I’m watching a ton of WW2 documentaries and can’t help but think why they didn’t make a counter to the German Uboats other then depth charges and the hedgehog. Surely with the money and resources the US or other countries could of made a sub during that time.
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In the second world war submarines had to operate most of the time on the surface, in order to run internal combustion engines that powered them and recharged the batteries.
The batteries could power the submarine for brief underwater operations, at relatively slow speeds.
To counter submarines it was necessary to first find them. The best ways to do that at the time was radar, detecting the metal hull of the submarine when it was above the water, or visually, by spotting the surfaced sub. Sonar could detect a submerged submarine at short range (at most a few miles).
So the best way to find and kill subs was flying over them. Detecting them with radar or seeing them from above, then radioing surface ships to go there and help kill the submarine. Even if they diden’t get the sub, this was a very effective way to drive it off.
A submerged sub could have sonar, and perhaps detect another submarine at a range of a few miles, but couldn’t get radio transmissions from aircraft to coordinate a hunt or call them back without surfacing, sort of putting them in the same boat* as a surface ship that is cheaper because it’s not made to go under water.
A sub-hunting submarine is more a modern thing, based on modern subs being designed to spend almost all time under water.
*I’m very sorry about this pun.
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