9 ms·

German submarine U-1206

66 points by mmoez 7y ago

lgrebe 7y ago
FTA: > The site survey performed by RCAHMS suggests that the leak that forced U-1206 to surface may have occurred after running into a pre-existing wreck located at the same site.
- jandrese 7y ago
  I was wondering about that. Did they run into the wreck and then make up the toilet story for a scapegoat?
throwaway925 7y ago
16 days in operation, no victories. Should be in a book of greatest enterprise failures.
- NateEag 7y ago
  Tangentially related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Heroic_Failures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Heroic_Failures I have a copy. It is a much-beloved source of joy.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    > The American version of the book was misprinted by the publishers, who left out half the introduction. Well, that's just perfection.
- dual_dingo 7y ago
  I believe nothing beats the Vasa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa_(ship) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa_(ship)) in that regard ... Sank 1300 m(!) into its maiden voyage.
- zelon88 7y ago
  It's important to note that most of the advanced technology that Germany gets credit for in WWII was designed, built and destroyed all in a matter of a decade or two. The Bismarck is another good example. It was the largest, heaviest, strongest, most advanced battleship of it's time. There was no single allied ship that could match it's performance or firepower or withstand combat against it for very long. And the Bismarck was sunk 9 months after she was commissioned. Not by a toilet, not by inexperience; but because the entire British navy identified the gargantuan risk and superflous symbology of destroying the pinnacle of German tech. That, and it sunk the symbolic HMS Hood (arguably second best warship at the time) battleship in an almost comedic display that lasted mere minutes. The Titanic took hours to sink but the Hood, a ship of similar size and weight, was gone in mere seconds after being hit by the Bismarck's deck guns. After that the Bismarck was the only thing Britain cared about. The reason German tech didn't last wasn't because the tech was inferior. It was because for every one unit Germany built, there were 5 allied units with crosshairs trained on it. The hunting was simply better for the allies than it was for Germany towards the end of the war, after Germany had been crippled by allied carpet bombing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Denmark_Strait https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Denmark_Strait
  - duxup 7y ago
    Also as far as the Bismarck goes, it really was the end of single battleships (or even a group) operating alone effectively, with the exception of maybe some open ocean raiding here or there. With carriers and planes... just a matter of time until a battleship is found and not much a battleship can do alone at that point. Thus the effectiveness of subs (and in particular at that time the wolf pack system).
    - zelon88 7y ago
      Yup. Air superiority changed naval warfare forever. It was the radar technology given to the American's by the British that closed the blindspot in the center of the Atlantic which the Germans used to hide U-Boats. Once radar was able to shrink the mid-atlantic gap Germany became unable to disrupt allied merchant shipping. The lack of places to hide meant German U-Boat flotilla's were fish in a barrel for allied planes.
- mannykannot 7y ago
  I don't think there is anything unusual about that number - the time when there were any easy targets was long gone. And with defeat being inevitable and imminent, I can't blame anyone for being cautious. Over 70% of all U-boat sailors were killed in action over the course of the war.
YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
>> U-1206: The Nazi submarine that was sunk by its toilet. Iiiish. More precisely, the leak forced it to surface and it was sunk by allied bombs once on the surface. Edit: And like lgrebe says, the toilet may not have been the sole reason for the leak - they may have struck an older wreck.
MrGilbert 7y ago
It's interesting how the english version only notes the official report, and puts the alternative story in a single sentence. The german versions also reads (before citing the official report): "When the Commander, Lieutenant Captain Schlitt, operated the flushing of the toilet on April 14th, he ignored an order according to which the flushing was to be triggered exclusively by the specialist on board. Sea water, mixed with Schlitt's excrement and urine, poured into the submarine at high pressure through the open valves. The toilet specialist was no longer able to close the toilet closures. According to reports of a survivor, the boat sank 'like a stone' into the depths." To the incident itself: Shit happens. (scnr)
