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German Type XXI submarine
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| Class overview |
| Name: |
Type XXI U-boat |
| Completed: |
118 |
| General characteristics |
| Class and type: |
Submarine |
| Displacement: |
1,621 tonnes standard
2,100 tonnes full load |
| Length: |
76.7 m (251 ft 8 in) |
| Beam: |
8 m (26 ft 3 in) |
| Draught: |
5.3 m (17 ft 5 in) |
| Propulsion: |
Diesel/Electric
2× MAN M6V40/46KBB supercharged 6-cylinder diesel engines, 4,000 PS (2.9 MW)
2× SSW GU365/30 double acting electric motors, 5,000 PS (3.7 MW)
2× SSW GV232/28 silent running electric motors, 226 PS (0.166 MW) |
| Speed: |
Surfaced:
15.6 kn (28.9 km/h) (diesel)
17.9 kn (33.2 km/h) (electric)
Submerged:
17.2 kn (31.9 km/h) (electric)
6.1 kn (11.3 km/h) (silent running motors) |
| Range: |
Surfaced:
15,500 nmi (28,700 km) at 10 kn (19 km/h)
Submerged:
340 nmi (630 km) at 5 kn (9.3 km/h) |
| Armament: |
6 × torpedo tubes |
Type XXI U-boats, also known as "Elektroboote", were the first submarines designed to operate entirely submerged, rather than as surface ships that could submerge as a temporary means to escape detection or launch an attack. They were revolutionary when introduced and, if produced earlier and in sufficient quantity, could have seriously influenced the outcome of the Battle of the Atlantic.
Description
The key improvement in the Type XXI was greatly increased battery capacity, roughly three times that of the Type VIIC. This gave these boats enormous underwater range, and dramatically reduced the time spent near the surface. They could travel submerged at about five knots (9 km/h) for two or three days before recharging the batteries, which took less than five hours using the snorkel. It was much quieter than the VIIC, making it more difficult to detect.
The Type XXI's streamlined hull design allowed high submerged speed. The ability to outrun many surface ships while submerged, combined with improved dive times, made it much harder to chase and destroy. It also gave the boat a 'sprint ability' when positioning itself for an attack. Older boats had to surface to sprint into position. This often gave a boat away, especially after aircraft became available for convoy escort. The Type XXI design directly influenced USS Nautilus, the world's first nuclear submarine, USS Albacore, the first submarine with a teardrop hull, the French Narval class submarine, the British Porpoise class submarine, and the Soviet submarine classes known by the NATO reporting names Zulu and Whiskey, although the Whiskey class was smaller and less sophisticated.
The Type XXIs had better facilities than previous classes, including a freezer for foodstuffs. Conveniences for the crew included a shower and a washbasin – crews on other boats spent weeks-long patrols without bathing or shaving. The Type XXI featured a hydraulic torpedo reloading system that allowed all six torpedo tubes, located in the bow, to be reloaded faster than a Type VIIC could reload a single tube. The Type XXI could fire 18 torpedoes in under 20 minutes. The total warload was 23 torpedoes, or 17 torpedoes and 12 sea mines. The XXI featured an advanced sonar system which allowed aiming torpedoes without using the periscope, increasing stealth.
Between 1943 and 1945, 118 boats of this type were assembled by Blohm & Voss of Hamburg, AG Weser of Bremen, and F. Schichau of Danzig. The hulls were constructed from 8 prefabricated sections with final assembly taking place at the shipyards. This new method could have pushed construction speeds below half a year per vessel, but in reality all the assembled U-boats were plagued with severe quality problems that required extensive post-production work to fix. The blame lay as much with the cutting-edge technology as with Albert Speer's insistence that the sections be made by inland companies, even though these had little experience in naval construction. It would have made more sense to concentrate all construction at the shipyards, where the expertise was available to build sophisticated vessels. The extent of the industrial fiasco can be gauged by the fact that out of 118 assembled XXIs, only four were rated fit for combat before the war ended in Europe.[1]
Postwar
U 2511 and U 3008 were the only Type XXIs to go on wartime patrol, and both failed to sink any ships. Most boats were scrapped or scuttled after the war, but eight were taken by the Allies for evaluation and trials. The United States received U 2513 and U 3008, which were commissioned into the United States Navy. U 3017 was commissioned into the Royal Navy as HMS N41, and U 2518 became French submarine Roland Morillot. U 3515, U 2529, U 3035, and U 3041 were commissioned into the Soviet Navy as B 27, B 28, B 29, and B 30 respectively.
