT -6
Here is a web page that document's Italian ships lost during WW2. It includes troop ships, cargo ships, passenger ships, tankers, and tugs. It also has many others. Let's see, Japan covered and Italy covered. Just Germany left; right gents. www.world-war.co.uk/warloss_233italy.php3
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AiryW
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Post by AiryW on Dec 5, 2018 8:26:59 GMT -6
Here is a web page that document's Italian ships lost during WW2. It includes troop ships, cargo ships, passenger ships, tankers, and tugs. It also has many others. Let's see, Japan covered and Italy covered. Just Germany left; right gents. www.world-war.co.uk/warloss_233italy.php3And it points to this: www.maritimequest.com/database.htmWhich is friggin' beautiful. quick preliminary result of the tonnage of ships in that dataset that were: 1) Sunk between 1937 and 1945 inclusive 2) Had a listed tonnage 3) Had a listed nationality sinkings.csv (1.61 KB) This drops about half the ships from the list and I would naturally expect those be the smaller ships, generally speaking. It would also include ships that would have been broken up or shipwrecked from natural causes. It looks like the Japanese and Italian figures are about 1/3rd too small. I'm surprised by how small the French and Canadian tallies are. I'm surprised by how high the Dutch and Greek figures are. This doesn't solve the problem of the chaotic nature of ship ownership in Nazi occupied Europe however I might be able to assess that as I pick through the data more thoroughly.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Dec 5, 2018 9:31:39 GMT -6
So I can assume, that you are simply overwhelmed with happiness.
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AiryW
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Post by AiryW on Dec 5, 2018 9:36:51 GMT -6
So I can assume, that you are simply overwhelmed with happiness. Yeah, see the edit on the post. I have some time on my hands what with the semester wrapping up so I appreciate the early christmas present.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Dec 5, 2018 9:54:33 GMT -6
So I can assume, that you are simply overwhelmed with happiness. Yeah, see the edit on the post. I have some time on my hands what with the semester wrapping up so I appreciate the early christmas present. Oh!! That is wonderful. Get a copy of Google Earth and plot the wrecks. Now, are you going to go berserk on this link- www.abc.se/~pa/uwa/wreckbas.htm
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Post by admiralhood on Dec 5, 2018 10:42:09 GMT -6
Something I am not so sure about a US surface raider in the year of 1935 is its survivability against the the Japanese submarine and land based Mitsubishi G3M/G4M if you want to deploy it in the area of Borneo, Malaya.
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AiryW
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Posts: 183
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Post by AiryW on Dec 5, 2018 11:06:48 GMT -6
Something I am not so sure about a US surface raider in the year of 1935 is its survivability against the the Japanese submarine and land based Mitsubishi G3M/G4M if you want to deploy it in the area of Borneo, Malaya. Submarines in that role sounds consistent with their planning to me.
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