- stanski 7y ago
  Or Schlitt happens.
  - jayniz 7y ago
    OUT!
- PhasmaFelis 7y ago
  You should add that to the English wiki!
- Lowkeyloki 7y ago
  They needed a toilet specialist?
  - trhway 7y ago
    reminds about enterprise systems, at least the ones i've worked with and the roles i've performed. The Sales and the high PMs and suits helicopter in and take a huge [censored] what we're supposed to deal with. Since the early morning today has been doing emergency plumbing on 3 Fortune500 class battleships from corporate navies across the world (and clock). Probably should update my LinkedIn with such an informative title.
- aaron695 7y ago
tim333 7y ago
Word on the Water, London's only floating bookstore was also sunk by its toilet https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/29/world/europe/london-canal-bookstore.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/29/world/europe/london-canal...
romaaeterna 7y ago
The boat was very likely not an SA assault troop nor an SS secret police unit (both paramilitary branches of the Nazi party), but rather a normal Wehrmacht naval unit. So a "German U-boat", instead of a "Nazi U-boat". Someone will perhaps reply with their more encompassing definition of Nazis, etc., but I don't mean to engage with whatever discussion that generates. I only point out the standard terminology that you'll see in most books, etc. EDIT: Looks like someone has changed the title from "Nazi U-boat" -- thanks!
- 24gttghh 7y ago
  sorry to burst your bubble, but a U-boat in the Kriegsmarine under Nazi Germany makes it a Nazi U-boat. If there was a swastika on their flag, they're Nazis. A German U-Boat would more accurately describe those put to sea during WWI.
- tatersolid 7y ago
  A boat designed, built, and operated at the order of the Nazi government is a “Nazi boat”. Even if most of the crew weren’t party members. Similarly, many American military bases around the world are built and staffed by mostly locals. But this is done at the direction of the American government (usually with the incentives of payments to and defense of the local government). But we still call them “American bases” because the Americans exercise most of the control.
  - dmurray 7y ago
    Right, we call them "American bases" rather than "Republican bases" or "Democrat bases" depending on which party is in power at the time. That's the point the GP is trying to make.
    - tatersolid 7y ago
      Okay so this would be a “Third Reich boat”? Because the nation wasn’t really anything resembling “Germany” at that point.
i_am_proteus 7y ago
First, it wasn't sunk by its toilet, it was sunk by a combination of operator error and allied bombs. Second, there's a lesson here for design. Correct operation was complicated and required special training, and the implications of failure were potentially fatal. The toilet failed because of operator error, but having a toilet that complicated and in a location where failure put seawater into the battery is a design error. The 'old' system was fine and something similar remains in use. I'm a former submariner-- I've seen myriad shitty things happen from sanitation tank operational errors, but an uncontrolled seawater leak is not one of them.
- michaelt 7y ago
  I'm sure all submarines have certain processes that can cause leaks if there's an operator error - diving with the hatch open, for example - but are there any that happen as often as toilet flushing?
  - yakovdk 7y ago
    Per [1], it was a special toilet designed to support flushing at depth (I guess it makes sense that it's a tough problem to solve when the sub is under pressure). I guess previous iterations of U-boats had to surface to flush. It does seem like keeping it in a tank until the next surface would be a better solution though. I mean, they have to surface for other reasons too, right? [1] https://warisboring.com/the-high-tech-toilet-that-destroyed-a-submarine/ https://warisboring.com/the-high-tech-toilet-that-destroyed-...
- duxup 7y ago
  I don't necessarily disagree with your theory on design, but every complex war machine ... has some level of controls that if used improperly could be fatal. They are inherently dangerous systems. Designing fail safes for such things has to be a sort of balance between added complexity / options for failure, and safety. In the military there are plenty of "don't touch that, let the person who knows how to do it touch it" and I suspect that is often the right design.
  - 7y ago
arbuge 7y ago
> On 28 March 1945 the submarine departed from Kiel for its first training patrol in the North Sea, returning on 30 March. I find it amazing that at this point in the war when the end was imminent, they were still going through the motions of doing training patrols.
