German u-boats in World War II

[RSI]

I'm doing a project for Grade 11 World History right now, and I chose the topic of German u-boats... We're currently studying World War II.

Apparently the deisel powered subs (u-boats) left a trail of bubbles on the surface of the water, making them trackable. One of the only ways to effectively track them, actually. They used satellite images to follow the green line of deisel-smog.

BTW, if I start to not make sense or spew out complete BS, blame my History teacher, not me, I wasn't there to experience and see it for myself.

I'm trying to look up some interesting pictures of german uboats to stick on the web page. That's the assignment (project), we have to construct a web page and stick info on there. Really easy. He even said we can copy/paste (I probably won't though) all the info we need. I don't see the point in this history project though if we can just copy/paste everything and all we have to do is make a web page!

Most of the people in my class aren't half as good as I am at computers, and they've almost all finished their projects already (ahead of time). It's so bloody easy to make a web page it's not even funny! The teacher showed the class how to do it, above all things... In Word too! :Q

Anyways...

Today's class was really interesting, he just talked to the class about WWII uboats and naval warfare pretty much... It was cool. Ah damn what were those things called, I forget... They were like plane thingies but they weren't armed, they just flew up so they could spot the subs from above. And then they had depth charges and torpedoes which they could then (once they spot one) drop on a sub.

I also heard, that at times the uboat would be waiting at the bottom, with everything turned completely off so they couldn't be heard, while the boats above were trying to figure out where they were. And if the people in the uboat would hear a splash or something, they knew that they were dropping depth charges and "braced for impact" pretty much.

Man just imagine being a sitting duck- ...... sub at the bottom of the ocean, and hearing the splash of a depth charge being dropped into the water. Eeek!

There were two main "huge mofo german boats" pretty much as I recall, the Bizmark and something else which I can't remember. There are a lot of very cool/interesting (and scary) stories behind many of the ships and uboats of World War II.

Man that must have sucked so bad back then during that war... I wonder if WWIII will break out. If it does, I can imagine that we'd all be quickly obliterated (or something along those lines).

...As long as I don't die a slow, torturous and agonizing pitiful death, then it's coo.

Hold on a second... I'm reading up on some site, and I see Bizmarck. Is it "Bizmark" or "Bizmarck"? Bizmarck seems really wrong to me, is it just me, or am I just a moron? :-\

Well I'm going to stop inanely babbling like a mindless baboon now, good night.

-RSI

PS: If anybody has any good info/pictures regarding u-boats, I'm all ears (email me).

 

[toph99]

the Bizmark was a ship sunk by the brits. it was a huge Nazi battleship, and has a very interesting story to it anyways, how did they get satelite photos of uboat exhaust? last i checked, satelites weren't around in the 40's

 

[Mill]

<< They used satellite images to follow the green line of deisal-smog. >>



I didn't know they had satellites during WWII.

 

[RSI]

OK, well my teacher gets off track easily or is a moron, because one microsecond he was talking about german uboats, World War II, the next he's saying satellite images tracked the bubbles left behind! I also read that somewhere, but that's not WWII I guess.

I guess Satellites in '39-45 doesn't make much sense?...

-RSI

 

[Farbio]

it's bismarck actually rsi, and if you're looking for info on it, get the book by robert ballard, the guy who found the titanic, as he found the bismarck as well, and he provides a very good and easy to understand narrative of the whole bismarck history and last battle. history.com will also have some stuff on it, as i have seen a show on the bismarck on their station.

 

[piku]

<< I didn't know they had satellites during WWII. >>



I guess that secret Nazi moon base is a hoax too then... ah well.


(edit: I saw that Bizmark history channel thing too. It was really good.)

 

[Windogg]

U-Boat Net

History is one of my favoite hobbies aside from neffing the forums.

Like Millenium said, satellites??? WTF is wrong with your teacher?

There we many ways to spot U-Boats.

As expected the easiest was via aircraft. Uboats tried to stay out of aircraft range as much as possible. It was easy early in the war because the Sunderland flying boats and Hudsons (Lockheed Electra) didn't have the range to patrol the middle of the atlantic. Then came planes like the B-24 Liberator and PBY Catelinas. Uboats were most vulnerable when charging their batteries on the surface. Having to devote engines to the task meant less speed. Charging batteries at night was eventually negated by the &quot;Leigh&quot; light and centimeter radar. It became even worse when CVEs, baby flattops built on merchant hulls, started accompanying the convoys.

