Reloading submerged?
 

Salute

Could / did Uboots reload torpedo's while submerged? And if so, to what depth?

danke

Hallo,
do you ask reload the torpedoes? If so, yes.
The depth of that action was establish by the sea state, I think. Storms and harsh sea state would impose a reload submerge, at a depth when the boat was stabilized. They also did the same if a surgical intervention had to be done.
Calm seas would make them reload at surface. They normally took the a torpedo out of the tube, perform maintenance at it and reload it again, as a normal duty, more in the electrical then the G7a(steam powered).

Once the torpedoes were fired and the outer doors closed the inner doors could be safely opened at any depth. The outer doors open outward, so just like the crew hatches the water pressure would hold them closed and the inner doors could be opened for reloading in perfect safety.

One thing that gets left out of the games is that they never reloaded while in combat. If under attack the boat may dive deeper or rise suddenly, and a torpedo weighing more than a ton would have a very good chance of coming loose from its hoist and killing someone, or even punching a hole in the hull. The procedure was to attack and then withdraw, if possible, to reload, then begin the attack anew.

thanks, that was the answer I was looking for