Technology and Operations
This forum is for discussing technological & operational matters pertaining to U-boats.
RE: Depth charges maximum depth settings
Posted by:
Javier Dropez
()
Date: June 05, 2001 08:16PM
Hello Clint,
Thank you for your comments. About the \"unofficial depth settings\": as far as I know, this was not technically possible with the fuses of the MkVII. But I had also read the special case Bill has posted in his message, \"an enterprising gunner in HMS Petard in the Mediterranean got 600 feet in his DC by putting soap into the holes of the DC hydrostatic pistols\"(October´42).(This is explained in Hitler´s U-boat war,vol.II,page 84, and in a book about HMS Petard). So, it seems certain that at least until October of 1942, 550feet was the maximum setting,if you do not count the \"50 extra\" feet gained in this case, that seems the maximum that could be obtained by this unnoficial (and I think not very common) method. Anyway, even this unnoficial method does gain 50 feet only, far from the 700 feet used in May´43 (or BEFORE, this is the big question for me).
As regards your question about determining the depth of the U-boats, I reccomend to you the book \"Seek&strike: sonar, antisubmarine warfare and the Royal Navy 1914-1954\" by Willem Hackmann. Depth-determining sets were used from April´43 on,
(The \"Q attachment\"and, later,the type 147B depth-determining set).Before this sets appeared,the depth of the sub was more or less calculated based in the distance at which contact was lost, \"the rule of thumb being that target depth was about one third of the range at loss of sonar contact\"(Destroyer Weapons of World War Two, by Hodges and Friedman, p.136).So, a sub lost at 300 yards would probably be at 300 feet.
Javier
Thank you for your comments. About the \"unofficial depth settings\": as far as I know, this was not technically possible with the fuses of the MkVII. But I had also read the special case Bill has posted in his message, \"an enterprising gunner in HMS Petard in the Mediterranean got 600 feet in his DC by putting soap into the holes of the DC hydrostatic pistols\"(October´42).(This is explained in Hitler´s U-boat war,vol.II,page 84, and in a book about HMS Petard). So, it seems certain that at least until October of 1942, 550feet was the maximum setting,if you do not count the \"50 extra\" feet gained in this case, that seems the maximum that could be obtained by this unnoficial (and I think not very common) method. Anyway, even this unnoficial method does gain 50 feet only, far from the 700 feet used in May´43 (or BEFORE, this is the big question for me).
As regards your question about determining the depth of the U-boats, I reccomend to you the book \"Seek&strike: sonar, antisubmarine warfare and the Royal Navy 1914-1954\" by Willem Hackmann. Depth-determining sets were used from April´43 on,
(The \"Q attachment\"and, later,the type 147B depth-determining set).Before this sets appeared,the depth of the sub was more or less calculated based in the distance at which contact was lost, \"the rule of thumb being that target depth was about one third of the range at loss of sonar contact\"(Destroyer Weapons of World War Two, by Hodges and Friedman, p.136).So, a sub lost at 300 yards would probably be at 300 feet.
Javier