Germany has many big boats during the war including the battleships &quot;Bismarck&quot; <== Yep, it's &quot;Bismarck&quot; and &quot;Tirpitz&quot;

Get anything on Samual Morrison. he wrote many great book on the subject.

Windogg

 

[qacwac]

Yep. The story of the Bismarck is very cool. I only saw the movie. I think called &quot;Sink the Bismarck&quot; but it's story and battle with the Hood and then the entrailing search is great.

The site Windogg gave is great. Lots of info. Have fun. You picked a good topic.

 

[RSI]

Thanks... I'll try to make it fun.

-RSI

 

[TimberWolf]

Observers on daylight recon flights can see the darker shape of a sub down to depths of 75 feet or so if the aircraft is fairly close to the sub's location. Deisel-electric boats did not generate bubbles on battery power; and the Schnorkel (actually a WW I German invention) allowed for charging the batteries without fully surfacing.

Magnetic Anomoly Detectors (MAD's) were widely used by aircraft and surface vessels. Submerged objects with a high ferrous metal content create measurable distortions in the Earth's magnetic field, which reveals their location with sufficient accuracy for depth charge and aerial bombing attacks.

The Tirpitz was sister-ship to the Bismark. After Bismark was lost, Hitler was so concerned over losing Tirpitz that he ordered it berthed behind triple anti-sub nets in a fjord at Trondheim, Norway for most of it's (relatively short) career until Brit commando's finally put her on the bottom. Still, the threat alone of a Tirpitz sortie forced most Allied convoys many miles out of their way to avoid meeting her.

 

[Tates]

The first satellite in space was Sputnik, in 1959. WWII lasted from 1939 to 1945.

The U-boat ruled the seas until such detection devices, as Timberwolf described, were in place. Millions of tons of shipping went down to the UBoat's torpedo all along the American Atlantic coast.

The one detection item that turned the tide for the U.S. Navy was the use of Zeppilins (Blimps). They proved more effective than aircraft, as they could stay aloft almost indefinetly. 16 massive hangers were built along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the US to house these. If you watched Saving Private Ryan, after the beginning D-Day assault sequence, the camera pans to a grand view of the secured beach head, with several of these blimps in the background. The last remaining hanger is located in Tillamook, Oregon. The hanger is massive. It housed up to 8 of the blimps, and was constructed entirely of wood, since all available metal was used in the manufacture of aircraft, tanks and arms.

 

[Windogg]

In Private Ryan, I believe those are barrage balloons and not blimps.

Windogg

 

[Tates]

Windogg, you are correct.

 

[Windogg]

As are you Tates on blimps spotting U-Boats. Who would've thought the first mode of flight would play such a crucial role?

 

[MrChicken]

My favorite quote comes from the captain of the Bismarck.
It's when the Hood and Prince of Whales are shooting at it, and the &quot;observer&quot; sent by Hitler reminds the captain that he is under orders not engage British warships.
The captain says (I may have this wrong, the gist is correct)
&quot;I will not have my ship shot out from under my ass.&quot;
And then the Hood is destroyed, once again proving that a proud name and crew can not overcome aged technology and stupid design. IMHO, any fool would have known the Hood was no match by far for the Bismarck, one of many hard lessens learned by the British in WWII. Of course, the Americans had their own hard lessons in WWII also.

 

[etech]

This site should keep you busy for awhile.
Subs



&quot;Apparently the deisel powered subs (u-boats) left a trail of bubbles on the surface of the water, making them trackable.&quot;

No, the diesel subs did not leave a trail of bubbles. The diesel engines were only used on the surface(had to have an air supply) while batteries were used underwater.

The bubbles may of been a reference to torpodoes which left a trail of bubbles until the electric torpedoes were introduced.

An interesting theroy is that the Germans copied the US torpodoes because of similar problems with both early in the war, running depth too deep magnetic and contact exploder problems. Whether it is true or not the Germans fixed their problems much earlier then the US.