- toomanybeersies 7y ago
  I would imagine it was less of a "training patrol" and more of a 2 day shakedown to ensure that there were no critical issues before sending it into combat. It's the nautical equivalent of a test drive or QA. Consider that the same process usually takes months for a modern warship, even of a proven design.
  - mannykannot 7y ago
    Indeed - clearly the training was cursory and did not effectively cover at least one important issue...
- lostlogin 7y ago
  That whole period was full of this sort of contradiction. German war production peaked in 1944, very late in the piece. This probably says a lot about the value of area bombing as well abilities of Speer.
- JJMcJ 7y ago
  There were three separate naval engagements in Long Island Sound overnight May 5/6 1945, and after the surrender German submarines surfaced off of New Jersey. Basically the war was fought until the last minute.
lota-putty 7y ago
History belongs to the victorious. e.g. Majority of world* still believes Iraq had WMD. We don't care enough for what happens in the far off lands. Edit: Where are the sanctions against USA(& friends)? Perhaps, all want cheaper oil : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_industry_in_Iraq https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_industry_in_Iraq Conscience(military suicides) is there, actions otherwise. Edit2: Whose wisdom is being celebrated by popping this article to top page on HN? ;-)
- mrunkel 7y ago
  Not sure how that applies, but I'm pretty sure that's not true. Where outside the USA is that still a commonly held belief?
- swarnie_ 7y ago
  > e.g. Majority of world* still believes Iraq had WMD I honestly can't believe that for a moment. At least in my country its widely known they didn't and we mainly went to war to secure Uncle Sam some cheap oil reserves.
  - Sommer_Son 7y ago
    That's probably why one of the first oil companies started working in Iraq was Russian Lukoil?
  - scarecrowbob 7y ago
    "I honestly can't believe that for a moment." I can't speak for the majority of the world. In rural Texas, it is a widely held belief that there were WMD's found by the US in Iraq during the 2003 war (IME, anecdotally, YMMV, IANAL, whatever... I have no hard numbers just my lifetime of living there). A second and slightly less widespread belief is that "knowing what they knew at the time, thinking there were WMD in Iraq was a reasonable conclusion". I don't hold that second belief, but it seems more rational than the first even if I find it suspicious and unsupported by the facts. In any case, I can attest that the first belief is in the majority in rural Texas and between both beliefs I'd guess that 95% of the population holds one or the other.
chewz 7y ago
Someone Left a Hatch Open and Crippled India’s $2.9 Billion Submarine Water damage put the submarine out of action for ten months. https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a14783891/someone-left-a-hatch-open-and-crippled-indias-dollar29-billion-submarine/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a147838...
- raghava 7y ago
  > Someone Left a Hatch Open There's strong suspision that it was an act of sabotage. Not sure what turned out post the inquiry.
  - vkou 7y ago
    The nebulous, shadowy axis of "Sabotage", "Malingers" and "Wreckers" is what captains and admirals love to blame, when they want to cover their ass. It pushes some private under the bus, and absolves them of any organizational failures.
- sandworm101 7y ago
  >>> Not leaving hatches open that could potentially sink a ship, particularly a submarine, is basic common sense. Hatches are left open all the time. This sub was not at sea but in harbour. A sub is an enclosed/confined space. While in port it would have been undergoing all sorts of maintenance work. Hatches are left open for ventilation, access, even to run power cords for electric tools. It is not unusual for someone welding stuff inside a ship to require the nearest hatch to be left open for a long period of time.
  - nerdponx 7y ago
    Do submarines have "lockout-tagout" procedures for this kind of thing?
    - sandworm101 7y ago
      They are supposed to. Whether such safety procedures are actually used is another matter. Submarines, like everything else in the military, are great at looking very professional on the outside while being total chaos on the inside.
kryogen1c 7y ago
See also the thresher, one of the reasons us nuclear subs are so safe today they can be run mostly by 24year olds https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Thresher_(SSN-593) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Thresher_(SSN-593)
TomAnthony 7y ago
