Alternate German submarine developments.

I think with a little work they would've been useful for launching hit and run raids on coastal targets but only for a limited time, once the element of surprise was expended and the enemy came up with counter measures they would be vulnerable but for a short time, coastal cities would be vulnerable.
Would've been a nasty surprise for US cities on the eastern coast.

One must ask how this ^^^^^^^^^ is different from

5aa4982a34b5.jpg


French submarine Surcouf.

or

USS_Nautilus_%28SS-168%29.jpg


That is USS Nautilus which conducted a fire support mission to cover the Makin Raid.

The methods for submarine bombardment of enemy coastal installations that would be useful in this era, lie not in rocketry, but in medium caliber naval guns. These guns are reasonably accurate and are well understood low risk technology that is well within German means to make and use.
 
One must ask how this is different from

5aa4982a34b5.jpg


or

USS_Nautilus_%28SS-168%29.jpg


That is USS Nautilus which conducted a fire support mission to cover the Makin Raid.
The methods for submarine bombardment of enemy coastal installations that would be useful in this era, lie not in rocketry, but in medium caliber naval guns. These are reasonably accurate and are well understood.
A submarine than can launch its weaponry without surfacing is lees vulnerable to attack, the aiming wont be as accurate as an artillery piece but if your firing a salvo of rockets at a city, you'll hit something.
 
A submarine than can launch its weaponry without surfacing is lees vulnerable to attack, the aiming wont be as accurate as an artillery piece but if your firing a salvo of rockets at a city, you'll hit something.

The Nebelwerfer was limited to periscope depth and was much shorter ranged than a 6 inch gun. The German solid fuel rocket technology was no better and in many cases worse than comparative allied rockets, so we are not going to see any viable solid fueled rockets that are much better than what the Germans used in their validation of concept tests. Launching a V-2 submerged was a guaranteed underwater explosion and loss of boat and towed launcher. The V-1 would necessitate coming to the surface to activate the air-breather jet engine with again the loss of the boat. With a gun, you close the breech and stopper the muzzle and dive the boat in time to escape when the LRMP aircraft shows up to bomb it. With rockets or cruise missiles, well... The US Regulus was not considered a viable weapon system because the sub was too exposed to Russian LRMP aircraft attack.

One can stretch the what-ifs but the Germans do have other better existing options.
 
A very little digging makes me believe that not only would a trans-polar submarine route be possible, but surely successful if it was properly funded, the only question now is how much would it cost in time, money, and lives to achieve? In the OP I laid out that we need not be limited in our thinking to conform to a Nazi-German effort, that couldn't really even be properly started until herr Hitler gains the power to do this. I also said that we would be needing separate threads for some of the more specialized discussions/ideas, and I think that we are fast approaching that point now.

I'm seeing many thoughts being aired, for and against, the concept of submarine passage beneath the north polar cap, and the hidden link puts paid to the idea that it couldn't be done.

I'm also looking for original ideas for alternative weapons and equipment, and some have been posted upthread. Hoping to get this thread going good sometime this week...

I'm sure that it can be stretched if a whole host of technical issues are solved from blind navigation to some kind of chemical based air independent operations, but the technology for such a boat was not developed, nor did anyone try it; and no-one has attempted it to the present aside from the US and Russia.

The reasons are apparent for why this is so. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ; but it comes down to economics, (not cheap to solve these problems) and perceived return for vast investment of resources.

I think an AIP boat built in the 1930s with the tech possible then that ventures under the polar ice cap is a guaranteed loss of mission. That is, of course, only my opinion. YMMV.

If one wants some ideas about weapons the German did not try, that were viable?

a. Free floating mines released from subs. This would obviously endanger all shipping, but Germans were denied the seas, and it would be a cheap way to really foul up Allied operations.

b. Based on a,. an automated expendable telemeter floating weather station buoy that can be set adrift from a U-boat. Would be very limited and expendable, but would give the Germans some weather reporting capability they did not have in WW II to the west of their own weather stations.

c. A pigmobile with attendant frogmen that would be imitative of Italian efforts. Scapa Flow, Rosyth, etc,. Might even get Norfolk or New York.

d. Based on a., and b., reporter radio buoys which report to higher command after the U-boat has cleared the area. This is so obvious I wonder why no WW II navy tried it?
 