 

[Zucchini]

&quot;the Schnorkel (actually a WW I German invention) allowed for charging the batteries without fully surfacing.
&quot;

something interesting is the schnorkel was not that effective. It needed calm seas and if waves broke over it the engines would suck air out of the crew space.. very painful to say the least That and the sub was very unbalanced i guess.. crew members would be restricted from moving too much or at all.. i can't remember to keep the sub from tilting the schnorkelinto the water by the time they started using this they were in a pile of trouble anyways.

very kewl thing was the new gen of hydrogen pyroxide(bad memory) powered subs..no need to surface Didn't happen though.

 

[etech]

subs
&quot;At the end of the war, Maxwell was much involved with U 1407, a captured Type XVIIB U-boat fitted with a revolutionary hydrogen
peroxide turbine, invented by Professor Walter. She was capable of very high underwater speeds. U 1407 had been scuttled in Cuxhaven, but was raised, towed to England, refitted by Vickers at Barrow, with Walter's assistance, and commissioned as HMS Meteorite. Maxwell took part in the fitting-out and trials of Meteorite, and of the two experimental British hydrogen peroxide boats, Explorer and Excalibur, which entered service in the 1950s.&quot;


I wanted to add that this is the best write up on the developement of US torpedoes that I have found on the web.
torpedoes
check the subs link above for all of the pages.

 

[AaronP]

I was in the U-Boat they have at the museum of science and industry in Chicago and it was really cool. However, it was VERY small and cramped. nothing can do justice to how small this thing was except actually being in one.

BTW, rent the movie DAS BOOT

 

[nickdakick]

I second what AaronP said. &quot;Das Boot&quot; gives you a pretty good insight on how life on a WW II sub was and how the situation of the subs changed over the years from being the hunter to being the hunted in the end. Try to get the long version which is about three hours.
And all of the above concerning bubbles by diesel engines and satellites in W II.

 

[CinderElmo]

WW II History rules! Some questions/observations since we seem to have a lot of interested parties.

Most U-boat/submarine travel was on the surface (since it would take far too long to travel submerged).

There is a cool story (speaking of German surface fleet) on two German Pocket Battleships (Gneisenau and Scharnhorst -sic) which ran up the English Channel early in the war...

What exactly did barrage balloons do? In saving private ryan I can only assume they are there to prevent low flying enemy aircraft?

After seeing U-571 I was at first angered that they had to use American crew instead of British...but to the experts I ask how accurate was the movie? When they were sitting there next to the German cruiser I just had a hard time believing they could shoot (and hit) the German's antenna and then escape underneath like that.

 

[64bitloopy]

Hey, if you mention the Bismark, don't forget to mention the Hood.

 

[DABANSHEE]

Well seeing you all had fun discrediting RSI, I figured I could also play that game &amp; have some fun discrediting the rest of you.

&quot;...It was easy early in the war because the Sunderland flying boats and Hudsons (Lockheed Electra) didn't have the range to patrol the middle of the atlantic. Then came planes like the B-24 Liberator and PBY Catelinas...&quot;

Actually Windogg, the Short Sunderland, had a greater range than the 'B24 Liberator'. However there were long-range reconnaissance variants of the Liberators, but they were not 'B24 Liberators' they were 'PB4Y-1 Liberators' (known as the 'Liberator GRV' in Brtish &amp; Commonwealth Service) &amp; 'PB4Y-2 Privateers' (basically a naval patrol Liberator with a B17 style single tail). Even those Naval Patrol Liberators had a range that was really not much more than that of the Sunderland &amp; virtually the same in operational terms. But Liberators were in much more plentiful supply than the Sunderland in the last years of the war. Consequently Liberators (which also had better payloads) took on anti submarine duties, while the Sunderlands were better suited to air/sea reasue patrols as they were flying boats (even though rough Atlantic seas could easily tear a flying boat in half), although there was much overlap.

Actually, contrary to what Hollywood may tell you, it was a Australian Sunderland of Coastal Command that ended U571's part in the war.

&quot;Hitler was so concerned over losing Tirpitz that he ordered it berthed behind triple anti-sub nets in a fjord at Trondheim, Norway for most of it's (relatively short) career until Brit commando's finally put her on the bottom. Still, the threat alone of a Tirpitz sortie forced most Allied convoys many miles out of their way to avoid meeting her&quot;

Ah, actually Timberwolf the 1943 'Combined Operations' midget Submarine attack on the Tirpitz only caused a bit of secondary shock damage from the explosives they planted near by. Tirpitz did however recieve serious damage in the spring of 1944 when Royal Navy Fairey Barracuda Torpedo Bombers from HMS Idefatiguable (you have to admit it the Brits had better names for their aicraft carriers than the Yanks) struck home with bombs &amp; rockets. Tirpitz was finally put out of her misery when she was was attacked by a squadron or 2 of RAF Lancasters, loaded with Barnes Wallis 'shockwave' Tallboy bombs, which broke here back.

