IXC/40: bow diving plane guards, rudder plane supports

[GlennCauley]

This may have been discussed elsewhere, but I cannot find it.

Wondering about the following on the IXC/40 (U-190):

• On the bow dive planes & guards.    Was the guard attached to the dive plane at an outer pivot point... yes or no?    Pics appreciated.
• On the 2 rudder planes.  Were lower support rods attached to lower pivot points... yes or no?   (I have seen some pics of rudders w/o lower support rods.)

[dougie47]

Hi Glenn,

Here is an image Wink took of the U 505. The white arrow shows where the outer pivot point would have been on the forward dive planes. I think the actual pivot point may have corroded away but you can get a good idea where it would have been -



For the stern, the early and mid IXs (as well as the VIICs) originally had a support bracket at the bottom of the rudders. This went from the bottom of the rudders towards a larger support block. It can be seen below on a VIIC (the IXs had the same arrangement). Note the red arrows show the A-bracket meeting with the bottom of the rudders.



Below can be seen Wink's photo of the stern of U 505. Note that the A-bar is not present on U 505. I think it was originally there but was removed in 43 or 44. I have seen dry-dock shots of U 858, U 873 and U 889 and they all have this A-bar thing missing. So I am reasonably confident that it was not there on U 190.



Cheers,

Dougie

Simon - this is the same A-bar that I was talking about in my message to you

[GlennCauley]

Thank you, Dougie.

For the stern...
Remove the A-bar going from large support block to bottom of both rudders.
Retain the large support block and 1 centerline bar going forward to the keel.