Technology and Operations  
This forum is for discussing technological & operational matters pertaining to U-boats. 
Re: Neutral Buoyancy in WWII
Posted by: kurt ()
Date: February 01, 2003 05:53PM

I believe the answer is no.

Even modern subs will patrol with a knot or two to keep some depth control.

Normally boats would trim to slightly bouyant and then use the planes on a slight down angle to keep them down - it gives better depth control, and the boat will naturally rise to the surface if the propulsion fails.

Exact trimming would be very difficult, and require fine trimming tanks and pumps that weren't in the designs of a fighting boat.

Occasionally US boats would find a thermocline that was strong enough to 'sit' on - the boat would actually rest on the denser layer of colder water, staying submerged at a constant depth with no forward motion (and no noise), but this is not really neutral bouyancy, but rather resting on a (fluid) surface. The thermocline was in general too deep (600 feet or more) in the Atlantic for U-boats to do this trick - at least I don't recall any such incidents.

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Subject Written By Posted
Neutral Buoyancy in WWII John 02/01/2003 06:03AM
Re: Neutral Buoyancy in WWII kurt 02/01/2003 05:53PM
Re: Neutral Buoyancy in WWII Rainer Bruns 02/01/2003 07:55PM
Re: Neutral Buoyancy in WWII Dion Pauls 02/02/2003 03:13AM
Re: Neutral Buoyancy in WWII Sander Kingsepp 02/03/2003 12:08PM
Re: Neutral Buoyancy in WWII KJK 02/14/2003 08:20PM


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