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The Nebelwerfer was limited to periscope depth and was much shorter ranged than a 6 inch gun. The German solid fuel rocket technology was no better and in many cases worse than comparative allied rockets, so we are not going to see any viable solid fueled rockets that are much better than what the Germans used in their validation of concept tests. Launching a V-2 submerged was a guaranteed underwater explosion and loss of boat and towed launcher. The V-1 would necessitate coming to the surface to activate the air-breather jet engine with again the loss of the boat. With a gun, you close the breech and stopper the muzzle and dive the boat in time to escape when the LRMP aircraft shows up to bomb it. With rockets or cruise missiles, well... The US Regulus was not considered a viable weapon system because the sub was too exposed to Russian LRMP aircraft attack.

One can stretch the what-ifs but the Germans do have other better existing options.
The Germans could have built larger and longer ranged solid fuel rockets, they didn't IOTL because they needed something light enough to be handled by ground troops and carried on trucks and half tracks but they wouldn't need to be so conservative with rocket carried by submarine.
 
The methods for submarine bombardment of enemy coastal installations that would be useful in this era, lie not in rocketry, but in medium caliber naval guns. These guns are reasonably accurate and are well understood low risk technology that is well within German means to make and use.

when they were attempting to produce Arrow shells and other sub-caliber or sabot shells, the 11" rail gun and 4.1" caliber were selected, my understanding the smaller caliber gun could reach GB (so at least 26 miles?)

certainly would be inaccurate but the goal of hitting US to prompt "wartime measures" blackouts, etc. would be met, also the gun does not have to be modified, just the shells.
 
The Germans could have built larger and longer ranged solid fuel rockets, they didn't IOTL because they needed something light enough to be handled by ground troops and carried on trucks and half tracks but they wouldn't need to be so conservative with rocket carried by submarine.

It is not that simple.

It took the Americans a decade to accomplish. They also knew what they were doing.
 
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If the German leadership in the early Nazi or late Weimar days decides that Surcoef or other ships like that French SSV are the future of warfare, could they pursue *very* large submarines as an alternative? 5000+ ton or maybe even larger ones to try and compensate? Granted they would be likely disasterous failures and resemble something out of a video game but might they go that direction?
 
So McPherson, no way for a submarine under attack while submerged to defend itself?. I'll give you the floating primercord, tho, as I recall, it was suggested during WW2. Obviously, it would be deployed while the sub was underway, not as a position marker. Equally obvious would be that a sub preparing to blast a polyna thru arctic ice would withdraw to a safe distance.

I didn't expect that my description of a Buoyancy driven glider could apparently be confused with a towed paravane. As already demonstrated by Rutgers, it is entirely silent, capable of speed (I'll try for reference) and excellent L/D fluid equivalent, which could move it far from its launch location .

Will try for more clarity in the future.

Dynasoar
 
The Germans had no success that was operationally credible.

HMS Excalibur and HMS Explorer; (HMS Excruciating and HMS Exploder). The "Blondes" derogation was in reference to hydrogen peroxide used in hair dyes that turned brunette hair blonde.
I dont see anything in these quotes refutibg what I have said. Its a very shallow analysis. They were not Big for one.
They sailed (fast) and they were used in many applications without blowibg up. Their issues are maybe to numerous in peace time, but 5% explosion risk and 5% risk from the enemy beats 50% risk fromage enemy.
Notably, British development continued until nuclear power was viable as I said and as your second link states.
 
It is not that simple.

It took the Americans a decade to accomplish. They also knew what they were doing.
Interesting link and I thank you for it but I still think the Germans or the Americans could have made a lager solid fuel rocket than that used by the nebelwefer, I could be wrong, I'm not a rocket scientist (far from it :biggrin:) but I think the main reason it wasn't done was because they saw more promise in liquid fuel rockets.

Anyways that's my two cents on the subject and I'm sure we could both go back and forth on the subject but this is a submarine thread not a rocket thread and I don't want to derail it.
Nice chatting with you.
 
