As ex submariner I served in the seventies on the Dutch tripple hull boats. In those days I was an mechanical engineer (petty officer).Those boats were quit cramped. In terms of propulsion it is basically the same design as type 21.The rest of the design is completely different. The propulsion section consists of large battery, a snorkel system with two diesel generators. The boat is propelled by two electric motors. One in each lower cilinder. The batteries and the engines were also build in the lower cilinders. In the upper cilinder were the periscopes, fire control, the warfare departments and the living spaces. It was not very luxurious, but I do remember it as “the happy times”. The endurance deep dived was about max a few days. Not only the battery endurance was the limiting factor, but also the quality of the breathing air in the submarine. The air was mixed by a ventilation system, it could not been replenished, it had to be scrubbed of CO2 and the oxygen was supplemented by a chemical process. It was stored in so called “oxygen candles” . The max limit of CO2 was 1,5 %..... It was possible to run the sub at a speed of 17 kn, but not very long, maybe just enough to sprint away from the opponents. But in the lower speedband the boats were very quiet for that time. The “schnorchel system” was originally a Dutch design (LTCDR Wichers). More about the tripple hull boats en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolfijn-class_submarine. You can also visit the the Dutch naval museum at Den Helder. There is the “ex HrMs Tonijn” preserved, and open for visit. It’s in a remarkable good shape.
Thanks for your comment and view :) Now that you mention it, I do remember the CO2 canister being on the schematic of the XXI/Wilhelm Bauer I used to prepare for my visit. Thanks for the hint on the Tonijn :)
Pushed into duty too soon. One had an engine explosion. Another flooded. Not enough professional operators in that mid 1945 children's crusade 👩🔧🇺🇲🛠️🇷🇺
@@BecksHobbyProductions This was excellently made! I imagine a lot of people would be interested in similar "go throughs" (eller gjennomgang) of all kinds of equipment. Stop spending time on Star Citizen ;)
@@Evleos I thought about doing a similar type of content for the type VII. The challenge is to find photos I am allowed to use, where the video walkthroughs I also create does not have that challenge as I create the vidoes myself :) So many projects I would like to do :D But no, I will not spend less time on Star Citizen as I really love that game :)
Excellent, I served on a British Oberon in the 80’s, it indeed had used many XX1 design features. I liked the fact that in a crash dive situation some of the crew were still required To run for’d to aid the dive. We called the creeper motors “egg beaters”.
THANK YOU FOR LINKING PRIMARY SOURCES. This research project of mine on the 21 has been one of the worst "he-said-she-said" adventures of missing references and repetition i have been on so far.
My pleasure. Sometimes, this also avoids debates because I can just point to my sources and people are then free to challenge them 😊 Check my other XXI videos - there may be a few more sources there.
Lovely video. When we had the Royal Navy's latest sonar installed, we went out into the Channel to pick up a Type 205 German sub. We spent all day looking for it, and all we saw were the green flares they fired instead of torpedoes. We would never have detected it in real life unless it did something stupid. Makes you wonder what the XXI could have done, with a hundred in a wolf pack.
Germany did really well with further developing quite submarines. I think Sweden also has done pretty well - if my memory serves me right they participated in war games with the US and the Sweden sub was never found 😊 The discussion on what difference the XXI could have made earlier in the war is a topic I will touch upon in my upcoming video about the Battle of the Atlantic
In principle, a XXI boat was the mother of the 205 boat were you looking for. The XXI submarine Wilhelm Bauer, which is now in Bremerhaven, was sunk in 1945 like many other VIIc and XXII boats by the Germans themselves. In June 1957 U 2540 was lifted, made buoyant and towed to a Yard in Kiel. When I was 8 years old, I saw them dragging it into the shipyard, it was still overgrown with mussels. There the boat was repaired for the new German Navy in 1958. Until 1968 it served as a test boat for the new technologies of the following German generations of submarines. After it was decommissioned, it was largely restored to its original condition of 1945. Today it is the only surviving boat of its kind. 2 other XXI boats are still in a blown up submarine bunker in Hamburg, but they are buried and destroyed by rust. Fun fact, where the submarine Wilhelm Bauer and other submarines were lying on the bottom of the Baltic Sea, 6 Enigma encryption machines were found by divers a few weeks ago.
Excellent presentation! I very much appreciate the concept of looking at what a design has influenced, despite any limitations on deployment at the time of inception. Keep up the good work!
Very nicely done. The Type XXI makes a cameo experience in Neal Stephenson's novel "Cryptonomicon". It was great to have a source to explain just what it looked like in real life. I had no idea that such a boat existed during WWII.
We used the type XXI derived British Oberon class here in Oz for many years to great effect, even photographing the propellers of a US aircraft carrier during one joint exercise.
Liberty Ships were designed using prefabricated sections as well. There were several companies involved with the construction. This allowed the ships to be constructed very quickly, some as fast as several days. Later in the war, the German War industry was severely hampered in distribution of supplies because of the Allied bombing. The Type 21 U boat was a beautifully constructed boat and ahead of its time
The allied bombing was way less of a problem than you think. The german war production had its peak in '44, after years of bombing and end '44 and '45 they simply ran out of resources.
@@wolf310ii In addition, material that could still be producted in dispersed locations could hardly be transported and delivered to the assembly locations causing disruption in final production as well.
Bro, your channel is way under appreciated you deserve a lot more subscribers. Thank you for taking the time to make these little documentaries and your English is extremely good the accent makes the videos more enjoyable.
First of all - thank you so much for that kind comment :) The positive feedback is part of the motivation to keep doing this. Secondly, I feel fortunate to be able to combine my interest in history, submarine and creative nature into something which adds value in some way. So THANK YOU for watching and commenting.
@@BecksHobbyProductions No problem man, keep at it and I will always watch. I play War Thunder, World of Warships, and Heroes and Generals, so I am deeply in love with military history.
Thanks :) There are some good sources, but its hard to find 1 book to cover everything. If you are interested then I have added my source material in the video description.
Really appreciate your Uboat videos my man. you put so much research and accuracy with so much historic footage and images. coming from someone who also runs a youtube channel I know something like this can take weeks or months to shoot and edit. respect.
Thank you soo much for the kind comment. It really does take a really long time. When I saw the final product as actually thinking "Is that all I got out of the time spent??" But then I realized that there actually is a great deal of information packed into those 15min and the positive feedback is fantastic....so I am really motivated to making more 🙂
@@BecksHobbyProductions one of the hardest things for me to learn when editing videos is what to keep and leave out. Sometimes I shoot an HR of footage to trim to a ten minute video lol. If you ever do a subscriber follow along I'm entering the raffle lol
Glad you enjoyed the video. Just bear in my that the XXI in Bremerhaven was scuttled by the end of WWII, raised in the late 50s and used as a testbed, so it's not presented on its original WWII configuration
Great video, I just started reading Norman Polmar's Cold War Submarines and the first chapter is about the Type XXI and to a lesser extent the XXIII, so your video came in handy, and now I have to search for the books in your description to know more about these boats, so thank you and keep up the great work!
Hey - Just wanted to say thank you for that recommendation! Just got the book yesterday and the chapter of the XXI is really great! I look forward to ready the chapters of the different US/Sovjet subs as I am also reading about the cold war US submarines activities (Blind mans bluff) - a fantastic read as well
@@johntait491 As much as I am fascinated by submarines, I am not sure I would have the right personality for the life, so all the respect to you. At some point I would really love to make a walkthrough video of one of the post WWII Royal Navy submarines - however access and someone to explain the interior are not easy to come by, so if you could point me in the right direction, I will make a note of it for later :)
I think the impact it had was much more than just design characteristics. It changed the principles of submarine operation. As the video points out, prior to the type xxi, submarines were primarily designed to operate on the surface the dive for either an attack or escape. The type xxi changed this to operations were conducted completely submerged outside of port exit and entry. And submerged operations were greatly refined in terms of travel speed and noise.
