pretty cool, but is that Dry Docked or just turned into a Museum?
it´s at laboe,germany,and it isn´t from a museum i believe,there is a photo with people visiting it.
Is it a type VII ?
U dont realise how big they are till u see it like that…
There’s an old German U-Boat that got salvaged from the bottom as West Dock in Birkenhead (north west England, where I’m from). It’s co-located with a couple of RN ships from the Falklands (HMS Plymouth and HMS Onyx). It’s pretty expensive to go on the U-Boat (they’re raising money to get it fixed up, it’s not in the best condition after the 55 odd years it spent on the bottom of the North Sea) and I haven’t done it yet, but if any of the British based lads on here are in the area, they might want to give it a look.
It easy enough to find, head for the shops in Birkenhead and then follow signs for Historic Warships. You’ll see the U-Boat because it’s right next to the road.
It is huge as well, as Erwin said.
Out of 40,000 men in the U-boat command, some 30,000 were killed during the war, this must be one of the highest attrition rates out there.
The U-boat in the picture is a WW2 VIIC boat (U-995). It is sited on the beach outside the Navy memorial at Laboe, Kiel.
The boat itself was at the end of the war handed over to the Norwegians, who used it in their navy.
In the mid 60s, the Norwegians returned it to Germany as a gift. It was converted into a museum by the German navy in Kiel (e.g. by adding two doors, one in the rear torpedo room and one in the bow torpedo room so that visitors can walk through the ship without having to squeeze through hatches) and it was placed on a prepared concrete foundation outside the Navy memorial.
http://www.u-boot-greywolf.de/u995tour.htm
http://www.juergenthuro.de/html/u-995.html
Jan[/img]
Thanks for that Jan. I can think of no scarier place to be than in a U-boat, or any other submarine of ww2 for that matter.
I hope you like small spaces for weeks on end, and no sunshine.
Being in Diesel subs gives the crew a strange, almost medieval, olfactory spoor.
Seen the movies “Das Boot” or “Enigma”?
Both are very intense.
For driving a sub yourself i suggest the PC game Silent Hunter III.
Yes Das Boot is one of my favourites. As for Silent Hunter III, its a good game, does get a little boring after a while, but I still like to play it occassionally.
You have to install the mods, there is one that populates nearly every harbour and ships, and it also adds events like the Weserübung and stuff!
well chicago also have a U-boat in a musuem near lake shore drive and near lake michigan 
I read a couple of excellent books
(titles & authour to follow)
edit: Hitler’s U Boat War by Clay Blair, Cassel & Co. 2 volumes, “The Hunters 1939-1942”, ISBN 0 304 35260 0 and “The Hunted 1942 - 1945”, ISBN 0 304 35261 6
about the U Boat campaigns. fascinating stuff.
Most of the Captains were only in their mid-twenties to early 30s.
Brave blokes.
The Germans build a great submarinethe the Type XXI wich was one of the most influential designs in the history of the submarine. By making the hull streamline and with the best battery cells available the Germans build the first submarine which travelled faster underwater that on the surface. A combination of active and passive sonar enabled them to attack without taising a tell-tale periscope. Fortunately for the Allies the war ended before the type became fully operational.
I read someware that the Germans did build a few of the Type XXI that did see a bit of action.
I do not know if it is true but can anyone tell me if it is true?
Henk
They were used on patrol during the late years of the war weather they ever fired a round I don’t know. 118 boats of this type were built by Blohm & Voss between 1943-45. Most were scrapped or scuttled after the war, but eight were taken by the Allies for evaluation and trials.
More info here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_XXI_U-boat
Thank you very much.
It’s rather doubtful that had the Type XXIs been introduced when they were (even had Germany still controlled the French bases they once did) they would have made that big an impact. While they were an immense improvement on the Type VII and IX boats, they needed to be to stand a chance of survival. It was rare for the earlier boats on patrol at this point in time to survive - Herbert A. Werner’s book Iron Coffins has some fairly good descriptions of how bad things got. The escort forces were simply massively better than they were in 1941 - incomparably better sonars, A/S mortars, a lot faster, with more experience and much better crews. Allowing for the air escorts as well (less effective, but they might spot a schnorkel mast on radar) the threat faced by the Type XXIs was enough to give them severe trouble.
What was essentially the same escort force did later have trouble with the much faster nuclear submarines when they came in, and to a lesser extent with the much quieter postwar diesel-electric submarines (the Type XXIs for all their speed and sophistication were also very loud). This suggests to me that while the Type XXIs would allow a resumption of the Atlantic convoy battles, they wouldn’t make any decisive contribution and would suffer severely in doing so.