VIIC "On the Ways"

[tore]

Square floodholes and gutters. I believe the square floddholes and gutters were fitted at the time they changed the casing to welded steel. As far as I can see on the picture from 1972 of the Laboe U 995 below does not show any holes or gutters.
Tore

[vonbulowfla]

great drawings are you going to make a set for each section of the boat ? that would be out of this world ! a great help! mate

[SG]

Christopher,
I found three more pictures of type VIIs (at least i think) torpedo room/bow compartment. I Hope they help to add further details
Keep up the precious work!
SG




postwar pic, scuttling charges being set

[SnakeDoc]

Hi

postwar pic, scuttling charges being set

In fact, this is war-time photo, illustrating the training of the U-Boots crews.
These tubes are embedded in the model torpedo torpedo room and are equipped with all installation required to load, fire, flood and vent. These guys are german, not allied sailors.
--
Regards
Maciek

[tore]

Maciek
I think the people are british. If you look at the lieutenant to the rigth he has the chevron  (stripes) of an officer in the "wavy navy", a Royal Navy branch for not regular officers temporary servicing during and shortly after the war. They have the stripes in a wavy pattern and  a regular officer capbadge with anchor and royal crown on top.
Tore

[TopherVIIC]

Thanks for the continued input gentlemen! I will put it all to good use! The "Wavy Navy" pic does look like a trainer rig, or a non standard setup as far as a Type VII would have... Where are tubes III and IV. I know there were some boats with missing tubes - could this be one of them?

I have unfortunately had a death in the family, so I have not been able to work on the model much, but I will see if I can post some pics tomorrow of the fwd compartment that I have worked on.  It is getting crowded in there! :-)
Christopher

[SnakeDoc]

Hi


That, what Tore said confused me much. Indeed, this photo looks like trainer. The other possibilities:
- take a look at the left torpedo tube breech door labeled with "II". It indicates, that it would be forward tube with bottom tubes removed, but compare with attached picture (U-80 with two tubes removed).
- it could be the aft torpedo room of the type X B boats - these boats had only two torpedo tubes. Only two of these boats survived war: U-219 sunk by gunfire from the Royal Netherlands Navy destroyer HNMS Kortenaer (ex-HMS Scorpion) south of the Sunda Strait, between Java and Sumatra, on 3 February 1946, and U-234, sunk by a torpedo from USS Greenfish during trials approximately 40 miles north-east off Cape Cod, on the US east coast on 20 November, 1947.


I still think, that most likely discussed photo presents trainer, but the uniforms of those guys...


--
Regards
Maciek

[TopherVIIC]

Gentlemen,
What about Russian Navy in a German Simulator?
Could it be British Wavy Navy in a German simulator - either during the war after some of the German bases got captured or re-captured, or post war? It could well be post-war after final capitulation, done for the news-reels. If that is the case, I would guess they are taking the charges OFF the simulator! The rating does not look too happy! :-)
Their shoulders look way too high above the tubes for a Type VII, which means the deck is too high, and the plumbing and deck are quite different.
If it were the stern tubes of a type IX, the tubes would not have been labeled I & II.

I have taken the pic into photoshop and started digging around to try and see if there was anything in the shadows, but there is very little digital information there that is useful.
Hmm... We have a photo that is not what it seems...
Christopher

[SnakeDoc]

Hi

If it were the stern tubes of a type IX, the tubes would not have been labeled I & II.

Right, that's why I did not take into consideration the type IX (as well as type I) but type X B (the mine layer), which was equipped with only two stern torpedo tubes. I prepared simple comparation:



Still I don't know what to think about this photo.


--
Regards
Maciek

[TopherVIIC]

Maciek,
The Officer looks familiar! :-)
I have never seen drawings of an X B so thank you.
Christopher

[SnakeDoc]

The Officer looks familiar! :-)

I hope, you don't mind I have used your crew member

I have never seen drawings of an X B so thank you.

 The original drawing you can find here:
http://u-historia.com/uhistoria/tecnico/esquemas/esquemas.html
See also:
http://uboatarchive.net/ManualXB.htm
(see diagrams at the bottom of the page).


 --
Regards
Maciek

[SG]

Christopher, found another one which i hope you don't have already.




About the puzzling picture of the supposed scuttling charges setting, the pic is part of a sequence of 7 pics showing late VIIs being scuttled by polish navy during operation deadlight. I really haven't sufficient knowledge to know if the chaps "rigging around" the tubes are polish sailors (any idea Tore?) or not and if they're effectively placing the charges. In this case Christopher's hypothesis of the late VII missing tubes might be plausible. Another hypothesis could be a partially dismantled boat, deprived of anything valuable before getting "dumped", dunno..
Anyways, got 2 pictures of the torpedo simulator which i can post if u're interested, the mock tubes are paired vertically rather than horizontally (to train the future "mixer" to reload either the higher or the lower tube i guess). I really dont know if simulators sporting tubes "in line" existed..am really not qualified to answer the question.
(Tore: it's a privilege to have you in this forum, your expertise and deep knowlege of Uboots is a giant asset to the forum, almost unbelievable; Maciek "SnakeDoc": i regard you as one of the most experts of U-boots I've ever come across)
Cheers Gentelmen!
SG

 
 

[tore]

There are several other details beeing strange. The persons are not dressed in a british workinguniform (battledress) and have shiny shoes ( PR stunt?). The tubes have a very fresh temporary papersign in in german: Nicht

[tore]

SG
Your theory is interesting. It could be they have removed the floorplating. I have not been 100% convinced that the second person on the picture is a Royal Navy rating it is a sligth difference as you migth see on the posted picture. I don`t known the Polish navy uniform, but for me it looks that it is a star on the top of the "golden angles". The smaller allied navies cooperated particulary with  the royal navy during operation deadligth and the officer is definitely a RNVR "Wavy Navy." If he would have been any other person but british (even Canadian,Australian) wearing for some reason a RNVR uniform, I guess he would have a small tag on his shoulder with the countryname.
Tore

[SnakeDoc]

Hi


Here is a photo which shows, how german cadets during their training looked like.


--
Regards
Maciek