Completely agree. Submarine operations and ASW changed fundamentally after the type XXI came to light. If I remember correctly, the US navy had no plans to further innovate the WWII designs at the end of the war - that is, until they saw the type XXI
I visited it in 2006. Much easier to get in and out , with a hole cut in the side. There was a Walter engine in the nearby museum. Hydrogen Peroxide is very unstable and was tried by other countries as well, but never found practical.
There is no doubt that the type XXI was a superior boat when compared to the Balao diesel electrics. It was, yet again, a question of numbers. I love both these classes... and I'm a particular fan of diesel electrics as opposed to nuclear boats. Just an old man who served on our old O boats. Well done video!
Thanks for your comment. Its always great to hear from someone who served on a submarine. Agree, considering the GUPPY program, the US Navy must have looked at the XXI and thought there was something to learn :)
@@MrShock8 Yes. If it wasn't for Hitler's stupidity in "bigger weapons of war" the allies would have a lot of trouble. From the type XXI to the STG 44 to the Messerschmitt jet engine plane. Germany was way ahead, it just needed focus.
As did the Allies except their tech did not come too late. The Germans were committing huge resources to pie in the sky programs that had no chance of helping them win a hopeless war. Sure you can come up with all sorts of brilliant ideas if they are not practical in light of the need. The allies were focusing on reality.
@@andyrrafaelthebeastemperor8709 Well, they also had massive logistics problem, their army was mainly imfantry and horses with low motorization. And lemme tell you, trying to keep thousands of horses feed, wateted, rested and warm accross hundreds of km's and in the dead of winter is very difficult and is hard to do good at all. Germany had a lot of problems outside of the wunderwaffen problem.
great video. the british Oberon should never have had a flared bow. no one told the designers that the philosophy of traveling underwater using the snorkel meant that crashing through waves was a thing of the past.
Regarding Walter-powered submarines, and according to Aaron S. Hamilton, Total Undersea War (pp. 174-175). Seaforth Publishing, "The snorkel mast on the Type XXIs and XXIIs was retrofitted after these U-boats' final designs were approved and the prefabrication process started. The snorkel design proved problematic on the high-speed Type XXIs and caused their operational delay and ultimate production cancellation by the Kriegsmarine in favor of the H2O2-powered Type XXVI W before the end of the war. Also in this same work (p. 176): Admiral Eberhard Godt served as Dönitz’ Operations Chief during the war and succeeded him as Chief of the BdU. Godt was directly involved with high-speed U-boat designs and their future employment. In his post-war interrogations by Allied Naval Intelligence he revealed that it was on the future design of the Walter turbine-powered Type XXVI that the future of the U-boat arm had rested, not the Electro-boat Type XXI: This view of the German high command is confirmed in the account of said interrogations mentioned in LLewellyn-Jones, Malcolm, "The Royal Navy on the threshold of modern anti-submarine warfare, 1944-1949"; Captain G. H. Roberts concluded that the German plan was to continue the inshore campaign with the coastal Type XXIII, gradually replacing the Type VII schnorkel-fitted U-boats in this role, which had been a stop-gap solution. The Type XXI, itself a stop-gap until the Walter Type XXVI was available. The Type XXVI was planned to be capable of sustaining 23 knots for 6 hours, Roberts' assessment emphasized the lack of any coherent German doctrine for the use of the Walter boats, but this did little to ameliorate the Admiralty's concern over the ability of existing weapons to deal with this 25-knot submarine. Therefore, and somewhat contrary to common belief held during the decades after the end of WW II, the Type XXI was not the ultimate goal in terms of the new ocean-going submarine, but was considered to be just too large for convoy. warfare in the North Atlantic, and that it was too costly to manufacture, this together with the very little published problems caused by the vibrations generated by the snorkel design led to The decision to invest in the Type XXVIW with its Walter turbine, closed conning tower and completely streamlined hull devoid of anti-aircraft guns. Hamilton, Aaron S. Total Undersea War (p. 173)
@@BecksHobbyProductions Thank you very much for your kind comment, Hamilton's work is indeed very interesting, focused on the technical and operational development of the latest advances in the German submarine weapon, mainly the schnorchel, this information can also be found in the works ofthe Eberhard Rössler: The U-Boat: The Evolution and Technical History of German Submarines, is the only translated into English unless i'm wrong
I actually started as soon as this one premiered, but it takes a great deal of time to research and for the frame of the video to take form. My project right now is a video of the Battle of the Atlantic and it's been bit of a struggle as its difficult to narrow down what to include and what not to. Its moving forward now, but I expect it to take months before its ready :) So be sure to subscribe :D And if you want, you can also follow me on Instagram of Facebook as I post updates on my projects here .
Most of the technology which would have been against this Typ XXl was not in US submarines but rather in ASW developments like miniaturized airborne radar.
And better antisubmarine warfare tactics. Better sonar. Better depth charges. Better antisubmarine aircraft. The germans had some good tech. But so did the allies. To many believe that the germans where better at everything and that is untrue.
@@massmike11 The German technology was better in all things, but it came too late and therefore in too few numbers. The Nazi government was often to blame for this and in some cases delayed developments by years, for example with the electric boats or the introduction of jet planes. Hitler saw himself as the greatest army leader of all time, but he wasn’t. The greatest weapon for the Allies was Hitler himself and his incompetence.
@@callsigndd9ls897 After a British plan to assassinate Hitler with a pair of sniper teams was learned by the higher ups they cancelled it because Hitler was decided to be doing more damage to the German war effort alive. They also didn't want a Hitler replacement to negotiate a peace deal before the Allies could absolutely destroy Germany.
Ce documentaire est excellent en tout points et de plus il démontre bien la phénoménale avance technologique des ingénieurs allemands à l'époque concernant l'élaboration de ces nouveaux systèmes futuristes pour l'époque ! ( Ces sous-marins avaient 20 ans d'avances sur leurs rivaux et ennemis alliés occidentaux et Russes.....) Cela peut faire froid dans le dos car si ils étaient produits en quantités suffisantes à l'époque, les marines marchandes alliées anglo-américaines qui étaient déjà décimées par les terribles meutes de U-boots de Karl Donitz n'auraient put faire face très longtemps malgré l'aide indispensable et providentielle américaine... Et oui à l'époque il ne restait plus que l'Angleterre en Europe qui pouvait désister malgré tout à l'ogre nazis qui n'était autre que Hitler. Mais une chose à ne jamais oublier et que l'Angleterre c'est qu'un ensemble l'iles dont la survie ne dépend que de son ravitaillement par voie maritime....
Superb video. Thank you. Once upon a time Germany was a proud country. In 1914 Germany had more Nobel prizes than the whole Western World. Unfortunately Germany is today a shadow of what it use to be... compare the army uniforms of the past with today uniforms... everything got changed.. .My grandfather died May 2nd fighting against Red Plague in Berlin...The Genius Gen. Patton said: " We fought the wrong enemy " and he payed with his life for that. RIP, you fantastic Kriegsmarine heroes!
Sorry about your grandfather. He was fighting the right enemy. However if it wasn’t for Hitler and his type of people the German nation would have had many more Nobel prize winners, all Jewish.
You sound like a revisionist neo Nazi. The ruSSians were only in Berlin because the Nazis - the black plague - tried unsuccessfully to conquer Moscow. German was the aggressor in WW2. A nation lead by war criminals inflicting untold harm across Europe due to greed and genocidal hatred. Those are historical facts.
Excellent vid, thank you. Kinda surprised at the addition of AA defence bearing in mind of the limited opportunity of use & the effect on drag/noise creation however Small. Are there any recorded instances of use?
