Submarines and their Weapons - Aircraft of World War II

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TYPE XVIIB Type: Coastal submarine Displacement: 317 tonnes (312 tons) surfaced; 363 tonnes (357 tons) submerged Length: 41.50m (136.17ft) Submerged speed: 21.5 knots equipped Mark 27 torpedo in 1944, and in the last years of the war, 106 were fired in combat, scoring 33 hits (31 per cent). Another approach was to fit a form of automatic pilot, which caused the torpedo to make a series of pre-programmed turns after it had run a preset distance, in the hope that a torpedo fired in the general direction of a convoy would turn and hit a ship purely by chance. Neither the success rate of the Federapparat-Torpedo, nor that of its more sophisticated successor, the Lagcnunabhangiger-Torpedo (which could be fired from depths of up to 50m; 164ft), seems to have been recorded. Later U-boats had their six forward-facing torpedo tubes organised into an array which covered 10 degrees of arc; firing all six in a salvo gave a much-improved chance of hitting the target. It is obvious that the same guidance system which was applied to the glider bombs and the guided missiles could also have been applied to torpedoes, even though keeping a precise track of the missile's course would naturally have been more difficult. It is inconceivable that an experimental programme, at least, was not initiated. Certainly, one of the Kriegsmarine's original submarine warfare instructors, Werner Fürbringer, suggested it. A viable alternative to the torpedo was to lay mines in the path of the oncoming enemy (particularly if this was a slow-moving convoy), and a variety of submarine-launched mines were developed. The Torpedo- Ankertaumine (TMA) had a 215kg (4751b) explosive charge, and was attached to an anchor which allowed it to float at a predetermined height, while the Torpedo-Grundminen lay on the seabed in shallower water. They came in two sizes: the 500kg (llOOlb) TMB and the 1000kg (22001b) TMC. All three mines were dimensioned to allow them to be deployed SUBMARINES AND THEIR WEAPONS Submerged range: 210km (130 miles) Armament: 2 x 533mm (21 in) torpedo tubes Crew: 1,9 Above: The Type XVII boats had both conventional diesel engines and a single Walter closed-cycle engine. They were designed for coastal operations. through a standard 533mm (21in) torpedo tube and could be fitted with a variety of remotely actuated detonators, magnetic or acoustic. THE NEW GENERATION OF SUBMARINES There was little development of the basic submarine in the inter-war period, except that the once-popular saddle-tank design, in which the buoyancy chambers were located outside the pressure hull, gave way more and more to the double hull, in which they enclosed it almost completely and were themselves contained within a light enclosure which could be shaped to improve sea-keeping and performance. In Germany, developments in the late 1930s were aimed only at increasing the size and endurance of existing types, not making any radical changes to their design. However, by 1941, experimental boats with a new type of powerplant which did not need atmospheric oxygen had been produced, and were proving to be quite remarkable. The powerplant in question was, once again, the creation of the prolific Professor Hellmuth Walter, whom we have already met. Walter had constructed a small experimental boat, the V30, launched on 19 January 1940, which displaced just 73.8 tonnes (75 tons) submerged. He equipped it with a steam turbine, fed by a variant of the liquid-fuel motors which were to power the VI flying bomb's launch catapult, producing their steam by the chemical reaction of hydrogen peroxide with a catalyst. Walter soon discovered that his submarine could make almost 30 knots submerged - around three times the submerged speed of any conventional 131
SUBMARINES AND THEIR WEAPONS TYPE XXI A Type: Ocean-going submarine Displacement: 1620 tonnes (1595 tons) surfaced 1848 tonnes (1819 tons) submerged Length: 76.70m (251.66ft) Submerged speed: 17 knots Above: The Type XXIs were ocean-going submarines of over 1600 tonnes (1575 tons), the size of a small destroyer of the period. They could make 17 knots submerged. submarine running on battery power - and that led him to suggest to the Kriegsmarine the construction of a fleet of similarly powered submarine warships. When asked where he proposed to store the large quantities of reagent and fuel that would be required, he produced a design for a two-decker submarine, in itself virtually two existing double hulls joined into a tigure '8', the bottom portion of which would serve 132 Submerged range: 525km (325 miles) at 6 knots Armament: 6 x 533mm (21 in) torpedo tubes; 4 x 20mm AA guns Crew: 57 exclusively as 'bunkerage'. Someone at this proposal meeting noted that it would be just as easy to fill that lower section with batteries. THE'ELECTRO-BOATS' Whatever the method adopted, as the war wore on, it was to become harder and harder for U-boat commanders to remain on the surface, even at night, Below: The conning tower top of a (scuttled) Type XXI. Note the retractable radio antenna and the faired-in machine gun emplacements.