> When submerged, the boat could operate for 80 nautical miles (150 km; 92 mi) at 4 knots (7.4 km/h; 4.6 mph); when surfaced, she could travel 8,500 nautical miles (15,700 km; 9,800 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph) I always pictured submarines would spend most of their time submerged, but how is that possible if its maximum submerged range was 92 miles? Was it really possible its surfaced range was over 100 times greater? Or was it just that it needed to surface occasionally then it could submerge again?
- ralfd 7y ago
  I think battery tech was the limit back then. They couldn't run the diesel motors while being submerged.
  - Ididntdothis 7y ago
    I think later on they had snorkels but that still didn’t allow them to stay submerged for a long time.
- jki275 7y ago
  WWII Submarines were really surface ships that could dive and operate submerged for short periods of time. They weren't really submarines and weren't really designed to operate submerged. The data listed is roughly correct from what I've read.
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  These submarines only dove when close to the enemy. They spent most of their time as regular ships.
- jonathanp88 7y ago
  You are thinking of nuclear submarines. Submarines of this era would have a bank of batteries, using 1940's technology, which they could use to run the boat whilst submerged. Once they were flat, they would have to stay at or near the surface long enough to charge them again(they could run at the surface using a 'snorkel' to bring in air for the engines. They would submerge only to attack or to hide. So looking at it from a range perspective is perhaps not the best way. They could have stayed submerged under water for a long time, but they couldn't be cruising flat out whilst doing it.
blumomo 7y ago
"misuse of the new toilet caused large amounts of water to flood the boat" Misuse of available tools and then sinking the whole product sounds like a quite familiar story in software engineering.
PhasmaFelis 7y ago
I've been wondering for a while, is there a reason that U-boats all had numbers instead of names? German surface warships had names, as far as I know.
- Krasnol 7y ago
  As I heard it once it was an order by Kaiser Wilhelm II. He didn't like them much and thought they were cowardly weapons and did not deserve names.
Daviey 7y ago
Similar to HMS M2, which was a submarine aircraft carrier. Likely cause of the sinking was opening of the hanger door to try and beat their personal best for launching an aircraft. This wreck is accessible to scuba divers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_M2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_M2
dukoid 7y ago
The History Guy has done an episode on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pfr0nsh0Ghc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pfr0nsh0Ghc
omnimkar69 7y ago
the ship laid down on 12 JUNE 1942 at danzing and then went to service on 16 march 1944 & the boat's emblem was whte stork on a black shield with green break & legs.and it wasn't sunk by allied bombs it had accident near scotland & sum of them survived.
ryanmercer 7y ago
Only semi related: If you are ever in Chicago, find time to go to the Museum of Science and Industry and pay extra to go on U-505, she's beautiful and if you like technology and engineering at all it's well worth the cost to walk through her. Even just walking into the cavernous room she's in, is an awesome experience itself. About 3/4 of the way down this post I have a phone of her in the massive room https://www.ryanmercer.com/ryansthoughts/2019/3/4/21ad-after-dad-letter-to-my-father-2019 https://www.ryanmercer.com/ryansthoughts/2019/3/4/21ad-after...
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
alexpotato 7y ago
For those interested in a book about both management AND nuclear submarine safety I highly recommend this book: https://www.amazon.com/Turn-Ship-Around-Turning-Followers-ebook/dp/B00AFPVP0Y https://www.amazon.com/Turn-Ship-Around-Turning-Followers-eb... One great example: Junior folks kept hitting the wrong buttons during safety evaluations so the crew instituted a "positive action" e.g. "I am about to turn on this device" before they did anything. During the safety review, the reviewers came back and said: "You performed fewer errors than anyone we've ever tested. Actually, we take that back, your crew was ABOUT TO make as many mistakes as normal but the verbal call out meant that everything was double checked leading to such a lower error count"
- jotm 7y ago
  Sort of like Japanese train operators who point at everything. I guess it works well.
SEJeff 7y ago
Wonderful talk on engineering failures from Pete Cheslock on the Vasa: https://pete.wtf/vasa/ https://pete.wtf/vasa/ https://vimeo.com/221068308 https://vimeo.com/221068308 - direct video link. Engineering fails on seafaring vessels is a very old thing.