@@BecksHobbyProductions The type VII and IX were also designed to travel submerged, they just had more capacity to carry AA guns because the submerged top speed was less important before the proliferation of radar. Once it became clear that submarines would have to approach convoys submerged to avoid detection, submerged speed and endurance just became that much more important. Overall, I'd say the Type 21's AA defences were adequate for a vessel expecting to get caught on the surface by aircraft a lot. Same could be said about its 20-something second dive times, which could be compared with modern submarines that take several minutes to dive because they just don't care. For every day they spend on the surface they spend 2-6 weeks underwater, so being able to dive quickly doesn't matter to them, especially since being able to dive faster would require larger vents on the ballast tanks and more numerous/larger limber holes, all of which would increase drag and noise. The germans were in a completely different situation, and so the Type 21s were lightning-quick on the dive for their size, at the cost of having the top submerged speed reduced to 15 knots from the 17 knots of the test vessel.
@@gustaveliasson5395 I would agree that VII and IX could travel submerged, but if the crew wanted to travel longer distances, they would not do it submerged as longer distance required very low speed.
@@BecksHobbyProductions The same is true for the Type 21. The difference is that the Type 7s and 9s were built according to the conops of surface cruise-surface attack. With the proliferation of radar, the surface attack became exceedingly risky, so they switched to a surface cruise-submerged attack conops with the Type 21.
If the extra drag of the AA guns worries you, you should also be worried by the many large holes in the sides and top of the sail, both the ones for the surface watch crew to stand in, and the free-flood holes used to help get air out of the sail as the boat dived, a means of cutting down the dive times to mitigate the growing threat of being caught on the surface by patrol aircraft. Those large openings caused production boats to lose two knots of speed from the 17kts of the super-streamlined but slow-to-submerge test vessels, but that's the price of being able to get an 1'620t boat below the water in under 30 seconds.
Very informative video...question...I live in the US. Plan to visit Europe sometime in the future. How far is the U995 from the Wilhem Bauer? Definitely want to visit both if I can
Yeah, its about 3,5 hours drive. You will pass through Hamburg, which also has an old Sovjet Tango-class submarine. About halfway between Bremen and Bremerhaven, the old Valentin bunker can be found. In other words - if you coming in all the way from the US, you might as well make a trip of it :)
@@BecksHobbyProductions I think if I do go to Europe, it would have to be for 2 weeks...I would love to find some wooded areas where a battle occurred, and possibly dig up some artifacts too.
Maybe you missed out this point: they Type 21 went straight from design to mass production, there was no prototype because that would have taken too long. In the book Ten Years and Twenty Days, I think that is the name of the book by Karl Dönitz U-boat chief. He speak about it in his book.
My conclusion is that many brilliant ideas went into German designs especially late war designs. But these were not enough to overcome the Allied preponderance of (in many cases inferior) weaponry.
You have said nothing. The brilliant Germans concentrated in areas that had no chance to do anything useful in the war, the constant German habit of pivoting to failure which was a hallmark of German thinking in the first half of the 20th Century. The Germans were not worse than anyone else but they were not "brilliant". And much of the allied weaponry was highly superior to German tech, not just the A-bomb was the only truly "brilliant" (and terrifying) weapon to come out of the war. The allies were not competing/prioritizing with the Germans on non-war winning tech such as V weapons, heavy tanks, jet aircraft, universal machine guns, and submarines.
@@hoodoo2001 I know this is many many months late but yeah you absolutely said it. German weapons were mere fizzles in comparison to what the allies were using. Even the Type 21s were still inferior to late model Gato and new Balao class boats of the USN. Plus the americans and british created far superior jet aircraft and rifles.
Great info thanks. Does anyone know if there was a specific name for this hull design? (If 19th century subs were "fusiform" (tapered at both ends), and post-Albacore subs are "teardrop"). The XXI looks tapered in vertical profile and almost rectangular in horizontal profile.
@@BecksHobbyProductions Seriously. I liked everything. Narration, facts, depth, even music. I really hope you make more like that about the whole timeline of German subs during or since World War II. Type 212 and 214 would be hard to get info, though.
My plans so far are to make more walkthroughs as I would then have the video material. Believe it or not, but photo material was really hard to come by for this video. I have a script ready for the Wilhelm Bauer, but the trip was cancelled due to COVID. I'm also working on a video for the Battle of the Atlantic, but I am struggling a little with getting the storyline/script right as there are tons of topics.
This was truly the world's first submarine. ( literally by definition of a submarine, all attempts before the type xxi were submersibles) But I'm probably speaking to the choir.. 😎
In the PC wargame "Silent Enemy 2", all German WW2 submarines are available to command using their own individual characteristics. Compared with the Type 7 & 9's, the 21 is a revelation. It's terrific underwater speed, acceleration, diving rate and turning circle make it invincible. Add to that the torpedo carousel and speed of reloading and you have a vessel that is a war-winning asset. This was the fundamental mistake made by Germany. They fought the `Battle of the Atlantic' using simply glorified versions of WW1 vessels, with the Types 7 & 9's. If they'd addressed the coming conflict with a whole new submarine dedicated to the task during the latter years of the 1930's, like the Type 21, they'd have won hands down. By the same token, despite the threat represented during WW1, Britain made absolutely no advances in counter-measures during the inter-war years...
The topic of "what of Germany had the XXI early" is both interesting and complicated, because how much would you need to change to enable Germany to win the battle of Atlantic? Just saying having the XXI instead contains a great deal of other things they also needed to have. F.ex. access to a great deal more fabrication material, where would that come from? They could have prioritized it away from the production of tanks, but how would that have affected other battlegrounds? If the threat in the Atlantic would have come earlier, would the US have started their production of cargo ships earlier? Would Germany ever have been able to compete with the US production resources? The fact of the matter is that once the US were in gear on the production, Germany would never have been able to catch up. Its a really interesting topic, but also one where its impossible to know for sure how it would play out as there are too many moving parts. So it becomes a matter of opinion.
Germany never came anywhere close to winning the Battle of the Atlantic. Yes, the shipping losses were terrible but with one new Liberty/Victory ship coming off the assembly lines every day, the losses were replaced very easily. Uboots could not be replaced very easily at all.
The only surviving XXI U-boat can be found moored at the Hafen Museum in Bremerhaven. Scuttled after the war she was later raised , repaired and then put back into service by the reformed post war German Marine Navy. I saw this ship a few years back when there visiting. I though I was seeing things last thing I expected to find was WW2 U-boat. Never mind one that looked like new. and is floating . Yes I have seen many incredible ship restoration since moving to Germany .mainly none military though. Most of these projects are private funded by Donations. Or in some cases by major companies or Goverment local or federal. Best example been the 30 million Euro Spent restoring the Sail Ship Peking . For the fort coming German ship museum to be built in the Port of Hamburg for some time in 2027 or later. Hamburg were many of Germans WW2 U-boats were built,and my current home city since 2009. These advanced types of late war Boat were the blue print for the next generation of Post WW2 Boats.
@@BecksHobbyProductions that will not happen because it is very hard to get any sort of funding or support for anything that could be seen that glorifies the Nazi era. Or could become a rallying point for Right winger groups in Germany. There is however a very good Martime Museum here in Hamburg with an excellent history section on Naval History including a floor on U-boats .as well as two WW2 German Midget Subs on display in a outdoor court yard. and the world largest collection of scale Models of both Merchant and Naval ships built by the world best model makers . Well worth a visit .but be aware it will take a day to cover every floor in their large building.
@@BecksHobbyProductionsExternally it is including fake AA turrets. Returning the interior to that would need a full rebuild, basically a new boat since the boat spend her second life as a testbed for engine systems etc for the west german navy. Oh and we DO have a complete WW2 sub in germany at Laboe (a Type VIIC)
@@mbr5742 Correct. I actually did a video on the type VII in Laboe :) However, since the type XXI was very different than the existing type VII and IX it would have been fantastic to be able to see one in its WWII configuration.
