How exactly did countries manage to convince men to do inside early submarines...

For the US at least, submarines have always been a volunteer service, even during the height of WW2.

IIRC the Germans on the other hand had to start using draftees after 1942-43, the increasing losses meant that they weren't getting enough volunteers to replenish the 75% of submariners who weren't coming back from patrols.

I've heard somewhere that if Germany had built more U-boats before the start of WW2 they could have strangled Britain. Is that true? Would Britain have ever surrendered if ships were not getting through?

Perhaps, but the real hindrance was that the Germans just didn't have that many shipyards compared to the British. It wasn't until they conquered France that they were really able to shift U-boat production into full gear.

The other huge problem is that Britain had bases to give air cover to their convoys in the primary atlantic routes

Germany had planes to contest them, but they just couldn't get out far enough from bases in France.

Planes shoot subs. Subs don't shoot planes. Having air advantages over the convoy routes is massive.

And almost all u-boats were built in Kiel; the fall of France was more important for basing than it was for production.

What's the worst that could happen bro.

Someone post the picture of that guy who was sucked through a hole smaller than his head when his diving gear fucked up.

nice post

or the many many pressure chamber related mishaps
it's good you don't know feel a thing if something bad happens

>How exactly did countries manage to convince men to do inside early submarines?

Men aren't selfish fucks, like women, and understand the concept of duty and sacrifice, and willingly risk their lives for their groups/nations, so that others don't have to...

watch Das Boot

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_submarine_Kursk_(K-141)

>unfathomable
heh good one

Watch Band of Brothers.

the only motivation for paratroopers was more money

Watch the Spielberg movie Bridge of Spies for a good look at the incentives. not the same situation, but when the government was screening for candidates for test the U2 spy plane, they offered sweet pay and bonuses for successful missions inside the soviet union, despite the risks of detection and the order that you must kill yourself to avoid being captured.

there's always going to be adventurers who want to try new things and will be happy to hop right in an experimental plane or go to the bottom of the seas, the pay, rank, and other perks doesn't hurt either.

I did watch that movie and I know exactly the scene you're referencing. The scene where the CIA guy comes in and says "this is dangerous as fuck, but we need this, your country needs this, and you four are the only guys capable of doing it."

You don't really have a choice... You don't join the army to do what you want to do....

>navigate through a few related pages
>1995 - A nuclear submarine had its electricity cut by an electricity company at a naval base due to unpaid bills. The submarine's cooling system ceased to function and the reactor "came close to meltdown".
Fucking Russians

That's what Donitz believed, but obviously the Bismarck was a far better idea and totally wasn't a waste of steel, money and manpower.

Germany really did much some dumbass decisions. The entire Battle of Britain was a mistake for Germany. It had no chance of succeeding. Germany had no heavy bombers capable of doing even close to enough damage to make bombing raids worth it.

Out of curiosity, how many U-boats could they have made if they didn't build the Failmark? It had a displacement of 40000 - 50000 tons depending on how full it was loaded while the typical U-boat had a surfaced displacement of 1600 tons. So they could have built roughly 28 u-boats with materials used in the Bismark. Probably not enough to win the war but it certainly would have been more effective than what they got.

It would have meant leaner years for British and Russian civilians in 40-42 until the improved anti-submarine warfare equipment and tactics are deployed. But ultimately it just means it take a few months longer for 11 time zones of Stalin to come crashing down on Berlin.

Here's another great one:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreev_Bay_nuclear_accident
>The repository was constructed in the early 1960s by construction brigade soldiers from central Asian and caucasian republics, many of whom did not have professional construction training, and some could not speak Russian language.
>An attempt to eliminate the leak was made by pouring in with 20 sacks of flour, thus filling the cracks with dough.

It's up there with "Security guard at a Brazilian hospital skips work to see Herbie Goes Bananas with his family, while he's gone scrap metal thieves break in and steal some radioactive material, and take it back home so their families can play with the magically glowing blue dust"

Not him, but to be honest, it's probably less than that; I don't know if the bottleneck was raw materials, skilled labor, or shipyard space, but given the number of u-boats the Germans were churning out, I have a suspicion that the sub docks were operating at full or near capacity anyway.

Add in a few of the other useless pieces of shit like the Tirpitz. Scharnhorst, and Gneisenau and it's almost 100 more

There was also a fairly successful operation where German night fighters would, instead of intercepting bombers, would fly to RAF airfields and then attack the bombers as they were taking off or landing. However Hitler ordered it stopped because "the bombers need to be shot down over Germany instead to improve morale!" and the squadron doing the attacks was sent to the Mediterranean.

To be fair, downing Allied planes over Germany has a greater tendency to put their pilots and crew out of action, whereas downing them in Britain (especially at low altitudes) means that a lot of them come back in another plane soon.

>Scharnhorst, and Gneisenau

That reminded me:
navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-044.htm
>For example, the new battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were found to be incapable of shooting their main guns in the autumn 1939. This could only be corrected after 22,000 yards (!) of useless electrical wires were removed and major modifications were made to the Fire Control circuits and mechanisms.

That would be that famous German naval engineering at work