Rainer & Wayne;

The most frequent damage from aircraft gunnery to a U-boat (any type) was the penetration of the ballast tanks. No internal patching was possible, after those .50 caliber armor-piercing rounds tore up that thin steel plating.

In the final minutes of "DAS BOOT" film, doesn't the U-96 sink in the drydock due
to strafing by the Allied planes? That's ballast tanks being hit by aircraft gunnery, n'est ce pas?

Later,

ROBERT M.