Det må være et gammelt billede du har af Springeren, for hun står sgu da stadig på Aalborg marine muserum, og nogle af dem på museumet er tidliger besætningsmedlemmer.
Vi har haft 2 ubåde der hed Springeren. Den ene er dansk bygget af Delfinklassen. Det er den du kender. Den anden er tysk bygget og af Tumleren klassen, overført fra Norge :) Sælen som ligger i København er også Tumleren klassen.
Wasn't it with the Type 21, that the Germans had covered the submarine with rubber, to make it undetectable ? N'est-ce pas avec le Type 21, que les Allemands avaient recouvert le sous-marin de caoutchouc, pour le rendre indétectable ?
Look up tarnmatte & alberich. They didn't make Type 21's "undetectable". The material both dampened internal noise sources (motors/pumps/mechanical noise etc). And reduced the acoustic return from ASDIC transmissions, but only by around 15%, making them SLIGHTLY harder to detect.
wasn't type 21 first mass produced sub? different companies making each compartment to reduce amount of skilled workers. except they all leaked and would take another 175days to make sea worthy
Well, going by the definition of mass production, I would say "no", however it was the first submarine type to be built in prefabricated parts and shipped to the assembly area :)
Why so many holes and space that seemed empty ? Looks like it would add drag . I’m thinking it’s to get water in and out fast but that’s my best guess. Looks like that thing has a lot more vents or holes than anything. Odd to me but I’m not a submariner. These guys had hearts of steel and nerves to match. Good rest the dead in all countries of that horrible war.
I do realyze that my next comment its easy to point so many years after and with the outcome already known... But Walter Submarine was a waste of time and resources, Germany would had been quite better if they had adapted the existing Type IX class into a fully submarine, by replacing the big Diesels withs smaller ones, removing the aft. torps in order to put big electric motors along with 2 smaller "crawl" motors and expand the Batterys at the expense of Diesel storage (after all much less was needed to only recharge batterys every day. The external modifications would had been minimal (a lower profile connning tower and a redesigned exterior hull and bow). i'm not saying nothing too much fancy, the USA did exactly that with Trench and Balao class submergibles from WWII era in the Guppy program, they would have done the same with Gato class but the hull wasn't that capable for deep dives... Those kind of limiting factors made the conversion not-so-desirable. Same goes for Type VIIC u-boots, they were too small and they couldn't pack the ammount of batterys needed for a full conversion into a submarine, but i'm shure type IX had enough room (if modified) for that ammount of batterys
I think Germany was too keen to innovate and solve war problems with technical solutions. However, the Guppy program was based on their analysis of the XXI they had after WWII. The US didn't have any immediate plans to change anything on their submarines after WWII, but that all changed when they took at closer look at the type XXI.
As ex submariner I served in the seventies on the Dutch tripple hull boats. In those days I was an mechanical engineer (petty officer).Those boats were quit cramped. In terms of propulsion it is basically the same design as type 21.The rest of the design is completely different. The propulsion section consists of large battery, a snorkel system with two diesel generators. The boat is propelled by two electric motors. One in each lower cilinder. The batteries and the engines were also build in the lower cilinders. In the upper cilinder were the periscopes, fire control, the warfare departments and the living spaces. It was not very luxurious, but I do remember it as “the happy times”. The endurance deep dived was about max a few days. Not only the battery endurance was the limiting factor, but also the quality of the breathing air in the submarine. The air was mixed by a ventilation system, it could not been replenished, it had to be scrubbed of CO2 and the oxygen was supplemented by a chemical process. It was stored in so called “oxygen candles” . The max limit of CO2 was 1,5 %.....
It was possible to run the sub at a speed of 17 kn, but not very long, maybe just enough to sprint away from the opponents. But in the lower speedband the boats were very quiet for that time.
The “schnorchel system” was originally a Dutch design (LTCDR Wichers).
More about the tripple hull boats en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolfijn-class_submarine. You can also visit the the Dutch naval museum at Den Helder. There is the “ex HrMs Tonijn” preserved, and open for visit. It’s in a remarkable good shape.
Thanks for your comment and view :) Now that you mention it, I do remember the CO2 canister being on the schematic of the XXI/Wilhelm Bauer I used to prepare for my visit. Thanks for the hint on the Tonijn :)
Plus the XXI was drop dead gorgeous
that's what makes Das Boot such a sexy film!
@@quattuorperquattuor1711 Only it is not in that movie.
Pushed into duty too soon. One had an engine explosion. Another flooded. Not enough professional operators in that mid 1945 children's crusade 👩🔧🇺🇲🛠️🇷🇺
If you're a submarine buff, this video about WWII Germany's revolutionary but too-late attack submarine is worth watching.
There needs to be more documentaries about the type XXI
The content in this video for U Boat/submarine enthusiasts is virtually priceless. Well done, I hope to see more videos like this in the future
Consider it a video for enthusiasts by an enthusiast ☺️
I wonder how effective a type-21 u boat would be with albreich coating like on the u-480.
@@BecksHobbyProductions This was excellently made! I imagine a lot of people would be interested in similar "go throughs" (eller gjennomgang) of all kinds of equipment. Stop spending time on Star Citizen ;)
@@Evleos I thought about doing a similar type of content for the type VII. The challenge is to find photos I am allowed to use, where the video walkthroughs I also create does not have that challenge as I create the vidoes myself :)
So many projects I would like to do :D
But no, I will not spend less time on Star Citizen as I really love that game :)
I just watched this video a second time and still wished you would make more content like this. Its top tier in narration and visuals.
Excellent, I served on a British Oberon in the 80’s, it indeed had used many XX1 design features. I liked the fact that in a crash dive situation some of the crew were still required To run for’d to aid the dive. We called the creeper motors “egg beaters”.
Hehehe..."egg beaters"... priceless
They had a torpedo which was significant.
Flood Q
The HMS Ocelot (Oberon Class) is on display at the Chatham Historic Dockyard where she was built, near London. Well worth a visit.
That Boat was way ahead of its time. The Elektroboot.
But came too late /
What was its total battery capacity (when brand new)? (I.e. kilowatt-hours)
@@toddkes5890 They had between 6300Ah at 5,5kA (full ahead) and 12000Ah at 240A (silent running)
@@wolf310ii Amp-hours, but at what Voltage?
@@toddkes5890 360V (practical only 300-340V, at full ahead) for the main motors and 360v or 120V for the silent running motors
THANK YOU FOR LINKING PRIMARY SOURCES. This research project of mine on the 21 has been one of the worst "he-said-she-said" adventures of missing references and repetition i have been on so far.
My pleasure. Sometimes, this also avoids debates because I can just point to my sources and people are then free to challenge them 😊 Check my other XXI videos - there may be a few more sources there.
A truly excellent video. Many thanks for making such high quality videos, Becks Hobby. I haven't enjoyed a video this much in a long time.
Thanks for the kind feedback!
Lovely video. When we had the Royal Navy's latest sonar installed, we went out into the Channel to pick up a Type 205 German sub. We spent all day looking for it, and all we saw were the green flares they fired instead of torpedoes. We would never have detected it in real life unless it did something stupid. Makes you wonder what the XXI could have done, with a hundred in a wolf pack.
