Inside a German U-boat
September 18, 2015 11:05 AM   Subscribe

 
http://www.msichicago.org/whats-here/exhibits/u-505/

I recommend the tour inside. Every square inch is packed with electronics, tubing, etc.
Not for the claustrophobic.
posted by haldane at 11:12 AM on September 18, 2015 [5 favorites]


Those are AMAZING photos.

They appear to be constructed entirely of pipe and valve handles.
posted by Phreesh at 11:13 AM on September 18, 2015 [3 favorites]


That's wheely interesting!

Enh? ENH?!?
posted by Capt. Renault at 11:17 AM on September 18, 2015 [2 favorites]


Or if you're in San Diego, you can go inside a Soviet B-39 Submarine. Much later, still a bit claustro.
posted by benito.strauss at 11:24 AM on September 18, 2015 [2 favorites]


haldane: ... u-505 ...

I visited the U505 and the USS Pampanito in SF within a couple of weeks of each other and was struck by how different they were, right from very basic design principles. The Pampanito was a luxury cruiser in comparison. I really liked that the U505 had wooden bunk beds though - I wonder what thinking was behind that.


The sub in TFA though? My worst Giger-esque claustrophobic fevered nightmare. I can't begin to imagine being stuck underwater in that steam-locomotive contraption, let alone entrusting my life to it while surface ships are trying to blow me up. <foetal position, sucks thumb>
posted by vanar sena at 11:28 AM on September 18, 2015 [3 favorites]


*nonchalantly reaches for Luger pistol*
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 11:31 AM on September 18, 2015 [2 favorites]


That first pic - I wonder if H.R. Giger's ever been in U-boats?
posted by King Sky Prawn at 11:40 AM on September 18, 2015 [3 favorites]


Ladies and Gentlemen, That's Steampunk.
posted by leotrotsky at 11:41 AM on September 18, 2015 [13 favorites]


vanar sena, US fleet subs in WWII were uniquely designed with morale in mind, as you noted. They were enormous, like Japanese submarines, because they were expected to traverse the Pacific, and they had bunks for each crew member, air conditioning(!), generally excellent rations, and, delightfully, ice cream machines. There's something charming about this deadly leviathan of an organization making secret murder machines to cross a quarter of the world, and somewhere in the vast chain of decisions, a decision is made: these men must have fresh ice cream.
posted by The Gaffer at 11:41 AM on September 18, 2015 [14 favorites]


I can't begin to imagine being stuck underwater
I can't imagine going inside that in drydock.
posted by MtDewd at 11:52 AM on September 18, 2015



vanar sena, US fleet subs in WWII were uniquely designed with morale in mind, as you noted. They were enormous, like Japanese submarines, because they were expected to traverse the Pacific, and they had bunks for each crew member, air conditioning(!), generally excellent rations, and, delightfully, ice cream machines. There's something charming about this deadly leviathan of an organization making secret murder machines to cross a quarter of the world, and somewhere in the vast chain of decisions, a decision is made: these men must have fresh ice cream.


Given submariners had the highest casualty percentage of all the American armed forces during WWII (losing 1 in 5), I think some ice cream is the least we could do.
posted by leotrotsky at 11:53 AM on September 18, 2015 [1 favorite]




> US fleet subs in WWII were uniquely designed with morale in mind

Just one wharf over from the B-39 in San Diego is the USS Dolphin, a roughly contemporaneous US sub. The difference in design and how they must have about the people who would live in it is obvious.
posted by benito.strauss at 12:08 PM on September 18, 2015 [2 favorites]


Dan Carlin makes the point in his recent Hardcore History podcast about the first world war that these things were as high tech and unbelievable as the USS Enterprise from Star Trek would be to us were it real in 2015.
posted by Keith Talent at 12:22 PM on September 18, 2015


One of the primary threads of Eric Larson's most recent nonfiction book Dead Wake takes place in a U-Boat - highly recommended.
posted by raisindebt at 12:27 PM on September 18, 2015


Jesus, that first photo! It looks like some crappy "steampunk" shop on Etsy where someone just takes a regular object and glues old gears all over it at random.
posted by Naberius at 12:30 PM on September 18, 2015 [1 favorite]


a decision is made: these men must have fresh ice cream.