&quot;The one detection item that turned the tide for the U.S. Navy was the use of Zeppilins (Blimps). They proved more effective than aircraft, as they could stay aloft almost indefinetly. 16 massive hangers were built along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the US to house these. If you watched Saving Private Ryan, after the beginning D-Day assault sequence, the camera pans to a grand view of the secured beach head, with several of these blimps in the background. The last remaining hanger is located in Tillamook, Oregon. The hanger is massive. It housed up to 8 of the blimps, and was constructed entirely of wood, since all available metal was used in the manufacture of aircraft, tanks and arms.&quot;

Ah, Tate, blimps are no more related to Zeppilins than hangliders are to B29 Superfortresses. The US navy did in fact use 'Zeppilins' for patrol, you are right there. But Zeppilins are huge rigid airships, where the Hydrogen or in the Navy's case Helium is houses in internal cells, &amp; the Bridge, cabins, navigation room, toilets, are also house in the same structure as the cells themselves, they even had windows in the side, the only part that wwas exrternal was the observation deck &amp; the engines. Some of the US Navy Zeppilins even had their own flight of fighter aircraft hooked up in bays. The US Navy also use dirigidables (blimbs, like the Goodyear Blimb). What you saw in SPR are in fact barrage balloons, which are just cigar shaped gas filled balloons, moored to the ground with cables hanging down from them to deture low flying attack aircraft.

&quot;..And then the Hood is destroyed, once again proving that a proud name and crew can not overcome aged technology and stupid design. IMHO, any fool would have known the Hood was no match by far for the Bismarck..&quot;

Do you people beleive everything you hear. There was nothing wrong with the Hood's 'technology'. The simple fact is, MrChicken, that the Bismarck was lucky enough to have one of its shells hit home &amp; hit the hood's ammunition magazine. If one of Hood's shells hat hit the Bismarck's ammo magazine exactly the same thing would have happened in reverse. Its common practice in naval warfare to use multiple Battle Cruisers against a single Battlship, just as it was in the Battle of the River Plate where the British used 4 cruisers to take on a battle Cruiser (the Graf Spee). In both case the British came out on top. Really its a calculated gamble, which is what a battlecruiser is all about (basically a lighter armoured, faster, more manueverable version of a battleship).

If you really want to talk about Britsh Navy stupidity then its the sending of the 'Repulse' &amp; 'Prince of Wales' to Singapore without aircover. But then that was politics - The Brits had 3 carrier fleets in the Med' annoying the Italians &amp; transporting Spitfires to Malta, 2 more carrier fleets in the North Sea to keep Germany's suface fleet boxed in &amp; another carrier fleet East of Ceylon to keep an eye on the air &amp; sea lanes between India &amp; Australia, but Churchill had to send something to Singapore to show that they hadn't been forgotten about, even though secret war ministry papers (released in 1995 after the 50 year rule had expired) showed that Churchill consided Singapore a lost cause if Japan attacked.

&quot;..the Schnorkel (actually a WW I German invention)..&quot;

Don't know where you got that from Timberwolf, the Schnorkel was actually invented by the Dutch in the inter-war years &amp; thus was technology the Germans inherited after the collaspe of the Low Countries in 1940. Which is why the U-boats did not have snorkels till about 1943 (it took them a couple of years to integrate them into the later U-boat designs).

Well that's enough of being anal for now.

 

[Tates]

Dabanshee, I stand corrected.

 

[fdiskboy]

Actually, Dabanshee, there is a great deal of discussion over poor design in the Hood. Scholars do disagree, so it is really not a matter of believing all you hear. Did you do the actual physical research? If not, then you also are parrotting things that you have heard/read.
Don't insult everyone here by assuming that you are the ONLY one who has the right answer.

I believe the Hood's design was fatally flawed. I also believe the Bismarck was extremely fortunate in scoring a hit on the Hood's magazine. I agree that it was common naval doctrine to use several cruiser types against a battleship, so in that respect, you are correct.