66 points by mmoez 7y ago

FTA: > The site survey performed by RCAHMS suggests that the leak that forced U-1206 to surface may have occurred after running into a pre-existing wreck located at the same site.

jandrese 7y ago
I was wondering about that. Did they run into the wreck and then make up the toilet story for a scapegoat?

throwaway925 7y ago

16 days in operation, no victories. Should be in a book of greatest enterprise failures.

NateEag 7y ago
Tangentially related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Heroic_Failures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Heroic_Failures I have a copy. It is a much-beloved source of joy.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  > The American version of the book was misprinted by the publishers, who left out half the introduction. Well, that's just perfection.
dual_dingo 7y ago
I believe nothing beats the Vasa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa_(ship) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa_(ship)) in that regard ... Sank 1300 m(!) into its maiden voyage.
zelon88 7y ago
It's important to note that most of the advanced technology that Germany gets credit for in WWII was designed, built and destroyed all in a matter of a decade or two. The Bismarck is another good example. It was the largest, heaviest, strongest, most advanced battleship of it's time. There was no single allied ship that could match it's performance or firepower or withstand combat against it for very long. And the Bismarck was sunk 9 months after she was commissioned. Not by a toilet, not by inexperience; but because the entire British navy identified the gargantuan risk and superflous symbology of destroying the pinnacle of German tech. That, and it sunk the symbolic HMS Hood (arguably second best warship at the time) battleship in an almost comedic display that lasted mere minutes. The Titanic took hours to sink but the Hood, a ship of similar size and weight, was gone in mere seconds after being hit by the Bismarck's deck guns. After that the Bismarck was the only thing Britain cared about. The reason German tech didn't last wasn't because the tech was inferior. It was because for every one unit Germany built, there were 5 allied units with crosshairs trained on it. The hunting was simply better for the allies than it was for Germany towards the end of the war, after Germany had been crippled by allied carpet bombing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Denmark_Strait https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Denmark_Strait
- duxup 7y ago
  Also as far as the Bismarck goes, it really was the end of single battleships (or even a group) operating alone effectively, with the exception of maybe some open ocean raiding here or there. With carriers and planes... just a matter of time until a battleship is found and not much a battleship can do alone at that point. Thus the effectiveness of subs (and in particular at that time the wolf pack system).
  - zelon88 7y ago
    Yup. Air superiority changed naval warfare forever. It was the radar technology given to the American's by the British that closed the blindspot in the center of the Atlantic which the Germans used to hide U-Boats. Once radar was able to shrink the mid-atlantic gap Germany became unable to disrupt allied merchant shipping. The lack of places to hide meant German U-Boat flotilla's were fish in a barrel for allied planes.
mannykannot 7y ago
I don't think there is anything unusual about that number - the time when there were any easy targets was long gone. And with defeat being inevitable and imminent, I can't blame anyone for being cautious. Over 70% of all U-boat sailors were killed in action over the course of the war.

YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago

>> U-1206: The Nazi submarine that was sunk by its toilet. Iiiish. More precisely, the leak forced it to surface and it was sunk by allied bombs once on the surface. Edit: And like lgrebe says, the toilet may not have been the sole reason for the leak - they may have struck an older wreck.

MrGilbert 7y ago

It's interesting how the english version only notes the official report, and puts the alternative story in a single sentence. The german versions also reads (before citing the official report): "When the Commander, Lieutenant Captain Schlitt, operated the flushing of the toilet on April 14th, he ignored an order according to which the flushing was to be triggered exclusively by the specialist on board. Sea water, mixed with Schlitt's excrement and urine, poured into the submarine at high pressure through the open valves. The toilet specialist was no longer able to close the toilet closures. According to reports of a survivor, the boat sank 'like a stone' into the depths." To the incident itself: Shit happens. (scnr)