Which is, you know, lovely, but some nations have a slightly more refined approach to in-battle refreshment.
posted by Devonian at 12:35 PM on September 18, 2015 [5 favorites]


It's amazing how many NOPES they were able to cram into that thing.

That said, I've got nothing but respect for the people who were not only able to operate such a machine, but could actually live in it for extended periods.
posted by the matching mole at 12:36 PM on September 18, 2015


Going even further back in the history of submarine warfare, the folks handling the restoration of the Civil War Era H.L. Hunley recently posted this video showing off the removal of 1200 lbs of seafloor concretion that had accumulated on the outside of the boat from its sinking in 1864 up until the year 2000 when it was raised again. Their next step is to clear the concretion from the inside.

As cramped and claustrophobic as those WWI subs were, even they were pleasant and roomy by the Hunley's hellish standards. Eight men in a repurposed riveted iron boiler that had to be entered through hatches a mere 14 inches by 15 3/4ths inches in size, working hand pumps and the main drive crank by the light of a single candle.
posted by radwolf76 at 12:38 PM on September 18, 2015 [2 favorites]


Awesome, and nthing the respect and claustrophobia comments. I wonder what happened to the crew.
posted by marienbad at 12:45 PM on September 18, 2015


I can't begin to imagine being stuck underwater in that steam-locomotive contraption

And then all of a sudden, the lights fail and you're plunged into inky darkness as depth charges continue to drop all around you.
posted by Fupped Duck at 1:05 PM on September 18, 2015 [1 favorite]


Wasserbomben! Verdammt!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 1:10 PM on September 18, 2015 [2 favorites]


That first photo looks like metal cancer. God. It's nightmarish.
posted by Beholder at 1:24 PM on September 18, 2015 [1 favorite]


They should have installed more wheels. There aren't enough of them.
posted by Ashenmote at 2:05 PM on September 18, 2015 [3 favorites]


Tardis?
posted by Modest House at 3:20 PM on September 18, 2015


For being what on first glance appears to be a giant over wheeled death trap, those things were super effective. They changed warfare.

And you know they had to be smoking in there.
posted by Sphinx at 3:49 PM on September 18, 2015


I wanted to find, for the sake of comparison, some similar interior shots of the Russian/Soviet Alfa class submarine, which is pretty arguably the most advanced submarine ever built (and possibly ever will be built, at least for a long time). However, there don't seem to be any interior photos floating around on the Internet that I could find, which is on one hand pretty surprising because the Internet Has Everything, but on the other hand only a few hundred people have probably ever been onboard one and they don't exist anymore.

They were, reportedly, designed by some of the same people and bureaus who did Soviet spacecraft, and were literally designed like a spaceship that went underwater.

It would be interesting to see whether, in a century or so, their design radiates a particular era as clearly as the WWI submarines say "I'm trapped inside a steam engine" to people today.
posted by Kadin2048 at 4:12 PM on September 18, 2015 [2 favorites]


Just looking at these give me the claustrophic heebie-jeebies. Last year I was walking between two groups of people up the aisle of the Concorde at the Museum of Flight in Seattle and started to feel short of breath. And that had windows with sunlight shining through them and doors open to the outside.

But yeah, that first picture...amazing.
posted by lhauser at 4:13 PM on September 18, 2015


Zees rhoom needs a vicker BASKET!
posted by condour75 at 4:32 PM on September 18, 2015 [2 favorites]


Considering the insane number of controls packed in such close proximity you have to believe those crews were well trained.
posted by tommasz at 4:49 PM on September 18, 2015 [1 favorite]


I just wish there were a single pic of a person inside, for scale.
posted by OHenryPacey at 5:04 PM on September 18, 2015


Or a banana.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:09 PM on September 18, 2015 [1 favorite]


As a somewhat counterculture contract programmer dude I had a short stint at a shipbuilding company. The head of the department was an ex sub captain. I don't know if it was tone of voice or pheromones but I just stood straighter when he was around and knew I'd jump too if he made a command. I expect it was a certain kind of person that did well on a sub, certainly would be a certain kind after the first voyage!
posted by sammyo at 6:09 PM on September 18, 2015 [1 favorite]


some similar interior shots of the Russian/Soviet Alfa class submarine

Not an Alfa but here's a series of Typhoon / Shark interior photos. Was the Soviet Union's biggest sub ever and a nice contrast to the U-Boat interiors. On one hand, there were wood paneled offices and a (small) swimming pool. On the other, there are still plenty of mysterious cranks, wheels, and levers in seemingly random places, and more than a fair share of claustrophobic passages.
posted by honestcoyote at 7:25 PM on September 18, 2015 [2 favorites]


