Flooding holes

[GlennCauley]

In going through the pictures in Warship Pictorial #27 Kriegsmarine Type VII U-boats, I found an interesting photo of a (seemingly) VIIC/41 with flooding holes that don't quite match others.  Go figure, huh?   

Look at the middle boat in the pic below, as per page 68 of the book.

In the upper bow, there are only 9 round holes instead of the usual 12.
In the forward bow, just above the waterline, the 3 oval holes are missing.

[NZSnowman]

I believe the 3 oval holes are usually only on the port side of the boat.

[GlennCauley]

Uhm... it's the port side that is shown there... 

Usually it is 3 oval holes on the port side, 2 oval holes on the starboard side.
What's unusual is that there are NO oval holes at all on that boat... at least on the port side there aren't.

Also, the circular holes near the top deck... almost always there are 12 (12 evenly spaced, or 6 paired)... but not 9???   That's odd, too.

Dougie?

[NZSnowman]

You are right I was mean to say starboard because I though it was 3 on the starboard and 2 on the port side - got it wrong again

You are also right about having no holes on the port side, I have not see this before also. I wonder if the bow was damage and was repaired in a hurry, to get the boat back out quickly  

[dougie47]

Hi guys,

Yeah, you are right Glenn, no holes near the stem. Quite unusual and I hadn't previously noticed it on that photo.

The 9 rather than 12 holes up above was reasonably unusual too. I have seen other photos where there were less than 12 but can't recall which boat. So many boats, so many little differences...

Well noticed.

Cheers,

Dougie