stanski 7y ago
Or Schlitt happens.
- jayniz 7y ago
  OUT!
PhasmaFelis 7y ago
You should add that to the English wiki!
Lowkeyloki 7y ago
They needed a toilet specialist?
- trhway 7y ago
  reminds about enterprise systems, at least the ones i've worked with and the roles i've performed. The Sales and the high PMs and suits helicopter in and take a huge [censored] what we're supposed to deal with. Since the early morning today has been doing emergency plumbing on 3 Fortune500 class battleships from corporate navies across the world (and clock). Probably should update my LinkedIn with such an informative title.
aaron695 7y ago

tim333 7y ago

Word on the Water, London's only floating bookstore was also sunk by its toilet https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/29/world/europe/london-canal-bookstore.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/29/world/europe/london-canal...

romaaeterna 7y ago

The boat was very likely not an SA assault troop nor an SS secret police unit (both paramilitary branches of the Nazi party), but rather a normal Wehrmacht naval unit. So a "German U-boat", instead of a "Nazi U-boat". Someone will perhaps reply with their more encompassing definition of Nazis, etc., but I don't mean to engage with whatever discussion that generates. I only point out the standard terminology that you'll see in most books, etc. EDIT: Looks like someone has changed the title from "Nazi U-boat" -- thanks!

24gttghh 7y ago
sorry to burst your bubble, but a U-boat in the Kriegsmarine under Nazi Germany makes it a Nazi U-boat. If there was a swastika on their flag, they're Nazis. A German U-Boat would more accurately describe those put to sea during WWI.
tatersolid 7y ago
A boat designed, built, and operated at the order of the Nazi government is a “Nazi boat”. Even if most of the crew weren’t party members. Similarly, many American military bases around the world are built and staffed by mostly locals. But this is done at the direction of the American government (usually with the incentives of payments to and defense of the local government). But we still call them “American bases” because the Americans exercise most of the control.
- dmurray 7y ago
  Right, we call them "American bases" rather than "Republican bases" or "Democrat bases" depending on which party is in power at the time. That's the point the GP is trying to make.
  - tatersolid 7y ago
    Okay so this would be a “Third Reich boat”? Because the nation wasn’t really anything resembling “Germany” at that point.

i_am_proteus 7y ago

First, it wasn't sunk by its toilet, it was sunk by a combination of operator error and allied bombs. Second, there's a lesson here for design. Correct operation was complicated and required special training, and the implications of failure were potentially fatal. The toilet failed because of operator error, but having a toilet that complicated and in a location where failure put seawater into the battery is a design error. The 'old' system was fine and something similar remains in use. I'm a former submariner-- I've seen myriad shitty things happen from sanitation tank operational errors, but an uncontrolled seawater leak is not one of them.

michaelt 7y ago
I'm sure all submarines have certain processes that can cause leaks if there's an operator error - diving with the hatch open, for example - but are there any that happen as often as toilet flushing?
- yakovdk 7y ago
  Per [1], it was a special toilet designed to support flushing at depth (I guess it makes sense that it's a tough problem to solve when the sub is under pressure). I guess previous iterations of U-boats had to surface to flush. It does seem like keeping it in a tank until the next surface would be a better solution though. I mean, they have to surface for other reasons too, right? [1] https://warisboring.com/the-high-tech-toilet-that-destroyed-a-submarine/ https://warisboring.com/the-high-tech-toilet-that-destroyed-...
duxup 7y ago
I don't necessarily disagree with your theory on design, but every complex war machine ... has some level of controls that if used improperly could be fatal. They are inherently dangerous systems. Designing fail safes for such things has to be a sort of balance between added complexity / options for failure, and safety. In the military there are plenty of "don't touch that, let the person who knows how to do it touch it" and I suspect that is often the right design.
- 7y ago

arbuge 7y ago

> On 28 March 1945 the submarine departed from Kiel for its first training patrol in the North Sea, returning on 30 March. I find it amazing that at this point in the war when the end was imminent, they were still going through the motions of doing training patrols.

