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voor de fans van GerPC en zijn Unsorted Military and Modelling eBooks #96

Model Kartonowy - Fly Model 016 - U-Boot Typ IA & U-Boot Typ XB
Polish model card

The Type I U-boat was the first post-World War I attempt by the German Kriegsmarine to produce an ocean going submarine. Only two Type IAs were built, but the decision to halt production on further boats is believed to be because of political decisions and not because of major faults in the Type I design. Although the boats did not have any major design faults, they were known to be difficult to handle due to their poor stability and slow dive rate. The type was based on the design of Finnish Vetehinen class and the Spanish Type E-1, designed by Ingenieurskantoor voor Scheepsbouw (the company also designed the Soviet S class submarine). The design later served as a basis for the development of other types of boats, primarily the VII and IX classes.

Constructed by AG Weser in Bremen, the Type IA was launched on February 14, 1936. The two boats produced, U-25 and U-26, were primarily used as training vessels and for propaganda purposes to fly the Nazi flag. In 1940, the boats were called into combat duty due to the shortage of available submarines. Both boats experienced short, but successful combat careers. U-25 participated in five war cruises, sinking eight enemy ships. On August 3, 1940, while on a mine laying mission near Norway, U-25 struck a mine and sank with all hands on board.

U-26 carried out eight war cruises, sinking three merchant ships and damaging one British warship on its first mission laying mines. On its second war cruise it became the first U-boat during World War II to enter the Mediterranean Sea. U-26 participated in three other successful war patrols, sinking four additional merchant ships. On its eighth war cruise the boat sunk three merchant ships and damaged another ship the next day. The attack on this ship led to severe depth-charging by two British warships. Unable to dive, U-26 was forced to surface where she was bombed by a Sunderland flying boat. The crew scuttled the submarine and were rescued by Allied warships

Type X (XB) U-boats were a special type of German submarine (U-boat). Although intended as long-range mine-layers, they were later used as long-range cargo transports, a task they shared with the Type IXD and Italian Romolo class submarines.

The Type X was originally designed specifically to accommodate the newly developed Schachtmine A (SMA) moored naval mine. The initial design provided dry storage for the mines, which needed their detonators to be individually adjusted before launch; this submarine was projected to have displaced up to 2,500 tons. A further variant, the Type XA was projected, which would have supplemented the main mine chamber with extra mine shafts in the saddle tanks. Neither type entered production.[2]

A total of eight Type XB boats were produced, which replaced the mine chamber of the projected Type XA with 6 vertical wet storage shafts in the forward section of the hull. Up to 18 mines could be carried in these shafts, with an additional 48 mines in a series of 12 shafts set into the saddle tanks on each side. They only had two torpedo tubes, both at the stern. When used as cargo-carrying submarines they carried freight containers in the mine shafts (or had the freight containers welded on top of the lateral shafts, preventing their use for mines).

The first Type XB was launched in May 1941. At 2,710 tons submerged and fully loaded, they were the largest German U-boats ever built, and they had to sacrifice diving speed and agility.

Six of the 8 boats built were sunk during the war (5 with all hands) but two survived the war. One survivor was U-234, which surrendered to US Navy ships on 14 May 1945 while en route for Japan with a cargo that included 560 kg uranium oxide, two Me 262 jet fighters, and 10 jet engines.

Dank aan GerPC en zijn toewijding :)