Germany did really well with further developing quite submarines. I think Sweden also has done pretty well - if my memory serves me right they participated in war games with the US and the Sweden sub was never found 😊 The discussion on what difference the XXI could have made earlier in the war is a topic I will touch upon in my upcoming video about the Battle of the Atlantic
In principle, a XXI boat was the mother of the 205 boat were you looking for. The XXI submarine Wilhelm Bauer, which is now in Bremerhaven, was sunk in 1945 like many other VIIc and XXII boats by the Germans themselves. In June 1957 U 2540 was lifted, made buoyant and towed to a Yard in Kiel. When I was 8 years old, I saw them dragging it into the shipyard, it was still overgrown with mussels. There the boat was repaired for the new German Navy in 1958. Until 1968 it served as a test boat for the new technologies of the following German generations of submarines. After it was decommissioned, it was largely restored to its original condition of 1945. Today it is the only surviving boat of its kind. 2 other XXI boats are still in a blown up submarine bunker in Hamburg, but they are buried and destroyed by rust. Fun fact, where the submarine Wilhelm Bauer and other submarines were lying on the bottom of the Baltic Sea, 6 Enigma encryption machines were found by divers a few weeks ago.
We would have just nuked the sub pens. That would have been great for Germany.
This channel deserves more subs. .. .. . . .. I will see myself out now..
Ta-da tjiiing 😂 🥁
Excellent presentation! I very much appreciate the concept of looking at what a design has influenced, despite any limitations on deployment at the time of inception. Keep up the good work!
Excellent general overview.
I learned several new things.
Can’t thank you enough for your work!
I'm glad you liked it 😊
Very clearly and well presented video with out getting lost in politics and heavy technical detail. Thanks
Thank you very much 😊 Check back during the year as I am developing a script on the wartime experience of this submarine
Very nicely done. The Type XXI makes a cameo experience in Neal Stephenson's novel "Cryptonomicon". It was great to have a source to explain just what it looked like in real life. I had no idea that such a boat existed during WWII.
It really is a signification design - glad you enjoyed it :)
We used the type XXI derived British Oberon class here in Oz for many years to great effect, even photographing the propellers of a US aircraft carrier during one joint exercise.
I hope to be able to visit one at some point 😊
Excellent Video Sir !!
Thank you very much 😊
Liberty Ships were designed using prefabricated sections as well. There were several companies involved with the construction. This allowed the ships to be constructed very quickly, some as fast as several days. Later in the war, the German War industry was severely hampered in distribution of supplies because of the Allied bombing. The Type 21 U boat was a beautifully constructed boat and ahead of its time
True! There is a good story there as well 👍
The allied bombing was way less of a problem than you think. The german war production had its peak in '44, after years of bombing and end '44 and '45 they simply ran out of resources.
@@wolf310ii In addition, material that could still be producted in dispersed locations could hardly be transported and delivered to the assembly locations causing disruption in final production as well.
Bro, your channel is way under appreciated you deserve a lot more subscribers. Thank you for taking the time to make these little documentaries and your English is extremely good the accent makes the videos more enjoyable.
First of all - thank you so much for that kind comment :) The positive feedback is part of the motivation to keep doing this. Secondly, I feel fortunate to be able to combine my interest in history, submarine and creative nature into something which adds value in some way. So THANK YOU for watching and commenting.
@@BecksHobbyProductions No problem man, keep at it and I will always watch. I play War Thunder, World of Warships, and Heroes and Generals, so I am deeply in love with military history.
Incredible video! This made my day! thank you for the great insight.
Thanks for the kind comment and for watching :)
A very well put together about the Type 21, a sub that has very little info on it
Thanks :) There are some good sources, but its hard to find 1 book to cover everything. If you are interested then I have added my source material in the video description.
Really appreciate your Uboat videos my man. you put so much research and accuracy with so much historic footage and images. coming from someone who also runs a youtube channel I know something like this can take weeks or months to shoot and edit. respect.
Thank you soo much for the kind comment. It really does take a really long time. When I saw the final product as actually thinking "Is that all I got out of the time spent??" But then I realized that there actually is a great deal of information packed into those 15min and the positive feedback is fantastic....so I am really motivated to making more 🙂
@@BecksHobbyProductions one of the hardest things for me to learn when editing videos is what to keep and leave out. Sometimes I shoot an HR of footage to trim to a ten minute video lol. If you ever do a subscriber follow along I'm entering the raffle lol
A lot of great information !!
I had no idea I could go see one! Thank you so much!
Glad you enjoyed the video. Just bear in my that the XXI in Bremerhaven was scuttled by the end of WWII, raised in the late 50s and used as a testbed, so it's not presented on its original WWII configuration
@@BecksHobbyProductions I thank you either way. Please keep up the content
@@dirkaminimo4836 I do plan to go see it in the fall and make a video of it :)
Great video, I just started reading Norman Polmar's Cold War Submarines and the first chapter is about the Type XXI and to a lesser extent the XXIII, so your video came in handy, and now I have to search for the books in your description to know more about these boats, so thank you and keep up the great work!
Thanks for your comment 🙂 If I was to recommend one of the books, it would be David Miller's. The others have some of the information.
@@BecksHobbyProductions Thanks!
Just ordered Norman Polmars book - look forward to reading it. Also re-reading Blind man's Bluff. If you haven't read it - i highly recommend it
Hey - Just wanted to say thank you for that recommendation! Just got the book yesterday and the chapter of the XXI is really great! I look forward to ready the chapters of the different US/Sovjet subs as I am also reading about the cold war US submarines activities (Blind mans bluff) - a fantastic read as well
@@BecksHobbyProductions Glad you are enjoying it! Cheers!
A very comprehensive and interesting documentary. Thank you. The German ideas were incorporated into the Royal Navy "P" and "O" boat designs (14:09).
Thank you very much for the kind comment.
@@BecksHobbyProductions I served for several years on them..!! 😉
@@johntait491 As much as I am fascinated by submarines, I am not sure I would have the right personality for the life, so all the respect to you. At some point I would really love to make a walkthrough video of one of the post WWII Royal Navy submarines - however access and someone to explain the interior are not easy to come by, so if you could point me in the right direction, I will make a note of it for later :)
Thanks for the upload. Brilliant narration.
Thank you. The recording of the narrative is my least favorite part (I hate it) 😊
I enjoyed this presentation very much...good job!
Thank you very much - glad you enjoyed it. Stay tuned for more during 2021
I think the impact it had was much more than just design characteristics. It changed the principles of submarine operation. As the video points out, prior to the type xxi, submarines were primarily designed to operate on the surface the dive for either an attack or escape. The type xxi changed this to operations were conducted completely submerged outside of port exit and entry. And submerged operations were greatly refined in terms of travel speed and noise.
Completely agree. Submarine operations and ASW changed fundamentally after the type XXI came to light. If I remember correctly, the US navy had no plans to further innovate the WWII designs at the end of the war - that is, until they saw the type XXI
Great episode, really enjoyed that, thanks .
Thank you for the kind comment 👍
At least you can visit the one in Bremerhaven. I was there when I was a child.
True - I even had plans to go there last spring to shoot a walkthrough video, but the Pandemic got in the way, so i did this video instead 👍
I visited it in 2006. Much easier to get in and out , with a hole cut in the side. There was a Walter engine in the nearby museum. Hydrogen Peroxide is very unstable and was tried by other countries as well, but never found practical.
Wow that was very informative. Thank you!
Im glad you enjoyed it :)
Thanks for making this video, real interresting An helpfull with my build.
Thanks for watching 👍
There is no doubt that the type XXI was a superior boat when compared to the Balao diesel electrics. It was, yet again, a question of numbers. I love both these classes... and I'm a particular fan of diesel electrics as opposed to nuclear boats.
Just an old man who served on our old O boats.
Well done video!
Thanks for your comment. Its always great to hear from someone who served on a submarine. Agree, considering the GUPPY program, the US Navy must have looked at the XXI and thought there was something to learn :)
Great detail and excellent context for the battle driven development impetus. Top notch!!!
Thanks for the excellent feedback !
Very good presentation!! Real good vid enjoyed it very much!!
Thanks 👍
My pleasure!
excellent video
thank you
Thanks for watching 😊
Excellent.
