Tores mailbox VIIC and VIIC/41 operation and technical details

[Rokket]

Wow, I get a little busy and  I miss a million posts! This is very late, but way back up there, that sure DOES look liked a linked rubber mat. Now I'm no Tore, my experience with them is rather mundane. Just out of high school my family had a welcome matt that was just the same...linked strips of rubber, held together with metal pins. My girlfriend came over for New Years with her, uh, larger friend. The friend was the one who knocked on the door...so I opened it, and she stepped inside and her high heel caught in the gap between strips and she fell forward on top of me...I threw out my hands to both stop her from falling and stop myself from being knocked over, instinct...I caught her on both very large boobs, we twisted sideways and almost fell, and then all was well, but we were red faced and laughing. The basic effect was: open door, FALL OH MY GOD! GRAB! TWIST! STUMBLE!

Anyway, stupid mat.

[tore]

Well Wink, the mat we had wasn`t instrumental in getting our hands full of what you got. Poor us had our hands full of ligth alloy pistons with heavy conrods which very easy could be dammaged when lowered on to the steel floorplates.
Tore

[TopherVIIC]

Just as a side note to the discussion about rubber matting ... The above mentioned  http://uboatarchive.net/DesignStudiesTypeIXC.htm says "           ... Linoleum deck covering is provided in the living spaces and in the torpedo rooms.  Linoleum over wood decking is provided in the sound and radio rooms.  Rubber link matting is provided in the maneuvering room, engine rooms and control room...    "
Christopher

[tore]

Just as a side note to the discussion about rubber matting ... The above mentioned  http://uboatarchive.net/DesignStudiesTypeIXC.htm says "           ... Linoleum deck covering is provided in the living spaces and in the torpedo rooms.  Linoleum over wood decking is provided in the sound and radio rooms.  Rubber link matting is provided in the maneuvering room, engine rooms and control room...    "
Christopher

Christopher
I guess floorcoverings were commonly used in the wartime, mainly for soundreduction. We didn`t have mats to cover the floor to the same extent as mentioned in the report you quoted. I think the mats were of variable design as may be seen below on the wartime photo of the floorplates in a VIIC controlroom. To me it looks like some kind of woven mats. The forward torpedoroom (livingquarters) had steelframed hatches see photo below and it could very well be linoleum within the frames. As far as I remember it was the same in the wardroom, COs quarter, CPOs and POs mess as well, not so many hatches though. The floor in the control room was steelplates. In the engineroom we didn`t have any mats only steelplates except during major overhauls. In the E-room I think it was steelplates as well and in the aft torpedoroom I cannot remember.
Tore

[tore]

Further to my last post I am posting  a picture of the E-room floorplating including aft torpedofloorplating and engineroomfloorplating on KNM Kaura, it should be as originally fitted.
It looks to me as steelplates all over, but remember this was not wartime and the german had probably mats covering the steel floorplates.
Tore

[NZSnowman]

Q: Engine Room - Lubricating caps

Tore, it seen that most lubricating caps are painted red (like in Engineroom floorplating.jpg), but can you remember if the lubricating caps were made of bronze?

Thanks, Simon.

[NZSnowman]

Q: Engine Room - Piping

Tore, is the lower pipe copper, and the upper pipe brass? As there seem to be a big colour different between the two pipes

Thanks, Simon.

[NZSnowman]

Q: Engine Room - Piping

Tore, is the lower pipe copper, and the upper pipe bronze? As there seem to be a big colour different between the two pipes

Thanks, Simon.

I was looking at a few more pictures of pipes within the engine room, and I think the copper section is a small patch to replace a small section of missing piping

[NZSnowman]

Q: Engine Room - Fuel filters

Tore, perhaps can help me with a discussion I had several years back. There are two different types of fuel filters on the engines. I was wondering if you know if one is an original German fuel filters.

Many thanks again, Simon.


Fig. 1. Port side fuel filters.


Fig. 2. Starboard side fuel filters.

[tore]

Q: Engine Room - Lubricating caps

Tore, it seen that most lubricating caps are painted red (like in Engineroom floorplating.jpg), but can you remember if the lubricating caps were made of bronze?

Thanks, Simon.

Simon
Lubricating caps. Upon your remarks I rechecked my pictures and realized they are most probably from the late 60 ties thus after my time. Painting details like nuts, cocks and cups were often a popular pastime activity amongst the engineroomcrew during boring watches. As a chief engineer I did`t
encourage such paintings particulary the use of red which was primarely reserved for essentials like pressurehullvalves, ballasttank vents etc. I realize present day U 995 have red paints all over, we avoided that in my time and the original paints on our VII C did`t have all these "red dots". Neither did we have the usual shiny brass details as you see on f.i. british subs  primarely because the germans didn`t use copper and brass to the same extent.
I guess I`m trying to answer: they were possibly of steel and painted in the same colour as the engines, grey.
Tore

[tore]

Q: Engine Room - Piping

Tore, is the lower pipe copper, and the upper pipe brass? As there seem to be a big colour different between the two pipes

Thanks, Simon.

Indeed the lower pipe seems to be copper. As far as I remember most of the pipings were steel and I don`t think the other pipe is brass nor copper, I`ll make a guess it`s rusty steel having been washed with oil, but that`s a guess (hopefully it isn`t plastic).
Tore

[tore]

Q: Engine Room - Fuel filters

Tore, perhaps can help me with a discussion I had several years back. There are two different types of fuel filters on the engines. I was wondering if you know if one is an original German fuel filters.

Many thanks again, Simon.


Fig. 1. Port side fuel filters.


Fig. 2. Starboard side fuel filters.

Simon.
There is something odd with the pictures of the filters none of them look like the originals, do you happen to have a complete picture of the port filter?
Tore

[tore]

Simon.
Your piping question. If you have a close look at the engine manoeuvreing handles, they were steel, on your filterpictures you`ll see they have same colour as the pipe I assumed was steel. I guess that support the steel theory.
Tore

[NZSnowman]

Simon.
Your piping question. If you have a close look at the engine manoeuvreing handles, they were steel, on your filterpictures you`ll see they have same colour as the pipe I assumed was steel. I guess that support the steel theory.
Tore

Thanks, Tore.

This is very useful to know. I will have to change numerous of my piping around the engines. As I base many of the piping on this bronze colour.
 

[tore]

Simon
Painting. Just a comment to your pipeline photo. As I previously has mentioned I dislike all the funny painting done on the present U 995. Below I have indicated by arrows a wrong painting which would harm the operation of the main engines. The bundle of four arrows points at the fuelpumpregulatingrods. They are rods going to each individual HP fuelpumps and by movement back and forth turns the fuelpump plunger and by that regulating the fuel to each individual cylinder, hence the output of the engines. Any paints on these rods would cause the rodlinks to stick. Any engineer would see to it that they were freed from any coating, rust or anything which could obstruct the free movement. They were all the time shiny metallic and carefully oiled.
The other picture points to the inlet- and exhaustvalverockers pushrod from the camshaft. Any paint would harm the oilsealing to the camshaftcasing and the engineers would keep them shiny and well oiled. So anybody making drawings or models should not copy the present days painting on the U 995.
Tore