Prize rules

rudewarrior · 11-03-21, 01:44 PM

I knew about the U-96 incident from reading Das Boot. Didn't know about the Nicholas Cuneo. Always good to read about those individual stories.

The Germans were pretty much looking for any excuse to get to unrestricted warfare. However, the political situation created fluidity and openings.

I looked back through some of my notes and research. As far as Prize Rules abrogation goes, originally, ships eligible to be attacked without warning were escorted ships, those that refuse inspection, and troop/military transports. Of course, naval ships were always eligible for attack.

In the first hours of the war there was some confusion. War was declared and the uboats didn't know for 1-1/2 hours, since it wasn't communicated to them. Then there was an assumption that the war/political situation was reversible, and there was a question of whether they had to wait to be engaged before they could act.

Although prize crews are great because you get a free ship and some contraband, it would cause uboats to become operationally ineffective all the time as you had to offboard crew over operational time. In addition, during the stoppage, uboats were vulnerable on the surface.

From here, they started stripping parts away. Ships that fired on the uboat could be sunk (no brainer). This was a result of regular merchants who had small caliber defenses firing on the uboat and Q-ships. Ships that notified enemy of the uboat presence could be sunk, because enemy were showing up during the inspection boarding process. This also included small private vessels tooling around the British coast.

Somewhere in there they decided any ship that endangered a uboat, e.g. ramming, was eligible.

Any issue that created an issue with uboat safety created an opening to abrogate.

About 3 days before they declared a blockade around Britain, they announced they were abandoning the Prize Rules in the North Sea. Then they declared the blockade around Britain saying anything darkened was eligible for attack. In the middle of Oct 1939, they stopped boarding the ships and just examined the papers. Turns out there is no provision for armed merchants in the Prize rules and they declared them eligible around this time as well.

The lettered zones were a bit curious. Basically, they were trying to make the enemy believe that mines were sinking the ships. This is speculation, but I think the idea was make it a plausible idea that mine deployment was resulting in merchant ships being sunk. I think they were trying to achieve a few different things with this. One was immediate tactics and making the British think that it was a mine at that particular instant vs. a uboat, so the uboats would have some cover/distraction in shallow waters. I think they were also trying to create a political situation that had a couple of pieces to it. I think they were trying to embarrass the British by pointing to their mines as being unsafe for themselves, but also any merchants that would be coming in the area. This would supposedly help deter individual merchants from coming to this war zone, thus helping to strangle supply. Also, it would theoretically start deterring the British from using mines for the same reason. They used this system for the first 8 months of 1940 then replaced it with a blanket blockade. Once the French coast opened up, tactics shifted from the North Sea to the North Atlantic, specifically west of the British Isles. The blockade eventually extended west to encompass Iceland and the coast of Greenland. This was because there was a strategic advantage to attacking convoys in the Atlantic vs. operating in shallow waters around Britain with mines floating in the water and aircraft buzzing around.

At this point, it didn't change very much until the end of the war. They were taking over more countries and the conditions I previously posted were pretty much the norm.

The whole concept of stopping ships for inspection pretty much came to an end with the Laconia incident in September '42. Basically, uboats that were clearly assisting in a rescue operation were attacked by B-24 Liberators. By this point, it was pretty hard to justify not firing on a ship that looked suspicious, and the conditions that justified surfacing and inspecting the ships records were pretty restrictive.

Then they just started losing, and were pretty much fighting from a defensive crouch the remainder of the war.

The only caveat to this is how passenger ships were treated. They were in a separate category depending on whether they were armed, in a convoy, or a certain size. This was due to the sinking of the SS Athenia.

A lot of info, and I haven't bored you too much with this post.

11-03-21, 01:44 PM	#12
rudewarrior Sonar Guy Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Middlebury, VT, USA Posts: 378 Downloads: 165 Uploads: 2	I knew about the U-96 incident from reading Das Boot. Didn't know about the Nicholas Cuneo. Always good to read about those individual stories. The Germans were pretty much looking for any excuse to get to unrestricted warfare. However, the political situation created fluidity and openings. I looked back through some of my notes and research. As far as Prize Rules abrogation goes, originally, ships eligible to be attacked without warning were escorted ships, those that refuse inspection, and troop/military transports. Of course, naval ships were always eligible for attack. In the first hours of the war there was some confusion. War was declared and the uboats didn't know for 1-1/2 hours, since it wasn't communicated to them. Then there was an assumption that the war/political situation was reversible, and there was a question of whether they had to wait to be engaged before they could act. Although prize crews are great because you get a free ship and some contraband, it would cause uboats to become operationally ineffective all the time as you had to offboard crew over operational time. In addition, during the stoppage, uboats were vulnerable on the surface. From here, they started stripping parts away. Ships that fired on the uboat could be sunk (no brainer). This was a result of regular merchants who had small caliber defenses firing on the uboat and Q-ships. Ships that notified enemy of the uboat presence could be sunk, because enemy were showing up during the inspection boarding process. This also included small private vessels tooling around the British coast. Somewhere in there they decided any ship that endangered a uboat, e.g. ramming, was eligible. Any issue that created an issue with uboat safety created an opening to abrogate. About 3 days before they declared a blockade around Britain, they announced they were abandoning the Prize Rules in the North Sea. Then they declared the blockade around Britain saying anything darkened was eligible for attack. In the middle of Oct 1939, they stopped boarding the ships and just examined the papers. Turns out there is no provision for armed merchants in the Prize rules and they declared them eligible around this time as well. The lettered zones were a bit curious. Basically, they were trying to make the enemy believe that mines were sinking the ships. This is speculation, but I think the idea was make it a plausible idea that mine deployment was resulting in merchant ships being sunk. I think they were trying to achieve a few different things with this. One was immediate tactics and making the British think that it was a mine at that particular instant vs. a uboat, so the uboats would have some cover/distraction in shallow waters. I think they were also trying to create a political situation that had a couple of pieces to it. I think they were trying to embarrass the British by pointing to their mines as being unsafe for themselves, but also any merchants that would be coming in the area. This would supposedly help deter individual merchants from coming to this war zone, thus helping to strangle supply. Also, it would theoretically start deterring the British from using mines for the same reason. They used this system for the first 8 months of 1940 then replaced it with a blanket blockade. Once the French coast opened up, tactics shifted from the North Sea to the North Atlantic, specifically west of the British Isles. The blockade eventually extended west to encompass Iceland and the coast of Greenland. This was because there was a strategic advantage to attacking convoys in the Atlantic vs. operating in shallow waters around Britain with mines floating in the water and aircraft buzzing around. At this point, it didn't change very much until the end of the war. They were taking over more countries and the conditions I previously posted were pretty much the norm. The whole concept of stopping ships for inspection pretty much came to an end with the Laconia incident in September '42. Basically, uboats that were clearly assisting in a rescue operation were attacked by B-24 Liberators. By this point, it was pretty hard to justify not firing on a ship that looked suspicious, and the conditions that justified surfacing and inspecting the ships records were pretty restrictive. Then they just started losing, and were pretty much fighting from a defensive crouch the remainder of the war. The only caveat to this is how passenger ships were treated. They were in a separate category depending on whether they were armed, in a convoy, or a certain size. This was due to the sinking of the SS Athenia. A lot of info, and I haven't bored you too much with this post.