Global ship traffic seen from space

[AcetyleneLamp]

I couldn't help but think of Civ trade routes while watching this video:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way...atch-global-shipping-around-the-world-in-1-40

 

[Timsup2nothin]

This is probably not the observation most people would come away from that with:

It was interesting that the Atlantic did not have any sort of main crossing route. All over the world there are those really obvious heavily traveled routes, but the large amount of transatlantic traffic is dispersed because of the number of ports available on both sides. It made me wonder how the German submarine forces did so well in world war II. If they had been able to work with the benefits of an obvious and unavoidable main route that their targets could not avoid just think how effective they would have been.

 

[Kozmos]

I imagine that would also make them easier to counter.

 

[Borachio]

What? They missed out the Dover Straits, the busiest sea traffic lane in the world?

Most maritime traffic between the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea and Baltic Sea passes through the Strait of Dover, rather than taking the longer and more dangerous route around the north of Scotland. The strait is the busiest international seaway in the world, used by over 400 commercial vessels daily. This has made safety a critical issue, with HM Coastguard maintaining a 24-hour watch over the strait and enforcing a strict regime of shipping lanes.[2]

In addition to the intensive east-west traffic, the strait is crossed from north to south by ferries linking Dover to Calais and Boulogne. Until the 1990s these provided the only surface-based route across it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strait_of_Dover#Shipping_traffic

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I imagine that would also make them easier to counter.

It is easier to find a submarine if you know where to look. But the reduction from whole ocean to dominant trade path still favors the submarine.

Working whole ocean puts the submarine at such a disadvantage in searching for targets that there isn't much necessity to counter them. The defenses in WWII basically consisted of convoying through the coastal waters into and out of ports because that was the only real opportunity to locate targets other than just blundering aimlessly around.

If you have a confined trade route the submarine can operate anywhere along it and find targets, striking at will and then bouncing away. The defenders are put in a position where they have to defend the full length of the heavily trafficked area rather than just the near port coastal waters.

It isn't the actual straights I'm thinking of, by the way. It's the places like the wide open Indian Ocean. All that space for a submarine to hide in, but shipping from any port in China, Japan, et al headed for any port in Europe gets concentrated into a single track running from the tip of India into the Red Sea. Submarine heaven.

 

[Lillefix]

Wonder how the difference between the Pacific and the Atlantic is. How does the amount of trade between Europe and US compare with Asia/Australia and the US.

 

[Hygro]

I couldn't help but think of Civ trade routes while watching this video:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way...atch-global-shipping-around-the-world-in-1-40

Haha it looked just like civ5's trade routes for sure.

 

[s0nny80y]

Turkish Straits didn't make the cut.
And the Volga Don probably needs expansion upgrades.
And Lenin.

 

[Cutlass]

Interesting vid. Be nice if they showed more of the world in detail though.

This is probably not the observation most people would come away from that with:

It was interesting that the Atlantic did not have any sort of main crossing route. All over the world there are those really obvious heavily traveled routes, but the large amount of transatlantic traffic is dispersed because of the number of ports available on both sides. It made me wonder how the German submarine forces did so well in world war II. If they had been able to work with the benefits of an obvious and unavoidable main route that their targets could not avoid just think how effective they would have been.

The vid didn't really show the North Atlantic.

Because of prevailing winds and ocean currents the most efficient shipping route between North America and the British Isles is pretty well defined as an arc starting at roughly Nova Scotia in the west to the south tip of Ireland and the western port cities of Britain in the east. Basically the course the Titanic took.

http://www.the-titanic.com/Images/image2.aspx

Now ships could deviate from that, but doing so meant more time at sea and more fuel use. But as they approached either end of the route, their options narrowed. Add in some intelligence work on the part of the Germans, and the totals were high. At least until the Allies improved their ability to find and sink U-boats. The most successful areas of U-boat operations was off the coast of Ireland, where the approaches narrow, and off the coast of North America, same reason.

 

[Smellincoffee]

Two interesting books on this subject: Ninety Percent of Everything and The Box.

Did anyone else notice the hurricane sitting around Cuba in the video?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

The vid didn't really show the North Atlantic.

Because of prevailing winds and ocean currents the most efficient shipping route between North America and the British Isles is pretty well defined as an arc starting at roughly Nova Scotia in the west to the south tip of Ireland and the western port cities of Britain in the east. Basically the course the Titanic took.

Now ships could deviate from that, but doing so meant more time at sea and more fuel use. But as they approached either end of the route, their options narrowed. Add in some intelligence work on the part of the Germans, and the totals were high. At least until the Allies improved their ability to find and sink U-boats. The most successful areas of U-boat operations was off the coast of Ireland, where the approaches narrow, and off the coast of North America, same reason.

Like I said, coastal near port waters were the effective hunting ground, and they were effective. They also had the advantage of reducing potential European ports to pretty much a handful in the British Isles. But operating in those coastal waters near ports led to rapid response by defenders, in the form of aircraft.

If the Atlantic crossing path was as concentrated as those distinct lines across the Indian Ocean are the u-boats would have had a field day.

The power of a submarine is that it can be anywhere, and since it is a big ocean they really don't get just found. The weakness of a submarine is that whenever they do anything useful they reveal their exact location and if you can get there quickly enough to start tracking them you can really ruin their day.

 

[Tigranes]

Link to video.

Air-travel over Europe looks just as fascinating. Apparently some plains travel in circles and 8s... I thought about Battle of Britain.