They were enormous, like Japanese submarines, because they were expected to traverse the Pacific, and they had bunks for each crew member, air conditioning(!), generally excellent rations, and, delightfully, ice cream machines.

they have one of those subs docked at muskegon and i went on a tour through it - i wouldn't describe it as being enormous - there were some tight sections there - but it wasn't too bad - and yes, they still had an ice cream machine
posted by pyramid termite at 7:50 PM on September 18, 2015


I haven't been in a U-boat but I've been in a Soviet sub - probably the B-39? - and man that did not look like a great place to live.
posted by atoxyl at 7:58 PM on September 18, 2015


"They knew they were in trouble when there was no longer enough oxygen in the air to easily light the cigarettes that were continually smoked... Everyone not essential to the operation of the boat would lie down to minimize their breathing."
From the virtual tour of the USS Pampanito...
20+ pages of great information.
posted by haldane at 8:31 PM on September 18, 2015 [3 favorites]


*nonchalantly reaches for Luger pistol*

Slight tangent and trivia for you.

If you actually did have a Luger that was issued to Kriegsmarine Submariner, those things are perhaps the rarest of the rare P08 Lugers from that era, with the exception of the "Million Dollar Luger," often called "the rarest pistol in the world."

It's not just that 3 out of 4 German Submariners didn't survive the war - only ~10,000 of ~40,000 survived, and half of those were POWs, so the vast majority of their sidearms were abandoned with sinking/scuttled U-boats (only 6 were successfully boarded and captured in combat during the war), it's also that (if I remember correctly) only 5-7 members of the crew on each boat were officers that would be issued sidearms, and out of those, only a fraction were P08 Lugers, the rest being mostly a mix of mostly pistols like the Mauser 1934, Walther P38, or even the FN1922 or 1910.

Last I heard, those things were going for $25,000-50,000 at auctions.

Guess I kind of geeked-out there for a moment, but when I was little I had several great-uncles who fought in WWII, and kindly entertained/put up with all my nearly endless questions about it, from how to pack a rucksack properly, how to storm a castle, what you could do to make C-rations taste better, how to fix a jeep or a hole in the side of a ship, why Mark 14 torpedoes were terrible, what depth charges sounded like above the water, to how to field strip and repair an M1 Garand in a foxhole in the middle of the night when it's raining cats and dogs.
posted by chambers at 10:25 PM on September 18, 2015 [2 favorites]


i wouldn't describe it as being enormous - there were some tight sections there

You have to compare them to the U-boats though. The US subs were war machines, no question, but after that primary concern, they looked designed around the humans that were going to live in them, in space, facilities and ergonomics. The U505 didn't seem like that at all - humans and their various necessities were just poked randomly into nooks and crannies that didn't already have some critical machinery in them.
posted by vanar sena at 1:39 AM on September 19, 2015


MY GOD IT'S FULL OF VALVES
posted by Bringer Tom at 6:51 AM on September 19, 2015 [1 favorite]


Here's a funny rundown from Cracked about what it's like to be a US submariner. I love the water, but I'm claustrophobic, and scuba diving gives you a terrible appreciation of water pressure. The only thing that ever scares me about being on a boat is the idea of being trapped in a cabin if it sank.

The sailors on submarines today are not just volunteers but worked hard to get there; I do not know if the men on U-Boats were conscripts or not. If so -- Jesus, the poor bastards.
posted by Countess Elena at 9:37 AM on September 19, 2015


I am pretty sure U-Boat crews were volunteers just as in other navies. There is no margin for error on a submarine and nobody wants a crewmate who didn't want the job. There is also usually extra pay and status for accepting the danger.
posted by Bringer Tom at 7:02 PM on September 19, 2015


The USS Torsk, a late WWII sub now in Baltimore's Inner Harbor, has a virtual tour online. It looks cramped in its present configuration; it's hard to imagine living and working there with 80 other people and a full load of torpedoes.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 8:28 AM on September 20, 2015


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