All's Fair in Love and War

The dying moments of a U-boat. The captain is forced to surface in an attempt to slow the heavy flooding. Once on the surface, he is at the mercy of the massive guns on the destroyer hunting him.

While combat submarines made their debut in The Great War, they were much more notorious in WW2, most notably in the form of German U-boats. Of course, U-boats are the anglicised form of u-boots, which itself is an abbreviation for unterseeboot. It's all the same, really. They're "undersea boats", adept at both surface cruising and underwater operations.

U-boats were ultimately just sophisticated launch platforms for their primary weapons: torpedoes. Early war models ran on a straight course to their target. All the torpedo officer could do was set a gyro angle for it to turn to, such that the sub need not directly face the target. Misses were high, duds were common, but a shrewd U-boat captain could rack up a large amount of merchant tonnage with a combination of both skill and luck.

Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of merchant ships, cargo and fuel were sent to the bottom of the ocean in the few short years of the war. Ok, the fuel won't sink... the tanker sank. Needless to say, the number of lives lost could almost reach the figure for tonnage sank.

However, the allies developed anti-sub tactics. Subs could not move underwater, move fast and move silent all at the same time. Destroyer and frigate captains used these limitations to full effect: the sub had to move underwater in the presence of these ships. The captain now had to force the sub captain into moving fast, thus creating more noise and making it easier to detect the sub. Forcing a sub to move fast usually involves dropping depth charges into the water over a sub's suspected position, forcing the sub captain to take drastic action or risk losing his boat. In moving into his attack run, the warship captain has to throttle up his engines, creating more noise and making it harder for him to detect the enemy sub. A skilled (or lucky) sub captain can use this increased noise to quickly put some distance between him and his predator. It was a harrowing cat and mouse game for the sub captain.

Once out of the depth charges' range, a cunning sub captain might want to initiate a little payback: firing from the stern mounted torp tube. The hunted now becomes the hunter; the destroyer captain now has to scramble to react accordingly.

Thousands of lives were lost in battles like these. Many were because of attrition. But many were also shrewd soldiers who ran out of luck. Literature calls the U-boat "wolfpacks" people who fought hard and fair.

Did they really fight fair? Was it fair to take out unarmed merchant ships or oil tankers? Was it fair to call the 2 years before allied ships wised up to U-boat attacks "happy times"?

All is fair in love and war.

In a war, an unarmed, undefended convoy is fair game. Don't lament over the few ships that were taken out by the U-boats. Blame the powerful governments and the politicians that started the war. The submarine captain was merely following orders; the politician declared the war.

How about in love then? Have we only ourselves to blame for looking for love? Is it fair to backstab a friend so that you end up with the girl both of you were fighting for? If you are heartbroken after a breakup, isn't it your fault then for investing so much of your emotions? Don't complain if you can't find a boyfriend/girlfriend, ask yourself why. Is it something about you? Are you trying hard enough?
I've had friends who keep making a big fuss about how they've been single all their lives. Hey, I've been too, so just go home and hunt some British destroyers on your PC -Jimmy