German Torpedo Color?

[GlennCauley]

Will someone be putting all this great information into one document?    It would be a great collaborative effort, I think, and be one definitive source to be used.   It would make it so much easier than having to search through so many different threads.  Just a thought.

[NZSnowman]

Will someone be putting all this great information into one document?    It would be a great collaborative effort, I think, and be one definitive source to be used.   It would make it so much easier than having to search through so many different threads.  Just a thought.

That has always been my plan to produce a document detailing the different WWII German torpedoes in there originally colour, but this has been delay a little because of my master’s degree.

I wanted to produce a colour detail drawing of each torpedo and when they were used during the war, so modeller could add the correct wartime torpedo to their U-boat model.

One disadvantage of my U-boat drawings are, they are usually only 2 views (top and starboard), so between study and to improved my modelling skill, I started modelling the torpedoes in 3D.

At the end I was going to make the document and 3D models freely available and ask nicely if Dougie & Wink would like to host the files on AMP.

[dougie47]

Hi gents,
Good idea, Glenn, thanks for posting.
Yes, Simon, we'd be happy to host your drawings and documents. Hope your studies are going well.
Cheers,
Dougie
 

[NZSnowman]

[NZSnowman]

Natter/Maciek

What kind of metel do you guys think are the four bar on the nose of the T5?

I was thinking maybe gold?

Thanks, Simon.

[NZSnowman]

The nose of the T5

[Natter]

Natter, just checking that the water inlet for the cooling of the propeller-crossdrive is only found on the early G7e and not on the  G7e (TIII) LUT "flossen"?

Sorry for a late reply: The forum seem to have stopped sending notifications of new posts...

I really don't know, as I haven't yet been able to obtain complete and detailed drawings of the G7e :-(
I have archive-references to relevant material at TNA and BaMa, but the current prices from the first mentioned are too insane to even consider ordering copies (I hope to take a trip to Kew and get copies by myself - it's way cheaper, even considering the airfare and lodging), and the latter is virtually impossible to get copies from without personal attendance (and even then very beurocratic + expensive).

Judging by available photos it seems highly unlikely that this feature was present on later development G7e's like TIII and so forth (just my more or less "qualified" guess though. You can't really rely on museumobjects either, as they have seen postwar usage and parts might have been exchanged - like the example I posted above, which is a torpedo mounted on a Marder midget submarine at a naval base here in Norway).

[Natter]

What kind of metel do you guys think are the four bar on the nose of the T5?
I was thinking maybe gold?

Modern transducers for sonars/hydrophones would have a layer of a material being "invisible" as in giving minimum "resitanse" for the soundwaves interfaceing the water (ie normally a special kind of rubber).
In the reports from interrogation of the german crew of U-172, they refer to the hydrophones in the seeker of the G7s(TV) as "blanke metallteile" (blank metalparts). In general, there are a lot of obvious errors in those reports (details of these torpedoes were classified also for the german crews, and this was among the first information available for the allies, so it might be both guesswork or deliberate misinformation given by the german POW's), but if you look at the TV in the U-505 exibition, and the TXI at the U-534 exibition, they both seem to have a blank brass finish, so that's probably the best answer.

[Natter]

Your recent rednderings are striking (the real thing would surely not look so perfect and shiny ;-) ). However, it seem to differ from your previous models - like the drawing you have in your signature (for example it's lacking many details, and the warhead colour is almost black). Is it a different model?

[Natter]

In the reports from interrogation of the german crew of U-172, they refer to the hydrophones in the seeker of the G7s(TV) as "blanke metallteile" (blank metalparts).

The reports are available online. I don't remember where - maybe through uboatarchive.net, but here is a drawing and some TV/TXI seeker photos:

[Capt Kremin]

Hi Natter and NZSnowman,


Sadly the TXI in Birkenhead now sports a worn light grey, similar to Hellgrau 50 and the nose seems to have been blanked off by some opaque material, my guess is that the detector head itself was removed and examined by the Danish navy. The second picture may be of more use, although small it was taken during the salvage operation, before the Danish navy got there hands on it.


