Submarines fascinate; they always have. Since their inception at the start of the 20th century, over time and warfare they have made the transition from small submersible craft of limited range to today's nuclear powered attack or strategic missile-firing submarines. In the beginning, the Royal Navy saw submarines as no fit place for an Officer and a Gentleman, such that for decades afterwards, the Submarine Service was "The Trade." But the First World War saw them come into their own, in the U-boat campaign against British and Allied shipping, and by British submarines in epic campaigns in the Baltic, in the Sea of Marmara and elsewhere. The submarine had truly arrived. The Second World War saw something very similar - for the submarines on each side were essentially very much the same as in 1914-18- small, torpedo-firing submarines, fitted with a deck gun for smaller targets, now with slightly increased speed, better torpedoes, greater endurance and diving depth. But essentially the same - diesel-powered submersibles which would spend the bulk of any patrol on the surface, and switching to massive batteries for underwater propulsion. There were very heavy shipping losses - from the U-boat campaign in the Battle of the Atlantic, by British submarines in the Mediterranean, and the most successful submarine campaign of them all, in the Pacific, where the United States Submarine Force effectively wiped out the Japanese merchant fleet. There were heavy submarine losses, too, Germany losing 80% of all its submarines in the course of the war.
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