If the German leadership in the early Nazi or late Weimar days decides that Surcoef or other ships like that French SSV are the future of warfare, could they pursue *very* large submarines as an alternative? 5000+ ton or maybe even larger ones to try and compensate? Granted they would be likely disasterous failures and resemble something out of a video game but might they go that direction?

It's possible, if they are prepared to give up something else. And why should a cruiser sub be a disastrous failure? Something like the I-400 or an American V-class with suitable dive controls would be a viable weapon system, with a credible mission niche as a special operations or strategic sub.

So McPherson, no way for a submarine under attack while submerged to defend itself?. I'll give you the floating primercord, tho, as I recall, it was suggested during WW2. Obviously, it would be deployed while the sub was underway, not as a position marker. Equally obvious would be that a sub preparing to blast a polyna thru arctic ice would withdraw to a safe distance.

I didn't expect that my description of a Buoyancy driven glider could apparently be confused with a towed paravane. As already demonstrated by Rutgers, it is entirely silent, capable of speed (I'll try for reference) and excellent L/D fluid equivalent, which could move it far from its launch location .

Such defenses as are practical, are avoidance, masking, decoys, silence and maneuvering. Any active system or method that points back at the sub that announces "here' is where I am attached or where I came from" is a trackback and "kill me" invitation. This includes bubbling torpedoes, radio transmissions, towed objects that leave wake tracks or anything identifiable that can be vectored or beared back to the sub as an origin point. Whenever someone proposes an active measure as a means of self protection, such automatic detection and enemy trackback is a certainty. And so far, every suggestion I've read proposed equals a loss of mission, a dead sub and ineffective tradeoff of investment to return in the scheme proposed. A submarine's defense and success, reiterated, lies in surprise, escape, maneuver, silence, misdirection, evasion after it strikes and them hiding and avoidance until the next attack opportunity.

Will try for clarity in the future.


Dynasoar

Clarity was not lacking. A fundamental understanding of what waking, signals transmission noise, and launch transients might be something that should be considered. Let me give an example. One of the reasons that wet heater torpedoes are a terrible idea, if the technology that produced them can find an alternative, solution is that a wet heater torpedo leaves a trail of bubbles in its wake. This is the reason why every nation that produced or adopted that type of technology had to develop a gyro based offset guidance to curve the torpedo into the target, because a straight runner left a trail of bubbles pointing back at the sub that pointed exactly where the sub was and where to drop the mortar bombs or depth charges to kill it. A curved path makes it harder to trackback as well as help with an aspect solution on a acute angle aspect target. This can be remedied with 100% combustion (oxygen or navol boosted) torpedoes with little bubble and wake exhaust, or by electrics which have no exhaust wake at all. Another problem with the wet header is that it is loud and noisy, giving an immediate sound bearing trackback to its launch point. A two speed electric torpedo does not. An electric torpedo is a defensive measure.

THESE are the kind of defensive measures that one must investigate with subs. Rubber tiles, radio absorbing plastics, jettisonable communications transmitters, low wake periscopes, fire and forget wake, sound or pattern running quiet no-wake torpedoes, fast cycle dive controls, mechanical quieting methods, no trackback passive detection gear, non-magnetic hulls, etc. Get the point? Noise (signal transmission of any kind)='s death. Quit trying to make noise.

We all have our own opinions, of course, and I for one find discussions of new and different ideas refreshing and fun.

I try to explain why I hold my opinions.I hope that it shows why I shoot down some proposals and I hope I offer reasonable alternatives. (See above.)

Interesting link and I thank you for it but I still think the Germans or the Americans could have made a lager solid fuel rocket than that used by the nebelwefer, I could be wrong, I'm not a rocket scientist (far from it :biggrin:) but I think the main reason it wasn't done was because they saw more promise in liquid fuel rockets.

Von Braun, and Oberth started with Tsiolkovsky and Goddard. They were fixated on liquid fuels because that was the simplest practical path to a LARGE rocket. They knew about the problems with solid fuels and why large solid fuel rockets were problematic. They had not figured out how to make a large candle that would burn from the inside out without blowing apart. They were not fluid dynamicists

Van Kaman was. So was a devil worshipping lunatic associate of his named Jack Parsons who blew himself up perfecting a rubberized solid fuel rocket motor that eventually powered most of America's solid fuelled rockets of the 1950s and 1960s. To make it simple, the Americans had to find a way to make a large slow burning "candle" that would generate about 8x the pressure of gunpowder without blowing a lightweight motor casing apart. To do that, the Americans had to figure out how to make the burn itself operate as the pressure confiner and the plenum chamber, not the motor casing. There is no gun barrel made that can withstand the temperatures and pressures of a large solid fuel candle as big as a V-2. None exists and probably never will. And a gun barrel would be too heavy to lift.