A ninth XXI also saw service after the war: U 2540, which had been scuttled at the end of the war, was raised in 1957 to become the research vessel Wilhelm Bauer of the Bundesmarine. It is the only Type XXI remaining and became a museum ship as part of the German Maritime Museum in Bremerhaven, Germany.
Golfo Nuevo Sightings
An extraordinary post-war incident, the "world's greatest-ever submarine hunt", occurred in Golfo Nuevo, Argentina in February 1960. This round gulf, 650 mi (1,050 km) southwest of Buenos Aires, is no more than 50 mi (80 km) at its widest, no deeper than 175 m (570 ft), and its only entrance is 7 mi (11 km) wide. Its major seaport is the Argentine naval base at Puerto Madryn.
On 31 January 1960 an unidentified foreign submarine was reported in the Golfo Nuevo. It was first detected by a sonar operator during a training mission; sonar indicated a solid object moving slowly 90 ft (27 m) below the surface. The sonar target outran the destroyers, who called for air support. A few hours later, a Lockheed Neptune ASW aircraft reported spotting a submarine, which disappeared.
The Argentine Navy declared Golfo Nuevo a war area out of bounds to airliners and ships, and blacked out the Puerto Madryn naval base. It then set 3 destroyers, 18 aircraft, and some helicopters to patrolling the area, and assembled 5 warships at the 7 mi (11 km) entrance to the gulf, where the sea shallows to 60 ft (18 m).
Five days later, sonar operators made a second contact, and an attack drove the submarine to 420 ft (130 m), below the 300 ft (91 m) effective depth of the Navy's depth charges. On the eighth day, radar spotted a sub or a snorkel above the surface. The target dived to 540 ft (160 m), but pursuers heard a sound like hammering for the next two days, which was thought to possibly indicate damage repairs.
The Argentine Navy Ministry called the US Naval attaché who sent his assistant to the scene. The following day, Washington announced that it had sold Buenos Aires $25,000 worth of electronic equipment, aircraft flares, and depth charges.
At the end of the week the Argentine navy officially announced that a "second unidentified submarine" had moved into Golfo Nuevo "with the apparent purpose of helping" its trapped and crippled sister.
Sceptics pointed out that such mysterious unidentified submarines tended to appear in Argentine waters around the same time that naval appropriations bills appeared in Congress. In 1958 the Argentine navy made brief contact with what it said was a submarine Golfo Nuevo, and a month later received sufficient funding to buy an aircraft carrier. In 1959 it also sighted a submarine, and received enough money to purchase aircraft. Just prior to the 1960 incident, Navy Secretary Rear Admiral Gaston Clement was trying to extract funds from Economics Minister Alvaro Alsogaray.[2]
In a "New York Times" report on 22 March 1960, it was stated: "Capt. Ray M. Pitts, who headed a US Navy unit in Argentina during last month's submarine scare, believes there was a foreign submarine in Golfo Nuevo. He said in an interview that there was much evidence he was not free to speak about. He added that he had talked with persons who said they had seen the intruder. He said he was confident these persons were telling the truth." Pitts was Assistant Director, US Navy Undersea Warfare Division heading a squad of thirteen anti-submarine veterans.[3]
The submarine surfaced on at least seven occasions and was identified by Argentine and US naval experts as "a German Type XXI U-boat of World War Two". An oil sample collected for analysis proved to be of the formula used by the Third Reich. The possibility that the submarine was Soviet was discounted.citation needed
The last known sighting of Type XXI U-boats in Argentine waters was on 17 August 1971 when three specimens, one trailing oil, were photographed from the air heading for an isolated stretch of shoreline in the Golfo San Matías. The material was shown at once to Almirante Gnavi, Argentine Navy Commander-in-Chief, who had been involved in the 1960 hunt. He insisted that the "submarines in the photographs" posed no threat to Argentina and therefore "he was not interested in investigating them."citation needed
Type XXI submarine diagram
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See also
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Groundbreaking submarines |
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Notes
- ^ Tooze, Adam (2006). The Wages of Destruction. London, UK: Penguin Books, p616-618. ISBN 978-0-141-00348-1.
- ^ "The Ping in Golfo Nuevo", TIME, 22 February 1960, <http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,939605,00>
- ^ "SUBMARINE HELD REAL; Leader of U.S. Unit in Hunt Backs Argentine Report", New York Times: p. 9, 22 March 1960, <http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract?res=F20D16F8355C16738DDDAB0A94DB405B808AF1D3&scp=18&sq=golfo+nuevo&st=p>
References
External links
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