Great video, very informative
Thank you very much 👍
Very informative, thank you!
Glad you enjoyed it 😊
Interesting content presented in a clean and calm manner. What else can you ask for? Great!
Thanks :)
Ask for a 230 minute video instead of 15?:)
Great video!
Thanks for watching 👍
Great video man I feel like I learned a lot more that I really didn’t know about these subs
Thanks :) Yes, there is a great deal to learn about this type. And in this video I am just capturing some of the points 😊
@@BecksHobbyProductions awesome man keep doing what your doing.
Excellent Video, Many Thanks! Very Informative!
Thanks for watching!
Man Germany had some serious technology at the end of the war that just came too late
Did it?
@@MrShock8 Yes. If it wasn't for Hitler's stupidity in "bigger weapons of war" the allies would have a lot of trouble. From the type XXI to the STG 44 to the Messerschmitt jet engine plane. Germany was way ahead, it just needed focus.
Except, they would have just got nuked if they had been around by 1945.
As did the Allies except their tech did not come too late. The Germans were committing huge resources to pie in the sky programs that had no chance of helping them win a hopeless war. Sure you can come up with all sorts of brilliant ideas if they are not practical in light of the need. The allies were focusing on reality.
@@andyrrafaelthebeastemperor8709 Well, they also had massive logistics problem, their army was mainly imfantry and horses with low motorization. And lemme tell you, trying to keep thousands of horses feed, wateted, rested and warm accross hundreds of km's and in the dead of winter is very difficult and is hard to do good at all. Germany had a lot of problems outside of the wunderwaffen problem.
great video. the british Oberon should never have had a flared bow. no one told the designers that the philosophy of traveling underwater using the snorkel meant that crashing through waves was a thing of the past.
Thanks. If the US had not done their analysis of the U3008, they would have continued with the designs of Baleo/Gato as well, just doing iterations
Very well done.
Thanks for watching 😊
Very well done Video
Thank you very much!
You know your subject 1000% THANK YOU!
Thanks for watching :)
Ótimo vídeo. Saudações do BRASIL. 👍🍻
Prof. Eberhard Rössler's study on German ww1 & ww2 submarines tells a different story
Good work. Thanks.
Thanks for watching 😊
Well made informative video
Thank you very much!
Excelent video. Keep it up!
Thanks! More projects are already planned
Fantastisk video, rigtig godt sat sammen og meget informativ...
Mange tak ☺️
Very well done. Thank you.
Thank you for the kind comment 😊
great video
Thank you very much :)
Nice topics.. it's the mother of all submarine today.
Thanks for watching 😊
Very good job!
Thank you very much! 😊
This is a great video!!!
Thank you very much 😊
A very good video thanks for making it i hope you make more like it.
More to come! Making my way a script for the battle of the atlantic :) To be completed maybe during the summer
Type 21 was the future of submarine design.
It absolutely was!
Regarding Walter-powered submarines, and according to Aaron S. Hamilton, Total Undersea War (pp. 174-175). Seaforth Publishing, "The snorkel mast on the Type XXIs and XXIIs was retrofitted after these U-boats' final designs were approved and the prefabrication process started. The snorkel design proved problematic on the high-speed Type XXIs and caused their operational delay and ultimate production cancellation by the Kriegsmarine in favor of the H2O2-powered Type XXVI W before the end of the war.
Also in this same work (p. 176): Admiral Eberhard Godt served as Dönitz’ Operations Chief during the war and succeeded him as Chief of the BdU. Godt was directly involved with high-speed U-boat designs and their future employment. In his post-war interrogations by Allied Naval Intelligence he revealed that it was on the future design of the Walter turbine-powered Type XXVI that the future of the U-boat arm had rested, not the Electro-boat Type XXI:
This view of the German high command is confirmed in the account of said interrogations mentioned in LLewellyn-Jones, Malcolm, "The Royal Navy on the threshold of modern anti-submarine warfare, 1944-1949"; Captain G. H. Roberts concluded that the German plan was to continue the inshore campaign with the coastal Type XXIII, gradually replacing the Type VII schnorkel-fitted U-boats in this role, which had been a stop-gap solution. The Type XXI, itself a stop-gap until the Walter Type XXVI was available.
The Type XXVI was planned to be capable of sustaining 23 knots for 6 hours, Roberts' assessment emphasized the lack of any coherent German doctrine for the use of the Walter boats, but this did little to ameliorate the Admiralty's concern over the ability of existing weapons to deal with this 25-knot submarine.
Therefore, and somewhat contrary to common belief held during the decades after the end of WW II, the Type XXI was not the ultimate goal in terms of the new ocean-going submarine, but was considered to be just too large for convoy. warfare in the North Atlantic, and that it was too costly to manufacture, this together with the very little published problems caused by the vibrations generated by the snorkel design led to The decision to invest in the Type XXVIW with its Walter turbine, closed conning tower and completely streamlined hull devoid of anti-aircraft guns. Hamilton, Aaron S. Total Undersea War (p. 173)
Thanks for the detailed comment. That sounds like a very interesting book - will check it out :)
@@BecksHobbyProductions Thank you very much for your kind comment, Hamilton's work is indeed very interesting, focused on the technical and operational development of the latest advances in the German submarine weapon, mainly the schnorchel, this information can also be found in the works ofthe Eberhard Rössler: The U-Boat: The Evolution and Technical History of German Submarines, is the only translated into English unless i'm wrong
@@Marquec I found both books on Amazon :) I already have Eberhard Rösslers book about the type XXI :)
Excellent documentary. When will you make more?
I actually started as soon as this one premiered, but it takes a great deal of time to research and for the frame of the video to take form. My project right now is a video of the Battle of the Atlantic and it's been bit of a struggle as its difficult to narrow down what to include and what not to. Its moving forward now, but I expect it to take months before its ready :) So be sure to subscribe :D
And if you want, you can also follow me on Instagram of Facebook as I post updates on my projects here .
Well done. Shared.
Thanks a lot 👍
Being from the US I realize we didn't have better equipment...we just had more of it.
Most of the technology which would have been against this Typ XXl was not in US submarines but rather in ASW developments like miniaturized airborne radar.
True - the battle of the atlantic was also won by sheer amount of ships built in the US
And better antisubmarine warfare tactics. Better sonar. Better depth charges. Better antisubmarine aircraft. The germans had some good tech. But so did the allies. To many believe that the germans where better at everything and that is untrue.
@@massmike11 The German technology was better in all things, but it came too late and therefore in too few numbers. The Nazi government was often to blame for this and in some cases delayed developments by years, for example with the electric boats or the introduction of jet planes. Hitler saw himself as the greatest army leader of all time, but he wasn’t. The greatest weapon for the Allies was Hitler himself and his incompetence.
@@callsigndd9ls897 After a British plan to assassinate Hitler with a pair of sniper teams was learned by the higher ups they cancelled it because Hitler was decided to be doing more damage to the German war effort alive. They also didn't want a Hitler replacement to negotiate a peace deal before the Allies could absolutely destroy Germany.
They were so smart.
Fed video. Jeg bygger en model af ubåden netop nu, så rigtig god research her
Der kommer også en gennemgang af Wilhelm Bauer senere i år, så der kan du rigtigt få syn for sagen 😊
Ce documentaire est excellent en tout points et de plus il démontre bien la phénoménale avance technologique des ingénieurs allemands à l'époque concernant l'élaboration de ces nouveaux systèmes futuristes pour l'époque ! ( Ces sous-marins avaient 20 ans d'avances sur leurs rivaux et ennemis alliés occidentaux et Russes.....) Cela peut faire froid dans le dos car si ils étaient produits en quantités suffisantes à l'époque, les marines marchandes alliées anglo-américaines qui étaient déjà décimées par les terribles meutes de U-boots de Karl Donitz n'auraient put faire face très longtemps malgré l'aide indispensable et providentielle américaine... Et oui à l'époque il ne restait plus que l'Angleterre en Europe qui pouvait désister malgré tout à l'ogre nazis qui n'était autre que Hitler. Mais une chose à ne jamais oublier et que l'Angleterre c'est qu'un ensemble l'iles dont la survie ne dépend que de son ravitaillement par voie maritime....
