The U-Boat: The Convoy System

One of the major ways US forces combatted the U-Boat was by the use of Convoys. The Convoy system is a very old technique that was first revived to great effect during World War I by the US and its allies (Fontenoy, “Convoy”). The convoy system worked by simply grouping together ships to protect one another from a threat as a few ships working together to fight off a threat is better than one lone ship fighting off this threat (Fontenoy, “Convoy”). Convoys worked specifically well on U-Boats because U-Boats were built for offense and not for defense and so a few well placed shots could sink a U-Boat which was easier to provide with a few ships than just one. The convoy system had to be brought out again during World War I and World War

The use of convoys caused the destruction of increasingly more U-Boats and caused the U-Boat’s effectiveness to drop severely, however there were some things that made the use of convoys less effective. These things include the fact that the need of ships to use a convoy took these ships out of the direct war with the germans and their allies, also the german Wolf pack tactic was specifically made to combat the convoy method and proved partially successful in doing so (Fontenoy, “Convoy”). The convoy method was very successful in destroying u-boats and protecting their own ships for most of the war, even so the german use of the Wolf pack tactic made the convoy method less effective and continued to harm merchant and passenger vessels in the latter parts of both World Wars (Fontenoy, “Convoy”). Overall the use of convoys was a big part of how the US combatted U-Boats during World War I and World War

Depth charges were essentially payloads that were brought down to a certain depth at which they exploded (Lansford). Most depth charges used a system to measure the pressure and exploded once the desired pressure was reached (Lansford). Depth Charges were relatively simple idea, but they had major effects on U-Boats (Lansford). U-Boats were not built for defense a small explosion would send most u-boats to the ocean floor. The depth charge was first invented late in World War I and was therefore not used by many navies until World War II (Fontenoy, “Depth”). Depth charges were thrown off the side of ships or dropped out of aircrafts into the area where the U-Boat was last seen (Fontenoy, “Depth”). U-Boats were so effective in destroying U-Boats because the U-Boat was already under pressure due to being underwater and was not built to withstand any kind off blow so depth charges could very easily destroy a U-Boat and could do so in a short period of time. Depth charges were used in both World War I and World War II, but changed a severe amount between these two wars (Fontenoy, ”Depth”). The major way they changed between these two wars was not in the depth charges themselves it was more in more advanced drop patterns and more effective pressure readers that allowed ships and aircraft to destroy the U-Boats more efficiently (Fontenoy “Depth”). Also during World War II the types of explosives were