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Roger Ford Publishing Company
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Contents INTRODUCTION 6 CHAPTER ONE
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Her scientists made an enormous and
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JET AIRCRAFT developed during World
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JET AIRCRAFT stillborn Oil engine,
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JET AIRCRAFT the first all-jet Me 2
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JET AIRCRAFT Messerschmitt Me 262A-
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JET AIRCRAFT
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JET AIRCRAFT Above: Surrounded by J
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JET AIRCRAFT Above: The Junkers Ju
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JET AIRCRAFT one aircraft - in the
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JET AIRCRAFT DORNIER Do 335 Type: S
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JET AIRCRAFT Above: Despite its app
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JET AIRCRAFT engined bombers do. Th
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JET AIRCRAFT Above: Gotha engineers
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CHAPTER TWO Rocket-powered Aircraft
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MESSERSCHMITT Me 163B-1 Type: Singl
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50 unpowered versions were built be
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February 1945, a single, unmanned t
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for completing a test programme on
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HYBRID AIRCRAFT AND GLIDERS 1940, i
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HYBRID AIRCRAFT AND GLIDERS GOTHA G
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HYBRID AIRCRAFT AND GLIDERS 'MISTEL
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CHAPTER FOUR Rotary-win g Aircraft
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'Drache' ('Kite'). The new aircraft
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through 90 degrees to bring them to
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universally jointed drive shaft and
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SURFACE-TO-SURFACE MISSILES THEFIES
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SURFACE-TO-SURFACE MISSILES Above:
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SURFACE-TO-SURFACE MISSILES Above:
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SURFACE-TO-SURFACE MISSILES FIESELE
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Left: A complete VI weighed some 2.
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Right: A technician is photographed
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made now of graphite rather than mo
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cooling it and supplying it with su
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SURFACE-TO-SURFACE MISSILES
Page 82 and 83: 134. Other reports suggest that the
Page 84: discussion stage. There was also ta
Page 87 and 88: Above: The simplest of all air-to-a
Page 89 and 90: AIR-TO-AIR WEAPONS aim on a target
Page 92 and 93: CHAPTER SEVEN Air-to-Surface Missil
Page 94 and 95: armoured deck slowed it down fracti
Page 96 and 97: DORNIER Do 217E-5 Type: Four-seat a
Page 98 and 99: at reduced speed. These defensive t
Page 100: HENSCHEL Hs 294 Type: Rocket-propel
Page 103 and 104: SURFACE-TO-AIR MISSILES 'Schmetterl
Page 105 and 106: SURFACE-TO-AIR MISSILES Mach number
Page 107 and 108: Above: The 'Rheintochter' 1 on its
Page 110 and 111: CHAPTER NINE Artillery By the end o
Page 112 and 113: simple matter. In around 20 hours,
Page 114 and 115: third gun, which was never complete
Page 116 and 117: unlike the 'Gustav Gerät', they we
Page 118 and 119: 21CM KANONE 12 (K12) Calibre: 21.1c
Page 120: ARTILLERY 11 s
Page 123 and 124: TANKS AND ANTI-TANK WEAPONS PzKpfw
Page 125 and 126: TANKS AND ANTI-TANK WEAPONS PANZER
Page 127 and 128: TANKS AND ANTI-TANK WEAPONS Above:
Page 130 and 131: CHAPTER ELEVEN Submarines and their
Page 134 and 135: TYPE XXIII Type: Coastal submarine
Page 136 and 137: Above: A 'Marder' ('Marten') midget
Page 138: The next step was to produce a true
Page 141 and 142: NUCLEAR, BIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL WE
Page 143 and 144: Page numbers in italics refer to pi
Page 145: INDEX Paris Guns 109-10 Tarsival 1
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Submarines and their Weapons - Aircraft of World War II

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