Superb video. Thank you. Once upon a time Germany was a proud country. In 1914 Germany had more Nobel prizes than the whole Western World. Unfortunately Germany is today a shadow of what it use to be... compare the army uniforms of the past with today uniforms... everything got changed.. .My grandfather died May 2nd fighting against Red Plague in Berlin...The Genius Gen. Patton said: " We fought the wrong enemy " and he payed with his life for that. RIP, you fantastic Kriegsmarine heroes!
they still make the best paving equipment in the world. Without question or any opposition
Seems like Germany became a threat because of its technology and the Elite arranged it's destruction , pretty much what's happening to the west now
@@Benplayz64 woah now, seems like you forgot about the invasion of Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland. No sure how you came to your conclusions.
Sorry about your grandfather. He was fighting the right enemy. However if it wasn’t for Hitler and his type of people the German nation would have had many more Nobel prize winners, all Jewish.
You sound like a revisionist neo Nazi. The ruSSians were only in Berlin because the Nazis - the black plague - tried unsuccessfully to conquer Moscow.
German was the aggressor in WW2. A nation lead by war criminals inflicting untold harm across Europe due to greed and genocidal hatred. Those are historical facts.
Excellent vid, thank you. Kinda surprised at the addition of AA defence bearing in mind of the limited opportunity of use & the effect on drag/noise creation however Small. Are there any recorded instances of use?
I havent come accross any information about that. But its a good question, why add AA defence on something designed to travel submerged? :)
@@BecksHobbyProductions The type VII and IX were also designed to travel submerged, they just had more capacity to carry AA guns because the submerged top speed was less important before the proliferation of radar. Once it became clear that submarines would have to approach convoys submerged to avoid detection, submerged speed and endurance just became that much more important.
Overall, I'd say the Type 21's AA defences were adequate for a vessel expecting to get caught on the surface by aircraft a lot. Same could be said about its 20-something second dive times, which could be compared with modern submarines that take several minutes to dive because they just don't care. For every day they spend on the surface they spend 2-6 weeks underwater, so being able to dive quickly doesn't matter to them, especially since being able to dive faster would require larger vents on the ballast tanks and more numerous/larger limber holes, all of which would increase drag and noise. The germans were in a completely different situation, and so the Type 21s were lightning-quick on the dive for their size, at the cost of having the top submerged speed reduced to 15 knots from the 17 knots of the test vessel.
@@gustaveliasson5395 I would agree that VII and IX could travel submerged, but if the crew wanted to travel longer distances, they would not do it submerged as longer distance required very low speed.
@@BecksHobbyProductions The same is true for the Type 21. The difference is that the Type 7s and 9s were built according to the conops of surface cruise-surface attack. With the proliferation of radar, the surface attack became exceedingly risky, so they switched to a surface cruise-submerged attack conops with the Type 21.
If the extra drag of the AA guns worries you, you should also be worried by the many large holes in the sides and top of the sail, both the ones for the surface watch crew to stand in, and the free-flood holes used to help get air out of the sail as the boat dived, a means of cutting down the dive times to mitigate the growing threat of being caught on the surface by patrol aircraft.
Those large openings caused production boats to lose two knots of speed from the 17kts of the super-streamlined but slow-to-submerge test vessels, but that's the price of being able to get an 1'620t boat below the water in under 30 seconds.
Are there photos or videos from inside of a type XXIII? Type XXI is still available as museum, but type XXIII is a gem.
Sorry, but have not come across some.
Try a search for U Hecht or U Hai, the two XXIII operated by West germany Post WW2.
Very informative video...question...I live in the US. Plan to visit Europe sometime in the future. How far is the U995 from the Wilhem Bauer? Definitely want to visit both if I can
Yeah, its about 3,5 hours drive. You will pass through Hamburg, which also has an old Sovjet Tango-class submarine. About halfway between Bremen and Bremerhaven, the old Valentin bunker can be found. In other words - if you coming in all the way from the US, you might as well make a trip of it :)
@@BecksHobbyProductions I think if I do go to Europe, it would have to be for 2 weeks...I would love to find some wooded areas where a battle occurred, and possibly dig up some artifacts too.
Maybe you missed out this point: they Type 21 went straight from design to mass production, there was no prototype because that would have taken too long.
In the book Ten Years and Twenty Days, I think that is the name of the book by Karl Dönitz U-boat chief. He speak about it in his book.
That's an interesting piece of information. Didn't come up in my books 👍
@@BecksHobbyProductions I will try to find it but it might take a few days.
@@reginaldmcnab3265 No rush - thanks!
My conclusion is that many brilliant ideas went into German designs especially late war designs. But these were not enough to overcome the Allied preponderance of (in many cases inferior) weaponry.
Or in other words - you can't win solely on innovation in a war
@@BecksHobbyProductions free energy - Nuka Tesla -
You have said nothing. The brilliant Germans concentrated in areas that had no chance to do anything useful in the war, the constant German habit of pivoting to failure which was a hallmark of German thinking in the first half of the 20th Century. The Germans were not worse than anyone else but they were not "brilliant". And much of the allied weaponry was highly superior to German tech, not just the A-bomb was the only truly "brilliant" (and terrifying) weapon to come out of the war. The allies were not competing/prioritizing with the Germans on non-war winning tech such as V weapons, heavy tanks, jet aircraft, universal machine guns, and submarines.
@@hoodoo2001 I know this is many many months late but yeah you absolutely said it. German weapons were mere fizzles in comparison to what the allies were using. Even the Type 21s were still inferior to late model Gato and new Balao class boats of the USN. Plus the americans and british created far superior jet aircraft and rifles.
Americans could have counter anything German, there was never any question who would win in the end.
Liked and subscribed!
Goodjob =)
Thank you - more to come 😊
How big is the type xxi compare to type vii???
Roughly speaking the XXI is 10m longer but twice the weight
Great info thanks. Does anyone know if there was a specific name for this hull design? (If 19th century subs were "fusiform" (tapered at both ends), and post-Albacore subs are "teardrop"). The XXI looks tapered in vertical profile and almost rectangular in horizontal profile.
The USA’s 1st nuclear sub, SSN 571, is basically an updated XXI with an atomic reactor.
Would love to do a video of that one as well
@@BecksHobbyProductions The SSN 571 Nautilus is a National Monument. VERY MUCH worth the visit to Groton, Conn. for the tour!
Perfect video!!!!
Glad you enjoyed it 😊
@@BecksHobbyProductions Seriously. I liked everything. Narration, facts, depth, even music. I really hope you make more like that about the whole timeline of German subs during or since World War II. Type 212 and 214 would be hard to get info, though.
My plans so far are to make more walkthroughs as I would then have the video material. Believe it or not, but photo material was really hard to come by for this video. I have a script ready for the Wilhelm Bauer, but the trip was cancelled due to COVID. I'm also working on a video for the Battle of the Atlantic, but I am struggling a little with getting the storyline/script right as there are tons of topics.
Did everything in the boat run off the DC power from the batteries?
You mean compared to AC?
This was truly the world's first submarine. ( literally by definition of a submarine, all attempts before the type xxi were submersibles)
But I'm probably speaking to the choir..
😎
Indeed 😊
hyggelig dag!
I was aboard the USS diodon for 3 yrs in the 50s. I was younger then but don’t think i’d do it again after seeing this app!!!
I was aboard the USS diodon for 3 yrs in the 50s. I was younger then but don’t think this app!!!
