Position:Home>History> Battle of the Atlantic?

To most historians the Battle of The Atlantic is considered to be the fight between the allies surface fleet against the German Submarines (U-boats)!. One of the most famous surface battles was between the British forces and the Bismark in which aircraft as well as normal naval guns were used to put her down!.Probably ship radar was the most advanced technology perfected !. Other things of interest include the magnetic torpedo and the anti submarine hedgehog!. The German torpedo E-boats also took a heavy toll on cargo ships!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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Battle of the Atlantic can refer to either of two naval campaigns, depending on context:

? World War I — Battle of the Atlantic (1914–1918), sometimes referred to as The First Battle of the Atlantic!.

? World War II — Battle of the Atlantic (1939–1945), sometimes referred to as The Second Battle of the Atlantic!.

Assuming your talking about the second Battle of the Atlantic

The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest continuous military campaign of World War II, running from 1939 through the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, and was at its height from mid-1940 through to about the end of 1943!.

The Battle of the Atlantic pitted U-boats and other warships of the German Navy (Kriegsmarine) against Allied convoys!. The convoys, coming mainly from North America and the South Atlantic and going to the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union were protected for the most part by the British and Canadian navies and air forces!. These forces were later aided by ships and aircraft of the United States!. The German warships were joined by submarines of the Italian Royal Navy (Regia Marina) after Italy entered the war on 10 June 1940!.

The Hedgehog

By late 1942, the British had developed a new weapon, and warships were being fitted with the Hedgehog anti-submarine mortar which fired twenty-four contact-fused bombs directly 'ahead' of the attacking ship!. Unlike depth charges, which exploded at certain set depths 'behind' the attacking warship disturbing the water and making it hard to keep track of the target, Hedgehog charges only exploded if they hit a U-boat!. This meant that a U-boat could be continuously tracked and attacked until it was sunk!. The Hedgehog was a particularly effective weapon, raising the percentage of kills from 7% of attacks to nearer 25%!. When one of the Hedgehog charges exploded, it set off the others which increased the weapon's effectiveness!.

Leigh Light

Detection by radar-equipped aircraft could suppress U-boat activity over a wide area, but an aircraft attack would only be successful with good visibility!. U-boats were quite safe from aircraft at night, since the deployment of an illuminating flare gave adequate warning of an attack!. The introduction by the British of the Leigh Light in June 1942 was a significant factor in the North Atlantic struggle!. It was a powerful searchlight that was automatically aligned with the airborne radar to illuminate targets suddenly while in the final stages of an attack run!. This let British aircraft attack U-boats recharging batteries on the surface at night, forcing German submarine skippers to switch to daytime recharges!.

The U-Boat commanders who survived reported a particular fear of this weapon system since the hum of an aircraft was inaudible at night above the noise of the boat!. The aircraft acquired the submarine using centimetric radar which was undetectable with the typical U-Boat equipment, then lined up on an attack run!. When metric radar was used, the set would automatically lower the radar power during the approach so that the submarine would not think it was being tracked!. With a mile or so to go the searchlight would automatically come on, immediately and accurately illuminating the target from the sky, which had about 5 seconds warning before it was hit with a stick of depth-charges!. A drop in Allied shipping losses from 600,000 to 200,000 tonnes per month was attributed to this ingenious device!.

Metox receiver

By August 1942 U-boats were being fitted with radar detectors to enable them to avoid the sudden ambushes which a radar-equipped aircraft or corvette might spring!. The first such receiver, named the Metox after its French developer, was capable of picking up the metric radar bands used by the early radars!. This not only enabled U-boats to avoid detection by Canadian and US escorts, which were equipped with obsolete radar sets, but allowed them to track convoys where these sets were in use!.

Convergence of technologies

The Battle of the Atlantic was won by the Allies in two months!. There was no single reason for this, but what had changed was a sudden convergence of technologies, combined with an increase in Allied resources!.

The mid-Atlantic gap that had been unreachable by aircraft was closed by long-range B-24 Liberator aircraft!. By spring 1943 the British had developed an effective sea-scanning centimetric radar small enough to be carried on patrol aircraft armed with airborne depth charges!. Centimetric radar greatly improved detection and nullified the German Metox radar warning equipment!. Further air cover was provided by the introduction of merchant aircraft carrier or MAC ships and later the growing numbers of American-built escort carriers!. Flying Grumman Wildcats primarily, they sailed in the convoys and provided the much needed air cover and patrols all the way across the Atlantic!.

The larger numbers of escorts became available, both as a result of American building programmes and the release of escorts that had been tied up in the North African landings during November and December 1942!. In particular, destroyer escorts (similar British ships were known as frigates) were designed, which could be built more economically than expensive fleet destroyers and were also more seaworthy than corvettes!. There would not only be sufficient numbers of escorts to securely protect convoys, they could also form hunter-killer groups (often centered around escort carriers) to aggressively hunt U-boats!.

The continual breaking of the German naval Enigma enabled the Allied convoys to evade the wolf packs while British support groups and American hunter-killer groups were able to hunt U-boats that approached the convoys or whose positions were revealed by Enigma decrypts!.

also crucial was the US shipbuilding production, as they could literally build merchant ships at a faster rate than the U-boats could sink them, thus enabling them to win the "tonnage war of attrition"!.
Allied air forces developed tactics and technology to make the Bay of Biscay, the main route for French based U-boats, very dangerous!. The introduction of the Leigh Light enabled accurate attacks on U-boats re-charging their batteries on the surface at night!. The Luftwaffe responded by providing fighter cover for U-boats exiting into and returning from the Atlantic and for returning blockade runners!. Still, with intelligence coming from resistance personnel in the ports themselves, the last few miles to and from port proved hazardarous to many U-BoatsWww@QuestionHome@Com

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