toomanybeersies 7y ago
I would imagine it was less of a "training patrol" and more of a 2 day shakedown to ensure that there were no critical issues before sending it into combat. It's the nautical equivalent of a test drive or QA. Consider that the same process usually takes months for a modern warship, even of a proven design.
- mannykannot 7y ago
  Indeed - clearly the training was cursory and did not effectively cover at least one important issue...
lostlogin 7y ago
That whole period was full of this sort of contradiction. German war production peaked in 1944, very late in the piece. This probably says a lot about the value of area bombing as well abilities of Speer.
JJMcJ 7y ago
There were three separate naval engagements in Long Island Sound overnight May 5/6 1945, and after the surrender German submarines surfaced off of New Jersey. Basically the war was fought until the last minute.

lota-putty 7y ago

History belongs to the victorious. e.g. Majority of world* still believes Iraq had WMD. We don't care enough for what happens in the far off lands. Edit: Where are the sanctions against USA(& friends)? Perhaps, all want cheaper oil : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_industry_in_Iraq https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_industry_in_Iraq Conscience(military suicides) is there, actions otherwise. Edit2: Whose wisdom is being celebrated by popping this article to top page on HN? ;-)

mrunkel 7y ago
Not sure how that applies, but I'm pretty sure that's not true. Where outside the USA is that still a commonly held belief?
swarnie_ 7y ago
> e.g. Majority of world* still believes Iraq had WMD I honestly can't believe that for a moment. At least in my country its widely known they didn't and we mainly went to war to secure Uncle Sam some cheap oil reserves.
- Sommer_Son 7y ago
  That's probably why one of the first oil companies started working in Iraq was Russian Lukoil?
- scarecrowbob 7y ago
  "I honestly can't believe that for a moment." I can't speak for the majority of the world. In rural Texas, it is a widely held belief that there were WMD's found by the US in Iraq during the 2003 war (IME, anecdotally, YMMV, IANAL, whatever... I have no hard numbers just my lifetime of living there). A second and slightly less widespread belief is that "knowing what they knew at the time, thinking there were WMD in Iraq was a reasonable conclusion". I don't hold that second belief, but it seems more rational than the first even if I find it suspicious and unsupported by the facts. In any case, I can attest that the first belief is in the majority in rural Texas and between both beliefs I'd guess that 95% of the population holds one or the other.

chewz 7y ago

Someone Left a Hatch Open and Crippled India’s $2.9 Billion Submarine Water damage put the submarine out of action for ten months. https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a14783891/someone-left-a-hatch-open-and-crippled-indias-dollar29-billion-submarine/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a147838...

raghava 7y ago
> Someone Left a Hatch Open There's strong suspision that it was an act of sabotage. Not sure what turned out post the inquiry.
- vkou 7y ago
  The nebulous, shadowy axis of "Sabotage", "Malingers" and "Wreckers" is what captains and admirals love to blame, when they want to cover their ass. It pushes some private under the bus, and absolves them of any organizational failures.
sandworm101 7y ago
>>> Not leaving hatches open that could potentially sink a ship, particularly a submarine, is basic common sense. Hatches are left open all the time. This sub was not at sea but in harbour. A sub is an enclosed/confined space. While in port it would have been undergoing all sorts of maintenance work. Hatches are left open for ventilation, access, even to run power cords for electric tools. It is not unusual for someone welding stuff inside a ship to require the nearest hatch to be left open for a long period of time.
- nerdponx 7y ago
  Do submarines have "lockout-tagout" procedures for this kind of thing?
  - sandworm101 7y ago
    They are supposed to. Whether such safety procedures are actually used is another matter. Submarines, like everything else in the military, are great at looking very professional on the outside while being total chaos on the inside.

kryogen1c 7y ago

See also the thresher, one of the reasons us nuclear subs are so safe today they can be run mostly by 24year olds https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Thresher_(SSN-593) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Thresher_(SSN-593)