I was aboard the USS diodon for 3 yrs in the 50s. I was younger then but don’t think this app!!!
In the PC wargame "Silent Enemy 2", all German WW2 submarines are available to command using their own individual characteristics. Compared with the Type 7 & 9's, the 21 is a revelation. It's terrific underwater speed, acceleration, diving rate and turning circle make it invincible. Add to that the torpedo carousel and speed of reloading and you have a vessel that is a war-winning asset. This was the fundamental mistake made by Germany. They fought the `Battle of the Atlantic' using simply glorified versions of WW1 vessels, with the Types 7 & 9's. If they'd addressed the coming conflict with a whole new submarine dedicated to the task during the latter years of the 1930's, like the Type 21, they'd have won hands down. By the same token, despite the threat represented during WW1, Britain made absolutely no advances in counter-measures during the inter-war years...
The topic of "what of Germany had the XXI early" is both interesting and complicated, because how much would you need to change to enable Germany to win the battle of Atlantic? Just saying having the XXI instead contains a great deal of other things they also needed to have. F.ex. access to a great deal more fabrication material, where would that come from? They could have prioritized it away from the production of tanks, but how would that have affected other battlegrounds? If the threat in the Atlantic would have come earlier, would the US have started their production of cargo ships earlier? Would Germany ever have been able to compete with the US production resources? The fact of the matter is that once the US were in gear on the production, Germany would never have been able to catch up.
Its a really interesting topic, but also one where its impossible to know for sure how it would play out as there are too many moving parts. So it becomes a matter of opinion.
Germany never came anywhere close to winning the Battle of the Atlantic. Yes, the shipping losses were terrible but with one new Liberty/Victory ship coming off the assembly lines every day, the losses were replaced very easily. Uboots could not be replaced very easily at all.
Grey Wolf transit !
The only surviving XXI U-boat can be found moored at the Hafen Museum in Bremerhaven. Scuttled after the war she was later raised , repaired and then put back into service by the reformed post war German Marine Navy. I saw this ship a few years back when there visiting. I though I was seeing things last thing I expected to find was WW2 U-boat. Never mind one that looked like new. and is floating . Yes I have seen many incredible ship restoration since moving to Germany .mainly none military though. Most of these projects are private funded by Donations. Or in some cases by major companies or Goverment local or federal. Best example been the 30 million Euro Spent restoring the Sail Ship Peking .
For the fort coming German ship museum to be built in the Port of Hamburg for some time in 2027 or later.
Hamburg were many of Germans WW2 U-boats were built,and my current home city since 2009. These advanced types of late war Boat were the blue print for the next generation of Post WW2 Boats.
It's on my list to visit. Just wish it was reverted to it's WWII configuration
@@BecksHobbyProductions that will not happen because it is very hard to get any sort of funding or support for anything that could be seen that glorifies the Nazi era. Or could become a rallying point for Right winger groups in Germany.
There is however a very good Martime Museum here in Hamburg with an excellent history section on Naval History including a floor on U-boats .as well as two WW2 German Midget Subs on display in a outdoor court yard. and the world largest collection of scale Models of both Merchant and Naval ships built by the world best model makers . Well worth a visit .but be aware it will take a day to cover every floor in their large building.
@@clockdva20 I know 🙂 But this doesn't stop me from dreaming 😃
@@BecksHobbyProductionsExternally it is including fake AA turrets. Returning the interior to that would need a full rebuild, basically a new boat since the boat spend her second life as a testbed for engine systems etc for the west german navy. Oh and we DO have a complete WW2 sub in germany at Laboe (a Type VIIC)
@@mbr5742 Correct. I actually did a video on the type VII in Laboe :)
However, since the type XXI was very different than the existing type VII and IX it would have been fantastic to be able to see one in its WWII configuration.
Das ust unchen elcetroboot wunderbar
Assembly would have been a lot better if the sections fitted each other.
Absolutely. Construction flaws like this was a serious problem
Watch in 1.5x speed and it is normal again.
Great video!!!!..... Thank you!!!!! :-)
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The U.S. Navy took the type 21 and built the Tang class diesel electric submarine
Yes! I am about to read about the Tang the book "Cold war submarines" by Norman Polmar
Great book
Det må være et gammelt billede du har af Springeren, for hun står sgu da stadig på Aalborg marine muserum, og nogle af dem på museumet er tidliger besætningsmedlemmer.
Vi har haft 2 ubåde der hed Springeren. Den ene er dansk bygget af Delfinklassen. Det er den du kender. Den anden er tysk bygget og af Tumleren klassen, overført fra Norge :) Sælen som ligger i København er også Tumleren klassen.
Jeg har også selv været nede og besøge hende på Langelands fortet. Derfra kommer det ene billede : th-cam.com/video/g0lkW43cCmI/w-d-xo.html :)
Wasn't it with the Type 21, that the Germans had covered the submarine with rubber, to make it undetectable ?
N'est-ce pas avec le Type 21, que les Allemands avaient recouvert le sous-marin de caoutchouc, pour le rendre indétectable ?
I have seen this being raised before as a question, but i have not come across it in my books. However, that doesn't mean it was not used 😊
Look up tarnmatte & alberich. They didn't make Type 21's "undetectable". The material both dampened internal noise sources (motors/pumps/mechanical noise etc). And reduced the acoustic return from ASDIC transmissions, but only by around 15%, making them SLIGHTLY harder to detect.
wasn't type 21 first mass produced sub? different companies making each compartment to reduce amount of skilled workers. except they all leaked and would take another 175days to make sea worthy
Well, going by the definition of mass production, I would say "no", however it was the first submarine type to be built in prefabricated parts and shipped to the assembly area :)
I just want play this boat at U Boat
Yeah, that would be pretty cool or maybe even Wolfpack 👍
Imagine if they had this sub in the early 1940s. History would be very different...
Maybe, but as innovative the type XXI was it would need to find convoys to make a difference 🙂
To make it short. All submarines that saw water in 1960s were based of the TYPE XXI
*1950s. In the 1960s Submarines began to take the shape they have now. They moved on from the Type XXI.
Why so many holes and space that seemed empty ? Looks like it would add drag . I’m thinking it’s to get water in and out fast but that’s my best guess. Looks like that thing has a lot more vents or holes than anything. Odd to me but I’m not a submariner. These guys had hearts of steel and nerves to match. Good rest the dead in all countries of that horrible war.
The building system (assembly of prefabricated sections ) caused lots og problems. Most did not fit.
True - war and doing things a new ways may not always be a great combination
I do realyze that my next comment its easy to point so many years after and with the outcome already known... But
Walter Submarine was a waste of time and resources, Germany would had been quite better if they had adapted the existing Type IX class into a fully submarine, by replacing the big Diesels withs smaller ones, removing the aft. torps in order to put big electric motors along with 2 smaller "crawl" motors and expand the Batterys at the expense of Diesel storage (after all much less was needed to only recharge batterys every day.
The external modifications would had been minimal (a lower profile connning tower and a redesigned exterior hull and bow).
i'm not saying nothing too much fancy, the USA did exactly that with Trench and Balao class submergibles from WWII era in the Guppy program, they would have done the same with Gato class but the hull wasn't that capable for deep dives... Those kind of limiting factors made the conversion not-so-desirable.
Same goes for Type VIIC u-boots, they were too small and they couldn't pack the ammount of batterys needed for a full conversion into a submarine, but i'm shure type IX had enough room (if modified) for that ammount of batterys
I think Germany was too keen to innovate and solve war problems with technical solutions.
However, the Guppy program was based on their analysis of the XXI they had after WWII. The US didn't have any immediate plans to change anything on their submarines after WWII, but that all changed when they took at closer look at the type XXI.
If they had halted on the war for 5 years and proceeded with technology further. No one could have stopped them.