In order to answer a question for the archive I work at I am looking for a passenger carrying steamer, most likely under Italian flag, sunk in Med on 7/8 April 1917 on route from/to Egypt. Judging from the database the closest match would be "Porto di Rodi" torpedoed by U 32 on 10 April 1917. The two days discrepancy might not be an issue but I wonder, is the WW1 ships losses database a
Forum: WWI forum

The story looks like an urband legend: the 60's would mean more than 15 years after the war and I would expect that something would have given in to let enough air out and enough water in to eliminate the small positive buoyancy well before then. The russians as I understand have to make active efforts to prevent their cold war era decomissioned boats awaiting demolition from sinking at thei
Forum: General Discussions

Physically speaking the boat would have either sunk right away or bobbed just below surface, like it happened to the chinese submarine 361 back in 2003, which was found adrift by e fishermen a few days after the accident. I would expect however that the latter condition could not have lasted for years, enough water would have seeped in to destroy positive buoyancy eventually.
Forum: General Discussions

Peillard's "La bataille de l' Atlantique" includes a small map with the routes the u-boats would use over the continental shelf when returning to or leaving the Biscay ports. I guess these would be safety routes through the coastal minefields and such. Is such map available elsewhere with more details?
Forum: General Discussions

Does anybody know if there was a planned combat load for the Type XXI, let's say something like 12 TIIIa Lut II + 6 TVIII + 2 TIX or anything of the sort, in the fashion of what had been done for the earlier types??
Forum: General Discussions

An abandoned submarine is not likely to remain afloat for what would be now 70 years, IIRC some abandoned ships have managed to remain afloat for several years but not that long and a sub probably has much more potential for leaks. Additionally if one was trying to sneak in somewhere sinking the sub would be a logical move to cover one's own traces, nor a place close enough to civilization t
Forum: General Discussions

I first heard about it back in the 90's, what looked like a german u-boat was known to be in the area according to some local divers, though details were sparse and no proper identification was made back then. Quite likely they strayed into the coastal defensive minefield; interestingly they sank unnoticed in front of a german coastal battery.
Forum: General Discussions

As far as I understand the type XXI was fitted with the same plant of the type IX. The problem was that not only the need for water was greater than the IX due to more batteries being installed but the distillation plant was designed to be run on the surface; underwater the piping would be hard pressed to cope with the increased pressure and if snorkeling the effect of the sudden atmosphere pre
Forum: Technology and Operations

There are a lot of italian submarines which are not "100% sure" but those two were smallish boats built for and operating in the mediterranean at the time of their loss and the odds of them somehow reaching the red sea outside a Cussler novel must be vanishingly small. The captured italian boat (Galilei) was operated by the Royal Navy but it was supposed to have been demolished rather
Forum: General Discussions

The Red Sea flotilla lost four submarines: Macallè, Galilei, Galvani and Torricelli. From what I have read one was captured, one was scuttled and two were sunk on the surface; with some survivors in all four cases circumstances of the loss are more or less known and none were lost north of Port Sudan.
Forum: General Discussions

Since this might be of general interest I am going to give a partial answer to this admittedly old question. 1. How many U-boats were based there? Give or take about 15-20 boats were in the mediterranean at any given moment and there would be others bases (Salamis, Pola etc), so it would be a fraction of this total. 2. How big were the U-boat pens - and what was their location? When
Forum: Technology and Operations

"as far as I know, the torpedo tubes equipped with FAT torpedo setting gears could not be used with LUT torpedoes" Thanks, this is what I wanted to know.
Forum: Technology and Operations

Does anybody know to which extent the two types would be compatible with the other type director mechanisms. It would seem obvious that a Fat director could not use Lut full settings but beyond that what was possible? Could the Lut TDC make full use of Fat patterns? Straight running only capability?
Forum: Technology and Operations