Commerce raiding
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Commerce raiding or guerre de course is a naval strategy of attacking an opponent's commercial shipping rather than contending for control of the seas with its naval forces. The objective is to make the war too expensive for the opponent to continue it.
Usually, commerce raiding is chosen by the weaker naval power who has little chance to succeed against the naval forces of its opponent.
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[edit] Napoleonic Wars
During Britain's wars against revolutionary and Napoleonic France, the Royal Navy dominated the seas. France adopted a guerre de course strategy by licensing civilian privateers to seize British shipping.
[edit] American Civil War
During the American Civil War, the Confederacy operated a fleet of privateers and naval commerce raiders. The naval raiders include the CSS Sumter, CSS Florida, CSS Alabama, and CSS Shenandoah.
[edit] World Wars Atlantic
During World War I and II, the First and Second Battle of the Atlantic saw Germany conducting a guerre de course against Britain and its allies mainly using submarines. However, Germany also used merchant raiders and warships to attack allied shipping — the geographical enclosed position of Germany and the strength of the Royal Navy, later aided by the United States Navy, meant that it was difficult to deploy warships.
[edit] World War II Pacific
During World War II, the United States Navy used its submarines against Japanese shipping. The bulk of the Japanese merchant marine was sunk by American submarines. By the end of the war, Japan only had 12% of the tonnage of her pre-war shipping afloat.
The Indian Ocean raid was a naval sortie by the Fast Carrier Strike Force of the Japanese Navy from 31 March to 10 April 1942 against Allied shipping and bases in the Indian Ocean. It was an early engagement of the Pacific campaign of World War II.
The staff of the Imperial Japanese Navy decided to send some raiders to Indian Ocean waters during December 12,1941-July 12, 1942. The Germans will undoubtedly have had a large influence on this decision, as the Japanese were afraid the Germans would send more of their successful disguised raiders to the Indian Ocean, Japanese had decided to keep the pressure on the shipping lanes, mostly because of their ever growing importance in the war. Large and valuable tankers maintained a continuous stream of oil and other products from the Middle East to Australia and surrounding islands.
Although raider warfare was not entirely strange to them, they could not build on the vast amount of experience as the Germans did, and as a result, their ships were far less effective.