Regards
Jon

[Natter]

my guess is that the detector head itself was removed and examined by the Danish navy. The second picture may be of more use, although small it was taken during the salvage operation, before the Danish navy got there hands on it.

I was in touch with the guys doing the salvage a few years back. As far as I know, the operation was a private venture, with danish and dutch EOD-personell handling the torpedoes and other armament/ammunition on board.
The submarine had 13 torpedoes onboard, including 5 G7s(TXI) "Zaunkönig II".  They picked parts from 4 of those before they were scrapped, so the torpedo on display is the sole survivor.

Your photos is the same/identical as I posted above: If you look at my photo #4 and #5, they show the torpedo at it's current position before and after painting (there are also other photos showing the "refurbishing" being done in Birkenhead).

When a museum/collection choose to exibit a german WW2 torpedo outdoors they need to paint it, otherwise the corrosion will render it completly rusty after a few days, due to the low quality steel. Sadly, they often go for paint/color at hand, in stead of doing a little research, like for instanse the guys in Chicago did with their TV's (I haven't been there myself, but judging from available photos I think they have chosen a too dark grey colour for the warhead, compared to the seeker with original paint we have here in Norway).

Btw - here is a photo of the Kf warhead on display in Denmark (I don't know wether it's the same now on display in UK, but I assume so).

[Capt Kremin]

Hi Natter,


I realised that my pictures were more or less the same as yours after I had posted them.


To paint something the right colour, after a bit of research, costs no more than the incorrect colour, given that the whole of the U 534 is painted approximately Dunkelgrau 51,(wrong) it is a subject that annoys me, along with the sheet metal repair to the upper bow area and the B&Q deck(ing) there has been very little attempt to repair/refurbish the U 534 to it's original look by MerseyTravel.


Whilst the recovery of the U 534 was a privately funded project, (mostly by Karsten Ree) I was under the impression that the EOD team was Danish navy and that the bulk of the 3.7cm and the 2cm ammo and the TIIIs were destroyed on site.


Your number of torpedoes is interesting, I assume that comes from Smit Tak, which would make it more accurate than any of the other reports I have, previously I have found various figures ranging from 14 to 22, with the number of TXIs ranging from 3 to 5.


Regards
Jon

[Natter]

To paint something the right colour, after a bit of research, costs no more than the incorrect colour, given that the whole of the U 534 is painted approximately Dunkelgrau 51,(wrong) it is a subject that annoys me, along with the sheet metal repair to the upper bow area and the B&Q deck(ing) there has been very little attempt to repair/refurbish the U 534 to it's original look by MerseyTravel.

Yes. The topic of german torpedo colours are kind of complex (ref this thread), but it's not hard to get it more or less correct. Almost all torpedoes on display in museums worldwide is "flawed" in that respect (and most certainly other objetcs as well...)

Whilst the recovery of the U 534 was a privately funded project, (mostly by Karsten Ree) I was under the impression that the EOD team was Danish navy and that the bulk of the 3.7cm and the 2cm ammo and the TIIIs were destroyed on site.
Your number of torpedoes is interesting, I assume that comes from Smit Tak, which would make it more accurate than any of the other reports I have, previously I have found various figures ranging from 14 to 22, with the number of TXIs ranging from 3 to 5.

I was in contact with a couple of the danish and a dutch participants. The torpedonumber comes from Capt Finn Linnemann, leader of the RDaN EOD-team.

Btw, here is an article on the topic:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1955&dat=19930826&id=5vghAAAAIBAJ&sjid=taIFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1269,4612419

[NZSnowman]

Your recent rednderings are striking (the real thing would surely not look so perfect and shiny ;-) ). However, it seem to differ from your previous models - like the drawing you have in your signature (for example it's lacking many details, and the warhead colour is almost black). Is it a different model?

 Natter
 
Yes, two different models. All my drawing of U-1308 are 2D views using CorelDraw.

The newer drawing are 3D model using SketchUp and the models are rendered in Maxwell Render Suite. The ‘perfect and shiny’ look is cause by me not know how to set the correct lighting. Currently the lighting source is set for full outdoor sunshine that is why it looks so ‘perfect and shiny’.