Why names make warship losses more politically powerful

Does it say something important that the US Navy named submarines while Germany generally numbered its U-boats?

Yes; names make ships and losses more memorable, while numbers preserve administrative identity but reduce the unit's public emotional force.

The panel links submarine naming traditions to the psychology of public memory. A named ship is easier to turn into a symbol, hero, or tragedy than a numbered hull, even when crews develop informal nicknames of their own. German destroyers demonstrate the institutional stakes because formal names were removed after losses at Narvik, an act the panel interprets as deeply demoralizing. Naming therefore affects cohesion, commemoration, propaganda, and the political meaning attached to losing a warship.