Nobody, and I mean nobody, before JATO figured it out how to make the candle the confiner. It was a bit of geometry and a bit of fluid dynamics, and it was trial by error and a little alchemic chemistry that cost lives (Parsons was working on another scheme of his; an entirely new scheme lost to us. It was in his garage when it exploded and he died when something went horribly wrong.) The WW II Germans were stuck with gunpowder and nitro-cellulose bases and that limited them to either clumsy liquid fuelled rockets or the powder rockets of the type they made. Short ranged and size limited. So when I write, now, that Sidewinder, the later Polaris and its successors took ten years or more to develop after JATO, yeah I mean it. Could the Germans do it? Maybe; if they had the proper mix of maniacs and a single minded super-genius who went that solid fuel route. They chose liquid fuels. This will not work well at sea. Hypergolics go Boom.

Anyway; that's my two cents on the subject and I'm sure we could both go back and forth on the subject but this is a submarine thread not a rocket thread and I don't want to derail it.

Nice chatting with you.

Rockets are still a viable weapon; even black powder ones...


Like Jack Parsons, he died trying to perfect his weapon. The secret he took to his grave. The USN is just now devising a version as an anti-torpedo defense ===> a rocket shell that can be used as a last ditch bullet against a wake-homing torpedo. The Russian version, falsely advertised as an antisubmarine weapon, is a rocket shell that is called SHKVAL. It is poorly understood, but it appears to be a direct fire projectile that is designed to impact into a surface ship hull and sink it. The Russians consider it a suicide weapon that is to be used by a doomed sub as a kamikaze shot. It definitely violates every submarine rule about not announcing oneself to an enemy with a loud noisy weapon.

It makes a dandy oil tanker killer.
 
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I dont see anything in these quotes refutibg what I have said. Its a very shallow analysis. They were not Big for one.

They sailed (fast) and they were used in many applications without blowibg up. Their issues are maybe to numerous in peace time, but 5% explosion risk and 5% risk from the enemy beats 50% risk fromage enemy.

Notably, British development continued until nuclear power was viable as I said and as your second link states.

The Germans worked on it longer, understood it better, and they failed. The Russians worked at it and failed.

Here.

It does not work. And further, 5% loss of mission per sortie? Your navy dies from self immolation. The Germans do it anyway in the RTL by violating the principles of successful submarine warfare, but it is such a waste of lives to no purpose. Reiterated... like the Allied bomber offensive when it exceeded 5% losses per mission for no positive result; but it is a foolish waste of lives and resources.
 
If the German leadership in the early Nazi or late Weimar days decides that Surcoef or other ships like that French SSV are the future of warfare, could they pursue *very* large submarines as an alternative? 5000+ ton or maybe even larger ones to try and compensate? Granted they would be likely disasterous failures and resemble something out of a video game but might they go that direction?

http://www.navypedia.org/ships/germany/ger_ss_xi.htm

would think monster subs for KM would only be worthwhile as a distraction (hopefully for the RN, but more likely for the KM)
 
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If one wants some ideas about weapons the German did not try, that were viable?

a. Free floating mines released from subs. This would obviously endanger all shipping, but Germans were denied the seas, and it would be a cheap way to really foul up Allied operations.

b. Based on a,. an automated expendable telemeter floating weather station buoy that can be set adrift from a U-boat. Would be very limited and expendable, but would give the Germans some weather reporting capability they did not have in WW II to the west of their own weather stations.

c. A pigmobile with attendant frogmen that would be imitative of Italian efforts. Scapa Flow, Rosyth, etc,. Might even get Norfolk or New York.

d. Based on a., and b., reporter radio buoys which report to higher command after the U-boat has cleared the area. This is so obvious I wonder why no WW II navy tried it?

thanks for the list!

from C. of the above, they did try to transport Biber minisubs for at least one mission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biber_(submarine) and even plotted airborne transit to Suez Canal.

