Tores mailbox VIIC and VIIC/41 operation and technical details

[TopherVIIC]

Tore

By any chance do you have any photographs that you are willing to share of this area between the pressure hull and deck, showing the pipings etc...?

I would found any photographs extremely useful, for my drawing!

I second the motion! :-)

[tore]

Tore

By any chance do you have any photographs that you are willing to share of this area between the pressure hull and deck, showing the pipings etc...?

I would found any photographs extremely useful, for my drawing!

I second the motion! :-)

Sorry I don`t have any drawings. But there are a couple of german books dealing with the german repair and restauration of U 995 where they have removed the casingdeck. These books have photos of the job, but I don`t know if they are of any use to you. I check for the titles of these books.
Tore

[tore]

Hi
The pictures in one of the books (I don`t have it and I don`t know the title) are like the the one below. Probably not very useful they have removed a lot of stuff. You can see the forward batteryhatch.
Tore

[tore]

Christopher.
Further to my post this morning I post another picture of Kaura repairing in Kiel and casingdeck partly removed. You can anyhow cleary see the shape of the outer framing.
Tore

[tore]

NZSnowman
I rememeber some times ago you launched the idea that all VIIC-VIIC/41s equipped with snortmast having airinlet and exhaust outlet at the hingepivot had a small part of the exhaustpipe protruding through the casingdeck on stb side forward part of the conningtower. I was a little reluctant to that and of the opinion U 995 didn`t have it. My memory failed, I have been scruntinizing all my pictures and finally today I found the evidence that Kaura (U 995) and all our VIICs did have same, see the picture of Kaura below taken in May 1953. I think you can even see the pipebend contains the snortexhaustpipe shut of valve. You are rigth I believe all the VIIC/VIIC-41s having this type of snortmast had pipebend through the casingdeck. Up to this date I have not seen any modelbuilder having got this detail, so back to the workshop, I`ll be the first.
Tore

[tore]

A very visible detail on the VIIC and VIIC/41 were the railing which apart from the localisation around the conningtower seems to be ignored by modelbuilders. I think it`s a pitty because it gives a taste of old times submarine to the model. The railing was a standard removeable equipment fitted quite often in harbour and even at sea (see my photo below). However you wouldn`t like to have it fitted on warpatrol as it had a tendency to rattle while submerged. Perhaps this could be an inspiration to give a little different twist to your VIIC model.
Tore

[NZSnowman]

Tore, where were they store onboard?

[tore]

They were very carefully stored in the casing.
Tore

[tore]

Further to my answer perhaps I should mention that the gangway was stowed away in the same area as far as I remember.
Tore

[NZSnowman]

Was storing in the casting something you did only, or did the German's do this also?

[SnakeDoc]

Hi Tore

I believe so, but even then the VIICs as at the end of the war, equipped with snort, were beautiful boats with well proven technique, moreover they were considerable more comfortable acommodationwise than our british built subs. To me, it was a big change beeing educated on british submarines to run a german.

It is really surprising opinion - there is commonly said, that crew habitability on german boats was extreme rough in comparison to the allied (us and uk) subs.
 

The biggest differences between the british and german subs at that time, were apart from the snortmast, the operation of  the vents and valves. The british were hydraulic operated and the germans handoperated by levers and rods.

As far as I know, the larger boats (types IX, XB XIV and XXI) had vent valves operated by means of compressed air pistons/actuators (with emergency hand drive of course).


I have question - comparing the photos from control room of U-995 and U-570 I see, that the first one has bow (and aft) bouyancy tanks (Wasserdichte Heck/Back) vent valves opened from the control room (by means of the rods and hand wheel - similar to the main ballast tanks 1 and 5 vent valves), while on U-570 these valves are opened from the aft and forward torpedo room respectively.


Was this "remote" drive introduced by Germans or by Norwegians?



(http://uboatarchive.net/U-570Photo17.htm)



(http://www.submarineresearch.com/bull58.html)
--
Thanks, regards
Maciek

[tore]

I believe the germans did it as well. Apart from the pressure containers with spare torpedoes and the rubberdingies containers,which sometimes were used for potatoes. Different  stuff was stowed away in the casing but everything had of course to be properly secured and could be a hazard when subject to depthcharging.
Tore

[SnakeDoc]

Hi Simon

Was storing in the casting something you did only, or did the German's do this also?

I have seen descriptions, that "seem

[tore]

Maciek
Im not familar to the other german types of submarines but I`m not surprised they were equipped with hydraulic or pneumatic valves. Handoperated valves by rods and levers were to a certain extent requiring a lot of maintenance.
Tore

[tore]

Accomodationstandard. German versus British subs.
I would challenge the statement that the german subs.(VIICs) had a crude crewhabitability compared to british. May be it could be true using the A class and to a certain extent T class as a counterpart, but for sure not the V (U) class. In fact most of our recruits put the VIIC up as alternative 1 when applying for boat.
Tore