TomAnthony 7y ago

> When submerged, the boat could operate for 80 nautical miles (150 km; 92 mi) at 4 knots (7.4 km/h; 4.6 mph); when surfaced, she could travel 8,500 nautical miles (15,700 km; 9,800 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph) I always pictured submarines would spend most of their time submerged, but how is that possible if its maximum submerged range was 92 miles? Was it really possible its surfaced range was over 100 times greater? Or was it just that it needed to surface occasionally then it could submerge again?

ralfd 7y ago
I think battery tech was the limit back then. They couldn't run the diesel motors while being submerged.
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  I think later on they had snorkels but that still didn’t allow them to stay submerged for a long time.
jki275 7y ago
WWII Submarines were really surface ships that could dive and operate submerged for short periods of time. They weren't really submarines and weren't really designed to operate submerged. The data listed is roughly correct from what I've read.
Ididntdothis 7y ago
These submarines only dove when close to the enemy. They spent most of their time as regular ships.
jonathanp88 7y ago
You are thinking of nuclear submarines. Submarines of this era would have a bank of batteries, using 1940's technology, which they could use to run the boat whilst submerged. Once they were flat, they would have to stay at or near the surface long enough to charge them again(they could run at the surface using a 'snorkel' to bring in air for the engines. They would submerge only to attack or to hide. So looking at it from a range perspective is perhaps not the best way. They could have stayed submerged under water for a long time, but they couldn't be cruising flat out whilst doing it.

blumomo 7y ago

"misuse of the new toilet caused large amounts of water to flood the boat" Misuse of available tools and then sinking the whole product sounds like a quite familiar story in software engineering.

PhasmaFelis 7y ago

I've been wondering for a while, is there a reason that U-boats all had numbers instead of names? German surface warships had names, as far as I know.

Krasnol 7y ago
As I heard it once it was an order by Kaiser Wilhelm II. He didn't like them much and thought they were cowardly weapons and did not deserve names.

Daviey 7y ago

Similar to HMS M2, which was a submarine aircraft carrier. Likely cause of the sinking was opening of the hanger door to try and beat their personal best for launching an aircraft. This wreck is accessible to scuba divers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_M2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_M2

dukoid 7y ago

The History Guy has done an episode on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pfr0nsh0Ghc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pfr0nsh0Ghc

omnimkar69 7y ago

the ship laid down on 12 JUNE 1942 at danzing and then went to service on 16 march 1944 & the boat's emblem was whte stork on a black shield with green break & legs.and it wasn't sunk by allied bombs it had accident near scotland & sum of them survived.

ryanmercer 7y ago

Only semi related: If you are ever in Chicago, find time to go to the Museum of Science and Industry and pay extra to go on U-505, she's beautiful and if you like technology and engineering at all it's well worth the cost to walk through her. Even just walking into the cavernous room she's in, is an awesome experience itself. About 3/4 of the way down this post I have a phone of her in the massive room https://www.ryanmercer.com/ryansthoughts/2019/3/4/21ad-after-dad-letter-to-my-father-2019 https://www.ryanmercer.com/ryansthoughts/2019/3/4/21ad-after...

deleted 7y ago
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alexpotato 7y ago

For those interested in a book about both management AND nuclear submarine safety I highly recommend this book: https://www.amazon.com/Turn-Ship-Around-Turning-Followers-ebook/dp/B00AFPVP0Y https://www.amazon.com/Turn-Ship-Around-Turning-Followers-eb... One great example: Junior folks kept hitting the wrong buttons during safety evaluations so the crew instituted a "positive action" e.g. "I am about to turn on this device" before they did anything. During the safety review, the reviewers came back and said: "You performed fewer errors than anyone we've ever tested. Actually, we take that back, your crew was ABOUT TO make as many mistakes as normal but the verbal call out meant that everything was double checked leading to such a lower error count"

jotm 7y ago
Sort of like Japanese train operators who point at everything. I guess it works well.

SEJeff 7y ago

Wonderful talk on engineering failures from Pete Cheslock on the Vasa: https://pete.wtf/vasa/ https://pete.wtf/vasa/ https://vimeo.com/221068308 https://vimeo.com/221068308 - direct video link. Engineering fails on seafaring vessels is a very old thing.