B. & D. are really clever

on A. free floating mines? where to deploy?
 
McPherson said:

If one wants some ideas about weapons the German did not try, that were viable?

a. Free floating mines released from subs. This would obviously endanger all shipping, but Germans were denied the seas, and it would be a cheap way to really foul up Allied operations.

b. Based on a,. an automated expendable telemeter floating weather station buoy that can be set adrift from a U-boat. Would be very limited and expendable, but would give the Germans some weather reporting capability they did not have in WW II to the west of their own weather stations.

c. A pigmobile with attendant frogmen that would be imitative of Italian efforts. Scapa Flow, Rosyth, etc,. Might even get Norfolk or New York.

d. Based on a., and b., reporter radio buoys which report to higher command after the U-boat has cleared the area. This is so obvious I wonder why no WW II navy tried it?
McPherson said:
If one wants some ideas about weapons the German did not try, that were viable?

a. Free floating mines released from subs. This would obviously endanger all shipping, but Germans were denied the seas, and it would be a cheap way to really foul up Allied operations.

b. Based on a,. an automated expendable telemeter floating weather station buoy that can be set adrift from a U-boat. Would be very limited and expendable, but would give the Germans some weather reporting capability they did not have in WW II to the west of their own weather stations.

c. A pigmobile with attendant frogmen that would be imitative of Italian efforts. Scapa Flow, Rosyth, etc,. Might even get Norfolk or New York.

d. Based on a., and b., reporter radio buoys which report to higher command after the U-boat has cleared the area. This is so obvious I wonder why no WW II navy tried it?

thanks for the list!

from C. of the above, they did try to transport Biber minisubs for at least one mission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biber_(submarine) and even plotted airborne transit to Suez Canal.

B. & D. are really clever

on A. free floating mines? where to deploy?

Chesapeake, Gulf stream, Thames estuary, English Channel, any accessible strait (Hormuz, Horn of Africa, etc.)

A pigmobile requires trained frogmen who know what they are doing. Not that the German swimmers were incapable, but whatever they used and whatever they tried was the wrong approach. Their early war Italian allies, after switching sides, trained late war Americans to improve their own UDTs (SEALS) and incidentally taught the USN a thing or two about torpedoes late war as well; so the lesson here is that everyone is good at something and one should be very humble, open minded and willing to learn from one's betters.

b. and d. require a good seawater battery (iron instead of silver) and a wire loop recorder tape machine that can absorb, store and retransmit data. This was doable by the Americans with some difficulties, so I know it was not beyond anyone's 1930s technology who could build something like the GsG acoustic array which the Americans promptly copied as soon as they found a working example of one. Somebody obviously did not think it through about these items; until post war when it became necessary for atomic boats to have these gadgets.
 
The Germans worked on it longer, understood it better, and they failed. The Russians worked at it and failed.

Here.

It does not work. And further, 5% loss of mission per sortie? Your navy dies from self immolation. The Germans do it anyway in the RTL by violating the principles of successful submarine warfare, but it is such a waste of lives to no purpose. Reiterated... like the Allied bomber offensive when it exceeded 5% losses per mission for no positive result; but it is a foolish waste of lives and resources.
Again I dont really get how the quote supports your claim. Its an amateur project that works? Its tricky but?
The 5% is an example for the comparison principle. OTL exp. stands at 0%.
Also, I realize that large scale models were contemplated, but I think a model cruising with diesels and using HTP submerged is a possible way of balancing risk/performance.
 
Have you ever worked with concentrated (> 80%) solution of hydrogen peroxide?


===============================


Concentrations are much lower (<30%).

Now imagine your steel-piped powerplant being run on an endo-thermic cycle that rusts it at an accelerated rate? Boom, fires and poison gas. In a submarine? Lead acid batteries (dangerous for much the same reasons of heat, acids and poison gas) is nowhere near as dangerous.
 
During WWI Germany drew up a design for a heavily-armed sub: U-151. It was to be armored and carry four single 5.9-inch guns plus two single 88mm cannons. I presume the plan was to use these guns on merchantmen. None were even laid down...
 
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